A/N: Well... I'm relieved to have this chapter out of the way, and actually really liked writing most of the latter part! I'd worried about this new direction to the plot, as, I know from reviews, some of the rest of you did too, but I'm really hoping that after almost 100 chapters, I've done a good enough job of allowing this relationship to progress so that things can move on. I'd mentioned in a previous A/N (now removed while editing, whoops!) that I'd suffered some doubts about my chosen storyline for this fic, but I now think I like what I've done with it :) I know it might sometimes SEEEEM as though I want to shove these ladies into ALL the drama, but, this has become a long-ass fic, and it's something I think is occasionally necessary :) I really hope the way that they deal with things from this point on earns me some agreement on that case :). At the end of the day, my intention with steering the plot the way that I have done is to explore how I think SQ could work long-term without potential giant craters appearing in the road (a few bumps are always going to happen).
"Wait... You two know each other?"
Silence follows this unlikely accusation, and Gold has suffered enough altercations in his long life to know that this isnt' usually a positive sign. Looking from his son to the blonde that kneels over the Mayor with her jaw visibly clenched, his mind starts racing with explanations, none of which seem all that likely.
He has heard the saying 'it's a small world', and both Bae and Emma have played outsiders to the safe haven of Storybrooke... He supposes for the two of them to have crossed paths isn't entirely implausible, but...
"You do?"
Regina asks, and she directs her enquiry towards the Sheriff alone; her brow furrowing as she strives to gather some small measure of comprehension over the situation.
"No."
The blonde replies stiffly, and Baelfire interrupts her with a frown.
"What? Emma?... Why-"
"-He must have heard you use my name. I don't know him."
The younger woman shrugs, but she doubts she's fooling any of them; her tone cold and placid, but the idiot with the bleeding nose commands a kinder audience simply due to the hurt expression her adamant refusal to acknowledge him garners.
Can't believe people must still fall for that...
Gold breaks the silence.
"Bae? Do you know her?"
"I-..."
Baelfire falters as he glances at his father - wishing the little man wouldn't stand so close. Wishing he wasn't here at all! - before looking back down at Emma uneasily.
He hurt her, he knows.
As to the specifics, he's unsure, but he knows the part that matters: he is responsible for the blonde's incarceration, and he let her take the fall for something she didn't do.
He'd had no choice, mind...
But, then, she couldn't have known that.
After all, he'd never written to her - couldn't write to her, the puppet had forbidden it - instead sufficing to give her the keys to the old crappy car in which they'd met, by now long-since reduced to scrap metal, he's sure, and call it quits.
He'd had to.
Pinocchio had said it was so.
All that aside, he'd once cared for her fiercely, and he feels uncomfortable going against her clear wish to feign a lack of familiarity.
"I... Don't know."
He finishes lamely; thus concluding what they all now already know. Looking down at the blonde for guidance, he's offered nothing in the way of help as she continues to blank him; Emma pushing herself shakily to her feet before extending her hand to the well-dressed woman that had been sent sprawling onto the cobbles by his father.
"I see... Well-"
But Gold is cut short when the Sheriff interrupts him sharply; already turning to leave.
"-Deal's done, Gold. You have your son... Come on, let's go."
She urges the brunette, who in turn opens her mouth in confusion; looking from the pawnbroker to the Sheriff uncertainly.
"Emma... What's going on?"
"Nothing."
"But-"
"-Nothing's going on, Regina. I'm going to go find somewhere that serves decent coffee and get the hell out of this fucking alleyway. If that counts as something going on, then fine, that's what's going on."
Emma snaps. Casting a final glance towards the man whose upper lip now bares a drying crust of scarlet, the Mayor hurries after the younger woman with a pained wince at the sting from her grazed knee.
"Now, hold on, dearie! You can't just-"
"-Yes! I can!"
The blonde turns round to shout at Gold, and Regina stops in her tracks with a look of alarm at the ferocity that dances in the Sheriff's eyes. It's the anger she's been waiting for from Emma, but now that it's here, she's a little disconcerted; feeling as though she's missing a very large chunk of the puzzle, and not liking this predicament one little bit.
"Emma, please come back."
The man speaks now, and the Mayor's dark tresses catch the sunlight as she whips her head around to look from one to the other.
"No!"
The blonde snarls hoarsely, her voice cracking, and Gold and Regina glance at each other with mutual wary confusion.
"Yes! We need to talk! I mean... You know my dad?! Why is he here with you? Where's Pinocchio? You-"
"-Where's who?! Are you seriously fucking with me?!"
The Sheriff sobs angrily, her teeth bared in a display of anguish.
"No! I-... Emma, don't walk off! We need to talk! You need to hear me out!"
"No! I don't!"
"You owe me-"
"-I don't fucking owe you anything! You stood me up!"
"If you'd just let me explain-"
"-Explain what?! Why you led me on? Why you fucked me over?!"
She demands, and Gold's brow furrows as he puts the pieces together and he speaks up solemnly
"Dearie, I understand that the fates have taken us all for fools and landed us in the situation of a lover's rift, but-"
"-You let them put me in jail! It should have been you, Neal! Not me!"
The Sheriff screams, paying Gold's interruption no mind, and then she's off; running once more, leaving the others standing in her wake open-mouthed.
"What did she just say?"
The Queen growls murderously as she turns to face Bae.
"I-... It's a long story... It's not how she made it sound."
"Oh? Because it sounds to me as though you were up to no good and coerced a young girl to take the fall for you-"
"-You don't know what you're talking about-"
"-No? Am I wrong?"
"Who are you?!"
"A friend of Miss Swan's."
The Mayor snaps, and Gold sighs, offering up weary insight that he doubts will in any way better the situation.
"Bae, this is Regina. The Queen."
"The-... It was you?! You're the one that created the curse August warned me about?"
"Who?"
"August... Pinocchio..."
"Pin-... The man on the motorbike? He's a part of all this?!... Oh, for heaven's sake, of course he is. Why am I even surprised at this point..."
Regina shakes her head, and Baelfire studies her shrewdly as he counters
"If you are who you say you are, you're no friend of Emma's. Pinocchio warned me that it was the Queen - the Evil Queen - that forced Emma into the fate of Saviour. You're the reason she-"
"-Save it! If you think I'm about to stand here and allow judgement from a man taking advice from a talking tree, you are sorely mistaken... Gold! Did you know about any of this!?"
The brunette demands, glowering at her long-ago mentor.
"I did not... Bae? What is your association with that woman?"
"Neal. It's Neal now... And I'm not saying another word to either of you until I speak to Emma!"
The young man growls; ducking away when the pawnbroker moves a hand to rest on his shoulder.
Shaking her head, the brunette's tone is firm when she speaks.
"You hurt her. She won't want to speak to you."
"I didn't mean to hurt her. I meant to help her!"
"Oh? Just not enough to take the fall for whatever it is you did and keep her from going to jail..."
"I did that to help her! To help her fulfil whatever messed up, crazy destiny she needed to fulfil!"
"You used her."
"I loved her!"
Pulling her coat tighter to her shivering frame, the brunette hisses angrily as a man holding a carton of milk - the majority of said beverage coating the wiry whiskers of his upper lip - stumbles into her and knocks her elbow.
"Watch it, lady!"
Dark eyes flash with a fury that does nothing to help the dull thud of her headache and the sting of her knee. She's cold, on edge, and wandering the streets of this putrid, foreign city with her hair dishevelled and a large rip in the once pristine linen of her dress pants.
She's miserable.
But she's also on the search for the Sheriff.
To tell her or ask her what exactly, she doesn't know, but for now, she will suffice simply to find her.
Care for the blonde comes before any displeasure she is sadly sure will come from finding out more about just what the Dark One's son might have to do with the woman she loves.
Trying the younger woman's number once again, she presses her cell to her cheek and clenches her teeth when it goes straight to voicemail.
Just let me know you're alright!
It's a common phenomenon, she's discovering, that she ponders over her protectiveness towards the Sheriff - meanwhile wondering just what the younger woman might have to offer in that ever dry and sarcastic way of hers on the matter - but the simple fact of the matter is Emma had quite clearly been distraught before storming off into the ether.
The bustling, hatefully loud ether.
After beating the crap out of the Dark One's son.
These all seem to be the sorts of things that point towards one in need of being found before said one does something characteristically reckless and stupid.
"Pain in my backside, Swan."
Regina mutters, glancing through the window of a seedy-looking bar as she stalks past. It's a little early for such an establishment to receive much custom, but then, such is the perfect place for the confused and troubled, and besides, she doesn't imagine for a second that Emma is one to put social protocol before liquor.
Full lips form a thin smirk; inwardly aware that her mind continues to work off of the residue of her past dislike and turn it into bemused affection.
The bar is empty, save for a trio of bearded men sat drowning themselves into an amber grave.
"Come on!"
As if on cue, she jumps as her phone vibrates in her hand, and she's suddenly aware of just how tightly she'd been gripping the device.
Glancing down at the screen and stepping to the side so as not to get bowled over by the hordes marching the streets, she opens up the text message it displays with a sigh.
Blonde Idiot: You rang?
Rolling her eyes and huffing audibly, her breath mists in front of her face on account of the cold as she taps back a reply with numb fingers.
Only about 12 times! We need to talk. I'm a block from the motel. Where are you?
Pressing send, she glares at the screen with bated breath, weighing up the chances that her response will be ignored before her phone lights up with a new message
Blonde Idiot: There's a Starbucks at the end of the street. I did tell you I was going to get coffee... X
Rolling her eyes once again - another common phenomenon when in any form of relationship with Emma Swan she decides - she stalks towards the motel; spying a green sign in the distance.
Offering a distracted apology as she barges into a man in an ill-fitting suit exiting the building, Regina slips through the glass doors into the warmth of the cafe and scans the room; spotting the Sheriff's pale curls in the corner and inwardly reprimanding herself for the warmth in her stomach she experiences as a result.
Stalking towards the secluded booth, she stands with her hands on her hips, regarding the blonde irritably when Emma looks up at her moodily. There's a wary pull to the younger woman's mouth and an uneasy set to her otherwise determined frown, and the Mayor forgoes disdain for detached small talk.
"Should I be cutting you off?"
She asks; pointing to the second cup that rests on the table beside the Sheriff's elevated boots.
"I ordered you one."
Emma replies with a shrug, causing the brunette to falter.
"You did?"
"Sure. If you don't want it, that's fine. Suit yourself. It's a cappuccino. Extra hot, no chocolate."
"Oh."
The Queen frowns, lowering herself into her seat while eying the proffered beverage uncertainly.
"You're missing out. Mine has sprinkles... You can try it if you want."
"I-... Okay... You ordered me a drink?"
Regina asks with her brow furrowed; deciding to start with the easiest of the questions doing a number inside her skull.
"Why wouldn't I?"
"Well... I mean... How did you know I would-"
"-How did I know you'd come find me?"
"Yes."
"Simple."
"How's that?"
"You'll always find me."
"I-... Right."
"Right... Now try my coffee; it's gingerbread flavour."
"I-"
"-And come here. Sit down properly... No, not there. Sit next to me... If you'd like, that is."
"Of course, I'd like to. But Emma-"
"-Shut u-... Shush. Try my coffee and then drink yours... I need to tell you a story."