The UnHearted Princess [Swan Queen, 2/??]
CHAPTER TWO - The Search
Word Count: 3346
A/N: Just to clarify: Emma is fourteen, August is twenty-one, Mary Margaret is thirty-four, and I envision Regina as being around the apparent age of thirty. Enjoy chapter two!
. . .
He’s lingering in his room again because he can’t stand the sight of her so distraught.
Over the years August developed both an unswerving loyalty and familial tenderness for the queen- he doesn’t pretend to believe that he’s really her son, but there are times when he feels it regardless. Times like these. And yet at his core, August realizes he is entirely useless to her. He isn’t a prince, he isn’t a nobleman; heck, he wasn’t even real at one point in his life. How is he supposed to do anything to cheer her? Especially when he feels much of the blame on his shoulders for Emma’s disappearance? If he hadn’t shouted at her she may have stayed. If he’d been more understanding, if he’d controlled himself… August sighs, molding his hands to his face.
He doesn’t know what to do.
And Mary Margaret doesn’t, either.
She unwittingly mirrors her pseudo-son, sitting at the kitchen table with her head in her hands and tears streaming down her cheeks. Emma is gone and she’d been out all night searching in vain, turning down endless roads while screaming her daughter’s name until her throat ran hot with blood.
She knows she’s supposed to be strong- she’s supposed to be right back out there scraping over every inch of town, not once stopping until she has her daughter clasped safely in her arms. But Mary Margaret is weary and worsted and she can’t seem to summon the strength to stand, let alone get back into her car and drive around for hours without aim. She’s taken the day off work in spite of the fact that she can’t afford to- and all she’s doing is wasting it here, sitting in her kitchen weeping like a fool.
Mary weaves her fingers around her silver band- the last existing relic of her former glory- and strokes it sullenly, staring at the glimmering green stone as if to inspire herself to action. Memories of James flicker behind her eyelids. This time, instead of running from them, she weakens, allowing them to roll over her, to drown her entire body in the warm ache of nostalgia. His courageous eyes burrow into the softest reaches of her heart and suddenly Mary Margaret rises from the table, wipes her face, and approaches August’s room.
“Let’s go, August. We must continue our search.” Her words fall faintly on his door but he hears them as if they were whispered in his ear.
He opens the door and meets her reddened eyes with swallowed sadness. “Let me drive, my queen,” August offers with a fleeting smile, which she is careful to return.
The walk to the car is one made in deafening silence. Neither August nor Mary Margaret has the ability to comfort the other, thus long ago they made a mutual agreement to avoid trying. When they reach the vehicle Mary pulls the keys from her purse and relinquishes them to August, and only then do they speak- when August asks if they are low on gasoline, and she confirms that they are.
The engine rumbles to a staggering start and the two zoom down the street, headed for the nearest gas station. Mary Margaret gazes dejectedly out her window, eyes too heavy to lift from the ground. She needs to reason in her mind, logically, where Emma could be- but everything is in a haze and she can’t dispel it no matter what she tries. Panic has wedged itself tightly in her heart and she can guise it but not eliminate it.
She’s on the verge of speaking, of summoning some pathetic attempt at conversation, when her phone rings- and her heart leaps into her throat. She flips it open and presses it breathlessly to her ear.
“Hello, Snow White. I believe I have something that belongs to you.”
. . .
Emma awakens to the sound of Regina’s voice down the hall, and it takes her a moment to groggily sort out exactly why she’s hearing it and remember where she is. When she does she rubs her eyes and sits up, shifting awkwardly in the cotton nightgown the benevolent woman loaned her for the night. She feels exceedingly well rested, despite the amount of stress she’d been through the day before, and blinks as her eyes adjust to the sunlight filtering in through the curtains over the window. She throws her hair up into a ponytail and slides out from under the covers, heading for the door.
“Why, good morning sleeping beauty,” Regina greets her with casual snarkiness. “I see you rested well.”
“Yeah,” Emma confirms with a yawn. “What time is it?”
“Two o’clock in the afternoon,” she says with a smirk. “You must have been very tired. Would you like a late breakfast?”
“That would be great if you don’t mind,” the girl answers earnestly, though not without feeling a bit guilty at taking up so much of this woman’s time. “But you probably have better things to do today than shuttle me around. Do you… have a job?” she asks unsurely- Regina could be an heiress or something.
She’s smug. “Yes,” the brunette answers. “I’m the mayor.”
Emma gapes at her, eyes wide and brows raised at this sudden revelation. “Why didn’t you tell me that before I made an ass of myself and stormed into your house?” Heat flares on her cheeks and she looks down, muttering self-deprecating curses under her breath.
Regina simply looks at her and remarks, “There’s a diner just down the street. I can try to talk them into serving you breakfast, if you wish.”
Emma’s stomach gurgles loudly and so she’s quick to say, “That sounds nice.”
“I’ve had your clothes washed and pressed. They should be folded on top of the dresser in your guest bedroom. I’ll meet you downstairs in ten minutes.”
The blond nods and watches as Regina glides away, amazed and perplexed at her generosity. All her life Emma’s never met a stranger as kind- albeit strange- as this Mayor Mills. Her heart warms a little and she turns about, sauntering back to her room. Sure enough, her clothes are on the dresser to the left of the bed, and she shimmies into them rapidly. Overalls, long-sleeved white t-shirt, socks and chucks.
Emma pauses when she’s finished, staring at her reflection in the mirror. After the shower she took last night, she was left feeling refreshed and renewed- the smeared mascara cleared from her face and the rainwater cleansed from her body. She’d slept heavily, after reading a little from her book of fairytales; it was the only thing she’d brought with her, aside from a few changes of clothes and a handful of dollar bills. The book is sentimental, she supposes, as she’s had it since she can remember. A gift from her mother. And, well, she couldn’t bear to leave it. Emma furrows her brows and shoves her hands in her pockets- a silent admonition of guilt. She wonders what her mother and brother are doing now, if they’re looking for her, if they’re scared. But it’s too much to think about so she shakes her head and hurries down the stairs.
“Ready?” Regina asks, purse over her shoulder.
“Yeah. I mean, yes, ma’am.”
Regina’s lips twitch uncomfortably at the honorific, but she doesn’t know what else the girl should call her so she leaves it alone.
The two walk wordlessly with Regina leading the way and Emma trailing just behind her, too uncomfortable to strike up conversation. She doesn’t know this woman at all, and to be honest she’s a little weirded out by her. She’s got this funny way of talking that sets Emma’s teeth on edge- this intonation and sultry richness that seems a little too forced to actually be real. Besides, Emma was thinking about this last night- who just lets some random rain-drenched teenager into her home, no questions asked? It’s strange. She’s strange. Emma knows she’s got to get out of this town sooner rather than later, lest this Regina Mills compel her to stay longer.
“Here we are,” Regina announces as they come upon a little place called Granny’s Diner.
Granny’s Diner.
“Seriously?” Emma mumbles under her breath, raising her brows.
Regina ignores it and steps inside, though she doesn’t hold the door open for Emma, letting it swing back into her face- and Emma swears she can see a grin turning up the edges of the mayor’s lips. Yeah, definitely something off about this lady. With a grunt Emma pushes the door aside and follows Regina in, mouth pressed firmly into a thin line as she observes her surroundings. God, but this place is vomit-worthy. It’s a damned relic of the fifties.
“Welcome, Mayor Mills,” a young woman with dark, vibrant eyes and a surprising lack of clothes says to Regina as she wheels up to the side of their selected table. “Who’s your guest?”
Emma assumes she’s a waitress and gives her a tight smile, glancing up and down her exposed figure- tight shorts, a tiny apron, and a midriff shirt. Well. The girl’s got confidence, Emma has to admit. She can’t fault her that.
Regina doesn’t seem to want to talk to this woman but she answers her anyway. “She showed up on my doorstep last night. Her name is Emma,” she says with an air of finality, closing the conversation. The waitress takes the hint and nods submissively, fear flickering over her face. Emma slides her eyes to Regina’s and wonders just what kind of woman she is.
“Do you know what you’d like to drink?” the girl asks, nervously looking back and forth between the two of them.
“Coffee; black,” Regina orders, without looking at the waitress. “Emma?”
“Um, orange juice?” she asks unsurely, hoping they’re still serving breakfast. The waitress looks as if she’s about to say something but a glare from the mayor silences her, and she hurries away to the kitchen.
For a moment the two sit in stagnant quietude, Emma fidgeting with the menu and Regina looking at her, transfixed. Every time Emma lifted her eyes to the mayor’s they were always glued to her- unabashedly staring. It unnerved her. Finally, she puts down the menu and takes a deep breath, leaning forward.
“Did you know you’re a little weird?” she ventures, worriedly. “Like, not in a bad way, I guess, but… well, that waitress, she seems almost scared of you. Did you notice that?”
Regina smiles. “I’m a powerful woman, Emma,” she starts, leaning forward as well, to meet her. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
O-kay. Ominous. And creepy. Very creepy.
“Do I frighten you?” she asks, folding her arms across the table, obviously quite engrossed in this conversation.
Truth be told, she’s dying to know what Snow White’s daughter thinks of her.
“Er- no? Not really.” Emma leans back and chuckles with a roll of her eyes. “I mean, it’s kinda weird that you were so apt to take me in, a complete stranger, but I appreciate it of course. You just don’t see many philanthropists these days.”
The darker haired woman’s lips twist into a subtle, sly smile. “Big words for a little girl.” It doesn’t surprise her that Snow White’s daughter is quite bright for her age. If she recalls correctly, Snow was a little genius herself- in another life.
“I’m not a little girl.” Emma sighs, relieved to see the waitress return with a tall glass of orange juice and a steaming coffee. Finally, something to do with her hands.
“Okay, did you ladies decide what you’d like to eat?”
“I’m not hungry,” Regina states simply, prompting Emma with a glance.
“Uh, could I get some pancakes? Please?”
The waitress nods hesitantly after another look from Regina and scuttles back into the kitchen with a proverbial tail between her legs.
Emma takes a long gulp from her orange juice and wipes her face with the back of her hand. Regina watches her, quietly put off by the girl’s seeming lack of manners. Now that did not smack of her precious perfect mother. Musing on this, Regina takes a sip of her coffee and relishes its heat, keeping the mug hovering beneath her lips as she launches into another topic of discourse.
“So, do you plan to continue running?” she asks, a scheme eager to push past her lips.
The blond lowers her eyes. “I… I’m not sure. To be honest, I didn’t really thought this through,” she confesses, heavily. “All I know is that I can’t go home.” She touches the band-aid on her face, steeped in shameful recollection. “I’m a burden to my mother and brother. They’re better off without me.”
Mother and brother? Inwardly, Regina is sniggering. Snow White must have gotten busy in this world. So much for true love.
“You can’t run forever,” she warns, softly. “You would be better off settling in one place, getting a job, forming a stable life. Establish yourself away from your family and they’ll see you’re capable of being on your own.”
Emma shakes her head. “You don’t know my mom. She’s… she hardly ever lets me out of her sight. It’s not that she doesn’t think I can live on my own, it’s that I don’t know if she’ll ever let me. Not even when I’m grown up. She’s kind of… intense.”
Regina has to bite her lip to stop herself from agreeing. Instead, she decides to offer a partial anecdote from her past. She’s got to convince Emma to stay- after that wonderful conversation she had with Snow White this morning, it’s definitely to her advantage to keep the girl here, under her wing. “I ran away once,” she says, running her fingers absently over the handle of her mug. “My mother was also… intense. I couldn’t shake her until I proved that I didn’t need her.”
Emma seems to consider this, but before she can say anything the waitress is back with a full plate of pancakes. She places it in front of Emma, who is disgruntled to see a whipped-cream smiley face staring up at her. But the waitress is giddy and pleased with herself as she drops off the bill and flounces away. Emma lifts her fork a pokes at the face, smearing it into an indistinct oval. Regina observes, concluding she much prefers this spawn of Snow White to the actual woman herself; Snow’s impenetrable joviality had always been a constant source of irritation. It seems Emma shares Regina’s abhorrence of smiley faces- how mocking they are, especially when pasted on high-calorie foods.
“If I stayed here, I’d probably go crazy from quaintess overload,” Emma jibes, stuffing a mouthful of pancake into her mouth. “No offense.”
“You’d have a job.”
“And how can you guarantee that?”
Regina ignores her lack of manners and replies, flippantly, “I can make it happen.”
Right. She should have known. Emma swallows her pancake and downs some more juice. She grows serious for a moment and sets her fork on her plate, meeting Regina’s eyes. “What’s in it for you?”
With feigned offense, Regina startles back, aghast. “My my my, you hardly know me and you’re so quick to assume I’ve got an ulterior motive!”
“You hardly know me but you’re so quick to keep me here! I don’t get why you’re doing this. There’s no way you’re just going to give me a new life for no apparent reason. All due respect, but everything has its price, ma’am, and so I’m asking you, what’s yours?”
Regina absorbs her words thoughtfully, taking a moment to conjure an appropriate deflection. She scoots forward in her chair and places her hand over Emma’s; suddenly, she appears delicate and fragile. When she speaks it’s with a different voice- much younger, much more vulnerable, and its eeriness captivates Emma to the point where she forgets how uncomfortable she is at the contact of their hands.
“Let’s just say, I know what it’s like to be where you are.”
And for what it’s worth, she isn’t entirely lying.
. . .
“Are you sure this is it?” August asks, pulling up to Storybrooke’s visiting center with a spell of uncertainty.
“There aren’t any other Storybrookes in Maine, August,” Mary Margaret assures him, hopping out of the car as soon as they’re parked. She glances around and stuffs her hands in her pockets- a nervous habit she taught to her daughter. “Regina says she lives near the edge of town. If we walk that direction we’re bound to run into it. That’s the way she told me to take.”
August nods and the two start off on the sidewalk, both entrenched in thought. Mary Margaret’s heart is beating so rapidly she feels she might be sick; she hasn’t seen Regina- or anyone from her life, besides August- in fourteen years. She wonders what her stepmother is doing here, how Emma just happened to wander into her clutches, if there’s anyone else here that she might know. Though she, August, and Emma moved around a lot, Mary Margaret was loath to go too far. She’s always been hesitant to explore this world, as desperate as she is to find her Charming. It’s almost too painful to think about seeing him again, since he won’t remember a single thing; he won’t know she’s his True Love, he won’t know Emma is his daughter. All that will be gone and… she’s not sure she’s strong enough to face it.
Her trepidation grows as they continue walking- Regina would want to settle somewhere that held many of her former subjects, wouldn’t she? The chances are high and Mary’s terrified she’ll see someone, she’ll feel those feelings that she’s repressed for so many years. Goosebumps prickle her flesh because there’s something about this place- something she can’t put her finger on- that makes her uneasy. So she keeps her eyes glued to her feet and tries to slow her heart, hands wound tightly around her purse as if to prevent her thoughts from racing.
August senses her discomfort and reaches over to rub her back, soothingly. “We’ll get her back, don’t worry, Highness,” he says with unshakable confidence. But he doesn’t know that Mary Margaret isn’t as worried about that as much as she is about what she’ll have to do to get her back. There are no favors in Regina’s world.
They’re almost upon what looks like Regina’s mansion (for that’s what she told Mary to look for over the phone) when a man in a truck drives up alongside them and rolls down his window, turning down the Eminem he’s blasting so he can presumably speak to them.
“Hey, I haven’t seen you two around here before. Are you lost?”
August steps in front of Mary protectively and blinks, speechless, when he sees the man inside. That voice. The brunette peers out from behind his shoulder and immediately regrets doing so- for when she sees the man’s face, Mary Margaret falters. Her muscles freeze and she stands solid and stony as a statue, not even blinking, or breathing, or swallowing, as her world descends into a blurry haze. All she can see are his eyes- his eyes- and she’s powerless against them. She’s powerless against him.
She knew it, she felt it, she did, she knew he was here-
Her Charming.