A/N: So I know that some people are getting a little bit antsy about a) the fact that this fic is still such a slow burn and b) how angsty it is. But I'm just going to calmly direct those people to the synopsis of the story, and how it has warned everyone about those two facts since day one. So please, please stop reminding me of how I could be a better writer. I know. And I really don't have time for an anxiety attack right now.

Anyway! I do hope that most of you are still enjoying this. I promise you that I have it all planned out and I'm not just being a cruel little shit for no reason. Do ask if you have any questions :) hugs xxx

Chapter Twenty-Seven

She could feel Henry's eyes on her without looking up. Sat at the opposite end of the couch, his unfinished homework resting in his lap, his hazel eyes were narrowed in her direction and seemingly weren't blinking. She forced herself to ignore him, turning the page in her book.

After a moment she saw him putting down his pencil.

'Is that finished, Henry?' she asked, nodding towards his school work.

'Not yet,' he said, still watching her.

'Then you still aren't getting your video game back,' she said flatly, turning the page again even though she hadn't read a single word in the last four minutes.

'Mom. I don't want it back.'

She sighed, peering at him over the tops of her glasses. 'Then why are you staring at me like that?'

He blinked, frowning at her. After a moment he quietly said, 'Because you don't look happy.'

She tried her hardest not to flinch.

'For the last few months, all you've been saying is how happy I look and how glad you are to see it,' she said, raising her eyebrows at him.

'Yeah,' he said, shuffling slightly closer to her. 'Because you have been happy. But recently you… aren't. You're not even like how you used to be, before you became friends with Emma. You're just sad.'

The word hit Regina like a tonne of bricks against her ribs. She swallowed, glancing down at the unread book in her lap.

'I'm not sad, Henry.'

'You look like you are.'

'Well, I'm not,' she said more firmly. 'I have you. Why would I be sad?'

'Because having me doesn't mean that you have to be happy all of the time,' Henry said flatly, bunching his fists in his lap. He paused before he added, 'And because Emma hasn't been round all week.'

Regina pursed her lips, somehow unable to force herself to look back up at him. 'Just because Miss Swan has decided to actually spend some time in her own apartment does not mean that I'm depressed, Henry.'

There was a moment of silence, and then Henry asked in a tiny voice, 'Why are you calling her Miss Swan again?'

Regina jumped, the next page in the book slipping from between her fingers. 'I'm not – it was a slip of the tongue. It's an old habit.'

'You only do it when you're annoyed at her.'

'I'm not annoyed at her,' Regina said, trying her hardest not to snap at him. 'Henry. Everything's fine. Emma and I are still friends and I am not miserable – I promise you.'

He scrunched his forehead up in thought for a moment, watching the lines that had appeared around his mother's mouth. Eventually he shook his head.

'Just because you promise something,' he said quietly, 'doesn't mean that you're telling me the truth.'

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

Sighing, Henry started to gather up his school work. 'Nothing.'

He got up from the couch and began to make his way over to the staircase. Regina snapped around in her seat, calling after him. 'Henry.'

He turned back to look at her, peering out from behind dark hair that had gotten much too long without her noticing.

'You've always lied to me,' he said, his face curiously devoid of expression. 'That's what you do. I have no reason to believe you anymore, Mom. What you've been telling me over and over again wasn't true, and neither is this.'

Regina realised then that her mouth was hanging open. He almost smiled at her for a second before he shook his head.

'Talk to Emma,' he said quietly, turning back towards the stairs. 'And stop thinking that I can't tell when you're lying.'

He stomped up the stairs, in every way as ungainly as the woman who had given birth to him. Regina stared after him, her heart not pounding but somehow ceasing to beat at all.

Eventually she turned back around in her seat, gazing blankly down at the coffee table. Her cell phone was sat on top of it. It was silent.

It took half a second for her to remember that she still hadn't had the guts to go and see Emma since she had upset her. It took her half a second to hate herself for it all over again.

She picked up the phone, desperately wanting to text her. Not even to apologise, or to ask to talk to her, or to tell her how much she missed her – not really. She wanted to rant to Emma about what an infuriatingly smart little shit their son could be. She wanted to tell her that Granny had changed the syrup that she used on her pancakes and how it was an absolutely disgraceful downgrade. She wanted to tell her about the Kit Kat that she had had two days before that had been all chocolate and no wafer.

She stared down at the phone that had been completely silent for the last week after the one person in the world who used to want to talk to her had suddenly gone quiet.

It took another half a second for her heart to miserably remind her that, yet again, she only had herself to blame.

Emma didn't seem to hear the footsteps that were approaching the sheriff station, even as they came within only metres of her desk.

Regina stopped walking when she reached the threshold of the office, her hands thrust deep into the pockets of her coat. She hadn't seen Emma in a week. Seven whole days: it was the longest she had gone without that flash of blonde hair in months. It felt foreign. Like everything was in black and white until Emma came along in all of her technicolor.

Regina swallowed, her eyes on the figure in front of her: Emma was sitting behind her desk, her face blocked from view by the fist that she was leaning on. Her blonde curls were tangled, cascading down one shoulder, and Regina knew without thinking about it that it meant that she had been fiddling with them moments before. Now her right hand was holding loosely onto a pen instead, wiggling it between two fingers until it looked like its sides were bending. Regina watched her, holding her breath.

Emma still didn't hear her, but she somehow felt the shift in the room. She lifted her head from the palm of her hand and looked over towards the door.

Regina was nervously holding the folds of her coat together in front of her, an awkward half-smile painted onto fiercely red lips. For a moment Emma could only stare at her, unsure as to whether she was actually seeing her or whether a week of waiting for Regina to suck down her pride and walk through the door had finally led to her completely losing her mind.

It didn't take her long to realise that even she couldn't imagine that perfectly self-loathing smile. That smile that told her that Regina was sorry, and empty, and so unfathomably lonely without her.

Emma blinked, rolling her chair back. Regina watched the movement, relishing its slight awkwardness. She watched the way that Emma didn't cross her legs but sat with them slightly apart, her fists gripping at the arms of the chair, and felt that familiar irritation tickling at the base of her neck.

And all of a sudden her uncertain half-smile broke into something that was entirely more real.

She leant one foot back against the doorframe, still tugging at her coat.

'Hello,' she said. Her voice was low and it nearly cracked.

Emma watched the weight of that one word leaving her, and suddenly she was up on her feet, hurtling across the room faster than she had ever moved before in her life. She landed against Regina with an ungainly thud, her hands tangling through her hair as she shoved her back into the doorframe. Their lips were together and Regina's hands were curling through the belt loops of her jeans before either one of them had closed their eyes.

She drank Emma in like she wanted to drown in her. She was being pushed back against the door so fiercely that it hurt, the wood digging into her spine with enough ferocity to dent it, and she didn't mind. Not even slightly. She just took hold of Emma by the lapels of her jacket and tugged her closer, throwing one arm around her neck so that she could hold her there. Emma sighed into her mouth, trailing her hands out of her hair so that they could graze down the sides of her face. She left them pressed against her cheeks, her thumbs rolling over the hard line of her jaw like she was memorising it.

'I've missed you,' she said, gasping the words out between frantic kisses.

'I know,' Regina replied, curling both of her hands around the back of Emma's neck. 'I've missed you too.'

Emma sighed, nipping her teeth into Regina's bottom lip and pulling down. She listened to the familiar sound of Regina whimpering like it was the best line in her favourite song - no matter how hard she tried, she would never be able to forget it. She could feel herself smiling against Regina's lips as she listened, almost swaying to the sound of it.

Regina's hands left her neck and slid down the front of her body, possessively rolling over her breasts and squeezing until she heard Emma gasp. She released them, tiptoeing her nails down Emma's ribcage until she reached the hem of her shirt.

Her hands were almost too cold as they slid beneath the fabric, snaking around Emma's waist and interlocking at the base of her spine. As Emma felt her pulling her closer towards her, the heat of the rest of her body burning against the full length of hers, she realised that her eyes were stinging. She had Regina back in her arms again, clinging desperately onto her like she was a life ring in the middle of a storm, and tears of relief were scratching almost painfully at the backs of her eyes. A shuddering breath left her body as their lips parted, swollen and almost sore, but smiling for the first time in a week.

Emma leaned forwards until their foreheads were resting together.

'You didn't…' she said, swallowing. 'You didn't come and find me.'

'I know,' Regina said, cutting her off with another biting kiss. She closed her eyes as tightly as they would go. 'I know I didn't.'

She could feel Emma's nails scratching at her ribs through her shirt and it made her breath catch.

'Regina…' she muttered, pressing their foreheads together. 'I… what happened last week. When I—'

'It doesn't matter,' Regina interrupted, still breathing heavily. 'We don't have to talk about it.'

Emma reluctantly said, 'But we... we should. You were upset, and I didn't… I don't know what to do about it.'

She could feel Regina tensing up already and she hated herself for what she was saying. But she needed to say it.

Bunching Regina's shirt up in her fists and holding her tightly against her, she muttered, 'You need to tell me what freaked you out, Regina.'

Regina shook her head. 'No. I don't.'

'You do,' Emma insisted, gritting her teeth. She pulled on Regina's shirt as she said it, tugging her closer even as she could feel her trying to pull herself away. 'Regina. Please. It's… it's me. It's just me. I can deal with this.'

'Can you?' Regina almost snapped, her eyelids still firmly closed. 'Because I can't. And I wouldn't even ask you to try. How the hell can you be so sure that you'll be okay with something so… so…'

There were no words for what it was because the whole idea was still ricocheting around inside her own head like a canon ball.

At some point over the last twenty eight years, Regina had let herself believe that this was her happy ending. Storybrooke was her fresh start. And somehow, around the same time, she had accidentally started to believe that the woman whom she had left behind was exactly that: gone. Vanished. Not even her to begin with.

She had realised in that week that, at some point, she had stopped letting herself remember that she and the Evil Queen were the same person at all. Suddenly trying to remind herself of it was like scratching at a wound that had long since healed over.

'Regina,' Emma said softly, her forehead still pressed against hers. 'Look. You've… you've obviously done something. Something bad. That's all I've been able to figure out. And I… I don't want to know what it is. But I should. I need to. And whatever it is – whatever you've done that you think I'll never be able to get over… I promise you that I'll try. I'll listen. You just… you have to tell me first.'

The penny dropped, and Regina's heart broke all over again.

She thinks that I've done something forgivable.

She took a shuddering breath, her hands bunching into fists against the small of Emma's back.

'I haven't cheated on you,' she heard herself say. She almost sobbed when she felt Emma sag with relief.

'Okay.'

'And I haven't… I haven't done anything that… I didn't mean to hurt you.'

'Okay…'

Regina took a deep breath, the smell of leather and sharp, wicked magic suddenly filling her nostrils.

'But I…' she faltered, shaking her head again. 'I did hurt you. Somehow. And I… can't do anything to make it better.'

'Who says I need you to?' Emma demanded, fighting the urge to reach out and shake her. 'Regina – I'm here. I'm not hurt.'

'You're always hurt.'

'And so are you,' she shot back. 'We both are. That doesn't make it anyone's fault. You didn't set Moe on me. You didn't make Neal leave me. You didn't force my parents to give me away.'

She jumped when she heard Regina choke. Biting down on her lip, Emma sighed.

'Regina. Please.'

Regina was trying to compose herself and she knew it. She could feel her summoning whatever strength she had left just to stop herself from wanting to cry. And it killed Emma. It killed her to see her feeling quite so worthless.

Regina's eyes were still closed and Emma willed her to open them. All she wanted right then was for Regina to look back at her and to just see how much she cared about her – how much she had always cared about her, even now, when she should be absolutely fucking furious. Emma's body was physically hurting with the effort of being mad at her, and yet she still somehow loved her enough to be able to overlook it. To be able to hold her up against that wall and give her the chance to tell her exactly why she had slowly been trying to push her out again.

Which is why it hurt all the more when Regina quietly said, 'I have to go.'

Emma blinked, leaning back. 'What?'

'I'm sorry,' Regina whispered, dragging her hands out from underneath the warmth of Emma's shirt. 'I… I need to leave.'

She finally opened her eyes then. She looked up at Emma like she wasn't quite sure how she had gotten there.

Emma swallowed, pulling her body away ever so slightly. 'I… I don't… What did I do wrong this time?'

Regina's heart broke. She still fought back the desperate urge to cry, forcing a smile instead.

'Nothing,' she said, her voice devoid of any expression whatsoever. 'I just… I have a lot of work to be getting on with.'

She watched as Emma tugged at the hem of her shirt, trying to cover her stomach back up again.

'Oh,' she said quietly, trying to nod. 'Right.'

She took a full step back then. As the supportive weight of her body completely left Regina's she watched as the mayor seemed to buckle. Her right hand reached behind her and grabbed hold of the doorframe, steadying herself.

'Okay,' Regina replied, wetting her lips. She forced herself away from the wall and edged towards the door. 'Okay.'

She threw Emma one last, weak smile and then took a step into the hallway. Emma watched the way that her ankles seemed to cave inwards, struggling to carry her.

Her chest suddenly tugged and she heard herself call out, 'Regina?'

Regina turned quickly, her hair flicking across her face. She wore a smile that was half hopeful and half absolutely terrified.

'Yes?'

Emma swallowed, curling her thumbs into the pockets of her jeans.

'I… I love you,' she said quietly. 'You know that, right?'

Regina's smile flickered. 'Of course I do.'

'And you love me too,' Emma added, biting down on her lip. '…right?'

It took Regina a moment to recover from the flinch that ricocheted through her body.

'Of course I do,' she repeated. It was the first thing that she had said that afternoon that Emma actually believed.

Emma nodded. For a moment she looked down at the toe of her boot, watching it dig into the edge of the lifted floorboard. And then she sighed.

'Okay,' she said, looking back up again with eyes that pierced straight through the pathetic mask that Regina has forced upon herself. 'That's not going to change, you know. I love you and I plan to keep loving you. I'm going to keep coming after you. Just… stop fighting me, Regina. Please. Stop building walls up just to see me try and break through them. I think we've both done enough of that.'

Regina's hands were back inside the pockets of her coat, and she found herself unfathomably grateful for the fact that Emma couldn't see how much they were shaking.

She let her gaze drop to the floor between them as she sucked in a breath through her teeth, forcing back the sharpness that was assaulting her eyes.

After a moment she heard herself speak even though she hadn't told herself that she was allowed to.

'I am trying.'

Emma let out the breath that she had been holding.

'I know that,' she sighed. 'But you have to realise that I really am too.'

'I do,' Regina said quickly, her eyes snapping up to look at her. 'I know. This isn't something you've done. It's not. It's just… it's me, and I can't… I'm not…'

Emma took three short steps forwards and suddenly her arms were around her, holding her tightly against her body. The wonderfully familiar smell of her wafted over Regina and she let herself collapse into it, her nose buried in Emma's hair.

'Stop freaking out alone,' Emma muttered after a moment. 'We can freak out together. That's what I'm here for.'

Regina almost laughed, and then the sweetness that she knew she hadn't deserved started to choke her. She wriggled out of Emma's embrace, a sad smile tugging at her lips.

She nodded simply because she didn't trust herself to speak.

Reaching down for Emma's hand, she squeezed her fingers between her own. Then she turned away and forced herself to walk down the corridor, never once looking back.

Emma hadn't heard her when she arrived, but the sound of Regina leaving clung about her like a fog. The moment that the footsteps stopped she turned to the rest of the office, taking slow, deliberate steps with her eyes scrunched shut. She waited for the roaring in her head to stop. Then she gritted her teeth, glared at the nearest file cabinet, and punched it so hard that her knuckles turned purple.

Henry didn't feel the need to point out to his mom that she was being unusually quiet that evening. It was obvious that while the previous day she had been merely sad, at dinner that evening she was completely miserable. Her lips were turned permanently downwards and, as Henry helped her clear the plates away afterwards, the only way that she could bring herself to thank him was to rest her hand gently against the back of his head for a moment. Then she turned away, stacking the dishwasher in complete silence while he was left to hover in the doorway, his stomach clenching like a fist.

She came out of the kitchen ten minutes later to find him sat on the sofa, his school books opened on the coffee table and a pencil resting between two of his fingers. He looked up when she walked into the room, a decidedly forced smile plastered across her face.

'Do you need help with that tonight, Henry?'

He glanced down at his biology homework. 'Not really. I think I'm nearly finished.'

'I can check it for you after, if you want?'

'Thanks,' he said slowly, taking in the dark circles under her eyes. 'That would be good.'

She nodded.

'Okay,' she said, still trying to smile. 'I just… I'm going to go upstairs for a little while, if that's alright with you?'

Henry nodded sharply. 'Are you okay?'

'I'm fine, sweetheart,' she said almost too quickly. 'I just have a headache. I need to… I need to lie down for a bit. Is that alright?'

'Sure,' he said. He was trying not to frown at her.

'You'll be okay?'

'Mom, I'm only downstairs,' he said. She smiled a little more genuinely.

'Of course you are,' she said, taking a step towards him. She pressed a kiss against the top of his head, lingering for a moment before she pulled away. 'I'll be in my bedroom if you need me, Henry. Just knock before you come in?'

Henry nodded again. 'Okay.'

'Good boy,' she said. She turned away, walking slowly up the stairs without looking back down at him.

Henry lasted fifteen minutes before the anxiety that had been twisting at his stomach finally got the better of him. He placed his unfinished homework back on the table, tucking the pencil between two of the pages, and padded towards the bottom of the stairs. The rest of the house was silent, and it somehow only made him more nervous.

He edged up the stairs as slowly as he could, tiptoeing down the hallway until he reached the room at the very end. The door was slightly ajar. He pressed his nose against the gap, peering across the room towards where his mother's bed was – he wasn't surprised when he saw that she wasn't in it.

He nudged the door open ever so slightly and looked around the corner. There, at the vanity that was sat in the far corner of the room, he found her. She was sitting in front of the mirror with tears streaming down her face faster than she could cope with.

Henry swallowed, almost staggering back into the doorframe. He had seen his mother cry before – he had seen her cry quietly, and furiously, and angrily. But he had never seen her sob. He had never seen her weep so utterly raggedly that her body shook with the sheer effort of trying not to make any noise.

He bit down on his lip, edging the door slightly further open so that he could walk inside. He didn't know what was wrong, and he didn't know how to help – but he knew that his mom needed a hug. He took one step into the room and went to go and give it to her.

And then he couldn't. He froze.

Sat in front of her, resting open on the vanity table, was his book. He knew it well enough to recognise the page she had it opened to even from his blurry vantage point on the opposite side of the room: it was a picture of the Evil Queen.

The fingers on Regina's right hand were clawed over the top of the drawing as she desperately tried to cover it up, to hide it away. Her left hand was pressed flat across her mouth as she stared at her own reflection, desperately trying to smother the sound of her airless sobbing.

Henry's whole body went cold. He watched as she bunched her fingers into a fist and slammed it down over the face of the Queen.

Everything that he had said to her over the last two weeks hit him then, along with every flash of terror and self-loathing that had flickered over Regina's face whenever he had coyly mentioned apples. He looked at the hot stream of tears that was running slick across her cheeks and he suddenly deflated. He realised then, in a burst of something that made him want to scream, what he had been doing to her.

He didn't care who she used to be – but she did. And she hated herself enough for the both of them.

He had almost been laughing at her for trying to cover it up; for still trying to pretend that she didn't know what he was talking about when he asked her if she would dress as an old hag for their next Halloween. He had been openly mocking her for anxiously ignoring his comments about Emma. He had been laughing at her, and he hadn't even realised just how much it was breaking her.

She hated herself. She hated herself and she knew, without question, that Emma would hate her too.

Regina was a strong woman – probably one of the strongest that he had ever met. But Henry realised then, as he watched her pressing her knuckles against her lips to stop herself from whimpering, that before that moment she had only ever been strong for him. Telling Emma the truth… she was only going to be doing it for herself.

And she didn't have the strength to do anything at all for someone whom she loathed quite that much.

Henry held his breath and he eased the door closed once more. The sound of Regina not letting herself cry followed him as he forced himself to walk slowly back down the stairs.