The dream was the same as always, just more intense, clearer. Like it was trying to get out of Emma, but having Regina around her was a cork, keeping it bottled up, trapped in Emma and trying to gnaw its way out.
She'd just gotten back from the Enchanted Forest, that wasteland that'd been left behind when Regina had taken her revenge, literal scorched earth. Her body still ached from a swordfight she'd been in. She needed a shower, a hot meal, a change of clothes, but all that could wait.
Regina had gotten her out, fairy dust and dark deals, looking at Emma and Mary-Margaret as she pulled them through the portal with some warped sense of ownership. Like doing this, taking this from Snow White, had somehow evened the books.
Books Emma knew could never be even.
There was a little celebration, like there always was when Mary-Margaret and David reunited, and Henry jumping all over Emma almost pulled her away from what she had to do. Because Regina was there, hanging at the outskirts like a besieging army looking for a hole in the defenses, coolly sizing up Storybrooke's defenders as Grumpy broke out a bottle of champagne.
Hours later, Henry had fallen asleep from all the excitement, having stayed up for days to get them back. Mary-Margaret and David took him home. Emma stayed. She waited while Regina's house emptied out, till it was just the two of them. She was in the parlor, alone but hearing Regina's motion through the rooms, the click of her heels like a riding crop being struck.
Finally, it came to the door. The knob turned. Regina stood there, poised as always, her hair fixed, her make-up perfect, while Emma still had dragon blood to wash off. They stared at each other, both of them so good at poker faces.
"I've wanted to talk to you," Regina said.
"Oh, you have no idea."
Regina entered the room, door shut behind her. She stalked around, making a show of cleaning up the remains of the party, after Emma's friends. "I didn't save you out of the goodness of my heart."
"That I believe."
"Henry needed a sign that I'd changed. And I've given him one. As well as you, I should think."
"Yeah, no." Emma shook her head. "No. Let's not even start on the 'I've changed, I want to be a good mom, I'm going to redeem myself' bullshit. Because I was in prison, Regina, I know that bullshit, okay? And I actually got my shit together without having someone to drag down with me, so this is me, right? Not in the mood."
Regina pursed her lips, still sizing Emma up. "You don't know me, Miss Swan."
"That's right. No one knows you. You keep everyone away so they don't realize what a crazy bitch you really are. Because if they knew, they'd have left me there just so you couldn't use me to get to Henry."
"You will watch your tone with me, Swan. If nothing else, I took care of your child while you didn't fucking want him. You think you're mother of the year now because you changed your mind?
Regina moved in close, trying to intimidate Emma, and it almost would've worked—her, the voice of experience, rationality, success, power. But not this time.
"I talked to Cora."
Emma could see it, especially in the dream, see it like it was under a magnifying glass. Regina started to crack open. Her voice faltered, "Don't," trying to deliver some elaborate threat but all she could muster was that one word.
And Emma didn't listen. "She told me everything. And here I thought you were just some witch. But you were a girl once. Until you met my grandfather. And seduced him, and used him to get what you want, and murdered him…"
Regina shook her head hard (did Emma see tears in her eyes then? She did in the dream). "Get out of my house."
"You tried to kill your own mother. And you did kill a man who loved you, some stableboy, because he might get in the way of your royal wedding—"
Regina's hand moved of its own accord. There was no telling how long it'd been balled into a fist, but it hit Emma fast, sending her sprawling over Regina's desk, pictures and documents flying down with her. Emma saw herself surrounded by photos of a child, her child, a baby and a toddler and a kid, all the little moments that'd been stolen by Regina. Along with her grandfather. Along with her parents.
It pushed her further.
"You're a whore," Emma spat, tasting blood. "And I will never let you near Henry, not for one moment, you psychotic—"
Regina lunged onto Emma, driving her face into the hard oak of her desk, the splatter tingeing them both with blood. "You have no idea! No idea what I went through! You think—" And that was all Regina got out before she just started screaming, the sound of an animal caught in a trap, and flung Emma to the ground. Emma hit hard, her elbow making a nasty sound against the tile, and instinctively scrambled away as Regina stalked after her, teeth grinding in her mouth.
"What'd Cora tell you?" Regina demanded. "That you were her good girl? That you just had to do what she said and you'd be happy? Huh? That a king would be such a good husband for you, take such good care of you, give you so muuuuch…"
With another insane howl, Regina pulled the silverware set off the china hutch next to her, throwing the pieces across the room, at Emma, everywhere, just to hear them smash into the walls. Framed pictures broke, plaster crumbled, Emma cried out as a plate bounced off her knee.
"What exactly do you think I did, Emma? Do you think I had a choice? Your grandfather… making me prove I'd be a good wife. Because it was what he wanted. It was what my mother wanted. Everyone wanted it but me. Have you ever been purified, Emma? Given a gift to your true love and then had it erased from your body so a king could have his precious blood from you? Did Cora tell you about that?"
She'd run out of silverware. Now she pulled at the hutch itself until it fell over, smashing against the wooden floor with a perfectly resounding crash, the noise of destruction echoing through the house.
"You think I wanted to be queen?" Emma had long since fled, but she could still hear Emma. The woman was screaming. "I wanted to run! I would've traded everything to be the wife of a—stableboy," her voice cracked for a moment, like her rage was residing. Then it came back, stronger than ever; she pulled a poker from the fireplace and whipped it into the walls, clawing up the wallpaper, bringing down the evidence of her happy life, the signed certificates, the family photos, everything. "But she—wouldn't—let me! Your mother! She took everything from me because she wanted a goddamn babysitter!" Regina drove the poker into the wall, over and over again, cracking through the plaster until she hit wire. With a hiss of ozone, the room went dark.
It took a long time, but the poker slipped from Regina's hand. It seemed to make a lot of noise hitting the ground. Emma watched, hiding behind a corner, as Regina staggered through the room, crunching glass on unsteady feet. The only light came from the fireplace, the roaring fire that'd now burned down to red ash.
"Now he hates me too. Henry. You've stolen him from me. Just like your mother took Daniel. She wanted to be a daughter, you want to be a mother, and you always get what you want. Because you're princesses. You're special and I'm not. You should try being ordinary sometime. It's not very easy… I need some air."
She walked out the patio door, not seeming to notice the cracked glass, and disappeared into the night. That was the last Emma saw of her.
The woman that came back wasn't her… not quite. No one could really explain who she was. The rule was that if someone stepped over the boundary, they lost their knowledge of the Forest and became only their Storybrooke self. But Regina hadn't had one. She'd always been one and the same, the Evil Queen.
Emma thought that Regina Mills—the Mayor—was who Regina would've liked to have been. The family that she'd have wanted, dead now so they couldn't hurt her. The life she'd have wanted, a leader but not the kind Leopold had been, someone who gave to their people instead of taking. However Regina's intentions had warped in casting the Curse, there'd been at least part of her that just wanted peace.
It didn't really matter to Emma, what Regina remembered, what made sense to her and how it made sense. What concerned her—what kept pulling her to Regina, week after week, day after day, night after night—was whether Regina had known she was crossing the boundary. It seemed impossible that she hadn't, with the patrols. Had she just been unlucky enough to slip in between their route? Or had she waited for them to pass, thinking of what she'd done and what'd been done to her? A son who she'd never see, a head full of memories she'd crossed worlds to get away from, an entire town that hated her.
Maybe she didn't even know the magic would make her forget. Maybe, in her pain, she still thought it worked the way it did before. If you tried to leave, the curse stopped you. Permanently, even.
She'd wandered back, bloody and exhausted and cold, and collapsed, fever-ridden. By then the guilt had set in for Emma, the cold weight of Regina's words pressing down on her. She'd actually been cleaning up Regina's place, like a peace offering, when Regina collapsed outside.
Gold had figured out what'd happened to her and Emma had suggested the cover story, something out of an old movie. Regina couldn't be allowed to find out the truth about Storybrooke, because it would lead to the truth about herself, and that would lead to her trying again, maybe worse this time. So she was imprisoned in her own house. Paying for the crimes of a woman she wasn't anymore.
Now Emma had fallen in love with her, giving into the tension that'd always been there. Fallen in love with the woman Regina might've been, if not for Emma's family, fallen in love with the woman she had been, sweet and kind and loving. Not a hostile bone in her body.
And it was killing her. Stabbing her with the same dream, night after night, her mind replaying the last talk she'd had with the evil queen. But different this time, as if it weren't bad enough. This time, Regina ripped away her clothes like they were one big coat, and her naked body had the bruises Emma had seen in the mirror after their fight. The body she had spent that evening caressing, turned from artwork into desecration.
"Would you like me, Emma?" Regina asked, still in the sweet voice of her youth. No wonder Emma had fallen in love with it. So had her mother. Just wanting a new friend. "He wanted me. Do you think you could do as good a job breaking me in? Make me your queen, Emma. Cora would want me with someone who can take care of me…"
It wasn't that that made Emma wake up screaming. It was the kiss.
In the dream, Regina had the cold lips of a suicide, holding Emma's face with hands cut open at the wrist.