Emma's heart was pounding by the time she made it back to her bedroom. She'd dashed through the dark halls, and though Regina had explained to her they wouldn't move when she was allowed to be in them alone, they still made Emma nervous until she was back in the sanctity of her own room.

She slammed the door shut and leaned her back against it, her head spinning at the realization of what she had just done. She had kissed Regina. The Evil Queen. The woman who had terrorized her mother for nearly two decades. The reason that Emma herself had been locked away behind the courtyard walls for her entire life.

Emma should hate her, but she didn't.

She wasn't sure exactly what she was feeling. Exhilaration, thrill, excitement… perhaps a little nausea from the surge of adrenaline. Whatever it was, it was new, and enticing, and she wanted to feel this way forever.

She smiled to herself as she slipped out of her dress, and corset and panties, until she was bare, standing before the mirror in her bedroom. Earlier this week, she'd seen herself as nothing more than a terrified child, but this was not a child looking back at her now. This was a woman.

She turned, looking at herself, admiring her own body - perhaps she was not as filled out or well defined as Regina was, but she certainly wasn't just a gangly teenager anymore. She was bold, confident, and dare she even think it... attractive.

Emma stepped away from the mirror, fetching a night dress from her wardrobe and slipping it over her head. She felt the soft silk slide coolly over her skin, and only then realized that she was on fire. She wondered if Regina felt the same way?

Her thoughts drifted to the older woman. Regina had looked shocked at her actions, but she hadn't stopped her. No, she had gone so far as to kiss her back, and Emma was sure that meant something. She guessed it meant she was correct in thinking Regina cared for her more than she let on.

The Queen and her princess, wasn't that what Regina wanted? Them, together? The Queen and her little Swan… The Evil Queen and her dark princess… Emma shuddered still at the idea of the darkness that was inside her, but she was growing more accepting, albeit slowly. After all, if she had darkness, she might as well harness it, right? Regina seemed to think so, and Emma was running out of arguments to the contrary.

The darkness was seductive, after all, and really, Emma didn't even want to argue against it anymore.

Emma looked around her room. As much as she had grown used to being there, this room was still cold, lonely, and impersonal. She hated the bars on the windows and she hated that it felt like a prisoner's cell. Regina had told her to go to her room, but she had also told her, right from the start, that she wasn't locked in. Emma guessed that meant it was alright to go out.

She didn't venture far, knowing better than to get herself lost in those hallways, again. She went no further than Regina's bedchambers. Glancing around, she found the room still empty, so she made her way to the chaise to lay down, and await her Queen's return.

Regina paced in her study, trying in vain to reconcile what had just happened. This kiss -this everything - Emma learning magic, Emma wanting to be with her, this had been all she'd wanted since the first moment Emma stepped foot in her castle, but it was still unsettling. She hadn't expected Emma to be the one to initiate it.

She guessed, in a way, she should be grateful. With Emma initiating their first kiss, Regina didn't have to spend the next week lamenting at stealing the child's innocence, as she knew she would under any other circumstance. But Emma was still a child and she was still innocent, and Regina forced herself to remember that.

But she wouldn't be a child much longer, Regina reminded herself. Perhaps she would come of age before the war was even over. Perhaps they could announce their engagement and unite Regina's fallen Kingdom with the White Kingdom, forcing Snow White to become her ally in all of this.

Perhaps Regina was losing her mind.

She had to laugh at the ridiculous thoughts running through her head. Emma had done this, she was sure. She had thrown her off with that kiss, and now Regina's brain was short-circuiting. What else could explain this temporary lapse in sanity?

There would be no engagement announcement. There would be no aligning with the White Kingdom. Regina knew that being with Emma long-term, would mean all out war with Snow White's Kingdom. She just hoped that this war with the Silver Kingdom would be over by then.

Regina crossed the room to her mirror, and waved Emma's image onto it. She was curled up, sleeping on the chaise in her room. Not exactly what she'd told her to do, but she was quickly learning that Emma never did exactly what she was supposed to. She had underestimated Emma right from the start, she realized.

Regina sighed and decided perhaps it was time for her to retire for the evening as well. Nothing more would happen between herself and Emma tonight, she resolved, but she also didn't want to be away from her princess any longer, and so she poofed herself back to her bedchambers.

"It's time for bed, Little Swan," Regina said, gently shaking Emma's shoulders to wake her.

Emma yawned and blinked up at Regina with a sleepy smile. "Can't I just sleep here? Or perhaps in your bed, again?"

Regina sighed. "No."

"Why?" Emma asked, frowning. Perhaps she'd misjudged Regina's reaction to the kiss entirely.

"Because… I don't trust myself around you right now. Your room, please," Regina said, trying to keep her voice even.

Emma sat up with a pout. "You can't keep me locked up like a prisoner!"

"My my, someone's feeling very bold," Regina said, raising an eyebrow, before waving a hand in the general direction of Emma's bedroom. Emma watched as sparks of purple magic left Regina's fingers. "There. Now you have freedom."

Emma scrunched up her face in confusion, but got up to see what Regina had done, anyway. She stepped into her room to find the bars on the window were gone, and there was now an additional door, that lead into the hallway. She wasn't sure if the hallways were still enchanted, but she appreciated the gesture, none-the-less.

"Better?" Regina asked, from behind her.

Emma turned and smiled, before pressing herself up against Regina in a tight hug. "Yes. Thank you."

Regina stiffened at the contact. It wasn't like this was the first time she'd embraced Emma, but everything was truly different now, and she wasn't sure that the princess really understood that. Nothing between them would ever be innocent again.

Regina broke away from the embrace and stepped back, before closing the door to Emma's bedroom and leaning her back up against the hard wooden door. She took a few deep breaths to try to calm herself.

In all the years Regina had spent cooped up in this castle, watching Emma through the mirror, she'd never expected that the girl would ever be able to make her feel like this. She hadn't felt this intensely about anyone since…

"No," Regina whispered to herself as she stepped away from the door. That was a road she wasn't about to let herself go down. It was far too dangerous. She might let herself grow fond of Emma, and care about her, perhaps even love her, but true love was something that only came around once in a lifetime, and Regina knew that wouldn't happen for her again. It couldn't. That just wasn't the way things worked, especially not for her.

It was the kiss that was throwing her off. That was it. It was unexpected and it was throwing her off and a good night's sleep was all she needed. Everything would be normal again in the morning.

And in the morning, Regina sent Emma back with her parents with a bittersweet smile and not so much as a scathing word toward Snow. She just didn't have it in her that day. Even as she watched more soldiers making their way toward her castle later that morning, she couldn't even find the desire to fireball them, and instead just let them pace in front of the magical barrier that they had no hope of getting past.

"What in the hell is wrong with me?" Regina muttered to herself, as she paced in the hallways. Emma had been gone home for six hours already, and still, nothing felt right.

"You miss the girl."

Regina's head snapped up as her Huntsman approached.

"Apparently Emma's not the only one feeling bold lately, is she, Huntsman?" Regina replied, with a sneer.

"Perhaps," Graham agreed, "or perhaps you just need a fresh set of eyes to look at what's really going on here."

Regina rolled her eyes. "If I need input from anyone, it's certainly not you," she shot back.

Graham shrugged, and continued down the hall, to wherever he'd been headed. Truthfully, Regina didn't care much for his comings and goings anymore, not since she'd relieved him of his physical obligations to her. She wondered now if perhaps she'd been a little too hasty, and if perhaps some physical attention was exactly what she needed to clear her head.

But she was no longer interested in Graham.

"I am not in love with her," Regina insisted aloud, to no one but herself, wondering, even as she said the words, just how long she could keep lying to herself.

Emma smiled as she settled into her seat in her parents' carriage.

"You seem happy today," Snow commented, eyeing her daughter suspiciously.

"Just happy to be going home," Emma lied, as she glanced out the window of the carriage to the scenery passing by.

"What did you do with Regina?" Snow asked, hoping that for once Emma would tell her something about what went on in the Dark Palace while she was away.

Emma continued to look out the window. "She.. she just likes for me to keep her company," Emma said, tentatively, knowing that even though that seemed unlikely, her mother would probably be quick to believe her because she wanted to believe that nothing else went on while she was with the Evil Queen. "She's just lonely."

Emma guessed her mother probably thought that Regina treated her horribly while she was there. She was sure Snow would never guess that Regina, in fact, treated her well and taught her magic. She was certain her mother would never guess what had transpired between herself and the Queen just last night.

Emma had never been one to keep secrets from her mother in the past, but now the secrecy felt enticing.

And Emma began to wonder if this is what embracing her darkness was all about.