Double Trouble 23

A/N: Hi readers! Thanks as always for the reviews and the follows, I'm still amazed at the response to this story. Feels like we've been waiting forever for this particular chapter. I hope you enjoy :).

Chapter 23 'The mile'

Regina winced and leaned a hand on Emma's shoulder so she could pull off her boots. "You tell anyone I did this and I will eat your liver."

"Right," Emma scoffed. "Who knew the Evil Queen was such a whiner. Aren't you used to high heels? You live in them."

"What I am not used to is traipsing about in the woods for miles. It was your idea to park all the way back there and walk. I'm getting blisters. Give me your shoes."

"What!"

"Here, take mine and give me yours."

Emma groaned and bent over to pull at the zippers of her boots. "This is a test right? About whether I'll be a good girlfriend and chivalrously donate my shoes to your good cause? I am so incredibly screwed aren't I."

"Stop complaining. I wouldn't have even worn these if someone hadn't stolen my favourite pair."

"Regina. Those would've been worse to walk this far in!"

"No. They're Prada, they look so good I wouldn't care. Yours on the other hand..." Regina handed her shoes over to Emma and then replaced them with the blonde's well-worn boots. "Don't tell anyone I wore these hideous flat things, it's embarrassing."

"Ha. No wonder you always wear heels. You're a shortass," teased Emma, from her lofty one-inch barefoot advantage. They were on the same level for the moment.

Regina was offended by the slight. "Excuse me? My mother always told me I was tall. Regal, in fact."

Emma fake-coughed the word "Short."

"You're being ridiculous, Emma. You're barely taller than I am."

"Don't care. All I'm hearing is 'I'm taller'. I win."

Emma grinned at the glare she received but her victory seemed short-lived. She grumbled under her breath as she pulled on the fashionable-but-uncomfortable boots formerly worn by Regina. Luckily they did fit but she would probably never admire them again.

"Regina," whined Emma, toeing her newly-shod feet to test them out. "I'm crap at walking in high heels. Can't you just magic some sensible footwear? Or are you trying to be hilarious and suggest that we literally walk a mile in each other's shoes? Because we are more than a mile away from where we're going, you know."

"Now who's being hilarious. 'Where we're going'? Is that a euphemism for something?"

"Er, not intentionally. Why, where do you think we're going?" Emma looked at her sideways.

"Literally or figuratively?"

"Argh, Regina! You know what I meant."

Regina looked away for a few seconds before saying quietly. "I think you know where I want to go."

"Please," Emma begged. "I can't read you sometimes. If we're talking about what I think we're talking about... I need to know if we're on the same page with this. I need you to say it."

"I suppose it is fair, since you put yourself out there first - twice." Regina said uncomfortably. "I want this. But Emma, where we're going … that's not somewhere anyone wants to go with me. Because of who I was. Because of who I am."

Emma tilted her head and gave her a soft smile. "Let me decide who I want to go with. Nobody intends to fall for the Evil Queen you know, but that hardly stopped me."

Regina closed her eyes. "I am trying."

"I know. I do." Emma gave her a sympathetic look and took her hand.

Regina smiled thinly. "You're the only one who does."

"I get it. I grew up being told over and over that I was bad. But nobody thinks they're bad until someone tells them. Look at Ri, she was a good girl who grew up to be a queen and a powerful sorceress. If she hadn't none of this would even exist. They'd be stuck in their medieval hellholes dying of consumption. But they call her Evil now. Maybe you've always been good and nobody ever saw it."

"Yes." Regina smiled wryly. "Feel free to rewrite the book and paint me as an emancipator all you wish."

"Look, you did some fucked up shit. But some of it was nothing more than what Kings before you had done. And taking away the happy endings and cursing everyone to come to this world? Who's to say the alternative wasn't worse? I'm sure they're all thrilled to bits now with their SUVs and cable TV and penicillin and all the modern stuff they've got. Haven't you noticed that the rest of Storybrooke doesn't give a fuck what's happening? Unless there's actually a giant running right for them they're content to let us get on and deal with it by ourselves."

"You sound like Em. You've certainly rediscovered your potty mouth - and your cynicism."

"No, it was always there. Just nobody bothered to get to know me enough to see it come out."

"You think I know you?"

"I think you do. And I understand you. I really do," said Emma, significantly emphasizing the last part. "I get what it's like to have everyone try to tell you who you are. I get what it's like to want a second chance and you just want everyone to see it, but no-one believes you..."

Though Emma was the one with the lie-detector power, Regina knew she was telling the truth. Every argument and fight and squall they'd ever had she'd looked her in the face and fought back on equal ground. The only one who was neither cowed by her threats nor turned away by her damage. She'd known exactly why Emma fought so hard against her, they'd been doing it for the same reason. For Henry.

Neither of them wanted to be alone anymore. They'd walked a mile in each other's shoes and discovered how painful their respective journeys had been.

"So uh, I've been alone my whole life," said Emma, clearly uncomfortable about talking of her past so frankly. "It's easier that way: no-one lets you down, no-one disappoints you, no-one hurts you. When I was Em's age I preferred it that way but I think differently now. Being alone only works right up until the moment it doesn't."

Emma shifted her weight, swaying from one foot to the other with her hands stuffed into her pockets again. "You probably don't want to hear this but Mary Margaret was the first person who was ever there for me. Now that I know what it's like to have a family I can't go back. I don't want to. I won't. Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes," Regina pursed her lips. "Since you asked so nicely, I will refrain from killing your mother."

Emma arched an eyebrow. "Uh huh. Like you said, you're trying. You've had ample opportunity all these years and you still haven't got around to it yet. Is it on the bottom of your To-Do List or something? Right under 'get the gutters cleaned out' or 'try a pilates class'... you know, the stuff that nobody ever gets around to doing?"

"Pilates is definitely after 'kill Snow White'."

Emma smirked at the dark humour. "I have a sneaking suspicion that your heart is going to be occupied by more than mere vengeance in future. You're gonna have better things to do." Like me, her unfinished tone cheekily implied.

"I suppose everyone has to tolerate a family member who they'd prefer was buried in the woods," Regina deadpanned.

"Hell yeah. We've still got Mr Gold if you're feeling homicidal," offered Emma.

Regina grimaced. "Ugh. Don't remind me."

"What do you think he's up to?"

"Besides entertaining his revised girlfriend? Probably trying to ruin what's left of my life."

Emma snorted. "Not everything's about you, Regina."

"Yes, that treacherous imp is nothing if not self-serving."

"What do you mean?"

Regina tensed her jaw, anger racing through her in an instant to the forefront of her heart. "He used me. I only learned magic so I could bring Daniel back. I was young and grieving and naive. He made me think it was possible. He knew all along it wasn't."

"Er, isn't it though? Didn't Dr Whale-"

"They LIED to me! It wasn't him. It was an abomination and he was in agony - I had to -" Regina broke off with a shudder of pain and closed her eyes.

Emma spoke softly, running her hand down Regina's upper arm. "Hey, I know. David told me what happened. I'm sorry you lost him again."

"I didn't." Regina's eyes flashed. "Because he was never here. Not really."

"You still love him don't you."

Regina jerked a look at her, knowing that if she lied it'd be detected easily but not wanting to compromise their small progress.

"It's alright," said Emma simply. "That's the thing about hearts. Even when they're full there's room for more."

That should have been comforting but Regina still had to force herself not to snap. How could Emma have the gall to be so good and forgiving as to not mind sharing her with someone murdered long ago? A loss so painful it'd led to the destruction of the realm and left her with a suffocating grief and loneliness that never seemed to end. Regina felt it undiminished even after all these years, even after she knew she was developing something for the woman who stood there right now, giving her a pass on having to give up her first love.

"How can you possibly tolerate that," said Regina sharply. "Even if you can overlook the curse and my other recent mischief."

Emma shrugged almost casually. "I don't want to take anything from you. But at the same time, I wish you weren't in pain anymore. Will you tell me about him sometime?"

Regina felt like the air suddenly rushed out of her lungs. "I - I can't. Not today. Maybe not ever."

They walked on in silence for a few minutes until Emma brushed her fingers against Regina's, testing the waters.

"Regina? Where we're going... one step at a time, ok?"

Em looked back over her shoulder as she walked, searching Main street with no luck. She could feel her target and knew she was getting closer but it was like the signal was being diluted by white noise. She had to find Ri before the stubborn-yet-naive girl got herself into any trouble. Why would Ri go there of all places?

Too distracted to look where she was going Em ran into someone coming straight at her. "Oof, watch it!"

"Emma?" It was some dude with a hoarse voice saying her name incredulously.

"Sorry, I think you've got the wrong number," said Em fake-cheerily, like he was an annoying marketing phone call. He obviously knew her (the older her) but she had a mission and explaining herself to one of Crankypants's friends was low on the list of priorities.

"Wait!" she heard him call after her and quickened her pace.

The guy jogged to catch up with her so she rolled her eyes and groaned internally.

"Emma, what's going on? You're wearing glasses... you look seventeen again, like when we met-"

"Er, guy, I don't know you. And it's Em, not Emma."

Neal grabbed her arm to bring her to a halt. "You told me you don't like to be called that," he said lightly, but she wasn't in the mood for jokes and she definitely wasn't here to flirt. Not with him at least.

Em glared at him indignantly and pulled her arm free. He did look familiar, she admitted to herself, wondering where she'd seen that lopsided grin before. She stared at him for a beat, with something like recognition buzzing around her head like insects before she shook it away quickly.

"Look dude, I gotta go find my girlfriend. See ya later. Not."

Neal gave her an open-mouthed look of curiosity before his attention was instinctively jerked away by a car backfiring behind him down the street. When he turned back, the sidewalk in front of him was empty and the teenage Emma was nowhere to be seen.

The ancient black bakelite phone rang shrilly and David picked up the receiver swiftly.

"Sheriff's station."

"David," sighed Mary Margaret gratefully on the line. "You're there."

"Yeah. Miss me already?" David said it as a joke since it'd only been a few hours since lunchtime when they'd been together.

"Is Emma still out? We may need you to come to the school."

"Has something happened?"

Mary Margaret sighed. "You could say that. Some of the children have lost their memories."

David was instantly alarmed and he sat up straight, ready to bolt into action. "What! How?"

"They were on a field trip in the woods to gather moss samples for biology. According to their peers and teachers, it seems that some of the children no longer remember their fairytale identities."

David rubbed a hand over his forehead wearily. "Alright, we'll have to speak to the class, the teachers, whoever was on the trip, and explain it to the parents. If this goes much further we're going to have to go public to warn people to stay away from the outskirts and as close to town as possible until we figure this out."

"It's worse than that, David. If word gets out we could end up with a mass panic on our hands. The border is shrinking away from the town line faster than we thought. Apparently the class didn't go that far into the woods..."

"We have to tell Emma and Regina," said David firmly. "The border may be closer than they think."

Emma stopped abruptly, breaking both their strides and their silence to face Regina.

"Regina, if you could go back and change things ... would you cast the curse again? Ri seems like she doubts everything, including herself."

"Yes, I'd do it again," Regina confirmed gravely. "Ri will come to understand why. I'm sorry but regretting a past mistake doesn't mean that you'd take it back even if you could. I feel strongly that I had no choice, I always did."

"Why?"

"For Henry. To ensure that he will be born and have this world to live in. A world better than mine. I thought I did it for myself but perhaps I did it for him as well, even though I didn't know it at the time."

Emma nodded, taking it all in. "We don't have much in common besides our son but I think you know what it's like to be alone too."

"Do you really," said Regina evenly.

"Yes. You may have been around people your whole life but they didn't understand you did they? You got parcelled from one life to the next and everyone ignored how you felt. You were sheltered at home by your mother and forced into marriage. Then Gold manipulated you into becoming the Evil Queen for his own ends and finally you were sent to exile. You became exactly what they made you and then they blamed you for it. I think you know exactly what it feels like to be trapped and alone."

Regina swallowed hard to get her voice under control before speaking. "The curse was a prison too, but of my own making. All of us were trapped here but I was the only one who knew it. Until Henry figured it out."

"I'm glad he did. It brought us all together. Living in prison isn't easy but neither is leaving one, even when the door is open. There's a whole world here but you've never once crossed the town line. Instead you stayed here with the people you know. But you feel alone even when you're surrounded don't you?"

Regina fought to contain the rising emotion but could only whisper in a voice made husky by the burning in her throat. "Except when I was with Daniel and now with you."

"That's why you've been staying over at our place huh? Even though you hate my parents, being with us is still better than being alone."

"I stayed to be with you and Henry."

"Hey, we're family," said Emma, smiling. "But this having-a-family thing is pretty new to me and so is having a relationship that isn't automatically gonna fail. I'm probably gonna screw up at some point. You know it's gonna happen. So uh sorry."

Regina sighed over Emma's deprecating herself again. "You're apologising in advance for whatever stupid thing you're probably going to do in future?"

"Maybe."

"Well, try not to break my heart. That never did turn out well, for more than just me," said Regina, making it sound like the dire warning it was.

"Hey, I won't. Promise."

"You were right when you said I couldn't let go, that it makes me dangerous. Emma, if you decide you can't actually do this I won't be strong enough to - I can't just get over it. I can't go through that again."

"That's what you meant this morning wasn't it? Before Henry came in. You think us being together is a huge risk not just for you, but for everyone because you don't trust yourself if you lose someone again."

Regina nodded and pressed her lips together. They were face-to-face now, only inches away. She leaned into Emma's hand as it threaded through her hair and lost herself in a depth of green that seemed more tangible than the verdure in the surrounds.

"We're adults and we can do whatever the hell we want," said Emma softly. "We have a son and we can have us too."

Regina gave a small smile. "I want everything."

They were so close now there was nowhere else for Regina to put her arms so she draped them around Emma's shoulders, letting her wrists cross lightly at the back, almost like they were dancing together. The blonde was at a slight height advantage because of the shoe swap. When Emma spoke again, Regina could feel the breath on her lips and saw the detail in her eyes. The unspoken parts of Emma's words were written there.

"So." Emma slipped an arm around her waist to pull her flush against her. "The other times it didn't go very well. Uh, I kissed you without asking first and you freaked out. This time I want to make sure you're with me...

"Can I kiss you?"

"Please do," Regina whispered. Her eyes dropped in anticipation.

Emma tipped Regina's chin up and paused only millimetres away, checking that she wasn't going to be pushed away and allowing Regina close the final distance herself. As soon as their lips met in a slow and soft kiss both their eyes slipped closed. It started out tentative and exploring, betraying Emma's nervousness, but when Regina responded fully and tightened her arms around her instead of pulling away, it must've given her enough indication that her feelings were returned and her confidence took flight.

Their first kiss had overwhelmed Regina with the kind of intense feelings she thought she'd forgotten long ago. But time and time again only brought to the surface memories of how amazing this feeling was. It was like they were the only two in the world for a few minutes and both the past and the future faded away in the moment. They'd kissed before but this time neither of them was running away.

They didn't notice the border less than a few feet away, creeping steadily upon them unable to be seen.