Chapter Twenty-Six

'You've been acting weird.'

Regina didn't glance up. She was sat behind her desk, her glasses perched on the edge of her nose as she looked down at a mound of neglected paperwork that was lying before her. She had told Emma that she could only come over and join her if she promised not to distract her from it. And now…

'I said no talking.'

Emma rolled her eyes. She was sat cross-legged on the carpet, her photo album spread open in front of her. She had been watching Regina for the past five minutes, curling her toes against the urge to break her one rule of the evening. She had lasted longer than either of them had expected – but, inevitably, the slight frown between Regina's eyebrows had gotten the better of her. She couldn't help but open her mouth.

'Regina.'

'Don't Regina me. We had one rule, Emma, and you're ignoring it. So I'm ignoring you.'

'No change there then,' Emma muttered, looking back down at the album in front of her.

Regina narrowed her eyes. 'What is that supposed to mean?'

'Don't give me that,' Emma snapped. 'You know exactly what it means: you've been ignoring me all week. I've upset you. How? What have I done?'

'Emma—'

'No. Tell me.'

Regina swallowed. Emma could spot a liar a mile away, and they both knew it – but for some reason, when it came to Regina, she didn't even need to look. She just knew.

She was looking at her now, however, and it was making Regina's skin prickle.

'Regina,' Emma said more softly, snapping the photo album shut. 'Look. Is it… is it what I said to Henry?'

Regina blinked. 'What? No.'

'I didn't upset you by getting mad at him?'

'No.'

Emma bit down on her bottom lip. 'But there is something.'

It wasn't a question.

Regina forced a smile, removing her glasses from her nose. 'Emma. Everything's fine. I promise you.'

Emma let out a short bark of laughter and Regina flinched. She always seemed to be flinching nowadays. Emma frowned whenever she saw it.

She sighed, resting her elbows on her knees. Regina's eyes were dark and cautious, watching her like she was about to attack.

'I do feel bad about that, you know.'

Regina blinked. 'About what?'

'About what I said to Henry,' Emma said in a low voice. 'I mean, he deserved it. He did – but he's a good kid. And I know that he wasn't actually trying to hurt you but I still just went for him. I got so angry, Regina – I can't even explain why I was that furious. I just suddenly felt like we were in the playground and he was pushing you down and I realised that I had been watching him do it over and over again for months and hadn't done a damn thing to stop it.'

Regina's tense posture immediately softened. She leaned back in her chair, her bottom lip trembling ever so slightly.

'You don't need to feel badly about it, Emma,' she said quietly. 'He's okay. He's not upset – he's not even angry. I think he's actually… he's pleased that you stood up for me. He won't stop mentioning it, in fact.'

A look of pain came over her as she said this. As she remembered all of the other things that her son had kept casually mentioning over the course of the last week.

Emma noticed. Her posture collapsed.

'And yet you seem so upset by it,' she said slowly. 'You… you haven't shouted at me. You haven't thanked me. You haven't said anything.'

Regina winced again. She knew that she just needed to tell her: that Henry, somehow, knew about them. Because she also knew, without a doubt, that Emma would be able to deal with it infinitely better than she had.

But she couldn't bring herself to say it. The scar on Emma's temple was still too obvious and the protruding bumps of her ribcage were still visible through her shirt. Regina glanced back down at her paperwork, picturing Henry's wicked little smile that very morning when he had asked if Emma was going to come over while he was at Archie's. How it had only grown when Regina had blushed, mumbling that she didn't know.

Her toes curled in her high heels when she realised just how much he apparently took after her – he still hadn't said that he knew. Just like she still hadn't said anything about it to either of them.

She looked back up then, and Emma frowned when she realised just how close to tears she was.

'I'm not upset,' Regina said quietly. 'I just… I didn't deserve it.'

'Deserve what?'

'You defending me.'

Emma snorted. 'You're telling me that Henry calling you the Evil Queen is all of a sudden justified?'

Regina paused. 'Well. That's…'

'No, Regina,' Emma said, pushing herself off of the floor. She slowly walked over to the desk, leaning her hands against the edge of it. 'Listen to me: I want you to tell me about one single thing that you've done that justifies it. One thing. Right now.'

Regina opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

Your parents. Your childhood. My father. Graham. The King. The villagers. The kingdom. The curse.

She bit down on her lip.

Emma raised one eyebrow in what she no doubt considered to be triumph.

'You see?' she said softly, pushing herself off of the desk and walking around to the back of Regina's chair. Regina held her breath, flinching once more without meaning to. Emma's arms suddenly slid around her neck, her cheek pressing against Regina's hair. Regina's eyes fluttered closed as she breathed in the desperately comforting scent of her; feeling the warm pressure of her body resting against her shoulder blades.

'You have such a weird view of yourself, Regina,' she sighed, burying her nose in Regina's hair. 'I don't know where it came from. I mean… maybe Mary Margaret really shouldn't have given Henry that book. Maybe if she hadn't, Henry would never have started to think that you are this terrible person and maybe you wouldn't have—'

Suddenly she felt herself falling backwards as Regina reached up, tore her arms away from her neck and spun the chair around to face her. She was breathing heavily, her flushed cheeks the only hint of colour in her otherwise sallow face, and she shook her head so vigorously that Emma nearly stumbled back into the wall.

She didn't look angry – she looked guilty.

'No,' she choked out, running her hands through her hair. 'Do not blame this on him, Emma. It's not his fault. None of this is his fault.'

She let her hands fall to the arms of her chair, digging her nails into the material.

There was no way she was letting Henry take the blame for this – for the terrible, wicked things that she had done all by herself. Her son was the only person in that godforsaken town who actually saw them, who actually had the power to believe in them – and yet he was choosing to stand by her anyway. He was seeing her through this; quietly and calmly and just ever so slightly smugly.

Like hell was she letting anyone make him feel guilty for things that she should have felt bad about decades ago.

When she had pushed Emma away, she somehow thought that she would register all of this. That Emma would realise that she was just defending her son – as she always would, until the very end.

But Emma was looking at her like a dog that had just been kicked, and her arms were hanging emptily by her sides.

She looked down at herself; at her useless body that had just tried to make Regina feel better and had only made things worse, and she deflated. Regina watched it happen before she even realised what her outburst had done.

'No, wait,' she stammered out, watching as Emma turned away from her and walked across the room. 'Emma. I didn't mean… please, wait, I didn't mean—'

But Emma had reached the photo album on the floor, picked it up, and thrown the office door open. She stormed out into the hallway and was gone from the house before Regina had managed to drag her shell-shocked body from her chair.

The apartment was empty, as it always seemed to be. Emma kicked the door shut behind her and listened to the satisfying slam that echoed down the stairwell. The building's crumbling walls seemed to shake from it.

She dropped the photo album from her arms and kicked it across the floor. It skidded across the uneven wood for what seemed like days before it collided with the bottom step of the staircase. The envelope full of photographs that she kept tucked inside its pages burst across the floorboards, leaving a carpet of angry photographs for her to tread her way over later.

She growled with frustration, stomping over to the kitchen without taking her jacket off. An unopened bottle of whisky was waiting for her in one of the cabinets – it had been there for months. She hadn't needed it.

She tore the top off and poured a generous serving of the liquid into a glass. She gritted her teeth as it burned its way down to her stomach, grimacing against the now slightly unfamiliar taste that used to be a security blanket to her. She waited until her eyes had stopped watering, then she poured herself a second helping.

Her phone started ringing somewhere around the time that she gave up on using a glass altogether.

The problem was, she told herself as she took her cell out of her pocket and miserably slammed her fist down onto the Ignore button, that she only had herself to blame. She knew what she was getting into when she'd decided to fall head over heels for the mayor – she knew that the chances were that, at some point, she was going to end up getting really, seriously hurt.

The real issue though was that she had sort of expected the hurt to come in a physical sense. With Regina killing her and burying her under the patio. What she hadn't expected was for this… distance to appear. For Regina to grow suddenly quiet and unsure, and to back away from Emma like she was the one with the shovel in her hands.

The ringing was replaced by a text message.

Emma? Are you going to answer me?

Emma scoffed, taking another swig from the bottle. Her teeth were beginning to go numb.

We're fishing, Emma miserably told herself, rolling the whisky around in her mouth. She's pushing you out, and then she's reeling you back in.

Emma?

It was odd, but she had seen the light dim in Regina's eyes over the last week. Her usual fire, her usual terrifying forcefulness, had ebbed away and left behind a woman who flinched and stared into space and reminded Emma far, far too much of a blonde woman who had walked out of City Hall covered in bruises and blood earlier that year.

Emma had spent months being painfully unsure of herself. And now, quite inexplicably, Regina appeared to be unsure about both of them.

She groaned to herself, taking another swig from the bottle. The vibration of her phone against the wooden counter was beginning to give her a headache.

Now you're just being childish. Stop ignoring me.

Emma licked the whisky from her lips as she contemplated just how Regina had looked at her when she had pushed her away – the startled panic in her face. The unfathomable shame. Emma had tried to do something nice, to say something that would make Regina feel just slightly less crappy about herself… and it had been met with guilt. It had been received with an anguished expression that told Emma that Regina truly felt like she deserved to be called wicked.

'So she must have done something bad,' Emma muttered out loud. It was dawning on her that the apartment was dark, but she didn't get up to switch on the light. The whisky was blurring the edges of everything around her anyway.

Another buzzing sound.

I am sorry, Emma – I didn't mean to snap at you. I was just thinking about Henry. I promise.

Emma knocked her phone to the floor to get it to stop barking at her, then rested her forehead against her outstretched arm.

What could Regina have done? What could she have possibly done that meant that she felt like she deserved to be called evil? Nothing as bad as what Henry and his never-ending fairytale train seemed to think, of course; that much was a given. Whatever Regina was feeling guilty about, it had nothing to do with black leather or black make up or terrorising and murdering civilians.

It was odd how the mere thought made Emma chuckle. It was almost hysterical to her, in fact, in a way that the whisky was probably only partially responsible for. Regina was messed up, and she knew that – but that didn't make her evil. Her Regina was not evil.

Her phone buzzed again and she found herself automatically sliding to the floor to go after it. The bottle was still clenched in her fist, and its contents spilled across the floor as she reached out for the cell.

I want to talk to you about this, but I can't do that if you won't reply to my messages…

Emma rolled her eyes and sat back against the counter. Whisky dripped from the bottle and onto her jeans.

'She's done something bad,' she muttered to herself, closing her eyes and letting her head thud back against the wood. '…what?'

She thought for a moment, fighting through the haze of alcohol in order to land on what she imagined the worst possible thing that Regina could ever do to her was. The conclusion she reached made her stomach tighten.

She couldn't have… cheated?

Emma considered it for a moment, thoughtfully swigging at the bottle as she ran through the entire town in her head. With who? Who, even now, was brave enough to take on Regina?

No.

She shook her head to herself, taking another drink even though her insides were frantically recoiling. Regina may be messed up… Regina may even be having second thoughts. But Regina is not a cheater. Regina is not cruel.

Emma? Please?

The text made her chest ache, but she still couldn't bring herself to answer it. She placed the now half-empty bottle next to her vibrating phone and curled her body up on the floor, watching it.

The wood was cool against her throbbing temples. She didn't feel the stickiness of the whisky that she had dropped.

Emma?

Every vibration snaked through the floorboards and made her stomach hurt even more. The fire inside her was dimming along with Regina's.

She pressed her fist against her mouth and waited for herself to start crying.

It was pitch dark when she woke up. The apartment was still empty: where Mary Margaret and David had gotten to this time she had no idea, but she was finally starting to question Kathryn's sanity if she really hadn't started to notice just how absent her husband was.

Emma sat herself upright, groaning against the nausea that rolled around in her stomach. She realised that she was cold. She never woke up cold anymore.

After rubbing a hand across her eyes, she let herself peer around the darkened room. Regina wasn't there – of course she wasn't. Not when she had a string of unanswered text messages and a wounded ego that needed nursing back to health.

And yet Emma had expected her to come and find her. The fact that she hadn't even tried made the fire inside her chest all but burn straight out.

She had to help herself get up off of the floor. She made it upstairs to her bedroom without Regina's arms around her.

Emma.

I shouldn't have pushed you away today. I'm sorry that I did so. I've been pushing you away all week – you were right to call me on it, and I shouldn't have lied to you when you did. There are a lot of things that I shouldn't have done, and I don't know why you keep putting up with them.

I pushed you away because I meant what I said – I don't deserve your support. I never have. And the fact that it's coming at the price of Henry being made to feel like a bad person… I can't allow that. This isn't his fault, Emma. In fact, he's the only person who actually seems to be doing things right at the moment.

He knows. He knows about us. He hasn't said it out loud, but he's still said it. Sometimes I forget how well I know our son, and just how well he knows me. And the fact that he can see right through me – that he has somehow been able to work out what we've spent months and months trying to hide… it panicked me. It's still panicking me. He's a smart boy, but even he shouldn't know about this. And I've spent the last week not having the faintest clue what to do about it without having you there beside me to help me work it all out.

But there's something else that he knows as well. This is harder to explain and I'd rather not do it via text message, but...

Regina's thumb trailed off over the screen of her phone. She wetted her lips, reading through what she had just written. It all seemed so utterly paltry. Pathetic. It came nowhere close to explaining exactly what she needed to say, and it was almost insulting that she was even considering texting something like this to Emma at all. Especially when she wasn't even replying to her.

But after a week of trying, she knew that she couldn't say it out loud either. She physically couldn't. The words themselves made her flinch and caused her eyes to water, and immediately silence became her more preferable option. Even if it meant pushing Emma away, again and again and again.

She sighed. She really was pathetic.

Regina swallowed and tried to type the next sentence. It looked… ridiculous. She deleted it and tried again, but it looked even worse.

She fell back against her pillows and groaned. This is never going to happen, you fool.

A small knock at the door made her jump. It creaked open, and she sighed.

'Henry,' she said, smiling at him. Sometimes he surprised her with how much he had grown – tonight was not one of those moments. He was wearing his blue pyjamas and was carrying a book. He looked exactly like what he was: a child. 'Sweetie. Are you okay?'

'I can't sleep,' he muttered, taking a small step into the room.

She smiled again. 'No. Me neither.'

'Will you read to me?'

'Sure,' she said, edging the covers back so that she could climb out of bed. But Henry was walking over to her, the book clutched to his stomach. 'Oh. In here?'

'My bedroom's too hot,' he said quietly. 'Is that okay?'

Regina smiled. 'Of course it is. Come on.'

He clambered onto the bed, easing the covers back and sliding beneath them. As Regina sat herself upright, placing the book on top of her bent knees, her phone slid down onto the sheets between them.

Henry glanced down at it.

'Who are you texting?' he asked. For once, he didn't sound like he was prying. He wasn't smiling knowingly. He just sounded tired.

Regina picked up the phone and looked down at the half-hearted message that she had been composing. Its utter inadequacy struck her in the centre of her chest.

'No one, sweetheart,' she said. Her thumb hovered momentarily over the Delete key, then firmly pressed down. 'I was just reminding myself of something.'

Dropping the cell phone onto her nightstand, she looked down at the book. It wasn't the one she had been expecting.

'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory?' she asked. He smiled up at her.

'Yeah.'

'No fairytales tonight?'

'No,' he said, snuggling up beneath the duvet. 'I've had enough of fairytales for today.'

She smiled weakly. Pushing her glasses up onto the bridge of her nose, she turned to the first page.

'Me too,' she said quietly. And then she began to read.

A/N: Sorry that this chapter was a) really late and also b) not necessarily the best one ever - those of you who follow me on tumblr will know that I managed to successfully contract two seperate illnesses over the course of the last week and a half (I've got mad game), so let's please just refer to this chapter as the 'Nasty Habits' of the fanfic world and move on. Forgive and forget. Live and let's make out. All of that. There's more good stuff yet to come, I promise!