I apologize so deeply for the long wait again. But here it is! The moment you have all been waiting for! I hope you enjoy it!
Regina drove up to the little cabin, her Benz pumping out heat in the frigid 3am air. The barest hint of steely-gray light teased the horizon, below the tree line. She swallowed, pulling up beside the garish bug, steeling her nerves. She gripped Stuffles, staring into well-worn eyes. "It's time," she said with a resolve she didn't feel. She placed the little protector on the passenger seat, picking up a small satchel as she exited the car.
The cabin looked quiet and dark, and her heart fell slightly when she rounded the corner to see the front porch vacant of one Emma Swan. "It's time," she repeated once more to herself. She didn't bother knocking.
Regina swung the door open slowly, jaw tensing at every creak of the rusty hinges. She looked around the small space, struggling to adjust to the dim light. The fire had long since disintegrated to coals, leaving the half moon as the only source of light.
Emma was sitting on her cot, forearms resting on her knees, fingers laced together, eyes peering up at the intrusion. Oddly enough, the woman seemed entirely unperturbed by Regina's appearance. Instead, she let an audible sigh escape her lips.
"Regina? What are you doing here?" Her words misted in the air.
"I've..." Her voice caught. The blonde stood up. She was not leaning on her cane, and she didn't have the height of her boots, but the lines of her body were rigid, her eyes shadowed by a dark, haunted look. Deep slashes of purple hung underneath them, her skin pale in the weak moonlight.
Emma took a step toward her guest. Then another. "You've...?" She stared evenly into brown eyes that appeared black in the low lighting.
"I've...come to tell you the truth," she said, choking back the hitch in her voice.
"Now you're coming to tell me the truth? About what? And why now?" Emma demanded, walking slowly closer. "After all this fucking time?"
There was barely more than a foot of space between them, and Regina felt the familiar spark she felt when they used to go toe to toe, blow for blow. "I'm not saying my timing is right-"
"It sure as fuck isn't! Did you know that I haven't slept for three days? I'm exhausted, my body aches everywhere, I'm fucking starving to death out here...and I think I'm going insane." She raked shaking fingers through her mess of tangled curls. "What good does the truth do me anyway? 'Cause it's starting to feel like I'm gonna die out here."
"No. You're not. I won't let you," the brunette said softly, but firmly.
"What the hell is that even supposed to mean?" Emma snapped.
"It means I'm feeding you, you idiot," Regina bit back, roughly shoving the satchel she brought into the other woman's arms.
Emma reached into the bag and pulled out a container of leftover minestrone soup with a spoon was taped to the lid. Her green eyes looked up, searching the brunette's face. "Why? I...I don't understand."
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth, Miss Swan," Regina said tersely.
"Yeah, the last time I did that, I got poisoned," came the stony reply.
The mayor paled. "This...this isn't like that," she whispered.
"Oh really? How? Explain to me how this time you want to keep me alive, when you thought a couple months ago it'd be a great idea to off me?"
"I don't want you dead!" Her voice rose as fire raced under her skin. "I've never wanted you dead!"
"That's a fucking lie!" Emma shouted, leaning closer to her adversary. "I'm tired of your cryptic games! I'm tired of everything!"
"And you need to wake up," Regina retorted hotly.
"Are you kidding me? I need to wake up? I'm awake! I've been awake! And my life has been a goddamned nightmare! It's been so fucking fucked that I find myself wishing I was still in that coma! At least I wasn't here! At least...at least Henry still loved me." Emma stumbled back a few steps, bending over as little lights popped up in her vision. She pressed the heel of her palm to her forehead, groaning.
"Emma? Are...are you okay?"
"Fine," she grunted out. "Just dizzy."
Regina wordlessly guided Emma to the nearest chair at the dining table. She placed the soup in front of the younger woman, reaching for a box of matches beside a half-burnt candlestick. She lit it, creating a small orb of light, but deepening the shadows around them. "Eat," she commanded once.
She turned her attention to the empty hearth. Gloved hands stirred up the coals, placing logs over them, and poking tinder in between. Emma just watched, and several, painfully-quiet minutes later, a small fire had caught.
Regina stood again, facing Emma. "Eat," she said once more, but with a surprising tenderness. "A soldier fights better on a full stomach."
"Does this mean I should be expecting a battle? Maybe even a war?" the blonde asked, her eyes narrowed.
"A war? Perhaps...but not the kind you might be thinking of, dear." The brunette moved to settle into the only other chair at the little table, and she watched the other woman pop off the top of the container. "I know it's not warm, but I figured-" she paused, an amused expression on her face. Emma had begun to shovel the soup into her mouth. "-That anything was better than nothing."
"It's goo'," the blonde managed around her full mouth. Swallowing, she looked sheepishly to her guest. "I...I don't know what's happening, but...thanks, I guess. F-for the soup." She looked away, hoping the low, flickering candlelight would hide her blush, missing the way Regina's lips twitched upward.
"Emma..." she began, hating herself for the unsure tone of her voice. "I didn't come here just to bring you a meal."
"Oh...yeah," the blonde said, suddenly nervous herself. "You said something about the truth?" She wiped her mouth on her sleeve.
"I am about to place a burden upon you; one that no one should ever have to bear. And I'm going to give you a truth you've been blissfully denying since you came to Storybrooke. The truth comes first."
"Regina, wait," Emma breathed. "I...I don't know that I wanna hear any of this. You're not exactly a shining ball of rainbows, but...but you sound...scared."
"Yes, Miss Swan. I am scared," the older woman said softly, her voice and expression carefully schooled. "What I'm going to tell you, well...none of it bodes well for me."
"You've lost me, again. Don't try and sugarcoat this, or preface it with anything. Just tell it to me straight."
"Very well. Henry is not crazy, Miss Swan. He has never lied to you, and everything he has ever told you was the complete, undeniable, revolting truth."
Emma's brow creased in confusion. "About what?"
"The Curse. Everyone in this town. You. Me..." Regina clenched her jaw tightly, her cool facade beginning to crumble already.
The blonde leaned back in her chair and started to laugh. "Ha. Ha, Regina! Very funny, but I don't think now is the time for a prank."
"This isn't a prank," the mayor said evenly.
"Uh huh, right! And my pants are also made out of gold!"
"Miss Swan!" Regina said sharply. "I am not playing around! Hear my words, and use your superpower. You tell me if I'm lying."
The laughter fell from the blonde's lips, and she sobered immediately. "You're actually serious?"
"Completely. The Curse is real, Miss Swan." No ping. "You are not just the sheriff of a sleepy town, I am not just the mayor, Ms Blanchard is not just a simpering school teacher..." No ping. "You...are the Savior." No ping.
Emma swallowed hard. "But...I'm not," she said weakly.
"You were meant to come here, to do as your destiny demands. You came here because fate made it so."
"No, Henry-"
"Wound up in this town by more than just chance. I know this means nothing to you right now, but you're a Charming. You will always find your way to your family. They're all here..." Regina said in a voice so heavy with sorrow, that Emma felt her own heart twinge in pain.
"My...my family?" It was a phrase that had rarely graced the young woman's lips, and the concept felt foreign to her. She had spent so much time trying to hate them, or reason that her parents were unprepared teens, drunks, drug addicts, or any other unsavory thing to justify her abandonment. The idea that she had parents, here, who were far from the pathetic trash she imagined them to be, felt like a betrayal.
"Your family is here. Your mother. Your father...Henry..." She sat rigidly, her eyes tight, barely holding onto her composure as she felt tiny fractures begin to cut into her heart.
Emma's own expression was more openly pained. "M-My mother? Mary Margaret?"
"And David Nolan. It's why they can't stay apart from each other, even here. They are True Loves. Not even the Curse's power can trump the strength of True Love..."
"And you-"
"Yes."
"-Are really her?" A hint of disgust flashed across green eyes. "You did this?" Her voice rose. "You're the fucking reason why all of this happened? Why my life...my time in the system...th-the torture I suffered happened?!" Anger now defined every line of the blonde's body. "You're the reason I grew up without my fucking family?" Hard, angry tears of devastation glittered in her narrowed eyes.
"I am not proud of my actions, nor will I ever ask your forgiveness for them."
Emma slammed two clenched fists onto the tiny table. "Fuck you!" Regina flinched, squeezing her eyes shut as though she had seen something truly disgusting in an operating room.
"Defend yourself!" Emma half-shouted.
"No," came the quiet refusal.
"You're the Evil Queen! Fight back, goddamn it!" she yelled, shooting to her feet.
"No, Emma."
"Why!" The blonde ran her fingers through her hair in agitation.
"I...can't."
"That's not good enough!"
"I can't fight you!" Regina almost pleaded. "I've fought everything my whole life! A life that's been too long! I'm done fighting! And...and I can't fight you, Emma." She too stood, turning her back to the sheriff, trying to hide tears that were threatening to spill over.
"What do you even mean?" The words came out aggressively, but Regina could hear doubt beneath them.
"If you let me explain...if you let me do the right thing, for once...I will." She turned around, her face open, eyes glassy and asking for just one more chance. "Nothing I have ever done in my life has scared me so much as doing this does now." Regina's head hung, and she looked up through long lashes.
"I-I must be crazy for listening to you," Emma grunted.
No, dear. You're not crazy...just..in love, Regina thought to herself.
"Okay, so, say what you gotta say, but no lying. I'll know." The brunette inclined her head in acknowledgement.
The two sat back down, the cold air thick with tension. "Emma...have you ever felt a kind of pain, an anguish, a...a helplessness that consumes you? When your entire being, your own existence aches, and you wish you could walk into the ocean and fade away?
"But...you're so angry. Angry at the world, at every person who ever betrayed you, lied to you, disappointed you. And you let the anger fill up all the empty spaces, convince to you to stay alive out of spite, out of a twisted sense of Justice...or so you call it in your head.
"Except, it's not justice... It's vengeance. And...it's the only clear thought, the only emotion that makes you feel powerful again, like you're in control...even though you thought you never could...Have you ever felt that?"
A heavy silence hung between the two women, and only the crackling flames broke it. Regina's downcast eyes were two black pools that led to a haunted, jaded past. Emma's face was tight with pain, her fists clenched on her thighs.
"Yes." The Savior broke the silence. "Thanks to you," she added bitterly.
Regina did not react. "That was how I felt before I cast the Curse. Every move I made, every decision I carried out...it all ultimately backed me into a corner. I had no way out."
"Surrender wasn't an option?" Emma scoffed.
"Not when power is your addiction; not when power is the only thing keeping you alive. It wasn't entirely my plan...to cast the Curse. I had been manipulated by someone more powerful than I, though I thought myself superior to him."
"Who?"
"Rumplestiltskin," Regina said dryly, and Emma snorted. "Laugh all you like, Miss Swan. He is not a man to be trifled with. He had groomed me as his one of his pawns for this singular purpose for over a decade. He made it so I was powerful enough to cast the Curse. I have yet to discover why he desired it to be cast.
"But I digress. I was in a state of such acute despair that casting the Curse to end all other curses seemed like the only way to win. To finally have what I wanted. At least...I convinced myself of that. I had decided that if I could not be happy, no one could. When no one was happy, I would finally be victorious.
"But there was a problem. A rumor that a child would be the downfall of my Curse. That this child had the power to break it, to defeat the evil, and bring back all of the happy endings. The Savior," she finished, looking pointedly at the other woman.
"Me? But...how'd I escape? August said...said I came through a tree," she mused, recalling the tumultuous evening when the writer took her to where she had been found. When he tried to convince her she was the Savior.
"Your dear parents, the Charmings, put their infant baby in a magical wardrobe that they might spare you from the Curse. In the hopes that you would come back and break it."
"They...they did that?" Emma's voice cracked slightly, and Regina hummed in acknowledgement.
"Emma...what I did was...evil. However, I cannot find it in my heart to regret doing it entirely."
The blonde looked up in alarm. "Are you fucking kidding? What could possibly make any of this okay?"
"If I had not cast the Curse, I never would have had Henry in my life."
Emma scowled deeply. "So my fucked up life? My pain, and this grotesque little fantasy town of yours is all made okay by Henry?"
Regina's eyes narrowed dangerously. "I would forsake the entire world for my son, Miss Swan! He was the one thing in this miserable hell hole, in this mortifying tragedy that made me feel like maybe I could be worth something again!" she snarled. "When you threw him in the trash, I picked him up! I loved him with a ferocity I thought myself long-since incapable of! So don't you dare make him less!"
"I did not throw him in the trash! Giving him up was the most painful and difficult decision of my entire life! I died that day! I felt like a worthless piece of shit after that! I felt like I had no choice but to give him up... I had nothing to my name except for a car. I couldn't have cared for a baby, but I'll be damned if you think I just tossed him away. If you think it was easy."
"That's it! There it is! Now you know, Emma! That's what I felt! That's what my entire life was! That's why I cast the Curse!" Regina retorted.
Another heavy silence fell between them. Both were breathing heavily, bodies tensed, like lions ready to pounce. But as the moments wore on, it was clear that Regina was far less angry, and much more dejected.
Her shoulders had begun to sag, her brows softening to a somber expression, the downward tilt of her lips complementing the look. She closed her eyes slowly, breathing out a weighty sigh through her nose.
"Emma," she spoke softly, still keeping her lids shut. "I don't ever say this often, but when I do, it is with the utmost sincerity." Long lashes sailed upward. "I'm sorry." She walked over to the fire, finding it easier to look at the flames than the woman she loved.
Emma stayed in her spot, but she turned to look at the silhouette of the enigma that was Regina Mills. "You are..." the blonde whispered. It wasn't a question, just an acknowledgement that she had heard no lie in the older woman's words.
"You know," the blonde started. "The woman I met when I came to Storybrooke...I could have called her the Evil Queen. But you? Here. Now." Emma came to stand next to Regina's right, also looking into the fire. "You and I aren't heroes and villains. We're just...broken."
The blonde shot a sidelong glance at her companion, hoping to gauge a reaction, but Regina's hair had fallen forward, blocking her face. The Savior had a strange, unsettling urge to reach out and tuck the wayward strands back behind the woman's ear, and she swallowed nervously, turning her gaze back to the fire.
"Do you believe now?" Regina asked softly, still not looking up.
"I...I-It's /impossible." But Emma's words came out more as though she was trying to convince herself.
Regina scoffed, finally flicking her air back. "You're always so stubborn," she ground out irritably. "Emma, I didn't poison you!"
"I- Wait, what?"
"The turnover." Her jaw clenched tightly, and she didn't dare shift her gaze from the waning flames. "I cursed you."
"Are you fucking kidding me?"
"I couldn't kill you. Killing you would break the Curse...not that I would have been able to do so anyway. But...I needed you out of the way. You were pulling Henry from me, weakening the Curse, and destroying everything I built.
"You came to say you were leaving, but I knew you'd come back. For Henry, you will always come back. There was only one way I could ensure you'd be out of the way without losing Henry or breaking the Curse.
"Do you remember in the tale of Snow White what was given to her by the old crone?" Regina asked carefully.
"A poisoned apple, right?"
"Indeed. In reality, it wasn't poison. It was a Sleeping Curse. Quite possibly the most powerful of its kind in our land. So powerful, it could make its victim mimic death. Through means by which would take far too long to explain, I pulled the apple from our realm to this one.
"That was the apple in the turnover I gave to you. And you ate it, just as I had planned. The Sleeping Curse worked beautifully upon you; though, it wasn't nearly as strong on you. You're the product of True love, and so its power lives in your very flesh.
"That power wasn't enough to break the curse I put upon you, but it prevented you from masquerading as a cadaver. Everyone assumed you to be in a coma, excluding myself and Henry."
"I call bullshit," Emma broke in. "I woke up. I wasn't under some powerful curse-thing."
"You went under after eating the turnover, yes?" Regina's tone was mild, but she continued to avoid eye contact.
Emma bit her lip. "Yeah, but-"
"Henry had every bachelor in town kiss you."
The blonde's face wrinkled at the memory of that unfortunate event. "Still haven't forgiven him for that," she grumbled.
"Because what breaks a curse like that, Miss Swan?"
"Uh...True Love's Kiss?" Regina nodded. "Yeah, but no one kissed me! I didn't magically wake up when Archie-" She suppressed a shudder. "-Tried to kiss me. Or any other person for that matter."
The brunette finally whipped around, fixing Emma with an intense, penetrating stare. "Are you truly so blind?" she exclaimed in exasperation. "Think, Emma! Think! Remember when you woke! Remember what you saw!"
Emma thought back to the very moment her eyes opened. Warm, chocolate ones were staring back at her, a gentle smile playing about the lips of a face she knew a little too well. "I-I saw...you."
"There's a reason you can't hate me," Regina whispered, her face open and honest. "And there's a reason why I can't hate you." She began tugging at the fingers of her gloves, letting the left one fall away. "And there's a reason why this happens..."
She reached up, hesitating momentarily. Then, she slipped her fingers over the slightly-sunken cheek of the blonde, her skin frozen to the touch. Emma gasped, feeling heat once again blossom out from the older woman's fingertips. Without thought, her right hand shot up, cupping the one against her cheek, wanting to never lose that warmth.
"Why?" Emma breathed, suddenly aware of Regina's proximity, of the orange glow of the dying fire shining in beseeching eyes, of the pleasant heat of the flames, and the smell of jasmine once more.
"I can tell you," Regina murmured. Her other hand came up to rest along Emma's jaw, both of her thumbs lightly stroking the blonde's cheekbones. "When you were under my Sleeping Curse...I fell in love with you, Emma. But I was too scared to admit that. So I waited, in fear.
"But time wore on," she whispered, inches from the Savior. "Henry tried to find your True Love, but he looked in the wrong place; however, it didn't take him long to figure out what I was trying to deny.
"I visited you so often in the hospital, Emma, because I was trying to find the strength and courage I lacked. I wanted to kiss you...so many times." Her warm breath ghosted over the younger woman's neck, and the fresh, light scent of the jasmine was all the poor blonde could smell.
"I didn't. I didn't kiss you, because I was afraid it wouldn't break the Sleeping Curse. And I was simultaneously afraid that it would. Both meant coming to terms with two equally devastating realities."
"What changed?" Emma asked, an unknown desire for Regina to stay warring with her confusion and disbelief at the entire scenario.
"Someone from my past..." Regina's voice hitched. "I thought kissing you would be a dishonor to his memory...but I was wrong. When I finally saw that...I knew. It was time."
"If you broke the Sleeping Curse, then why do I still feel so...wrong? Why am I cold, and miserable?" the blonde asked, feeling one of Regina's hands fall away.
"It takes True Love's Kiss to break a curse of that strength. You have True Love's power in you, but what we had, the kiss I gave you, was not True Love's Kiss. It was very similar, but it couldn't be the real thing. What I felt for you...feel...it's very real. Frightfully so.
"However, at the time, you were not in love with me. True Love's Kiss...it requires mutual affection. So the strength of my kiss was enough to wake you from the curse, but it was not enough to lift it from you completely. Parts of it still linger in your flesh. The cold, the nightmares..." Regina used her free hand to pick up Emma's, her thumb brushing over fresh scars on the knuckles. "When I touch you...you feel it. You feel the curse ebbing away.
"Emma...this was never supposed to happen. I was never supposed to love you," she said heavily, hurt flickering through her eyes. "You were never supposed to be my True Love. And that's the burden I have unwillingly placed upon you...the one no one should have to bear. To love me is to love Evil." She pulled her hands away, stepping back.
She looked sadly upon the blonde, wishing that Emma would stop looking at her that way. Wishing the younger woman wouldn't look so confused, and surprised, and...heartbroken. She turned around, her back facing the Savior.
"Regina, wait..." The brunette felt tentative fingers slide around the crook of her elbow. "W-Why'd you stop?"
"Stop what, Miss Swan?" The mayor's voice had become bitter, and she didn't turn around; she just talked over her shoulder.
Emma squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she was better with words. "Listen, I don't have a damn clue what to believe anymore." She shivered, the cold quickly overtaking her body. "Maybe this curse thing is real. Maybe I could believe that. But...but you loving me? Where the hell did that come from?"
Regina laughed humorlessly. "I'm still trying to figure that out myself. It...happened. When you went under the Sleeping Curse, my life had become comically boring and empty. In reality...you had made my monotonous life something interesting again...and I hated that."
"And that led to love?" Emma asked skeptically.
Regina finally turned to face her companion, a sad smile gracing her lips. "No, dear. True Love doesn't happen the same way that regular love does. It happens regardless of our previous feelings, and timing doesn't matter to it. Even precious Snow White and her prince harbored a strong disdain for each other in the beginning."
"But...I don't love you," Emma said with a forlorn expression.
"Is that what your head is saying?"
"Yeah."
"Ignore it. I know you enough to know that you live by your instincts. You react to your gut feelings, your heart. What does it say?"
The blonde shivered. "I don't know. I can't concentrate. The...the only thing I can think about right now is being warm."
Regina slowly approached the Savior, her face completely unreadable. "I can help," she murmured.
"Will...will you make me feel warm again?" she asked, and her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
"Where would you like me to touch you?" Regina whispered, staring intensely up at the blonde.
Emma bit her lip, scarcely believing that any of this was happening to her. Without word, she reached out her hand that had been hanging limply at her side. The distance wasn't far to Regina's own fingers. Emma slid them underneath the other woman's, her thumb clasping over delicate knuckles. Regina's lips twitched upward, her eyes softening with affection. Emma smiled shyly in return, the warmth blanketing her once more.
"God, I don't want this to stop," the blonde whispered.
"Which part?" Regina queried.
"I...I'm not sure." Emma was still worrying her lip.
"Well, that's a start, dear." The brunette's voice was tender, the barest hint of hope coloring her words.
The Savior had no clue what was making her act this way, but she found that she wasn't complaining either. After all, everything else in her life was going up in flames. Why not add the weirdest love confession in the world?
But Regina was smiling softly. It was something she had rarely ever seen on the older woman's face before, and she had definitely never taken the time to appreciate it. The brunette's eyes crinkled gently at the corners, her deep brown irises looking warmer than she had ever seen them before.
The hard lines of her face relaxed, taking a decade away from her appearance, and, in a single moment, the hard, no-nonsense mayor was pushed away. The woman left in her stead was...surprisingly human. And how had Emma never noticed just how beautiful she was?
She swallowed nervously. Regina hadn't said a word. She stood in front of her, awfully close, just holding her hand. Perhaps she was waiting for Emma to say something? Her own ridiculous declaration of love? Or maybe she just knew that speaking would ruin this moment of peace. This one point in time when things didn't look so bad.
Without thought, the Savior leaned forward, pressing her forehead to Regina's. Both women stared at each other, and Emma laughed nervously, amused at the way they had to practically cross their eyes to focus on one another.
"What's happening, Regina?" she asked, inhaling the clean scent of jasmine once more.
The brunette lifted up her other hand, placing it over the younger woman's heart. A clear burst of heat bloomed in her chest, trickling all the way down to her fingertips and toes. The hairs on her arms and neck stood on end, and Emma sucked in a sharp breath.
"What does it tell you, Emma?" Regina whispered, licking her lips.
"It...th-this is crazy," the blonde insisted, but she made no move to pull away.
"And you think this is normal for me?"
"Isn't it? Isn't this what you fairy tale people do? Look for love and stuff?" Emma tilted her head to the other side, feeling her nose brush lightly against Regina's.
"For some." The brunette pulled her head away, but her hand stayed over the Savior's heart.
"But not you?"
"I am the Evil Queen. I do not seek love, and it most certainly does not try to find its way to me."
"Then what about us? And the part where I'm supposedly your True Love?" Emma pointed out.
"It's a cruel joke the Fates decided to play," Regina answered bitterly.
"So I'm a joke now?" the blonde said hotly.
"No! That's not what I meant. You're stubborn and ignorant, but not a joke. I think you've proven that. The vile joke is that our love is the key to breaking the Curse. The punch line..." She breathed a heavy sigh. "Is what happens when hundreds of people I sentenced to misery regain their identities."
"Wait...what are you saying?" Emma's brow furrowed, the fading firelight etching deep shadows across her face.
"I'm saying," Regina began slowly. "That the idea and practice of justice differs drastically between our worlds."
"You can't." The blonde stated with a hard edge to her words.
"Can't what, dear?" The brunette's signature defensiveness began to creep into her words.
"You can't go to them! You can't let them do...whatever it is they're gonna do!" She fought down a strange feeling settling in her stomach as a realization she had been repressing battled for priority in her mind.
"Why does it matter to you, Emma? Why is the idea of me leaving you to do what's right bothering you so severely?"
"Because it's not fair!"
"Why!"
Emma's hands flew upward, cupping Regina's cheeks, as she stooped slightly to reach her eyelevel. "Because I care about you!" she said fiercely. Once the words had left her mouth, her eyes widened, lips parted, barely daring to believe what she had just said.
"What?" the brunette breathed.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean-" Emma began, but Regina's hand came up to settle over the one on her cheek, effectively silencing her.
"Yes you did," the brunette said earnestly.
The two women searched each other's faces for several long moments, while Emma battled with the dawning realization that she did, indeed, mean every single one of the words she had spoken. That, despite every horrific thing that had transpired between them, she felt an undeniable sense of affection for the steely mayor. And she would always pull her out of the fire. All of it frightened her, but-
Soft lips surged upward, pressing firmly against her own. Jasmine invaded her senses, but what really came through was the heat. Regina's lips melted against hers, her body brushing up along the blonde's, fingers settling delicately around the back of her neck.
Emma breathed in the moment, feeling delicious warmth trickling through her body, her limbs, her fingers, her veins, bathing her heart. She felt the sense of dread that had been lording over her seep out of her flesh. Clarity settled over her mind, replacing the foggy haze that had been there since the coma.
In that moment, Emma felt right. In that moment, when Regina's lips pressed a little harder against her own, when an electric thrill shot down her spine, when she thought her life couldn't become any more chaotic, she felt strangely okay. She thought that maybe this was the right thing to do.
Emma parted her lips, taking Regina's bottom one between her own, finally returning the kiss earnestly. Her heart jumped, and her fingers tingled, then a numb-like sensation hummed throughout her body, concentrated in her heart, and exploded outward.
She felt something shift in the air around her, and she pulled away, staring into fearful brown eyes. Then her vision clouded over, and her head felt tight, like a balloon ready to pop. She shut her eyes and images began to flash around her mind.
Emma saw everything from a woman crying in a bed, belly swollen from birth, to a man defending a baby from knights dressed in black. She saw a wardrobe. She saw the baby inside. The blonde saw swirling clouds of thunderous, purple smoke, saw a woman laughing cruelly. Emma saw the truth.
Her eyes sprung open, and she was bent double, breathing heavily, head swimming. "What the hell just happened?!"
"What did you see?" Regina asked quietly.
Emma looked up, slowly straightening her body. "I...I think I saw my birth. My parents." The word felt foreign in her mouth. "And you. I saw you."
Fear flashed through the brunette's eyes. "Do you believe now? Do you believe that you are not of this world? That none of us are?"
"I think I do. Does this mean seeing all of that, that funny feeling in my body...did we break the Curse?"
"With True Love's Kiss." Emma opened her mouth to respond, but Regina held up her hand, halting the other woman's words. "I know what you're going to say, dear. You're going to look at me with those confused eyes and tell me that you don't love me. And that's fine.
"I've done what you could not do alone. It doesn't matter that you claim not to love me at the moment. That's not what's important right now. Just remember what your heart knows, Emma."
"Then what is important? Right now, anyway."
"As I have stated before: the numerous citizens who are, no doubt, seeking me at this very moment."
"And you're still gonna go to them?" Emma asked with disbelief.
"Yes," Regina said simply. "No. You cannot come with me. I would ask you not to follow; however, it is not in your nature to listen to me. You are...the Savior. You will do whatever you can to save me. So I ask one thing of you."
The blonde cocked her head. "What?"
"When you do find me..." Regina approached the younger woman. Her hand jerked upward, as if trying to reach out to Emma, but it stopped and fell stiffly to her side again. "Don't do anything too stupid."
The Queen turned, half-running out of the cabin. Emma chased her out onto the porch, words choked up in her throat. She watched as the woman she thought she knew race to her Benz, pulling away quickly. The sheriff's misted breath swirled serenely in the morning sunlight, as the dust kicked up from Regina's tires slowly settled back to earth.
I know you don't want to hear this, but there's one /final/ chapter left to conclude this story!
Again, thanks to my Beta, Jasmine, who helped me make this chapter awesome! If you have any questions, you know where to leave them!