Fic - all the sinners crawl - (Emma Swan/Regina Mills) - T
Title: all the sinners crawl
Author: alinaandalion
Rating: T
Summary: It’s enough, just enough to make her remember the mine and the closing portal all over again. It wouldn’t have happened if they had left her behind. Henry would be safe, he would be with family and not alone because that was the whole point. He isn’t supposed to be another name she can add to the list of those she has loved and failed.
Spoilers: Up through the Season 2 finale. I reference an event from "my heart was never pure", but you don't have to read that to know what's going on. They're just linked.
Notes: This is now a series. And there will be more fic about the boat trip.
“You always knew I wanted to get out. But at the same time we were conspirators, we knew things about each other no one else will ever know. In some ways I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”
- Life Before Man by Margaret Atwood
*****
They emerge in the middle of the ocean, the sun high in the sky.
Emma is the first one to say anything. “Where the fuck are we?”
Hook stares at her for a moment, mouth agape, before David nudges him hard in the shoulder, and then Hook fumbles inside his pockets until he pulls out a compass. He studies it for a few minutes, his face growing darker as he looks up.
“We’re off course. It’ll take weeks to correct,” Hook announces as he snaps his compass closed and starts to head for the wheel.
“Weeks?” Snow squawks out, and Regina grinds her teeth and shoves her hands deep into her pockets to keep from wrapping them around Snow’s neck.
“It’d be faster if we had more than this little breeze,” Hook says with a shrug of his shoulders. “But that might take a few days. Or longer.”
So David and Snow look at Gold, and Emma looks at Regina, expectation written all over their faces. She eyes Gold, and since he’s not making a move to do much of anything other than occasionally tap his cane against the deck, she steps forward into the semi-circle they’ve made.
“If we just need a little wind to get started, then maybe I can help,” she grumbles out in explanation when David and Snow flinch like idiots at her outstretched hands.
Rolling her eyes, Regina focuses on creating the weather conditions for a stiff breeze, the magic dragging up and out of her like a knife; she feels the beginnings of a stronger drift of cool air.
Then the world goes black.
*****
The first thing she notices is the smell. Ocean, damp wood, and the odor of too many unwashed bodies packed into a small space. She breathes slowly and blinks her eyes open, her head pounding.
A wooden ceiling, light filtering through a doorway and the cracks in between the boards above her, a flash of blonde hair.
“What happened?” Regina asks as she starts to push herself up.
“Yeah, no, not happening.” Emma leans over her and pushes her back into the bunk. Huffing, Emma keeps her hands lightly pressed against Regina’s shoulders and says, “You passed out. You’ve been out for a few hours now.”
Regina frowns and tries to force Emma’s hands away; she gives up soon after when the ache in her head spikes and her stomach lurches in response. Emma smirks down at her. Regina rolls her eyes, but she settles back onto the thin mattress.
“And what happened after I lost consciousness, Miss Swan?”
Emma’s smile slides right off her face, and she fidgets with her pockets before sprawling on the floor beside Regina’s bunk. When Emma pulls a pair of candy bars out of Henry’s backpack and starts tapping them against the floor, Regina raises herself up on her elbows and cocks an eyebrow.
“Miss Swan.”
“Yeah, okay, if you really have to know.” Emma sighs and lets the candy fall out of her fingers. “After you hit the deck, Gold started, you know, acting like an asshole about it, saying stuff about how you had overextended yourself, you should be dead, just a bunch of shit. Then my mo-Snow kind of exploded at him about you, basically just shouting about how you saved the whole damn town and acted like a hero and had been through hell and back. So now Gold is pouting in the first mate’s cabin, and we are still stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
“Your mother defended me?” Regina laughs a little at the very idea.
“She did, and she’s been acting really weird about you. Which is why I’m here. I thought if you had to pick, you would rather wake up here with me than with her doing her hovering routine thing,” Emma says. Then she picks up one of the candy bars and pulls the wrapper open. “And you need to eat something. We don’t really have a lot of supplies right now since Hook didn’t pack for a family cruise, but it looks like our kid always carries around a shit ton of stuff with him in case of emergencies.”
Regina eyes the chocolate bar and shakes her head. “I’m not eating that.”
“Yeah, you are, Your Majesty.” Emma scoots closer and shoves the candy into Regina’s face. “I got hungry while I was sitting here waiting on you to wake up, and then I thought about when the last time you ate could have been. Since the most optimistic guess I could come up with is two days ago, I would say you need to eat something so you don’t pass out again the second you get up.”
“That’s not chocolate. I’m not eating it.”
“Oh my god, Regina, stop being such a snob and eat the damn candy bar.”
Regina grimaces, but she plucks the candy from Emma’s grip; she nibbles on it, swallows hard before the nausea returns full force in response to the cloying sweetness. Emma grins, satisfied, settling back onto the floor and looping her arms around her knees.
“See, it’s not so bad.”
“This is repulsive, Miss Swan. I don’t understand how you and Henry eat food like this.”
“Not everyone can be so picky about food,” Emma tells her.
She gives Regina an expectant look, so Regina forces herself to take another bite. It goes down a little easier, the flavor less unpleasant than before, and she no longer feels the need to vomit so that is an improvement. She might be able to get away with only eating half of the candy bar.
“Don’t get any ideas, Regina. You’re eating the whole damn thing.”
Sighing, Regina fiddles with the seam of her shirt, her eyes falling on Henry’s backpack in the middle of the floor. It’s enough, just enough to make her remember the mine and the closing portal all over again. It wouldn’t have happened if they had left her behind. Henry would be safe, he would be with family and not alone because that was the whole point.
He isn’t supposed to be another name she can add to the list of those she has loved and failed.
“I wanted to leave you behind.”
Regina starts at Emma’s voice and looks down at her. “I’m sorry?”
“They all wanted to go back for you, and I wanted to leave. I didn’t want to save you, not at first,” Emma says quietly as she stares down at the floor.
“Why do you keep insisting on saving me?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do?” Emma tilts her head back and meets Regina’s eyes. She laughs quietly and shrugs her shoulders. “I guess it’s because if I didn’t, then you wouldn’t be here.”
Regina stares at her for a long minute, her hands unsteady on her legs; she eventually manages to muster up a small, unsure smile and goes back to eating her chocolate bar while Emma sits there on the floor and watches her in silence.
*****
“So, apparently time passes differently here?” Emma says as she leans over the ship’s railing and looks out across the water.
“Not exactly, dearie,” Gold says with a smirk. “We’ll still experience time like we would in Storybrooke. The difference is when we go back. Months here could only be a week there.”
“It’s according to how you travel through the portal, really,” Regina interjects as she steps up beside Emma. “If you know what you’re doing, you can travel through space and time, so there’s the possibility that you can land almost right where you started, like you never left.”
“That kind of precision takes a skilled guide,” Gold says, leaning forward on his cane and smiling viciously at her. “Such as a hatter.”
Regina lifts her chin and glares at him. “I know that. We’ll simply have to make do.”
Emma glances over at Regina and grins. “But it’s kind of like Narnia, right?”
Regina opens her mouth to shoot that idea down, but Emma is almost bouncing on her toes at the idea, so she just shrugs. “Similar, yes.”
“Do you think Narnia is a real place?” Emma says, her smile widening as the sun plays over her blonde hair, nearly blinding Regina with its brilliance.
Regina glances over at Gold, but he simply rolls his eyes and limps off to the helm. Sighing, Emma squints against the sun’s glare and sidles along the rail until her shoulder is brushing Regina’s.
“If it is, it probably isn’t exactly like the books,” Regina says carefully, pretending not to notice when Emma’s thigh touches hers.
“Seems like nothing is.” Emma stares back out across the endless ocean. “But it’s nice to think about. You know, with Aslan always coming in and saving the day.”
Regina glances at her and sees Emma’s hunched shoulders, the frown pulling at her lips. It seems there is a misery in being good, in being the Savior for everyone. She wants to say something, to let Emma know that she’s not in this on her own, that Emma doesn’t need to save everyone anymore. But the words catch in her throat, and she swallows them down, and she stands there beside Emma, their shoulders against each other.
*****
She hears Emma approach but doesn’t say anything. Three days of floating aimlessly with only errant winds pushing them forward. The lack of progress is going to drive her mad.
“I want you to teach me about magic.”
Regina turns from the railing and raises an eyebrow as she looks Emma up and down. “You want the Evil Queen to teach you about magic?”
Emma nods her head, just a little uncertainly, rocking back on her heels as she says, “Well, I need somebody to do it. And Gold is two for two with making evil witches, and so far, your track record in that area beats his.”
“Because I’ve never taught anyone.” Regina shakes her head and laughs. “You don’t need my help, Miss Swan. And you certainly don’t want it.”
“Bullshit.” And Emma moves in, her eyes intense and pinning Regina against the railing. “I have magic inside me, magic I can’t control or use unless we’re pretty much facing certain death. You won’t let me go all dark side or anything because you won’t let that anywhere near Henry. I know that. I trust that.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Please, Regina.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll have to ask Gold.” Emma shuffles her feet on the rough wooden deck and frowns. “Whatever. He’s already taught me some stuff. And maybe he’ll be able to explain what happened down in the mines.”
Something sharp twists and snaps in Regina’s chest, memories of if you hold its heart, you control it, power is control, and she grabs Emma’s arm with frantic fingers that wrap too tight around fabric and skin.
“You can’t tell him about that,” Regina says immediately, knowing how she must look insane with wide eyes and trembling hands and so much fear that she can’t breathe. “Promise me that you won’t.”
Emma jerks back and says, “Not until you agree to help me. And explain what the hell we did down there.”
Flexing her fingers, Regina takes a deep breath and lets her shoulders slump. “I don’t know how we stopped the trigger. It was supposed to be impossible.”
“So maybe we can figure it out?” Emma offers with a slight smile. “Apparently we can do some awesome shit together. That’s kind of cool, right?”
“Yes, kind of cool is exactly how I would describe it,” Regina says, but she can’t muster up the appropriate venom, the right amount of dismissal of Emma’s lack of understanding. “Now, Miss Swan, when would you like to start your training?”
“Emma.”
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s another condition. You have to call me Emma.” She crosses her arms over her chest and spreads her legs a little, like a conquering hero from the covers of Henry’s comic books.
Regina bites the inside of her cheek to stave off an amused smile and rolls her eyes. “You do know I’m the one doing you a favor?”
“Deal with it, Mills,” Emma says as the corners of her lips quirk upward.
“Only if you’re the one to explain what we’re doing to your parents. If your dear mother tries to accuse me of doing this as part of some nefarious plot, I will throw her off this ship.” Regina raises her chin until her spine straightens and she stands tall like a queen, like a proud mayor.
“Deal.” Emma holds out her hand and says, “So when do we start?”
Regina eyes her hand and smirks as she strides past Emma. “This afternoon. Be prepared to work hard, Emma.”
“Yeah, like that’s something new.”
This time, Regina can’t keep the grin off her face as she walks away.
*****
Gold approaches her on the sixth day.
“I hear that you’re teaching Miss Swan.” He smiles, deadly sharp, and leans forward on his cane until Regina shifts a step back. “Tell me, Your Majesty, exactly what are you gaining from this venture?”
“I’m sure that is none of your business,” Regina says in a low voice, eyes narrowing.
He settles back on his heels, and the shift in the air is palatable. She’s not afraid of his power, not here when he has just as many enemies as her, but he is the better wordsmith, the one who shapes deals that always, always turn up in his favor.
He cocks his head to the side as he says, “I know you built that trigger to be impossible to stop. I felt what it was doing to Storybrooke. And now it sits in your pocket, completely harmless.”
It’s an unconscious movement, the way she immediately shoves a hand into her pocket and closes her fingers around the black diamond; she can see the amusement twitching on his lips, and her magic flares up in her palm, stinging in its brief intensity. She forces the rage back down and pastes a bland smile onto her face.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“We both know you’ll tell me, eventually. You don’t even know what happened. I can see that all over your face.” He leans in close, his eyes dark and cold and consuming. “In the end, you always come back.”
She stares back, lets her lip curl in a snarl. “Not anymore. I am no longer a plaything for your plots, Gold.”
“Always the victim, Regina?”
She walks away, her hand still wrapped around the trigger, her heart pounding in her chest because she wants to ask, because she needs to know, but it will cost so much. Emma’s power runs deep, pure and strong, and the idea of Gold anywhere near that makes her breath short out; she can see the hunger in his face when he looks at Emma. She remembers seeing it all those years ago when he looked at her.
Closing her eyes, Regina murmurs, “No, that isn’t right at all.”
*****
“You have to trust me.”
Emma scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. “Yeah, I do, but I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Regina sighs and tries to banish the headache that has been building behind her eyes for the past two days. Two weeks on this damned ship and they still haven’t reached the island. Rolling her shoulders, Regina looks across the room to where Emma is hunched in on herself, arms folded across her stomach.
“I know this is frightening, and it’s not something you want to do.” She takes a step towards Emma then stops. “And you should be frightened. Taking a heart is dark magic, and the power it gives you is addictive.”
“Then why do I even need to try?” Emma asks, throwing her arms wide.
“Because there may come a time when it is your only course of action to protect yourself or your parents or Henry. And it is better to know now if it is even possible for you to do it than when you have no other options.”
Regina’s fingers itch as she speaks, magic pooling and crackling in the tips; she can still remember her own hand deep in her chest, pulling out her beating heart and offering it up to Emma, the pain and the release of the separation. The sweetness of Snow White’s darkened heart cradled in her palm. She needs to remind her. That Emma can take and then give back.
“I just need you to take my heart out and put it back in,” Regina tells her, nearly breathless now, moving forward until she is standing right in front of Emma. “Please. Just do this.”
Emma breathes in sharply then lets it go, the warm air brushing past Regina’s cheek, slightly sour from their lunch of stale bread and fresh fish. Her fingers brush Regina’s collarbone, and Regina can feel the power rushing through them before they slip past her skin.
Regina closes her eyes, clenches her hands into fists as her body tenses at the invasion, at the foreign magic pushing inside and closing around her heart. Emma wraps her fingers around the muscle, squeezing tighter, and Regina gasps at the flash of pain that ripples through every part of her, her chest contracting, her heart beating faster as if it can struggle out of this prison.
Emma pulls her hand forward, back to herself, Regina’s heart still in its grasp, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Regina would fall to her knees with the tear of her heart from its rightful place if Emma’s grip on her heart wasn’t forcing her to stay upright.
Then it all suddenly stops, and Regina stands there gulping in lungfuls of air while Emma stares at her with wide eyes.
“Oh my god, Regina, are you okay?” Emma grips Regina’s shoulders in her hands. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“You didn’t take it out,” Regina murmurs, shaking her head and looking up at her. “Why not? I could feel you were able to do it. Why did you stop?”
“I was hurting you,” Emma spits out, her hands dropping to her sides. “I couldn’t-goddamnit, Regina, I’m not going to do that to you.”
Regina blinks, slowly, and breathes in again. Her chest still aches, her heart beating harder than ever, a reminder of safe. Regina reaches out to touch her, the motion careful, and she catches soft blonde hair in her fingertips. She can’t even think to stop herself: she leans in and kisses Emma, a soft brush of her lips against Emma’s mouth.
*****
When Emma kisses her back, Regina sighs, and then Emma’s hands are on her, holding her, supporting her, her mouth taking and taking and taking.
And Regina lets herself drown in it, counts out each heartbeat, locks every second away into her memories.
Because this, too, will end.
Author: alinaandalion
Rating: T
Summary: It’s enough, just enough to make her remember the mine and the closing portal all over again. It wouldn’t have happened if they had left her behind. Henry would be safe, he would be with family and not alone because that was the whole point. He isn’t supposed to be another name she can add to the list of those she has loved and failed.
Spoilers: Up through the Season 2 finale. I reference an event from "my heart was never pure", but you don't have to read that to know what's going on. They're just linked.
Notes: This is now a series. And there will be more fic about the boat trip.
“You always knew I wanted to get out. But at the same time we were conspirators, we knew things about each other no one else will ever know. In some ways I trust you more than I’ve ever trusted anyone.”
- Life Before Man by Margaret Atwood
*****
They emerge in the middle of the ocean, the sun high in the sky.
Emma is the first one to say anything. “Where the fuck are we?”
Hook stares at her for a moment, mouth agape, before David nudges him hard in the shoulder, and then Hook fumbles inside his pockets until he pulls out a compass. He studies it for a few minutes, his face growing darker as he looks up.
“We’re off course. It’ll take weeks to correct,” Hook announces as he snaps his compass closed and starts to head for the wheel.
“Weeks?” Snow squawks out, and Regina grinds her teeth and shoves her hands deep into her pockets to keep from wrapping them around Snow’s neck.
“It’d be faster if we had more than this little breeze,” Hook says with a shrug of his shoulders. “But that might take a few days. Or longer.”
So David and Snow look at Gold, and Emma looks at Regina, expectation written all over their faces. She eyes Gold, and since he’s not making a move to do much of anything other than occasionally tap his cane against the deck, she steps forward into the semi-circle they’ve made.
“If we just need a little wind to get started, then maybe I can help,” she grumbles out in explanation when David and Snow flinch like idiots at her outstretched hands.
Rolling her eyes, Regina focuses on creating the weather conditions for a stiff breeze, the magic dragging up and out of her like a knife; she feels the beginnings of a stronger drift of cool air.
Then the world goes black.
*****
The first thing she notices is the smell. Ocean, damp wood, and the odor of too many unwashed bodies packed into a small space. She breathes slowly and blinks her eyes open, her head pounding.
A wooden ceiling, light filtering through a doorway and the cracks in between the boards above her, a flash of blonde hair.
“What happened?” Regina asks as she starts to push herself up.
“Yeah, no, not happening.” Emma leans over her and pushes her back into the bunk. Huffing, Emma keeps her hands lightly pressed against Regina’s shoulders and says, “You passed out. You’ve been out for a few hours now.”
Regina frowns and tries to force Emma’s hands away; she gives up soon after when the ache in her head spikes and her stomach lurches in response. Emma smirks down at her. Regina rolls her eyes, but she settles back onto the thin mattress.
“And what happened after I lost consciousness, Miss Swan?”
Emma’s smile slides right off her face, and she fidgets with her pockets before sprawling on the floor beside Regina’s bunk. When Emma pulls a pair of candy bars out of Henry’s backpack and starts tapping them against the floor, Regina raises herself up on her elbows and cocks an eyebrow.
“Miss Swan.”
“Yeah, okay, if you really have to know.” Emma sighs and lets the candy fall out of her fingers. “After you hit the deck, Gold started, you know, acting like an asshole about it, saying stuff about how you had overextended yourself, you should be dead, just a bunch of shit. Then my mo-Snow kind of exploded at him about you, basically just shouting about how you saved the whole damn town and acted like a hero and had been through hell and back. So now Gold is pouting in the first mate’s cabin, and we are still stuck in the middle of fucking nowhere.”
“Your mother defended me?” Regina laughs a little at the very idea.
“She did, and she’s been acting really weird about you. Which is why I’m here. I thought if you had to pick, you would rather wake up here with me than with her doing her hovering routine thing,” Emma says. Then she picks up one of the candy bars and pulls the wrapper open. “And you need to eat something. We don’t really have a lot of supplies right now since Hook didn’t pack for a family cruise, but it looks like our kid always carries around a shit ton of stuff with him in case of emergencies.”
Regina eyes the chocolate bar and shakes her head. “I’m not eating that.”
“Yeah, you are, Your Majesty.” Emma scoots closer and shoves the candy into Regina’s face. “I got hungry while I was sitting here waiting on you to wake up, and then I thought about when the last time you ate could have been. Since the most optimistic guess I could come up with is two days ago, I would say you need to eat something so you don’t pass out again the second you get up.”
“That’s not chocolate. I’m not eating it.”
“Oh my god, Regina, stop being such a snob and eat the damn candy bar.”
Regina grimaces, but she plucks the candy from Emma’s grip; she nibbles on it, swallows hard before the nausea returns full force in response to the cloying sweetness. Emma grins, satisfied, settling back onto the floor and looping her arms around her knees.
“See, it’s not so bad.”
“This is repulsive, Miss Swan. I don’t understand how you and Henry eat food like this.”
“Not everyone can be so picky about food,” Emma tells her.
She gives Regina an expectant look, so Regina forces herself to take another bite. It goes down a little easier, the flavor less unpleasant than before, and she no longer feels the need to vomit so that is an improvement. She might be able to get away with only eating half of the candy bar.
“Don’t get any ideas, Regina. You’re eating the whole damn thing.”
Sighing, Regina fiddles with the seam of her shirt, her eyes falling on Henry’s backpack in the middle of the floor. It’s enough, just enough to make her remember the mine and the closing portal all over again. It wouldn’t have happened if they had left her behind. Henry would be safe, he would be with family and not alone because that was the whole point.
He isn’t supposed to be another name she can add to the list of those she has loved and failed.
“I wanted to leave you behind.”
Regina starts at Emma’s voice and looks down at her. “I’m sorry?”
“They all wanted to go back for you, and I wanted to leave. I didn’t want to save you, not at first,” Emma says quietly as she stares down at the floor.
“Why do you keep insisting on saving me?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do?” Emma tilts her head back and meets Regina’s eyes. She laughs quietly and shrugs her shoulders. “I guess it’s because if I didn’t, then you wouldn’t be here.”
Regina stares at her for a long minute, her hands unsteady on her legs; she eventually manages to muster up a small, unsure smile and goes back to eating her chocolate bar while Emma sits there on the floor and watches her in silence.
*****
“So, apparently time passes differently here?” Emma says as she leans over the ship’s railing and looks out across the water.
“Not exactly, dearie,” Gold says with a smirk. “We’ll still experience time like we would in Storybrooke. The difference is when we go back. Months here could only be a week there.”
“It’s according to how you travel through the portal, really,” Regina interjects as she steps up beside Emma. “If you know what you’re doing, you can travel through space and time, so there’s the possibility that you can land almost right where you started, like you never left.”
“That kind of precision takes a skilled guide,” Gold says, leaning forward on his cane and smiling viciously at her. “Such as a hatter.”
Regina lifts her chin and glares at him. “I know that. We’ll simply have to make do.”
Emma glances over at Regina and grins. “But it’s kind of like Narnia, right?”
Regina opens her mouth to shoot that idea down, but Emma is almost bouncing on her toes at the idea, so she just shrugs. “Similar, yes.”
“Do you think Narnia is a real place?” Emma says, her smile widening as the sun plays over her blonde hair, nearly blinding Regina with its brilliance.
Regina glances over at Gold, but he simply rolls his eyes and limps off to the helm. Sighing, Emma squints against the sun’s glare and sidles along the rail until her shoulder is brushing Regina’s.
“If it is, it probably isn’t exactly like the books,” Regina says carefully, pretending not to notice when Emma’s thigh touches hers.
“Seems like nothing is.” Emma stares back out across the endless ocean. “But it’s nice to think about. You know, with Aslan always coming in and saving the day.”
Regina glances at her and sees Emma’s hunched shoulders, the frown pulling at her lips. It seems there is a misery in being good, in being the Savior for everyone. She wants to say something, to let Emma know that she’s not in this on her own, that Emma doesn’t need to save everyone anymore. But the words catch in her throat, and she swallows them down, and she stands there beside Emma, their shoulders against each other.
*****
She hears Emma approach but doesn’t say anything. Three days of floating aimlessly with only errant winds pushing them forward. The lack of progress is going to drive her mad.
“I want you to teach me about magic.”
Regina turns from the railing and raises an eyebrow as she looks Emma up and down. “You want the Evil Queen to teach you about magic?”
Emma nods her head, just a little uncertainly, rocking back on her heels as she says, “Well, I need somebody to do it. And Gold is two for two with making evil witches, and so far, your track record in that area beats his.”
“Because I’ve never taught anyone.” Regina shakes her head and laughs. “You don’t need my help, Miss Swan. And you certainly don’t want it.”
“Bullshit.” And Emma moves in, her eyes intense and pinning Regina against the railing. “I have magic inside me, magic I can’t control or use unless we’re pretty much facing certain death. You won’t let me go all dark side or anything because you won’t let that anywhere near Henry. I know that. I trust that.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Please, Regina.”
“No.”
“Then I’ll have to ask Gold.” Emma shuffles her feet on the rough wooden deck and frowns. “Whatever. He’s already taught me some stuff. And maybe he’ll be able to explain what happened down in the mines.”
Something sharp twists and snaps in Regina’s chest, memories of if you hold its heart, you control it, power is control, and she grabs Emma’s arm with frantic fingers that wrap too tight around fabric and skin.
“You can’t tell him about that,” Regina says immediately, knowing how she must look insane with wide eyes and trembling hands and so much fear that she can’t breathe. “Promise me that you won’t.”
Emma jerks back and says, “Not until you agree to help me. And explain what the hell we did down there.”
Flexing her fingers, Regina takes a deep breath and lets her shoulders slump. “I don’t know how we stopped the trigger. It was supposed to be impossible.”
“So maybe we can figure it out?” Emma offers with a slight smile. “Apparently we can do some awesome shit together. That’s kind of cool, right?”
“Yes, kind of cool is exactly how I would describe it,” Regina says, but she can’t muster up the appropriate venom, the right amount of dismissal of Emma’s lack of understanding. “Now, Miss Swan, when would you like to start your training?”
“Emma.”
“I’m sorry?”
“That’s another condition. You have to call me Emma.” She crosses her arms over her chest and spreads her legs a little, like a conquering hero from the covers of Henry’s comic books.
Regina bites the inside of her cheek to stave off an amused smile and rolls her eyes. “You do know I’m the one doing you a favor?”
“Deal with it, Mills,” Emma says as the corners of her lips quirk upward.
“Only if you’re the one to explain what we’re doing to your parents. If your dear mother tries to accuse me of doing this as part of some nefarious plot, I will throw her off this ship.” Regina raises her chin until her spine straightens and she stands tall like a queen, like a proud mayor.
“Deal.” Emma holds out her hand and says, “So when do we start?”
Regina eyes her hand and smirks as she strides past Emma. “This afternoon. Be prepared to work hard, Emma.”
“Yeah, like that’s something new.”
This time, Regina can’t keep the grin off her face as she walks away.
*****
Gold approaches her on the sixth day.
“I hear that you’re teaching Miss Swan.” He smiles, deadly sharp, and leans forward on his cane until Regina shifts a step back. “Tell me, Your Majesty, exactly what are you gaining from this venture?”
“I’m sure that is none of your business,” Regina says in a low voice, eyes narrowing.
He settles back on his heels, and the shift in the air is palatable. She’s not afraid of his power, not here when he has just as many enemies as her, but he is the better wordsmith, the one who shapes deals that always, always turn up in his favor.
He cocks his head to the side as he says, “I know you built that trigger to be impossible to stop. I felt what it was doing to Storybrooke. And now it sits in your pocket, completely harmless.”
It’s an unconscious movement, the way she immediately shoves a hand into her pocket and closes her fingers around the black diamond; she can see the amusement twitching on his lips, and her magic flares up in her palm, stinging in its brief intensity. She forces the rage back down and pastes a bland smile onto her face.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“We both know you’ll tell me, eventually. You don’t even know what happened. I can see that all over your face.” He leans in close, his eyes dark and cold and consuming. “In the end, you always come back.”
She stares back, lets her lip curl in a snarl. “Not anymore. I am no longer a plaything for your plots, Gold.”
“Always the victim, Regina?”
She walks away, her hand still wrapped around the trigger, her heart pounding in her chest because she wants to ask, because she needs to know, but it will cost so much. Emma’s power runs deep, pure and strong, and the idea of Gold anywhere near that makes her breath short out; she can see the hunger in his face when he looks at Emma. She remembers seeing it all those years ago when he looked at her.
Closing her eyes, Regina murmurs, “No, that isn’t right at all.”
*****
“You have to trust me.”
Emma scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. “Yeah, I do, but I don’t think this is a good idea.”
Regina sighs and tries to banish the headache that has been building behind her eyes for the past two days. Two weeks on this damned ship and they still haven’t reached the island. Rolling her shoulders, Regina looks across the room to where Emma is hunched in on herself, arms folded across her stomach.
“I know this is frightening, and it’s not something you want to do.” She takes a step towards Emma then stops. “And you should be frightened. Taking a heart is dark magic, and the power it gives you is addictive.”
“Then why do I even need to try?” Emma asks, throwing her arms wide.
“Because there may come a time when it is your only course of action to protect yourself or your parents or Henry. And it is better to know now if it is even possible for you to do it than when you have no other options.”
Regina’s fingers itch as she speaks, magic pooling and crackling in the tips; she can still remember her own hand deep in her chest, pulling out her beating heart and offering it up to Emma, the pain and the release of the separation. The sweetness of Snow White’s darkened heart cradled in her palm. She needs to remind her. That Emma can take and then give back.
“I just need you to take my heart out and put it back in,” Regina tells her, nearly breathless now, moving forward until she is standing right in front of Emma. “Please. Just do this.”
Emma breathes in sharply then lets it go, the warm air brushing past Regina’s cheek, slightly sour from their lunch of stale bread and fresh fish. Her fingers brush Regina’s collarbone, and Regina can feel the power rushing through them before they slip past her skin.
Regina closes her eyes, clenches her hands into fists as her body tenses at the invasion, at the foreign magic pushing inside and closing around her heart. Emma wraps her fingers around the muscle, squeezing tighter, and Regina gasps at the flash of pain that ripples through every part of her, her chest contracting, her heart beating faster as if it can struggle out of this prison.
Emma pulls her hand forward, back to herself, Regina’s heart still in its grasp, and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts. Regina would fall to her knees with the tear of her heart from its rightful place if Emma’s grip on her heart wasn’t forcing her to stay upright.
Then it all suddenly stops, and Regina stands there gulping in lungfuls of air while Emma stares at her with wide eyes.
“Oh my god, Regina, are you okay?” Emma grips Regina’s shoulders in her hands. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“You didn’t take it out,” Regina murmurs, shaking her head and looking up at her. “Why not? I could feel you were able to do it. Why did you stop?”
“I was hurting you,” Emma spits out, her hands dropping to her sides. “I couldn’t-goddamnit, Regina, I’m not going to do that to you.”
Regina blinks, slowly, and breathes in again. Her chest still aches, her heart beating harder than ever, a reminder of safe. Regina reaches out to touch her, the motion careful, and she catches soft blonde hair in her fingertips. She can’t even think to stop herself: she leans in and kisses Emma, a soft brush of her lips against Emma’s mouth.
*****
When Emma kisses her back, Regina sighs, and then Emma’s hands are on her, holding her, supporting her, her mouth taking and taking and taking.
And Regina lets herself drown in it, counts out each heartbeat, locks every second away into her memories.
Because this, too, will end.