"We have one month left," Snow says from across the table. She sounds dazed and distracted, same as she's been for the past month, and Emma tries to convey something reassuring with her eyes. "Zelena is going to cast this curse in one month. And I'm having a baby in two."
"No one is touching your baby or you. If I couldn't manage killing you, no one else can." Regina is sitting between Snow and Lancelot, the latter of whom is keeping a careful eye on her. Emma had found him the day that Regina had deemed herself capable of getting out of bed and told him everything, that they hadn't failed Henry, that Blue had put them to sleep and led her son out the door. You can't tell Regina, she'd said. We can't afford to make enemies out of the fairies.
Instead, he's been Regina's constant companion as Emma keeps her distance, both of them with wary eyes on Blue even right now as she hovers near Gepetto and Jiminy and smiles enigmatically at Emma.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Snow says dryly, but she sounds almost like she means it.
"There's still that potion," Grumpy puts in. "Why can't we try that again?"
"No!" Emma and Snow say together. "Absolutely not," Snow repeats, her eyes flickering to Regina. Regina murmurs something and Snow nods as the room falls silent.
"She has a cure for it," Regina points out. "This is the real world. You can't just splash some water on the Wicked Witch and expect her to melt."
Grumpy scowls. "Yeah? Way I see it, you were out of commission for over a week, and that was with someone else making you an antidote. How much time will we buy if she's out? Enough to stab her in the throat." There are a few nods around the room, and Regina's jaw tightens.
Blue says regretfully, "I have no way of obtaining another dose."
"Okay, so here's idea number two." Grumpy sits forward, hands clasped over the table. "We do nothing."
Snow frowns. "What?"
"Indoor plumbing? Electricity? Running water? Television?" Grumpy shrugs. "All I'm saying is, we didn't have it too bad in Storybrooke. So what if the witch sends us back there?"
"At the cost of Regina's heart?" Emma demands, unable to restrain herself.
"That's a price I'm willing to pay," Grumpy says. "You two are on the outs now anyway, right? What do you care? What do any of us care about the Evil Queen?"
"Leroy!" Snow barks out, and he falls silent, glowering at the table. Emma sneaks a glance around the table. Mulan is shaking her head, Lancelot's eyes are narrowed, and Jiminy Cricket is already objecting in quiet tones, but even Red looks torn at the suggestion. Regina sits silently, rolling her eyes and ignoring the discussion over her life with determined composure. She catches Emma's eye and Emma licks her lips and tries for a smile. Regina's brow furrows.
"It's of no use." It's Blue who speaks now, and Emma swivels back around to stare at her in surprise. "Allowing the witch to cast the curse would allow her to decide how we come out of it. We might not retain our memories or our positions within Storybrooke. Are you willing to give her that kind of power?"
She smiles at the room, this time pausing an extra moment on Emma, and Emma nods slowly. She doesn't know what game they're playing. She's terrible at these games, at pretending and layers over layers of unspoken messages. Playing along mostly means reacting to Blue like she knows what's going on and keeping herself from hurling the fairy into the fireplace behind Snow.
Lancelot speaks up. "Our best option is to find out whatever Cora did to preserve the land around us from the curse," he says. "And if it would also freeze us in time, or if that's something we can avoid."
"I can look into that," Regina agrees. Then, a flicker of hesitation, and, "Lady Swan, I'll need your help. You were there when she cast her curse," she says by way of explanation. Grumpy grunts something less than complimentary under his breath.
Emma gives him a dirty look and says, "Yeah, I guess so." She hasn't been alone with Regina since that first week when she'd been healing, and she's successfully avoided all conversation since.
It isn't as though they're at odds now. They aren't. Emma refuses to allow Blue to dictate her insecurities and manipulate her so easily. She believes in Regina. She believes that she's changed.
Believing in herself- in their ability to make something good instead of another twisted disaster like the years before the curse- that's another matter entirely.
Lancelot bows out of their mission later that week even when Emma glares extra hard at him. "I have other matters to tend to in this land," he insists, and Emma reminds herself selfish, selfish, Regina makes you selfish and nods abruptly.
She and Regina ride in silence to the cabin, the tension thick between them. It's Emma's fault. Emma knows it. Emma's the one who's been avoiding Regina, the one who smiles quickly and makes excuses to escape, the one who'd started all this with no explanation for Regina at all. She doesn't know how to handle any of these new fears about their relationship except to avoid, to run, to shut out Regina entirely, and Regina has responded with the same distance.
Not speaking to Regina is a certain kind of agony after all this time. Emma had started treasuring their contact when she'd been seventeen, fleeting moments of Lady Swan and the queen she'd fallen hopelessly in love with. And somehow she's never quite escaped the wonder of those early moments, the disbelief that Regina's here and she can see her every day, talk to her as often as she'd like, and now-
Now she's tearing herself away from what she craves most, punishing both of them for something that she doesn't dare tell Regina about. Not about Blue, not when that would risk a war they can't afford right now. And not how wrong they are together, because Regina will scoff and Emma will crumble.
Blue's in her head now, had slipped in as easily as she'd cooed Emma with a touch of fairy-kindness. Emma can't help but see everything through the lens of an outsider now, see how many times she'd abandoned what was right for Regina. She'd forget the world for Regina, and while she can excuse it away when it's Henry they're protecting, she can't do the same when it's all about her own selfish needs.
And so she's a few feet away from Regina after nearly watching her die a month ago, and she still can't bring herself to say a word.
Regina doesn't look at her. It's a relief, because Emma doesn't know if she'd be able to handle this silence if she did. "This way," she croaks out when they're close to the spot where she'd found Cora, and Regina nods sharply and follows her.
"I…This was where I ran to when Henry–" She catches herself, unwilling to bring up that mystery again. Regina hasn't mentioned their hunt for Henry's kidnapper since she'd awoken, and Emma is relieved. "I came here and Cora had a staff out on the ground and there was a dome above us."
"Hn." Regina is sniffing the air, her eyes closed, and she walks into the clearing and drops to her knees. "Right here. The staff was here?" She touches the ground and magic erupts from it, shining so bright that Emma can't make out a color to it, and Regina is thrown back from it as it shoots out like a geyser.
Emma races to her and Regina shrugs her off as she rises. "Your assistance is neither wanted nor needed, Lady Swan," she says coolly, and Emma flinches back.
"Trouble in paradise?" comes an inquiring voice from behind them. Zelena swoops in, riding a broomstick like the cliche she is, and Emma stiffens. "I was so rooting for you crazy kids," she drawls. "Hi, Sis."
"Zelena." Regina straightens, taking a careful step in front of Emma as Zelena dismounts. Emma cocks her bow. "I suppose I owe you a thank you."
Zelena wrinkles her nose. "Don't bother. My interest is in your heart, not you." She takes a step forward, laying her palm against the left side of Regina's chest, right over her heart. "You're healing well," she breathes.
Emma takes a step forward, temporarily stymied at the inappropriateness of the moment. Zelena says, "Whatever you've found here won't help you. After all, you'll need a fully capable witch to stop the curse. And I'll have your heart."
Regina puts a hand on Zelena's wrist and Zelena lets go of her immediately. "What makes you think you'll ever get anywhere near my heart?" Regina scoffs. "I'm not a child anymore. I'm perfectly capable of protecting myself."
"Oh, I know." Zelena grins at both of them. "Thing is, I have a bit of leverage that'll change your tune soon enough. You'll be handing over your heart willingly in thirty days' time, make no mistake of it." Emma's brow furrows and Regina opens her mouth, but Zelena cuts her off with "Ta-ta, ladies," and is off again.
Regina hisses out a curse. "What is she playing at?"
Emma remembers Zelena just as sure before, insistent that she has Regina's greatest weakness in her grasp. In this realm, anyway. She freezes. Unless…
Regina has only one weakness. And Zelena's been playing with her all along. Blue had shown her an image but Emma trusts Blue not at all, especially when Blue has been defending Regina to the council. This is all careful maneuvering, and the pieces are slotting into place. "She has Henry," Emma breathes the inevitable conclusion in horror.
"No." Regina is spinning around, the self-made distance between them lost for an instant. "Emma, no. He's safe. He's in another realm. He's safe," she says urgently, her hands on Emma's arms. They burn and Emma has no time to focus on that, not with the rising panic for Henry. "She can't have him."
"Who else could she have?" Emma says hopelessly. "Is there anyone else out there who she could use as leverage?"
Regina gives her a disbelieving stare before her eyes shutter and she's pulling away, the two of them standing stiffly with a few feet between them. "No," Regina says. "No, there isn't."
They use one of Henry's old undershirts for a tracking spell, gathered around in Regina's quarters with Snow and Mulan and Lancelot hovering. Lancelot has a hand on Regina's back that she doesn't shove aside and Mulan is pacing the room, and Snow is shiny-eyed and worried as they wait for Regina to finish the spell.
The spell springs to life, a glowing purple sphere that jumps and hovers near the door, and Regina heaves a gasping sob. "It worked," she says dully. "It's going to lead us to Henry."
"He's really here?" Snow whispers.
Regina shakes her head hopelessly. "It wouldn't have worked if he weren't. He's…we could see him again." She looks up, fire in her eyes, and catches Emma's gaze with so much fierce assurance in place of tension that Emma is helpless beneath it. "You are going to see him again," she says like a promise, and Emma feels the tears escaping before she can stop them.
Snow kisses her cheek and holds Regina's hand and says, "Let's get a carriage ready."
Snow insists on going and all four of them have to talk her out of it, to remind her of her own child and the dangers ahead of them. And then the latter four of them are squeezed into an open carriage, Emma taking the driver's seat as the purple sphere hovers in front of her. It moves and the horses follow.
They ride toward the east for days, but it's a different path than the one to the Dark Castle, and Emma bites back her fears to focus on moving forward. "Is it really possible that she could jump realms so easily without the curse?" Mulan wants to know.
"Of course." Regina sounds tired and crabby, worn out already, and Emma glances back to see her downing a dose of the antidote. Maintaining the tracking spell is taking all of her strength, sucking out enough magic to make her more vulnerable to her infection than usual. "Zelena wants to cast the curse to bring herself and all of us to Storybrooke on her own terms, and she wants to use my heart to do it. That doesn't preclude other options in the meantime."
Mulan frowns. "And why would she go to all this trouble to hide him elsewhere? Why not keep him in the Dark Castle and keep quiet about–"
"Why don't you keep quiet, you imbecile?" Regina snarls, and it's nasty enough that Emma snaps, "Regina!" and twists around again.
Regina doesn't even have the decency to look ashamed. Her hackles are raised and her teeth are nearly bared and she's glaring furiously at all of them like a cornered wildcat. "I am here to find my son. I'm not going to make small talk with some fool who-"
"Who's trying to help," Lancelot cuts in, and Emma is glaring and Lancelot looks gravely disappointed and Mulan is leaning back against the seat, her knuckles tight against her sword. Regina falls into dark silence, glowering at all of them, and Emma says, "I'm done driving."
Lancelot takes her spot and Emma sits with Mulan, eyes fixed on her friend so she doesn't have to look at Regina opposite her. "I'm sorry she's an ass," she says, ignoring Regina's snort in response.
"You're concerned for your son," Mulan allows, shifting to face Regina. Regina stares out the opposite window. "I'm sure I'd be…similar in the same setting."
Emma's unwilling to give Regina leeway right now, and she feels tense and guilty about that. "I doubt it. I'm in the same setting and I–"
"I can never see Henry again," Regina says. They blink at her. She says stiffly, "That was the price of the curse. For as long as we're here, I had to say goodbye to the one I love most. So forgive me if I'm not playing along as a noble warrior on this heroic journey." She stomps over the little stairs to the driver's seat and sits down beside Lancelot, seizing the reins from him.
Emma watches the back of her head, stiff and unyielding, and doesn't know if she's angry or tired, either. "I didn't know-"
"Can it, Lady Swan."
She's been in a state of terror and anticipation all day, waiting to see Henry and to know him at last, because Zelena has brought him to her and put him in danger. She's been worried and she's been tense but she'd never thought that Regina had had other concerns with Henry than she.
She sits silently in the carriage, her back to Regina's back and her eyes fixed on grassland that is beginning to turn to desert, and she says nothing at all when Lancelot and Mulan switch places.
"You can't drive like this," Mulan says in a low voice to Regina. "The horses are getting exhausted and your infection-"
"Why are you still here?" Regina demands. "Weren't you busy crying to Emma? Are you trying to provoke me?"
Emma opens her mouth and Lancelot shakes his head at her. She scowls. Mulan says evenly, "You aren't the first prissy royal I've dealt with."
Emma chokes back a startled laugh. Regina says, slowly and dangerously, "Prissy."
Mulan shrugs. "I've spent…what, six months with you now? Seven? You can't intimidate me."
Lancelot whistles. Regina stutters for a moment and then, her voice low and smooth like velvet, "I could set you on fire for your insolence."
Emma grabs her bow. Lancelot grabs her wrist. "Mulan can handle herself," he murmurs. "Patience."
Mulan is silent though, and Emma is raising her bow, no idea what she's going to do with it, when Regina says grudgingly, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you. I've been…on edge, I suppose."
"Your son will be proud of you," Mulan says. "No matter what happens next. I imagine it'll be painful, but he'll see what good you've done and he'll be proud." She nods toward Emma and Lancelot. "We're all far from home, Regina. Lancelot can never return. I don't think there's a future for me in my own. Emma lost her family for ten years. If we can find your home- if your son is somewhere out there- embrace that."
"I do." Regina's voice is rough. "I will. I know. Thank you."
Emma lost her family, Mulan says like it's that simple, and Emma had thought first of Regina and Henry. She can feel the guilt bubbling up again, that she's the one who's put Regina in a bad mood to begin with, that all this is because of her, and it feels like a never-ending cycle of misery. No matter what she does, they're only going to hurt each other.
On the third night, they set up camp and Emma wanders off on her own, kicks through sand and dirt and turns back to the glowing light of the tracking spell only once dawn breaks. She's surprised when she returns and Regina is awake, huddled in front of a fire with Emma's cloak wrapped around her.
"Oh," Emma says, in a strangled sort of voice. "I didn't realize you'd be up."
"Did you think I'd sleep?" Regina gathers the cloak tighter around her and Emma shivers at the hot bolt of need that shoots through her at the sight. Not now. Not ever.
Emma sits down next to her, her mind cleared blissfully blank of doubts with the image before her. She catches herself a moment too late, when she's already begun to speak. "You didn't tell me you wouldn't be able to see him."
"That would involve you not scampering like a scared rodent every time you saw me," Regina retorts, but she closes her eyes and admits, "I don't know if I won't. I have no idea what kind of consequences there would be for me."
"You shouldn't have come on this trip. Mulan has that sword that cancels out magic and you're just going to-"
"I'm not going to endanger anyone," Regina says swiftly. "I swear, I'll make sure of that."
"I wasn't going to say that," Emma whispers. "I think…you're just going to hurt yourself." She aches for Regina, for whom happy endings slip away as easily as they come. Emma doesn't quite believe in happy endings as much as the day-to-day drudgery of trying hard and fighting well, but Regina believes, longs for happiness as a tangible thing. And now it's flitting out of her grasp again.
Regina shakes her head. "I'm not doing this for me." When she turns to face Emma, it's with the same heart-stopping fierceness from the castle, You are going to see him again, and Emma swallows her questions and listens. "I know you'll never forgive me," Regina says, and Emma's brow furrows. "I know that you have every right to keep your distance. But I will find Henry, and I will make sure that you two are together if it is the last thing I do."
Emma breathes, horrified. "Regina," she begins, and hesitates under the heat of Regina's firm stare. Regina thinks that Emma's been staying away out of anger, out of grudges and resentment and something that she'd done. "I'm not…I don't…I…" I forgive you, she tries to say, and it sticks in her throat. "I want you to see him, too," she finally settles on. "We'll make it work."
"Emma," Regina sighs, and she shifts forward as Emma does the same on automatic. The fire is crackling in front of them and the night is cool and peaceful and Regina is wearing her cloak, and it's all setting an impossible mood. Emma's hand lingers on Regina's thigh and she leans closer, their lips barely brushing–
Haven't you understood why it's only now that Regina has been able to change? Never because of you.
–Emma pulls away. "Goodnight, Regina," she whispers, and Regina's left staring at her as she scurries over to the closest sleeping pad and settles in beside Lancelot's.
In the morning, they're back to avoiding each other. Regina is snippy and bashful at once, biting back insults and flushing whenever anyone looks at her, and she plants herself in the driver's seat and stares grimly at the purple sphere in front of them. Emma winds up driving most of the afternoon and Regina doesn't move from the spot beside her, and they sit in awkward silence together for the bulk of the ride under the hot sun.
"Where the hell is Zelena hiding him?" Regina demands finally, folding her arms together and letting out an irritated huff. "She can't travel this kind of distance without wearing herself out. There's no need to have him so far from…" She grits her teeth.
Emma recognizes this area. She's never been here but she knows what land is at the center of this desert, alive and gleaming in the distance. Something niggles at the back of her mind and she shoves it aside, refusing to accept it. "On the plus side, there's no way she can take us once we get there."
"Get…where, exactly?"
"Agrabah. That's where she has him." Emma sits up straighter, urging the horses faster. "Aziz and Al were here just before your second curse and they left back for home. I wonder if Zelena had been using them all along. Or if they'd ever been Al and Aziz." She'd know if Al wasn't Al, but Aziz had been a stranger to her as much as Zelena, and if Zelena had bewitched him- if she'd bewitched both of them-
She inhales tightly and thinks about Blue's declaration that she'd been the one to cast the protection spell around the cabin on Jasmine's behalf. She'd trusted all of them, lived with them, and she can't believe that they'd betray her like that of their own volition. And she has no idea who is friend and who is foe anymore.
Regina is neither, exactly, and Emma says, eyes fixed on the road and voice hard and determined, "We're going to save our son."
To her surprise, Regina laughs. Emma looks askance at her. "I could have used you in Neverland, Lady Swan," is all she says, and her words draw Emma nearer even as they gently push her back an instant later.
They reach Agrabah when night is falling and it's beginning to cool, and Mulan and Lancelot are suiting up into their armor as they ride into the marketplace. It's crowded even at night and they're stuck on the road twice before they grudgingly stable their horses and carriage and set out on foot behind their purple beacon.
It leads them to the palace and hovers as they all stand together, Mulan at the front of the group with her hands twitching around her sword and Regina hovering warily in the back. "We're friends of the Sultana and her consort," Emma ventures. The guards eye her, unimpressed. "My name is-"
Regina stalks forward and there's a heart in her hand before anyone can stop her. "Regina!" Emma manages.
"You said it yourself. We can't trust that your friends are really your friends. This is quicker. Let us in," she orders the heart. The second guard charges forward and Mulan slaps him away with her sword, holding the tip of it to his neck. Emma sighs and draws her bow at a third while Lancelot takes the fourth.
The first guard opens the door and steps back, his eyes blank until Regina shoves the heart back in and stalks past him. He stares dumbly at them. Regina gives him a dark look. He looks down.
"Terrible security," Mulan comments.
"Atrocious," Emma agrees. She smiles winningly at a guard who comes running at them, sees a fireball appear in Regina's hand, and runs off again. "You'd think they'd never seen a couple of Merry Men before." She pokes at the purple orb and it jumps forward a few more feet, slowing down as it moves and then–
–Pops right out of existence at the far end of the room.
Aziz frowns down at his chest, still glowing lightly purple. "What was…Hey! Lancelot! Emma!" He runs toward both of them, climbing halfway up Lancelot's body before Lancelot wraps him in a hug, and Emma can only gape at the purple light on his chest.
"Regina," she says.
Regina doesn't answer. Emma turns and her eyes are wide with devastation, enough to suffocate them both, and Emma forgets for a long moment to breathe. "Regina," she chokes out again.
"Henry and Aziz shared clothing," Regina says with muted comprehension. "Didn't they?"
They had, Aziz a year younger but shooting up like a twig as Henry had remained tiny. But the undershirt they'd used for the tracking spell had been Henry's, one of the ones she'd purchased in town when she'd still been with Snow's council. Aziz's clothing had never been so cheaply made. "It was Henry's–"
"Henry isn't in this realm," Regina says. Her hands are clasped together, pressed hard enough against each other that they're shaking. "The tracking spell defaulted to Aziz. Henry isn't in this realm."
It should be a good thing. Zelena doesn't have their son. Whatever leverage she claims to have is a lie, Regina's heart is protected and Henry is safe and oh, god, she wants desperately to cry right now. They'd almost had Henry again. They'd almost…
Jasmine arrives behind Aziz and Emma is frozen in place, unable to tear her eyes off of Regina. Regina is still shaking, her eyes wet as she struggles to stand tall. "Emma," Jasmine says, her voice low. "What's going on?"
"Just…thought I'd drop by," Emma offers weakly, and a strangled sob emerges from her throat.
They're each given their own rooms in the palace but Regina doesn't make it to hers. She's curled up in a seat in Emma's and Emma is huddled on the bed, wrapped in too many blankets and warm and freezing at once. "We'll stay here for a few days," she offers. "Maybe a week or two. Jasmine and Al don't mind at all and the further your heart is from Zelena, the better."
Regina nods dully. The light is gone from her eyes again, as aching as she'd been when she'd first returned to this land. Emma's always been better at containing her grief, lashing out until there's nothing to do but freeze up and refuse to process, but Regina feels every misstep with her whole heart and they tear gaping wounds into her. "We have to go back soon. Zelena's curse–"
"Needs your heart." Emma considers. "We can't stay here until then and risk Agrabah for us, but we still have a few weeks. And Zelena was bluffing about her leverage."
"Lady Swan–" Regina starts, and something cracks within Emma at last.
"Emma," she says, straightening. "Stop this passive-aggessive bullshit already and call me my name."
Regina laughs, high and disbelieving. "Oh, I'm sorry. My passive-aggressive bullshit? Have you seen you?" Her eyes flash with life again. They always do better at sorrow when they can be mad instead. "I understand that you're angry with me. Really, I do. I cast a curse- to take my son back-" she nearly spits out, and Emma recoils, Blue's words bright in her mind.
"You cast the curse because you couldn't kill Snow in this realm," she accuses instead. "Don't make this my fault."
Regina's lip curls. "I did it for a multitude of reasons. And I don't regret it. I can't regret any of the choices I made that led me to my son." She breathes and Emma thinks, that's what I am. A choice that led her to Henry. But then Regina corrects herself, quick and soft again, "Our son. And I do regret that you lost him in the process. I never wanted you to be without him."
"Didn't you?" Emma sucks in a breath, not ready to back down yet. "What were you going to do with me during the curse?"
Regina shifts in her seat. "You don't want to know that."
Another non-answer. "Okay. Fine." Emma grits her teeth and counts to ten in her mind before she speaks again. "It's not that I'm angry with you. I'm…not. I'm really not. I don't know if I can ever…You said that you thought I hadn't forgiven you." She bites her lip. "But that's not it. I don't want you to call me Lady Swan and pretend that we aren't…friends."
"Friends," Regina repeats. "You thought we were friends."
Emma hears it for the challenge it is. No one thinks they're friends. "No," she says evenly. "I thought we were in love." Regina shivers and Emma squeezes fists into her blankets. "But it's been…Regina, love shouldn't be this painful. Our love shouldn't be the two of us trying to kill each other. Our love shouldn't make us both…selfish and wrong."
"I make you selfish and wrong," Regina repeats. She starts out low, like she's about to start a fight, and then fades into a whisper. "Is that what you think?"
"No. I don't know." Emma stares down at the intricate patterns on her blanket. "I just know we're not good for each other like this. When we're together, I think...we've always been our worst selves, haven't we?"
She adds hastily to Regina's flashing eyes, "And that isn't your fault. Maybe it's not my fault that you never even considered giving up on the whole evil thing when I was around. But we've never done anything good for each other. God, Regina, no relationship that ends with one of us casting a curse to erase an entire realm is good!" Regina blinks at her, some comprehension dawning in her eyes, and Emma goes on, heartened by it. "So yeah, I've been keeping my distance, because every time I see you I want to…I don't know, love you, and…"
"And you're a coward," Regina says, biting deep enough to scar. "Of all the less-than-complimentary things I've thought of you over the years, I'd never imagined you were a coward."
"I'm trying to do the right thing." She wants to cry now with frustration, with a thousand voices in her head sounding like Blue (You are doing the right thing, Be strong, I saw you as a child) and like Snow (She loves you, you can't imagine yourself coming first for anyone) and like Regina's scathing words. "I'm trying to fix us."
"Who took your courage from you and replaced it with this drivel?" Regina stands up at last, smiling with unsteady malice at Emma as she approaches. "When did Swan Hood become so easily swayed?"
"We make each other weak," Emma snaps back, irritated at Regina's condescension. "We tore each other down and we became casualties of our own relationship, don't you remember?"
"Love is weakness." Regina says it like an echo and laughs, mocking and cold. She looks nearly like a queen in this moment, the one who'd destroyed worlds in the name of her one true love. "I remember that."
Emma can nearly see the way Regina shuts her out in an instant, arms folded in front of her and her presence shifting to consume all the energy in the room with contemptuous rage. "I thought we could try maybe being friends," Emma says meekly.
"Get out," Regina orders in furious disbelief, and Emma slides off the bed and leaves her room.