"You know, when you're an orphan, you kind of…spend your whole life wondering if maybe it's a lie. If your parents are somewhere out there and they're just waiting for you to find them, or maybe they're trying to find you," Henry says thoughtfully.
"I know," Emma says. She's sitting opposite him at the dining room table, watching him with the wariness that comes from too many years of disappointments. "I was an orphan, too."
Henry studies her, his curious face furrowed in thought. "But David–"
"Our parents put me up for adoption and kept David," Emma clarifies. "I didn't meet him until we were already adults." She has her hand on the table, just a few inches from where Henry's hand is, and both sets of eyes flicker to the space between them with uncertainty. Neither one of them has bridged the gap yet, and Emma's terrified of the moment they do. "And then…we were taken from each other."
"Witness Protection Program," Neal puts in. He'd followed David and Henry into the house, vanished into the kitchen for a moment to consult with Regina, and now he leans against the wall and distracts Henry when Emma slips up. "They still can't talk to you about it, but they just wanted you to be safe."
"Yeah." Henry's eyes are hard to read, and Emma strains to see if there's resentment within them or just longing. She doesn't know him, this stranger who calls himself her son, and she wants to hold him and flee from him at once. He is everything. She's never had everything before.
At least she isn't hiding in the kitchen. Regina is ostensibly there to make them a late brunch, but she'd offered abruptly and then ordered them out of the room when they'd followed. She hasn't even spoken directly to Henry yet, and he still looks hurt and bewildered at the brushoff. Snow and David are still outside, and Regina's movements are all that they can hear in the house, heels clipping against linoleum and the sounds of pancakes being skillfully fried.
"The only thing I've ever wanted was to be with you," Emma murmurs. "I would never have left you if I had had a choice in the matter."
"But you were together," Henry says slowly. "David said that you couldn't be here, either, just like me. But you're living here."
Neal says, "That clause that let me come and get you? That applies for them too." He's always been an outstanding liar, and Emma's never been more grateful for it. "Your mom came right here as soon as she could."
"This morning," Emma confirms. "And…Ma."
Henry frowns. "What?"
She shrugs and mumbles, self-conscious, "When you were a baby, you could only make the ma sound, but there were two of us. So you called me Ma and Regina Mama." She bites down on her lip and avoids his eyes. "I guess Regina is Mom now, but I'm still…"
"Ma." Henry smiles tentatively and it's like gazing into the face of the sun. "Okay."
Emma shifts in her seat, restless under his scrutiny. "How long does it take to make a few pancakes in this wor– in this town?"
"She's avoiding me," Henry says flatly, the smile gone.
Emma winces. "Oh, Henry, no."
He stares into the doorway of the kitchen and shrugs. "She hates me." He tries to make it seem bland and unconcerned, but his voices hitches and he drops his smile.
"She loves you," Emma says instantly. This, she knows and always will. "She loves you more than anything in the universe. She's just…a little overwhelmed, I guess." She stands, banging her knee on the table, and slips past Henry's scrutiny into the kitchen.
"I don't know what the hell you're doing, but you have to get out there," she says, her voice low and dangerous with fury.
Regina is standing beside the stove, her back bent and her hands clamped against the counter, and she's wracked with trembling that moves her stiff body violently. "I'll be there when the pancakes are done."
There'd been a time when Emma's first impulse would have been to wrap her arms around Regina's waist, to brush kisses to her neck and whisper soothing murmurs into her ears. But they're not those people anymore. Emma keeps her arms tight around her own waist and says, a distinct chill filling her voice and body, "He doesn't remember seeing you yesterday. He's meeting his mother for the first time and he thinks you hate him."
"That–" Regina's voice hitches. "That isn't Henry. He doesn't remember…everything we've gone through– you have no idea how–"
Regina is small and vulnerable and unsteady and Emma loathes her with every fiber of her being. "How dare you. I have no idea? I have no idea? You think I have no idea what it means to be torn away from my son and lose years of our lives together?" She's blind with rage, red-hot and vicious, and she wants to close her fingers around Regina's neck again and squeeze until her eyes are popping and she's afraid and Emma's heart will finally feel right again.
"I told you, I wasn't the one to take him from you!" Regina snaps, twisting around at last. Emma sees blotchy red eyes and sallow wet skin and nothing but empty agony in her eyes.
Emma doesn't care, not anymore, not about Regina's misery when it's only what she's inflicted on others. "Look, I don't want you anywhere around him," she says fiercely, moving forward to trap Regina against the counter again. "I want you gone. I want you to lose him for a decade and never speak to him or even know if he's okay." Regina watches her silently, the streaks of tears still stark against her skin. Emma slams her hand down onto the counter behind Regina. "I want you miserable and alone and–" A sob escapes, catches her throat until she's crying too, lost in the years gone from her.
Regina reaches to touch her cheek and Emma flies backward at the touch, flattens herself against the opposite wall and blinks back tears with little success. "I don't trust you at all. But you're going to make that kid think that his mama doesn't love him and I refuse to let that happen."
Regina watches her blankly and Emma turns, ready to storm back to their son. Finally, finally. She has him again and Regina's going to push him away. She won't let it happen. She can't.
"I didn't take him from you," Regina repeats.
Emma doesn't turn back. "I don't believe you." Regina isn't to be trusted or believed anymore, not about Henry and not about anything else. Regina might have taken almost a year of memories from this whole town to reclaim control of it.
"You must have in the year we don't remember," Regina whispers. "You wouldn't have slept with me otherwise."
Emma knows that they did, can feel it in her body and her movements and hates knowing it. And she can't imagine she would have ever consented to… "No, I wouldn't have," she says, just enough vitriol on her tone for Regina to whisper her name in feeble denial, and she stomps out of the room.
She takes a minute in the foyer to wipe away the tears and make herself presentable again, staring at the face in the mirror and barely recognizing herself. Beyond her heart, she knows that something is wrong, that a piece of her is missing. Maybe the part that would have taken a leap of faith on Regina even now. Maybe Regina had stolen away a part of who she is last year, taken it brutally and left her digesting it now, and she feels it as a aching loss.
"Emma?" comes the soft voice behind her. Snow is sounding less bereft now, leaning onto David's arm as she approaches them. "How are you?"
"Fine," she lies, sounding like a sulky teenager. She clears her throat. "How are you?"
"It's been only about nine months since we left town," Snow says, her eyes shining. "It's okay."
"We were in New York until Neal and Milah and Belle showed up at our apartment last night," David explains, shaking his head. "I nearly didn't take the potion. I guess I've always been an idealist, though, and they promised…" His eyes flicker to Snow and they both beam at each other. "There was only one potion."
"Who gave it to them?"
"According to Milah, they were approached by a hooded figure with a magic bean. She instructed them to make haste to us and give the antidote to him, as promised." David winces. "They'd thought that I was the him mentioned, but I wonder now if it had been Henry. It sounds more like Regina's handiwork than yours, Snow."
"Regina," Emma echoes darkly. She can smell the pancakes burning in the kitchen.
Snow shifts in place. "We have to get Henry out of the house," she says worriedly. "There's no time for breakfast. If this is anything like the first curse breaking, there's going to be an angry mob on her doorstep at any moment." She's all business now, the terrified woman gone and replaced with Snow as Emma's always known her, and Emma nods with reluctance.
"Where will he go?"
"He'll stay with us for now," David decides. "We'll bring him back here as soon as we can be sure that the town is quiet. You're welcome to join us, too," he says hopefully. "The loft isn't large but we can make do."
Emma wants, wants, wants. "I'm not leaving Regina to her own devices," she mutters, feeling her bruised heart twist at the thought of more time here and away from Henry. "I'll just…" She waves her hands vaguely toward the kitchen. "You need to take care of the baby."
She stalks to the dining room as Snow pokes her head into the kitchen. "Henry, you're going to go with Snow and David. It isn't safe here right now," she says, as businesslike as she can bear.
"Snow?" Henry repeats.
"Mary Margaret," David says from behind her.
"Oh." He bites his lip. "Am I…are things bad again? Are you going to have to leave?"
"No!" She reaches for him and this time he comes to her embrace, Emma holding him tightly as more tears leak from her eyes. "I'm never leaving you again," she promises. "For as long as I live."
He clings to her and she remembers a tiny child, small enough to be held in her arms. This boy reaches nearly to her chin and his arms are long enough to wrap around her with ease, but he's still hers. She rests her chin on the top of his head and hates and loves with equal fierceness.
They go out the back door ("Don't take the main streets," Neal advises, looking worriedly out the window) and they're halfway across the yard when there's a strangled "Henry!" from the door.
Henry stops and Regina hurtles past Emma down the steps of her porch, racing to him, and he looks up at her with fear and longing. She cups his face in her hands and speaks rapidly to him, and Emma can't hear a word of it but she can see Henry's eyes widen and then soften, the pain fading away. He whispers something back to Regina and she begins to cry again, this time open sobbing, and she presses her forehead to his before she staggers back from him.
When he's finally departed, she sinks down onto the stairs and buries her face in her hands, the wind carrying her cries away from Emma's ears.
Neal wolfs down the burnt pancakes like he hasn't eaten in a month. "You have no idea how much fish I've had in the past year," he says, wincing.
"You've been sailing with Captain Hook?"
"She's my mother," he says, apologetic. "I know she tried to kill you."
"Milah is your mother?"
He nods. "She left the main group almost immediately and I followed. We were far from the Enchanted Forest all year. I don't know what went down there." He pauses on the last pancake. "Are you sure you don't want any?"
"I'm not hungry." Regina's still outside, and Emma keeps a careful eye on her, wary of her escaping. She might not have her magic right now, but that won't keep her from making a break for it. "David said that the woman you met said…"
"A promise. Yeah. I guess Regina made a deal with someone to be sure that she'd have Henry if the curse broke. You think she cast it?" Emma nods. Neal's brow furrows. "It just doesn't sound like her anymore, you know? She wouldn't do anything to compromise Henry's love for her."
"Maybe she had a bad year." She shivers, fighting the urge to scrape away her skin again.
Neal eyes her. "Emma, are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she says again. It's irrational to be this unsettled when everyone else is regaining their equanimity. She doesn't feel comfortable in her own skin anymore, lost in this world where everything is different and pieces of her feel like they don't fit right. She just needs some time to adapt, that's all.
They sit in silence for a few more minutes, Neal finishing up his breakfast and Emma watching him and Regina and her own limp hands. There's a noise from outside, an angry shout and then another, and Emma stands, relieved at the distraction. "That'll be the angry mob, then."
"Snow says not to let them kill Regina," Neal informs her, and she gives him a dark look and throws the front door open.
There's no mob.
What there is is a sword fight going on in earnest on Regina's front lawn.
Emma stares. Lancelot is slashing outward as Milah parries, Belle shouting, "Stop! Stop this!" and Mulan and the Merry Men all with their weapons out. "We're allies!" Belle shouts to them.
"We were," Mulan says, pointing her sword at Belle. "But if the queen is holding Emma–"
"Uh." Emma says, stepping out the door. All eyes turn to her in relief and– amusement, from the pirate. "I'm here."
"I'm not holding anyone," says a sleek voice behind her, and Emma stumbles forward, away from Regina as she strides to the front of the porch. "Watch the begonias, please." Regina stares them down like she doesn't have a band on her arm that makes her powerless, and it works.
Lancelot sheathes his sword, climbing the steps in two strides to wrap Emma in his arms. "We've been searching for you," he rumbles.
She hugs him back, more relieved at the sight of him and the others than she cares to admit. Without the Merry Men, she's on her own, helpless without allies who belong solely to her. With them, she feels like she belongs again– and not in the nightmarish way that her clothing in Regina's drawers implies– and she breathes fresh air and clasps Lancelot's wrist for the comfort it brings her.
She turns– and it's just in time to see Milah climb up the stairs and kiss Regina squarely on the lips. "A pleasure to see you again, Your Majesty," she says, grinning.
Emma's eyes narrow, a surge of– something– hot and furious at her throat as Regina rolls her eyes at Milah almost fondly. "Captain," she says, inclining her head.
They all traipse inside, Regina wincing at the dirt that the Merry Men track in, and Emma shows them to the white couches in the office and smiles at Regina's wince. "Must you?" she mutters.
Emma scoffs. "Oh, like your girlfriend is much cleaner? Better dirt than fish," she says snidely, and turns back to the room. "Relax. Put up your feet," she encourages them, and Will winks at her and props his filthy boots up onto the arm of the couch.
Regina eyes her with mingled speculativeness and irritation, and Emma brushes past her to sit beside Mulan on the opposite couch. "You don't remember anything either," Regina says, turning to Mulan as though she knows she'll get a straight answer from her.
She's correct, of course. "Last I remember was Emma losing control of Rocinante as that purple smoke swept over the land."
"Rocinante," Regina repeats. Emma glares at a footprint on Will's couch and avoids her gaze altogether. Mulan and Lancelot share equally ambiguous looks.
"I was there, too," Neal puts in. "We rode a different way and joined a caravan headed toward your castle. A short while later, you and Emma and Snow all rejoined the caravan. I took off after that, when I'd heard that…" He gives a quick, uncomfortable jerk of his head to his mother.
Emma turns to her, distrustful. "And you conveniently received a message telling you to come back here."
"That's right. Yesterday afternoon." Milah lounges against the wall beside the fireplace, with all the comfort of someone who's been here before. And been at home then, too. Emma's eyes narrow. "Whoever it was seemed to know that the curse was coming soon. It was very important to them that the lad and the prince be returned here when it did."
"Imagine that." Emma stares very deliberately at Regina. Regina avoids her gaze. "And you have no idea who this woman is."
"None."
"Really. You've been around…hundreds of years? Traveled all the realms? And some stranger shows up with a magic bean and you don't question her or it?"
"Emma," Neal cuts in, earnest as he can muster. "Emma, she gave us a chance to help. To see Henry again. Of course we questioned it, but we weren't about to hesitate on that one."
Milah says, rolling her eyes, "She won't be satisfied with that, Baelfire. Your Swan Hood appears to have other reasons for doubting me." Her voice lowers to throaty levels of suggestiveness.
Emma's jaw works under her skin. "Attempted murder?"
"Ah, you're jealous!" Milah says, amused as she parses it together. "What a treat!"
"I'm not jealous," Emma's quick to deny.
Milah cocks an eyebrow, swoops down in a swift movement, and presses her lips against Emma's very surprised "mmph!"
"There," she says, clapping her hands together. "I've said hello to you, too. You're both frightfully monogamous, aren't you? Dull." She raises her eyes to where Regina is glaring at her, looking no less than murderous. Regina glances down and catches Emma's wide eyes, and they both duck their heads, abashed.
Neal sounds pained. "Mama, that's the mother of my child. Both of them, actually."
Will snickers, but his eyes are wary as he takes in the room around them. Mulan sighs and Lancelot puts an arm around her on the couch to rest a comforting hand on Emma's shoulder. Emma stares at Will's footprint some more.
Belle clears her throat. She's been sitting patiently in a chair at the corner of the room, Neal hovering behind her and Milah's eyes flying to her every few moments. Whatever their pirate team's allegiances, they seem most protective of Belle, and Emma trusts her enough to trust them a tiny bit more.
She smiles at Belle and Belle smiles back tentatively. "What we need to figure out is who had access to a magic bean. Those are all gone, aren't they?"
"The Blue Fairy gave me one when I was a boy," Neal offers. "But this wasn't her."
"Squeakier voice," Belle agrees. "Kind of breathy."
"And she had a wand," Milah says, lip curling in distaste. "Like a child's dress-up. She left a trail of glitter on my deck."
Lancelot asks another question, but Emma's eyes have drifted to Regina, still suspicious. Regina's brow is furrowed and she looks to be in deep thought, but she doesn't offer anything else for the duration of the conversation.
"No angry mobs?" Emma wonders as the others begin to shift in their seats.
"The curse started early," Belle says thoughtfully. "People woke up and wanted coffee, not murder. And no one wanted to leave Storybrooke, anyway. Regina did us a favor this time around." She must not know the cost of the curse, because there are no curious glances in the room, just acceptance.
When Regina speaks up, she seems to have surrendered the moot urge to deny it, anyway. "I'll have the sheriff call a town meeting to assure everyone that he's looking into our missing time. Do you have a place to stay?" The question is directed to the four Merry Men still on her couches, and even Will straightens at the Evil Queen talking to him.
"We woke up in a set of cabins in the woods out here," he says, and hurries to add, "Your Majesty."
Regina looks pleased at the honorific. "Then the curse has provided for the new citizens," she says, nodding to herself. Will beams right back at her. It occurs to Emma that this is the first time that her Merry Men have been exposed to Regina in a non-battle setting, and they all look caught between obstinate on her behalf and awestruck…also probably on her behalf.
"I'm still staying here," Emma says grimly. Regina walks to her and Emma stiffens, feeling new currents of fear race through her at the other woman's proximity.
"Very well," Regina says, and she watches Emma with an opaque gaze.
The Merry Men and Milah's crew traipse out together, Milah offering drinks to them all and receiving whoops in response. They're all getting along, and Emma bids them farewell and promises to meet up with them in the morning. I'm keeping Regina here on house arrest, she says, and ignores their knowing glances.
They don't know anything. They're caught up in silly fairytales as Emma herself had once been, and they believe still in a love that contains legends. She doesn't dare explain to them how far Swan Hood and the Evil Queen have fallen from legend.
When they're gone, the sky is growing dark and Regina says, "I'll put something together for dinner."
Emma says, "What about Henry?"
"I'll talk to David and we'll meet Henry in the morning," Regina murmurs, longing in her eyes tempered only with caution. "You need more time to adjust." She opens a pantry and that big two-doored closet to reveal a cool, food-filled second pantry. "You can go get some air."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Emma demands, still on edge around her. Now that even Neal is gone, the house is beginning to feel dark and restricting, massive and still a cage around her locking her inside with Regina.
"It means you still flinch every time I come near you," Regina says curtly. "We don't need Henry to see that or ask about it." She busies herself with her pantries, yanking out ingredients and mixing thick cheeses and sauces together in a bowl. "In all the years I've known you, I've never thought of Swan Hood as so easily terrified."
Of all the less-than-complimentary things I've thought of you over the years, I'd never imagined you were a coward.
Emma jerks, hearing the words in Regina's voice, biting and vicious. She takes a step back, and Regina misunderstands. "I'm not threatening you," she says with weary resignation, gesturing to the stove she's just turned on. "This is a pilot flame. It stays restricted to the stove. We use pots on it, not a roasting spit and a slab of meat."
"I have been in a kitchen before." Emma is adrift again, fighting queasiness in her stomach and the frantic beating of her heart. "I used to sneak through yours all the time. I didn't know you'd ever cooked before this place."
"I hadn't," Regina admits. "I learned for Henry. This is lasagna. Kind of a…tried-and-true dish of mine." She drops long, flat pieces of pasta into the pot on the stove. "I can show you how…" Her voice trails off and Emma notices abruptly that she's taken a step forward without realizing it. Her hands are on Regina's hair and Regina is staring at her past them, her face bare and vulnerable.
Emma struggles to explain herself and comes up blank. "It's shorter," she says dumbly. It is, full and straight as it had never been in the Enchanted Forest, falling in a gentle wave to her shoulders. It lends a different air to Regina altogether, more of the girl who'd worn it loose and less of the queen who'd kept it tightly wound around her like an elaborate shield.
Regina with her hair like this is the Regina of the nursery, of nights spent curled beside her, whispering secrets and dreams into each other's ears. Emma's seen it all day but only now– in a kitchen at the end of the day as though they're…family, home, a dozen long-rejected names for whatever they've become– does it strike her so clearly that Regina is someone else entirely in this land.
"I'll go…get that air," Emma says, and she makes a hasty exit toward the front door.
She circles the house to the yard and nearly makes a break for the woods that surround it, sliding to the ground and staring up at the night sky. There are crickets chirping around her, the sounds of rustling as animals move through the night, and Emma stares up at unfamiliar constellations and breathes easily for the first time today.
The indoors here is sterile and silent, free of the freedom of the woods that Emma's been surrounded by all her life, and she feels like she's suffocating in the bright lights and the hums of electricity, whatever the hell that is. And, of course, the woman who rules within that house is equally as daunting and frustrating a cipher as any magical marvels of this world.
Even the woods aren't far enough from Regina, and Emma stands again and breaks into a run, tracking movements and asking questions of passersby until she's made it to a nondescript square of a building. There's a ladder to the side of it, stretching up along the windows, and Emma clambers up it until she looks into one window and sees Snow and David and Henry seated around a table.
They're eating too, and she nearly knocks on the window before she second-guesses herself. She doesn't know Henry yet. And a part of her is still terrified of getting any closer, of making another connection only to lose him again, and she still can't quite reassure herself that any of this isn't a dream. That they aren't apart anymore, that she can wake up in the morning and walk down a few roads and find her son waiting for her. That a decade of desperate longing is over.
She backs away and stumbles back to Regina's house, sinking down to sit against a tree in the woods and watch through the window at the figure moving inside. And then there's Regina, who seems just as lost around Henry now as she does. Which…good, she deserves no less, even if she is telling the truth about not taking him in the first place. Regina has inflicted enough pain on everyone to get her comeuppance now, no matter how minor it is in the end.
Emma's skin is still crawling from this morning, and she scrapes at it now uncertainly. The pieces all add up to Regina having done all of this, Regina as the caster of the curse who'd done something to Emma's heart to cast it, Regina essentially muzzled with that cuff on her wrist. Regina had…seduced her and then taken her heart for the curse, maybe? Threatened her and then taken advantage of her? She doesn't know Regina's limits anymore. She doesn't even recognize the Regina in an immaculate house without ostentation who's afraid to speak to their son.
A noise breaks her out of her reverie and she jolts, staring up in alarm. Something is in the trees.
It's making a leathery flapping noise and its shadow is huge, much larger than any bat or owl, and Emma moves swiftly, finding thin branches in the dark and putting together a makeshift bow as she has dozens of times before. Her fingers still remember how to lace the thinnest branch to a thicker one, to sharpen the point of an arrow, and there's a reassuring familiarity to it.
Her predator becomes her prey; her forest is her home; and she fires at the creature with a surge of renewed confidence, finally herself.
The creature explodes in a smoky burst of white. Emma doesn't know if that's natural or unnatural in this world, but she dusts off her hands and tucks the makeshift bow under her arm, turning to stroll back into the house at last.
Regina isn't in the kitchen anymore, and Emma rounds a corner with a little less trepidation than before and finds her on her knees in front of the couches in the office, scrubbing furiously at the stains that Will's boots had left there.
Emma has been a frenetic force of energy since she'd gotten here, wild and terror-stricken and violently so; but Regina has been calm, contained even in her heartbreak. It's a shock to see her this way now, frantic as she scrubs and pauses every few moments to yank at the cuff on her wrist, and she's trembling with every moment, no longer restrained at all.
She yanks at the cuff again and slams a hand against the sofa when she peels away a rag and the dirt remains, grinding out a cry of frustration. She's unaware of Emma behind her.
Emma swallows, feeling sudden guilt at Regina's distress. It had only been a spiteful move, making something in the pristine room less than perfect, but it's enough to have Regina falling to pieces over it. (But this is the first time all day that Regina had been alone, hasn't it? Her solitude is her freedom to express herself, as it always has been. Emma had just been allowed to witness it, once.) She bites her lip and then reaches for a second rag in the pail of cleaning fluid, dabbing it at another stain on the couch.
Regina looks up, startled. "I thought you'd gone out."
"I did." Emma watches as Regina's fingers tug at the cuff, again and again, leaving sore redness behind. "You're going to hurt yourself."
"Sorry." Regina scrapes again at the dirt. "I just…I want thestains off my couch and I don't have any magic and I hate this damned cuff so much, Emma. I hate–" She gulps in a breath and Emma gapes at her, stunned by her…vulnerability. Regina is angry and afraid, maybe just as afraid as Emma, and she hasn't bent for an instant all day until now.
"That cuff was used on you before," she guesses.
"I pulled at it until my fingers bled," Regina whispers, her eyes still fixed on the stain on the couch. "I scraped off all the skin from my wrist and when they finally tied me down to that table it was a relief, in a sense. I couldn't fight anymore." She laughs bitterly. "Except I could talk back, so I suppose I never did stop fighting."
A thought occurs to her, a memory still fresh in her mind even though there's a gulf of missing memories between it and now. Neal's explanation of where he'd been before he'd fallen into a portal and wound up at the Dark Castle. "You were tortured. That's why they put it on."
Regina looks up at her with brown eyes rimmed with red. "I'm sure you think I deserved it."
"I don't know what you deserve," is the only response Emma can give to that. Regina sags.
And then, another admission. "I thought of you when it hurt the most. Of what I'd done to you for coming back." Regina's eyes are daring her to respond, to agree, and Emma remembers the year of Regina in exile and Henry in the woods with her. She remembers chasing Thea to the castle and being caught, being wrapped in violent electricity in agony, helpless and in more pain than she's ever been in her life.
She tries to summon up outrage and vindictive agreement and finds that she can't against Regina now, still scrabbling at the cuff as though it's forcing her into those memories. "I don't know what you want from me, Regina. I'm…I'm trapped here in a land I never wanted to see, and with you– and I don't know what you're capable of anymore. I am terrified," she admits. "I'm terrified all the time."
Regina doesn't answer, but her hand slides out to cover Emma's and Emma pulls away automatically. Regina's brow furrows. There's a loud ding from the kitchen and they both jump. "That's the lasagna," Regina says hastily. "I'll go take it out of the oven."
She vanishes from the room and Emma sinks to the floor again, weary with the combination of emotions that Regina forces from her. Longing, always longing, and caution just as strong. Bewilderment, because she doesn't grasp this Regina at all. Compassion. Emma will always feel compassion for Regina because it's who they both are, no matter how easily she'd tried to kill Regina earlier that day.
And then– terror, ever-present. She doesn't know what she's afraid of but she's as panicked by Regina as Regina is by that cuff, two unobtrusive cages holding them prisoner in no tangible way. And Emma has only nine months of blank memories to comfort her.
Her hand slips under the couch and hits a long, hard rectangle. She pulls it out, blinking down at it with confusion. It's just a series of neatly marked buttons, and Emma has no idea what any of the letters on it mean. AUX, DVD, VOL, CH– it's in a language beyond her, and she hits a few of them at once as a window across the room blares to life.
"Wha–" There are people in it, moving as though they're being held captive inside it, and Emma hits another button and scrambles back as Regina's face fills the window. Oh. Not a prison, some kind of magic mirror. Regina in the mirror is speaking sharply, but her eyes are bright as she orders the room, "Make sure you're getting Henry in the video, too. Today isn't about me."
She bends and lifts– oh, Emma nearly sobs– a tiny Henry from the ground, just how Emma remembers him. His face is a little rounder and older, his clothes are the style that is favored here, but he's just a child in this vision, at most a year older than he'd been when Emma had seen him last.
Exactly a year, she realizes a moment later, when Princess Abigail breezes into the room with a few toddlers in tow and says, "Happy birthday, Henry!" Henry beams up at her with a toothy smile and Regina beams at him with all the love in the universe for their tiny boy.
The view moves jerkily, swinging around to focus on other children playing with Henry and Henry with a little cone-shaped cap on, Henry with a cake emblazoned with a birthday message for him, Henry running wild through the house without a care for cleanliness or order.
And Regina is everywhere, too, watching over Henry with unfettered delight in her eyes, absolutely charmed by everything he does. She vanishes into the kitchen and returns to the mirror's view holding a thick candle in a glass, and when Henry blows out the candles for his birthday cake, Regina sets the glass candle down on the mantle and for a moment, the joy fades from her face as she stares into it, pensive.
"I lit the candle for you every year," Regina murmurs from the doorway. "I know you don't believe me, but I'd never intended for you to be separated from him."
"Was I supposed to live in this house with you? Your little wife?" Emma asks bitterly, but in the light that the mirror casts over her, it comes out small and wanting instead.
"No." Regina sits beside her, adjusting the rectangle so the sound that emerges from the mirror is clearer. "No, you weren't. Emma–" She inhales sharply and then stops speaking at once.
Emma waits, her eyes on Henry and Regina on the screen as she spins in circles with Henry ensconced in her arms until they both drop to the ground, Regina laughing helplessly as Henry pounces on her with sloppy kisses.
Regina says, "If something was done to you, we'll find out what it is."
"What?"
Regina stares at the mirror. "What you said before. You've consistently been the…the boldest, most outrageously reckless person I've ever known. If you're this afraid– of this world or of me– I can't imagine that it's natural. If it was taken from you in the missing time or if it's only now that you have that missing time that it registers so strongly, we'll find out."
Emma gapes at her, staggered at the pronouncement. And most of all, what she can feel at it is relief. Relief at the assurance that there is something wrong with her beyond just her heart, that she's been changed somehow in their missing time and can feel it innately now.
And then, that same fear again, creeping back up through her. "Except…you had something to do with it, didn't you?" She remembers the echo of Regina's voice, the scornful I'd never imagined you were a coward, and it still feels real. "I can feel it."
Regina shakes her head, and Emma barrels onward before she can be cut off. "Whenever we're close like this, my heart stops beating wrong." It beats in time with Regina's heart, steady and warming, and Emma flushes and hates what it means. "You did this. You cast your curse and fucked me up somehow and you can't just…promise to find my courage when you're the one who took it from me in the first place."
"I didn't cast the curse," Regina whispers. "I'm not that person anymore." The Regina in the mirror curls her hands around the glass of the candle and stares into it, joy fading into somberness. Henry tugs at her skirt and she forces a smile and turns to him.
"And what would losing Henry do to you?" Emma demands, unable to tear her eyes from them. "What would you have become without him?" She can still hear the sizzle of electricity around her, still see the scorching eyes boring into her as she screams outside Regina's castle.
Regina is silent.
In the mirror, Regina kneels beside Henry and leans forward, whispering three words into his ear that Emma can read on her lips.