"Crap." Emma rolled her eyes. "Don't answer it."
"In case you've forgotten, Ms. Swan," Regina blandly commented from her place at her desk, "this is still my house, and I'll do as I please."
The pounding at the front door sounded again, and the sheriff rolled her eyes, glancing over to where Regina calmly sat at her desk as she looked over Henry's paper. Emma gave an impatient huff as she poked at the other woman. "So what? You're answering it? You're not answering it? You're waiting to actually age enough to show your real age before you answer it?"
Regina's eyes shot up to meet the other woman's, and her face was a mask of irritation. "My age is of no concern to you, and it has nothing to do with the fact your parents are likely pounding at my front door right now."
The blonde shrugged. "I don't know about that. I mean, if you hadn't cast the curse that caused all of you to stop aging, then you wouldn't look 28 years younger than your actual age, and my parents wouldn't be pounding at your door because none of the events leading up to them pounding at your door would've happened." She looked a little smug as she finished.
"I may yet change my mind and kick you out of my home, Sheriff," the former mayor snapped back as she carefully laid her pen down on her desk.
Emma shrugged. "You might, but I'd just sleep in my car in your driveway. Try explaining that to my parents, Henry, the town…"
"Enough, Ms. Swan." Again there was pounding at her front door, and this time the brunette slowly stood, brushing the wrinkles from her outfit. "I think they've waited long enough, don't you?"
"No." The younger woman frowned but stood to follow. "They can wait out there until Hell freezes over for all I care."
Regina stopped and turned to face the sheriff. "I never thought the day would come when a Charming would wish such terrible things upon another Charming. Be careful, dear, you're starting to sound a bit like me. If I didn't know better, I'd think you weren't related at all to Snow and Charming," she said in a light yet slightly acrid tone.
"How many times do I have to tell you that I am not a Charming. I'm a me, and you're in your late 50s." Emma crossed her arms, looking down her nose at the other woman.
"You are a Charming. You can't change that any more than I can change the fact that I am a Mills or," Regina tilted her head as if what she said was of no consequence, "the Evil Queen, for that matter."
Emma shook her head. "You chose to be the Evil Queen, Regina. You didn't have to be that way."
The older woman gave a small smirk. "And you choose to not be a Charming, even though you know where you're from and who your parents are. You choose not to know yourself."
"I know who I am," the blonde snapped back. "No one gets to tell me who I am or what I am. I know who and what I am. There's no one in this world or any other that gets to change me. I worked too hard to get here, and, even though I might not like me all the time, I'm at least content with me. Can you say the same thing, Regina?"
The brunette took in a deep breath of air and exhaled it slowly. "No," she answered quietly. "I can't say that I can. Now that we've settled that, I think we should answer the door before Charming breaks it down again." She turned and started to the front.
Emma realized her mistake. She was supposed to be helping Regina deal with her issues, not poking at the woman's proverbial scars and wounds with a big, sharp, pointy stick. She groaned. This was going to be a lot harder than she'd originally thought, and she never thought it would be easy. Letting out a heavy sigh, she chased after the smaller woman, calling out, "Regina, I'm sorry. I know I don't know everything. Please," she stopped a few feet behind the brunette where she stood in front of the closed front door. "I didn't mean to make it worse. I really do want to know and understand. I mean, when and if you're ready to tell. Now's probably not a good time, though, still, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. You deserve better than that."
For a long moment, Regina didn't move nor did she say a word. Then, almost too quietly to be heard, she said, "I'm in my late 60s," before she opened the front door.
"Emma! Thank God!" Mary Margaret's relief was palatable. "We've been worried sick. Why didn't you answer the phone?"
From where she stood behind and slightly to the left of Regina, Emma could see her mother glaring at her and a portion of her father's face. "Because I didn't want to. I told you where we'd be tonight."
"You could have at least let us known you were okay." David said as he leaned a little to look around Regina. "Considering where you are and who you're with."
"I am standing right here," Regina stated in a matter-of-fact tone as she stepped back. "At least come inside. It's too cold out there to have this conversation with the door open." She didn't wait to see if they would follow. Instead, she turned and headed back to her study, though she did note the sound of footsteps following her.
As they all settled into the warm room, Regina back at her desk, Emma on her spot on the sofa, and the couple in chairs by the fireplace, Mary Margaret began to speak in earnest to her daughter. "Emma, I'm sorry for the incident today at the diner. I shouldn't have cornered you in a public place like that. I realize that, as sheriff, you have to keep up certain appearances, and…"
"We're really doing this? We're really having this conversation in front of Regina?" Emma raised her eyebrows and nodded her head toward the older woman at the desk.
"Don't mind me," Regina gave a snort. "I'm still proof reading Henry's paper. I can keep myself occupied."
David shifted in his chair. "Emma does have a point. Look, maybe we should all go back home and talk about this? Wouldn't that be better?"
"I'll go back there when I feel like it," his daughter snapped. "Henry's already in bed and asleep. I'm not going to wake him up and move him just so we can go back to your place to talk things over." She made air quotes around the last three words. "Or hug it out or whatever. I need a break. Henry needs to be some place he's familiar with and provides him with some stability, and Regina needs a chance to prove she's not trying to screw us all over."
From her desk, Regina tried not to look as surprised as she felt by the sheriff's words. Her attempt was only somewhat successful, though no one else in the room seemed to notice it.
"Emma, stop being so naïve." Mary Margaret stood up, eyes turning to the brunette at the desk. She directed her words to Regina. "Of course you're trying to screw us over. Whatever you're trying to pull, Regina, I'm going to figure it out. I'm not going to let you hurt me or my family again."
"You really think that's my goal in all of this?" Regina stood and slowly made her way around her desk. "You think I'm trying to hurt your family? In case you've missed a branch or two in our family tree, your family is now my family." At the pixie brunette's confused look, Regina rolled her eyes in disdain. "Henry. We all share Henry, and we all want what's best for him. He may be your grandson, but he's my son, and I would never intentionally hurt him." Her jaw flexed and eyes roared with a fiery hate for the petite brunette standing before her even as her voice remained level. "I'm trying to be a better mother, a better person, for Henry, and, by doing so, that means I can't go off and destroy you, your prince, Emma, or anyone else for that matter. That would defeat my goals, not enable them."
"Please," Mary Margaret rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "You really expect us to believe that? You've had your chances, Regina. Time and time again you could have changed; you could have turned over a new leaf and given up on trying to kill me and destroy our kingdom, yet you didn't. You were hell bent on destruction, revenge, and power. We tried." She glanced quickly back to David. "We did everything we could to allow you to change. We gave you ample…"
"You gave me nothing," Regina snapped as she threw a hand out in front of her and used her magic to pin a stunned Mary Margaret to the wall. "You gave me heartache. You gave me broken promises. You gave me lies, deceit…"
David jumped to his feet as Emma scrambled between him and the Evil Queen. She held a hand up to him while she turned her eyes to Regina. "Regina," she said slowly, quietly.
"What do you want, Ms. Swan? I'm a little busy right now," the older woman answered with a sneer on her face and a snarl in her voice.
"I want to understand," the blonde said with as much honest conviction as she could convey in her tone. "I want to help you be that person Henry needs you to be. Remember? You said you were trying to not do this. You said you'd stop using magic for Henry." The worry in her eyes matched the anger in David's as he watched the scene play out.
From her place on the wall, all Mary Margaret could do was struggle and fight for air to breathe. Her eyes flickered between her daughter and the woman holding her hostage, and she began to wonder if Regina would finally kill her.
"He doesn't want to be with me," Regina spat back, hand closing a little more to put even more constriction on Mary Margaret's chest. "He wants nothing to do with the Evil Queen, and that's all I'll ever be to any of you. He'd be happier with me gone. Clearly, it doesn't matter what I do or who I try to be. I know who I'll always be to any of you."
"That's not true," Emma said. She stepped closer. "Once an addict, always an addict, but you can choose to be a recovering addict. You can choose to fight it." She hesitated, not really knowing what else she could say or do to keep the situation from escalating. "Like I choose to be a Swan, you can choose to not be the Evil Queen. Just because everyone else wants you to be something you're not doesn't mean you have to be that thing. Deep down, Henry knows you can be a good person, and I do, too." She moved so she was directly between Regina and Regina's line of sight to Mary Margaret. "Can you say the same thing?"
The air was charged with high emotions and magic. They waited to see what would happen. David was posed to pounce as soon as he could move around Emma, but Emma kept edging to keep him from having a direct shot. She kept her eyes locked with Regina's, and she silently pleaded for the older woman to stop.
It was the longest minute of Mary Margaret's life as she watched everything unfold. Slowly, gently, she felt her chest become less constricted as her feet found solid ground again. As the magical grip around her completely vanished, she fell to all fours and gasped for air.
David ran to his wife, but Emma remained where she was. "I'm proud of you," she whispered to Regina. "I'll get them out of here. Do you want me to go, too?"
Regina's face was a stone mask. Her eyes were devoid of emotion, and her she lacked any expression. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was low and cold. "No," she replied. "I'm going upstairs to change for bed." With a final look to the Charmings, she glided out of the study and toward the stairs.
"You're a trigger," Emma said when she finally turned to her parents.
By then, Mary Margaret had managed to stand. "What?"
"You and David are a trigger. You're a thing that sets off whatever it is in Regina's head that makes her want to turn to her addiction." Her daughter scowled. "And you're not helping by continuing to accuse her of trying to do something to us. How can she even attempt the process of getting better if we keep insisting she's faking it? She's going to fall down every single time if we keep telling her she's only going to fail at being a better person."
"Emma, did you miss what just happened here?" David's voice was full of his anger. "She nearly killed your mother again tonight."
"Only because she accused Regina of being the Evil Queen and kept poking at her until she broke because," Emma's eyes flashed with her own anger, "you're both triggers. Until Regina can handle the crap you throw at her all the time, I think you two need to leave her alone. She doesn't go out looking for you two. Maybe you should stop stepping into her space for a while."
"We wouldn't have been here if you'd just answered your phone," he shouted at his daughter. "All you had to do was answer the phone to let us know you were fine."
"I'm a grown woman," she shouted back, not caring if her voice carried up stairs. "I'll do whatever in the hell I want to do."
He seethed with rage. "We are your parents. We have every right to know where you are and if you're okay."
"You have no right," his daughter countered back. "I'm not a teenager. I don't need someone watching over my shoulder to make sure I'm safe and out of trouble. I've taken care of myself for most of my life, and I can handle things just fine. I don't need either one of you to be helicopters parents. That window of opportunity has been closed a long time. You don't get to tell me what to do. You have no rights in that department. I'm grown. I'm a mother. I'm your boss, and neither of you are officially in charge of this town, so, unless you've got something better to tell me than, 'because we're your parents', you can get the hell out of this house and leave me, Henry, and Regina alone until I'm ready to deal with you two again."
By the time she stopped her ranting, she was breathing heavily, and her eyes were wild with her rage. "Get out."
The couple looked at each other. They had a silent conversation with their eyes. Though they were both visibly hurt and upset, they chose not to say another word before leaving, and Emma silently followed them to the front door, closing and locking it behind them.
She quickly stalked up the stairs and to Regina's bedroom. Not bothering with knocking, she stormed in and glanced around until she found the brunette sitting up in her bed with a book in her hands. "That," the sheriff hissed as she pointed down toward the study, "was entirely uncalled for."
Regina glanced up from her book, placed a bookmark between the pages, and gently closed it before placing it on her nightstand. "It was, and I apologize for losing my temper."
It wasn't the response Emma had been expecting, and the shock of the answer threw her off kilter. She stood in a daze of anger and confusion for a brief time as she tried to get her bearings again. Shaking her head and blinking to reorient herself, she finally managed to process the fact Regina had apologized. "I, yeah," she quietly responded. "You want talk about what that was all about?"
"No," came the emotionless response, "but I will after you take a shower. You smell like day old coffee." Regina wrinkled her nose in disgust. "I'd rather my bed linens not smell like the sheriff's station, and, as I'm not willing to move from my comfortable spot and you seem curious enough to want to hear my story, you'll have to sit in here with me if you want me to 'talk about it." She reached over to pick her book up again. "You know where the guest bath is, Ms. Swan."
"God, you're frustrating," Emma grunted as she turned around to go take a shower.
"As are you," Regina muttered into the pages of her book.
