A/N: Two chapters in one day...wow...don't get used to it. I will hopefully have more up this week. I hope that you are enjoying reading this as much as I am writing it. Please read and review.

Chapter 22

Regina was in her closet trying to decide what to wear for the jump and trying to not to cry at Emma's lack of compassion. She knew after the night before that Emma wasn't done being mad. She couldn't really blame her, but she still wished that with Emma's "grey" thinking that she would have at least understood. She pushed through her power suits. She knew that they wouldn't be appreciated in the Enchanted Forest. She finally decided on a pair of jeans that probably hadn't seen the light of day in years.

If she had to go, at least she would be comfortable. She dug around further until she found her stash of generic, non-descript, but crazy expensive t-shirts. She would still look her best even if she would look mildly pedestrian. She laughed at herself. She could remove the woman from the kingdom, but not the Queen from the woman.

She laid her clothes out on the end of the bed. She sighed, hoping that Emma would have made it upstairs by now. She wanted to talk to her. She wanted Emma to realize that she loved her. She wanted to understand that she was trying. Hell, even, Snow saw that and was happy about it.

She sighed again and made her way into the bathroom. She turned the water on in her shower allowing all the jets to be on. She knew that it would be her last shower for a couple of days and she was going to take whatever time that she could to enjoy it. It was one of the few pleasures that this world had that Regina wondered if she could live without, or if she would just conjure one if they were forced back to her castle.

She entered the shower and let the jets wash over her. The almost scalding water felt wonderful as it rinsed away the pain and tension in her body. It wouldn't take care of her regret. She doubted that anything would ever truly do that for her. But, then it again, like she had said on Neverland: she regretted none of her past because it gave her Henry and in time, Emma, too.

She leaned further into the jets and hoped that her fears about Emma's anger would go away. She knew that last night was just a release for both of them. There was no real emotion between them. She knew that the love that they shared was not shared last night, no matter how much she wanted to show Emma she cared, Emma had taken her frustration out on Regina's body. It was a glorious and climatic orgasm, but it did nothing for Regina in the end except make her feel spent and fall asleep. It didn't nothing assuage the burning fear growing in her heart that Emma would finally see her like everyone else in town did. That she had finally overstepped the boundaries that they had put in place for her to be Regina and not the Evil Queen. Had she finally crossed over an invisible line that Emma had drawn in the sand? Had she lost Emma, now?

She let go of the wall to wipe away the tears from her face. She turned her face up into the spray of the overhead shower head, trying to let her worries flow away. She ran her hands over her head and through her hair several times, pushing her hair out of her face and the water away. She did this several times before leaning forward again. She knew that time was against her today and that she needed to wash herself before going back downstairs. She reached back to grab her shampoo and hit a body.

She didn't turn around. Instead her body went rigid. She didn't know who it was, but she was certainly hoping against hope that it was Emma. She didn't have to wait long for her answer.

"Regina?"

"Emma?"

Emma reached out to her and let her hand lazily run down her spine. It felt so different touching her now in the light of day than the pale of night. There was something different in her touch as well. She knew that Snow had been right. She had used Regina, in the worst possible way she could think of, the night before and now she was hurting her by not being her lover.

"I'm sorry."

She said it so quietly that Regina almost missed it. She turned around now, to face Emma. She was nude and her body was full of stress and anger. Regina could see it in the way her body was being held, the way her muscles were hanging, and the way that Emma's eyes looked. She wanted nothing more than to pull Emma into her own body. She was afraid. She was afraid to touch her, like Emma would break or dissolve if she tried.

"Regina, say something."

"I don't know what to say."

"Tell me you love me," Emma demanded.

"I love you, Emma. You know that. I have always loved you, in my own way, but I have always loved you for being you and not what anyone else thought you should be."

"I can't take back what happened."

"No, you can't, but I understand it."

"No, you don't. You can't know what seeing you like that did to me. You were dead, Regina. I saw you dead in our bed. There was no breath, no heartbeat, no life in your body."

"I wasn't leaving you."

"You did, if only for a second, you were gone. I could tell. It scared the shit out of me. I didn't know what to do. Your body was so cold. I wanted to scream. I wanted to yell. And, there is my mother, saintly Snow in the corner losing her mind because she killed you. My world was crashing around me and I couldn't do a damn thing to stop it. You were gone. My mother destroyed you and Ruby was tending to her. Rhiannon was tending to you. And, I was…I was…trying to figure out how I was going to tell our son that his grandmother killed you."

"You weren't meant to see any of that. I am sorry. You weren't supposed to know what happened until later. I was going to tell you. We were going to tell you, so that we could prepare Henry for the announcement," Regina told her.

"I was supposed to know that my own mother killed my lover and the mother of my son. How does that even sound like a good idea to you, Regina? And, what about your magic? How would you explain that?" Emma asked her, the anger building again.

"I didn't realize that in the moment that my magic broke free that it would send out pulses, like beckons for other creatures with magic to see. If I had, I wouldn't have done it in such a public place. I was just supposed to drown and then Rhiannon was going to bring me back. My magic would be unbound and all would be forgiven."

"Of course it would be. You made sure of that didn't you. You made sure that you would use Snow's own conscience against her. I could have handled it. I would have understood if you told me what was going to happen. I wouldn't have felt so…betrayed."

"I didn't want you to hurt."

"But, I did hurt. I still hurt. I didn't know what I was going to do, Regina," Emma replied as she sank to her knees in the shower.

Regina followed her down to the floor, finally giving into her urge to hold her. She gathered Emma into her arms and pulled her close to her chest. She took one of her hands and laid upon her heart so that Emma could feel her heart beating and know that she was still alive. She tried to convey as much as she could with her touch upon Emma's skin. She tipped her chin back and stared into the frightened and hurting viridian eyes. Her heart broke a little more inside and the pain that she was trying to spare Emma with her actions was causing them both more pain now.

"I'm sorry, my love. I never meant to hurt you, but I have a very uncanny knack of hurting those I love the most. Please don't leave me. I couldn't bear it if you did," Regina told her truthfully.

Emma stared into her chocolate eyes and felt her body soften in the arms of Regina. She buried her head into the crook of Regina's shoulder and let the sobs finally out. Regina just held her, knowing that there was nothing else she could do for Emma at the moment. She would have to come back to her on her own pace. She couldn't force her. She had wounded her and she would have to wait for the wound to heal. She knew that they would need some alone time when they could get it. Last night hadn't been near enough for either of them.

There was still so much left unsaid. There was still so much left unexplored between them. There was still so much pain between them. Pain that Regina took full blame for and she was desperately searching for a way to make it better. She just didn't know how. She had never had someone love her the way that Emma did. She had never been able to get this far into a relationship before… She shook her head knowing she couldn't think that way. She knew that she wanted to be with Emma forever. She wanted Emma and that was the only thing driving her anymore, besides her love for Henry. Emma gave her a reason to fight again. Emma gave her a reason to want to be free of the shackles she had created around her heart. Emma was her reason, that was all she knew and all she needed to know.

She tipped Emma's chin a little more. She softened her features so that her face would convey the overture of love that her words could not at the moment. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do but love the woman in her arms with her entire being. She didn't know how to tell Emma that was what she was trying to do. She studied Emma's eyes, looking for permission to touch her again, to kiss her again, to be her lover again. When she saw a small spark flicker in her eyes before they softened to a light emerald color, a color that Regina knew all too well in pale darkness of the moonlight, she descended upon Emma's mouth.

The kiss was not rough. The kiss was not without feeling. Regina gave it every passionate and comforting thought that she could. Emma was slow to kiss her back, but when she did the ferocity behind it was mesmerizing for them both. When she tried to deepen the kiss, Regina let her. She knew that Emma would set their pace. When she broke the kiss, Regina was left breathless and wanting, but she understood the need to slow things down. She couldn't fault Emma's reluctance. She hadn't given her a reason to trust her `0063

"I'm sorry."

"For what, Dear?" Regina asked her.

"I shouldn't have done that last night."

"Emma, don't. You needed to feel…something, anything. I needed you. I needed you to see that I was still here for you. We both needed what happened. You weren't alone in what happened in our bed…together. I could have stopped you if I wanted."

"But, I wasn't easy with you. You might be able to hide the bruises from my parents and Henry, but I can still see them. I know that I am the one that caused them," Emma told her.

"You never hit me."

"No, but I was rough with you. I know that I hurt you. I know that…"

"You didn't do anything that I didn't like, Dear," Regina told her.

"But…"

"I told you that last night. You are my light, Emma. You help me stay grounded. Trust me, even in my weakened state, I could have stopped you if I wanted. We both needed it. Do not belittle it for worse than it was. We had angry sex. We didn't make love. We were just hooking up as you put it sometimes. We were finding solace in each other's body."

"We fucked," Emma said.

"Well, to be crass, yes, we fucked."

"We have never…not like that."

"Well, no, Dear, we haven't. We have come close to though on many occasions. I seem to remember our dalliance in Neverland. Now, that was fucking to put it mildly."

"That was the night I realized that I loved you."

"I know that, Dear."

"How could you?"

"Because it was the night that I realized that for all my hatred and anger, I loved you. You were the first person I thought about before I got up in the morning and the last person that I thought about before I went to bed. You became a drug that I couldn't get enough of and that I wanted to taste completely. I offered you my forbidden fruit, but I never thought that you would take it."

"I couldn't help myself. Gods, Regina, you are beautiful. It wasn't your beauty or your bounty that made me want you, though," Emma told her.

"Then what was it, Dear?"

"I wanted to frustrate you like you had been frustrating me on that Godforsaken island. I wanted you to feel what I was feeling. Then in the moment that you pissed me off that I made that fire. I used the magic to make the fire, I knew that you were the only one who understood what my life had been like. It wasn't all peaches and roses. It was thorns and ivy. It had been heartbreak and suffering. I could see it in your eyes. I could feel it wafting off of you like a perfume."

"You never said anything."

"I didn't need to. I knew that you knew. I knew that you understood. I knew that things would be difficult between you and Snow. Hell, they weren't all sunshine and rainbows for me. But, I saw a kindred spirit in you and I knew that you knew how grey the world really was and I loved you for it. You weren't afraid of who you were. You knew your dark side and you embraced it. You tried to keep yourself in balance, but when needed you would let the evil take over."

"I am not necessarily proud of that," Regina replied.

"Yes, I know that, but that is what makes you perfect. You are the ultimate paradox. You, yourself, are light and dark. You have been battling yourself since the day your enacted the curse. It took someone else with a skewed view of things for you to see that."

"It did."

"And, once you did, once you realized who you really were, I fell in love with you. You were the mother to our son when I couldn't be. You were the light giving me hope when I thought all was lost. You let your darkness out so that Henry, our light, would shine brighter for us. You've done everything for him for the past eighteen years."

"I have."

"And, I still love you for it."

"I love you, Emma."

"I love you, too, Regina, but promise me one thing," Emma stated, standing them up under the amazingly still warm spray of the shower.

"What's that, Love?"

"That you won't do something that stupid again without telling me first."

"I will do my best, Love."

"Now, come on and let's shower. I don't think that we have that long before the portal jump. I would hate to make Granny late even though we have the entire royal family here."

"I know how she gets when she's late. Your are right about not keeping her waiting. Besides, I can't wait to see what dresses your mother has picked out for you to wear this evening."

"I am not worried about me, Regina. I can't wait to see what she had picked out for you. I am sure that they won't resemble anything that you have hiding in the mausoleum. However, one of those would be fun to see you in, again, your majesty," Emma told her, giving her a mock bow.