Battle Towards Surrender: Part Five, Emma/Regina
Title: Battle Towards Surrender: Part Five
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Rating: NC17 overall
Pairing: Emma/Regina - Swan Queen! (although it takes a little while to get there)
Spoilers: post s1-finale fic. Everything is fair game.
Disclaimer: Not mine! These characters belong to ABC/Disney, Horowitz and Kitsis. I'm just playing and no profit is being made.
Word Count: ~4500 (this part)
Warnings: Minor character deaths.
Summary: This is a collision of various prompts collected at Tumblr over the past month. It begins with Henry wondering about how they should feel about Regina now the curse is broken. From there, a plan is hatched which requires Regina and Emma to pose as lovers in order to have Regina admitted to the rabble roused to fight Rumpelstiltskin for control of Storybrooke. That's the premise, you'll have to read to find out the rest.
Prologue (Henry) | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
Emma stares at their needlessly tidy bedroom, empty backpack in her hand. She can’t quite make herself go back outside and ask Regina what to take, and the raised voices have already moved off down the corridor anyway.
[Part Five]
It’s only when she reaches for her phone on the nightstand that Emma is spurred into real action, because the slightly scraped handset is resting on top of one of Henry’s comic books. With the experience born of too many middle-of-the-night escapes, Emma throws some underwear, easily-layered tops and a couple of pairs of pants on the bed, before rooting around in the bottom of the room’s only closet for her second gun and extra ammo, handcuffs and the probably pointless weapons of police nightstick and a couple of switchblades that, well, she’s never quite managed to part with. She dresses in yesterday’s clothes, pulling things on with rough hands that won’t quite stop shaking.
The rest is easy enough, and by the time Ruby appears in the doorway with her own small bag, Emma feels like she’s packed about as well as she can, considering. She shoves the comic book under her pillow, even though the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach says she won’t be coming back to this room again.
“Hold these,” Emma says as she hands the bags off to Ruby, pushing past her friend to re-enter Henry’s room next door. She tries very hard not to look at the bed, because her earlier sweep confirmed some drops of blood on the blanket. Emma reminds herself to ask Regina if Henry is prone to nosebleeds, and then in the next moment she vows to say nothing at all.
Wondering won’t do anyone any good.
She looks in the drawers quickly, unearthing Henry’s book that seems somehow essential even though the curse is broken and the stories say nothing about how to defeat their mortal enemy. Henry would want her to bring it, Emma tells herself. She’s walking back out when she spies his Iron Man toy in the corner. It only takes an extra couple of steps to pick it up and jam it in her pocket.
She leans against the door jamb, resisting some latent urge to pray; she has no idea what she’d even be praying to. All she wants, in this last moment of quiet, is to get the chance to give Henry back his toy.
***
“Do you know what Regina wants you to do?” Emma asks Ruby as they stand in a corner of the Great Hall and watch Emma’s parents corral the remaining unhappy citizens into something like order. Subjects, Emma corrects herself. Citizens live in a democracy, not under a Royal Family. She remembers seeing that on the History Channel, once.
“I think I do, yeah,” Ruby says, and the way she squares her jaw deters Emma from asking anything else. She’ll know, soon enough.
“It’s weird, how everyone just... does what they’re told,” Emma says instead. “That my parents are the ones who get to boss everyone around.”
“It’s in their best interests,” Regina says as she appears next to them in a cloud of black smoke.
Emma rolls her eyes and hopes nobody noticed how she just squealed in fright. Regina’s already stepping up the special effects, and somehow that comforts Emma. There’s something bigger than her and her Glock on their side, and that’s pretty much the only reason Emma can breathe in and out right now.
“Shouldn’t you be saving the magic for later?” Emma asks, resisting the urge to take Regina’s hand.
“There’s no time to waste,” Regina answers, looking at the crowd once more. “I need to give them some final instructions. And then we leave.”
Regina strides across the room, and Emma scurries to follow, realizing this is her chance to say some kind of goodbye to her family. As she watches Regina part the restless crowd, Emma wonders how there was ever a time she didn’t recognize this woman as a Queen.
***
Emma thinks she can make it out of there without anyone crying. It doesn’t surprise her though, that James is the first to break.
“I’ll be okay,” she murmurs as he hugs her close, Snow forming the other side of the smushed up triangle that the hug becomes. “Dad,” she whispers as she kisses him awkwardly on the cheek. “Mom,” she says, her voice catching as Snow kisses Emma on her cheek in turn.
“Find him,” Snow says, squeezing Emma so hard that maybe nobody can breathe. “That’s what we do.”
***
Ruby falls in step behind Regina and Emma as they march across the damp grass towards the convent gate and the edge of their magical protection. Emma feels the chill in the air through the clothing she threw on carelessly, and wonders how many magical quests begin with a so-called hero wondering if they can stop to add an extra layer.
***
“Red,” Regina says, and her voice is so kind that Emma wonders for a moment if Henry has somehow appeared. “Have you guessed already?”
“I have,” Ruby says, squaring her shoulders and trying very obviously to avoid looking at Emma. “And I understand. It’s okay.”
“Wait a minute!” Emma cries, lost already. She can feel the crackle in the air where magic is holding them in, see the deserted street on the other side as though it’s frozen in time. “If this is some kind of human sacrifice--”
“No,” Ruby answers. “It’s not like that, Emma.”
“I need Red to transform,” Regina starts to explain. “I need a truly magical being to breach the defenses Gold will have in place.”
“Transform?” Emma says. “You mean, into a, um...”
“Yes,” Regina says. “It’s the only way.”
“But it’s not even a full moon,” Emma says, gesturing vainly at the cloudy sky.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ruby says firmly. “Where to, Regina?”
It’s an act of staggering defiance for Ruby--Emma knows that much at least--to call her former Queen by her first name. Regina flinches, but the small smile she gives Ruby seems genuine, at least.
“We need help from another Henry,” Regina says.
***
Ruby refuses to come inside the vault, and Emma’s glad of it.
Their progress across town has been stilted and silent, Regina waving her hands at things and eventually directing them towards the creepiest place possible. Emma would have been surprised if it weren’t so entirely predictable.
She remembers being inside this building with Graham, feverish and babbling. This time she reads the inscription - Henry Mills - and it’s enough to make her throw up in the corner.
Emma expects Regina to take offense, to throw her out into the cold to wait with Ruby, but instead Regina steps in and absent-mindedly rubs Emma’s back.
“I know,” Regina says, shattering the silence as Emma stays hunched over, willing her stomach to settle. “I’m sorry I had to bring you here.”
“It’s for Henry,” Emma manages to gasp. She doesn’t spill the contents of her head though, about the father Regina murdered to bring them here or poor, sweet Graham, killed to keep the curse intact. Emma knows these truths now, and she knew them when she took Regina into her bed. It’s being confronted with this reminder, this exposed nerve that was obscured by the bandage of war mentality, that has sent Emma into a tailspin.
“It’s not easy, is it?” Regina asks. “Being confronted with the real me, after all this.”
Emma shakes her head, and straightens up slowly.
“I can’t change it,” Regina adds, her jaw lifted in defiance.
“Let’s just get whatever you need, okay? Henry’s waiting.”
***
It looks like one of Henry’s toys, Emma thinks. Glowing red, almost like plastic.
Part of her wants to touch, she even raises her hand, but Regina pulls the heart away.
“No,” Regina is firm, her eyes dark with that terrifying depth that makes Emma back slowly towards the stairs. “This is the last bit of leverage I have. This stays with me.”
***
“So where’s Gold?” Emma asks when they step back out into the night air, but she’s careful not to look either woman in the eye. This is rapidly approaching too-fucking-much territory and there’s a little voice in the back of her head saying there’s still a chance she can pull this off by herself if she can just strike the right bargain with Gold; it’s terrifying that she knows that includes trading herself for the kid.
When that happened, Emma doesn’t know, but she suspects that’s why her kisses suddenly started Lazarus-ing people.
If there’s a time when all of this won’t be weird, Emma wishes it would hurry up and get here.
***
The library, Emma is unhappy to see, still stands looking as shuttered but as undisturbed as ever. This is what she considers the point of no return, more so than Regina’s reluctant confession or Henry lying motionless in a hospital bed. Something shifts, something permanent, when you ride down in an elevator to slay a dragon.
“This is his base?” Emma asks, unconvinced. “Not some underground lair, not even his own big fancy house?”
“Yeah,” Ruby confirms. “You really want to trust me on this,” she adds, hitting her nose with her finger with a silly grin that makes Emma want to giggle, just for a second. There isn’t going to be enough tequila in the world to make them forget this day.
“So... do we just knock?” Emma presses, feeling ridiculous as they crouch inside a boarded up dry cleaners’ store. Regina is keeping her distance, as she stands and peers through a gap between boards.
“This is where it gets... complicated,” Regina starts to explain, and that is apparently what it takes for Emma to finally lose it.
“Oh God,” she gasps, her laughter already on the verge of full-blown hysterics. “But... this? Complicated? Jesus fucking Christ, what has it been before now?”
She slumps down against the boards until she’s sitting on the floor, clutching her aching ribs and feeling cool, dusty wood against her cheek. It’s Regina who comes over, crouches beside her and gently (well, not too gently) slaps Emma’s face.
“Ow!” Emma yelps, sobering in a second flat.
“This isn’t a bad dream, Emma,” Regina lectures. “I need you to stay with me now, because I can’t get Henry alone.”
“Fine,” Emma grumbles, sitting up and holding her face. “You didn’t have to hit me.”
“Can we get on with it?” Ruby asks, dropping her backpack over by the counter. “I don’t want to chicken out.”
Regina looks alarmed at that, and she’s standing again in an instant.
“Wait,” Emma says, getting back to her feet, too. “So you’re... what? Going to cast a spell and make her a wolf? Won’t she--no offense, Rubes--you know, eat us?”
“Red will be outside when the incantation takes effect,” Regina says, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“And how do we stop her eating Henry? How do we turn her back?” Emma’s getting pretty pissed off with this fairytale shorthand and always being the last to know what the hell is going on. She’s got as much chance of being vaporized by lightning bolts or whatever the hell they’re facing, and this half-telling her can’t go on.
“She can’t,” Ruby says, taking her necklace off and shoving it in her backpack. She starts stripping, one item at a time until Emma’s pointed look makes Ruby explain a little further. “There’s no point in ruining the clothes when I change.”
“So how long until the moon changes and you turn back by yourself?” Emma presses and she can almost taste it, the sense of her own stupidity as the words fall from her lips. There’s a reason nobody told her the whole story, and she doesn’t want to finish the thought.
“It won’t work like that,” Regina says. She’s pacing back and forth, the boots which actually belong to Emma are squeaking on the floor. The jeans are Regina’s own, but it occurs to Emma that she’s never seen her wear anything like this before. Maybe Emma just expected Regina to stare down the end of the world in a shift dress and four-inch heels.
“Which is why you need this,” Ruby says, pulling something from the jeans she just took off and flicking it at Emma. It’s a silver bullet, and Emma is almost too stunned to catch it, but her hand moves and flexes without conscious thought on her part.
“This is the ammo for my Glock,” Emma says, her tongue too thick for her mouth all of a sudden. “Oh, Ruby, no. No, no, no.”
“It’s the only way to walk through his enchantments without giving him advance warning,” Regina says. “I can explain to you the layering of magic performed on already magical beings, but we don’t have that kind of time. Ruby breaks the barrier, and we follow her. It’s our only chance at getting through unharmed.”
“And then we just shoot her?” Emma squeaks. “Like, in the foot?”
“Oh, Emma,” Ruby sighs. “You put it in my heart, or you’re all dead.”
Emma wishes she had anything left in her stomach to throw up.
***
“Only an hour until sun up,” Regina says as she watches Ruby walk across the street. “This had better work.”
“I hate this,” Emma whispers. “I hate you for this.”
Regina looks at her then, wounded but not even slightly surprised.
***
“Once we find Henry,” Regina explains, her fingers already swiping at the air to work magic on Ruby. “Your only job--do you hear me--your only job is to get him back here alive, understood? Don’t engage, don’t fight, just pick him up and get. him. out.”
“What about--”
“I’ll handle the rest,” Regina says, pursing her lips as she performs a final flourish with her hand. “There,” she breathes, and Emma can’t help but look back towards the street.
Ruby doesn’t look scared, Emma thinks. She looks so young though, and so impossibly alone. For a moment, Emma thinks Regina’s masterplan isn’t working, and that they’ll have to take their chances with kicking down doors and other tactics more suited to this world.
But then Ruby tips her head back and howls; Emma thinks it sounds more like a scream.
***
The running feels good, at least, even over such a short distance. It’s the burst of adrenalin Emma needs to clear her head, to stop panicking and just focus on Henry, and getting him back. She wonders if this is how her parents felt in those few hours between giving her up and forgetting she existed (Snow tried to tell her the story a hundred times, but Emma has had enough of stories and so only a few scattered details have been shared in conversation). She wonders if their panic and loss tasted like metal on their tongues.
Ruby--not Ruby, the Wolf--is snarling as it sniffs the air. Emma feels herself freeze up as Regina fits her old skeleton key in the library’s lock.
The magic barrier must have broken, though Emma felt no evidence of it. She wonders if there might be another deception here, another heartbreaking trick, but even confronted with Regina at her most evil, Emma can’t seem to help trusting what she says.
Gold, after all, has form when it comes to tricking them all. And he’s the one who might be hurting Henry. So when the choice is down to this? It isn’t really a choice at all, Emma knows.
The Wolf is pacing on the street, pawing at the ground. Emma thinks that maybe--just maybe--it won’t notice them, or that Ruby will somehow be able to exert some control. Emma blinks away sudden, scalding tears at the thought of Ruby, who’s probably gone forever now, even if they can get safely inside without harming her.
Regina shoves at the door finally, and Emma tries to rush inside with her.
“Wait!” Regina snaps, nodding back at the Wolf who’s already turning towards them. “You still have to shoot her.”
“But we’re in!” Emma hisses. “Come on!”
“Emma!” Regina warns, because the Wolf is crouching now. “Do you want it to go wandering off into the woods?”
Emma thinks about her family, about the people she suspects she’ll never see again, and how she needs them to provide a safe home for Henry if she dies here, tonight. In that moment she reaches for the gun at her hip and fires the most accurate shot of her life.
She turns around before the body falls to the ground; there’s nothing she can do to shut out the noise the Wolf makes as it dies.
***
The library appears untouched from the night when Henry died. Emma knows that the chair in front of her is the one she found Regina tied to, and the discarded duct tape on the floor bears that out. Emma’s overwhelmed, again, by the sense that this could all be wrong; the last fragments of her confidence spiraling out of her with the bullet that killed one of the few dear friends she’s ever had.
She doesn’t wait for instruction, doesn’t listen to Regina’s muttered words, but instead strides forward and starts kicking the shit out of the disused library counter. So much for flying under the radar, because either Gold is here and knows they’re here (like he knows everything else, the lying kidnapping son of a motherfucker) or they’re wasting time in an abandoned building while God knows what is happening to Emma’s kid.
“Stop it!” Emma hears from behind her, but she kicks and slams her fist against the wood until Regina has to bodily drag her from it. Regina’s arms around her waist is the contact that lets the tears finally fall, and Emma is squirming to break free as though that will stop all these feelings pouring out of her. She had gotten so good at holding all of this in, after years of learning to cry silently and then not cry at all. Since Henry showed up she’s been dangerously vulnerable, feeling things she doesn’t even recognize, let alone understand.
“Sorry,” Emma sighs when the fight leaves her body, and only then does Regina let go.
“You’re lucky I could silence the worst of it,” Regina snaps, and Emma doesn’t need to turn around to see the pissy little frown. “You need to calm down.”
“Calm down?” Emma gasps, reeling around to face Regina, who’s got her arms folded over her black leather jacket. “I just shot my friend in cold blood. Henry could be dead by now, and my only hope is the witch that I’m somehow crazy enough to be screwing in between magical fucking wars. Which bit should I be calm about, Regina? Hmm?”
“Boo hoo,” Regina says, her voice cold and mocking. “You’re just like your parents: you honestly believe you’re the only one who’s suffering. Well, this is what being a mother is, Emma Swan. It’s doing anything--anything--to keep your little boy safe. We are his best chance.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me,” Emma spits. “I won’t deny what you’ve done for Henry, but you also turned out to be the actual Evil Freaking Queen.”
“And you turned out to be a princess,” Regina counters. “I’m tired of this,” she adds. “Let’s do what we came here to do.”
“Fine,” Emma agrees. “But once we get Henry out of here? You and I are done.”
“I thought we already were,” Regina throws back over her shoulder as she leads the way down a darkened hallway.
***
Emma doesn’t mean it, is the worst part.
Every angry word comes out so easily, and then she’s jogging after Regina and wishing she could take it all back. The risk is, of course, that if Emma has already wounded Regina too much, there’s no way she’s going to forgive it. The last time someone broke her heart, well, Emma is still trying to process all of that. Not to mention that she’s pretty sure she has no claim over Regina’s heart at all, though it has been fun claiming other parts of her night after night.
She’s about to ask Regina if they’re even in the right place when the corridor opens up into a grand library, the likes of which Emma has only seen in Disney movies. The light flickers in a strange way, almost as if what she’s seeing isn’t fully there. They’re standing on some kind of balcony, and there are no books up here, just dusty furniture and discarded sheets.
Emma leans on the railing as they look out over what feels like miles and miles of books, alert to the slightest sign of movement, for any sign of Henry.
The door they came through slams shut behind them in a sudden gust of wind, and Emma feels a trickle of something like ice roll down her spine.
The laughter, when it starts, seems to come from everywhere at once. Emma reaches for her gun again, seeing Regina raise her hands in some kind of defensive posture. There’s no sign of anyone, but the bag Regina has strapped across her chest is giving a stronger red glow now, making it visible through the black canvas.
“I don’t think so, dearie,” says the echoing voice. Emma turns in time to see sparks crackle at the end of Regina’s fingers, but they fizzle out as Regina is lifted up and slammed against the wall behind them. The impact is loud, sickening, and Emma can feel the air rush from her own body as loudly as Regina’s.
Only when Regina is a crumpled heap on the floor does Gold--Rumplestiltskin--step into view. There’s a dark-haired woman at his side, and noise from the stacks of books suggest they’re not the only two in the room.
“I’ve come for Henry,” Emma says, sounding a hell of a lot braver than she feels.
“Of course you have,” he shouts across the room at her. “Looks like it’s time for us to make another deal.”
Part Six --->
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Rating: NC17 overall
Pairing: Emma/Regina - Swan Queen! (although it takes a little while to get there)
Spoilers: post s1-finale fic. Everything is fair game.
Disclaimer: Not mine! These characters belong to ABC/Disney, Horowitz and Kitsis. I'm just playing and no profit is being made.
Word Count: ~4500 (this part)
Warnings: Minor character deaths.
Summary: This is a collision of various prompts collected at Tumblr over the past month. It begins with Henry wondering about how they should feel about Regina now the curse is broken. From there, a plan is hatched which requires Regina and Emma to pose as lovers in order to have Regina admitted to the rabble roused to fight Rumpelstiltskin for control of Storybrooke. That's the premise, you'll have to read to find out the rest.
Prologue (Henry) | Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four
Emma stares at their needlessly tidy bedroom, empty backpack in her hand. She can’t quite make herself go back outside and ask Regina what to take, and the raised voices have already moved off down the corridor anyway.
[Part Five]
It’s only when she reaches for her phone on the nightstand that Emma is spurred into real action, because the slightly scraped handset is resting on top of one of Henry’s comic books. With the experience born of too many middle-of-the-night escapes, Emma throws some underwear, easily-layered tops and a couple of pairs of pants on the bed, before rooting around in the bottom of the room’s only closet for her second gun and extra ammo, handcuffs and the probably pointless weapons of police nightstick and a couple of switchblades that, well, she’s never quite managed to part with. She dresses in yesterday’s clothes, pulling things on with rough hands that won’t quite stop shaking.
The rest is easy enough, and by the time Ruby appears in the doorway with her own small bag, Emma feels like she’s packed about as well as she can, considering. She shoves the comic book under her pillow, even though the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach says she won’t be coming back to this room again.
“Hold these,” Emma says as she hands the bags off to Ruby, pushing past her friend to re-enter Henry’s room next door. She tries very hard not to look at the bed, because her earlier sweep confirmed some drops of blood on the blanket. Emma reminds herself to ask Regina if Henry is prone to nosebleeds, and then in the next moment she vows to say nothing at all.
Wondering won’t do anyone any good.
She looks in the drawers quickly, unearthing Henry’s book that seems somehow essential even though the curse is broken and the stories say nothing about how to defeat their mortal enemy. Henry would want her to bring it, Emma tells herself. She’s walking back out when she spies his Iron Man toy in the corner. It only takes an extra couple of steps to pick it up and jam it in her pocket.
She leans against the door jamb, resisting some latent urge to pray; she has no idea what she’d even be praying to. All she wants, in this last moment of quiet, is to get the chance to give Henry back his toy.
***
“Do you know what Regina wants you to do?” Emma asks Ruby as they stand in a corner of the Great Hall and watch Emma’s parents corral the remaining unhappy citizens into something like order. Subjects, Emma corrects herself. Citizens live in a democracy, not under a Royal Family. She remembers seeing that on the History Channel, once.
“I think I do, yeah,” Ruby says, and the way she squares her jaw deters Emma from asking anything else. She’ll know, soon enough.
“It’s weird, how everyone just... does what they’re told,” Emma says instead. “That my parents are the ones who get to boss everyone around.”
“It’s in their best interests,” Regina says as she appears next to them in a cloud of black smoke.
Emma rolls her eyes and hopes nobody noticed how she just squealed in fright. Regina’s already stepping up the special effects, and somehow that comforts Emma. There’s something bigger than her and her Glock on their side, and that’s pretty much the only reason Emma can breathe in and out right now.
“Shouldn’t you be saving the magic for later?” Emma asks, resisting the urge to take Regina’s hand.
“There’s no time to waste,” Regina answers, looking at the crowd once more. “I need to give them some final instructions. And then we leave.”
Regina strides across the room, and Emma scurries to follow, realizing this is her chance to say some kind of goodbye to her family. As she watches Regina part the restless crowd, Emma wonders how there was ever a time she didn’t recognize this woman as a Queen.
***
Emma thinks she can make it out of there without anyone crying. It doesn’t surprise her though, that James is the first to break.
“I’ll be okay,” she murmurs as he hugs her close, Snow forming the other side of the smushed up triangle that the hug becomes. “Dad,” she whispers as she kisses him awkwardly on the cheek. “Mom,” she says, her voice catching as Snow kisses Emma on her cheek in turn.
“Find him,” Snow says, squeezing Emma so hard that maybe nobody can breathe. “That’s what we do.”
***
Ruby falls in step behind Regina and Emma as they march across the damp grass towards the convent gate and the edge of their magical protection. Emma feels the chill in the air through the clothing she threw on carelessly, and wonders how many magical quests begin with a so-called hero wondering if they can stop to add an extra layer.
***
“Red,” Regina says, and her voice is so kind that Emma wonders for a moment if Henry has somehow appeared. “Have you guessed already?”
“I have,” Ruby says, squaring her shoulders and trying very obviously to avoid looking at Emma. “And I understand. It’s okay.”
“Wait a minute!” Emma cries, lost already. She can feel the crackle in the air where magic is holding them in, see the deserted street on the other side as though it’s frozen in time. “If this is some kind of human sacrifice--”
“No,” Ruby answers. “It’s not like that, Emma.”
“I need Red to transform,” Regina starts to explain. “I need a truly magical being to breach the defenses Gold will have in place.”
“Transform?” Emma says. “You mean, into a, um...”
“Yes,” Regina says. “It’s the only way.”
“But it’s not even a full moon,” Emma says, gesturing vainly at the cloudy sky.
“Don’t worry about it,” Ruby says firmly. “Where to, Regina?”
It’s an act of staggering defiance for Ruby--Emma knows that much at least--to call her former Queen by her first name. Regina flinches, but the small smile she gives Ruby seems genuine, at least.
“We need help from another Henry,” Regina says.
***
Ruby refuses to come inside the vault, and Emma’s glad of it.
Their progress across town has been stilted and silent, Regina waving her hands at things and eventually directing them towards the creepiest place possible. Emma would have been surprised if it weren’t so entirely predictable.
She remembers being inside this building with Graham, feverish and babbling. This time she reads the inscription - Henry Mills - and it’s enough to make her throw up in the corner.
Emma expects Regina to take offense, to throw her out into the cold to wait with Ruby, but instead Regina steps in and absent-mindedly rubs Emma’s back.
“I know,” Regina says, shattering the silence as Emma stays hunched over, willing her stomach to settle. “I’m sorry I had to bring you here.”
“It’s for Henry,” Emma manages to gasp. She doesn’t spill the contents of her head though, about the father Regina murdered to bring them here or poor, sweet Graham, killed to keep the curse intact. Emma knows these truths now, and she knew them when she took Regina into her bed. It’s being confronted with this reminder, this exposed nerve that was obscured by the bandage of war mentality, that has sent Emma into a tailspin.
“It’s not easy, is it?” Regina asks. “Being confronted with the real me, after all this.”
Emma shakes her head, and straightens up slowly.
“I can’t change it,” Regina adds, her jaw lifted in defiance.
“Let’s just get whatever you need, okay? Henry’s waiting.”
***
It looks like one of Henry’s toys, Emma thinks. Glowing red, almost like plastic.
Part of her wants to touch, she even raises her hand, but Regina pulls the heart away.
“No,” Regina is firm, her eyes dark with that terrifying depth that makes Emma back slowly towards the stairs. “This is the last bit of leverage I have. This stays with me.”
***
“So where’s Gold?” Emma asks when they step back out into the night air, but she’s careful not to look either woman in the eye. This is rapidly approaching too-fucking-much territory and there’s a little voice in the back of her head saying there’s still a chance she can pull this off by herself if she can just strike the right bargain with Gold; it’s terrifying that she knows that includes trading herself for the kid.
When that happened, Emma doesn’t know, but she suspects that’s why her kisses suddenly started Lazarus-ing people.
If there’s a time when all of this won’t be weird, Emma wishes it would hurry up and get here.
***
The library, Emma is unhappy to see, still stands looking as shuttered but as undisturbed as ever. This is what she considers the point of no return, more so than Regina’s reluctant confession or Henry lying motionless in a hospital bed. Something shifts, something permanent, when you ride down in an elevator to slay a dragon.
“This is his base?” Emma asks, unconvinced. “Not some underground lair, not even his own big fancy house?”
“Yeah,” Ruby confirms. “You really want to trust me on this,” she adds, hitting her nose with her finger with a silly grin that makes Emma want to giggle, just for a second. There isn’t going to be enough tequila in the world to make them forget this day.
“So... do we just knock?” Emma presses, feeling ridiculous as they crouch inside a boarded up dry cleaners’ store. Regina is keeping her distance, as she stands and peers through a gap between boards.
“This is where it gets... complicated,” Regina starts to explain, and that is apparently what it takes for Emma to finally lose it.
“Oh God,” she gasps, her laughter already on the verge of full-blown hysterics. “But... this? Complicated? Jesus fucking Christ, what has it been before now?”
She slumps down against the boards until she’s sitting on the floor, clutching her aching ribs and feeling cool, dusty wood against her cheek. It’s Regina who comes over, crouches beside her and gently (well, not too gently) slaps Emma’s face.
“Ow!” Emma yelps, sobering in a second flat.
“This isn’t a bad dream, Emma,” Regina lectures. “I need you to stay with me now, because I can’t get Henry alone.”
“Fine,” Emma grumbles, sitting up and holding her face. “You didn’t have to hit me.”
“Can we get on with it?” Ruby asks, dropping her backpack over by the counter. “I don’t want to chicken out.”
Regina looks alarmed at that, and she’s standing again in an instant.
“Wait,” Emma says, getting back to her feet, too. “So you’re... what? Going to cast a spell and make her a wolf? Won’t she--no offense, Rubes--you know, eat us?”
“Red will be outside when the incantation takes effect,” Regina says, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“And how do we stop her eating Henry? How do we turn her back?” Emma’s getting pretty pissed off with this fairytale shorthand and always being the last to know what the hell is going on. She’s got as much chance of being vaporized by lightning bolts or whatever the hell they’re facing, and this half-telling her can’t go on.
“She can’t,” Ruby says, taking her necklace off and shoving it in her backpack. She starts stripping, one item at a time until Emma’s pointed look makes Ruby explain a little further. “There’s no point in ruining the clothes when I change.”
“So how long until the moon changes and you turn back by yourself?” Emma presses and she can almost taste it, the sense of her own stupidity as the words fall from her lips. There’s a reason nobody told her the whole story, and she doesn’t want to finish the thought.
“It won’t work like that,” Regina says. She’s pacing back and forth, the boots which actually belong to Emma are squeaking on the floor. The jeans are Regina’s own, but it occurs to Emma that she’s never seen her wear anything like this before. Maybe Emma just expected Regina to stare down the end of the world in a shift dress and four-inch heels.
“Which is why you need this,” Ruby says, pulling something from the jeans she just took off and flicking it at Emma. It’s a silver bullet, and Emma is almost too stunned to catch it, but her hand moves and flexes without conscious thought on her part.
“This is the ammo for my Glock,” Emma says, her tongue too thick for her mouth all of a sudden. “Oh, Ruby, no. No, no, no.”
“It’s the only way to walk through his enchantments without giving him advance warning,” Regina says. “I can explain to you the layering of magic performed on already magical beings, but we don’t have that kind of time. Ruby breaks the barrier, and we follow her. It’s our only chance at getting through unharmed.”
“And then we just shoot her?” Emma squeaks. “Like, in the foot?”
“Oh, Emma,” Ruby sighs. “You put it in my heart, or you’re all dead.”
Emma wishes she had anything left in her stomach to throw up.
***
“Only an hour until sun up,” Regina says as she watches Ruby walk across the street. “This had better work.”
“I hate this,” Emma whispers. “I hate you for this.”
Regina looks at her then, wounded but not even slightly surprised.
***
“Once we find Henry,” Regina explains, her fingers already swiping at the air to work magic on Ruby. “Your only job--do you hear me--your only job is to get him back here alive, understood? Don’t engage, don’t fight, just pick him up and get. him. out.”
“What about--”
“I’ll handle the rest,” Regina says, pursing her lips as she performs a final flourish with her hand. “There,” she breathes, and Emma can’t help but look back towards the street.
Ruby doesn’t look scared, Emma thinks. She looks so young though, and so impossibly alone. For a moment, Emma thinks Regina’s masterplan isn’t working, and that they’ll have to take their chances with kicking down doors and other tactics more suited to this world.
But then Ruby tips her head back and howls; Emma thinks it sounds more like a scream.
***
The running feels good, at least, even over such a short distance. It’s the burst of adrenalin Emma needs to clear her head, to stop panicking and just focus on Henry, and getting him back. She wonders if this is how her parents felt in those few hours between giving her up and forgetting she existed (Snow tried to tell her the story a hundred times, but Emma has had enough of stories and so only a few scattered details have been shared in conversation). She wonders if their panic and loss tasted like metal on their tongues.
Ruby--not Ruby, the Wolf--is snarling as it sniffs the air. Emma feels herself freeze up as Regina fits her old skeleton key in the library’s lock.
The magic barrier must have broken, though Emma felt no evidence of it. She wonders if there might be another deception here, another heartbreaking trick, but even confronted with Regina at her most evil, Emma can’t seem to help trusting what she says.
Gold, after all, has form when it comes to tricking them all. And he’s the one who might be hurting Henry. So when the choice is down to this? It isn’t really a choice at all, Emma knows.
The Wolf is pacing on the street, pawing at the ground. Emma thinks that maybe--just maybe--it won’t notice them, or that Ruby will somehow be able to exert some control. Emma blinks away sudden, scalding tears at the thought of Ruby, who’s probably gone forever now, even if they can get safely inside without harming her.
Regina shoves at the door finally, and Emma tries to rush inside with her.
“Wait!” Regina snaps, nodding back at the Wolf who’s already turning towards them. “You still have to shoot her.”
“But we’re in!” Emma hisses. “Come on!”
“Emma!” Regina warns, because the Wolf is crouching now. “Do you want it to go wandering off into the woods?”
Emma thinks about her family, about the people she suspects she’ll never see again, and how she needs them to provide a safe home for Henry if she dies here, tonight. In that moment she reaches for the gun at her hip and fires the most accurate shot of her life.
She turns around before the body falls to the ground; there’s nothing she can do to shut out the noise the Wolf makes as it dies.
***
The library appears untouched from the night when Henry died. Emma knows that the chair in front of her is the one she found Regina tied to, and the discarded duct tape on the floor bears that out. Emma’s overwhelmed, again, by the sense that this could all be wrong; the last fragments of her confidence spiraling out of her with the bullet that killed one of the few dear friends she’s ever had.
She doesn’t wait for instruction, doesn’t listen to Regina’s muttered words, but instead strides forward and starts kicking the shit out of the disused library counter. So much for flying under the radar, because either Gold is here and knows they’re here (like he knows everything else, the lying kidnapping son of a motherfucker) or they’re wasting time in an abandoned building while God knows what is happening to Emma’s kid.
“Stop it!” Emma hears from behind her, but she kicks and slams her fist against the wood until Regina has to bodily drag her from it. Regina’s arms around her waist is the contact that lets the tears finally fall, and Emma is squirming to break free as though that will stop all these feelings pouring out of her. She had gotten so good at holding all of this in, after years of learning to cry silently and then not cry at all. Since Henry showed up she’s been dangerously vulnerable, feeling things she doesn’t even recognize, let alone understand.
“Sorry,” Emma sighs when the fight leaves her body, and only then does Regina let go.
“You’re lucky I could silence the worst of it,” Regina snaps, and Emma doesn’t need to turn around to see the pissy little frown. “You need to calm down.”
“Calm down?” Emma gasps, reeling around to face Regina, who’s got her arms folded over her black leather jacket. “I just shot my friend in cold blood. Henry could be dead by now, and my only hope is the witch that I’m somehow crazy enough to be screwing in between magical fucking wars. Which bit should I be calm about, Regina? Hmm?”
“Boo hoo,” Regina says, her voice cold and mocking. “You’re just like your parents: you honestly believe you’re the only one who’s suffering. Well, this is what being a mother is, Emma Swan. It’s doing anything--anything--to keep your little boy safe. We are his best chance.”
“Don’t you dare lecture me,” Emma spits. “I won’t deny what you’ve done for Henry, but you also turned out to be the actual Evil Freaking Queen.”
“And you turned out to be a princess,” Regina counters. “I’m tired of this,” she adds. “Let’s do what we came here to do.”
“Fine,” Emma agrees. “But once we get Henry out of here? You and I are done.”
“I thought we already were,” Regina throws back over her shoulder as she leads the way down a darkened hallway.
***
Emma doesn’t mean it, is the worst part.
Every angry word comes out so easily, and then she’s jogging after Regina and wishing she could take it all back. The risk is, of course, that if Emma has already wounded Regina too much, there’s no way she’s going to forgive it. The last time someone broke her heart, well, Emma is still trying to process all of that. Not to mention that she’s pretty sure she has no claim over Regina’s heart at all, though it has been fun claiming other parts of her night after night.
She’s about to ask Regina if they’re even in the right place when the corridor opens up into a grand library, the likes of which Emma has only seen in Disney movies. The light flickers in a strange way, almost as if what she’s seeing isn’t fully there. They’re standing on some kind of balcony, and there are no books up here, just dusty furniture and discarded sheets.
Emma leans on the railing as they look out over what feels like miles and miles of books, alert to the slightest sign of movement, for any sign of Henry.
The door they came through slams shut behind them in a sudden gust of wind, and Emma feels a trickle of something like ice roll down her spine.
The laughter, when it starts, seems to come from everywhere at once. Emma reaches for her gun again, seeing Regina raise her hands in some kind of defensive posture. There’s no sign of anyone, but the bag Regina has strapped across her chest is giving a stronger red glow now, making it visible through the black canvas.
“I don’t think so, dearie,” says the echoing voice. Emma turns in time to see sparks crackle at the end of Regina’s fingers, but they fizzle out as Regina is lifted up and slammed against the wall behind them. The impact is loud, sickening, and Emma can feel the air rush from her own body as loudly as Regina’s.
Only when Regina is a crumpled heap on the floor does Gold--Rumplestiltskin--step into view. There’s a dark-haired woman at his side, and noise from the stacks of books suggest they’re not the only two in the room.
“I’ve come for Henry,” Emma says, sounding a hell of a lot braver than she feels.
“Of course you have,” he shouts across the room at her. “Looks like it’s time for us to make another deal.”
Part Six --->