Double Trouble 53

A/N: I've had a bit of a busy week so I'm late posting again sorry. Thanks for the reviews and encouraging me to keep writing and to finally update this. (If you're reading The Visit I have the next chapter half finished so far.) I'm on holidays now so I'll catch up soon.

Quick recap: Em & Ri are out on a night stroll during which they got engaged. Earlier in the evening, their older selves were at the Charmings' for dinner. Emma had a fight with MM and she ran off to Kidspace where Regina found her and calmed her down. When they got home to Mifflin St Emma found out that Em has been craving celery sticks and thinks it's because she's pregnant.

Chapter 53 'Stalking'

"Do you realise what this means?" said Emma seriously. She picked up the half-eaten stick of celery and held it out like it was a smoking gun.

"I suppose it means Em wanted celery," said Regina, unconvinced. "Wanting to eat vegetables is not a pathognomonic symptom for pregnancy. Don't hold it up like that, you'll drip chocolate icecream all over the floor."

Regina snatched the celery stalk with two fingers and carefully dispensed with it. She grabbed a few sheets of paper towel from the dispenser and knelt down to clean up the drips. Emma watched her, growing more incredulous that she wasn't taking this seriously.

"Celery for dessert. With icecream?!" said Emma. "It means something."

"It means you are going to mop the floor this weekend. Properly."

"Regina, listen to me! Celery is green. Em would never eat that. Who the hell likes celery anyway. It's gross. When I was a kid I never ate anything green if I could help it, right up until I got pregnant with Henry. Then I started craving greens something shocking. Em didn't even know what an asparagus looked like before she got to Storybrooke when you and Mary Margaret started feeding her properly."

Emma paused before another lightbulb flashed for her, illuminating the clues her mind had unconsciously picked up over the last few weeks. She should have realised before, why had it taken her so long to put all of the pieces together? It was her own younger self. She should know Em better than anyone. She knew what was coming in her seventeen-year-old self's life but she didn't expect it to be so soon.

"Have you seen her boobs lately? She's stopped wearing her bra. Because it doesn't fit her anymore. I went up three cup sizes… And the other day! When I came home from work late she knew I'd been to see Ruby because she could smell the wolf fur in my clothes… She's sleeping a lot but she's always tired... She looks sick at dinnertime because of the meat…"

"Oh my god," said Emma, wide-eyed with the shock. "I got pregnant here? Before I went back and met Neal? But I don't remember it that way. Why don't I remember?

"Neither of us remembers coming to Storybooke as a teenager," said Regina, shaking her head slowly like she was still trying to process the idea.

"How did this happen? This isn't how it happened."

"Maybe it's that events aren't happening the same way as they did the first time but our memories aren't being replaced for some reason. The timeline is being overwritten for them. Or maybe this is the way it always was and we just didn't know it."

Emma stopped in her tracks from the pacing she was doing. "If that's true it would mean our memories are wrong. The girls fell in love with each other first instead of with Daniel and Neal. Ri got her scar here and it was Em's fault instead of Daniel's. Em got pregnant here and it was-"

... Ri's fault instead of Neal's? God no, that can't be true. It can't, thought Emma.

As though reading her unspoken thoughts Regina said quietly, "Neal is in New York."

Emma glared and stabbed her pointed finger at her. "NO. Stop it, Regina. I know where you're going with this. Neal is Henry's father, he has to be. Em ran away after she had the fight with Ri, remember? She was gone for two nights. She must have slept with him then, before he went back to New York. She found out that Henry is her kid and she knows I had him when I was eighteen. I'm telling you, she did this to make it happen."

"Does that make sense to you?" Regina argued. "Em doesn't even know who Neal is. They never met. She only found out the truth about Henry being hers after she ran away, not before. She could be mistaken for you by a casual observer but anyone who knows you well enough can tell the difference. If Em did what you're saying don't you think Neal would've realised that it wasn't you? He is useless but surely he would realise that it was your seventeen year old self propositioning him to cheat on his fiance."

"Maybe Em and Neal bumped into each other and didn't tell us about it. Maybe they've been carrying on together all this time."

"Do you really think Em could do that to Ri? You know yourself, you know her. You've seen how much she loves Ri. Do you think that she would have sex with anyone else right now? Could you do that to me?"

"I don't know anything anymore. Except that this is crazy."

"Emma-"

"What?" she glared. "What other explanation is there? How else did she end up pregnant then if she didn't have sex with Neal. This isn't some kind of religious miracle."

"I never said it was."

"Then what is it!"

"Storybrooke is changing, time is affecting our memories. We both have magic and-"

"What the hell!" Emma laughed. "You can't possibly believe that. You think Henry was somehow spontaneously conceived by our magic? That he was 'born out of the force' like Anakin Skywalker? This isn't a Star Wars movie, it's real life. You can't really believe in all that lesbian parthenogenesis crap. It's just ridiculous."

"I'm being ridiculous?! We don't even know if it's true. You're the one making wild leaps based on a salad vegetable."

"This is impossible."

"Is that so?" Regina raised her eyebrows to mock her in that annoying way she had and with as much disdain in her voice as possible. "You've been here long enough to know that you can't trust your skepticism. Is this how you reacted last year when Henry told you about magic and fairytales and the curse and you wouldn't believe him? All of it turned out to be real but you wouldn't entertain the idea seriously. Even when it all started to add up. It made more sense than reality yet you still wouldn't believe it. Our son deliberately ate poison because YOU didn't believe in him."

Emma was shaking with anger by now and only controlling it by clenching her fists at her sides. The image of her son lying still as death in a hospital bed came to mind as well as the terror she always felt at the reminder of how she had almost lost him. How fragile a child's life was! His precious existence had nearly slipped away for good…

"No! He did that because of YOU, Regina. Because of your fucking insane crusade against my mother."

Regina went on gathering bravado. "You didn't believe she was your mother back then, even though you felt closer to her than anyone you'd ever met. Even I saw it. The truth was staring at you in the face and you would have none of it. Just like now. You said yourself that you wished you'd never broken my curse, it was your skepticism that kept it intact. I nearly won."

"You mean you nearly killed my son is what you did!"

"Henry is our s-"

"Not like that," Emma snapped. "Henry only had one mother and that's me. You have no idea of what it's like to be a real mother, Regina. To have a life growing inside you that you created, a life that is a part of your own body for nine months. It changes everything. It turned my world upside down. I was just a stupid kid at the time but the only thing I knew was that every decision I made had to be what was best for my baby. He is as much a part of me as my own heart is. It's my blood running through his veins, he kicked my ribs all night, I was the one who gave birth to him and brought him into the world. I'll decide what happens to him, not you."

"He is MY SON!" Regina screamed it. She raised her hands and then clenched them into fists at her sides. "I am not going to defend that claim against you any longer, Emma Swan. Of course I'm aware that I didn't have him biologically, but he is mine and I have never cared about his genetic history. I thought you understood that. I'm sick to death of people thinking I'm somehow less his mother because I adopted him. Henry is legally my child, that will never change.

"If he had never come to Boston you would've lived the rest of your life without knowing him at all. You're only in his life now because I permit it. I was the one who raised him and gave him a home. I am the one who has always been there for him. You abandoned him at birth and forgot about him for a decade. You gave up your right to make decisions for him ten years ago. You do not get to change your mind about that now."

They were mere inches away from each other. The fight was growing into the kind of screaming match that was only fought by lovers. Their differences and strong wills had caused many of the fights between them but this time they were fighting over what was common to them both. Their relationship had always been volatile and the topic of Henry caused sparks that set the kindling afire.

"I gave him up because I loved him!" said Emma, hoarse from yelling. "I never forgot him for one minute of those ten years. If I have to fight you for him I will."

Regina butted in. "I'll do anything I can to stop you."

"If I take him you'll never find us."

"I will never let go of my son! All I need is a single phone call and I can make sure you never see him again."

"You'll lose him anyway if you continue with this Evil Queen routine. It's so easy for you to slip back into character isn't it?"

"You will lose him as well if you don't learn to grow up and act like a parent instead of a child. You still run off at the first sign of relationship trouble. Will you abandon Henry again one day?"

Emma flinched at the biting reference to the hardest decision she'd ever had to make. "That was low. I am not that person anymore."

"And I," Regina enunciated each word clearly at the same soft volume. "Am not the Evil Queen anymore."

The threats were on the table now. It was a standoff. Neither knew who would be the first to break and make good on her threat. They were both aware that by coming full circle with this argument they were back to when they first met and began fighting over who Henry's real mother was. Every bit of progress they'd made in their relationship with regards to parenting their son seemed lost. Were they eternally doomed to having this Sisyphean fight over and over?

Emma broke their heated staring contest first and as soon as she turned around Regina gave her a shove in the back with two flat hands. There wasn't much force in it but it reminded her of being magically thrown across the pavement out the front of the house. It was obvious that Regina was trying to provoke her on purpose, perhaps to stop her leaving. It was a challenge, an invitation to make the fight physical, and Emma was determined not to retaliate like she had in the past when she had thrown a punch at her in the cemetery. Regina must know that she would only lose a physical fight. What she wanted was for Emma to give her an excuse to fight back with magic.

But I am not going to, she vowed.

Even if she could barely contain her anger, Emma wasn't going to play this game again. She was not going to give Regina permission to wield her favourite weapon. Her self-control was fraying fast but the last thing she wanted to do was lose it and hit her. The guilt had eaten away at her last time and that had been when she had hated her. How much worse it would be now to cause her harm.

"Don't push me." Emma turned only enough to let her eyes convey a final parting sign of contempt. She headed for the front door to the house without stopping to collect her jacket and car keys from the sidetable. Her hand closed over the door handle, ready to open it.

"Where are you going?" demanded Regina. "I presume you're running off somewhere since this is getting too difficult?"

"There's a way to settle this. By asking someone who knows the truth," said Emma, now deceptively calm but only on the outside. She pulled her phone out of her pocket.

"No!" cried Regina. "You can't call Em. If she really is pregnant she may not even realise it yet for god's sake. Think of what you'll be doing to her and Ri by asking such a thing. It'll tear them apart. Look what it's doing to us! Don't destroy their happiness as well as ours. I forbid you to ask Em if she slept with Neal."

"Because you've made up in your mind that Henry's really yours too. You're afraid of the truth."

"I don't think I'm the one who's afraid here. Look at you, you're terrified. Why does this scare you so much? Do you think that it will all go away if you run fast enough from it?"

Emma shook her head and pulled the door open. She stared at the doorknob in her hand. "I can't take any more of this. It's crazy. Magic is crazy."

"Fine!" said Regina, barely getting the word out from clenched jaws. "Leave if that's what you want. But if you walk out that door, Emma Swan, don't bother coming back."

Regina strode out of the foyer and went back into the kitchen, leaving Emma behind to do whatever she was going to do. She had to get away from her for a minute, knowing all too well what she was capable of when feeling this angry. The two of them had fought there so many times before: in the foyer, the hallway, the porch…

When she accused me of murdering Archie I tossed her with magic and she landed hard on the pavement. I'll never forget the look of shock on her face… it wasn't because it was the first time she'd seen magic, but it was the first time she'd seen me use magic. Violently. Against her. She wasn't hurt much that time but I could have done far worse...

That was it. If she resorted to magic during another fight at this stage of their relationship she would surely lose Emma forever.

To distract her trembling hands Regina busied herself by picking up random dishes utensils and putting them back where they belonged. But there wasn't enough to do and after a few minutes she opened the cupboard door under the sink where a single stick of celery sat at the top of the trash. She stared at it.

Regina only just managed to keep her control as the anger boiled and frothed inside her. The fight was fresh in her mind and Emma's words still stung. The implication that she was blindly accepting some twee idea like a love-addled fool was extremely irritating. After all of the things the former Evil Queen had seen in other lands this was hardly the most ridiculous. She hadn't even suggested it before Emma had shot it down. As usual the stubborn Sheriff was being her dogmatic practical self, resistant to anything she couldn't see or touch for proof. Emma was probably still cranky from the fight with her parents and taking it out on her. Her patience with the least attractive parts of Emma's personality was completely exhausted tonight.

Could it really be true?

She hadn't believed Emma's celery theory but the other symptoms made sense. She had noticed Em's tiredness and growing bust as well but had passed them off as adolescence.

Was Em really pregnant with Henry? Did the young girl even know yet? If so, why hadn't she confided in Regina? There had been a perfect opportunity the other day. Em had come to snuggle up with her in the home office and asked her questions about motherhood and about adopting Henry. She could have told her then. Maybe she hadn't told Ri yet and wanted her to be the first one she told, or maybe Em still distrusted adults too much to ask for help. Even me?

Emma doesn't trust you either and why would she? You just kicked her out of her home...

Regina could feel herself start to panic over what she'd done. She had told the woman she loved to leave with such finality when it was actually the last thing she wanted. Why did she always react this way?! Emma was probably left standing there wondering if she was supposed to get out or not from yet another place where the former foster child was no longer welcome. In her haste to be away from her Regina had walked away without a second glance.

She never turned around to see whether Emma had paused in the doorway. She did not wait and watch her leave or make sure she stayed. Nor did she hear the front door eventually shut with a soft snick.

But Regina did notice her absence later, when she couldn't see anyone else in the house no matter how hard she searched. Emma was gone. She really had left her.

Mary Margaret's apartment, Storybrooke

The persistent knocking outside sent Mary Margaret padding over to the door at a run wearing only her nightgown. Urgency hastened her steps but her slippered feet threatened to lose traction on the smooth floorboards. David followed her downstairs, in a similar state of undress in just his pyjama pants. They'd both gone to bed already but not to sleep.

When she opened the door Regina was there, impeccably dressed as always but with frantic alarm in her manner. Mary Margaret's initial questions as to what she was doing there and if everything was ok went unanswered, Regina kept trying to search the apartment in the background until she was ushered inside.

The door hung open by itself for a second too long until it closed, but none of them noticed and an unseen figure slipped through.

"Where is she!" demanded Regina.

"Who?" said David, completely confused. "Emma? It's late. Isn't she with you?"

"Where is Emma. She is here, I know it."

"We haven't seen her since she disappeared earlier. She hasn't come home yet?" Mary Margaret tried to put a comforting hand to Regina's arm but the stubborn woman would have none of it and jerked away.

"Tell us what's wrong. Why are you here?" said the schoolteacher.

"Because Emma is here of course," said Regina impatiently. "Where else would she go? I found her at Kidspace but then we had a fight as soon as we got home. Now she's gone again."

"Oh," Mary Margaret sighed, assuming that it was just a lover's spat. "Poor Emma is having a rough time today. I'm sure she'll be back when she calms down. All couples fight. It's normal."

Regina curled her lip. "Yes, it is certainly normal for us. But this time was different."

"What happened?" said David. "Maybe we can help."

Regina closed her eyes for a second, apparently reconsidering coming here at all. All three of them knew that this was the last place the former queen would want to go to for help so she must have been desperate. The Charmings would help her in a heartbeat if she'd let them (that fact alone would be annoying to Regina), but they knew that as soon as the distressed woman began to talk that there must be something very wrong.

"Henry." Regina was becoming increasingly emotional as she went over the fight in her mind and the threats she'd made. "We fought over Henry. I told her I'd never let her see him again. She left. She's going to take him from me!"

"Emma wouldn't do that," said Mary Margaret.

"What are you talking about," snapped Regina. "Of course she would! She has threatened to do that very thing since the day she arrived here. She's his mother too, that's how I know she'd do whatever is necessary to keep him safe. That's what I would do. "

"Are you sure?" said David. "You three are are a family now. He's both of yours."

Regina smiled ironically. "If you only knew how true that was."

"What I think David means," said Mary Margaret. "Is that whatever happens in your romantic relationship, you and Emma will have to figure out how to co-parent together. Neither of you is the sole parent of Henry anymore. You're irreversibly part of each other's lives now. I'm sure Emma knows that. It's not just you that's changed, she has as well."

Mary Margaret managed to convince Regina into sitting down and then she and David took to the chairs too. Regina sat there solemnly in silence, staring into space as though she was trying to figure everything out on her own. They were waiting for her to speak for many minutes.

Regina leaned her face into her palm with her elbow on the armrest, for the first time her posture looked defeated rather than elegant. "She's not coming back. Not to me."

"It was you who told us that Emma thinks like an orphan," said Mary Margaret gently. "She still wants to run from her problems but not as much as she wants a family. You've helped her to see that she can have that again. You and Emma have built a home together."

"No. We haven't," Regina contradicted. "When she moved in with me I told her it was her home now too but she mustn't have really believed it. When we fought tonight I told her to leave and not come back. If she considered it her home she would never have allowed me to kick her out. I gave her the very thing that her heart desires most and then ripped it away. She'll never forgive me for that."

Mary Margaret smiled sympathetically. "I know things seem dire right now. It always does during a fight but it'll all work out in the end."

"I don't live in your perfect world, Snow. I know this must be terribly difficult for your overly-idealistic heart to grasp, but in my world people die and happy endings get snatched away. Emma and I are two broken people and maybe there was a time when it was possible for us to heal but it's too far in the past now. When you take two broken things and put them together you don't get something whole."

"You two are good for each together. I've seen it."

"I'm not good for anyone, let alone someone like Emma. With her gone everyone will start to see me for what I am and then no-one will be willing to help me anymore, believe me."

"We're here," David reminded her.

"You're family to us too, Regina," said Mary Margaret.

"After everything I've done to change..." said Regina, with the weary bitterness that comes from waiting for subtle changes that take too long to be noticed. "I've lost it all now and I can feel my heart changing already. I feel fear and pain so strongly that it obscures everything else. It took Emma and I a long time to build our relationship, to trust each other, and yet we destroyed it in an instant. That's how tenuous this is. She was right. It's too easy for me to slip back into my character. I don't know why I bother anymore. Without her I don't need to be concerned with doing the right thing. I'm free to do what needs to be done. Whatever it takes."

When Regina rose to her feet and then headed for the door, Mary Margaret and David shared a look of alarm and jumped up too.

Mary Margaret followed her. "Regina, wait. Where are you going? What are you going to do? You don't need Emma to be good. She supported you but you did it on your own. You can still-"

"Coming here was a waste of time," Regina cut her off.

"Wait. Don't go-" Mary Margaret reached out to take Regina's arm. At the contact she felt an electric shock and jerked her arm back with a cry of pain. "Ahh!"

"Mary Margaret!" David rushed over and cradled her arm. He looked toward Regina with a frown. "What did you do to her?"

"I didn't-" Regina seemed confused by their reactions at first.

For once she hadn't meant to harm her former enemy. She was starting to lose control over her anger and hence her magic too. There was no point trying to explain that to their hurt accusing faces though. There was no point waiting till she got outside before performing dark magic.

First Emma, then Mary Margaret and David… would she lose Henry's trust in the next fight? He was the only one she could never live with losing. If he turned against her, she would truly be lost. If it came to down to it she knew he wouldn't side with her against Emma and Charmings. The question was: would he side with them against her?

Regina threw her hands over her head and disappeared in a swirl of purple smoke. It was over.

Seconds after her former stepmother disappeared Mary Margaret covered her face and groaned, "What a mess! I'm going to go grey worrying about those girls."

"You and me both," agreed David. "Where do you think Regina went?"

"I don't know."

"Do you think she might … um..."

"Go evil?" guessed Mary Margaret. She rubbed her forearm absentmindedly as her husband came up behind her to rest his hands on her shoulders. "She didn't mean to zap me, David. I'm fine. Regina spoke of feeling angry but to me she seemed more afraid than angry. She is dangerous in either mode I suppose, but I know what she's like as the Evil Queen and this wasn't like that. She probably went home in case Emma turns up."

"Would Emma really take Henry? It's not like Regina's got anywhere to go if she tries to stop her and gets to him first. She can't leave town because of the border."

Mary Margaret winced. "Emma almost kidnapped him once before. I don't know if Regina ever found out about that. If she has, then she probably feels justified in worrying. I thought they'd worked things out by now instead of fighting over who has Henry. I only hope he doesn't get caught in the middle of all this. Where IS my daughter?!"

The pixie-haired schoolteacher grabbed her phone from the dining table and started calling Emma but all of her attempts went unanswered.

Please, please, please. Pick up, Emma!...

Mary Margaret and David jumped at some loud knocking that insisted on the apartment door again. They were both disappointed in not seeing their daughter when David opened it. Instead there was Leroy surrounded in the hallway by the other members of Snow White's War Council: the dwarves, Archie, Marco, Ruby, and Granny. All of them were in various forms of nightwear, pyjamas and slippers (or, in Ruby's case, a flimsy short red nightgown that was somewhere between slightly and extremely see-through).

"What is it?" said Mary Margaret. "Did something happen?"

"You guys better come in," said David, stepping aside.

When they spilled into the apartment they surrounding the Charmings in a circle, all of them talking over the top of each other. The din was distracting. No-one noticed the door open and close for a second time all by itself. Whoever the unseen figure had been, they had stayed silent the entire time Regina was there and then left soon after she had. Presumably the unknown stalker would try to follow her next move.

"Everyone shh!" said Mary Margaret, holding up her hands. "Use your indoor voices or there'll be detention. One at a time."

"Leroy," David picked him to explain what was going on. "Tell us what's wrong."

"It's here!" cried the dwarf. "The border is closing in. There's trouble a-brewin' in the town. We're out of time."