longing will snag itself on the reeds

by insanetwinn

One day the dead wake up to return to their families. Zombie AU. Set sometime in 4b

2. when we're fire

Thank you everyone for reading and leaving reviews!

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The morning is rushed and urgent.

Graham's violent return had the effect of a cold wind through the town, slipping through houses and setting people on edge. Quietly, family members have turned their family in like empty pockets to their coats, nervously picking out their grandmothers and children alike, afraid suddenly of their odd hunger and their sleeplessness.

It's become more than just her and Graham. Emma is in the study making a list. A list she is a part of, a list of the dead. She doesn't want to think about who else might have come back.

She stays away for as long as she can, but since coming back silence has felt different to her. It's more familiar and frightening than before – it can make an empty living room feel strange and lonesome, as though she was strapped in the seat of an airplane climbing high into the sky, tumbling through white clouds, a hundred miles off the earth. She remains sitting in the living room until she can't any longer, until the empty space around her conquers her fear of familiar names.

Rising, she walks down the hall and opens the door to her study.

Emma looks up at her in surprise.

"Hey, there." She is wearing thin black glasses that hang off the bridge of her nose. With the flat of her thumb, she pushes back up. "I didn't think you wanted to be in here."

"I changed my mind." Regina gently closes the door. "How is it?"

"Shitty." Emma grumbles and rubs at her eyes. "The laptop is shit and my glasses are all smudged."

Warmth blooms in her chest. "I meant the list." she smiles, her first one that morning, and walks closer. "Although, I am interested by your glasses. I didn't know you wore them."

"Oh yeah," Emma smiles, resting her head back against the chair. "I usually wear contacts, but didn't handle time to bother with them today. This morning was kind of…rushed." She frowns and blinks down at her laptop screen. It flickers with a dim blue glow. "People are turning in their family in almost every minute. David is sending me more names from the station."

Regina makes the final few steps to the desk. Standing beside Emma, she can see the long list of names, information lined neatly in an Excel sheet, a sporadic group of details: first name, last name, year of death, and its location. Looking quickly, she searches for any name that starts with Leo, and then once more for C.

"Are these all of them?" she asks.

"I don't even know," Emma sighs and leans forward, her fingers finding the keyboard again and typing steadily; she finishes the name: Ruana Singh. "Most people on this list have been reported by their family. A few have turned themselves in. But really, there is no knowing how many are out there."

She nods, warming her arms with her hands; the air is cold, the window cracked open a bit, and in the quiet she can hear the wind whipping through the trees, the branches creaking like old door hinges in a house, closing all around her. Emma continues typing.

After a moment, the words sharp and difficult on her tongue, she asks, "Has anything...weird happened?"

When Emma only glances up at her, she sighs. "Like Graham?"

"Oh," Emma says. "No. I don't think so, at least. From what I've heard it's just the sleeplessness. And the hunger you mentioned. But nothing violent."

"Well. Good."

The laptop flickers, the rain outside beating harder. A power line might go out, Regina thinks and wonders whether the Mayor this time will know what to do with a power grid.

Emma clears her throat again. "There is this one thing…That's kind of weird."

"What is it?" Regina asks, gently preparing to numb herself further.

"It's nothing bad," Emma says quietly, thumbing an eyebrow. "It's just unexpected. But...well, people have been returning from all different kind of realms."

"Really?"

"Yeah. They're waking up near the wishing well." Emma leans her head back to look up at her, smiling, her eyes straining through the difficulty of her smudged glasses. "You know August once told me that that well was special. That it could return lost things. Do you think it has anything to do with this?"

The idea hadn't occurred to her, but even as its possibility opens inside she feels herself turning away from it, the way she would turn from a rush of cold air. "No, I don't think so."

She hesitates when Emma frowns at her, taking a moment to explain, "Not the way you think it is, at least. People who are returning and have no memory of this place might be waking up by the well because – as August said - it's a way for lost things to come back. But I don't think this is some kind of elaborate wish."

Emma nods slowly, but she is drifting away from her, picking at a loose thread on her sleeve, circling it with the edge of her thumb. Regina waits in the silence until she can't anymore, the quiet putting a hard edge on her tone.

"The dead don't just come back because there are people who want them to. The world doesn't worry over people like that."

Emma shrugs, still not looking at her. "Well, why not?"

Because it didn't happen with Daniel, she thinks. But even as she does, the thoughts stir loose and she wonders over the significance of the past when the present holds so much more. Emma and her son and a hundred other impossible things: the dead returning, waking up from where they last remembered, stumbling through a world that's changed in the years that passes without them, searching for their way back home.

She is here, despite her strange and difficult life, despite everything that was pushed against her. Despite her coffin and all the layers of earth that held her body down.

"I don't know much about magic," Emma starts to say, her voice distant. "When you died, it just stopped working with me. So maybe it's something more complicated than that – maybe this is some spell or some curse, I don't really know – but the one thing I do know is that I never stopped thinking about you. Not once. Every day felt like I was just waiting, and hoping, and missing you. It- it seemed impossible to me that you were really gone. That I could feel this much –" Her hands move helplessly. "- longing and anger and helplessness without it meaning something."

She shivers suddenly with an understanding that hurts. If there is one thing to truly hate about the world, it is its unfailing ability to go on, to continue even when you are unraveling within it.

"I don't really know what caused all of this," Emma's voice sounds small enough to fit in the palm of her hand. "But all these people have family. They're all returning to someone, someone who – who might not have been able to let go. I mean wouldn't that explain why some people have come back and others haven't?" Emma is looking at the list again and Regina glances at the screen too, though she doesn't need to. She remembers all of the names on the list. She knows that Neal isn't one of them.

"Well," she says finally. "Maybe you're right, then."

She isn't entirely convinced, but it seems suddenly possible: that the rings of love that touch from one heart to another are not wiped away in death; that they can exist like some far away echo, calling gently for those long dead to return. She stands there for a little while, calm touching her gently the way waves do at the beach, sliding around her ankles as a cool, persistent truth (thinking: no one, no one alive, would miss her mother this much).

It's only a little while later - when Emma is closing the lid of her laptop and stretching in her seat, conversation traveling into more comfortable, easy avenues that the thought comes to her, crashing into her as suddenly as a speeding car, scattering bright broken glass inside her head - that she thinks: Zelena, Zelena would.

It takes a day of wondering before she comes to a decision.

The town's base lies in a vague blueprint in her mind. She knows Zelena's cabin is somewhere in the forest, and with a vague direction in mind, she sets out of the house in a heavy coat, the thin layer of ice on the driveway crunching beneath her boots.

At the end of the driveway, she hears the faint click of the garage door opening and turns around.

The back of Henry's truck peeks out before slowly coming to a stop, the engine dying. After a pause, the door swings open and Henry's face peeks out, squinting down at her through the cold air.

"Are you going somewhere?" he calls out.

"Just on a walk, dear." She answers and walks closer. "Where are you going, darling?"

"Gonna go see someone."

The vague answer pricks at her, tightening her mouth. "Really." She straightens her shoulders and only barely remembers that five years have passed and that her thirteen year old boy is in fact eighteen with a car of his own. He has friends that she may have never met before. Warily, she allows the argument to pass, bundling her numb fingers in her pockets for warmth. "Do I know them?"

"I don't know," he says, a jaunting smile on his mouth. "How about you? Who are you going to see?"

Blinking, for a moment she stands with a mingled sense of pride and indignation. There was once a time when her questions were met with answers immediately, with a flinching truth. And while a part of her longs to be that unwavering mother again, to steal an answer without having to give, another of her blooms with joy at the expression on her son's face, so familiar it might as well have been her own.

"Very well." She sighs with a smile, walking closer so that her voice won't be carried away by the cold air. "I'm going to see Zelena."

"Why?" he frowns.

"I have an odd feeling," she says, and considers expanding, revealing more, but she shies against it – it may take something away from the future, a possibility she still might want. "I want to see if I'm right or wrong," She states instead.

Henry looks at her carefully. "So...you might be in danger or something?"

"No." She says but it feels too close to a lie, tingling unpleasantly on her tongue she wonders if it is. "Not from Zelena, at least."

Henry nods and idly knocks the heel of his boot on his car's door stoop, clearing away the snow. From where she is, she can see the dull shine of his snow jacket, something new and unfamiliar, but around his neck is an old Christmas gift from her, his old red and black scarf, knotted around his neck and tucked neatly into his jacket.

His hair is long enough to cover his ears and she is close enough that in just a few steps she could reach out and touch him. Her fingertips tingle with the cool air and the memory his hair, having brushed it from his forehead a hundred times before.

Swallowing painfully, she slowly steps away. "I should be going, dear."

There is a pause, a moment of hesitation before her son sighs and rubs a heavy hand behind his neck. "Well, if you want I can drive you."

"Really?" she halts.

Henry shrugs, looking away from her. "Sure. It's a long walk." He gently thumb the keys in his hands. They jingle quietly, filled with its own clutter. "I'm already going in that direction, anyway. If you want a ride."

"Yes." She says immediately, before it can be snatched away. "Yes, that would be wonderful, dear. Thank you."

Henry shuffles in and she joins him on the other side, sliding into the passenger seat. As he turns the key, the ignition clicking, the dashboard light up as that one clear radio station fills the car with old 80s music that chases away the awkward silence. Henry backs out of the driveway into the street, the truck large and steady, groaning quietly through turns and stops and speed bumps.

When the forest starts to creep around the buildings, she finds the nerve to speak, "I didn't know you liked trucks."

Henry glances back at her. His hands remain firmly on either side of the wheel, the way she would have wanted him to drive if she had the chance to teach him. She remembers Emma's loose hand at the top, her easy, softened rules and forgetful glances at the side mirrors.

"Emma wouldn't let me get anything else."

"Really?" she frowns. "Why?"

Henry leans his arm on the window and raps his knuckles along the hard metal door. "It's big. Safe. There's some security in it, I guess." His fingers tap along the door again as he looks out the window. "That was Emma's priority. To make sure that if I do get in an accident, I'll be the one surviving it."

Her skin tingles with the memory of metal and glass and freezing water.

"Of course," she says, and stares out the window, struggling to return to this seat, to this car, to the steady rhythm of the road beneath her. A few minutes pass before she can manage her voice, make it firm again.

"You drive very well, dear. I'm impressed," she says. "Emma taught you well."

"Yeah, I guess she did."

Regina nods, though she can't imagine how Emma's rushed, choppy movements giving away to this, to Henry's practiced hands and careful eyes, checking every mirror and every side street.

Quietly, a memory of Henry on her lap as she drove her car slowly around the parking lot returns to her. She remembers his cold five year old hands directing the wheel with delicate precision.

She remembers his nervous questions. Is this too fast? Momma, should I park it now? She feels again what she had felt then – the disastrous love, opening the doors to her heart and closing her throat - how she had to press her mouth to the back of his head just to muffle her sharp laugh and the sudden urge to cry; how tightly she had held him.

"I always thought I would be the one to teach you." she finds herself saying, her voice nearly breathless.

Henry looks at her, startled; the words sit in the air like the ice in the street and Regina doesn't look at him. She doesn't want to know what has reflected back on his face.

"Emma tried, you know. To teach me the way you - Mom would have wanted me to know." He stumbles over the word and she lets it pass, lets it go. "She bought a few books so that she could have it all sitting in her lap whenever we went out for a drive. Even if it was just around the block, she'd grab one of those stupid books to flip back so that she could scold me when I did something questionable."

Regina chuckles. "Well, I'm glad after so many years the Sheriff is finally learning some laws." Emma, her dear sweet idiot.

"Maybe someone other than her will break a law one day."

Regina snorts, shaking her head, "I can't believe I ever hired her to arrest people."

When Henry laughs, she clings to the love they both share; it centers them, holds them together.

Beneath her feet, she can feel the wheels of the truck rolling over snow to rougher gravel, the car bumping along a narrow dirt road as the quiet 80s music comes in and out of static in waves.

It's only a few minutes later before Henry is pulling to the side of the road and turning off the engine. Through the gaps of the trees, Regina can see the cabin. The white paint is peeling away to reveal the soft wood beneath, leaving gaps between doorways and windows. On the windows there are aluminum blinders, closed shut.

Henry makes a small sound in the back of his throat, leaning out to look through the window. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?"

For once, his worry comes through transparently, as clear as rushing water. "Yes dear," she smiles, "I'll be fine."

Sliding her purse onto her arm, she glances around the car. In the back seat, she notices a small bouquet of white flowers. "Oh," she says, without meaning too, and feels the nervous quake of her heart against her ribs, knowing there are parts of her son's life that she doesn't know about. She wants to force the subject, but with just a glimpse of the cabin up ahead, the words fall away from her. "Have fun with your friend, dear," she says instead.

Henry blinks, his face puzzled before he glances back at the bouquet and it smooths out again. "Right," he sighs, and taps his thumb against the wheel again. It's a nervous tick he shares with his mother. She counts three beats before he turns to her again. "Do you like… have a phone or anything?"

Instinctively, her hand falls to her purse before she remembers. "Damn." she mutters, frowning.

"Still don't have one?" Henry asks.

"No," she sighs. "I keep forgetting about it."

There is a pause, hesitation flickering on Henry's face before it falls away and he is opening a glove box and pulling out another phone.

"Here," Henry says, passing it over; it's background is an old picture of her, Henry, and Emma, looking up from a table at Granny's, caught mostly unaware by Snow's quick snap of her camera. "I don't think Emma will mind you using it."

"No," she answers, but she is still focused on Emma's lockscreen. "You don't think she might need it?"

Henry shrugs. "She'd want you to have it if it meant you were any safer." Quietly, he clears his throat and looks away. "Anyway, you might need a ride back or something. And you can text me that you're, you know… safe or whatever."

Regina smiles, a spasm of love closing her throat. "Alright." she says, and slips the phone into her purse. "I will."

As she leaves, the cold light outside makes the interior of the car seem so much darker, covering her son's face in shadows. But even through the dark she can see that his head is turned towards her, watching her through the closed door. She can feel his eyes even as she shuffles up the narrow walkway and turns around the corner towards the house, disappearing beyond pine trees and the bulk of other things.

Walking up the stairs, she knocks hard on the door and waits the few minutes it takes for the movement within the house to move away from distant rooms into the entryway. There is no pause between the sound of footsteps and the lock sliding from the door.

When the door opens, Zelena looks completely unsurprised.

"Well," Zelena sighs with gentle exasperation. "It's about time." She turns and trails back inside the house, leaving the door open. "I was starting to think you weren't going to visit your sister at all."

Regina hesitates in the doorway.

Inside is warm and spacious, the walls faded to the color of sea shells. Stepping forward, she gently closes the door behind her.

"I certainly hope you weren't expecting a visit these last five years." Regina says, "If so I'm afraid you've been terribly misinformed."

She hears Zelena laugh from somewhere in another room, moving with her as she walks into the kitchen, a kettle in hand. "I mean after you woke up. I had to hear about my sister returning from the dead through the rumor mill."

"You poor dear."

"Ugh and from that idiot, too." She waves a cloudy hand, her nose crinkling. "The one who works at that hardware shop and talks straight out of his ass."

"August?" she smiles.

"Yes, him. He was wearing that ridiculous scarf too," Zelena nearly gags as she sits the kettle heavily on the stove. "Completely embarrassing. Anyway, tea?"

The small spasm of affection in her chest is unavoidable. "Very well." she says and watches Zelena flicks on the stove, the flames tickling the side of the kettle. "You know, you don't seem very surprised about the dead having come back to life, dear."

Zelena hums, voice dry. "Should I be?"

"I'd say it's a little unusual."

"Well, it can't be all that impossible if that idiot in the hospital managed to do it." Zelena sets two cups down on the counter, large and impersonal like the ones a waitress slaps down in Granny's diner. "Do you want Earl Grey? I'm partial to it but I do have this pomegranate one in the pantry, if you're up for the risk."

"Earl Grey is fine."

"Oh, you bore. You'll like the pomegranate one." Zelena is already leaving the room. "I'll just be a minute." She says as she turns the corner, disappearing into another room. Regina sighs and sits in one of the old wooden chairs in the kitchen.

The house surrounds her in its minute details, in the spacious room and unfamiliar furniture, the walls mostly empty except where the white paint peeled back to old wooden planks beneath like old rotten pieces of a boat. She could see oil paintings of the sea in far distant rooms.

It is nothing of what she expected and yet unsurprising; the house holds the same quaint unkempt air she had assumed of her sister, as well as the probability of it not belonging to her.

The kettle starts to whistle, returning Zelena with a box of tea and oven mitts, maneuvering around the counter to pour hot water recklessly into each cup. As Regina watches, she feels a sudden dislocation from her purpose; she sits in an old kitchen chair, warm and comfortable, almost close to forgetting why she checked the address of her sister's house.

Regina accepts the cup carefully. "You seem to be managing the place well." she says, glancing around. She takes a small sip. "You didn't kick anyone out of here, did you?"

"Oh no, it was long empty." Zelena says and when Regina only waits, sipping her tea again, she sighs. "I might have convinced the man he'd prefer living closer to the sea, which –" she waves her hand around. "clearly he would – I mean honestly, what in the world compelled him to live in the middle of the forest. I don't know."

"You seem to be taking your second chance to heart," she says instead, half mocking, half amused.

Something in Zelena's expression shifts. "No, I guess not," she says, and in the span of seconds between her words, her smile sharpens. "But really, what's so good about them? You were tromping around with the heroes once and now…" She waves a hand with just the tips of her fingers, carelessly finishing her sentence.

Regina clenches her teeth, her elbows pressing hard against her ribs as a warm red anger creeps up along her back. She'd like to prove, in some way, that this life right now, the one she is living again, is evidence enough of her second chance. But it feels like a stretch in terms of living even now, only an hour from eating, this new raw hunger still lurks inside of her like a shark in dark water.

Setting aside her tea, she sighs and leans back into the chair. "Well, let's just cut to the chase, then."

Zelena's smile dims around the corners. "Right," she slumps slightly against her chair. "No point in catching up with your sister. Whatever. If you've come for a magical explanation, I don't have one," she says, her thumbnail scratching unpleasantly against the length of her cup.

Regina resists the urge to reach over and still Zelena's agitation. She doesn't. "I didn't come for an explanation," she says. "I have one already. What I want to know, only you can answer."

Zelena narrows her eyes, "What do you possibly have to explain this?"

"Emma has a theory." She starts, and almost doesn't finish, unsure if it's laughable or not. "Well, she thinks it has something to do with the wishing well."

"Like someone made a wish and brought back hundreds of dead people." Zelena smiles sweetly, "Sounds like you got a smart one, sis."

"I do." she snaps, "And she doesn't think it's just one person. It's everyone. Whoever has someone they miss. Or someone they want to bring back – whatever, the point is they'd have that chance to bring them back. I don't know why, yet. I don't know how."

"So she thinks people are being brought back simply because they miss them?" Zelena says, her voice drifting off almost wistfully.

Regina hesitates. The house feels empty: there is no movement from the other rooms, no rustle of fabric or patter of feet, not even in the structure of the house, in its old doors and wooden floors. The house would creak and groan if anyone tried to leave in the middle of their discussion. There would be evidence of her mother somewhere.

Regina reaches for her cup again. "Maybe it's possible. I don't have any other reason to believe it's not." She feels the edge of her words on her tongue, wondering, would you miss our mother enough? The words feel like cold dirt in her mouth. Instead, she says, "Emma wants to believe it."

"I'm not surprised she does," Zelena states impassively, pulling the tea bag out of her cup. "It certainly makes the living dead sound less sinister. They can't do anything too terrible if they're coming back from simply being loved enough."

Regina doesn't have time to consider if it's a bait or not – she bites, rattled. "You think that's her intention, then? To make me sound less frightening to her?"

Zelena smirks, "Do you think she's frightened of you?"

"No." she snaps, but when Zelena looks up at her, she feels suddenly transparent. All her fears and worries colliding inside of her like the heavy beating of her heart, as loud as tiny hammers beating along the old wooden walls of the house, surrounding them.

Though she straightens, holding herself taller in her chair, she cannot steel the odd tremble in her fingers.

"Maybe she isn't, then." Zelena says. Her thumb makes idle circles along the side of the cup. "But, really, if you missed someone enough to bring them back, would it really matter if they frightened you?"

Regina frowns. "What do you mean?"

"If you really did miss them. What they became afterwards wouldn't matter. You'd still have that chance to be with them again." Zelena says quietly, her expression distant, muting her in unfamiliar ways. "Wouldn't that be enough? Having loved enough to bring them back, even if it's different than you wanted it to be, you'd still have them in some way."

"Zelena…" Regina starts to say, but stops.

Zelena is staring down at her cup of tea, her fingers tracing old patterns, and though there are no physical remnants of her mother, Regina feels with sudden certainty her presence. Somewhere within this house, creeping quietly along wooden floors is her mother, listening in. A prickling fear creeps up the back of her neck, the silence no longer comforting.

It begins to feel immense, enormous, like it had felt when she was struggling to breathe in that car – the dark water creeping up her neck, filling the car, surrounding her, removing everything but the hard sound of her heart before even that fell silent.

And here, in an old kitchen chair, she begins to feel what she had then – trapped to her seat as something large and dangerous filled the space around her, became the silence as she sank deeper.

Shakily, she stands. She doesn't know if Zelena follows her or not, all she can hear is the sound of her heart thrumming in her ear. Walking quickly down the stairs, she strides across the white cold lawn and to the thin narrow road that will eventually out of this forest to the town, to cement and the buildings and people; to Emma and her son.

She keeps on walking, fumbling a text to Henry who finds her a little ways down the road. But even within the warm truck, moving steadily out of the forest and onto to smoother, clear roads, the fear remains, sitting inside of her like an enormous ocean, dark and wild and restless.

The house is quiet when she returns, Henry shuffling quietly behind her, and as she trails into the entryway she fears that the house is empty and is gone somewhere, unreachable to her, without even a cell phone to call her with. The thought is suddenly unbearable, her need for Emma landing on her all at once.

The silence only lasts a moment before the house seems to register the sound of their entry, filtering out to the other rooms, and finally to Emma, appearing suddenly in the hallway, as though materialized from thin air.

"You guys are home," she sighs, visibly relieved. It pinches inside of her, this quiet nervousness that Emma tries to contain in herself, hiding in the corners of her smiles. "Where'd you go?"

Regina hesitates, unsure if she is ready for the natural progression of her beliefs – for the worried investigation and the final, settling truth, deciding at last if she is right or wrong, both terrible in their own way.

"She just wanted to see me drive," Henry intervenes swiftly, naturally, as he slides his jacket from his shoulders and pulls off his boots.

Regina can only manage a dry, "Yes."

"Oh. Good." Emma tucks her thumbs in her pockets, side glancing Henry. "You drove safe, right?"

"Of course, Ma." Henry smiles, "I just follow your example."

"Alright, smart ass," Emma grumbles and Henry chuckles as disappears up the stairway and into the darkened hallways above them up. Emma waits until the sound of his footsteps disappear behind the door. "How did it go?" Emma asks, gently.

"Good." Regina sighs; it is a small well of truth in all of this discomfort and unease; she clings to it, pressing gently back against Emma's arm. "You did well with him."

From the corner of her eye, she sees something like surprise and relief on Emma's face and makes a note to tell it to her more often.

"Did you have a good day?" Regina asks, secretly pleased by the sheer domestically of it all, the routine they've already started to build.

Emma groans loudly and rolls her head back. "No."

"What? Why?" From the back of her throat, a note of displeasure hums and Regina rolls her eyes. "Just tell me, dear. I have to hear it now."

"You know that list I was making?" Emma finally sighs and Regina's smile falls away, her spine straightening immediately.

"Yes?" she asks warily.

"Well, Belle was the one asking for it. Now she is putting up a big welcome-back party for everyone who has returned." Before the words can even register for her, Emma turns towards the small desk beside the front door, picking up a small pile of mail. "Here," she says and thumbs out a thin white envelope. "You even get an invite."

Regina blinks and thoughtlessly reaching for it. "Do I need a library card to get in?"

"Oh, uh no," Emma laughs a quick forced sound. "Belle is the mayor now."

"Oh," Regina pauses, and because there is nothing left to say, she moves on, sliding her finger across the tap to open it. The invite slips out easily, a quick read which leaves her entirely unsure of how to feel.

"It could be good." Emma tries after a while.

"A party for a bunch of dead people, dear." Regina hums dryly, but catching Emma's flinch she hastily moves on. "And anyway, you couldn't be my plus one."

She frowns. "Why?"

"It's semi-formal. They wouldn't let you past the doors."

"Oh my god - I do own a dress, you know."

"It is freezing outside, Emma." she scoffs, "I wouldn't let you be my plus one in a dress."

Emma rolls her eyes, but she is smiling, a real smile falling into familiar lines. "So are you going?"

She takes a moment to look over it again, tilting the paper up into the light. It's neat and formal, following an obvious uniform of text, written to hundred others, other people returning – the many that have woken up and found themselves suddenly alive, unchanged, struggling to find a way back into their own lives.

Carefully, she slides the paper back into its envelope and sets it gently back onto the table.

"No," she says, "I don't think so."

"Regina…"

Regina sighs and closes her arms around her chest, starting towards the living room. "What do you expect, Emma? I'm not even sure if this is something that should be celebrated. But even if it is, I'm not doing it with a bunch of people I might have killed."

Emma comes to a sudden stop behind her. "You don't think this is worth celebrating?"

Regina sighs and stops at the end of the hallway, the air colder near the kitchen. She thinks of the house she left only a few minutes ago, her sister's face distant and touched clearly with misery.

"I just don't know why this is happening." she gently brushes a strand of hair from her face. "I'm not convinced it's for a good reason. Especially not after Graham." Not after Zelena, that cold quiet house.

"Okay, I don't think one incident with Graham is worth brushing this whole thing off as some kind of 'inevitable tragedy'." Emma's voice deepens with scorn and puts Regina immediately on edge.

"I'm not." Regina bites back, irritated, "But, save for your silly theory about love, we have no idea what caused this. Or what consequences it will have. Magic always comes with a price, and half the town came back to life. You'll excuse me for sounding a little wary." Her voice comes out harder than she intends it to, her heart curling in her chest as Emma's face falls into deep lines of hurt.

"I didn't say anything about love." Emma rasps thickly, her voice sounding backlogged in her throat. "I just said – I just meant – that if anything – " Her breath thins, revving in frustrations, "I'm not saying I know what happened, alright? I just know I missed you and I'm glad you're back, even though you're an asshole."

Silence falls all around her and though Regina wants to take it back, smooth the hurt in Emma's face, but she finds herself watching the silver hand on the clock in the living room, instead, chasing time.

"You want to be here, right?" Emma's voice surprises her, sounding frighteningly close to how it had that first night, filled with confusion and grief.

Regina immediately steps close, "Of course I do." she smooths a hand along Emma's cheek, feeling Emma's quick breath brush against the heel of her palm. "You and Henry, your my family. I'm happy to have even the slightest time with you." Emma nods, but her chin quivers and Regina gently presses her thumb against it. "And if anything, I would want your theory to be true. I would want it to be you."

Emma closes her eyes, and nods, ducking down to rest her head against Regina's shoulder, her hands coming up to hold her a moment later. Regina breathes, resting her cheek against the cold shell of Emma's ear, listening to the snow fall around their house.

"You don't have to go." Emma whispers a little later, her voice almost inaudible. "We can just stay in for the evening."

"Stay in? I don't know, dear." Regina gently smiles, "We shouldn't mix things up too drastically."

Emma sighs deeply. "You're such a brat."

Chuckling, Regina slides a hand through Emma's long, golden hair. "You must be rubbing off on me." Against her chest, she can feel the soft quiver of Emma's laugh. As she pulls Emma closer, she feels something inside of her soften, and give in. "Do you really think I should go?"

"I think it could be good for you." Emma whispers, gently squeezing. "And Belle thinks it might help the town come to terms with this – whatever it is."

"Oh, well, if Belle thinks so."

"Oh come on, Madam Mayor," Emma chuckles, her body warm against hers. "She could never replace you."

A warm flush starts low in her belly and spreads to her chest, warming her cheeks. It turns her soft, leaning her closer, closer, until Regina can hear the soft, steady sound of Emma's heart beating against her skin: a gentle, reassuring presence. She closes her eyes and listens to it.

The morning is quiet. Regina is in the bathroom applying with a steady hand the face she wants to wear in front of the town. Emma is already up, making coffee downstairs. She can hear Henry in the other room – maybe getting ready, maybe not – she isn't sure yet, whether his alliance with her has survived the night.

She finishes applying makeup, careful not to look directly into the mirror, not entirely sure what might be waiting there for her to look straight back at.

Rubbing moisturizer along the bends of her fingers and around her knuckles, she leaves the bathroom and closes the door quietly behind her. She chances a glance back at Henry's door and catches him looking at her, sitting on his bed, lacing up his shoes.

Pausing, she turns to him. "Are you coming with us?"

He tightens his knotted laces in one movement, lifting up to his elbows on his knees. "I will later," he says, "I gotta do something first. But…" he rubs the back of his neck, unsure. "Yeah, I'll come by later."

She sighs through her relief and disappointment.

"Alright," she says at last.

Henry hesitates, watching her carefully. "Is that alright?"

"Of course, dear." After all, it's not difficult to understand: he is still unsure of her, balancing carefully between his doubt and his hope, waiting for one to win out, to become clearer than the other. All she has to do is wait with him. "I'll see you later, darling," she says and walks gently down the stairs.

She finds Emma in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to brew. Emma glances up at her when she approaches, straightening up immediately. "Hey," she asks, her hands smoothing down the light blue blouse Regina recognizes as her own. "Is this nice enough, you think?"

Regina doubts the importance of formality for a party of the mostly long-dead, but she won't begrudge Emma a simple truth if it gives her some pleasure. "Yes," she smiles sweetly. "You look lovely."

"Oh," Emma says, and gently clears her throat, the tops of her cheeks coloring. "You too."

"Thank you," Regina slides a scarf around her neck, and smiles. "Shall we go, then?"

"Yeah, just let me pour the coffee," Emma grabs two large thermoses and the coffee pot. She moves precisely, filling one to the brim with just a splash of milk while the other is filled with far more milk and sugar than Regina would have wanted anyone to know.

"There is no way you remember how I take my coffee after five years," she mumbles as Emma hands her her thermos

"Madam Mayor, you put a full quarter of milk in there." Emma chuckles and opens the door. "It's hard to forget."

The car ride is faster than she anticipated it to be.

Having driven it a hundred times before, she is almost certain there were more stop signs and streetlights to hurdle them, but instead they pull up to City Hall only five minutes later. Emma turns off the engine and glances out into the tall building and its tinted windows, reflecting back images of the sky and parking lot. She cannot see inside at all.

"Maybe it's empty," Regina mutters.

"It'll be fine," Emma says and pats her hand before unbuckling her seat and opening the door, allowing the cool, sharp air to spill in and chase away the warmth.

Regina sighs and steps out.

Emma opens the door as they both shuffle into the warm, empty area. There is the sound of conversation in the other room, muted by the heavy doors, but just by the sheer sound of its echo is terrifying. She glances behind her to deliberate the possibility of making a run for it.

"Hello, Regina," Turning around, she sees Mother Superior sitting behind a small desk with a pad of paper out on the desk. There are a pile of name tags beside her. "The check-in is over here. Take a name tag too."

"I'm sure people will be able to recognize me."

Blue smiles thinly. "If you're sure," she slides the papers away and holds up a pen with only two fingers, a delicate hold that slips away the moment Regina touches it. "Just sign in here. You can mingle in the next room with the others, if you want. Though, maybe not, if they do recognize you."

A low anger rumbles inside of her, like a slow train approaching a station, rattling through the metal in the floor. She had to breathe slowly to keep it from reflecting back on her face. "I think we're only planning to stay for a little while," Regina says and returns the pen sharply. "But thank you."

"Well. There is a buffet at the end, if you change your mind. An all you can eat." She smiles, thin and gentle and full of hatred. "Enjoy yourself."

"Wonderful," she bares her teeth in an aggressive smile before turning swiftly towards the door, striding in large steps away from her, towards the sound of people milling through the door – to just get on with it. To get this over with.

Emma follows quietly, her worry like a loud, visible thing inside of her – Regina can almost hear it ticking, like small gears and cogs, locking up in her hands and joints, keeping her solidly at her side, wondering if this was a mistake. It might be. Inside, people move nervously, aware of her but refusing to look at her, both the dead and alive moving in one gentle stream around her.

One worried look to Emma would have her turning them around and driving back to the house. Regina could be back in her living room in only five minutes, if she wanted to. She could be left apart from this.

But she doesn't want to be the stranger in all of this. The villain – the one the town bands against. She watches people warily distance themselves from her despite them all having come from the same dark and impossible beginning.

She feels herself stepping into the crowd, instead. Emma follows her immediately and Regina turns, pressing a gentle hand to Emma's chest.

"Emma." she presses her hand until she is sure Emma can feel it. "I'd like to do this alone."

"Wait – what?" Emma's eyes blink wide.

"Just for a little while."

"Regina," Emma hissed quietly. "I'm not – I'm not just gonna leave you."

"I'll be fine." she assures, "And it looks like that's what everyone else is doing, anyway. You can mingle with the other family members." says, and nods to the people along the walls, all standing stiffly, shuffling through conversations.

Emma's face becomes even more reluctant. "But I don't know any of them."

"We're a at a welcome back party for the dead, I'm sure you'll find something to talk about."

"But – "

"Go, I'll be fine."

Emma crosses her arms stubbornly around her chest but finally sighs, nodding to the back of the room. "Fine. I'll – uh, just be over there then, alright?"

Regina nods and watches Emma walk away, only glancing back once, and though Regina smiles and waves her off again, her calm is slowly dissipating; when Emma disappears entirely, a quiet panic blooms in her chest, urging her to find Emma again, to close the gap between them. Instead, she turns away, forcing herself to move towards the stubborn, stiff-shoulders of everyone around her, ignoring their silent glares.

After a few minutes, while Regina is moving steadily towards the decision to find Emma again, somebody steps up close to her. A familiar face, the name ebbing just out of reach.

"Miss Mills," he ducks his head as he shuffles forward, a small smile on his face. "Didn't think I'd see you here."

It's oddly the dimple that does it. "Billy," she smiles. He worked for Michael Tillman. He always put new tires onto her car. He had offered to replace them again only a few days before he died.

"I go by Gus now, actually," he says, extending a hand towards hers, and she remembers his rolled up sleeves and the way he'd always wipe his hands on his pants before he would shake her hand.

She returns his hand shake. "Gus, of course." She remembers his gentle manner and how he always slapped a towel over his shoulder as he stood to greet her. How, not long after the curse broke, he was found in pieces.

"So." Gus tucks his thumbs nervously into his belt. "This is weird, isn't it?"

"Very weird," she glances quickly over him again. "Though it's all in good intentions, I believe. At least there are no tacky decorations."

Gus's face squints into an odd smile. "I kind of meant how we're all dead now, actually."

"Oh," Regina presses her lips together. "Right, of course. That too."

"Sorry," Gus is still smiling. "I guess I don't really know what else to talk about these days. It's all I can think about."

"Well. Better to know how to talk about it." Regina hums vaguely, staring out at crowd around them. "I'm still not sure how to feel about the matter at all, really."

"Yeah, I get that. Not too sure whether I should feel angry or grateful. I am alive again, but..." he drifts off with a good-natured shrug."

Regina nods, though she is not sure if life is anything to be grateful about if it was stolen the first time; it seems like something she would be forced to smile over, to forgive, like Snow White, still young and foolish, handing back the necklace she'd placed gently around her own neck.

"So...the town didn't...get to you did they?" Gus asks quietly, nervously.

Regina glances up at him with a faint smile. "No. Quite a lot has changed since the curse broke. I wasn't a villain when I died." She sighs, "I just drowned."

Gus's face scrunches up in horror. "Shit, that sucks." he says. "When did it happen?"

"Five years ago."

She can sense Gus struggling to put the years together in his head - the ones he lived and the ones he'll never know - and so gently, like one of Henry's difficult math problems, she helps. "I died about four years after the curse broke."

"Wow. So it's been nearly a decade for me, I guess." Gus struggles with a difficult smile. "I'd be the age my father was when he had us, if I had lived through it."

Recognizing the tone in his voice, the dreadful what-ifs, Regina gently directs the conversation elsewhere. "Did you come here with anyone?"

"Yeah." Gus' smile lightens immediately as he lifts a hand to cup around his eyes, pointing out into the crowd with his other hand. "My brother Jaq. He's over there," he says, and snorts. "Ignore that scowl of his – he's looked at everyone that way since the moment I woke up."

Regina had to lift her head a little higher to see him above the shoulders of others, but through a short gap of people she finally catches sight of a thin dark man. He stands in the back, his elbows resting on a thin black railing behind him, and though his body looks completely relaxed something sharp and keen looks out of his eyes, watching her carefully.

"Ah," she says. "I see."

"He's just wary, is all." Gus says, his hand becoming idle, rubbing up and down his arm. "I guess for a good reason. I mean...we barely knew anyone in town. We were just starting to remember our names and now it's years later, and I don't remember any of it."

She watches his hand rub the old weathered patch of his elbow, circling the place where, she knows, skin and bone had been separated. She considers telling him about King George's fate - locked in prison - but she thinks of Leopold, how he crumbled in death, how his fingers curled and became as lifeless as twigs, his skin paper thin. And though he had been reduced, removed from her life forever, it never seemed to make a difference; even after the funeral, after all the years, the harm of him remained.

They remain in silence for a moment, watching the crowds of people from far distant places and innumerable deaths - some sudden and quick and others unforgivable.

After a while, when it started to feel unbearable, Gus gently nudges her. "How about you? Did you come with anyone?"

A soft and unremarkable warmth swells in her, turning her soft.

"I did, actually," Regina smiles and lifts her head to look out over the small crowd of people, finding the stiff figure in the back after only a moment, her arms still crossed stubbornly across her chest. Regina chuckles warmly, "She's the one sulking in the back."

Gus only searches for a moment before he finds her. "The Sheriff?" he exclaims.

"Yes. Though, by the way she is behaving you'd think she was my teenage son."

"She looks kinda nervous." Gus smiles. "I'm gonna guess she also gets angsty when you leave her sight."

"Every single time." She says, and smiles when Gus tilts his head back to laugh.

As if hearing her name, Emma's head turns towards her, meeting her eyes immediately. Her spine straightens immediately, her face growing concerned. Even in the crowded room, in the dim, artificial light, Regina can see the stitch of worry between her eyes; she mouths the words, 'are you alright?'

Regina rolls her eyes, but gives a small, reassuring thumbs-up.

"Wow," Gus says with a chuckle. "She's really worried about you. I didn't expect that at all."

"No. I suppose I didn't either," she says, but even in her memory Emma had been watchful and frantic and devoted to her. She had been ready to fight for their friendship, though Regina hadn't expected it even then, much less how to accept it. It had knocked her over, had left her breathless and half in love.

She figured she'd always have time to figure out the rest - how to get what she wants - but she only had those few minutes she spent trapped in her car, sinking to the bottom of the ocean, thinking frantically of all the ways she could still make it home. But she's back...

Staring at her now, Regina feels warmth sting in her eyes. "She's been wonderful." she finds herself saying, almost without her full knowledge. "I don't know what I would have done without her." Gus looks at her, a warm kind of understanding touching his face and filling the silence between them.

Then the mike turns on suddenly and Belle's gentle, warm voice filled their silence "Sorry, sorry." She covers the mike to muffle the bad feedback, glancing through the crowd with a smile that seemed to say 'I'm still new to this, sorry!' Regina pinches her lips with disapproval.

"Hello, everyone! I see a lot of familiar faces, thank you so much for coming, and welcome back!"

The conversations dim around her, the crowd shifting forward to listen to the small woman on the stage. Belle continues to speak, but Regina did not listen, disinterested by the bright, flighty language and excitement; she finds herself looking for Emma instead, having lost her with the crowd's movement. She catches only the briefest glimpse of blonde hair before it is hidden again by the broad shape of shoulders.

Distantly, she can hear the names being called out and the slow walk up to the stage, people smiling and accepting flowers and the brief exchange of words. She can see each sharp, business-like handshake from Belle. And through the shifting crowds of people she spots a familiar coat. Dark and black.

For a moment, her heart stops, recognizing the long hair and thin shoulders, like wings beneath that dark black coat. But as she walks closer to the door, the red in her hair glimmers from the light outside, her face clear and familiar and touched by freckles.

Zelena, just Zelena.

And yet. Regina cannot calm her heart. She cannot stop thinking: why, why is she here? why is she here?

Zelena is already on her way out, but as she leaves Regina catches her eye. She watches the corner of Zelena's mouth lift up into a small smile before she disappears altogether – before Regina can sort out the characteristics of that smile, whether it was benign or not. Whether she had come to see her. Or if she had come only to walk around in a crowded room, wearing her mother's coat.

She only has a few moments of staring helplessly at the door before she hears her name being called.

Disoriented, she feels herself being ushered to the front, walking up the slanted wooden steps to the narrow stage, suddenly aware of how tall her heels are. She manages to smile and shake Belle's hand with a clinical appreciation, accepting her gifts just the same.

The rest moves quickly, then. It is not long before Belle is wrapping up the speeches and directing people into another room where cool light tilts in through the windows and tall, snowy trees sway gently in the wind. In the back, there is already a line forming where the smell of barbecue almost overwhelms her.

And it is more embarrassing than anything, the way her mouth fills with water, the way she starts to move more quickly, joining the rush of the hungry-eyed dead (she'll never say zombies, never, but even she knows it's not entirely inaccurate).

She's already half-way through the line when she feels a body shuffle close, feeling warm next to her. "Hey," Emma says, brushing a shoulder against hers. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"It was fine," she sniffs.

"Well," Emma picks at one of the thin styrofoam plates. "We get free food, at least. That's a plus."

"We?" Regina smiles warmly up at her. "Sorry, dear, I must have missed your name on that list."

Emma snatches a folded napkin with plastic forks and knives, grinning at her. "Sorry – benefit of being your plus one."

"I don't recall ever agreeing to that."

"You did, actually. This morning. When you said I looked lovely," Emma smiles and brushes a warm hand down her back. "It was a pretty invitation."

Her cheeks grow hot and Emma laughs, wrapping an arm around her to squeeze her close. Regina rolls her eyes, but her heart clatters inside of her like feet on stone steps, loud and light in her ears.

They remain quiet all the way through the line, until food is piled on their plate and they're left to wander through the room, searching for a place to sit. Well. Regina searches for a place to sit – Emma keeps pointing out empty seats on tables that are already half full.

They finally found a small booth by the window, the space cold and small but empty. Regina slides in and settles down.

"Really, here?" Emma groans and folds her arms tightly around her chest. "There are perfectly good seats out there by the fire places, you know."

"Yes, I saw them, dear. You've pointed them out quite enough," Regina slides further into the booth to make room for Emma. "They're also full of people I don't want to talk to."

"You were pretty social during the ceremony," Emma grumbles and slides into the seat.

Regina frowns at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," she sighs.

"Oh, clearly," Regina scoffs and briskly smooths out the napkins and sets the forks beside her and Emma. "I thought making friends was the whole purpose of this silly thing."

"It is."

"But?"

"But nothing," Emma grumbles and petulantly dips a fry into ketchup. Regina watches her sternly, the few seconds of silence that span between them coloring the tops of Emma's cheeks with embarrassment.

"Okay," she sighs. "I'm sorry. I just figured I'd be there with you, you know?" The corner of the napkin is wrinkled beneath Emma's fingers before she wearily smooths it out again. "We're kind of a team."

"We are a team," Regina assures gently. "But I don't always need you beside me." To soften the edge of her words, she covers Emma's hand with her own, feeling the bump of her knuckles against her palm. "I can do some of this on my own. Some of it I need to do on my own, just like sometimes I need you to myself." She smiles and lightly taps the bottom of Emma's chin, chuckling as Emma nods, embarrassment crowding the corners of her mouth.

"Yeah okay."

"Good."

A few minutes pass filled with easy conversation. Sometimes, even now, Regina is surprised. After all the loss and grief – the five years between– she can still talk to Emma like she had before: with everything to say and yet so much already known.

After a while Regina glances out the window, catching Henry's large green truck pulling up into the parking lot. Peering through the cloudy glass, she can see the yellow headlights click off, the doors open and more than just Henry piling out, all looking the same in their short hair and heavy coats.

On instinct, her elbow jabs into Emma's side. Emma groans, "Why?" before huffing and leaning to look over her shoulder. "Oh."

Henry pushes through the door, glancing quickly across the room before finding their booth. He nods at them with a small, apologetic smile, Snow and David following close behind. Snow glances sharply at Regina before turning to Henry again, talking in a low voice.

"Oh, wonderful," Regina sighs.

"She's not going to cause a scene," Emma assures, but she doesn't sound entirely convinced herself.

"What is that theory she is feeding our son anyway?

"I think she thought you were an imposter – or used to think that, I don't know anymore. Kind of hard to believe that when so many others have returned with you," Emma sighs, idly folding the napkin into halves. "I just think she doesn't know how to accept this yet."

"Of course," she says, but watching her son in that small corner nod along to whatever Snow White tells him is like a slow forming bruise.

Henry slides in a few minutes later, laying his scarf on the table with a breath of cold air.

"Hey, sorry I'm late. Grams caught me as I was leaving and wanted to come along," he says, his narrow face spreading into a smile. "How was the ceremony?"

The space in her ribs constricts, feeling more close together. He's still on her side. Even if he's on theirs, too.

"It was fine, dear," Regina smiles, heart fluttering light in her chest. "Why don't you get something to eat? I'm sure there's still some food available if you want it." She hopes he goes along with it, craving above all else the habit they had with each other, the simple, mundane things they both shared.

"I already ate," Henry says, but there is a sharp movement underneath the table and he quickly stands up again, clearing his throat as he ducks a quick glance to Emma. "But uh – yeah, sure, I can get a small plate."

He jogs away, disappearing behind a curtain of people and the moment he does, Regina juts her elbow into Emma's side again.

"Ow," Emma groans and rubs the soft spot between her ribs. "What was that for?"

"You know exactly what that was for."

"I just wanted to stretch my legs!"

"Then I was just wanted to strech my elbow."

Emma laughs and wraps an arm around her. Regina rolls her eyes but eases against her again, warm against Emma's side. Sometimes she can't help but measure their intimacy, the way she might measure a cup of coffee, wondering if what they have could still be more, if these warm touches are all they have or if there is another step – something beyond these measured moments.

"Hey," Henry says after a while, slipping back and sets down two flutes of champagne. "Belle wanted me to give it to you two – looks like we're making a toast."

Regina glances around at the crowds of people, still standing, waiting with glasses in their hands as waiters slide between the gaps of people to pour champagne.

Belle stands in the center, smiling brightly. "I just wanted to make a quick cheers to everyone here: to the people who have returned and to everyone else who is experiencing this miracle with us," she says and lifts up her flute with thin fingers, holding delicately around the stem. "Welcome back!"

A harmonious "Welcome back!" choroused throughout the room, followed quickly by the sound of clinking glass.

The room is quiet with gentle voices and the quiet, repeating performance of clinking drinks and exchanging kisses. Across the room, Regina spots Gus with his arm around his brother, donning an enormous smile on his face. Snow is leaning against David and watching them with a strange expression. Regina watches until Emma's arm curls around her shoulders to hug her closer, pressing a quick warm kiss against her temple.

"Welcome back," Emma whispers softly, and clinks her glass with hers.

"Yes," Regina says, feeling dazed, and only vaguely remembering to take a sip. Welcome back.

The moment settles like the light tilting in from the window, stretching out to the corners of the room. People drink their champagne and float into easy conversation. Emma feels warm against her, laughing quietly from something Henry has said, the warmth of her arm still keeping her connected in some way to their conversation. The moment feels full of ease and hope as she leans back into Emma's arm, thinking again that things might truly be alright.

After that, the days pass steadily. There are moments where everything clicks and it seems possible that her life might be working itself slowly through all of its difficulties, finding a way to stretch good moments for longer.

Like moments in the kitchen when the day is coming to an end but Emma will still laugh at every single joke Regina tells, and Henry will laugh at Emma, and the laughter will go on and on, effortlessly into the late hours of the night.

In those moments, Henry will smile at her like he had when she was still alive, like the mother who had kissed him goodnight and combed through every knot in his hair; the mother who had nursed him through every mysterious fever and nightmare; the mother who had been as familiar to him as the maps of countries he now looks over, far away from here, searching for new kinds of happy endings.

And then there are days - moments - when he looks at her like he doesn't know her at all.

On those days, he will disappear from the house with flowers, out to some place he will not name. On those days, she will avoid the large, empty house and walk along the streets until her fingers numb and her teeth chatter. Until she is absolutely sure she is alive again.

Sometimes the days will be even worse; Emma will come home with a difficult smile on her face; she will avoid any serious conversation before bed where Regina might get a half-answer from exhaustion alone ("there are just a few missing dogs, that's all") and find out the rest through a passing conversation on the street. The dogs are no longer missing, she knows, but still just as gone.

On those days, Regina feels trapped by every wary eye on the street.

It is a long string of difficult days before anything changes. It is a random invite to a lunch – a guilty impulse from Snow, Emma says, but there is more enthusiasm in her than Regina has seen in almost a week. They all pile into the car with their heavy coats and thick scarves, Emma humming to the radio the whole drive, and Regina catching Henry's smile from the rearview mirror.

Emma parks the car into a small lot beside David's truck. Peering out of the window, Regina can see Snow and Charming shivering in the cold air, bundled in their heavy coats with Neal beside them. Some part of her inflates, warming her chest because the moment she opens the door, Neal wobbles down the stairs in his big snow jacket.

"Regina!" He yells with a grin and nearly slips on a step. Snow jolts a few sharp steps closer but Neal is already balancing himself again, struggling down the stairs again.

"Slow down, buddy," Henry calls out loudly from behind her

"Impossible," Emma chuckles as she rises from the other side of the car, "Better steady yourself, Regina. You're about to get the full force of a six year old on you."

"Oh, I think I can manage," Regina chuckles. "At least he's not carrying a heavy backpack." She recalls how Henry's small, lithe body dodged through after-school crowds with ease before jumping into her arms with complete faith that he would be caught, back when he could expect only the safety in his mother's arms.

Stepping clear of the car, she remembers to bend her knees a little in preparation just in time as Neal jumps off the curve of the sidewalk and she catches him beneath the arms, helping him up against her hip. Surprised and giddy at being caught, he presses a bubbling laugh against her neck and she chuckles, hugging him tighter to her.

"Such a silly boy," she chided lightly and warms his cheeks with hers; his thin arms wrap skittishly around her neck, moving with an edgy excitement, surprised by unexpected affection. She presses him closer – his body as thin and knobby as Henry's had been as a boy.

"Looks like everyone is already in line," Henry briskly brushes by them and jogs up the narrow steps.

Regina sighs and watches him go. "That was callous of me, wasn't it?"

"For what? Referencing the fact that you raised him?" Emma grunts and shoves the door closed. "No. You don't have to forget your whole life with him just because he's being difficult."

The old motherly instinct to defend her child draws her up straight, her heart bruising inside of her ribs with a hard anger.

"This is more than him just being difficult, Emma," Regina snaps and repositions Neal higher on her hip, stepping up onto the sidewalk. "He is going through something that he doesn't know how to understand. I had expected a little more sympathy from you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"If you thought about it, I think you'd find you have been in his position before." Regina can hear the flat of Emma's shoes hitting the stone steps a little harder than usual. "Maybe not exactly, but you know what it's like to not have a mother, and then have her again in the oddest way possible, in a way that you can't understand. It takes time," she says, though she knows Emma hadn't had it either. (But Emma is a better mother.)

There is a quiet pause before Emma sighs and picks up her pace, shuffling to her side. "Alright, I get it," Emma sighs. "But I'm not trying to make him the odd man out. I am on his side. I'm just also on yours. I just want to make you both happy, that's all."

Regina tries to hold onto her anger, but it gives like a sail without wind because Emma is so earnest in her devotion for them both.

Sighing, she glances up at Henry as they approach the top of the steps, his body turned away from them, his shoulders hunched beneath his heavy coat. "I just don't want him to feel alone in this, as though he has no one standing behind him."

"He won't," Emma assures gently, "And anyway, he grew up to be a miniature you so I don't think it'll take much longer for him to go soft." Neal's small chin quivers against her shoulder from the force of Regina's scoff. "It's true, you're a total optimist underneath that hard glare of yours," Emma grins. "I've never seen someone give so many people the benefit of the doubt."

"Oh come on," she scoffs, stepping up the last of the steps.

"No, really, I have a list." Emma shuffles up to her, grinning as she counts the fingers on her gloved hand. "Zelena, for starters, Cruella and Ursula, Snow. You literally gave Robin your heart for god's sake."

She glares at Emma, "All of those were failures, let me remind you."

Emma's face spreads with her smile. "Well you gave me a second chance," she pushes a warm shoulder against hers. "Just look how well that turned out, huh?"

Regina hums impassively, but Emma has a habit of warming the difficult spots in her chest, like light struggling through a closed curtain; as they walk up the narrow pathway she feels lightened even as they walk up to a line of strangers, their glares squinting at her through the cool air.

The cobbled pathway is too narrow to walk side by side, but Emma slides close behind her, Neal's legs dangling at her side. His head rests against her chest where it stays there until Snow turns around to face them again.

"Neal," Snow calls sharply, "You better get your butt over here quick if you want any food." Feeling the shift of interest, Regina sets Neal down on the ground and watches him race out the icy gravel to his mother's side.

Henry glances at her as they move into the line, shivering with David a few steps ahead of them. She almost expects him to leave his place to return to her side, but his face is muddled like rain water in the street, wavering unsteadily between something stony and unsure. He ends up turning around again, facing away from her.

Emma slides an arm around Regina, pulling her close. "Hey, it's alright," Emma sighs, squeezing her gently. "He'll come around. I promise."

Regina can only nod, walking silently beside Emma as her heart shivers inside her chest.

She had been drifting off, relying on Emma to direct her forward so that she can watch the knee-length grass sway along the cliff's edge, white birds swooping down close to the ocean, lifting up listlessly with the wind. When she feels Emma stiffen, she looks back, finally noticing the quiet argument occurring in front of her.

There is a thin, weedy man leaning against the counter, his cheeks hollowed and face thin. "Come on, man." He groans lowly. "I'm starving."

"I don't care," the man behind the counter snaps, growing agitated. "If you don't have money, I'm not serving you."

"I've been eating here all my life. You can't spare just a few crackers for me on my way home?"

Regina glances over at his face, recognizing the hungry look in his eyes. It is an expression she fears in herself – in any reflective surface when the hours of the day get too long or the stretch of time before meals feels expansive. In those moments, she knows not to look at the dark shadows in her face, the strangeness looking out of her eyes, mysterious even to herself.

"Look, I want you out of here if you don't have money."

"Come on, man, I'm asking for some bread."

"Well, you're not getting it, so scram," the man says, but his mind is working quickly. He recognizes the hunger on the young man's face. "I'm warning you," he says, his hand disappearing beneath the counter.

The man glances down, noticing the flat blade of a knife. Regina can see the rage darken his face, tightening his hands to fists. "You gonna stab me?" He asks. "For some fucking bread?"

"Don't talk to me that way, boy."

"Alright, I'll pay okay?" Emma's hard voice cuts as she reaches for her wallet, but Regina doesn't look anywhere else but the man in front of them, his body shaking with an anger that is familiar to her.

He poured his fury onto the counter, remaining still until the money in Emma's hand taps him on his arm. Glancing down at it, he just shakes his head. "Forget about it," he says hollowly and slips away, disappearing down the stone steps.

"Great waste of my time," the man scoffs and turns to Regina with the same look, his face barely hiding his hatred. "You're not going to give me any trouble, are you?"

It straightens Regina's spine. It's the kind of look she received when she was a new bride walking down the aisle in a white cream dress in an unknown place, the sun dark on her skin and her eyes like a trapped, dying animal. But nobody saw that, nobody noticed, their eyes passing through everything except for her skin, passing like steel filaments through her, marking her forever as the dark, foreign-looking girl, the stranger.

"Can you just take our order?" Emma snaps.

He stares at Regina for a moment before slowly looking back to Emma, a short smile appearing on his face. "Sure."

But Regina continues to stare at him, silently as stone, a hard knot of anger forming in her throat. She watches his pale face change in conversation, becoming more relaxed as he talks, but it stays the same inside her head, his white rancorous rage pressed as a red shadow against her eyelids. Food is passed between their hands, but the feeling remains, blowing darkly inside of her, her ribs like a deep shuddering coal mine with life trapping deep inside.

They find the rest of the family by the tables, the wood cold and conversation thin, skirting around important topics as they all eat. The food is warm and familiar, but Regina struggles to swallow it each time, coating the inside of her mouth like dirt. The words, "You're not going to give me any trouble" bounced around in her head, the anger perched like a rock in her throat.

After a while, Emma leans against her. "Hey," she asks. "You alright?"

"Yes." Regina says thinly. "I'm fine."

Emma easily recognizes a lie - she knows - but Snow is right across from them, her attention flickering back and forth from David to them. Emma knows to remain quiet.

After a while, Emma leans in to whisper. "Does the food taste off or something?"

"No," Regina sternly sets down her fork, hoping that is warning enough. "I'm just not hungry."

It is a normal lie in her memory, but forever odd now because Emma stiffens and the hollow ache of her stomach sharpens – but she can't make herself eat.

Emma rests a warm, wary palm on her leg that Regina shakes off. Because she is hungry and she is angry and suddenly she can't stop thinking about the blood stuck beneath Graham's fingernails, skin between his teeth.

A quake of nervousness creeps down her shoulders and she shivers, standing on shaking knees. "I think I'll go for a walk."

"I'll go with you," Emma says quickly, already standing.

"No," Regina snaps, harsher than she intends "Stay here."

Emma's knees bend on instinct, sinking her body half-way back to the bench. Still, in a weak voice she says, "You shouldn't go alone."

"Mom," Henry interrupts and Regina feels the sharp twinge in her neck as she turns to look at him. His words are directed to Emma, but his eyes are focused on her. "Just let her go alone, alright?"

Emma's face darkens in the cheeks and along the neck, but with a silent dip of her head she sinks back into her seat. Regina aches with the hurt on Emma's face, but still she is thankful for the opportunity to step away from the people she loves.

She walks along the cliff side, the grass waving in the cool air and brushing along her knee as she passes by. She is watching the ocean crash along the cliff, again and again. She does not notice the slim figure walking her way, moving quietly past her, catching Regina by the elbow.

With a sharp jolt of surprise, Regina immediately jerks her elbow away. The hand slips for only a moment before it tightens around Regina's wrist, tugging her forward. Looking up at the face in front of her, for a moment, Regina doesn't recognize her at all.

Her face is still sharp and angular, but the skin is paler than usual, pressed tight along her skull from where someone has braided her hair into tight, neat braid along her back. The hollows of her eyes have darkened, lined with exhaustion.

"Zelena?" She falters because for a moment, she isn't entirely sure.

But Zelena's mouth moves into a familiar smile, her flat square teeth and the two sharp canines poking out. "Hey sis," Zelena says her grip tightening, pressing hard along the bones of her wrist. "You certainly are difficult to get alone, aren't you?"

Zelena tugs again, and Regina stumbles accidentally, her heels sinking into the soft, wet dirt. "Why –" she breathes out in a rush, "You have been following me?"

"Well I couldn't just walk up to your house and say hello, could I?"

Regina glances quickly across her sharp, tired face. "What do you want?"

"Just a chat with my little sister, that's all," Zelena smiles, though the corners are already falling down, exhausted. Warily, she glances behind Regina's shoulder. "But not here. We can't be interrupted by that nosy Sheriff of yours."

"She won't be able to see us, here," Regina says and knows it's true when she glances back to the dark benches, her family like a blurry distant shore line, too far to reach. She turns back, alters her face into something gentle and soothing. "It's alright, dear. We can talk here."

Zelena wobbles, exhaling a shaky breath as she shakes her head. "No, no you have to come with me." She tugs her gently, with less force. Regina doesn't move at all. "We can talk back at my house."

Regina looks at her uncertainly. "Why at your house?"

"It's just… more private," Zelena says, though her lie is bare and raw on her face, exposed quickly by the guilt that follows, shivering through her. She stands like a statue on the cool grass, staring down at the hand that is still wrapped tightly around Regina's wrist. "I'm sorry, but you have to. You have to come back to my house."

In a moment, she understands.

"Ah," she sighs. Zelena's potential danger expands past herself and onto the dark shadowy corners of her own house, to the fears she had not dared say out loud to anyone, allowing the knowledge of her mother's return to exist in some distant place in her mind – much in the way people know of death, certain that it will happen, and yet always taken by surprise when it does.

"It's going to be fine," Zelena rasps, her fingers trembling on her wrist. "She just wants to talk to you. That's all."

With her hair pulled back so tightly and her eyes watery and bright she looks so young, so scared, and inside Regina's chest, her heart clatters like a cold kitchen cup, like the that had slipped from her fingers as a child and she had spent the morning picking it all up, burying them in the dirt with her blood just to hide from her mother.

"No, it isn't," Regina says. "There is never an end with my mother." Zelena's face registers grief the way it does with anger, the same crinkle of the mouth, stitching the same lines between her eyebrows. Regina watches it spread across her face and sighs, "But you must know that by now."

Zelena goes slack, her grip relaxing on Regina's wrist. "Well, I won't drag you there." Zelena snaps though her volume is lost in the wind, deflating her. She hides her hands into her coat, pulling it closer to herself. "Though, you should be aware…she will only find new ways to get to you. It won't just be me walking around in her old coat. If she wants to see you, she's going to make sure that she will."

She looks away, out toward to the distant shoreline and the small meandering path from where she came. "She can be very convincing."

"Zelena," Regina calls after her but Zelena doesn't hear it or she doesn't listen, turning away instead, disappearing down along the thin narrow path from where she came as Regina stood there watching her until she disappears completely.

She wanders back to the benches eventually, her family packed up and waiting by the stone steps. When they see her, Snow and David starts walking down, leaving Emma and Henry by the entrance, smiling timidly.

She floats through the whole ride home, unfocused, the quiet conversation in the car as distant as the sky is to her now, trapped beneath metal and miles and miles of space. Her chest feels hollow, as quiet as the rooms she used to live in, a listless anger somewhere around the corner and behind a door where a faint echo drums, beating behind her ears. Mother. Mother. Mother.

It doesn't take long for her mother to react. In the morning, with Emma still asleep, she wanders down to retrieve the newspaper only to open the door and feel everything inside of her close like shuddered doors and windows, trapping the small child inside so she doesn't scream, so that she can stare down at the heart on her doorstep with blank eyes, watching as it bleeds a warm spot on her front step.

A white card rests atop, saying, in perfect handwriting: To my darling.

She doesn't think – she wraps the bloody organ in the newspaper and drops it into the garbage, grabbing Henry's keys and driving recklessly to the narrow dirt road that leads to Zelena's house.

She doesn't care that her hands are still bloody and she doesn't bother to knock on the door, following the narrow walkway to the side fence instead. It opens after popping up a tough lock, creaking along the gravel and frozen grass as she stalks out into the backyard.

She finds her mother in a wicker chair on the front porch, unsurprised by her daughter's sudden entry. There is a cup on its saucer resting on the arm of a chair, held steady by the tips of Cora's fingers.

"Hello, my dear," Cora smiles. "What a pleasant surprise."

Regina doesn't let herself loose her steam, though she immediately regrets the gardening flats she slipped on in the garage, battered and old, she can feel her mother's amusement like the ice seeping in from the lawn. Still, her voice sounds strong and firm. "What the hell kind of game do you think you're playing, mother?"

Her mother laughs, a pleasant thrill like tinkling glass. "Didn't you enjoy that, dear?" she smiles and Regina feels her shoulders straighten, feeling the same kind of terror she had known as a child, frantic for affection, but knowing it was rarely love that made her mother smile. "I thought it was fun. Just a little joke between the two of us."

Her knees tremble, but she remains standing. "And just whose heart was that?"

"Oh, darling, please." Her mother laughs, "You've come to scold me on that?"

"Mother, tell me."

She waves a cloudy, impatient hand. "It was just a dog dear, honestly. No need for dramatics."

"You're the one who's been killing the dogs?" Regina travels through the same feeling she had on the streets, walking through the conversations of grief and disgust, the discussion of what might come next. She feels it differently now, as someone standing among them now, talking with them, worrying over the same thoughts and observations, wondering warily about what might come. "And eating them. You've been eating them, haven't you?"

"Well, of course," Cora presses her lips together as though the question is impertinent and slightly irritating. "It's too bad all the stores have the same old, frozen meat. I'm not sure how you've been managing it all this time." She sighs and tilts her head up, the cool, gray light sliding across her forehead. "I suppose that is one of the downsides of living again. Nothing tastes good anymore. Not unless it's just been killed."

For the first time, Regina actually looks at her mother. She is surprised by how different she looks, how frail, her bones like thin twigs beneath her skin. With her eyes closed, the light touching her face, Regina can see just how much death has taken an appearance on her mother's skin. It is in the hollows of her eyes, in the grim set of her mouth, and the frail powdery white of her skin.

She resists the urge to touch her own face – to make sure her skin is still firm and smooth beneath her fingers, still feels like flesh. Zelena looks at her from within the house, standing just beyond the milky-glass window. Her expression is unclear, but there is a gentle smudge on the glass from where fingers lifted to thoughtlessly touch the area where she stands.

What will happen to you? She thinks, and closes her arms across the ache of her chest. She can't think about that now.

"Well," she says, and Cora blinks and looks back at her. "Why am I here, Mother? What do you want?"

"Oh, nothing extravagant," she says, the side of her mouth pulling into a small, cold smile. "I have no use for power, anymore. My old life can have that dream. This time, I just want you."

She feels her heels sink a little more into the wet, icy dirt, but can do nothing to stop it. "You want me?"

Cora continues to smile, but around the edges of her mouth is her discomfort, fluttering like a curtain against an open window. "I meant what I said back then. Before – when, well, when I was dying." She shifts forward, clearing her throat in a sharp, unfamiliar way, as though to actually clear something away rather than to simply provide its sound: a clear sign of her disapproval. "I told you that you would have been enough for me. And I think it really would have been, if I had lived longer."

Regina can only stare at her. In the distance, through the glass, she can see Zelena closing the door again, slipping away into some unseen corner. All that remains is the silence, stretching between them like the miles of road she took to drive here, extending on and on.

Finally, her mother continues, nervously filling the silence on her own. "The choices I have made, well – I might have only regretted them for a few moments of my life, but…what the regret that I had felt was genuine." Cora says gently, but beneath that is the edge of anger; angry at having to explain herself – to be told that what she is might not be enough, that what she wants might be already gone – too old, too sad, too grown to let it happen.

"You want to spend time with me?" Regina asks, and feels the edge of a laugh in her throat, underlying her words, "That's all you want?"

"Is that funny to you?" Cora snaps, her surprise bleeding quickly into fury.

"Yes," Regina says, sighing with the end of her laughter. "I suppose it is." She feels the start of her own smile. "And you think you deserve that?"

Her mother's face dims, immediately angry. "Well, why else would I be here, darling? Why are you here?" She punctuates her question with a quiet scoff, lifting her cup to take a small, gracious sip. "To be frank, my dear, you have been just as cruel, just as hateful, as I have been. I don't think deserving a chance factors into any of this." In her mother's eyes is a coldness she's known all her life – a simple glance sends shivers down her spine, urges her, quickly, to look away, look away.

"We're still both here, though. You and me," Cora continues, and Regina hears the tone of her voice change, as though there were something beautiful in all this, something precious. "For whatever reason, we are here together now." Her mother smiles. "Don't you think that means something?"

"No," Regina snaps harshly. "I didn't ask you here. And I certainly didn't want you here."

"That has absolutely nothing to do with it."

"It has everything to do with it!" Regina yells. "You have a daughter who wants you. You have a daughter who loves you. Who might have even loved you enough to bring you back from the dead – doesn't that mean something to you?"

"Zelena?" Cora asks, genuinely surprised. Slowly, the side of her mouth pulls up with amusement. "Oh, darling, please. Is this another one of your jealousy fits? Zelena is not my daughter. Not really. I hardly know her at all." Regina closes her eyes, sending a convulsive prayer that the windows are closed and that the doors hold no cracks, that these words may never find Zelena.

"And anyway," her mother continues after a pause and a gentle sip of tea. "What does love have to do with this?"

Along her neck, she prickles with sudden awareness of the danger in this conversation. "It's only a theory," she answers quickly.

But her mother's caught on, already. "Only a theory, hm?" she straightens primly in her seat, smiling that cold smile of hers. She is three years old again asking about love, the warm hopeful flutter in her heart dying like flowers in the winter. "And just who do you think loved you enough to bring you back, my dear?"

The obvious answer lies in her son. But she hesitates with it, unsure of whether she wants to mark her son solely responsible to this life, for all the pain it has caused him and for all it might still harm him. But to say anyone else – to say Emma, well it opens up a whole different danger.

As she watches the sly curve of her mother's smile, she remembers the quiet games her mother used to play. By herself, often. Everyone else was her audience, waiting, easily reading her face, easily her mother can read her. "Surely you don't think it's that girl you've been living with."

"No," Regina answers quickly.

"Oh, but you do," Cora clicks her tongue. "My dear, you never learn, do you? After everything I've done for you. Everything I've tried to teach you and it's been absolutely wasted. What more can I possibly do to prove to you that you are only weak – only powerless – when you are in love?"

Her anger runs against her ribs like a dog against a chained leash, ending against her body with gnashing teeth. She feels for her magic, but it is empty inside of her so she walks closer, instead.

"You will do absolutely nothing," she snarls. "I don't care what you want mother. I don't care what hopes you had for me this time around – whether it was to be Queen or to simply be your daughter again, it doesn't matter to me. I will not hesitate for a moment to end your miserable life if I think even for a moment you might harm Emma."

Cora doesn't flinch, her eyes as cool and steady as glass. "Is that where your loyalty is, then?" she asks, her mouth an ugly smile. "To some low life drifter while you threaten your mother? Do you have no love for me whatsoever? "

She catches the accidental quiver in her mother's voice, the slip of her tongue, opening her mother's face to vulnerability. Though the anger in her urges her to make her hurt, beneath that is a soft yet familiar pain, the one she's known since childhood, wailing endlessly into a closed room, crying for a mother who refused to return.

"I do love you, Mother," she says and her throat closes tightly, suffocating. "I have loved you even through the worst of it. When you took Daniel from me. When you sold me –" she breathes in shakily, her mother's face growing sharp with attention. "I couldn't kill my love for you, but it didn't live, either. You never gave me that chance. It just grew in me like some twisted thing, like some poisonous plant that kills everything.

"So yes, I do love you," Regina rasps. " I loved you then and I love you now, but it doesn't change anything for me. Not anymore. I will lose you if I have to, if it means I don't lose Emma."

Her mother looks stricken for a moment, her eyes gleaming wet, her fingers trembling around the end of the arm chair – Regina gather these details closely, holding them tight to her chest even as they begin to disappear beneath her mother's already returning calm.

"Very well," her mother finally says, cool and collected, and Regina doesn't know whether to feel mournful or angry. All she can bear to do is leave, turning away to the side door, retreating into the front lawn, the cold grass tickling her ankles and freezing her feet.

Stepping up in Henry's large truck, she catches Zelena watching her through the front window, but she doesn't pause, slamming the door shut instead. She turns to drive out from the dirt road, out of mother's reach and away from her sister's loneliness, from the endless quaking fear in her heart. She drives on and on and on.

Regina decides not to tell Emma about her mother. She is unsure of her own motives, but doesn't bother to question them in the coming days, when violence seems to creep in like the late evening shadows. It can be seen in a broken window as she walks by, the store keeper's glare blurred through the remaining glass. She can see it in the townspeople's eyes, sometimes wary, but often only angry.

There are more fights now. Some are minor and most are not (as it turns out, her mother is not the only one taking the lives of beloved pets). It's impossible to guess which side is more violent: Graham once wrapped his hands around Emma's neck and left blind marks on her skin; a man came after Regina with a bat and swung for the head.

It is by an incidental glance at a passing store that she runs into Gus, allured by the bright display of comic books, she wanders inside to meet the familiar side-long profile of her friend.

"Gus!" Regina smiles, happiness climbing high inside of her as she walks to the counter. He glances up at her and smiles, pushing a dimple into his cheek. But his eyes look tired, slowing everything inside of her. She comes to a stop in front of him, staring deeply at him. "I didn't know you worked here."

"Yeah," Gus says. The curve of his smile floats up and down around the corners of his mouth like buoys in the sea. "Yeah, it's nice," he says and wipes a tired palm over his eyes. "The hours are kind of shitty but I get what I can. I like my boss, at least." There is a hard edge of anger in his voice, and Regina doesn't ask why he isn't working for Michael Tillman, anymore.

Regina glances quickly across the shop trying to find things she likes, but the wallpapers are yellowed with age and the lights above flicker every once in a while, and she knows in the curse - when everything remained consistent and safe – even then, this business was quietly dying.

She touches her hair (a nervous tick she hates) but ends up sliding it down her neck instead. "Well, do you like it here?"

"It doesn't pay that well. But, it's still a paycheck coming in. It's something," Gus says, still smiling; but something looks out of his eyes, a tired weariness. A quiet, dark loneliness. Some part of her, far deep inside, flickers with recognition. "We're making it work," he says, and she knows it's a lie.

Regina can hear someone scuffling behind her, another customer, but before Gus's attention can switch, she reaches for him, her hand curling over his. "Come over for dinner sometime, dear," she squeezes his hand, hoping the grip of her fingers can properly convey itself without feeling measured, an empty gesture to signal the end of a conversation. "I'll make you and your brother something nice, alright?"

"Okay," he says. A genuine smile creeps around the corner of his mouth. "That sounds good."

"Good," Regina squeezes his hand once more and sets down her purse. "Now, give me every new edition of Wolverine."

"The latest one was a few years ago. Henry's probably already read this stuff by now."

"Oh, that's fine," she blushes and slides out her wallet. "Do you take credit?"

"Yes, we do." Gus chuckles, and hands over a plastic bag. "Enjoy your comic books, Ms. Mills."

"Thank you, dear," she sighs and accepts the bag.

As she turns, sliding the bag over her arm, she glances quickly at the customer behind her, at her smooth clear face and the anger beneath it, setting her bones like steel. It's an expression she's become accustomed to in the passing weeks and is not in any way surprising, but what makes her come to a stop, her fingers turning cold, is the child beside her, his face an expression of abject terror.

I'm a mother, she wants to say, you have nothing to fear. But somewhere deeper, somewhere farther, she thinks: you haven't even seen the worst of me. She stands there for a moment, watching the mother press her child tighter against her legs and glaring angrily at her, helplessly, until Regina remembers to step to the side.

The space between them expands like a pair of lungs, finally stretching out as the child skirts quickly past her, quickly as though she might try to snatch a leg or arm. As though she were some large, cavernous creature; a ravenous spider waiting just beyond the reach of his mother's arms.

She leaves for the exit, her mouth aching with the smile on her face, her cheeks stinging with the sudden burst of the cold winter air as she steps out of the store, hate billowing inside of her like dark clouds, a storm whirling inside of her as she walks along the street.

She walks blindly to the Sherriff's station, only recognizing it by the heavy creak of the wooden door as she opens it and David's startled frown as she walks inside. But Regina doesn't look anywhere else but Emma's open office – peeking out from behind a black, winged chair is the familiar shape of Emma's shoulders, and so she moves forward, following the urgent need beating between her ribs to be touched, to be held close.

Emma makes a quick sound of surprise when Regina slides her arms around Emma's shoulders, but her surprise quickly turns into a laugh as she straightens to fill Regina's arms.

"Ahh," Emma's voice is bright with warmth, "You just came in to hug me?"

Regina nods, but a sudden shuddering breath catches in her throat, warming the soft angle of Emma's neck. Immediately, Emma's chair slides back, separating them for only a moment before Emma is pulling them back together again, holding her close. Regina's hands grip greedily onto the back of Emma's long sleeve shirt, muffling her shuddering gasps between just the two of them.

"What can I do?" Emma whispers a little while later.

Regina holds her with trembling arms. "Get me as far away from here as possible," she breathes.

The farthest they can go is a beach at the edge of town.

They had talked of going farther – Regina had suggested it at least - but it fell into a tense silence, Emma looking at her as though she had been hit. "You wanna go where there is no magic?" she had said, her fingers turning white on the wheel; Regina had been absently following red road lines of an old paper map in Emma's car, trailing them out of town onto the world outside, but watching the tremble in Emma's fingers made her fold it up and put it away.

She could have pushed it further, she knows.

She could have slipped away the moment they crossed the town line, just as easily as she had the first time. Or she could have walked along the boulevards of a strange city, in a world full of people who had not watched her disappear quietly into the earth, who knew life simply as something that either continued or didn't.

But what she could not abide to was the thought of Emma alone in that car, still driving, calling her name tentatively, only beginning to realize something must be wrong.

"The beach is fine," Regina says instead and closes her eyes. She lets Emma drive her wherever she likes.

The beach is freezing, but empty.

By the time they drive into the parking lot, Henry is already half-done spreading out blankets and chairs in a small spot beside the clear, empty beach. Regina smiles and doesn't let herself think about the frantic kind of text Emma must have sent him to get him to show up.

As they walk down the wooden path to the beach, she can feel the nervous glances Emma sends her way, always hidden quickly by a smile. Regina is trying, but the anger is still there, gathering like distant clouds in the sky, hiding any happiness like it would the sun – just some soft removed presence beneath the fog.

They shiver in silence for a few minutes until Henry releases them with a swift, gracious push, sending Emma stumbling back a few steps as he turns and dashes wildly for the water. Emma runs after him, her fake rage ringing out between bouts of her laughter. Regina watches them run, their legs and lungs pumping, fighting through the cold wind and water.

Henry shrieks with laughter when they reach the ocean, Emma splashing the back of his legs and Regina feels her happiness struggling through her again, the way long-lost swimmers fight their way back to shore.

Cupping her hands around her mouth, Regina yelled, "Splash her back, Henry!"

Henry turns to her, grinning wildly, suddenly a child all over again in his delight before he bends his knees and splashes water all the way up Emma's side.

"Hey!" Emma yelps, laughing loudly, and Henry turns to Regina again. He is three years old again chasing her through the house, following her laughter and the sound of her footsteps.

Joy expands inside of her and she yells back, "Tackle her to the ground!"

Emma's head snaps to her in shock. "What?" She screams.

Henry is more gracious than she would have been. He secures Emma by an arm and a leg, landing her lightly on her back. Emma's blonde hair lifts up like the loose sand around them, wild in the wind, and Regina watches them smiling, her eyes stinging from the cold and something gentle that rushes against her like water against the sand, lapping at the side of her until she feels light and breathless.

Emma rolls up from the sand with a thin kind of grace, still smiling widely. She jogs up the beach back to her, and Regina presses her lips together to keep from laughing at Emma's wrangled state – sand pressing into the wet folds of her jacket, her hair wild and sandy, her dark, wet jeans clinging from her calves down.

"You're in so much trouble," Emma yells over the wind, opening up her soaked, sandy arms, "Get over here!"

Regina easily dodges her and leaps out across the dry, cool sand. But she doesn't give much of a chase. With Henry's laughter booming in the distance and Emma's scattering footsteps behind her, she wants, in some way, to be connected to it. If it's by a hug, then, well, a little sand and sea-water isn't all that much trouble in the end.

She slows and Emma bumps into her, muffling a laugh against Regina's shoulder as her arms surround her. She can feel the warmth of Emma's body pressing close, her long, wet hair tickling her skin as she pulls her closer, smiling against her neck.

It is a clumsy hug – there is the grit of sand on Emma's cheek and the thin puffs of air between them, fingers cold and clumsy as they lock in front of Regina – but something lifts inside of her all the same, her ribs shaking with something large and momentous, with the cool press of Emma's lips, and the sand rubbing between them, everything she's wanted and lost stuck somewhere between their bodies and the years, joining in the ongoing rush inside.

Regina cannot speak. She is caught in the clatter of her love and want, in her fear and hope, turning her silently in Emma's arms. Resting a warm cheek against Emma's neck, she presses close enough to feel the curve of Emma's body beneath her jacket and that hard, erratic heart beating against their chests, filling two spaces at once.

Slowly, Emma's arms tighten, holding her closer. Regina barely has to move at all to press a gentle, warm kiss against Emma's neck.

Emma's breath tumbles against her neck as shivers all around her and Regina wants more of her, to feel her warm skin against her own. Thoughtlessly, her fingers drag down the hard ridges of Emma's back, slowly peeling peel up her cold, wet jacket and lay a palm on her warm, blushing skin. Against her neck, she can hear Emma's thin, uneven breathes.

"Hey Moms!" Henry calls out in the distance and they both jump apart, Emma looking warm and breathless and Regina tingling where Emma's body had touched as well as the word Mom, reaching out to surround them both. Her heart sweeps high and wild inside of her like a red scarf in the wind, sailing high and far, losing itself.

"Yes, dear?" Regina manages, watching the quiet embarrassment tint Henry's cheeks and how he tentatively wipes off the sand and sea-water on his hands and jeans. But the hard knot that usually holds him is loose still, allowing him to continue smiling, to remember a time when it was the easiest thing in the world to have two mothers and love them both.

"It's getting kind of late," he answers and nods to the far corner of the sky where dusk is leaking across the water, reflecting back the sky's pink clouds and darkening light. "You wanna start packing up, maybe?"

Emma just looks at her and Regina just continues smiling, remembering to nod and act as normal as possible.

"Alright," Emma says after a little while, sounding breathless. "Sure, let's go."

They pile into two different cars, both taking with them the sand and water and silence they held in them as they packed. Henry drives ahead of them, his headlights glowing dimly in the late evening, passing along dark, silent roads and the houses surrounding them.

But, in this moment, these dark houses hold no interest to Regina. She cannot look away from Emma, watching carefully for signs of her feelings, hoping to reflect back on her face the expectations she should have for the evening. But her face is as smooth and distant as the streets ahead of them, moving them steadily forward.

It is only when they've entered the house and Henry has disappeared up into his room that Emma seems to change at all. When the door closes, she breathes out deeply and turns towards the thin coat rack by the door, unzipping her jacket.

It's then, as she's slowly sliding off her jacket that Emma glances back at her, her eyes dark and warm. "Do you want anything to drink?" she asks.

There is that hint in her voice, the want that stretches out of her like a laugh through all of the rooms in her house, gentle and sweet and certain. Exhilaration jolts in Regina, spreading from the arches of her feet to the prickling skin along her neck, warming her skin with the sudden certainty of where this evening will go.

Regina can imagine what she could say next. It could be sweet and flirty. She could follow Emma into the kitchen, drink her wine and wait for the evening to settle, for the right moment to rise so that they can set their drinks aside, no longer needing the aid of a warm buzz.

With her other lovers, these faint, lingering moments before sex had been the most enjoyable, still filled with possibilities before anything settled and became permanent. But with Emma she cannot bear to wait any longer.

Regina knows how to walk silently in heels, watching Emma's skin glow warm beneath the soft dim of the hallway lights as she makes her slow approach.

"I don't need a drink," she says only when she is close enough to feel Emma's back straighten, a place for her to press against. Her lips find the back of Emma's neck, breathing a soft, gentle kiss against her skin. Her hands brushes along Emma's ribs as she gently grips Emma's body in her arms, pulling her closer.

It is this touch, a simple push that makes Emma boneless. She breathes out and melts her neck back against Regina, the rest of her body falling against the certainty of the bones and arms behind her. Regina kisses slowly up her throat, reaching her ear to bite and soothe it with her mouth.

She whispers, "Let's go upstairs."

"Yeah, okay," Emma breathes.

They don't make it to the bed. Wanting something hard and flat to press against, to feel every inch of each other, they stretch out on the floor instead, clothes landing in heaps beside them. Emma is breathing hard, her hips working with the rhythm of Regina's fingers as her mouth brushes soft, open-mouthed kisses on any part of Regina that she can reach: her neck and chin, the long slope of her jaw, bumping her mouth hard against a shoulder.

Regina slaps a sweaty palm on the floor above their heads, accidentally sliding with Emma's long hair, sharply pulling at her scalp; Emma groans lowly, scraping her teeth along Regina's shoulder, both too far lost in each other to consider the faint marks they're leaving on the borders of their bodies.

The air is chilly, filling the spaces between them and prickling across their exposed bodies. It edges Emma's fingers along the floor to tangle with Regina's, gently squeezing as she mouths sweet, open-mouth kisses along her neck.

Emma's gentle affection is no longer surprising, but still this love inside of her swells, crashing like a wave against the cliffs, turning white and churning, filling cracks and crevices inside. It makes Regina frantic, her fingers stretching deep to that one spot that has Emma gasping, her lower back lifting from the floor, pressing up to meet her.

"Fuck," Emma gasps weakly, body arching with pleasure. Regina watches hungrily as her face pinches into an expression completely new and raw, jumping with hard, blissful lines. Slowly, Emma goes limp, breathing heavily into the chilly air above them.

Regina sighs and slowly slides off Emma, stretching out across the cool wood floor. Emma is still quivering, struggling to regain her breath as they lie out side by side on the floor, staring up at the ceiling.

The cold fills the empty of air around Regina's body, in a small ball on her back and in the space between her arms (where Emma should be).

So quietly, after a moment, she leans the length of her body against Emma, her arms grasping weakly around her waist. Emma's face slowly crinkle into a smile, her eyes still closed.

"I didn't know you were so cuddly."

"I am not."

Emma's hand travels up Regina's arm, "You kinda are."

Regina tries to protest, but her words get lost in the painful crack of her voice so she decides against making a point at all, leaning instead, towards getting what she wants. Nudging with her nose, she drops a gentle kiss on the underside of Emma's jaw, feeling the faint quiver of her skin.

"In any case," she whispers. "You're making me do all the 've got two arms of your own, if you remember."

Emma laughs deeply and wraps around her, pressing her lips against Regina's temple. "You're such a dork," Emma smiles, still breathing raggedly as she squeezes weakly with her arms. "Satisfied, yet?"

"Mmm," Regina nuzzles against Emma's chest. "It will do."

They lay there for a little while, the last of the evening light resting in long rectangles on the floor, touching the tops of Emma's feet and along the long arches of their backs. The cool air gently exposes the pleasant aches in their bodies, soft red bruises left on their skin like seashells on the shore.

A warm hand slides down her thigh, Emma mumbling quietly. "Wanna go again?"

"Yes." she sighs, smiling.

Emma lifts them up into a sitting position, pulling Regina onto her lap, sliding a hand between her thighs. They rock against each other, their bodies seeking a rhythm that works for the both of them.

As they're breathing raggedly against each other, Regina still following the motion of the fingers inside of her, she hears Emma's quiet gasp, "I still can't believe it, sometimes." Glancing down, she finds an expression of pain and joy in Emma's face, the creases around her eyes wet with tears.

Regina knows. She understands. Her hands grip Emma's shoulders painfully tight to help their movement, bringing them closer together each time.

"I'm here." Regina assures, "I'm here."

She says it again and again until it gets lost in other noises, in their quiet, desperate moans, in their gripping arms as they wrap around gentle rocking hips and shoulders – holding each other up, holding them together.

They make it into bed hours later. Emma is sleeping quietly, splayed out across Regina, the shell of her ear touching the hollow of Regina's throat as they rest against each other, bones against bones.

Regina is half-dozing beneath her, watching the morning light touch the clouds outside as Emma's musky warmth surrounds her, the smell of sea-water and sweat. It's the closest thing to sleep she's felt in a while.

It's still early and the house is quiet and so Regina does not expect the gentle knock on her door. Blinking, she watches blearily-eyed and sleepy as the door slowly opens, her son's head popping in.

"Hey, would you – Oh."

Regina jolts up, frantically grabbing the cool sheets left around their waist to cover themselves up. Emma is dead weight on top of her, of course, but she manages to wrap the sheet over Emma's shoulders and over her legs, tucking it in around her own body, holding Emma's head close to her neck just in case those marks are visible in this light.

"What's wrong? What is it?" Regina asks hoarsely, voice cracking embarrassingly. "Are you – are you okay?"

"Um," Henry's voice wobbles uncertainly, and even with his head turned completely away from her and his hands covering his eyes, she can see the bright red of his cheeks. "Yes. Sorry. I shouldn't have come in. I'll…I'll just come in a little later."

"What is it?" Regina asks because it's early in the morning and her son has never once come to their room, not once since she's woken up. And though she wants the door to close again, seal her back into the warm forgetfulness of the room sleep – her son is acting unpredictably. Something unexpected threatens the air between them.

Henry draws a deep breath, his hand still covering his eyes. "I was wondering if you would help me with something."

"With what?"

When Henry remains quiet, Regina nearly stands to get a better look of his face, put his expression against the ones still there in her memory, to understand him better, but Emma's weight presses her down, a gentle reminder to the cool sheets along her bare skin.

Finally, she says, "Alright. I'll go with you."

"Really?" Henry looks up, his surprise pushing his hand up along his hair. "You will?"

"Yes," Regina smiles, because though his face is still blushing red, she can hear the steel-toned hope and fear in his expression.

He nods, and clears his throat. "Um. Would you – would you mind going now? I know it's still kinda early but it's the only time we can go."

Regina feels the sharp desire to ask where, but she knows any further pressing might turn Henry away, tighten the knot that usually holds him still.

"Alright," she says instead and smiles when Henry's face wavers with something too enormous, too large to hold back. He remains there for a moment, standing by the door, struggling, and though she wants to go to him, hold him, she also desperately needs to get dressed.

"Henry," Regina says after a while, Emma shifting quietly against her. "I'll need to get ready.

"Oh, right," Henry's face floods with embarrassment. "Right, right," he says and quickly turns, nearly bumping into the door as he leaves the room.

Regina sighs deeply and allows herself a moment to collect herself again, to feel the small comfort of the room: Emma's skin and even breathing, the early morning light touching the far corners of the room, the gentle, absentminded warmth of their tangled fingers.

"I think I was wrong, darling," Regina whispers to Emma's forehead. "You're worse than a rock." She kisses her gently before easing out from the warmth of their bed, walking barefoot along the floor the floor to Emma's wardrobe, quietly dressing in warm clothes.

They leave the house quietly, Regina locking the door behind them before they both climb into Henry's truck. Henry blasts the heat, though it doesn't make the leather any warmer against their legs, sticking to them like ice on the streets. Regina watches the town pass by her for a while, watching it in its silent slumber, the windows dark and the roads empty.

She doesn't ask where they are going; she waits for the road to become familiar instead.

When the grassy hill steadily grows steeper and opens up into the entrance to the cemetery, she is somehow unsurprised. Graves stand as sleek, tall markers against the grey sky and dark plotted earth. Slowly, Henry parks at the side of the road through the iron-wrought gates, the sound of his wheels over gravel rumbling loudly around them.

There is a moment of silence between them, the cold morning light drifting in through the windshield in thin, watery beams. Finally, Henry clears his throat.

"So," he says, breathing in deeply. "I guess you know that I've felt really…um…uncertain about everything."

"Yes."

"And…" His mouth twists to the side, and she knows to remain silent, to not guess his words before he can finish them. He has difficulty the way Emma does with reaching the words inside of him, plotted the way roots are beneath dirt. "I don't want to be unsure anymore. I think – I think you really could be her. You seem like her, at least. It seems possible."

Regina watches his fingers knot around the wheel.

"But it's been five years." He rasps. "You've been dead for so long and I don't know how to believe in anything else. I believed you would once. When you were just missing. You were just someone who disappeared beneath water, I didn't care that no one saw you come up. Emma said it was possible you would still be alive and I believed her because I was thirteen and still thought good things happened to good people."

His rough, raw fingers tightened around the wheel as if pressing blood through his hands might keep the emotion from his voice. "And then we found you. Washed up on the beach just a week later. And I couldn't believe anymore, I couldn't believe anything anymore, but I was still just thirteen and growing up without you. And the only thing I have had of you is this. Just a plot of dirt. I came here once every week for five years. And even more, since then."

Regina's voice sounds scratchy in the silence. "What do you need?"

Henry wipes his cheeks with a rough palm. "I just – I need to know. I need to know if that little plot of earth is still all I have of my mom or if I'm just talking to an empty grave now."

Regina understands. For a moment, she is completely silent, staring out into the cold grey morning as Henry waits. His thumb slides back and forth along the worn leather of his steering wheel. He is waiting for her permission, she knows.

A part of her wants to say no. Keep this a mystery; leave her coffin just a cold dark box beneath the ground, unopened. But a larger part of her wants her son's long tiring journey to be completed. For questions to finally be answered.

"Alright," she says at last.

"Alright," Henry sighs heavily.

Her grave is near the top of the hill where the ground is wet and icy beneath their feet; beside her headstone are all of the flowers Henry has set out in the last month, slowly frosting over.

The edge of the shovel wavers gently above the quiet mount of dirt before he sets it in deep, ripping open the earth. Regina stands uneasily beside him as he works, watching the soil go from an icy brown to black, smelling cold and icy, she waits for the moment the earth turns to wood and Henry can finally stop digging.

She hears the hard metallic clunk only a few minutes later, halting them both. Henry draws away, looking down at the wooden coffin still hidden mostly in dirt. Regina doesn't dare look; she hears it creaking open as she's staring out toward the bare branches, dark and empty-looking against the sky. She doesn't turn until all the air in Henry's chest pushes out from inside of him.

"What is it?" she whirls around, watching Henry's face frantically.

But Henry doesn't react. He only stares down at the coffin, his face pressed clear of any emotion. Numb, uncomprehending. And then slowly, he looks up to Regina.

"It's empty," he says.

"Empty?" she whispers.

Slowly, he nods and shivers, as if only now realizing he is standing in a cold pit of earth. He trembles before he pulls in a deep, shuddering breath, his face opening like a door to the grief of a thirteen year old.

"Mom," he shudders and Regina pulls him into her arms, holding onto him the way she did when he was a child, his spasms just as frightening to her as they were then.

She knows only to hold tighter through her terror, waiting for those frantic gasping breaths to break, shuddering suddenly into something else - bright and warm and breathless. She holds him tight, through all his bright watery laughter.

It's nearly an hour later when they finally come back to the house. Henry is still wiping the tears from his face, running along the dirt smeared on his cheeks, his body turning shy in the quiet between them. But still, he is smiling.

It's still early in the morning and so she sends him back to bed with a gentle kiss on his cheek. He ducks his head, blinking back tears again, but happiness is blooming in the curve of his cheeks. He nods and disappears quietly into the rooms upstairs.

Sliding off her coat, she hangs it on the rack and glances around the house, still dark and silent. She is about to creep back upstairs to rejoin the warmth of Emma's bed when she catches a faint glow of a lamp down the hall. Walking silently, she finds Emma half-asleep in a chair in the living room, a cup of coffee balancing loosely in her hands.

"Hey," Regina smiles, approaching the chair quietly. "What are you doing down here, dear?"

Emma blinks, blearily rising up from her seat. Her coffee cup tilts on her lap, nearly spilling until her hands tighten around it.

"Oh right." Emma sighs and sets her coffee cup warily on the corner of the table. "I just noticed the car was gone. Thought I'd wait up for you."

She feels a sharp pinch of guilt as she recognizes the hard set of Emma's mouth, the barely noticeable tremble in the corner.

"Henry wanted me to help him with something," Regina says, and gently lifts the bottom of Emma's chin with the tips of her fingers. Slowly, she presses a soft, sweet kiss against her mouth. Emma's sigh tumbles on her lips.

"Oh," Emma looks down at her coffee cup, smiling. "I thought maybe you were regretting..."

"I know," Regina whispers gently and leans in for another soft kiss. "I don't."

She means it to only be a quick touch of the lips, but Emma leans into it, deepening it with the gentle press of her teeth, tongue flicking against the bottom of her lip; Regina hums, and pulls her closer, Emma's warm hand sliding around her neck.

They make out slowly in the small cold living room.

Slowly, something settles inside of her. A realization, neither large nor surprising. She might have even known it the moment she stepped into this house, into the cold kitchen with an empty fridge and that raw, bare look on Emma's face, her grief shaping her like the bones beneath her skin.

But it is this soft gentle kiss that makes her suddenly certain - like the firm touch of Emma's forehead now, gently resting against her own - that her death had killed Emma. It took away something, and now they're both dead and alive, looking in each other for a way to come back again.

There is something dangerous about it, Regina thinks, having a bond like this. There is something vaguely dooming about it.

But still, her heart beats with a warm hopefulness. I'm here, she thinks. I am alive.

"Let's go back to bed," Regina whispers against Emma's forehead.

Emma nods once, relieved.

In bed, Emma falls asleep quickly, warm and solid against her. Regina remains awake, watching the steel-toned light touch the far corners of their room, the wind worrying the thin tree branches against the window pane, the quiet sounds of the house around them. Within, something warm and soothing surrounding her, like the steady sound of Emma's heart beating. Regina closes her eyes with something like sleep.

The next morning Emma wakes to a phone call, her face draining of color. A body found in the street. Stripped of flesh. Eaten.

The car ride to the hospital thunders in silence.