A/N: I am SO SORRY for this. Please stick with me. It'll get better.
"You promised! You swore!"
"Emma, I had to. I'm so sorry, but I had-"
"Fuck you, Regina! FUCK YOU!"
Emma's bloody face was contorted in fury as strong arms strapped her to a gurney. "Miss, you're going to have to stop struggling. We don't know the extent of your injuries-"
"FUCK YOU TOO, ASSHOLE! LET ME GO!"
Regina watched as Emma, secured on the gurney, was lifted into the ambulance. Tears burned down her face. She couldn't let it end like this. "Emma!" she shouted, breaking free of her father's arms and running toward the ambulance. "Emma, I love you! I love you! I'm so sorry. I love you!"
The ambulance doors closed as Emma's response rang in the air:
"I hate you, Regina Mills. You ruined EVERYTHING! I HATE YOU!"
Regina awoke with a gasp, panic setting into her chest when she didn't immediately recognize where she was. Her night gown was plastered to her sweaty body and her heart was hammering inside her ribcage.
That dream again. That…memory.
Regina brought her hands to her face and pressed her fingers into her eyes. She wasn't standing outside her house in Storybrooke, Maine. She was not seventeen years old, watching the first and only love of her life being carted away in an ambulance with broken bones and bloody gashes.
She was not the scared, meek little girl who'd had only one choice that fateful night eight years ago.
The shrill ring of her cell phone brought her back to the present. Groaning, she rolled herself out of bed and grabbed her cell from her nightstand.
"Regina Mills speaking."
"Regina, I do hope you remember that we have a meeting with the J&H law firm at eight this morning. Did you get everything we needed? Are we prepared? Because if we don't have this thing locked down, so help me…"
Regina's eyes snapped to her bedside clock, which read 5:45 a.m. "Yes, Milah," she replied to her bitch of a firm partner. "Everything is ready."
"Bring a bagel from that bakery I like on your way in."
"Get it yourself."
After pressing the "end" button (and oh, how she missed the good old days of home phones that you could slam down to satisfy your exasperation), Regina dragged herself to the shower, her mind drifting from the task at hand and back to that fateful day:
Regina stared down in horror at the article that had been printed in the gossip magazine in front of her. There, without a doubt, was a picture of herself and Emma locked in a passionate embrace against the bookshelves.
"We'll sue them, of course," Cora sniffed, arms crossed over her chest. "They printed gossip about a minor, two minors in fact, outing you both to the public. I'm sure there's something we can do."
Regina's heart was hammering in her throat. She felt sick. "Mother…we have to tell Emma. We have to warn her."
"Warn her?" Henry piped up from his seat next to Cora.
Tears burned Regina's eyes as she admitted, "Her foster-father can't find out about this. He…" she trailed off.
Luckily, both of her parents seemed to know what she was implying. "Call her," Cora said firmly. "Call her immediately, get her over here."
Regina had her cell to her ear before her mother had finished talking. The phone rang, and rang, and rang before going to Emma's voice mail. Regina ended the call and immediately tried again. After the fourth attempt, she let her phone fall to her lap. "She's…not answering," she whispered, tears prickling her eyes. "She's home. I know she's home. She never doesn't answer for me."
Henry got up from his seat, his face tense with concern. "Regina, you have to tell us: how much danger is Emma in?"
Regina shook her head, pushing the memories from her thoughts. She had more important things to do today.
A lawyer was the last thing Regina had ever wanted to be, just like Maine was the last place she'd ever wanted to go back to…but she had learned to adapt. Life was never what it was supposed to be. No, that dream was shattered years ago.
So now, after going through law school at Harvard, she worked in a prestigious law firm near Portland, Maine, with her law partner Milah Jones.
She glared at herself in the mirror as she applied her makeup. She barely recognized herself anymore. Gone was the sun-kissed golden brown of her California days, and gone was her long hair and shy softness. Her skin was pale olive, her hair a short professional bob, and her face was hard. She'd lost love, lost innocence, had excelled through law school and made top connections while doing so. She was now a product of her environment.
She despised it all.
"I'm telling you, Jefferson is the most self-important prick on the entire bloody planet," Milah bitched at Regina after the meeting. "Sexist to boot."
As if Regina hadn't figured that out on her own. "It doesn't matter. Their client doesn't have a leg to stand on and they know it. This was an attempted bluff, nothing more."
"You're so right," Milah grinned. "What do you say we do lunch?"
"I packed a salad with me," Regina declined. "I'm fine."
Milah rolled her eyes and looped her arm through Regina's, laughing when the darker woman tensed immediately. "You know, we're partners, Regina. Least you could do is get to know me a little better."
"I know you well enough. Let's keep our partnership professional, if you don't mind."
"You're so drab, Regina. Come out with me and my girls tonight. There's this new bar opening up by the shore. Our side of the shore, don't worry. It's called Queen's or Queenie's or something. You've had to have driven past it at some point, right? It's got the picture of the swan out front…Regina?"
Milah trailed off as Regina came a dead stop beside her, halting Milah's movement.
"What?" Regina asked, feeling light-headed.
Milah shot her a strange, exasperated look. "Come to the bar," she said slowly. "We'll be there at eight. I have to meet with Parsons about his case after lunch so you won't see me for the rest of the day, I'm sure. Consider it. I'm not as bad as you think."
With that, Milah planted a mocking kiss on Regina's cheek and swept out of the room.
Absentmindedly, Regina wiped the feeling of Milah's lips off her skin.
"Queenie's or something…"
"It's got the picture of the swan out front…"
It was too easy. Regina had looked for Emma for years, to no avail. It had been like she'd dropped off the face of the planet, so there was no way she was popping up randomly in the same city Regina was living in. Regina had finally come to terms with the fact that she was never going to see Emma again, so it was all a coincidence.
Wasn't it?
"You have to let me see her. I need to know how she is. She needs to know-"
"I'm sorry, miss. Family only past this point."
"She doesn't have any family!"
"I'm under strict orders not to let anyone-"
"Screw that!" Regina pushed past the desk and ran down the hall, looking for the door number the downstairs clerk had so kindly given her when she'd asked where Emma Swan was roomed.
She heard the nurse call for security, but she didn't care. She found the room number and burst through the door….only to find that a nurse was changing the sheets on an empty bed.
"Where is she?" Regina whispered. The nurse looked at her like she was crazy before answering hesitantly, "This patient was just transferred….sorry?"
"Miss, you're going to have to leave," came a deep voice behind her. Regina turned around and, instead of calming at the sight of the armed security officer, she felt herself lose control. The pressure in her heart was unbearable at this point. Where was Emma?
"Where is she?!" Regina yelled, hot tears spilling down her cheeks. "I need to see her!"
"Regina!" came Cora's voice from behind the officer, as she had finally caught up to Regina (who had bolted into the hospital the second Cora had parked the car). "You're going to get yourself arrested! Collect yourself this instant!"
"I will not!" Regina spat, feeling nearly hysterical. "What does it mean, that she was transferred? Where is she? Where was she transferred to?"
"Miss, you have three seconds to comply with my orders before I have to forcibly remove you-"
"No." A new voice entered the room, and a tall man with thinning brown hair stepped into view. The security officer stepped to the side immediately at the sight of the blue doctor's scrubs that the man was wearing. "I'll take it from here, okay? I'm Doctor Whale." He addressed the officer first, and Regina second, and Regina calmed slightly. Answers were coming. "I treated Emma Swan," Dr. Whale began. "You were the one that made the call, right?"
Regina nodded tightly, her betrayal still very much a touchy subject in her head. "Yes."
"You saved her life, you know."
"What was the extent of her injuries?"
"I'm not at liberty to discuss that with-"
"Tell me!"
"Miss Mills, I'm trying. Please calm down," Whale said firmly, and Regina could see the annoyance in his face. Oh, he's annoyed now? Just wait, I'm going to-
"Emma had to be transferred for her own safety. I am not at liberty to discuss her injuries or her new location. You have to understand."
"I'm not James Nolan! I didn't do that to her!"
"I'm sorry, but I'm obligated by law. Her caseworker has made it clear that no one, not even Emma's friends, are to know where she is right now."
"Bullshit!" Regina screamed, feeling her world crumble around her. Before her brain even registered what her body was doing, she was rushing at the doctor. She was vibrating with adrenaline and fear and she shoved him in the chest once, twice, and went for a third before her mother wrenched her away from him. "I have to find her," Regina yelled. "You have to tell me where she is! I have to tell her that I-I have to talk to her!"
In the end, Regina hadn't been removed from the hospital or arrested; she was told later that she'd had a severe panic attack and had lost consciousness while struggling against her mother's hold. She didn't remember that happening, but she really couldn't remember anything between trying to free herself from Cora and waking up in a hospital bed feeling exhausted.
Cora, Henry, and Regina had spent a week calling every hospital in nearby cities and even states. Emma was being protected, and no one would be able to release information about her even if she was there. The Mills knew this, but it didn't stop them from trying.
However, at the end of the week, they'd all lost hope, and Regina knew that their chances of finding Emma were almost nonexistent. Though Henry and Cora had eventually moved on, transferred Regina to a private school a town over, and went forward with their lives, Regina kept trying to find her for years afterward. Phone books, online directories, social media, culinary schools…you name it, Regina had looked for her there, to absolutely no avail.
She was gone.
So, there was no way that Regina was standing in front of Emma Swan's bar at eight o'clock at night, staring up at the large neon swan wearing a crown that sported the word "Queenie's" across it, right? Couldn't possibly be Emma's. All of it was the biggest, cruelest coincidence of her life.
"Oh my God! Regina, you actually came!"
Regina cringed as Milah's high-pitched greeting grated her ear drums. "I'm shocked, myself, actually," Regina admitted, shooting Milah a sarcastic smile. "I really don't know what got into me. I'll just be go-"
"Nope. I don't think so," Milah interrupted, grabbing Regina's arm and all but pulling her toward the bar. "The girls are already here. Come on!"
Upon entering the bar, Regina was immediately impressed. It didn't look as much like a bar as it did a fancy art gallery. Crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and the design featured mainly glass, red leather and sleek black metal, giving the place a modern, classy feel.
Milah grinned at her in the dim light "Aren't you glad you came? This place is so posh! Oh, hey, Holly!" she waved at her friend, who waved back from a table in the corner. "Come on, come meet-"
But Regina didn't hear the rest of her sentence. Standing behind the center bar, with her back to Regina, was a woman with long, golden-blonde hair tied into a braid down her back. Emma.
Regina felt her feet move forward, heart once more hammering in her chest. She wracked her brain with different things she could say when she finally saw her. She would tell her that she loved her still, that she'd looked for her everywhere, that she couldn't live with herself until there was at least closure about what happened back then…
But all of those thoughts died in her head as the blonde woman heard her approach and turned around with a large smile on her face.
"Hi, welcome to the grand opening of Queenie's! I'm Ingrid, resident mistress of mixology! Let me guess: you're a dirty martini kind of woman?"