The cool air really did help.

It was still that springtime kind of fresh, the smell from nearby pine trees brought out by some of the dampness that had accumulated in the evening chill, cooling and soothing not only after the heat of the party but also for the heat of her anger.

But Emma still wished she could tear Neal a new one.

She was still mad about falling for him. She always would be. But that was her own stupid mistake, and she would deal with it alone. Their connection would always be their problem, considering how reluctant they both were to unload on others in the first place. But now it was all about Regina. How dare he bring her into their twisted relationship. How dare he attack her just for being her friend. In front of everyone!

Regina had just wanted to go to her first party, and not only had Emma not protected her as she had promised, she had been the cause of its destruction.

Why anyone would want to be friends with her was beyond her at this point, let alone someone so unsure in her world to begin with, but Regina was still there, walking beside her in silence.

Emma shoved her hands deeper into her pockets. She didn't know what to say, how to apologize, how to explain.

Right next to her, Regina was thinking many of the same things.

She should've known this couldn't have lasted, even if everything between the two of them had been so great. There were too many outside forces, too many unearthed secrets. Maybe Neal would've just pleaded with Emma had she not been there. Maybe some of the guys would've just escorted him out, not hesitating to help Emma. Maybe Emma could've avoided the whole mess of her history entirely, and gone on being everything she was. Instead of defending Regina to a crowd of the most popular people in school.

Emma had defended her to a crowd of the most popular people in school.

She was bound to regret that.

And Regina couldn't get over how happy it made her feel but how terrible it was that she was bringing Emma down with her.

This couldn't last.

"Regina—"

"Emma, I—"

They stuttered awkwardly at their overlapping words, each willing the other to continue. Regina was just hoping to get it over with. So she allowed Emma the floor.

"Please. Go ahead."

They had still been walking aimlessly, but now Emma stopped, turning to look Regina in the eyes in the dim light of the moon and the streetlamps farther down the road.

"Regina, I'm so, so sorry."

"It's okay." Regina couldn't fully meet Emma's gaze as she prepared for the inevitable. It already hurt, and she knew that was all her fault.

"No, none of this is okay," Emma protested, shaking her head.

"I cannot believe that Neal took all our shit out on you—your night got ruined because of me, because I dated an idiot. Those things he said, Regina, and whatever he said before I got there—none of it is worth listening to, you know that right? I'm so sorry. I'm going to do everything I can to make it up to you, okay?"

Regina hadn't expected a single thing out of Emma's mouth. Once again Emma had undermined her expectations and she was both thrilled and reluctant. She didn't want to tell the truth. She didn't want to have be the one to end it. She wasn't sure she'd be able to.

"Emma—"

"No, no protests, Regina." Emma somehow sensed she needed to cut off what was coming. "You're amazing and I'm so sorry."

I'm amazing?

This was too much. She had to tell Emma her side of it all. Even though she could use it against her, even though she could resurrect the whole sorry tale. Emma had seen her ex attack her and had stood up for her without hesitation. Even though she didn't deserve it. Emma needed to know.

"My mother tried setting us up."

"What?" Had they been moving, Emma's shock most certainly would've stopped them in their tracks.

"Neal," Regina elaborated, willing herself to continue. "My mother tried setting us up. Back when she thought he might follow in his father's footsteps."

"You're kidding."

"I wish."

Emma pondered for a moment. "Is that what you meant…what you said to Ruby? About his being like his dad?"

"Yes."

Emma accepted her answer, nodding, clearly trying not to push but clearly wanting to. She needed to know how it all connected, how her new friend was connected to her ex-boyfriend, how that might change why he had confronted her in the middle of a party.

Regina could see Emma's wheels turning, despite her desire to hide it. Emma deserved to know. What he said, the big scene, it was all her fault. Emma's embarrassment was all her fault. She had to keep going.

"I was supposed to be going out to dinner with my mother, but when we arrived, Gold and Neal were already there." Regina wrapped her arms around her middle, not sure what would come of this story other than her own discomfort.

"I just knew. He was perfectly charming at dinner, even joking around, trying to lessen my obvious discomfort. I was only a freshman, and he was a senior, and I was…embarrassed, by my mother and the situation. I didn't think he was interested, or that he even thought of it as anything other than a waste of his time. When they sent us off to 'get to know each other' I thought he would drop the act and say something along the lines of, 'you're sweet, and I'll be sure to tell our parents you're just too young right now and they're crazy for trying to force some guy on you.' But he didn't. He kept treating me well, to the point where it was very flattering that an older boy would express that kind of attention. The night ended, and he was a perfect gentleman, and I though that would be it. He'd go back to ignoring me."

Emma didn't say a word, just waiting in expectation. Something more was coming and she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"He asked me out that weekend. Coming to the house. I thought I might as well since…well, I didn't exactly have other plans. We obviously didn't connect at all. He…we were too disparate. But I kept trying.

"I really did want it to work."

Regina didn't have to clarify for Emma to understand just why that was. And although Regina was wary about revealing her romantic connection to someone Emma had been intimately involved with, for some reason, she knew Emma wouldn't care. That it wasn't what this was about. Still, she gathered herself for the big finish.

"And so, when he went in to kiss me at the end of the night—I let him. But when he went in for the next…I realized I shouldn't pretend. He said he was fine with it, he understood, but—"

This time Emma couldn't restrain her response, dreading where this story was heading. She thought she knew what Neal was capable of, but she didn't want to be proven dreadfully wrong.

"Regina, what did he do?"

"Oh, no, it wasn't anything like—" Regina hurried to clarify, realizing belatedly the situation could seem much worse than it was.

"—The next Monday at school, people were laughing. More than usual," she murmured. "And then someone asked if Neal had 'fixed' me…Apparently he had told the team that I hadn't been interested in him because I wasn't interested in men. But that he had managed to convince me anyway."

Regina had finished off her story with the least drama possible, not wanting to frighten Emma again, but her blasé attitude didn't seem to matter to the blonde. She was plenty upset anyway—if anything more so because of it.

"Regina."

"It was a joke," Regina explained. "It's hardly important."

"Regina!" Emma chastised, horrified at the meanness of it all, but more that Regina would try to minimize it. "That's—just—god, if I had known…" She sputtered, wondering what effect this information would've had on the course of her life in Storybrooke—and desperately hoping that it would've mattered as much as she wanted it to.

"It died out mostly when he graduated," Regina continued, not knowing what to do at all with Emma's forceful reaction. "Somehow the rumors made their way to my mother, and once she found out they had started with Neal, she told Gold, and Gold removed a great deal of financial support."

At that, Emma's response shifted, as if it had triggered some thought deep in her brain, the emotion falling away in her contemplation.

"So that's why…"

Regina waited, but Emma didn't continue her thought, the sentence dying with the breeze as she sunk into further consideration.

"What?" She questioned softly, wanting to know what was going on, but still worried for Emma's eventual realization that she shouldn't be hanging out with her, waiting for her to process that her ex's rage had been prompted by Regina herself.

"He was living like a rebel," Emma reminisced almost dreamily. "You know, ratty car, stolen beers, going to community college because he couldn't afford the alternative—I didn't know he came from money until way later."

Regina nodded. She did know about Neal's "rebellion," and while she hadn't cared to hear about anything concerning him, she had seen him around town on occasion during the summers when he came back to generally loaf about. And there was last summer when she started her work for Gold—she had been worried about having to interact with him, but he mostly stayed away.

Still, this wasn't the point. She couldn't put off saying what she really had to say.

"Anyway," Regina brought the conversation back. "It wasn't—what he said—It wasn't because of you. At least not most of it."

"Regina," Emma practically sighed her name, but not in irritation, in what she could best describe as gentle exasperation, like Emma had been trying to say something the whole time and Regina just wasn't listening.

"It was my fault because without my stupid choices he'd have never been there to begin with, and if I had just known…all of this should've been different. Really, it's all fucking Neal's fault. None of this is on you." Emma shook her head in dismay, pondering how even just the littlest of changes could've been so much better for everyone, but really wondering if she was going to tell Regina this story. She hadn't really wanted to bring it up with anyone ever again, but Regina definitely deserved to know her side, especially when she had been so revealing with her own.

She started up their walk again, not knowing if she could get through it just staring into Regina's understanding gaze.

"We met when I first got here. That summer. I was still so…angry, and he was really chill. Like life had dealt him a hard hand, too, but he was making what he could with it. He'd drive us down to Boston so I could escape some of the small town-ness, but he also kind of helped me fall back into old habits…lifting, stuff like that." Emma paused, almost more ashamed of her past than of her relationship with Neal, which was insane. But Regina was just waiting patiently, not judging any of it.

"And he's talking about running away together, starting new, and that there was someone who chose me, who wanted me…I fell for it, hard."

Regina had known bits and pieces of Emma's past, news traveling fast in a small town, and she had assumed that growing up in the foster system was not ideal, even if she sometimes let wishes that she could've been orphaned instead of growing up with Cora take hold in her brain before realizing her folly. But the way that Emma was talking, the restrained emotion just under the surface…Regina had realized Emma wasn't much of a sharer, neither of them was, but in this moment, she saw the depth of the popular girl and all she wanted was more.

"Emma…"

Emma ignored her in favor of powering through her story, no longer able to acknowledge the girl listening to her. "Then at the end of the summer I overheard him talking to his dad, asking for money. I hadn't known he even had a dad let alone that it was State Senator Gold, the most successful lawyer in town. That kind of blew things up."

Emma glanced at her shoes scuffing the ground, not being able to look at Regina yet, but still not done. Regina just waited, not wanting to spook her off despite the myriad of possible responses that ran through her mind.

"But then he came back this past summer, all cleaned up and apologizing, saying he wanted to do right by me this time, and…I'm such an idiot. One more great summer. But then…he's asking if I still have contacts to fence some watches, and it's all just a game. We had…" Emma paused. This really was something no one knew about. Not even Ruby. But still, she knew she could tell Regina. She just knew. "A scare, and it was all the more reason to break up with him, but it kind of turned him all around.

"Still." She shook herself out of consideration.

"I know better this time."

At some point during Emma's confession they had wandered just far enough that Emma could slump against a nearby lamppost. From a distance, it would've looked effortlessly cool, but from where she was standing. Regina could see the torment and self-loathing roiling underneath the surface, things she never imagined she'd see in her brash new friend. But despite not wanting to see Emma in pain, she was almost relieved to.

This she could understand. This made her feel like they could be something—something real, not just with her as the popular girl's pet. This wouldn't have to end, Regina could have something to offer—They could help each other.

"I'm so sorry, Emma. You deserve…" She trailed off as she failed to quantify just what she was feeling. "You deserve so much more."

Emma almost looked horrified at the idea, that she could deserve anything at all, and she pushed off from the lamppost to stand directly in front of Regina.

"No, Regina. You do," she pleaded.

"I'm sorry about tonight."

Emma was so sincere, that Regina could only consider. Yes, there had been…a few obstacles, but she really couldn't count the night as ending poorly. Somehow she and Emma had made it through. Almost better for it.

"I'm sorry that he hurt you. But I'm not sorry I came."

"You're not?"

Regina smiled and shook her head.

"No. I'm not."

Emma felt the happiness grow all the way through her system until it reached her face.

"Me neither."

A/N: In both this and moreso in what I imagine will be the next chapter, I'm not doing such a great job of keeping out the angst. I promise I'm going to try to keep it in genre! Hold me to it!