A/N: Because this is another sort of filler chapter I was planning on being nice and posting this really soon after I posted chapter 17. Then life got in the way, as it always goes, and so that kind of failed. So I'm sorry (yet again) for the wait and I'm sorry for the lack of actual honest to hellfire swan queening in this update. But I hope you enjoy it anyway! More good stuff is coming up soon :)

Chapter Eighteen

The sheriff station was filled with that same unnatural light. Emma's hand shot up towards her eyes, shielding them from the silvery glare, as she stood in the middle of the empty room. The groan came from the cell just as she turned her head towards it. She could feel her feet leading her across the station without her ever telling them to move.

She knew that the door would close behind her: she could hear the metal slowly scraping against the floor long before it clanged shut. Even so, the moment that it closed and she was trapped inside that tiny cell with the hunched-over form of the man whom she knew was cradling a gun, she felt her heart stop. The clock on the wall stopped ticking. Cold terror ran like liquid down her spine as she watched Moe starting to climb to his feet.

Her legs finally did what she told them to and she spun back around, throwing herself at the bars. They seemed heavier than they normally did, and the metal was so cold that it hurt her hands to touch it. The door was locked, as it always was, but she still wrenched at those bars until her shoulders were aching. She could hear shuffling from behind her. She opened her mouth to scream just as that same, dark figure appeared in the doorway on the other side of the room.

The blurred outline looked different, somehow. It was more… solid. As Emma pushed her forehead against those bars, hot tears starting to dribble down her cheeks, she forced herself to focus on the person who was stood watching her. As the shape became more apparent, her stomach twisted into a knot.

Moe grabbed her in that moment. The gun was already pressed against the back of her skull as he tugged her backwards from the bars, holding the length of her wriggling body up against his own. As the metal object shifted position, pointing upwards beneath her chin instead, Moe wrapped his left arm around Emma's neck. She could feel his heart pounding against the space between her shoulder blades; his sticky breath on the shell of her ear. She reached up, trying to loosen the grip of his hammy arm as it started to tighten around her throat. That same old terror, now familiar from following her through nightmare after nightmare every single night for the last three months, was harsh and cold and dragged its nails down every single trembling bone in her body. It never lessened. It was like an old wound that never quite managed to heal before it was torn back open.

The figure on the other side of the bars was still moving towards her, closer than it normally dared to step, and she never took her eyes off of it: she told herself that tonight she would be saved. Tonight the gun would drop to the floor and she would stumble free, out from behind the bars and back into that glaring, metallic light.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, waiting for the frantic pounding in her chest to slow down. When she looked up again, the figure was close enough to have a face.

It was Regina. Of course it was Regina.

She was stood on the other side of the bars, close enough to touch if Emma was brave enough to reach out. Her face was cold, however. She watched Emma's struggling with the sharp, dark eyes of someone who couldn't even bring herself to feel pity for the woman quietly crying before her. She raised one perfect eyebrow, folding her hands in front of her. When Emma whispered her name, her lip curled in disgust.

'Regina,' she pleaded as Moe's arm began to crush the air out of her windpipe. 'Please.'

But Regina just scowled, taking one step closer to the cell. Reaching up a hand, she wrapped her unshaking fingers around one of the bars and leaned her face forwards. Emma choked out a sob, shaking her head.

'Please,' she heard herself beg even as Moe began to drag her backwards. 'Regina, please. Don't let him do this.'

Regina didn't reply. She just watched.

The echo of the gunshot screamed through the cell.

Suddenly Emma was sat upright in bed with her thin shirt sticking to her body. Her bedroom was quiet. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the streaks of yellow that were trailing through the thin clouds above Storybrooke's harbour told her that it wasn't far off. She reached up and pushed her damp hair away from her burning face.

Her hands were shaking. They usually were whenever she woke up from a nightmare, but tonight she looked down at them with squinted eyes and realised that she could actually see the vibrations of her fingers in the darkness of her bedroom. She took a breath, closed her eyes and counted to ten, telling herself that the thundering rhythm of her heart would have slowed down by then. By the time that she had reached ninety it was still beating against her ribcage.

…what the hell had Regina been doing there?

Emma slipped her bare legs out from underneath the tangled sheets and let her feet rest on the floor. Sitting on the very edge of the bed, she stared down at the ground with the sound of her racing pulse filling her ears. The image of Regina's face, cold and cruel and uncaring, still hung before her eyes. She shuddered. Regina hadn't looked at her like that in so long – the memory of it, of just how much she could actually hate her, made her chest hurt.

She needed to distract herself.

Emma slipped her body from the mattress and onto the cool floor before she reached beneath the bed. The box was the only object under there.

Her blanket had never really fitted inside of it, and so when the crate was pulled out from underneath the mattress it immediately got caught on the wooden slats of the bed and ended up trailing along the floor. Her automatic reflex was to pick it up and drape it across her lap before she drew the box itself closer to her.

It was still dark in the room, but she didn't turn on the light. There were only two situations in which she looked through this box: one, when it was dim enough that she couldn't see its contents properly. And two, when she was so drunk that she couldn't see anything at all.

The photos were on top, still stacked neatly even though the blanket had nearly dragged them free when it was had fallen out. She tucked it more tightly around her legs before she picked up the pile of curling, scratched papers. They fluttered in her trembling fingers, and yet she forced herself to look down at them. They were her, and they were not her. The wetness on her cheeks began to dry as she carefully examined each and every one.

After half an hour of simply staring, Emma found herself leaning forwards and placing the stack carefully on the floor. Then, for the first time in her entire life, she spread them out and began to actually look at herself: at her hair, at her clothes, at how many teeth she had. At which picture came first, and which one came last.

It took her longer than it should have done to put them in the right order. She found it strangely impossible to gauge her own age – possibly because her appearance never really changed. She was always scrawny, always angry, and always surrounded by a group of other kids who looked equally unimpressed and equally alone. Everyone had always been bigger than her. It was only when she had turned fourteen and learned to fight back that the other kids had finally started leaving her alone.

She sighed, leaning back against the frame of the bed. The order she had put them in looked wrong: the bare early sunlight was beginning to creep in from behind the curtains and, underneath its slightly grey glare, not one of the photographs sat comfortably beside the next. Emma frowned, tugging the blanket closer to her. Something was wrong with it all… she had always managed to keep a photograph from every home, from every foster family, or at least from every year of her life. She scanned the line-up once more, counting the endless list of men and women and children that had made her more and more fucked up with every single threshold that she had dragged her tiny beige suitcase over, and still something wasn't right. Something was missing. There was a photograpj gone – she was sure of it.

But which one, she couldn't remember.

Narrowing her eyes and examining each picture one by one, she found herself recalling the night when Regina had put her to bed. Mary Margaret had caught her looking at the photos then – she was the only other person who had seen them. The only other person in the world.

Emma closed her eyes, resting her aching head in her hands. She wasn't angry – not even slightly. She wasn't even surprised. She was tired and shaking, and she was still haunted by the Regina in her dream who had glared at her with so much venom that she had woken up with her skin burning. The Regina who would have taken her photograph, and burned it.

Not the Regina who took it because she simply wanted to look at it.

Emma wetted her lips and glanced at each photograph in turn once more. The unbrushed hair. The suspicious eyes. The bruises that had faded enough that only she could still see them twenty years later.

She could hear him crashing down the hallway at least thirty seconds before he arrived through the door.

'Hey, kid.' She spoke without looking up.

'Hi Emma,' Henry said, walking into the office and flopping himself down onto the chair opposite her desk. A moment of silence passed between them before Emma looked up.

He was frowning at her.

'What?' she asked, dropping her papers on the desk.

'You look kinda... pale.' Henry narrowed his eyes. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine,' Emma replied, smiling at him. He tilted his head to one side as the circles beneath her eyes darkened. 'I'm your mom, remember? You don't have to keep checking up on me.'

'I wouldn't,' Henry said, crossing his arms over his chest. 'If you didn't look like you're ill or something.'

'I'm not ill,' Emma scowled. 'I'm just a bit tired. It's no big deal.'

Henry considered this for a moment. At some point over the last ten years he had picked up the same cool gaze that Regina always wore so well, and Emma nearly jumped when she saw it creeping across his young face.

'But I thought that you were sleeping better now.'

At this, she did jump. 'I never said anything about—'

'I'm not an idiot,' Henry interrupted. 'The dark circles and the yawning and the accidentally calling me August: they've been bad for ages, but they've been getting better. Now you're tired again.'

Emma tried to smile. 'You noticed that, huh?'

'I didn't want to say anything,' he replied. 'In case it upset you.'

'It wouldn't upset me, kid, I promise. I just thought that I was doing better too.'

'So what's changed?'

'Nothing,' Emma said. No way was she telling him that she was having nightmares. Not a chance. 'It's just hot in my bedroom at the moment, I think.'

'It's the middle of November.'

'Our heating's been fixed, smart ass,' Emma threw back. Henry's eyebrows shot up at the expletive, as they always did, and he smothered a giggle. But he still looked worried: he knew that their central heating had always been just fine.

'Anyway,' Emma quickly said, smiling at him. 'Enough about that. How are you? How's school?'

Henry wrinkled his nose. 'It's fine. Miss Blanchard is still acting all lovey-dovey, which is good.'

Emma rolled her eyes. 'I guess so.'

'You guess so?' Henry said. 'Operation Cobra is working, Emma – Snow White and Prince Charming are actually together and the Evil Queen doesn't even know. It's perfect.'

Emma begged her face to remain perfectly impassive. 'Of course,' she said slowly. 'As long as Snow White's happy, I guess.'

Henry flinched. He opened his mouth to say the words that he always wanted to say – that it was true. That if she just spoke to August and looked at his leg then she'd see that he'd been right all along. That she was bringing back the happy endings.

But then he saw the look on her face. The moment that he'd called Regina the Evil Queen, her expression had gone tight – if he managed to convince her now that he was telling the truth, it would mean her realising that Regina was exactly who he'd said she was. It would mean destroying the friendship that they'd all worked so hard to build. Emma couldn't deal with that right now.

He wondered how he'd never considered that before.

'How is your mom?' Emma suddenly asked. Henry couldn't help but grin.

'She's good,' he said, settling back in his chair. Emma eyed the wide smile that had appeared on his face with considerable suspicion. 'She's really good, actually. She's much happier nowadays, and the other night she let me watch TV even though I hadn't finished my homework yet.'

'That's great,' Emma said slowly. 'Really. But you're scaring me a little bit. What's with the manic grin?'

'You're the one making her happy,' Henry said.

Emma nearly knocked over her coffee mug. 'I am?'

'She's never really had a friend before,' Henry said. 'Just Kathryn. And she doesn't count.'

'Why not? Because you don't like her?'

'Because she wasn't a real friend,' Henry shrugged. 'They didn't get each other. Not like you two do.'

'No offence kid, but how the hell would you know how much me and your mom get one another?'

'Because I pay attention,' Henry said, grinning again. 'You just do. And you know it.'

Much to her own annoyance, Emma could feel the corners of her mouth automatically quirking upwards. Henry saw it immediately and laughed.

'Wipe that smug look off of your face,' she said, pretending to glare. 'It's seriously unattractive.'

Henry pulled the most grotesque face that he could manage. 'Since when do I care about being attractive?'

'Since you're the son of a seriously attractive woman. You need to uphold the family honour and all.'

'Are you talking about you, or about my mom?'

'Me!' Emma gasped, outraged. Then she shrugged. 'Well. Maybe your mom a little bit too. But don't you dare tell her I said that – her head's already so big that it doesn't fit into this office anymore.'

Henry snorted with laughter. 'So when are you coming round for dinner again? You said that you'd come and look at my science project.'

'Soon,' Emma said, swivelling round in her chair. 'I mean, whenever your mom will have me. It's her house, so I guess it's kind of up to her when I'm allowed in it.'

'I'm pretty sure that you're allowed in whenever you want.'

'You are?'

'Yep.'

'It's funny. It never felt that way when I used to show up every other day.'

'That's because you were still Miss Swan then.'

Emma blinked. '…I'm not Miss Swan anymore?'

'Nope,' Henry replied, smiling. 'You're just Emma now. If I ask her to have you round, she'll say yes. I know it.'

Emma nodded. There was something cold squeezing at her stomach and she fought to ignore it.

'So you'll come over soon?' Henry continued. Emma swallowed, then she nodded.

'Sure,' she said, watching her son's face collapsing into a relieved grin. 'As soon as I can.'

'Great,' he said, leaping up from his seat. 'I should go. I think I'm already late for my appointment with Archie.'

Emma raised one eyebrow. 'Good to see that tardiness is apparently genetic.'

Henry just laughed as he turned for the door. 'See you later, Emma.'

'See you, kid.'

She listened to the sound of his footsteps retreating down the hallway with her hands unconsciously resting on her stomach, as they often did whenever he was around. Like she had to remind herself that that smart, incredible boy had actually come from her.

That same cold feeling was still wriggling about beneath her feelings. When she finally let herself explore it, Emma was forced to ask herself whether it was excitement, or absolute terror.

She slowly realised that it might be both. She wasn't sure that she minded.

A/N: if you want to say hi on tumblr, I'm starsthatburn over there as well! xx