Emma blinked against the light as she opened her eyes, disoriented. It took her a moment to figure out where she was, but as she rolled onto her side to escape the sunlight, and her eyes fell onto the face of the mayor sleeping next to her, it all came back like a tidal wave.

Emma drew in a sharp breath as the sick feeling from the night before came back to her, and she remembered that her father and brother were at the hospital, and she was laying in the bed in the guest room at the mayor's house.

Regina was still in her clothes from the day before, curled up on top of the comforter, and Emma guessed she must have stayed there with her after she fell asleep, and had unintentionally fallen asleep herself. She vaguely remembered a story about a queen and a princess and she couldn't help but wonder about this woman who she'd barely spoken to in her entire life, who suddenly seemed like she cared about her.

She supposed she shouldn't read too much into it; after all, the circumstances had been extenuating, but she still found it odd that Regina had jumped in to offer her a place to stay for the night, when she just as easily could have dropped her off at Granny's.

Oddly, she found it didn't feel strange, lying here, watching Regina as she slept, and she wasn't sure if she'd just experienced too much overwhelm in the past several hours and she just was just emotionally exhausted, or if it was coming from someplace else. She'd known Regina her whole life, but aside from the odd small talk here and there, she didn't really interact with her. But still, somewhere deep inside, Regina felt familiar, and Emma found that wondering about her took her mind off of everything else, so she indulged herself.

Her mind drifted back to the story Regina had told her the night before, about the queen and the princess. She could only remember bits and pieces, but she'd fought to stay awake as long as she could to keep listening, because something told her this story wasn't just a story. Of course, she knew Regina was making it up, but underneath the magic and the curses and everything else, Emma wondered if the rest was real.

Even in her sleepy state, she'd been able to hear the emotion in Regina's voice as the story had gone on, and at one point, Emma had been sure that she sounded like she was crying. It was then that Emma had begun to wonder if this story was somehow about the love that Regina had lost - the one that hadn't come with her to start this new life in Storybrooke - and, if she were right, Emma knew that it meant that she was still in a lot of pain over that loss.

Emma herself had never experienced heartbreak. She'd really never lost anyone in her life, and had no idea how to relate to that sort of tragedy, but she did know Regina was very much alone here, and that was probably the worst way to nurse a broken heart. She supposed that would explain why Emma could not remember a single time she'd seen the mayor, and not seen a little hint of sadness in her eyes.

She had no idea when Regina had first come to Storybrooke, as she couldn't remember a time when she hadn't been there, and Regina herself had said she'd known Emma her entire life, so that meant at least eighteen years that she'd been here, alone, missing the woman she loved. Emma didn't have a clue how she could make that better, but she did know that Regina had opened up to her. She also knew that if her dad were really in a coma, there was nothing she could do to fix that, but maybe she could fix this?

She didn't even know where this innate desire to make everything okay came from, and she supposed it was a mix of feeling like she was cursed, and also feeling like her parents depended on her so much to be their rock, especially when Seth was having so many issues right now. She supposed the pressure of being Seth's hero could be thrown into that mix as well. Either way, someone had once told her she had a savior complex, and while Emma couldn't even remember who had said that, or when, it had stuck with her.

Unfortunately, she wasn't all that good at fixing things.

But this problem… Regina's broken heart… she thought maybe she could actually help. It seemed like all she really needed was someone to spend some time with her, and Emma thought maybe she would be that person. She had friends of her own, but no one that she was overly close to, and no one that seemed to really understand her.

Emma watched as Regina started to stir, and her eyes fluttered open, landing on Emma's, her face registering a moment of disorientation.

"Oh," Regina said, her voice a husky whisper. "Is it morning?"

Emma nodded.

"I didn't realize I fell asleep. I meant to go back to my room," Regina said, sounding apologetic.

Emma gave half a shrug. "It's alright. It was nice to not be alone when I woke up."

Regina's expression changed to a look of concern. "How are you?"

Emma shrugged again. "Okay. Trying not to think about it. But I'm ready to go home."

Regina nodded. "I'll make you breakfast, then I'll take you home."

The loft was still empty when they arrived, though Regina had spoken to Snow on the phone before they left the house, and she'd said Seth was being discharged shortly. She guessed Snow wouldn't be much longer.

"I can stay until your mother gets home," Regina offered, as she noticed Emma looking nervously around the apartment, as though she didn't quite know what to do with herself.

"Oh, you don't have to. I've already taken up so much of your time. I was just going to go take a shower."

Regina smiled. "It's fine. It's Saturday. I've got nothing else on my agenda."

"Okay." Emma smiled before turning to head toward the bathroom.

Regina sat down at the kitchen island as she heard the water in the shower turn on. It was mere moments before something on the counter caught her eye. It was Emma's university acceptance letter, and Regina picked it up, her eyes scanning it quickly, as it occurred to her that it didn't really matter how close she could get to Emma right now, because in a few short months, she'd be gone.

Regina hadn't truly anticipated how vastly different the land without magic would be when she'd been creating her curse. It seemed so odd to her to think how, at the age of eighteen, Emma was now considered an adult, and about to head off to school for four years. Back in their own realm, if Regina had not intervened, Emma would have been married by now, probably with one child already, and likely another one on the way.

And she would have been miserable.

Whether it had been Prince Michael, or some other equally pompous boy masquerading as man, she would have been married off to someone who treated her like a possession. She would never have known freedom a day in her life. And the woman in the shower, just fifteen feet away from her, had no idea what she'd been rescued from.

And yet, here they were, because Snow and Charming couldn't bear the thought that Regina had managed to revive Emma with true love's kiss.

Because it wasn't what they wanted. What they wanted was Emma reigned in, married off, producing an entire brood of heirs to the throne, smiling and playing the role, hiding how much she hated every moment of her life. Regina should know. She'd lived it.

Well, most of it. She'd been spared bearing the King a brood of sons, at the very least. But it wasn't for lack of trying, on his part. Truthfully, though she knew it made him grow angrier and angrier with her, blaming her every month that went by that she didn't manage to become pregnant, she grew more and more relieved each time.

She'd watched as Snow had started to grow up, and by the time she was twelve, Leopold was on the hunt for a potential suitor for his daughter. Due to Regina's inability to bear him a son, he set his sights on Snow, as she was to become Queen.

In a way, Regina had been relieved, as the King had mostly withdrawn all interest in her, but every once in a while, he still wanted to try, and every time, she grew more and more fearful of what would happen if she did become pregnant, and bore him a daughter rather than a son. She had thought, growing up, that it was only her own mother who was so eager to sell her daughter into marriage, scouting out potential suitors for her and dismissing them based on their place in the line of succession, so it was no great surprise to her that she'd accepted the King's proposal in a heartbeat.

What Regina hadn't realized then, was that her mother, callous and conniving as she may have been, was not the outlier. Snow would have been sold off just as quickly to the right Kingdom, and if Regina were ever so unfortunate to have a daughter, that child would have suffered the same fate.

She wondered if Snow ever thought about that. She doubted the woman would ever come so far as to thank her for killing her father and trying to kill her all those years, but she wondered if she ever thought about how her life would have turned out otherwise. It may not have been ideal, but she was one of the very few women born into nobility who got to make a choice and marry for love.

And she wanted to rip that away from her own daughter.

Regina supposed it was premature to assume that Emma would have married her, or even wanted anything to do with her, even after she saved her life, after everything else that had happened. But, she did come to see her in the prisoner's tower, and that had been the one glimmer of hope left in Regina's life.

Of course, Regina also knew that if the curse had not been cast, she would have been executed, and it all would have been for nothing, as Emma would have still been forced into marriage and she still would have been miserable. She'd saved her again, and she didn't even know.

And because of all that, Regina was the one who was miserable. Rumple had warned her the curse would leave a hole in her heart, but she'd truly had no idea how right he was.

"Guess I'm not going now," Emma said, causing Regina to jump in her seat. She'd been so lost in thought that she hadn't heard the water turn off, nor seen Emma approach, but now she was right beside her, her hair wrapped in a towel. She took the acceptance letter from Regina's hand as she sat down.

"I didn't mean to invade your privacy," Regina said, though Emma didn't look particularly upset that she'd been looking at the letter.

Emma shrugged. "It's fine. It was sitting out. Plus, I already told you so it's not really a secret."

"You could always go next year," Regina suggested. She knew that there was no way she'd be able to convince Emma she could still go this year, and truthfully, she didn't even want to try.

Emma shrugged again. "Maybe it wasn't meant to be."

"You don't seem too upset about it."

"Well…" Emma paused, fiddling nervously with the letter in her hand.

"Well?"

Emma turned to look at Regina, her eyes solemn. "Don't tell my pare… uh… my mom, but… I didn't really want to go in the first place."

"Right, you mentioned that last night."

"No, I mean… I don't want to go at all. Not just because of my brother or because I'm nervous or anything… I don't want to go. I don't want to leave Storybrooke. I'm just…" Emma let out an exasperated sigh. "They have this… this plan for me. Like, I'm supposed to do all this stuff and I just… I just don't want to."

"So what do you want to do?"

Emma sighed again, sounding dejected this time. "That's the problem. I have no idea."

"You're young. You don't have to have everything figured out right now."

Emma nodded, letting the letter drop out of her hand, back onto the counter. "Do you ever feel like… like, everything in your life is just… wrong?"

Regina raised an eyebrow and breathed out a small laugh. "Well, by this point I think you know my whole life turned out wrong."

"Yeah but, I mean… I don't know. It's hard to explain. Like… something is just… off. Nothing specific, more like… like just everything. Like I'm living the wrong life. Like one day I might wake up and be a whole different person and-" Emma stopped, her eyes snapping toward the door as she heard footsteps approach. "Nevermind. Just… I'm just still upset I guess. Nothing's wrong."

Before Regina could even respond, the door opened behind them, and Emma was up and running over to greet her mother and brother.

For his part, Seth didn't look too banged up. He had some scrapes and bruises but over all, he looked alright. But from the faraway looks in both his and his mother's eyes, Regina guessed there was no good news on David's end.

"Any news on Daddy?" Emma asked, her voice an octave higher than normal as Snow shut the door.

"He's stable," Snow said, smiling, though Regina could tell she was doing all she could to look brave for her children. "But he's still unconscious."

Emma looked deflated, but she nodded, and gave her brother another hug. "But he'll be alright."

Snow smiled again, and turned her attention toward Regina, who had stood, but opted not to approach the little family across the room. "Thank you, Regina, for being there for Emma. It means so much."

Regina gave her a tight smile, silently cursing her for choosing the exact moment that Emma was on the verge of a breakthrough to come in and interrupt. "Of course," she said, in the sweetest voice she could muster. "Anything you need, dear. But I really should be going now. Call me, if you need anything."

Regina had directed the last part to Emma, but she didn't miss the way Seth turned and looked at her, a suspicious glint in his eye.

She shook it off as she headed out into the hallway and toward the stairs. The boy was likely just confused as to why the mayor was in his home, taking care of his sister. That's all.

And Regina had more important things on her mind at the moment than a curious little boy.

It had been two years since Regina had last ventured down to the basement of the hospital, and - unsurprisingly - it looked exactly the same. She checked in with Nurse Rached, and was informed that she had five minutes with Gold, as he had declined considerably since she'd last been there, and was easily agitated these days.

Rumple was crouched in the corner of the cell when Regina entered, and his eyes snapped up the moment he heard the door close behind her.

"You!" he spat, scurrying a little closer, but still keeping his distance, like a wounded animal. "You woke me up!"

Regina had suspected as much the last time she'd left his cell, but she had no idea how that was even possible. But, she needed to know, because if she woke him up, she could wake Emma up as well. "How could I…" Regina paused, as her eyes drifted from Rumple's face, twisted in anger, to the wall behind him. It appeared he'd spent the last two years maniacally scratching words into the cement. Well, not words. One word. A name, over and over and over. "...Emma?"

"She was supposed to wake me up. She was supposed to come back on her twenty eighth birthday and wake me up." Rumple made an attempt to stand, but seemed to think better of it, opting to half crawl, half drag his way over to the bed instead, to pull himself up.

For her part, Regina didn't particularly care how close Rumple got, no matter how livid he seemed at the moment. He had no magic here, and hadn't seen the sun in a few decades by this point, so she wasn't concerned that he could physically overpower her, even if he tried. Instead, her eyes scanned the walls, trying to make sense of it. And then it hit her. "It was her name… I said her name. That was the key."

"It wasn't supposed to be you. It wasn't supposed to be now. It was supposed to be her! What did you do wrong?"

"Nothing!" Regina insisted, her eyes meeting Rumple's again. Somehow, even without the eerie yellow sheen, they still appeared to be something less than human. "There was something wrong with your curse. Everything is wrong."

"Well, I can see that dearie," Rumple replied sarcastically, motioning around the room in what appeared to be a moment of lucidity. "What did you do?"

"I did everything correctly. I procured every ingredient. I used my father's heart."

"The curse couldn't be wrong. You did something wrong. You're sure you got every ingredient right?"

"Yes!"

"And you cast the curse?"

Regina rolled her eyes. "Well, obviously. We're here, aren't we?"

"No, dearie," Rumple said through gritted teeth as though Regina were not understanding something he'd tried to explain a thousand times already. "What I'm asking is, did you cast it yourself?"

Regina stiffened. "Well, who else would have?"

Rumple's eyes grew wide. "Who cast the curse?" he demanded, gripping the metal frame at the foot of the bed, attempting to pull himself up to stand.

"I-" Regina took a step back toward the door.

"You didn't!" Rumple insisted, and Regina pushed the door open, backing out as Rumple continued. "Who cast it? How did you become the savior of your own curse?"

Regina slammed the door shut, and held her hand against it for a moment, as Nurse Rached pulled out her keys to lock it again.

"He's really not well," the nurse commented, shaking her head as she turned the key, and Regina was relieved that she still seemed to believe that Rumple was just rambling on about nonsense.

"No. He's not," Regina replied, though it came out as barely more than a whisper, as her mind was already elsewhere. "I should go."

The nurse simply nodded, and if she noticed any sort of change in the mayor's demeanor, she didn't let on, as Regina turned and practically ran down the hallway, suddenly feeling so claustrophobic. She wasn't sure if it was the dank basement or this new revelation, but she'd come here in hopes of a clue as to how to wake Emma up, not to learn that she had somehow managed to switch roles with her.

It occurred to her, as leaned back against the wall inside the elevator, her heart pounding, that she should have seen this coming. Of course Emma couldn't be the savior of a curse she cast.

But it still didn't explain why she wasn't awake.

Unless she did something to the curse.