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Chapter 10 - The Confidant

Emma was unusually quiet for the rest of the evening. Regina was trying to get distracted after the unsettling conversation with Snow White – if that could even be called a conversation – but she could not help glancing every once in a while, to always be met with the same scene: Emma, lying on her back, both arms crossed behind her head, eyes wide open, looking up. On the first minutes right after Snow left, Regina would see a few tears trailing down the younger woman's face, and hear a soft sniff or a sigh. But they soon stopped, and now Regina was left with only the sound of the woman's still a little uneven breathing, and the image of green eyes staring numbly at the ceiling.

"You can stop looking every five seconds, you know?" Regina was surprised by Emma's quiet and raspy voice. She still didn't move, though, still looking up, "I'm not going to break down."

"I know," the response came with an unbelievably soft tone, "Did your headache at least get better?"

"Yeah, thanks for that," the blonde's voice was sincere, but it seemed detached.

There was more silence. Regina was starting to get nervous with the fact that it truly bothered her. It wasn't even the silence, really. It was the fact that Emma was clearly not ok, and she didn't know what to do to change that.

Finally, after a few long minutes, she decided on a single word. "Blue."

Emma immediately turned to look at Regina, whose eyes were already trained on her, and gave her a small smile. "Really? Like me?" She considered cracking a joke about Regina calling out for the Blue fairy in the middle of the night, but she was too tired to pretend that she hadn't understood what the woman meant.

The brunette nodded. "I always liked the colour, ever since I was little," she was actually relieved when she saw Emma turning her entire body to the side and propping her head up, supporting it with her elbow. "And then…" she paused for a second, trying to gather enough courage to talk about it. To talk about him. "Then I met Daniel, and his eyes… it was like someone took my favourite shade and put it there. I think it was the first thing I loved about him," she smiled, and allowed a single tear to fall from her face. Usually, she wouldn't, but if anyone warranted that, it was Daniel. "When she took his heart," her voice cracked, almost failing her now, but she managed to keep talking, "All I could see was the terrified look on his face, the horror on those beautiful blue eyes, and then the bright red heart on her hands."

"Blue and red together make purple," Emma whispered, suddenly overcome with an unsettling need to go over and be next to Regina, to offer some kind of support. But she fought it, part of her afraid that the woman would reject anything of the sort, another part afraid of the exact opposite. She wouldn't know what to do either way.

Regina nodded silently, before swallowing hard. "Purple means a lot of things, too. In some places, it is the colour of royalty, it represents power. For others, it is used for mourning the dead. With time, I changed. I became all of this together. And I could never look at pure blue the same way, and love it the same way. The memory of his eyes, it just… it always mixes with red now. I actually hate purple, because it reminds me of all these things. It taints his memory," there was a quiet sob, and then Emma could not help herself any longer.

Before Regina knew it, her duvet was being gently pulled, and, when she looked up at Emma in confusion, she saw the blonde holding her own light blue one, and carefully placing it over her. "No more darkness for you," she said, "I think he deserves a pure memory. I think you both do."

It wasn't just the amazingly kind gesture that rendered her speechless. It was the gentleness on Emma's tone when talking about Daniel, as if she understood just how much it mattered to the woman who still loved him so very much, that he was respected.

Noticing the brunette was not going to snap at her anytime soon, Emma sat by the bed, mirroring Regina's position not many nights ago, and looked down at her own hands, under the other woman's curious gaze. "The jacket was a farewell gift," she started, quietly, but with a somewhat happy smile on her face.

Regina sat up and watched the woman intently.

"My last foster family, they had a kid of their own," she was startled she was even sharing this. No one else knew about that, "I got there when I was 12, she was 11. The parents gave her everything, treated her like a princess, which, when I think about it now, is kind of ironic," she chuckled, "Her name was Lara and at first I thought she would be this spoiled little brat, but we became really good friends. I didn't trust anyone, but that girl earned it. She stayed with me all night on my first night in the house. Some older foster kids kicked me out of the room, I stayed outside and I was so scared," she gave Regina a sad smile, and the woman's insides twisted with guilt. She couldn't help reminding herself that she was the reason Emma had to go through these things in the first place. Still, she said nothing, and let her continue, "I sat there, on the hall, and I started crying. I was being so careful not to wake anyone up, but then one of the doors opened, and it was Lara. I thought she was going to run to her parents and rat me out, but she sat with me, and we talked until I fell asleep. She was the one who woke me up early the next day, and said I should try going back to my room or else I'd get in trouble. Then I have no idea what she did, but she convinced her parents to get me my own room seeing as I was much younger than the other kids. She always did everything she could to make things a bit easier for me, you know? The only who cared enough to do that. On my birthdays, that her parents didn't even acknowledge, she would always get me a little something herself, and then she would act like the spoiled brat I once thought she was, only to get her parents to buy her something really expensive that I wanted, and she would give it to me," Emma laughed quietly once again, causing Regina to give her a small smile.

"It must have been nice, to have someone who took care of you like that," she whispered.

"It was," Emma smiled, but it faltered after a moment, "But it was still pretty hard. They made us do all the housework, and, with time, the older kids got too old and left, and it was just me doing everything. They wouldn't let Lara do a thing, even though she tried to help me whenever they weren't looking. But as time passed, I just wanted to be free, to not feel like I was always following orders, like I owed those people anything. I wanted to go and find my way, and do whatever I wanted, I was so sick of living like that. So I told her that I was leaving as soon as I turned 16, I was going to try and get a job and then have my own life. I was so sure I could do it. Clearly, I was wrong," she sighed, remembering stealing cars and meeting Neal and having her baby in prison, "I never really thought I'd have to resort to stealing, except maybe for the first days or weeks. Lara tried to convince me otherwise. She didn't want me to leave, of course. But by then she knew me enough to know that I wasn't going to change my mind. It was about three months before my birthday when I told her. She wouldn't talk to me for the first week, but with time, she tried to understand. So the day before my birthday, she gave me her favourite jacket, she had just gotten it like a month ago, with some money she had saved from summer jobs here and there, and she knew how much I loved that thing. And she gave me the rest of the money she had, so that I could afford a place to stay and food for the first days, and covered for me so that her parents wouldn't know I left until I was far away from that house."

"Did you two keep in touch after that?" Regina asked. She couldn't help the weird feeling the story elicited in her. She felt… special somehow, that she was the one Emma had chosen to share that memory with.

"We tried," Emma thought back, "I stopped by the school a few times and we talked, but pretty soon I had to leave town. You know, too many people knew me around there, and I needed a fresh start. It wasn't as easy to keep in touch back then, especially for a runaway kid who barely had money to get her own food, let alone a phone."

"Well, dear, as much as I think I like this Lara person, it doesn't change the fact that both of you have hideous taste in clothes," she smirked, and then reached to touch Emma's hand with her own, "Did you bring that awful thing with you when you came here?" she asked softly, and smiled when the blonde nodded, laughing quietly, "Good. Tomorrow you should ask someone to bring it to you. That is if I can't convince you to get out. It's bad enough that one of us needs to be here."

"Are you that eager to get rid of me, Your Majesty?" her tone was playful, but behind her words, Regina could sense something else. Something that seemed awfully familiar, and she did not want Emma to ever feel that way again.

"I want you to be able to live your life in peace, and not in fear," she looked straight into Emma's eyes this time. Slowly, the right side of her lip turned upward, "But if anyone asks, we can go with your version. I do have a reputation to uphold, after all."

"Look… we're friends now, aren't we?" Emma hesitated, but breathed a sigh of relief when Regina quietly nodded.

"Yes, dear, I would say we are." It should scare her, really, how easily the admission left her lips.

"And I'm gonna go crazy here and assume that you never had that many friends, either, right? But here's the thing," she leaned closer, touching the blue duvet softly, almost reverently, "Friends fight for each other. And I get it, that after everything you've been through, and everything people made you believe about yourself, that you wouldn't think you are worth fighting for. But everything I've learned about you so far tells me the exact opposite," Regina's breath caught on her throat, "It tells me that people tried to put you down and control you because they saw how great you could be, and it scared the hell out of them. Your mother. Rumpelstiltskin. Hell, even the stupid king you had to marry."

"Do try to refrain from calling your grandfather stupid in front of other people, dear. They might not be as amused by it as I am," Regina broke the seriousness of the conversation with the comment and a grin.

"Ew, can you stop reminding me of these things? Geez, Regina, grosse!" And then Emma immediately paled, and the words were out of her mouth before she could help herself, "Oh my god, did he ever… you know? Were you ever… forced…"

"No," the brunette replied immediately, "No, it wasn't like that. I was more of a nanny for Snow than anything else," she did not miss the huge sigh of relief coming from the other woman, "The way he hurt me, it was different. He would talk about her all the time. How perfect she used to be, how heartbroken he was that he'd lost her," Emma didn't have to ask in order to understand who she was talking about, "and I was just there, like I was nothing but a piece of decoration to be shown around. Don't get me wrong, I am glad it wasn't more than that, but sometimes it's good to feel like you do matter, like your opinion is important, and that you are more than a shadow of someone long gone."

"I know what you mean. God, did you even have time to grieve?"

And those simple words meant more to her than pretty much anything else they'd ever talked about. Because, at last, Regina felt like someone truly saw her. Not the Evil Queen she became, but the girl she was, who found no other alternative other than to become that.

"You didn't deserve the kind of life you had," Regina whispered, looking down. She was sure Emma already knew the answer to the question she'd posed, so there was no point talking about it. But she needed to get this out, "You should have been the one whose parents gave everything to. You should have grown up like a princess, never wanting for anything."

"I've learned a long time ago that life is not always fair, Regina. And if your life story is anything to go by, that is just as true on this world as it is on mine. Maybe it's just the important and famous princesses that get their happy ending," she looked at her sadly, "But hey, it doesn't mean we can't try, right? Isn't that what you're doing?"

"I suppose," she hesistated. "But some of the choices I made, and the magic… it all changed me in a way that I'm not sure I will ever come back from."

Emma did not really believe that. Regina was already coming back from that, she could see that part of the woman fighting like hell to resurface, only to be pushed back down by all the years of hurt and fear that she was forced to face, which made it so hard for her to trust someone and open her heart again. "I forgive you, you know," she said the words and saw Regina's eyes meet hers so quickly that she didn't have time to look away. "I know you never asked me or anyone else other than Henry for forgiveness, but," she closed her eyes, the feeling was so true within her, and she was so certain of what she was saying it was almost overwhelming, "If it's worth anything," she shrugged with a quiet chuckle, "It's easier to forgive you for my past, now that I know a little bit more about yours," she smiled through the few tears that fell from her face. Tears she could see mirrored on the other woman's.

She reached out, slowly, to dry them, but the brunette turned to her side before she could do it, and wiped them herself quickly.

"I'm sorry," she was nervous, Regina could tell, "I just thought that… I'm sorry," she repeated, and motioned to get up, but Regina's hand found hers before she could.

They looked at each other once again, confusion, doubt, fear, hope, they could both feel it all at the same time. With a gentle swipe of her thumb through the blonde's hand, Regina allowed herself a small smile. "It means everything," she whispered, wanting nothing more than to look away, but finding that she wasn't able to.

Something was different, Emma noticed as she looked at their joined hands and allowed herself a small smile, bringing her other hand so that both of them were around Regina's, suddenly feeling protective of the woman. "It's ok that you don't like her, you know," she admitted, referring to Snow, "After all you've told me, I would never ask you to like her, but maybe," she tried to find the right words to say exactly what she thought, "Maybe you need to start focusing on your own happiness, other than other people's misery. This whole curse of yours… did it ever make you truly happy?"

"It did bring me some satisfaction for a while," Regina sighed, still in a frame of mind that told her she needed to justify herself.

"But that wasn't what I asked," Emma's lips turned into a small smile, "And you know that."

"And you, Ms. Swan, already know the answer to your own question," the brunette retorted, rolling her eyes and turning her gaze away from Emma. The last thing she wanted was to talk about the curse or Snow White and her stupid prince.

"I'm just saying," one of Emma's hands found Regina's chin, and made her look at her again, "You are both idiots," she grinned.

And then, unexpectedly, Regina laughed. It lasted a second, but it was such an honest sound that Emma could have hugged the woman in front of her. "Yeah, well, you had to inherit it from somewhere."

"Seriously, though. You need to stop obsessing over her because…" she looked apologetically, her hand still not leaving Regina's chin, instead caressing her cheeks gently, "Because you know by now that it won't bring him back," her own voice cracked a bit. "And she needs to just stop acting as if…" she paused, retreating her hand to brush some of her own hair from her face, "She just needs to stop."

"Some people would argue she's not really doing anything," Regina countered.

"Well, then those people are even bigger idiots than the two of you."

"You know, dear, not too many people would get away with calling me an idiot twice in less than ten minutes," she tried to look somehow menacing, but it did nothing to erase the smile from Emma's face.

"Well then, I guess I'm lucky I'm the exception."

Regina shook her head, but smiled nonetheless. That you are, Emma Swan. That you are.