Regina is glancing at her every so often, watchful and conscientious, and Emma tightens her grip on the seat and says irritably, "I'm fine. This is no different than any other carriage."
It's three days into her time in Storybrooke, and Emma has finally been forced into this…death machine. She's avoided it the rest of the time, insisted that she can find the forest just fine on her own and can make her way into town without a problem, but the water is just too far away to travel without a horse.
"I can slow down if you want." The…car, Regina had called it…is still moving too fast, and Emma sucks in a breath as they careen around another corner.
"I don't care," Emma mutters, spotting another red octagon in the distance. She's careful to keep her sigh of relief as inaudible as she can manage. Regina still hears it, if the way she presses her lips together to keep from smiling is any indication. Emma glowers. "You know, if this car wasn't so impractically long, I wouldn't have a problem with it at all." She points up ahead to the cars in front of the docks. "See that one? Small and compact. I bet it wouldn't crash into corners like yours does."
"I don't crash into–" Regina begins, and deflates just as quickly. "Never mind." She quirks an eyebrow. "That's a Beetle, actually."
"What?"
"Volkswagon Beetle. It's a kind of car. Your Beetle, I'm sure, is safe at the stables. This one is Neal's." And sure enough, after an agonizing period of nearly bumping into the walking path while Regina "parks," Henry and Neal emerge from the docks to meet them.
Neal isn't joining them today. "I want to be Henry's dad for as long as he's okay with it," he'd said when he'd suggested the outing. "But this…this family unit? That's the three of you, and you guys need to figure it out on your own." So he's deliberately not coming along, even though Milah and Belle are still sailing the Jolly Roger for them.
Emma staggers out of the car and vomits onto the ground in front of Henry. Henry says, "Ew."
"She gets carsick," Regina offers, reaching into the back compartment of the car to find a water bottle from the icebox she'd packed up earlier.
"She drives like she's trying to kill me," Emma protests.
"She was going, like, fifteen miles per hour." Henry studies them in the way he's prone to, taking their measure and giving away none of his findings. He might not have his memories, but there's still a quality to him that is unmistakably Regina.
Over the past few days, he's done a lot of that staring. They can't give him all the answers that he wants and he knows it, can see it in their eyes and their reluctance when he suggests even leaving the house. Emma has gone out with him once or twice, venturing to the Merry Men or into the tavern that Granny runs here, but Regina hadn't left the house once until today.
Which they'd agreed was for the best. The house is attacked sporadically– they'd had to call Geppetto for help repairing two windows and an angry villager had broken in last night and met the business end of Emma's bow– and Regina in town might be faced with even worse. Henry can't see it. Henry can't know about any of this right now or he might run screaming from them, and so they tiptoe around the topic of why until they'd had no choice but to arrange a family outing.
And they'll do it on Milah's ship, where no one can attack them or question them or point out the truth to Henry. Of course, Milah is wearing that damned hook again, and Henry is eyeing it with apprehension as they board the ship.
"Steady," Regina cautions Emma. She's holding an enormous icebox that Regina calls a cooler, packed to the brim with more food than any of them could eat in a day. "Don't trip."
"Don't tell me what to do." But she doesn't say anything more cutting than that, not with Henry around. That's another thing they're not telling, nothing about the tension between his mothers or the thousand pounds of baggage they've hauled with them into his life. Emma thinks he might know anyway, if only because of the way his brow creases when they're trying to be friendly.
His brow furrows again now and Regina nudges her reprovingly. The cooler flies to the ground and crashes open, and Regina's hands shoot out automatically, fingers stretching toward the cooler as though she can stop it with her magic. Instead, the contents spill out of it and Regina closes her fingers around the cuff on her wrist and hisses, "Damn, damn, damn," as Belle and Emma rush to collect it.
Henry kneels down beside them, eyes flickering to Regina, and Regina drops her hands and stares darkly into the ocean. "What's this?" Henry wonders, lifting up a heavy book that had slid out of the cooler. Embossed on the cover is Once Upon a Time, and Emma recognizes it only by Snow's stories.
"It's an old family book. Mary Margaret brought it over this morning," Regina says, her gaze still on the water instead of them. "I thought your other mother might like to look through it today."
"Can I–"
"No!" they both bark out, and Henry blinks up at them in hurt confusion.
"I don't think that's a good idea right now," Emma says gently. With David busy with Mary Margaret and midwives and helping the sheriff at the station, Henry's been very much alone in this world. They're terrified of pushing him too far, giving him too much, and losing him irrevocably in the process. "Maybe someday, though."
Henry scowls at the floor. "Okay," he mutters, and then catches sight of something that makes him brighten. "Is that root beer?"
Root beer is…not bad, Emma concedes, and Regina and Henry down their bottles with equal gusto. There's also watermelon and some kind of complex fried potato dish that Henry declares the best food he's ever tasted while Regina beams with secretive pride. It's peaceful out here, quiet and simple, and Emma feels free for the first time since they'd gotten here.
Regina is still a wildcard and Emma stiffens every time her arm brushes against Emma's, but this also feels kind of like a family again, like months spent in Regina's castle without any intruders present. "Tell me about your friends," Regina asks, her eyes alight with adoration as Henry speaks. "Which extracurriculars does your school offer?" Regina asks, hanging onto every word. Regina asks about baseball and comics and a dozen things that Emma's never heard of before.
For her part, Emma mostly listens. She doesn't know what she has to offer Henry– not without knowledge of this world or knowledge of him, of what makes him enthusiastic and what has him soaking in Regina's comments. She's an outsider here, an intruder who hasn't been a part of their family in a decade, and she bites back resentment for it and struggles to follow the conversation instead.
Regina's fingers curl and uncurl where they lie between her own legs and Emma's; as though she can't decide whether or not a reassuring squeeze of Emma's thigh would be welcome. Emma herself doesn't know, and she's frail and defiant at once with frustration.
"Ma?" Henry says, and it's only then that Emma realizes that she looks as perturbed as she feels. "Are you okay?"
"Of course. I want to hear all about you," she says, meaning every word. "I'm just a little out of touch, I guess."
Henry frowns. "Were you in another country or something while you were gone?"
"Traipsing through the woods, more like," Regina murmurs. "Peasant."
But it's quick and affectionate, Regina's guard down for a moment and Emma can't hold back the smile in time. It's awkward and tentative, and Emma cuts it off at once and turns back to Henry.
Henry, who's eyeing them again like they're a mystery to be solved, and he says, "So how'd you meet?"
"What?"
He shrugs. "I know I have…a dad, obviously, but he isn't a part of…" He waves at the two of them. This family. "Were you…together before I was born?"
They exchange a tired glance, and this time Emma can't look away without setting off warning bells with their son. Regina still has her caught in her gaze, uncertain and burdened, when Emma says, "Well, I accidentally kidnapped her."
Regina barks out a startled laugh. "You did, didn't you?" She tears her eyes from Emma to face Henry. "She had a whole bit about robbing the rich to give to the poor." She rolls her eyes. "Her friend…broke into my mother's car and tried driving off with it without either of them noticing that I was in the backseat."
Finding that memory again is like trudging through decades of quicksand, sinking deeper and deeper into it until she's drowning in what is uniquely Regina. "Your mom bailed me out of there before Cora– before your grandmother caught us." She remembers the moment and Regina's startled gasp of You're a girl? and she remembers when they'd talked about this last, remembers being propped up on a bed with a new baby in her arms and… "You had good eyes," she repeats, an echo of times long gone.
Said eyes are cloudy and regretful as they meet hers again, and Emma reminds herself a dozen times of who Regina has become before she pulls away from her.
Henry is eating watermelon, bite after bite after bite as he regards them, and then he asks solemnly, "Was it love at first sight?"
"No," Emma says, just as Regina says, "Yes."
"No?" Regina repeats, looking suddenly uncertain.
"Yes?" Emma whispers, and her stomach roils painfully in response.
Henry leans back against the wall that juts out around the deck. Emma says, "You always said–"
"I was…not ready to love again," Regina admits. "But you stayed with me for a long time."
"I did spend an unhealthy amount of time harassing you at your cas– your house," Emma agrees wryly.
"That's not what I meant." There's a shine to Regina's eyes now when she talks about who they'd been, as though she's floating through it while Emma's mired in quicksand below, flailing deeper and deeper into blackness with every moment that passes.
Typical, Emma thinks, and feels sick about it. "Listen, I'm…uh…" They both stare at her, her shadowed-eyed, inquisitive family whom she's worlds apart from now. "I'm going to check out that book," she whispers, and shifts away from them to the ground beside the cooler.
She stares blankly at the first page, listening to Henry as he says to Regina, "So you were in love. I didn't think…I kind of thought you were pretending for my sake." He taps the tips of his toes against the deck.
Regina says, "There was a war on when you were a baby, and we were on opposite sides. Eventually, Emma decided that I wasn't capable of raising you and she took you away from me." Emma's fingers tense against the page. She isn't going to be painted the villain because of that, not after ten years of penance.
She peers up at them and sees Henry's brow furrowed. "Was she right?"
"Yes," Regina says, and Emma's hands loosen and fall from the book into her lap. "It caused quite the rift at the time." She slides a hand into Henry's, her eyes flitting back to Emma. "But none of that matters now that you're here with us and that war is over. You're our priority, and that isn't going to change even if we aren't together."
She's right. Of course she's right, and they've made it work in far less ideal circumstances than these– these, where the only villain to worry about in town is Regina herself, and she's been nothing less than muted in the past few days, acerbic tongue the only part of her that still burns. And yet there's a a finality to it, a concession that it won't be them ever again, no matter how bright Regina's eyes burn when she talks about them being in love.
Good. Emma's done with Regina, with betrayals and losses and last year haunting her like a mystery. She glares down at the open page of the book, angry without any valid reason for it, and then she freezes.
The picture on the page is of them, of Emma and Regina and Quinn riding through the woods to the Dark Castle. Snow had talked about the book as some kind of record of their history but she hadn't expected it to be about her, only the great wars that Snow White and Queen Regina had waged.
But it's an entire book about her– about Snow, yes, but Emma is as much the protagonist of it as Snow is. Henry had gotten this book and seen his mother as a heroic figure, noble thief and warrior for good. The book is effusive about painting her as a hero or a victim, nothing in between.
And Regina is the villain.
Emma flips through the pages, disbelieving, but not a single story paints the Evil Queen in a favorable light. Regina is her nemesis, her feared master, the kidnapper of her child. Regina is evil without pause. The book twists and weaves its way through Emma's story at the expense of Regina's, and never does it give Regina reprieve.
They'd never been enemies in reality. Never, not when Regina had hated her and Emma had still loved her with sheer exhaustion. There had been a time when there had been a less-than-friendly rivalry between them, but never had this kind of mutual loathing existed between them– not even now, when Regina seems to have tired of resentment and offered her kindness instead. But this narrative seems dead-set on stripping away the love that had powered their story throughout all their years and leaving behind only an emotionless story of good versus evil. It's simplistic and it's infuriating and Emma thinks with horror of Henry opening this book as a ten-year-old and being conditioned to believe it's true.
"No," she whispers, jerking back to face Regina and Henry. But they're gone. Milah is showing Henry how to draw in the sails and Regina is watching them, her arms folded and her fingers absentmindedly yanking at the magic cuff in the nervous habit she's picked up.
Watching her now, she feels the compassion welling up, the outrage at the book and the war it had drafted Henry into. It isn't fair– not to either of them. Henry deserves the truth. Regina deserves–
She buries her face in her hands, a fat droplet of rain landing on the book as she does, and then there's a gentle voice in front of her. "Seasick?" Belle says it knowingly. "I spent half my first trip on the Jolly Roger with my head in a bucket."
Emma shakes her head. "No. I can handle a ship. I just…" She smiles up at her, quick and grateful. "You know that without you, Henry wouldn't even be here."
Belle nods. "I didn't realize then who he was, but I imagine…a much darker outcome for us all if you'd never escaped to Regina. No matter the price I paid for it."
"The price you paid?" Emma's blood runs cold. "The Dark One didn't–"
"No," Belle says at once. "No, he didn't punish me for it. But your return did reveal to Regina that he had a weakness."
"She took you." Emma flips through the pages of the book again until she finds Belle, locked in a cage as she shouts threats at Regina. "Oh, hell."
"I didn't know then that you were hiding Neal's son from Rumple," Belle interjects. "I was Regina's bargaining chip for Henry's safety. I'm a little more understanding now." She doesn't quite look at Regina with trust, but it isn't distrust, either. "And she truly has changed."
Now she's watching Emma instead of Regina and Emma can feel the claustrophobia rising again, the uncertainty and the pressure of believing in Regina that suffuses every conversation she has with Snow or Regina herself. She isn't ready for that. Regina doesn't want it, she knows, if only from the resolution in Regina's voice as she tells Henry that they'll be his mothers regardless.
A light drizzle begins on the deck and Belle calls, "Milah! Are we bringing the ship in?"
"Now?" Milah frowns at her from her spot halfway up the mast, Henry scampering behind her. "Why would we–"
The sky seems to darken in an instant, a bright rainbow stretching across it, and then the rain comes pouring down, heavy and rapid and unrelenting. Milah shouts, wrapping a hand around Henry before he can fall, and she begins to ease them both down.
Emma can't see anything through thick sheets of rain. "Henry!" she shouts. "Regina!" There's nothing but Belle, quick and agile, sprinting across the deck to take in the sails.
"What is this?" Milah roars over the storm. "This isn't natural!" The rainbow is still bright above them, shining as though it's just decoration, and Emma struggles to find her feet and stagger up. The rain beats against her back with unstoppable force and she slides instead down to the deck, smashing her head against the seat.
"Henry," she groans, grabbing hold of the seat and hoisting herself up. The ship is rocking in the waves as though it might tilt over, and Emma drags herself to the closest sail and attempts to climb it.
Instead, she has the prime position to see Milah slip from her descent. Henry jerks and Belle lets out a scream, and Regina hurtles forward to them. Milah catches Henry but Regina is swept to the side in a gust of wind and toppled overboard. "Regina!" she shouts, swinging around to spot Henry. He's securely wrapped in Milah's arms, Belle retrieving him and herding him belowdecks, and Emma breaths a sigh of relief and then leaps overboard after Regina.
"Regi– mmph–" The waves are lapping furiously around her, the calm waters of just minutes before gone. Emma doesn't know how storms work in this land, if they're always so sudden and always accompanied by an unnaturally bright rainbow, but she doesn't have time to contemplate it now. Not when Regina's bobbing in and out of view a few feet away.
Emma swims hard against the wind, gasping out water and reaching desperately forward. "Regina!" she manages. Regina isn't moving her limbs, just rocking in the water, and as Emma gets closer, she finally sees why.
She's dazed, her legs still, but one hand is furiously yanking at the cuff on the other. "I can't–" she says breathlessly when Emma catches up to her. "I can't get us out of…without…" Her eyes flicker shut.
No. They aren't going to die like this, in a freak storm with their son so close. Emma wraps her fingers around Regina's wrist, too, kicking frantically to keep them afloat as she attempts to peel the cuff off.
"Needs…" Regina chokes. "Magic…" Her fingers drop at last, and Emma seizes her by the waist, pulling her close before she's swept off into the undertow.
And then, finally, a rope appears out of nowhere, the ship circling back around for them. Emma grabs it, pulling Regina up with her, and Regina holds on weakly as they're hauled back onto the Jolly Roger.
The sky brightens as quickly as it had darkened, the rainbow still below it, and Milah leans against the mainmast and scowls. "That wasn't natural," she repeats. "Someone in this town is using magic to try to kill us."
"Then why'd they stop?" Emma is still clinging to Regina, arms tight around her middle as Regina coughs up water onto the deck.
"Exactly seven minutes," Regina manages. "Seven-minute storm. That's the duration of a good temporary spell."
"You think this is next-level vandalism?"
Regina sags, her head dropping to Emma's chest, and Emma shivers and reminds herself that this is just temporary support. She isn't letting Henry lose his mother over her own resentment. And she's only brushing Regina's hair back so she won't spit out sea water all over it and be insufferable the whole way home.
"It isn't your problem," Milah says kindly. For all her smug flirting, she does seem genuinely affectionate around Regina. "They never wanted to leave here, anyway. You did them a favor, bringing them back."
Regina scoffs, but her energy wanes as she curls into Emma's embrace.
They're still wet and shivering in towels when they make it to dry land, Regina still shaky and Henry holding their hands protectively. "That was a weird storm, right?" he says.
"This is Maine. We get some like that," Regina says.
Henry doesn't look convinced. "We were…what, a half mile out? And look." He points down at the wooden planks of the docks. "The wood is still light here. It's all dry. Which means that the rain didn't even make it here." He frowns. "You don't think there's anything funny about it?"
"No," Emma says quickly. The kid is too smart for his own good, and she's caught between pride and aggravation about it. "Storms are kind of fickle sometimes. Don't worry about it."
"Okay." But he looks almost disappointed in them waving it off, and he drags his feet a little and drops their hands. Emma looks at Regina for guidance. Regina purses her lips and says nothing.
They call Neal on Regina's phone and have him come get Henry, promising to meet again for dinner, but Regina's reluctant to have Henry present when there might be someone targeting her. "His safety comes first," she says softly, the lines of her face deep and bereft.
"Yeah," Emma echoes, kicking at the railing around the docks. "Yeah, it does." If she trusted Regina, she'd leave her to deal with her own mess and run off with Henry. But she doesn't. And besides, Regina had just nearly drowned and someone should probably make sure she doesn't keel over dead or…something.
She lets out a sigh of defeat and says, "So the book, huh?"
"The book," Regina agrees. "That's how Henry found out the truth the first time around."
"I don't want him to see it ever again." She grinds her teeth and Regina stares at her with startled, gratified eyes. "Who the hell wrote that biased piece of…?"
"I don't know," Regina murmurs. "It was certainly an attempt to cause a rift between Henry and me, though. Which is odd, considering that whoever wrote that book would have wanted the curse broken."
"And you broke it with him." Emma clenches her fists and turns, her voice rising. "Look–" She takes a breath and calms her voice. "Look, whatever happened with Henry– if it's your fault or someone else's, I don't know. I don't even know about this curse now," she admits. As logical as it is that Regina's behind it, she's becoming less and less convinced with each passing day in Regina's presence.
Before, Regina had been contained rage and snide resentment, always teetering on the precipice of explosion even when she'd been on her best behavior. The words Snow White had been enough of mood changer that even baby Henry had sensed it, time and again, and Regina had only kept her cool for long enough to carve distance between them.
Regina had never compromised her rage for love, and that had been the source of their distrust over and over again. Regina had always been moments from destroying them and Emma had stayed until there had been no other choice but to go, had clung to Regina for as long as she'd been able to without feeling as though she'd been betraying her personal code.
And now…now, Regina is changed.
Emma doesn't need Belle or Snow to tell her that. Regina still contains her rage but better, calmer, no longer on a hair trigger. Emma doesn't know what had happened in the missing year but she can grudgingly concede now that…whatever it had been that had led her to Regina's bed…it might have been her choice.
We're bound to each other, Emma, Regina had once said with such defeat that Emma had ached. For all the legends of true love and epic romance, Emma and Regina's had been mired in misery, the lighter moments few and far between. And yet they're still bound to each other, still drawn together by more than just a son, and now, finally, it's beginning to feel like they're ready for it.
"Emma?" Regina prods, and Emma realizes that she's been silent for a long time. And that Regina's hands are in hers now, somehow. "Whatever you think happened…it didn't. Henry and I managed through the book. I've…Emma," she whispers, tightening her grip on Emma.
It takes Emma a moment before she feels the wetness on her cheeks; helpless, frustrated tears sliding down her face. "Dammit," she mutters, swiping at them, but they keep spilling. "I just have…a lot of complicated shit with you, okay?"
"Okay," Regina says, curling her fingers between Emma's.
Emma yanks them away. "No. I mean, I hate you. I want you dead." She snarls it out, rough and hoarse, and Regina's eyebrow lifts in polite disbelief. As though Emma hadn't had a knife at her throat days ago, as though she knows with certainty that Emma wouldn't have ended her then. Emma seethes and deflates and seethes at herself for her weakness. "I hate me sometimes but I hate you more. I have to hate you for…for everything you've taken from me–"
"I know." Regina's fingers are twisting as though she can't figure out what to do with them. "You think you have a monopoly on self-loathing? Do you know how long I spent mourning you? Regretting so much of what I'd…what we'd both done to each other?" Her eyes are glistening now, too, even though her voice is hard.
"Ten years of Henry's life," Emma hisses through her tears. "Ten years! And all the time before that when I needed you to…" It's like pulling teeth, admitting that she needs, that she'd needed before. Emma's never done needed, not until there'd been a baby coming and Regina's arms wrapped around them both. And she'd let herself be vulnerable at last to the very worst person possible in spite of everything. "Oh, god, Regina, you let me down," she says, slumping against the bench.
Regina is silent, her lips pressing together to keep them from quivering, and Emma does reach for her hands again. "But I…" She looks away, unable to face the hope in Regina's eyes. "All those nights…that year at the Dark Castle…I was so lonely. It's so fucked up. I missed you so much," she chokes out.
She'd hated her, laid in the dark with her fists clenched as she'd cursed Regina. She'd obsessed over what she'd do to her and how she'd exact vengeance and god, it had been better to hate Regina and feel her presence around her than it had been to be without her. "It's fucked up that I still love you. That we still have this…" She wrenches her hand from Regina's to gesture at them both. "Thing." Her hand moves wildly, with a mind of its own, and it lands on Regina's cheek with incomprehensible tenderness. "That I still…"
Regina's still wet and worn from her near-drowning, the hand Emma had released settling down to scrape at the cuff again. Her skin is wan and her hair is hanging around her face but all Emma can see is her eyes, gleaming with burning love. She moves closer, her fingers trailing along the line of of Regina's jaw and her knees curling beneath her as she shifts toward Regina, and she leans in…
Regina jerks away, stumbling off the bench and nearly crashing into the railing. "Sorry," she says, backing away as tears spring to her eyes. "I…I can't…"
"Oh," Emma says, stunned. Of all the things she'd imagined Regina do next, running away is at the very bottom of the list. "I…I see."
"No, you don't." Regina hangs onto the railing with a white-knuckled grip. "No, you don't see. Emma, you were right. You must be right. We haven't been attacked by anyone but angry townspeople. There's no villain marching up and declaring dominion over the town." She's sobbing helplessly, small when silhouetted against the ocean, and Emma is afraid to move any closer. "I cast the curse. I must have cast the curse. And if I kiss you…if I even kiss Henry…"
And Emma understands at last. "Oh," she says again, softer and with wonder. "You think we could break the curse with our kiss."
"I do," Regina admits, flushing a dark russet the color of the setting sun behind her. "And I can't."
"Why the hell not?" Emma demands. "This is it! If we kiss like this– if that works– we could know the truth about everything! We'd have answers."
"I don't want those answers!" It erupts from Regina's throat in a near-shriek. "I don't want to…Emma, someone thought I was dangerous enough to put this cuff on me and I still went off and cast the curse. I thought I'd changed before last year. I thought I was good. And if I wasn't…if I became someone despicable again in that missing year…I won't be that woman again," she gasps out. "I can't remember. I can't."
Emma stands up and Regina flinches back, flattening herself against the railing. Emma moves closer and closer and Regina shivers, her arms tight around herself and her face pleading.
She doesn't kiss her, even when Regina is resigned and helpless to resist. Instead, she slides her arms around Regina and feels Regina's arms loosen and stretch around hers, the both of them trembling as they clutch onto each other. Their hearts are beating in time again, both too fast but still alternating pulses, and today it's soothing instead of terrifying.
"I don't believe it anymore," Emma murmurs into Regina's ear, and she can feel the confidence surge back through her at Regina's fears. If she'd had doubts before, now her suspicion is eradicated, by choice as much as as a reaction to Regina's admission.
Regina's fingers dig into her back, tremors still wracking her body, and Emma closes her eyes and Emma closes her eyes and says what's rising through her like a final hope. "I don't believe you cast the curse. I can't believe that you'd lose yourself when you're so afraid of going down that road." She presses her face into the curve of Regina's neck, careful not to let her lips touch the other woman's skin. "Don't let me down," she whispers. Not again.
Regina feels warm and safe and like family again, like the beginnings of something stronger as she whispers, "And what if I already have?"
"I'm going to find them for you. Whoever cast this curse. They're out there and they're fucking with us alland we're going to find them." She slips from I to we so easily that she doesn't notice it until Regina's hands tighten against her back. "And when we can…we break it. And whatever we remember will be…"
She hopes, desperately needs to be right about this. She can't do it again, not years of cursing Regina's name and being alone with no one to love because of it. "That'll be it," she says, and her heart skips the beats that Regina's doesn't until she's breathless and determined.
Thump. (Thump.) Thump. (Thump.) Thump.