"Hey!" Snow peers out the window over Regina's shoulder. "Right there!"
"Hm?" Regina follows her gaze out of the carriage and Emma squints out from her seat across from them, eyeing the empty woods with curiosity.
"That's where I tried to kill you." Snow beams, looking very pleased with herself. "I had an arrow directly on you before David stopped me." She deflates at the thought of him. She's been cycling back and forth between enthusiasm and depression since her pregnancy had been discovered, and Emma reaches over to squeeze her knee.
This trip is going to do them all good. Regina had been the one to suggest the summer palace's underwater springs as a distraction from the day-to-day of guarding the palace against Zelena and ruling a much-depleted kingdom, and Aurora and a few of the others had named it a girls-only trip for them all. Snow had been startled at the suggestion. "Regina's never gone there before," she'd confided to Emma. "We'd made plans a few times when I was young but…well, you were the one who found us with the werewolves. Mishap after mishap. And there had been that time right before the sleeping curse."
"Right," Emma had said, and wondered about Regina's tentativeness when she'd made the suggestion. The summer palace had been a promise once, a gift that Regina had offered for her and Henry. And now- now that things have settled between them, not quite friendly but not nearly as angry- now she's bringing it up again.
It isn't about Emma. It's about Snow and the hot springs and a girls' week out for everyone cooped up in the castle. And yet…Emma can't stop stealing glances at Regina and wondering.
Right now, she's watching Regina's wrist where Snow's fingers are light on top of it and Regina is clearly doing her best not to pull away. Snow is talking about a potion and another story of David, David, always David– and Regina's hand trembles and then stiffens and relaxes again.
Emma looks up, catches Regina's knowing gaze and flushes. They're being cordial. They're making lists and speaking to people who'd been near the cabin on the night of the curse and they're trying to track down Milah. And Emma's still angry but not about anything she can name, nothing as massive as Henry's loss and nothing beyond self-involved foolishness, and there's no point in bringing it up. So she doesn't.
Snow is beginning to nod off now and Regina wraps her in a blanket before she shifts closer to the window, still uncomfortable with Snow's contact. Emma comments, "You're so gentle with her. I never would have imagined…"
"I treat her the way I'd like David to treat Henry," Regina murmurs, avoiding her eyes.
"That's all it is?" She still doesn't understand how Regina can be so changed, can surrender so much of herself now around Snow when she'd cast Emma aside to hate Snow years before. She envies Snow and loathes her just a little for it, for being a piece of this Regina who'd never wanted to exist for Emma.
Regina shrugs, the motion shifting her dress and drawing Emma's eyes downward. "It is what it is." She doesn't clarify and Emma falls silent again, stymied. It isn't her business what Regina has become. She has no hand in it.
Her only focus right now is Snow and finding out whoever had taken Henry from her.
The Summer Palace is surrounded on three sides by an enormous garden, beautiful and still lush even after years of abandonment. "My mother once told me that the fairies banished a treasonous gardener to forever work in these gardens," Snow tells them, tucking a flower behind her ear as they walk up to the castle. "He died and remained a ghost, still tending to the gardens as an eternal punishment."
Emma kicks Regina in the ankle before she can say anything in response. "I'm going to set up some wards around the palace," Regina says instead. "We'll have some warning if Zelena tries to strike now." They've had a few minor attacks since their journey to the Dark Castle, flying monkeys and bees and crows but never Zelena herself. She must have her sights set on something within Regina's castle, but they haven't been able to figure out what.
"I'll come with you," Emma offers easily, and they exchange glances before they turn back to Snow. Snow is distracted already, spotting Red and Aurora and Mulan and a few royals Emma doesn't know well as they emerge from the castle. "You go on inside."
Regina leads the way through the garden maze, murmuring spells and pausing and switching directions abruptly. Twice they're separated when Emma's looking at the greenery and misses Regina's turn, and it seems only practical when Regina's fingers tangle with Emma's and grip them tight. "Stay with me," she says, attempting to sound annoyed, but there's a tremor in her voice that betrays other emotion.
"Okay," Emma says dumbly, left without words with Regina's fingers wrapped in hers so casually. They pause again for another ward and Emma picks flowers freely, finds some lavender the same shade of Regina's magic and a little bloom of forget-me-nots the color of Henry's eyes when he'd been a newborn. The bright red flower she finds next is an afterthought, but she gathers them together as the next spell is complete and when Regina frowns at them, she shrugs and holds them out. "Nice bouquet, right? Spruce up the rooms a little."
Regina's eyes run over the flowers and she whispers, "Emma," but takes them anyway. She seems transfixed by the bunch of them, eyes running from one to the other, and Emma says, "Do you know what that red one is?"
"Pheasant's eye," Regina says. "Mother had me memorize the language of flowers as a child." Emma looks at her, puzzled, and she smiles enigmatically. "This collection is quite the doozy. Suits you, though."
"What does it mean?"
Regina ignores her. "We're all warded up now. Come with me." She waves the hand holding the flowers and takes Emma's hand with the other and a little burst of gleaming purple leads them through the garden maze to a quiet pool to the right of the castle, a stone bench in front of it with a canopy shaped like two swans meeting.
"Appropriate," Emma notes, sitting down as the purple light still hovers around her. Regina nudges it away and it disappears with a shower of sparks. "So, we're safe now?"
"Neither one of them can eavesdrop on this conversation," Regina confirms. She raises her voice as they sit. "Tinkerbell!"
Now there's a green light in front of them, growing brighter and brighter until it forms into the little green fairy staring down at them. "What's going on?" She pauses. "Oh, hello, Emma." Emma gets a special kind of beam and a significant glare at Regina, and Regina straightens and glares right back at Tink.
"We have some questions," Emma says hastily. "About the Blue Fairy."
They'd been unable to bring them up at the castle, not with Blue breathing down everyone's necks and still distrustful of Regina. Then again, Emma and Regina are equally distrustful, Blue topping both their lists for who'd taken Henry. She has the motive, the magical ability to put Emma and Lancelot to sleep (though the cabin had been warded against magic, Regina reminds her, and they're both stumped about that), and she'd been the one to suggest the wardrobe in the first place.
But Tink is shaking her head halfway through their questions. "It's impossible." She stares at them, brow furrowed. Regina's knee bumps against Emma's on the bench and Emma jerks away out of habit and wishes she hadn't. The pheasant's eye still grazes against the side of her arm and she shivers.
"I know it sounds impossible," she says gently. "But Blue was always set on putting Henry in that wardrobe. Don't you think she might have–"
"No, you don't understand. It's actually impossible." Tink pops out of sight and then returns, a full-sized fairy now. "Do you know anything about Blue's origins?"
"The depths of hell?" Emma suggests.
Tink grins for a moment before she catches herself. "Not exactly. How familiar are you with the legend of the Black Fairy?"
"Very," Regina says. They both blink at her. She says, "We both know the story. Emma, don't you remember Quinn…" Her voice trails off and she winces as Emma feels her heart thud at the memory of the boy who'd been her brother long before David. "Quinn told us about her. She fell in love with a mortal and was killed by his dagger. He became the first Dark One."
"Did you know that she was pregnant?" Tink asks, and Emma does remember, remembers Quinn and Regina arguing about whether or not dark hearts can love their children. Then, it had seemed a fruitless fight, Regina battling to understand her own mother. It takes on new significance when she thinks of the years that had followed.
"The child was born?" Regina winds lavender stems between her fingers.
"That child was free of all darkness, all corruption and anything but goodness. The Blue Fairy." Emma snickers and Tink looks affronted. "She was buried with her mother's wand, you know. Most of us descend from older generations of fairies or are changed humans and we still lack that perfection. But Blue could never be capable of such a dark act."
The idea of it is laughable. Blue as some bastion of goodness… "Didn't she banish you or something?"
Tink lifts her chin. "I lied and stole and she stopped believing in me. That has nothing to do with her."
"She did orchestrate Snow's assassination attempt on me," Regina puts in, her eyes narrowed. "How is that–"
"Sorry, Regina, but you were kind of…evil," Tink offers. "Good will always advise the vanquishment of evil. But kidnapping a child…that's cruelty to an innocent. Blue couldn't do it even if she'd been able to want to." She pats Regina's hand. "I'll keep an ear out for you, okay? Are you so sure that Lancelot wasn't a part of this? Or Snow herself?"
They both gape at her. She shrugs. "I think you have your own issues with Blue that might be blinding you to more obvious answers. I have issues with Blue, but even I don't think she'd be able to kidnap your son." She flutters off, leaving them both dissatisfied and scowling.
"She's wrong," Emma says immediately. "Blue had to have-"
"Maybe not Blue," Regina concedes a moment later. At Emma's outraged look, she admits, "Tink is right. That kind of light magic is unchanging. But if someone else was acting on Blue's behalf- without her explicit request–"
"Another fairy? Or someone else?"
"Could be anyone," Regina says glumly. "We're back to square one."
Snow is reticent and needy at once, concerned about both of them having a good time and desperate to keep them around her. She has moods now, ups and downs that follow each other rapidly, and they've had to confiscate her bow from her after a particularly hysterical murder attempt toward Regina.
Zelena doesn't target the summer palace. Her attention seems fixed on Regina's castle, not even Regina herself, and they deal with one attack of vicious swans- yes, swans, and Mulan laughs under her breath whenever she sees Emma for the next day- and nothing else worth worrying about beyond Regina and reacting to her presence.
There are their quiet conversations with Red about Blue and there are awkward pauses in the hall when they run out of Henry and Snow-related topics and are trapped without buffers between them. "Uh," Emma says eloquently during one such time. They're heading down to the underwater springs where Red has promised a surprise for everyone. "A surprise, right?"
"Alcohol," Regina predicts, and they shuffle along again with discomfort emanating from them. "Granny's had a decent stash of hard liquor if you came at the right time of night and knew who to ask."
"Yeah? You drank with all the commoners?" Emma says, interested. She can't imagine Regina lurking in taverns and getting drunk, not when she holds herself so distant from the rest of the kingdom.
Regina laughs shortly. "I bottled up my cider and passed it on to Granny, actually. I rarely partook in late-night shots. In exchange, Granny made sure Henry could walk into the diner at any time and have whatever he wanted." She looks wistful now, yearning in her eyes at the memories. "He had the run of the town. I know you so wanted him to never be under siege here."
And they're back to safe, safe Henry talk. "I didn't," she agrees. "Even in the cabin…he was out in the woods all the time, but never went too far. He never got to run around a market or make friends beyond Aziz or…" She licks her lips. "He went to school there, you said?"
Regina nods. "Snow was his teacher in the year before the curse." She walks down the corridor to the stone stairs carved into the ground. The summer castle had been built onto a mountain, and now they descend into it toward the hot springs. "I thought…at first I thought she'd been the one to tell him about the curse and give him that damned book."
"Book?" They've all referenced this book before, but no one has explained what it was.
Regina sighs, weary and unhappy at the thought of it. "It was…a calculated tale. It did tell Henry about the curse, but it painted me as his kidnapper, as your tormentor, as a vicious queen with no mercy or love. That…that wasn't true?" The assertion falters and emerges as a question instead, Regina avoiding Emma's eyes again.
Emma could comfort her now, assure her that she hadn't been the villain the stories had insisted she'd been. "Do you think it is?" she asks instead.
"I don't know. I think you were…very much tormented by me. I was very much tormented by you," Regina adds. Emma turns sharply. Regina doesn't elaborate on that. "I'd like to think that when we hurt each other, it was never so malicious as the book would paint it. Except that last time." She sucks in a breath. "I don't think there's an apology strong enough to make up for that."
"I don't think there's an apology strong enough to make up for taking Henry from you," Emma counters. That final violence had never felt as personal as the others, and only that had hurt- that she'd become inconsequential, an object of Regina's hate and pain and no one more than that. And Emma had taken their child from Regina and had seen it as some twisted kind of atonement. Fuck, she'd been screwed up by the end.
She clears her throat. "Anyway, I. Uh. I can't absolve you for what you did to the people in the name of punishing Snow White. It's not my place to speak for them. But you weren't my tormentor. You took care of me. And that book sounds like it had an agenda." She laughs, forcing the bitterness down. "I mean, I did too, I guess. I loved you."
Regina studies her for a moment. Emma quirks an eyebrow. "Don't tell me that comes as a shock."
"You told me you loved me three times after I became the Evil Queen," Regina says softly.
They're in such dangerous territory that Emma can't breathe. Maybe it's fumes from the hot springs or the sudden suffocation from within, a lump in her throat expanding to smother her lungs. "Three times?"
Regina had rarely said it either. They'd spoken about love but in general terms, with the easy acceptance that it had just been unchangeable fact. Emma and Regina had loved each other, even if it hadn't been enough. They'd existed as lovers and no words would do anything but turn their bonds to chains. "Once when you rejected me in the woods," Regina murmurs. "Once when Henry was born safely in my home. And once when I decided not to cast the curse. You doled them out like rewards to keep me in my place."
The tone is gentle but the words make Emma flinch, stumble backward on the stairs into a stone wall as she gapes at Regina. "What?"
Regina presses her lips together. "I shouldn't have said that."
"You thought I didn't love you," Emma says disbelievingly. "You thought…after everything…" Regina shakes her head. "Tell me," she demands.
Regina says, "I never doubted that you had feelings for me. But Emma, you went from telling me that I was a lost cause to suddenly embracing me once you were in trouble. I never begrudged you it," she says hastily. Emma is still gaping at her. "I only wanted Henry's safety, too. But you can't tell me that your love wasn't contingent on my treatment of Henry or Snow." She turns back to the stairs. There's the sound of laughter from below them, and Emma grabs her arm. "You loved me when I took care of Henry and you hated me when I struck Snow down. It was what it was."
"No. No, you ass," Emma says fiercely, and pulls her close and nearly kisses her right then. Regina is standing close enough for their breaths to mingle and Emma touches her lips, strokes her fingers against them and trails them down her neck to the skin exposed by her robe. Her hand spreads over Regina's heart, at her left breast, and there's a sharp intake of breath from Regina.
She remembers then who they are now, that they don't do this anymore no matter how much of an idiot Regina is right now. "It doesn't matter anymore," she says finally, dropping her hand. Regina wavers. "But you're wrong."
She stalks the rest of the way down to the water and doesn't think to be modest, yanks off her robe and tosses it to the side as Regina's eyes widen and Aurora titters nervously behind them. Red tosses her a bottle of something that smells terrible and says, "Come on in, both of you."
If there'd ever been a more appropriate time for alcohol, Emma doesn't know.
The springs here are an outlet in a larger underground river, turquoise blue and surrounded by rocky walls. It's just four others down here tonight- Snow, half asleep already in the soothing water; Aurora half-draped across Mulan and Mulan uncomfortable beside her; and Red perched on a rock and happily drinking her terrible ale. They'd all thought to wear bathing suits. Emma had not.
Nor had Regina, from the look of things, and she kicks off her shoes and takes off her robe carefully, lowering herself into the pool as the heat flushes her cheeks, and she undresses at an angle so no one but Emma can see her tug off her robe. Emma stares and stares- traces the curve of Regina's hips, watches dark nipples harden in the air, and her mouth goes dry as her eyes dip down to the neatly groomed hair just visible through the steam as Regina steps into the pool and dresses herself in appropriate clothing with a wave of her hand. She swigs down the whole bottle of ale in three short gulps and tosses it back to Red. "More."
Red smirks. "Gladly." She tosses them both new bottles and slides back into the pool, sighing with satisfaction. "You know, we used to have pools like these in Storybrooke. Except you didn't have to walk a thousand steps down to get to them."
"Jacuzzis," Snow sighs wistfully.
"Jacuzzis," Red agrees.
"Sounds like fun." Emma opens the bottle and looks up to see Red's eyes wide with mock outrage.
"Emma!" she sputters. "Fun? Puppies are fun. Amusement parks are fun. Jacuzzis have jets." Regina lets out a muffled little laugh and Red narrows her eyes at her. "I can't believe you tore up that curse."
"It formed again in my castle stores. It's not gone," Regina says, tipping the ale into her mouth. "And this is atrocious."
"Granny tried to replicate the old brew but it's not the same, huh?" Red raises her bottle to Regina. Regina rolls her eyes.
"I thought you didn't drink with the commoners," Emma points out, grinning.
Red makes a face. "Just Granny. She used to shoo me off when she'd come in with her cider and then Granny would have me clean up whatever terrible mess they made drunk cooking."
Regina makes an outraged noise. Mulan snickers. Emma leans forward. "Drunk cooking?"
"I didn't know how to cook anything! And I had a very stubborn three-year-old in the house who only wanted 'Little John's stew,' thanks for that." Regina glares at Emma as though it's her fault, somehow.
Mulan says, "It's a good stew." Regina glares harder.
They drink for a while, the conversation turning to the trip to the Dark Castle and then Storybrooke, again and again and again as the alcohol makes them fuzzy and loose. Emma is simultaneously cranky about it and starving for more, to know everything about the town she'd never been able to see.
"Regina treated the whole town like her personal kingdom, you have no idea." Red hops back out of the pool, unsteady. Aurora has made her escape already and Mulan had followed shortly after, tripping a little on her way upstairs but still shockingly sober.
"I conquered you! You were my servants. Subjects. Ugh." Regina has drifted close enough to Emma that their legs are brushing, and Emma finds it very urgent suddenly to make sure that her skin is as soft as she remembers. She touches her knees and stomach and thigh until Regina bats her hand away. "How much of that damnable draught did you put in this?"
"She used to strut through town every morning." Red slumps back against the rock and then pops up.
Or maybe she'd always been up. The ground is getting kind of confusing. Emma puts her hands on Regina's back to steady them and Regina stiffens and then relaxes, loose-limbed and lazy to her touch. Emma's leg twitches.
Red, meanwhile, is flouncing across the rocky path toward the stairs. "Hello, Archie!" she says to an imaginary person beside her. "Mind if I kick your puppy today? Snow White! I hope you suffer for all eternity. Ruby!" Now she does an exaggerated glance up and down the closest rock, licking her lips. "You look…delicious."
"Regina!" Emma protests.
Regina says, rather tranquil, "None of that is true." Emma is all over the place at this level of intoxication, limbs shifting wildly and mind whirring, but Regina mellows out, moves slower and cares very little- well. She does keep lighting tiny fireballs, but they fizzle out in the water. Emma wonders for a moment how many lives she might've saved if she'd brought some alcohol to the castle when she'd moved in. Then she wonders just what Regina had gotten up to with Red.
"You were totally into me!" Red accuses, toppling back into the pool. Snow is watching them all with lidded eyes, sinking into the heat without any alcohol to muddle her brain. She shrugs when Emma jerks to glare at her for answers. Red goes on. "You used to call me to 'babysit-'" she hooks her fingers. "All the time. I know what that means."
"It means I wanted you to babysit my son while I went to town functions. You imbecile," Regina adds halfheartedly.
"Uh huh. Right." Red wiggles her eyebrows at Emma and Emma splashes water at her. Regina rests her head against Emma's and shuts her eyes and Emma's hands go limp at last.
Snow complains about drinking parties she can't participate in and Red insists that they aren't going to endure two pregnant women without them, so late-night alcohol becomes contraband, slipped around to Mulan and Cinderella and even Granny, who holds her liquor with just as much aplomb as Regina. Emma tries to remind herself that she's better off sober around Regina and monitors her alcohol intake more often than not.
And then there are the days she says, Fuck it, and downs enough to make all the wrong choices.
Emma wakes up in Regina's bed after one such night with Regina tucked into her side, her head resting against Emma's abdomen and her arm flung across her hips. For a long moment she forgets herself, wiggles down into the covers like she'd used to when they'd fallen asleep like this back before the curse and nuzzles Regina's nose softly. "Hey," she murmurs.
Regina jumps- actually physically jumps, kicks outward with her knees and sends Emma flying off the bed. Emma tumbles down with a yelp and lands on a hard stone floor ass-first, sending sharp pain through her backside. "Ow!"
"Emma!" Regina slides over to gape down at her. "What are you doing here?" She pauses, panic flitting over her features. "We didn't…did we…?"
Emma notices suddenly that they're both only half dressed, Regina in a robe and Emma without a shirt, that she has a hangover pounding at her skull and some restlessness still in her system, and that she's in Regina's room in the summer palace. "Oh! No. No, we didn't."
She sounds defensive and doesn't know why, but Regina is watching her with a raised eyebrow and lazy interest now. "I've been sexually frustrated for much too long not to notice if that all…suddenly…exploded…" She remembers again that she's half naked and Regina is arching her back and back on all fours, eyeing her much like a cat might a creeping mouse. The panic is gone and replaced with hunger. Her eyes drag along Emma's body, drawing out goosebumps with only her gaze, and Emma gulps.
"Regina…"
"Regina what?" Her voice is barely a hum, gently needful and so tempting as she drops the pretense. "It…It doesn't have to mean anything." But it will, they both know it will, and Emma can feel the tingling that responds to Regina's voice overpowering the tingling in her head from the hangover. Her thighs press together, suddenly desperate for friction that she can't–
They're moving too quickly, the effects of too much alone time and the ease of the days before finally sinking in. And yes, okay, not quite sober yet. She wants it, she wishes it had happened last night without the recriminations of this morning, and she reaches for Regina. It's been so long, yes. She wants to pretend today. "Okay," she says, tries to stretch out and up as seductively as she can manage, and smacks her head against– what had been under the blankets? Is that the head of a battering ram?
She peers up at it. It is, dragon's head carved into the front of it and the rest lying across the foot of the bed. Regina must have magically transported them into her bed and decided, for some reason, that they'd need a battering ram in the morning. Now vague memories are returning to her, a weapons raid in the middle of the night that had made no sense at all, and Regina is gaping at it now with the same dawning realization.
A helpless laugh bubbles up within her and Regina's gaping at the battering ram like it's an alien creature and then she's laughing too, the two of them shaking and snickering with their heads pounding and their arms falling and Emma's head resting against the bed while Regina massages the spot where she'd nearly cracked it into a battering ram.
A battering ram. "You took a battering ram to bed," she manages, laughing again, and it's unrestrained in a way that it hasn't been since they'd been with their baby. Or maybe it's all that alcohol still in her system. "You took me and a giant piece of wood to bed. Did drunk you decide that this was a good idea?"
"Drunk me wanted to curl up and go to sleep. This sounds much more like drunk you," Regina sniffs, but she's grinning and rubbing Emma's head and Emma wants to purr like a happy kitten. "Sexually frustrated drunk you."
"You did not." She climbs back onto the bed, legs planted on either side of Regina's hips and Regina's smile twisting into something more smug as she slides her hands around to the back of Emma's head. Her eyes are dilated at Emma's touch and Emma's pretty sure that Regina's holding back equal amounts of sexual frustration. Experimentally, she strokes Regina's belly under her robe and elicits a tiny moan. Oh, yes.
But then Regina lets out a little sigh and curls her fingers into the backs of Emma's arms and tugs her closer, down to her, and in this moment- caught between laughter and need- her simple embrace is nearly as tempting. Regina's arms are wrapped around Emma and Emma can stroke Regina's hair and gaze at her as Regina gazes back, and it's no different than any other night had been, once upon a time.
"Don't stop on my account," comes the voice from the doorway. Emma jerks and falls off the bed again. This time it's both Regina and Mulan laughing at her, and Emma groans and drapes the blanket over her as Regina tugs the other end back up around her, eyes drifting open and shut lazily. They're both still a little drunk, then. Which makes sense. Because there had been good reasons not to be happy together.
"We've just gotten word from home," Mulan says, holding up a scroll. "The Dark Curse has been stolen from your stores. Looks like Zelena did have a plan, after all."
"Repeat that, please," Emma begs, rubbing her head again. Regina waves her hand and the hangover and the aftereffects of Red's ale are gone in an instant. As is the idea that any of this had been wise.
Regina waves her hand again, back to looking panicked, and she's fully clothed in a moment as Emma scurries away from her, jumps up and pulls the blanket tighter and tries to look a little less horrified than she's feeling.
It's so easy to put aside their baggage and just enjoy the simplicity of them together, to let the grief and distrust and resentment fade away and leave them playful and silly. Emma craves it– dreams of it– thinks back to Regina on the stairs, You doled them out like rewards– how she'd never been enough for Regina– knows it's impossible now. That whatever had happened would have been a mistake.
She exhales and Regina exhales and she sees the big copper-plated battering ram poking out of the covers out of the corner of her eye and maybe she doesn't scowl that much after that. Regina curls her lip like she isn't going to laugh, either, and says finally, "Did you say Zelena's been after the Dark Curse?"
"Blue's already found out where she's moved her lair." Mulan fiddles with the scroll. "I'm sorry to cut your vacation short."
"They can't send someone from the castle?" Emma half-whines, knowing there's no use to it. Of course they're going to go. Of course...
"It has to be Regina who goes there," Mulan says apologetically, and Emma frowns.
Regina is sitting straight now, attentive and serious at last. "Where?"
"Your house, Regina." Mulan holds out the scroll and Regina rises in one fluid motion, crosses the room and peruses the message with troubled eyes. "Zelena has taken over your parents' home."