It's well past midnight when the brunette finally makes her way home; shaking Sydney awake as he slumbers slumped over her kitchen table and dismissing him curtly, before making her way upstairs. She stands for a while in the doorway to Henry's bedroom, watching the boy dream peacefully. His small hand clutches at an ugly, black brick of technology, causing her brow to furrow.
She'd found out about the walkies a little over a week ago; having heard Henry having what had seemed at first to be a highly excitable conversation with himself. Listening in a little more closely, she had made out the static hum that carried with it a familiar voice. She had previously suspected the two were using some such method of communication - what with Henry frequently slipping from the house or making his way to Granny's at seemingly random times - and had, at the time, decided to leave it be. Once again, when visiting the blonde and patching up her injuries sustained in the woods, she'd spotted the twin to the walkie now gripped in her son's small hand and had mused briefly on how easily she could just slip it into her pocket and take it, but at the time... Well, at the time she'd been content to let it slide.
"I'm sorry, Henry."
She closes the door quietly, retreating, not wishing for her mind to play cruel guessing games as to what her son's face will look like when she tells him what's happened.
What's going to happen.
Padding softly down the hall to her own room, she falls onto the king-sized bed with a sigh.
Never even did it on either of our beds...
Her fingers slip into her pocket to find the smooth, curious surface of an almost perfect globe. She pulls the apple from her jacket - flawless but for a singular, pale-fleshed bite - and studies it morosely.
Upon leaving the Sheriff's apartment, the apple - the Sleeping Curse - had never even crossed her mind. All that her damaged psyche could fathom at the time had been the imminent demise of the hateful little bitch that has been playing her for the past couple of weeks.
At first, as she had sat motionless at her kitchen table, her mind had flashed feverishly with images of pain and suffering. Of plunging a knife into the blonde's chest.
She can picture it, too; Emma's hands flailing as green eyes become glassy, and dark blood - lifeblood - spills over the pleasant valley between her breasts.
She hates the younger woman. Despises her for what she's done... However, this thought; this image of the Sheriff shaking and convulsing as she bleeds out on the floor... She detests Emma... Yet she knows it isn't an option.
And not just because butchering the blonde in cold blood will result in the Curse crumbling to nothing in front of her very eyes.
There had been a time, back in her land - back home - when she'd found great pleasure in witnessing just such suffering. Where the taking of a heart had been brutal and empowering; ripping out that curious vessel and studying her victim's face intently as she'd slowly turned it to ash. Sharing with them their last breath, their final understanding that the end really does come for everyone. Watching bright eyes cloud over, thus knowing that her reign would last forever. Knowing that she would never ever have to be that younger version of herself - powerless as her mother performed that exact same act - because, so long as she inflicted it onto others, pain would surely leave her be.
The idea of taking the Sheriff's heart had seemed fitting; had seemed right. But this land is different, and if she were to bury her fingers into the perfect flesh of the blonde's chest, there would be only pain; slick and wet. There are no enchantments in this land. In this land, Emma's heart would just be a meaningless organ; beating to its own idiot rhythm, sure to hammer faster and faster and perhaps break should the Mayor attempt to squeeze it.
It would be messy. It would be painful. It would be impossible.
And that had brought her back to the knife.
Back to the matter at hand.
Her current situation.
Her intended victim.
She struggles to understand her own heart - her own mind - but somehow, she knows this is different. She had thought she would yearn to push the blonde down in the dirt; back in her place. To straddle the younger woman as the blade made easy work of smooth skin - blemishing pale flesh with roses - as she watched her suffer first pain, then fear, before finally: comprehension.
Perhaps even regret, although she doubts it.
She wants the blonde dead.
Yet, curiously, she's realised she doesn't wish to watch her die.
Can't watch.
Won't watch.
And so, her mind had gone on twisting and churning as the ornate clock hanging above the table in her kitchen had counted away quiet seconds; a regimented beat to the chaos within her skull. She had remained sat as though frozen until her muscles began to scream and cramp, before - finally - the idea of the apple had crossed her wounded thoughts.
Like mother, like daughter.
The apple never falls far from the tree.
A smile touches her lips now as she lies on her bed studying the forbidden fruit. Running the pad of her thumb over slightly pitted skin, she's surprised she hadn't thought of it sooner. The symbolism is perfect. It makes the tedious past few hours spent bickering and bargaining with that insufferable, deranged fool Jefferson worth it.
A small part of her had been worried he was right when he'd said it wouldn't work - that she was destined to fail before her plan had even been set in motion - but as soon as she'd shown him the ring, Daniel's ring, she'd known from the look on his face that the game was still on.
And isn't there something in that, too?
Using one lover's ring to destroy-
Ah.
But Daniel is the only one she has ever loved.
Sighing, she places the apple on the nightstand before getting up and readying herself for bed. She imagines sleep will be a long time in coming, but she's under its spell almost as soon as she slides beneath the sheets.
As the sky suffers a languid fit of epilepsy - the moon flashing with pale knowledge behind the ever-moving clouds - the Mayor's face is plagued by a similar dance. Her sleep-serene expression broken periodically by a distressed frown.
A few miles away, buried beneath her fortress of thick throws, the blonde's brow smooths and creases much the same.