Chapter Thirty-Seven

'Let's try yes or no answers, shall we?'

Regina blinked for a few moments before she slowly said, 'A lot of my answers are likely to be a bit more complex than just yes or no, Emma.'

'I know that,' Emma said curtly. 'But I also know that you'll try and talk yourself out of my questions if I give you more than one syllable to work with. So yes or no will be fine.'

Regina tried to suppress her urge to bristle with resentment. She forced a nod.

'Very well.' Straightening her spine, she gestured for Emma to commence with her questioning. 'Go ahead.'

Emma nodded in response, pulling her legs up onto the couch and crossing them. She knew that Regina was inwardly screaming at the boots that were planted so carelessly on her pristine cushions, and that was partially why she was doing it. The fact that Regina didn't even wince, however, only made her feel sadder.

She swallowed before she asked, 'Do you regret learning magic?'

Regina didn't so much as blink as she answered, 'No.'

'Do you regret casting the curse?'

'No.'

'Do you regret killing people?'

Regina frowned. '…I can't answer that with just yes or no.'

'Yes you can,' Emma said flatly. 'That's the point. Majority rules. So answer me.'

Gritting her teeth together, Regina forced an answer. 'Yes.'

She watched Emma's eyebrows shoot upwards. 'Well. That's a lie.'

'That's because it was an unfair question.'

'How was it unfair?!' Emma spat. 'Do you regret becoming a psychotic murderer, yes or no? It's pretty simple.'

'It's far from simple,' Regina bit out in return. 'Did I regret it at the time? No. Did some of them deserve it? Definitely. Did they all deserve it? …no. But do I regret becoming the type of person who didn't actually care whether they deserved it or not? Yes. Absolutely, yes, I do.'

Emma paused, narrowing her eyes.

'This is exactly why I said yes or no only.'

'And this is exactly why that isn't going to work.'

'How do you think—'

'Emma, it took years for me to become this person,' Regina snapped, gesturing down at herself with more loathing than Emma realised one person could muster. 'It was a whole lifetime ago. I didn't start killing people and controlling their hearts with the snap of Rumple's fingers and the answer of a yes or no question – it took time. I can't possibly get you to understand any of that if you won't give me some more to just explain myself.'

Emma narrowed her eyes. 'You think that you've earned my time?'

She watched as Regina sat herself up even straighter.

'Yes,' she said. They both heard the slight tremble to her voice. 'I've done terrible things - I'm not denying that. But I've also done some good things and I deserve some credit for those. I'm not asking for much here, Emma – I'm not expecting forgiveness. I just want you to listen to me. I think I've earned that much.'

Emma glared at her for the next few seconds, the muscles in her jaw clenching as she gritted her teeth together. Her eyes had never looked darker.

Eventually she forced out one small word that simultaneously made Regina sag with relief and crumble with panic.

'Fine.'

Nervously wetting her lips, Regina asked, '…really?'

'Yes,' Emma said flatly, taking another swig of her drink. 'Go on. Impress me.'

Regina bristled at once. 'I'm not trying to impress—'

'I know,' Emma interrupted. All of a sudden her voice was sadder than it had been before. Smaller. 'I know that you're not. Just… just talk.'

And, just like that, Regina found herself with an audience to her magnificent story. And yet, quite suddenly, it didn't feel as magnificent. Her glorious curse was a tantrum and her costumes were garish and her reasons… they were excuses. She could hear herself telling Emma and she could see Emma's disgust dripping from her downturned lips.

But Emma's eyes were already cloudy with distrust, and Regina knew that she could hardly make them grow any darker. So she swallowed, and she began.

'Have I ever told you about Daniel?'

For some reason the question made Emma's blood go cold.

She wetted her lips. '…no. I don't think so.'

Regina nodded, her eyes now fixed on a twisted band of greyish metal that sat on her right hand. Emma was certain that she had never seen it before.

'A long time ago,' Regina started, 'when I was young, I loved a man named Daniel. He worked in my mother's… home.'

'You mean castle,' Emma interjected, her eyes narrowed.

'Yes,' Regina said flatly. 'My mother's castle.'

She waited for Emma to interrupt again with a derisive scoff or a roll of her eyes, but nothing came. She took a deep breath and continued with her story.

'I was very young,' she said quietly, twisting the ring around and around on her finger. 'And I didn't know him for very long. But I loved him. I didn't know much back in those days, but I knew that I loved him and I knew that he loved me too. And that was all that I ever wanted.'

Emma tilted her head to one side. 'Were you unhappy?'

She watched as Regina nodded. 'I was very unhappy.'

'Why?'

'My parents… they…' Regina stopped, swallowing, with her gaze still set firmly downwards. 'My father was kind. He loved me dearly and he doted upon me and he only ever wanted the best for me. We were very close.' She paused, smiling. 'He taught me to play chess. He would never let me win, but that only made me better than him. And he… he taught me how to ride.'

'He sounds nice,' Emma said quietly. The anger in her voice had slowly, discreetly ebbed away, as if the delicacy of what Regina was finally willing to share with her was more important to her than even the cold feeling of betrayal that was still tugging at her heart.

'He was,' Regina said. And then she sighed. 'That was just it though, Emma. He was… nice. He was insipid. He treated me like a princess, but that was just the problem – I was a princess but, to him, my mother was a queen. He loved me, but he obeyed her. And she had a lot of rules that she wanted us to obey.'

She waited for a response from her audience, but there was nothing. Emma was sat with her legs crossed, her half-empty tumbler dangling over one knee, dutifully listening to every word that she was being offered.

'Mother didn't approve of many things,' Regina said. 'But most of all… she didn't approve of me. I was her biggest disappointment.'

Emma looked blankly down at Regina's crisp shirt and perfectly crossed legs. '…you?'

'I hated castles,' Regina said flatly. 'I hated princes. I didn't know how to socialise with superiors and I didn't ride side-saddle. Everything I did disgusted her and she made no attempt at hiding it.'

Again, Emma blinked down at her attire. '…you?'

'I've changed a lot,' Regina said by way of explanation. 'No doubt she would be extremely proud of her daughter now.'

The dry sarcasm made even Emma's eyes burn. After a moment of silence she quietly asked, 'What happened?'

'To her?'

Emma shook her head. 'To you both.'

There was another pause.

'I… I fell in love. And she didn't like it. My mother… My mother had very set views and very fixed goals for me. I was already ignoring most of them and disappointing her in every way possible. I was trying, Emma, I really was, to be a good daughter and I was trying to make her proud... but the bottom line was that I just wasn't good enough for her. I made things too difficult. And when she was especially upset about that, she… she made sure I knew about it.'

Emma flinched with the sudden flash of her own remembrance: a wet dish towel whipping across the backs of her skinny young legs; a cigarette butt stinging through the papery flesh on the inside of her elbow. She swallowed.

'She… hit you?'

'No,' Regina said. 'Never. That would leave a mark. Ladies do not carry marks.'

Emma frowned, running this thought through her head. The realisation dawned on her slowly and painfully, like she was trying to swallow it without chewing.

'…she used magic.'

Regina nodded. 'Yes. She did.'

'How often?'

'Often enough for it to still mean something. If I got too used to it then it would lose its… punch.'

The punch of invisible hands against her naked stomach. The punch of imaginary fire licking at the foot of her bed.

'Okay,' Emma said, swallowing down her painfully empathetic shudder. 'So then what happened?'

Regina felt herself grow cold. 'She found out about Daniel.'

'Oh. How?'

'…your mother told her.'

'My…?' Emma started, and then the ridiculous realisation dawned upon her. 'Oh. You mean… Snow White.'

'Yes,' Regina sighed. There was less venom in her voice than she normally heard herself exuding when she mentioned Mary Margaret. 'I saved her life one day: her horse bolted and I went after her. And then she found out about Daniel, but because we were… friends, she promised that she wouldn't say anything.'

'To your mother?'

'To anyone,' Regina said. 'At that point I was… I was being forced to marry her father.'

She watched as Emma's face fell. 'And he was how old?'

'I don't remember exactly,' Regina said, forcing down the nausea. 'Old enough to know that he probably shouldn't be marrying a girl who was only six years older than his daughter.'

Emma winced. 'Okay. Right.'

After taking a breath, Regina continued. 'Snow was young. She was very young. She really didn't stand a chance against my mother once she was slithering around her asking for information. But she… she gave in at once. Daniel and I had planned to run away together that evening and I had barely finished packing my bags before Snow had spilled my biggest secret. She spilled it and my mother snatched it up, and then… and then she snatched up Daniel's heart.'

'She took hearts too?'

Regina flinched. 'She took hearts first. That was her speciality, you might say.'

'And she killed him?'

'Yes. She did,' Regina muttered, clenching her fists until the metal of Daniel's ring was biting into her palm. 'Because I was not allowed to be happy. And because Snow White was incapable of keeping a secret.'

Emma opened her mouth then, to loudly and profusely tell Regina how sorry she was: how sorry she was for the way that she had been treated, and just how sorry she was for the way in which she had lost the only man she had ever loved. Then, slowly, she closed it again.

'Wait,' she said, her eyebrows knitting together. 'That… that's what she did? That's why the Evil Queen hates Snow White?'

Regina bristled.

'It's not quite that simple,' she said. Emma immediately snorted.

'Clearly,' she said, draining her glass. 'Jesus, Regina. You're telling me that that is what kicked all of this off? You cast a curse because—'

'I did not cast the curse because I was annoyed with a twelve year old,' Regina interrupted with a hiss of irritation. 'It was years later and my heart had been broken a hundred more times. She just started it. She broke it the first time.'

Emma paused, almost considering this. And then she rolled her eyes.

'The Evil Queen is meant to hate Snow White because she's prettier than her,' Emma scoffed, folding her arms. 'She's supposed to be jealous of her.'

'And that makes more sense?!' Regina retorted. 'I am not jealous of Mary Margaret Blanchard. I never have been. Please don't insult me, Emma.'

'But being pissed off at her because she was twelve and didn't know how to keep a secret – that's okay?'

'That's not the reason!' Regina snapped, suddenly more furious than Emma had ever seen her before. 'I didn't hate her! I never hated her! She was a child and she made a mistake and I sorely, sorely resented her for it, but I never hated her. I tried to forgive her – I really did. I lived with that girl and I watched her grow up and, even though I wasn't much older than she was, I forced myself to be her mother. I could never forgive her for what she did to Daniel but… that didn't mean that I could stop myself from loving her a tiny little bit. She was only a child and she didn't know what she had done. I didn't even tell her what she had done. She was young and she needed protecting, because god knows that I never had anyone protecting me and I knew exactly how that had worked out for me.'

She ground to a halt, her skin flushed with anger and humiliation and the painful, painful realisation of just how disgusted she truly felt with herself.

She shook her head, continuing more quietly, 'I did try. But I couldn't forgive her, Emma – because I was trapped there, and it was her fault. I was forced to marry a man that I didn't love in order to be a queen that I didn't want to be. And all the while that same little girl grows up around me, blissfully unaware and blithely unapologetic. I was tethered to her. I have always been tethered to someone, while she simply carried on, and she grew up, and she got more and more beautiful with every day and I had to just sit back and watch her and force myself not to care that she had ruined my life and still got to carry on living hers as perfectly as she wanted.'

Finally, Regina looked Emma dead in her eye and sighed.

'Do you know how hard it is to hear every single person around you commenting on how beautiful somebody else is?' she asked quietly, her eyes dimming. 'To hear how she is the fairest in all the land? I wasn't only trapped – I was overlooked. The whole kingdom was so busy looking at Snow White and her beautiful hair and eyes and skin and lips that suddenly there was no point in me being there at all. And that's all I was intended for in the first place, Emma – I was the trophy bride. The thing for him to be proud of. I was trapped in that castle to be something to look at and then all of a sudden I wasn't even needed for that anymore. I was worthless. I had lost everything that had mattered to me, and I still didn't matter to anyone.'

The room fell quiet. Emma watched the frantic way in which Regina was breathing; the heavy rise and fall of her tensed shoulders. She looked smaller somehow, sat all alone in the middle of an armchair that was now inexplicably too big for her. All of a sudden Emma didn't see her as a mayor, or as a queen, or even as Regina – she saw her as the frightened young girl who had had everything snatched away from her. She saw her as a girl sat alone in a darkened room, just waiting for someone to turn on the light switch.

The feeling made her stomach hurt, and she quickly shook her head to rid herself of it.

'All of this,' Emma said quietly, gesturing around them both at the fractured world that Regina had inadvertently trapped herself in. 'This is all… about you. Isn't it? It's not about Snow White – not really. It's not about your mother or your husband or about your servants – it's about you. It's about you… hating yourself.'

Regina flinched, sharply and suddenly. The trapped expression on her face was only growing and Emma could see her glancing towards the door – because, no. No, it wasn't that simple. She didn't hate herself – she was miserable because everybody that she knew was useless, and they smothered her and they belittled her and they tried to ruin her. It was everyone else. It was never her.

'It was about control,' she said slowly, narrowing her eyes. She could see the scornful disbelief in Emma's face but she continued anyway. 'It was about taking back control.'

Emma raised an eyebrow. 'So you doomed everyone because you had… control issues?'

She could see Regina trying not to get angry at her again. She was fighting it so hard that she was almost twitching in the midst of her enveloping armchair, biting back the words that would undoubtedly make Emma stand up and storm out of the door and never, ever come back again. She gritted her teeth and shook her head. Emma watched her for a moment, and then finally she sighed.

'Just tell me,' she said quietly, 'why you did it.'

Regina swallowed. Rage was still thick behind her eyes and she was struggling to see through it, but somewhere amidst the red fog she could see Emma patiently watching her. Waiting for her.

For some reason, she was still willing to listen to her.

'Being married to Leopold,' she began quietly, biting down on her lip like she still didn't trust her angry words to stay behind bars. 'It was… a lot like living with my mother. I was stuck, and I was directed – nothing was ever my decision and I was never free to do anything as I wished. And, like my mother, Leopold… he…'

She shook her head, forcing her eyes to stay open so that the images would go away.

'He liked to have control over me,' she bit out, the smell of his musty cloak suddenly ripe in her nostrils. 'He liked to know that he owned me. All of me.'

Emma winced. 'Oh.'

'I have never much liked feeling useless, Emma,' Regina said, smiling wretchedly. 'It doesn't agree with me. But with Leopold, it was worse than that – I wasn't useless: I was worthless. He had his use for me and he took advantage of it, but that was all I was to him. It made me sick. Everything about him made me sick and angry and more and more desperate to be free.

'And then… Rumplestiltskin showed up. And he showed me… He showed me what it was like to have control. To have power. To have freedom.'

'How did he do that?' Emma asked. Regina paused before she answered.

'He helped to get rid of my mother.'

And suddenly Emma's face fell flat again. 'Oh. I see.'

'It was…' Regina started, sighing. 'It was the first dark thing that I ever did. And it was… horrible. It made me feel sick with myself and it made me hate myself. But I also… I also loved it. It made me feel powerful for the first time in my life. And I tried to stop using magic after that, Emma; I tried to forget about it and just tolerate things again. But then… being married to Leopold… I couldn't. I couldn't do it. I tried, but I couldn't. And once he was gone, it was just… It was like I could breathe. It was like all my life I'd been caged in one corner or another and suddenly the door was open and no one was attacking me for trying to crawl out. I was in control of my life. I had no idea that it would feel that good.

'You can't imagine how liberating it feels to use magic, Emma. It's like a drug. I was using it more and more every day and I could feel it starting to consume me, but it wasn't heavy – it wasn't dragging me down. It was the first thing in my life that had ever lifted me up and suddenly people weren't trying to constrain me anymore: they couldn't. Because all of a sudden I was controlling them. And it was better – it wasn't perfect, but it was the best that it had ever been. I wasn't afraid anymore. I wasn't being suffocated. I was free to do whatever I wanted and to be whoever I wanted to be.'

'But who you wanted to be,' Emma said quietly, shaking her head, 'was evil.'

Regina paused.

'Yes,' she said. 'She was. She was angry and she was showing it. All my life I'd been angry, and all my life I'd never been allowed to let anyone know. The Evil Queen could do whatever she wanted. And she did it by chasing Snow White around that forest like the scared little rat that she was.'

There was a tiny breath of silence. Emma's eyes were watching her, curiously but steadily; taking in the flash of pink that ran through her cheeks and the nervous biting of her teeth against her bottom lip.

'But doesn't that remind you of someone?' she asked after a moment.

Regina blinked. 'I'm sorry?'

Curling her fingers into air quotes around the first two words, Emma said, '…Snow White. Running away from you. I mean… she had someone after her. She was scared, and she was fighting for her life. You tried to do that too, didn't you?'

For a moment, Regina was speechless. Emma sighed and continued talking.

'Except… she managed it. She got away from you and she found happiness. Is that… is that why you were so angry at her?'

Regina was viciously chewing at her bottom lip then, and there was something absolutely terrifying flashing through her eyes: she had never been compared to Snow White before. Emma's stupid words had punched her straight in her stomach and all of a sudden she felt sick to the very pit of it.

She also felt pathetic. So very small, like a petulant child who had thrown a tantrum because she hadn't quite gotten her way.

Choking back the need to ask Emma to leave, she looked down at the ground.

'Can we go back to yes and no again, please?'

Emma sighed. It was a rain-check.

She considered saying no. She could taste the very word on her tongue. But instead she heard herself sighing, and she leaned back against the couch cushions once more.

'Do you still hate her?' she asked after a moment.

Regina wetted her lips. '…yes.'

'But not as much.'

'No. Not quite as much.'

'Do you wish that I wasn't… related to her?'

'Yes.'

'Does it bother you?'

'Yes.'

'…would you still hurt her?'

Emma watched Regina's face as it softened. Her dark eyes had melted back into that familiar, sorry molten chocolate and it made her hands yearn to reach out for her.

'No,' Regina said quietly. 'I wouldn't.'

Emma nodded, swallowing down something that tasted bitter in her mouth. After a moment she leaned forwards again, placing her empty glass back on the coaster that she had been deliberately ignoring up until then.

With her elbows resting on the bony edges of her knees, she spoke again.

'Would you ever hurt me?'

Regina flinched. 'No.'

'Would you ever hurt Henry?'

'No.'

'Would you hurt anyone at all in this town?'

She could see Regina considering this before she eventually said, '…no. I don't think so. Not anymore.'

Emma nodded. 'Would you… break your curse?'

'I… I don't know.'

'Would you do it if I asked you to?'

The words hit Regina like a cold splash of water. She winced before she could bring herself to answer. '…yes.'

She could see Emma's eyes growing glassy and it only made her shiver more. She watched as she swallowed, her usually bright green gaze falling slowly to the ground.

'Do you miss me?' Emma whispered.

Regina didn't hesitate. 'Yes.'

'Do you still love me?'

'More than ever.'

Emma nodded, still staring down at the floor like she didn't trust herself until the gaze of Regina's melting eyes.

'Are you sorry?'

Regina could have cried. 'Yes, Emma. Of course I am.'

Emma fell silent then, knotting her hands together between her spread knees. She glared down at them, her eyebrows pulled tightly together, and Regina realised that she had run out of questions.

She leaned forwards, so desperate to reach out and touch her that she could feel her very muscles aching with it, and said in a voice that was almost a whisper, '…do you forgive me?'

Emma looked at her with eyes that were almost grey. 'No, Regina. I don't.'

Regina had expected that, but that didn't make it hurt any less.

'Do you think that you ever will?' she asked.

'I… don't know.'

'Do you think that you can?'

Emma suddenly glared at her. 'How is that any different?'

'Because you might be able to forgive me,' Regina said quietly, 'but you might have absolutely no intention of ever doing so. I wouldn't blame you. But… I also wouldn't stop loving you even so.'

Another silence fell. Emma simply shook her head, blinking back the stinging pain in her eyes.

'Do you still love me?' Regina asked, bracing herself for the response. Emma's posture collapsed even further.

'…yes,' she muttered. It didn't make either of them feel any better.

'Do you love me any less than before?'

'I definitely hate you more,' Emma said, biting down on her lip. 'But no. I don't love you less.'

Regina swallowed.

'Do you still trust me?'

And then Emma's eyes suddenly went dark. She sighed, clenching her fists tighter together, before she sadly shook her head.

'No, Regina,' she said quietly. 'Not even slightly.'

A/N: As always, thank you so much for reading!

Just a little warning that there will be a delay with my next chapter. Not just because I'm being a douche - but because tomorrow I am flying out to Hungary to finally meet someone who I actually first spoke to on this very website :D she's my best internet girl and I'm spending the next 5 days with her and I am so so so so excited :D but it means it'll be a while before I come back to this. So please don't think I'm neglecting you all! I'm just off partying in Budapest :) I'll see you when I return!