Since you guys are all so wonderful, I am rewarding you with this early update, just like I promised! I can't tell you how much fun I had with this chapter! It all came out onto the page so easily, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. As always, comments are highly encouraged, and I try to respond to any concerns you all bring up, so don't be shy! Enjoy!
Emma clenched her jaw, swallowing thickly. She stared unblinkingly into Regina's fierce brown eyes, but what she saw startled her. The intensity there never surprised Emma, but she noticed, being so close to the mayor, was that those angry eyes were bloodshot, slightly swollen and her lack of makeup pointed out how red-rimmed the flesh around there was. Regina Mills had been crying.
A tremble washed through the blonde's body, which the brunette felt in the shake of the pistol still under her jaw. What have I done? What am I doing? Emma thought with absolute horror. Regina remained quite still, simply waiting for any sort of response. Exactly what the woman was hoping to achieve, the sheriff certainly couldn't tell. Just like all the other times, she had no idea what Regina was angling for, and it frustrated Emma to no end.
She leaned in just a little closer to the mayor, their lips almost touching now, and she breathed right into that waiting mouth, "No," then pulled the gun away and let it fall to the ground with a heavy clunk.
Regina's eyes opened slightly wider, the only indicator betraying her surprise. The older woman stepped back out of Emma's space, regarding her with hard scrutiny, trying to discern her motives. "What are you doing?" she demanded.
"You were baiting me. Whatever sick game you're playing this time, I refuse to be a part of it!" she spat back with hard confidence.
Regina chuckled mirthlessly at that response, and Emma found the brunette's face looked even more monstrous when it contorted out of its blank mask. "Is that how you see things, Sheriff? As a game? Felt like trying to choke the life out of me for fun, did you?"
"No! That's not what I meant!" Emma raked her hands through her hair, and when she pulled them through, the tension pulled back the skin on her face a little, and Regina saw some of the scabs from the scratches on her face crack open. "You're putting words in my mouth! You're twisting things around like you always do!"
"I wasn't the one who called it a game, Miss Swan," Regina said evenly.
"And I wasn't talking about all that shit that went down in your office! I was talking about whatever the hell it is you're playing at here! What did you come for, Regina?"
"Nice to see that you define attempted murder as 'shit that went down,' Sheriff." Regina's expression was steely, and her voice had dropped to a deadly pitch, bordering on a growl.
"And you tried to fucking kill me first, Regina! I was trying to leave! Why couldn't you just take your victory and go?!" Emma's voice held more desperation than she liked, but she didn't dare show any sign of regretting her tone.
"Because it wasn't a victory! You would come back to see him! Again and again! And every time you come, he drifts farther and farther away!" Regina's voice started to lose some of its masterful control, both women rising to the chaos of the situation.
"And that warranted murder?" Emma half-shouted in exasperation.
"It wasn't murder! I can't kill you, Emma!" It would break the Curse. The imp saw to that, Regina thought bitterly. Those words crashed into the blonde like a battering ram made of jagged bricks. "Did you really think Henry would believe I had nothing to do with your death, if you did die? He already thinks I am some sort of villain. Let's face it, Sheriff; you're his hero. If you died, it would only cement his hate for me, and I'd lose my son forever!" Regina said as she began pacing in front of the blonde, always avoiding the stagnating puke-puddles.
Emma just blinked in confusion, Graham's words crashing around her. What if Regina can't kill you? "But...you poisoned me..." she stammered, trying to process the information being tossed her way.
"Did not," Regina said like a petulant child.
"But I was-"
"In a coma, dear. Not a coffin, if you recall." Her voice slipped easily back into control, and, for some reason, that worried Emma.
"But...I woke up?" She frowned.
Regina huffed out a sigh, as if she was talking to a particularly dim member of the human race. "That wasn't really part of the plan. With you in your coma, Henry technically still had you, and I didn't have to deal with your nonsense any longer."
"What woke me up?" Emma was thinking about Regina's face right above hers when she woke up in the hospital bed, and she was praying the brunette would have some sort of reasonable answer to explain away her presence.
"I don't know, Miss Swan." Emma's lie detector quietly pinged, but she chose to ignore it for the time being. "You seem to have a nasty habit of not doing as you're told. I should have expected you to wake eventually," the mayor said matter-of-factly.
"And why, Madame Mayor, were you in my room when I woke up?" Emma asked as calmly as she could.
"To gloat?" Another ping. "Your coma was my victory, after all. Why shouldn't I be there to watch you helpless and unmoving in a hospital bed? It was really quite a satisfying sight, dear."
"Oh God..." Emma whispered under her breath. "Oh, fucking hell..."
Regina merely cocked her head slightly, blinking once, slowly, trying to figure out what conclusions the Savior was coming to. Emma continued to mutter obscenities to herself, eyes darting back and forth in a display of realization. "Something on your mind, dear?" the mayor asked in that falsely-sweet voice of mock concern.
"You...you really didn't try to kill me?" Regina nodded her head no once. "Say it," Emma demanded, needing to get the confirmation of her lie detector.
"I did not try to kill you," she stated somberly. No ping.
"Oh fuck! What have I done? I'm a monster!" The blonde held her shaking hands out in front of her, looking at them as though they were dripping in blood. Well, they might as well be, Regina remarked to herself.
"Someone's finally getting the picture. Took you long enough in your drunken little vacation to figure that out," the brunette sneered.
Emma's temper flared immediately. "Vacation? You think this has been some kind of picnic for me? I have been practically killing myself over what I've done!"
"And I haven't been suffering?" Regina snapped back, gesturing to her injuries.
"You're still living in your home, the whole town is probably on your side, you get to play the helpless victim, and you have Henry!" Emma spewed acidly. "I'm stuck here in this fucking hovel, my son hates me, and I'm a wanted criminal, and-"
Regina scoffed loudly. "You think I have the town on my side? You know what they've been saying when they think I can't hear? They wished you'd finished me off. Done the job properly! I'll be surprised if they don't start cheering for you when you return. And I don't have Henry! We both lost him!"
Emma paled. "Did he...run away or something?" Regina shook her head no again. "Then what do you mean?"
"He's not the young, innocent boy we knew, Miss Swan. He's had an undue burden placed upon him; one that's far too great for him to carry. He's had too much fear and anger brutally thrown his way. No child can bear that unchanged. He's angry all the time now."
"At me." the blonde stated soberly.
"Can you blame him?"
Emma opened her mouth to protest, but no such exclamations were heard. Instead, her shoulders sagged, and she took a couple of steps backward until she hit the wall. "No. I can't."
"It's more than anger, Miss Swan." Regina's tone became quiet, almost sad. When she looked at the blonde, her eyes lost their steely sheen, replaced by something more akin to vulnerability. "He's depressed, and confused. Terribly confused." The brunette took a deep breath, averting her eyes. "He loves you. But-"
"He thinks he should hate me, right? For what I've done?"
"To an extent. It's not so much a matter of hate, but rather, Henry knows what you did was wrong. He's trying to weigh your crime against his love for you, and he can't find any sort of balance."
"Love the sinner, hate the sin," Emma said quietly.
"What was that?"
"It's a bible thing, right? You're supposed to love the sinner, but hate the sins that they commit. It's what the kid's trying to do right now, but he doesn't know how yet."
Regina considered the sheriff's words for a moment. "I suppose you're right. At least, that's one way to look at it. However, on top of it all, he's terrified."
"Of what?"
"Too many things, dear. He...Henry looks at me now like a China doll that might shatter at any moment. How can I even begin to parent him properly when he sees me with no strength? He's afraid of you never coming back. He's afraid of you coming back."
"Why would he be scared of me returning?" Emma asked with a frown covering her face.
"He has a lot of anger. Anger that he doesn't know how to negate or channel. He's afraid of what he will say or do to you should you return. He's afraid of never being able to look at you as his White Knight ever again."
"Good!" the Savior spat angrily.
"Excuse me?"
"The kid should look at me differently. He should look at me with disgust, not awe. What I did was-"
"Unforgivable."
"To say the least. And I wouldn't be able to stand it if Henry thought what I did was a good thing, or something."
"And what about what I did to you, Miss Swan? Should you not also want Henry to look upon me through the same lens?"
"Oh please. Don't think I've forgotten or in anyway forgiven you for your little stunt thing, but...death wasn't precisely on your agenda, either. I had it in mind to kill you in cold blood-"
"Henry did hate me for what I did," Regina interrupted softly.
"You used the past tense." Emma bluntly pointed out.
"How uncommonly observant for you, dear." The blonde rolled her eyes at the mayor's sass. "He found a way to forgive me, to an extent. But, there were conditions, of course."
"What conditions?"
"Those are none of your business. You should also know, that seeing me in this state...Henry became unusually protective of me. Like I said, he sees me as broken." She spoke the last word as though it had left a sour taste on her tongue. "It would seem his anger toward your actions against me outweighed his anger toward what I did to you."
"Regina? Do you know what that means?" Emma closed her eyes, unsure as to why she was going to say what she was about to, but, for some reason, it felt necessary.
"By all means, Sheriff. Enlighten me." Regina cocked her brow in impatience.
The sheriff took a deep breath, fixing her eyes on the ceiling, gritting out her words between clenched teeth. "It means that Henry still loves you, if he's going out of his way to defend you." She shifted her glare to the floor between them, jamming her hands in her pockets.
"Of course I know that!" Regina snapped back.
"Then why aren't you taking your little victory? Why aren't you walking off into the sunset with your son and all of his love and affection, hmm?"
"Because! It doesn't feel like a victory," Regina blurted out. Emma watched as her cheeks flushed a brilliant shade of red.
"W-What?" Emma stammered, completely thrown by the other woman's answer.
The brunette worked her jaw furiously for a long moment, infuriated with herself for having slipped up so easily. "I said that I couldn't kill you, Miss Swan." Her voice was much softer than either woman had expected.
"So you've said, and your redundancy is getting us nowhere." Regina leveled her with a look, and Emma obediently clamped her mouth shut.
"Yes, there was a time, quite recently, when I would have gone to the limits of this earth to win back the love of my son. I don't think that it has escaped your notice that I did do so, and, to a point, I have Henry back." Regina fixed the Savior with an insecure gaze. "But at what cost, Miss Swan?"
"What's changed, Regina?" Emma shifted uncomfortably against the wall.
"I don't know." Ping. "The change in Henry... This war was between us, but he became the collateral damage. All of this," she gestured between the two of them. "I can no longer say it was worth it."
"Wow," Emma breathed quietly, looking at Regina like she had stated the most profound thing ever to grace the blonde's ears.
"What?" Regina said, flushing even darker.
"Never thought I'd hear you say anything like that." Emma offered up a crooked little smile. Regina rolled her eyes, pursing her lips tightly. The blonde raked her hand through her hair again, chuckling softly to herself.
"What could possibly be funny, Miss Swan?"
"It's just... What a mess we've made," she said lightly, shaking her head while still smirking a little.
"That might be the stupidest thing you've ever said, Sheriff." Emma shot her look. "Certainly the biggest understatement I've ever heard in my entire life." To Emma's complete and utter surprise, Regina chuckled softly as well.
"Thank you, Regina," she whispered earnestly.
"For what, exactly?"
"For not killing me."
"I am not a killer, dear."
"Even though my actions speak to the opposite, I'm not either." She started blinking rapidly, wondering when her eyes decided to start watering.
"Well, seeing as how I'm still alive, even though I am in poorer health than I'd like, I'd say that you're not a killer, Miss Swan." Regina held an even voice, and an even steadier gaze, waiting once more for Emma's response.
The Savior's voice seemed to have gotten stuck in her throat, and she coughed uncomfortably to try and dislodge it. "For...for what it's worth, Regina. I am sorry for what I did." She meant to continue on, laying out every reason as to why she was a miserable piece of shit, and that she didn't ever actually intend to her hurt the brunette; however, all of it felt fake, like stuff that you expect to hear in any generic apology. She figured that just the apology itself without all the extras would be, for now, a good start.
Regina closed the gap between them once more, and Emma gasped quietly. The brunette was just so close again, and she flinched ever so slightly when she felt the backs of warm fingers brush down her frigid cheek. "Apology not accepted," she whispered into Emma's mouth again, her brown eyes boring deeply into Emma's green ones. The blonde took a sharp inhale of breath, feeling a deep wave of warmth rocket through her body.
Swiftly, Regina turned around, striding confidently to the door, and the blonde had absolutely no idea what had just happened. Although, she couldn't really blame the woman for not forgiving her right away. Her brow furrowed when she saw the older woman pause, hand on the doorknob.
Regina turned her head to the right, almost looking over her shoulder, and whispered just loudly enough for Emma to hear, "Yet." Then she was gone, leaving the room feeling too cold.
Heh, I told you that things would start looking up again for them soon, didn't I? Find me on Tumblr at Writers-Dilemma. tumblr. com and my lovely Beta, who always steers me in the right direction, Jasmine, can be found at obligatory-regal-name. tumblr. com I have started taking prompts for one-shots, so if you have any interest in seeing me write something potentially fluffy, instead of this MASSIVE BLACK HOLE OF ANGST, drop a prompt in a PM on here or Tumblr :D