New 'Once Upon a Time' Fic: "Monsters and Mist"
ABSURDLY LONG AUTHOR'S NOTES: Originally, I wrote this story with no intention of it ever being read by another soul. This glimpse of moments was meant only for me, an exercise in dreaming in ink and freeing the creative spirit, if you will. Eventually, various events convinced me, that once this story had been completed in this state of pure honesty, that to pluck up my nerve and post it would be a good thing to do as an artist. So, I was about to do just that, when "Going Home" aired and pretty much destroyed this beautiful fandom for me (and if anyone is wondering, I had no problem with the actual events taking place in the episode, only with the characters' reactions to those events as they took place). This fic, which was written between the airing of "The New Neverland" and "Going Home", suddenly read like Fix-It Fic (hey, remember when our characters believed the answer to darkness was true love and family and never giving up on anyone, and they hadn't betrayed the whole premise of the series for the last three years?) And this story means too much to me, personally, to ever be labeled simply Fix-It Fic. I wrote this story based upon the canon version of the characters as I knew them, exploring perhaps more personal moments than we see on screen, but in a way I believed canon had established their characters to be. But "Going Home" broke all of those assumptions. So, I stuck this fic in a metaphorical box and left it there. Over the past few weeks, reading various posts and blogs, I have been seeing one fan after another who still believes in the show (and gods how I wish I could, since I will still be watching anything Lana does, she's too brilliant to miss), and these fans have been wishing for fics to tide them over through the hiatus. And it occurred to me, that maybe this fic might yet bring one person out there a bit of joy. And if our writing cannot bring joy to ourselves or others, however few, then why on earth do we write it? So, what the hell. Here is my story. May it bring someone a bit of joy.
DISCLAIMER: "Once Upon a Time" and all its wonderful characters belong to ABC and Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, etc.. I borrow them only with love.
TITLE: MONSTERS AND MIST
CHARACTERS: Regina/The Evil Queen, Emma Swan, Henry Mills,
SPOILERS: Through "The New Neverland"
RATING: Teen
SUMMARY: "She draws a deep breath of the warm fragrant air, not really wanting to follow Regina Mills into the bathroom, but knowing she probably should."
WORD COUNT: 3,867wds
Contrary to my usual methods, this story has NOT been beta-ed, so all mistakes herein are entirely my own.:)
TIMELINE: This story takes place immediately after "The New Neverland", but assumes a few hours additional time before the events of "Going Home" actually begin (as the fic was written before "Going Home" aired :)).
MONSTERS AND MIST
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2014
By the time the raggedy group emerges from the depths of Regina’s vault, the winter sun is falling fast and the barren trees' shadows stretch like boney fingers along the ground. They all know the next step is to find Pan, to try to wrestle the curse from his childlike grasp. But they also know they will not be able to simply walk up to an enemy the likes of Pan and take whatever they desire. They need a plan, a joining of forces, a coordinated defense. They duped him once, he will not fall for the same trick twice.
So, as urgent as the task at hand is...the need to rescue both Henry’s rightful body and, while they are at it, the whole of Storybrooke...the erstwhile royals stumbling across the cold cemetery grounds are tired, chilled, and hungry. And they have been fighting the good fight long enough to know there is no victory found when running on empty. Only a few words are needed to reach a mutual agreement of retreat to Granny’s, to eat, rest, warm themselves, plan, and regroup.
Regina rides back with them. She lets David drive her Mercedes, and that’s Emma’s first clue that the mayor is a little off her game. Regina never lets anyone drive her Mercedes. So, Emma watches a little more closely, notices the darker woman’s perfect skin is paler than normal, catches the moments she closes her eyes for a beat too long. And Emma is the only one to see when they walk into Granny’s and everyone is caught up in greetings and explanations, that Regina walks straight through the crowd and down the back hall toward the ladies room.
Emma pulls off her gloves, stuffs them into her pockets, and stands by the counter staring down the vacant back hall. She draws a deep breath of the warm fragrant air, not really wanting to follow Regina Mills into the bathroom, but knowing she probably should. Her life is full of shoulds, these days.
With a glance over her shoulder to confirm Henry is firmly in the care of his grandmother, Emma makes her way to the ladies room. She opens the door to the small, familiar hideaway. Only two stalls, and the first is empty. On the second, the door is swinging lightly, as though its occupant had shoved it shut in a hurry and failed to get the clasp to catch. That clasp has been iffy since Emma came to town.
On her knees in front of the toilet is Regina Mills. Emma gives a quick glance to be sure no one is following them into the room, then lets the main door close firmly behind her.
Walking forward before she can think too much about it, Emma clears her throat to flag her presence and her identity, because sneaking up on Regina is unwise at the best of times. Sneaking up on her now might prove deadly. Unzipping her own jacket, Emma crouches beside Regina's kneeling figure and lays a comforting hand on the older woman's back. "Hey," she says softly. "What's goin' on?"
Regina's stomach seems to have stopped, or at least paused, in its quest to rid her of all sustenance, but she is still sitting on her heels, and still bracing herself with a hand on the tissue holder. She at least retains the presence of mind not to touch the toilet. "None of you Charmings have any sense of privacy, do you?" she manages, her voice hoarser than usual.
"Not really, no," Emma says simply. The truth is, she took long enough herself to adjust to this life. "But you're family, Regina, like it or not, so you're stuck with us." Then she softens, because this is really a lot for Regina. Really a lot. "Hey..." She circles her hand on Regina's back, feels a ripple of tension in the muscles. "Are you okay?"
Regina nods. But she is, in fact, still on the floor, and it's clear she is struggling to convince her stomach to hold still. "I'll be fine. It's just...a reaction to the potion...the magic that..."
"Yeah." Emma's hand moves to brush a bit of the tail of Regina's hair, and on instinct she reaches up and smoothes the loose strands safely behind Regina's shoulder, catching the waves in the folds of her scarf. "Or maybe a reaction to having Pan in your arms for two days," she finishes.
Regina closes her eyes and turns farther away, hair slipping free again. She looks markedly sicker at the thought, and Emma feels a rush of guilt. Tact and timing have never been her strong suits.
She lets go a sigh and resumes small circles on Regina's back. "Easy," she says. There is a surprising intimacy, a fluttering tenderness to the moment, in this unlikely setting on a bathroom stall floor. "We're doing all we can, and in the meantime, Henry is safely with us, with or without his proper body."
"Yeah," Regina whispers. She breathes for a moment longer, then she tries to get up. Emma tucks her free hand under Regina's elbow. The queen's steadiness does not quite equal her determination.
Regina makes her way to the sink and begins to rinse her mouth and splash a little water on her face. Emma stands with her, sitting back on the counter. This feels so foreign, this visible evidence of such deep feeling in Regina. Guilt in this woman of so few regrets, even cursed bonds could not hold her. Her pain here is hidden and deep, not thrown like flames to feed angry fires. Once again Emma realizes how little she knows of the inner Regina or what she may have been through. How little any of them knows. Regina appears to wear her heart on her sleeve, but in some ways she just does not.
Regina straightens, still holding onto the side of the sink, one hand on her stomach. Her jacket falls open, and her blouse is slightly askew but she still looks ridiculously polished and regal. "You don't have to stay," she says, "I'll be fine."
"Not everything I do is because I have to."
A beat passes, then Regina, gaze no higher than the counter, says, "No, it...I'm sorry. You didn't have to come check on me, and...no one else would have, so...thank you."
Emma nods. "It's okay."
Regina closes her eyes and draws a slow breath through her nose. She turns to meet her own gaze in the mirror, brushes her fingers lightly over her pale cheek.
"Regina, no one blames you, you didn't--"
"Please don't." Regina clamps her eyes closed and grips the edge of the counter.
"Look, none of us would--"
"Please. Just don't talk about it, please." The urgency is visceral.
"You know Henry doesn't blame you, you couldn't--"
"Emma, please, please stop." The tears and cutting pain in the quiet words bleed onto Emma, and at last she tunes in. She has never heard Regina beg , only command.
"Hey..." She stretches out the word like a touch.
"Don't talk," Regina whispers.
Emma, still half-sitting, half-leaning on the counter, stands with the fallen queen for a long moment. Regina is giving her all to staying composed, and she's doing an admirable job, but her hands are shaking and she still appears pale and ill.
Emma acts purely on instinct, maybe because she can still see her son clinging to his mother in the chill of the vault. And with a few halting and hesitant movements, she pushes forward and wraps Regina in a hug.
Regina goes stiff in her arms. She seems unwilling to accept what is happening, and Emma wonders when was the last time another adult hugged her.
"What are you--"
"Just shut-up, Regina." Emma holds on.
Several beats pass, but Regina ultimately settles her hands lightly on Emma's back. Then she's holding on, and Emma feels her crying.
Regina withdraws first. "Thank you." She is looking down, avoiding connection.
Emma shrugs. "My kid loves you, I can't just leave you on a bathroom floor."
Regina freezes. Her jaw muscles stiffen; ripple and shift beneath her skin.
Emma frowns, hairs on the backs of her arms rising. She has trained herself to observe, and she is absorbing all the subtleties of Regina's body language and starting to wish she had kept her big mouth shut.
"Henry," Regina echoes in a whisper, the word barely a breath.
"Yeah, I..."
"Right." Regina straightens her posture, armor sliding into place like one of her expensive suit jackets. "I'll be out in a few minutes," she says. The statement is a clear dismissal. From a public restroom.
Emma scrambles to find where this went wrong. "Regina, what..."
Regina snatches several tissues from the box on the counter, dampens one corner and starts lightly dabbing at the smears of make-up at the corners of her eyes. There is nothing precious or tender in her movements, she is all business, the mayor at work.
And then Emma gets it. "Wait, you think...this was only because of Henry? That we don't care about you?"
Regina flips back her coat and props a hand on her hip as she turns to face Emma, gaze steady and cold. "Are you not leaving?" she asks bluntly.
"Regina, I just want to make sure you--"
"Fine, then I'll leave."
Regina snags another tissue and pushes roughly past her sheriff on her path to the door.
Emma shoves up from the counter. "Regina, come on, I didn't mean --Regina, can you just--"
But Regina is out the door and Emma is left standing alone in Granny's ladies room. She drops back against the counter, deflated and fatigued. "Dammit."
When Emma emerges from the bathroom, her gaze quickly zeroes in on Regina at the far side of the restaurant. She is standing close in front of Henry, speaking to him, hugging him, cradling his face. She's explaining something with reassuring touches and placating smiles that fail to touch her eyes. Then she steps back, her fingers lingering in a tangle with Henry's as she moves.
Emma can see the frown on Pan's...Henry's...brow. She struggles to translate the gestures on this unfamiliar canvas to match the soul she knows lies within. Regina has at last broken contact with Henry, and she pulls her coat closed and pushes out into the night. Henry watches after her with a worried frown.
When Regina has vanished into the early darkness, Henry turns and his gaze seems to seek out her own. Emma makes her way past her parents, who are chatting animatedly with Granny and Ruby, and steps up to her son. She rubs his upper arm in greeting. "Hey, Kid. How you doing?"
He nods. "I'm fine, just a little tired."
She offers a comforting smile. If she is entirely honest with herself, she cannot say it does not still turn her own stomach to hear her son's words coming out of Pan's body. The accent irks her.
Henry is glancing from Emma to the door and back again. He shifts his weight in a gesture she easily recognizes as her Henry. "My mom said...she said she just had to run out for something and she'd be back in a little while. But, I feel like...like I should check on her. She seems..."
Emma offers Henry a sympathetic smile. "She's all right, Kid. We've just...all had a tough week."
He doesn't reply, but the frown lines remain.
Crap. "I'm uh...I was just going to check on her, anyway."
Henry looks deeply relieved, even his posture softens, and Emma is torn between a smile and a groan. She entertains the fantasy of stamping her foot and whining "why me??" Because, really, she has been wondering a lot lately just how she went from selfish loaner to responsible party for half a town in such a short time. But maturity wins, and she squeezes Henry's arm once more, unnerved by the leaner and more muscular physique beneath her fingers, "Don't worry," she says. "Just get yourself something to eat, you must be starved."
Henry nods with a genuine, if fleeting, smile.
Emma stops at the counter and asks Ruby for a coffee and a tea to go. Ruby gathers the order, eyeing Emma with a curious wariness.
"What?" Emma asks.
"Oh, you...no, I'm sorry, it's just...you smell like Regina."
"Oh, I just hugged her a minute ago." The words seemed normal until they fell out of her mouth.
Ruby's red lips actually hang open and Mary Margaret is momentarily distracted from her conversation and turns to not-so-subtlely eavesdrop.
Emma shakes her head, glancing toward her mother as well. "Long story. Thanks." She pulls on her gloves and picks up the drinks. She pushes her way into the night before the conversation can get any weirder.
Emma finds Regina a mere half block away, seated on a wooden bench vaguely lit in the penumbral glow of the street lamp.
"Hey," she says, suddenly aware of her own limited vocabulary.
Regina looks up with what Emma can only describe as incredulous distaste. "Wow," she says, letting Henry-speak bleed into her regal grammar. "You really weren't kidding about the lack of privacy."
"Nope."
There is a thickness to Regina's voice, but she appears dry-eyed and composed. The damp sniff could be a reaction to the cold. Emma boldly takes a seat on Regina's bench, leaving a respectable space between them.
"You know," Regina begins, "contrary to what you seem to believe, there are after effects of being knocked out by that kind of magic, including a hell of a headache, and more than a few bruises. The vault floor is not exactly padded. Or warm. So, is it really too much to ask for a few moments to myself to recover before I need to be there for my son?"
"Of course, not. Nobody's saying that."
Neither speaks for a moment. Then Emma remembers the offering in her hands. "Oh, here." She holds out the mug in her left hand. "Hot tea. It's peppermint. It should help your stomach."
Regina stares at the gift, brow creased. Then she reaches out and takes the mug. "Thank you," she says, and Emma watches her cradle the warm prize in her fingers. She knows Regina is cold, her fingers were icy to touch when they were in the much warmer restroom.
The two women sip their drinks in the peace of late night Main Street. The hum of voices from Granny's is only a subterranean buzz, like a far off highway.
"I'm his mother," Regina says at last, addressing her tea more than Emma. "Of all people to miss it..."
Emma tucks one foot beneath her opposite knee, awkward in the posture in heavy boots. "He fooled us all, Regina."
"Not you."
"I knew something was off, yeah, but I didn't know he wasn't Henry. I thought maybe he was being influenced or...magicked, or...I don't know." She is still the outsider to the rules of her own native land. "You saw it, too, you just..."
"I thought it was aftershocks...," Regina pushes back her hair and straightens her scarf and her spine, "...from what they'd done to him."
"Exactly. And I bet there will be some. And the real Henry will need both of us to help him through that."
Silence again.
"As much as it pains me to say it...you're a good mother, Regina."
Regina gives a scoffing exhale. She lifts a challenging eyebrow. "But I'm a monster," she parrots, careful to enunciate each word.
Emma drops the weight of her mug clumsily to her thigh. "Oh, come on, Regina. You were deliberately trying to piss me off, and you know it, and it worked. You can't hold me to that."
"I can't? I find there's a great deal of truth in anger. There certainly is power."
"That's just it, Regina...how many innocent people have you killed? How do you expect people to just look past that? And you were essentially teaching me exactly how you did it. How to direct all the pain and anger in my life into cruelty and hatred. Can you blame me for rejecting that plan? Did it really work out for you?"
Regina does not speak. She stares at the tea mug in her hands. Then finally, "It was all I had," she says, and sometimes Emma can hear the Queen from that world so far beyond her own.
Emma frees a long exhale. "Maybe," she concedes. "Then. But it's not, anymore. And as long as you keep insisting it is, you'll keep pushing away everyone who could be here for you now."
"Henry is all I have."
"Henry is the only one you've given yourself to."
Regina glances pointedly toward Granny's. "They will never forgive me. Even you have admitted what I've done is considered unforgivable."
"They won't all, that's true. But you might be surprised how many could. Mary Margaret, for instance."
Regina blinks. "What?"
Emma keeps talking while inertia is carrying her. That's how it always is with Regina, a wild barrel downhill without a seatbelt. "She keeps forgiving you," she says. "Over and over and over to the point I've started to think she might be as crazy as you are. But when we came in and saw you lying there on the vault floor...you should have heard Mary Margaret's voice when she called out to you. She was really scared you were dead."
"I doubt that," Regina's expression is placid and unreadable.
"I know you do." The sadness in Emma's voice surprises even her.
Regina lifts her gaze and stares at Emma as though this information makes no sense, then she looks away again.
A long minute passes in silence and the hum of the street lamp. A car rushes by on a road two blocks east.
Then Regina surprises the hell out of Emma. "I never wanted to hurt anyone. My life was never supposed to go like this. I tried to stop it. It...Snow was supposed to be..." The other worldly moniker rolls from Regina's tongue, a testament to how far she has travelled in the moments of silence. But her last thought remains unspoken.
Emma decides to go for broke. "Henry said something to us, once. One night...when Grumpy was...voicing his frustrations, his..."
"...hatred...," Regina supplies, gaze on the jade stone on her ring finger.
Emma tilts her head in surrender. "His hatred of you. And Henry...he'd finally just had it, and he started yelling at everyone. And...you didn't hear this from me, he'd kill me if he knew I told you, but...what he said was, 'She's not evil...she's just...damaged.'"
For an instant Emma swears she can see a Regina without armor, the Regina who opened her arms to Henry at 2am after every nightmare, letting him crawl in beside her and sleep in her sheltering embrace. The Regina who begged David for one more moment with the man she loved, when she could have thrown him across the room. But then she is Mayor Mills again. "Ah," she says, "so you've all decided I'm defective, and that's been the problem all along."
Emma shakes her head. "No, that's not it. Defective would be the way you were born. Damage is...something that's done to you later."
Regina does not speak, but Emma can see her throat muscles working in the darkness. She watches her swallow, hears her clear her throat. She sees the increase in Regina's breath rate, and she swears she can hear a trace of tears.
Emma speaks into the silence. "...and maybe...maybe that's why you missed what was going on with Henry. Because...because you know better than I do, how going through something that bad can change you, make you do things that you never would have done before."
A soft, pained breath escapes Regina's lips and pulls at Emma's chest. Regina turns away, recrosses her legs, trades her tea from one hand to the other. She looks for a moment like she has something to say in reply, but then seems to decide she's not safe to speak.
The words hover in the mist of their visible breath.
A full minute passes and Emma has drunk more than half of her coffee, when Regina says, "I suppose..." She is trying hard at something, and the words appear foreign and awkward in her mouth. "I suppose...you haven't exactly had the best few days, either. Are you...are you all right?"
Emma blinks. This is the first time since her arrival in Storybrooke that Regina Mills has shown actual concern for her or offered a kind gesture that was not directly tied to the care of Henry. Yet Emma has heard this tone before, in half-shared moments of tenderness between Regina and her son. The warmth feels genuine, and she finds it is both unnerving and comforting to feel Regina's mothering concern directed her way.
Emma tries her voice. "I, uh...yeah, I'm...it's been a bit of a wild ride. I'm not really sure what normal is, anymore, I think. I'm starting to think crisis mode is a way of life."
Regina gives a soft, vaguely bitter laugh. "That I understand, dear. Just don't...," and then she is frowning at the space of bench between them, giving real effort to finding her words, "...Try not to spend so much energy fearing a potential future, that you miss what you do have right now."
It's Emma's turn to stare. Because, bloody hell, there is this real and loving woman in there somewhere behind the Queen. And maybe Henry is right, maybe she is a good woman, just horribly, horribly damaged. She has committed undeniable atrocities, yet she is still here, in this small cozy town, drinking peppermint tea, because the mere thought she had failed as a parent has made her physically ill, and she is trying to offer comfort to the woman she fears will steal her child.
"Yeah," Emma says softly. "That's pretty much what David said to me. It's easier said than done, though, right?"
"It's easier when you're looking at Henry."
Emma falls into a genuine smile. "That it is." She takes another sip of her hazelnut coffee.
For a long time, the two women are quiet, strangely comfortable in this simple companionship. Emma worries, sometimes, when she forgets Regina could kill her with a twist of her wrist.
When Regina speaks, her voice is unguarded as she says, "I'm sorry, I'm just...I'm really tired."
Emma nods. "Okay." After another moment, Emma uncrosses her legs and pushes to her feet. She takes a step around the bench, then turns back to say without pretense, "Come back in and join us when you're ready."
Regina gives a single acknowledging nod. She does look tired, deeply tired, in a way Emma is not certain Regina has ever before let her see. Emma finds herself almost wanting to stay, feeling unexpectedly protective. But she walks away, leaving Regina in the wintry chill, alone on a bench at the edges of the street lamp's light. Inside, Granny's is warm and bright and filled with people she loves.
*****
#
DISCLAIMER: "Once Upon a Time" and all its wonderful characters belong to ABC and Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, etc.. I borrow them only with love.
TITLE: MONSTERS AND MIST
CHARACTERS: Regina/The Evil Queen, Emma Swan, Henry Mills,
SPOILERS: Through "The New Neverland"
RATING: Teen
SUMMARY: "She draws a deep breath of the warm fragrant air, not really wanting to follow Regina Mills into the bathroom, but knowing she probably should."
WORD COUNT: 3,867wds
Contrary to my usual methods, this story has NOT been beta-ed, so all mistakes herein are entirely my own.:)
TIMELINE: This story takes place immediately after "The New Neverland", but assumes a few hours additional time before the events of "Going Home" actually begin (as the fic was written before "Going Home" aired :)).
MONSTERS AND MIST
by
Rowan Darkstar
Copyright (c) 2014
By the time the raggedy group emerges from the depths of Regina’s vault, the winter sun is falling fast and the barren trees' shadows stretch like boney fingers along the ground. They all know the next step is to find Pan, to try to wrestle the curse from his childlike grasp. But they also know they will not be able to simply walk up to an enemy the likes of Pan and take whatever they desire. They need a plan, a joining of forces, a coordinated defense. They duped him once, he will not fall for the same trick twice.
So, as urgent as the task at hand is...the need to rescue both Henry’s rightful body and, while they are at it, the whole of Storybrooke...the erstwhile royals stumbling across the cold cemetery grounds are tired, chilled, and hungry. And they have been fighting the good fight long enough to know there is no victory found when running on empty. Only a few words are needed to reach a mutual agreement of retreat to Granny’s, to eat, rest, warm themselves, plan, and regroup.
Regina rides back with them. She lets David drive her Mercedes, and that’s Emma’s first clue that the mayor is a little off her game. Regina never lets anyone drive her Mercedes. So, Emma watches a little more closely, notices the darker woman’s perfect skin is paler than normal, catches the moments she closes her eyes for a beat too long. And Emma is the only one to see when they walk into Granny’s and everyone is caught up in greetings and explanations, that Regina walks straight through the crowd and down the back hall toward the ladies room.
Emma pulls off her gloves, stuffs them into her pockets, and stands by the counter staring down the vacant back hall. She draws a deep breath of the warm fragrant air, not really wanting to follow Regina Mills into the bathroom, but knowing she probably should. Her life is full of shoulds, these days.
With a glance over her shoulder to confirm Henry is firmly in the care of his grandmother, Emma makes her way to the ladies room. She opens the door to the small, familiar hideaway. Only two stalls, and the first is empty. On the second, the door is swinging lightly, as though its occupant had shoved it shut in a hurry and failed to get the clasp to catch. That clasp has been iffy since Emma came to town.
On her knees in front of the toilet is Regina Mills. Emma gives a quick glance to be sure no one is following them into the room, then lets the main door close firmly behind her.
Walking forward before she can think too much about it, Emma clears her throat to flag her presence and her identity, because sneaking up on Regina is unwise at the best of times. Sneaking up on her now might prove deadly. Unzipping her own jacket, Emma crouches beside Regina's kneeling figure and lays a comforting hand on the older woman's back. "Hey," she says softly. "What's goin' on?"
Regina's stomach seems to have stopped, or at least paused, in its quest to rid her of all sustenance, but she is still sitting on her heels, and still bracing herself with a hand on the tissue holder. She at least retains the presence of mind not to touch the toilet. "None of you Charmings have any sense of privacy, do you?" she manages, her voice hoarser than usual.
"Not really, no," Emma says simply. The truth is, she took long enough herself to adjust to this life. "But you're family, Regina, like it or not, so you're stuck with us." Then she softens, because this is really a lot for Regina. Really a lot. "Hey..." She circles her hand on Regina's back, feels a ripple of tension in the muscles. "Are you okay?"
Regina nods. But she is, in fact, still on the floor, and it's clear she is struggling to convince her stomach to hold still. "I'll be fine. It's just...a reaction to the potion...the magic that..."
"Yeah." Emma's hand moves to brush a bit of the tail of Regina's hair, and on instinct she reaches up and smoothes the loose strands safely behind Regina's shoulder, catching the waves in the folds of her scarf. "Or maybe a reaction to having Pan in your arms for two days," she finishes.
Regina closes her eyes and turns farther away, hair slipping free again. She looks markedly sicker at the thought, and Emma feels a rush of guilt. Tact and timing have never been her strong suits.
She lets go a sigh and resumes small circles on Regina's back. "Easy," she says. There is a surprising intimacy, a fluttering tenderness to the moment, in this unlikely setting on a bathroom stall floor. "We're doing all we can, and in the meantime, Henry is safely with us, with or without his proper body."
"Yeah," Regina whispers. She breathes for a moment longer, then she tries to get up. Emma tucks her free hand under Regina's elbow. The queen's steadiness does not quite equal her determination.
Regina makes her way to the sink and begins to rinse her mouth and splash a little water on her face. Emma stands with her, sitting back on the counter. This feels so foreign, this visible evidence of such deep feeling in Regina. Guilt in this woman of so few regrets, even cursed bonds could not hold her. Her pain here is hidden and deep, not thrown like flames to feed angry fires. Once again Emma realizes how little she knows of the inner Regina or what she may have been through. How little any of them knows. Regina appears to wear her heart on her sleeve, but in some ways she just does not.
Regina straightens, still holding onto the side of the sink, one hand on her stomach. Her jacket falls open, and her blouse is slightly askew but she still looks ridiculously polished and regal. "You don't have to stay," she says, "I'll be fine."
"Not everything I do is because I have to."
A beat passes, then Regina, gaze no higher than the counter, says, "No, it...I'm sorry. You didn't have to come check on me, and...no one else would have, so...thank you."
Emma nods. "It's okay."
Regina closes her eyes and draws a slow breath through her nose. She turns to meet her own gaze in the mirror, brushes her fingers lightly over her pale cheek.
"Regina, no one blames you, you didn't--"
"Please don't." Regina clamps her eyes closed and grips the edge of the counter.
"Look, none of us would--"
"Please. Just don't talk about it, please." The urgency is visceral.
"You know Henry doesn't blame you, you couldn't--"
"Emma, please, please stop." The tears and cutting pain in the quiet words bleed onto Emma, and at last she tunes in. She has never heard Regina beg , only command.
"Hey..." She stretches out the word like a touch.
"Don't talk," Regina whispers.
Emma, still half-sitting, half-leaning on the counter, stands with the fallen queen for a long moment. Regina is giving her all to staying composed, and she's doing an admirable job, but her hands are shaking and she still appears pale and ill.
Emma acts purely on instinct, maybe because she can still see her son clinging to his mother in the chill of the vault. And with a few halting and hesitant movements, she pushes forward and wraps Regina in a hug.
Regina goes stiff in her arms. She seems unwilling to accept what is happening, and Emma wonders when was the last time another adult hugged her.
"What are you--"
"Just shut-up, Regina." Emma holds on.
Several beats pass, but Regina ultimately settles her hands lightly on Emma's back. Then she's holding on, and Emma feels her crying.
Regina withdraws first. "Thank you." She is looking down, avoiding connection.
Emma shrugs. "My kid loves you, I can't just leave you on a bathroom floor."
Regina freezes. Her jaw muscles stiffen; ripple and shift beneath her skin.
Emma frowns, hairs on the backs of her arms rising. She has trained herself to observe, and she is absorbing all the subtleties of Regina's body language and starting to wish she had kept her big mouth shut.
"Henry," Regina echoes in a whisper, the word barely a breath.
"Yeah, I..."
"Right." Regina straightens her posture, armor sliding into place like one of her expensive suit jackets. "I'll be out in a few minutes," she says. The statement is a clear dismissal. From a public restroom.
Emma scrambles to find where this went wrong. "Regina, what..."
Regina snatches several tissues from the box on the counter, dampens one corner and starts lightly dabbing at the smears of make-up at the corners of her eyes. There is nothing precious or tender in her movements, she is all business, the mayor at work.
And then Emma gets it. "Wait, you think...this was only because of Henry? That we don't care about you?"
Regina flips back her coat and props a hand on her hip as she turns to face Emma, gaze steady and cold. "Are you not leaving?" she asks bluntly.
"Regina, I just want to make sure you--"
"Fine, then I'll leave."
Regina snags another tissue and pushes roughly past her sheriff on her path to the door.
Emma shoves up from the counter. "Regina, come on, I didn't mean --Regina, can you just--"
But Regina is out the door and Emma is left standing alone in Granny's ladies room. She drops back against the counter, deflated and fatigued. "Dammit."
When Emma emerges from the bathroom, her gaze quickly zeroes in on Regina at the far side of the restaurant. She is standing close in front of Henry, speaking to him, hugging him, cradling his face. She's explaining something with reassuring touches and placating smiles that fail to touch her eyes. Then she steps back, her fingers lingering in a tangle with Henry's as she moves.
Emma can see the frown on Pan's...Henry's...brow. She struggles to translate the gestures on this unfamiliar canvas to match the soul she knows lies within. Regina has at last broken contact with Henry, and she pulls her coat closed and pushes out into the night. Henry watches after her with a worried frown.
When Regina has vanished into the early darkness, Henry turns and his gaze seems to seek out her own. Emma makes her way past her parents, who are chatting animatedly with Granny and Ruby, and steps up to her son. She rubs his upper arm in greeting. "Hey, Kid. How you doing?"
He nods. "I'm fine, just a little tired."
She offers a comforting smile. If she is entirely honest with herself, she cannot say it does not still turn her own stomach to hear her son's words coming out of Pan's body. The accent irks her.
Henry is glancing from Emma to the door and back again. He shifts his weight in a gesture she easily recognizes as her Henry. "My mom said...she said she just had to run out for something and she'd be back in a little while. But, I feel like...like I should check on her. She seems..."
Emma offers Henry a sympathetic smile. "She's all right, Kid. We've just...all had a tough week."
He doesn't reply, but the frown lines remain.
Crap. "I'm uh...I was just going to check on her, anyway."
Henry looks deeply relieved, even his posture softens, and Emma is torn between a smile and a groan. She entertains the fantasy of stamping her foot and whining "why me??" Because, really, she has been wondering a lot lately just how she went from selfish loaner to responsible party for half a town in such a short time. But maturity wins, and she squeezes Henry's arm once more, unnerved by the leaner and more muscular physique beneath her fingers, "Don't worry," she says. "Just get yourself something to eat, you must be starved."
Henry nods with a genuine, if fleeting, smile.
Emma stops at the counter and asks Ruby for a coffee and a tea to go. Ruby gathers the order, eyeing Emma with a curious wariness.
"What?" Emma asks.
"Oh, you...no, I'm sorry, it's just...you smell like Regina."
"Oh, I just hugged her a minute ago." The words seemed normal until they fell out of her mouth.
Ruby's red lips actually hang open and Mary Margaret is momentarily distracted from her conversation and turns to not-so-subtlely eavesdrop.
Emma shakes her head, glancing toward her mother as well. "Long story. Thanks." She pulls on her gloves and picks up the drinks. She pushes her way into the night before the conversation can get any weirder.
Emma finds Regina a mere half block away, seated on a wooden bench vaguely lit in the penumbral glow of the street lamp.
"Hey," she says, suddenly aware of her own limited vocabulary.
Regina looks up with what Emma can only describe as incredulous distaste. "Wow," she says, letting Henry-speak bleed into her regal grammar. "You really weren't kidding about the lack of privacy."
"Nope."
There is a thickness to Regina's voice, but she appears dry-eyed and composed. The damp sniff could be a reaction to the cold. Emma boldly takes a seat on Regina's bench, leaving a respectable space between them.
"You know," Regina begins, "contrary to what you seem to believe, there are after effects of being knocked out by that kind of magic, including a hell of a headache, and more than a few bruises. The vault floor is not exactly padded. Or warm. So, is it really too much to ask for a few moments to myself to recover before I need to be there for my son?"
"Of course, not. Nobody's saying that."
Neither speaks for a moment. Then Emma remembers the offering in her hands. "Oh, here." She holds out the mug in her left hand. "Hot tea. It's peppermint. It should help your stomach."
Regina stares at the gift, brow creased. Then she reaches out and takes the mug. "Thank you," she says, and Emma watches her cradle the warm prize in her fingers. She knows Regina is cold, her fingers were icy to touch when they were in the much warmer restroom.
The two women sip their drinks in the peace of late night Main Street. The hum of voices from Granny's is only a subterranean buzz, like a far off highway.
"I'm his mother," Regina says at last, addressing her tea more than Emma. "Of all people to miss it..."
Emma tucks one foot beneath her opposite knee, awkward in the posture in heavy boots. "He fooled us all, Regina."
"Not you."
"I knew something was off, yeah, but I didn't know he wasn't Henry. I thought maybe he was being influenced or...magicked, or...I don't know." She is still the outsider to the rules of her own native land. "You saw it, too, you just..."
"I thought it was aftershocks...," Regina pushes back her hair and straightens her scarf and her spine, "...from what they'd done to him."
"Exactly. And I bet there will be some. And the real Henry will need both of us to help him through that."
Silence again.
"As much as it pains me to say it...you're a good mother, Regina."
Regina gives a scoffing exhale. She lifts a challenging eyebrow. "But I'm a monster," she parrots, careful to enunciate each word.
Emma drops the weight of her mug clumsily to her thigh. "Oh, come on, Regina. You were deliberately trying to piss me off, and you know it, and it worked. You can't hold me to that."
"I can't? I find there's a great deal of truth in anger. There certainly is power."
"That's just it, Regina...how many innocent people have you killed? How do you expect people to just look past that? And you were essentially teaching me exactly how you did it. How to direct all the pain and anger in my life into cruelty and hatred. Can you blame me for rejecting that plan? Did it really work out for you?"
Regina does not speak. She stares at the tea mug in her hands. Then finally, "It was all I had," she says, and sometimes Emma can hear the Queen from that world so far beyond her own.
Emma frees a long exhale. "Maybe," she concedes. "Then. But it's not, anymore. And as long as you keep insisting it is, you'll keep pushing away everyone who could be here for you now."
"Henry is all I have."
"Henry is the only one you've given yourself to."
Regina glances pointedly toward Granny's. "They will never forgive me. Even you have admitted what I've done is considered unforgivable."
"They won't all, that's true. But you might be surprised how many could. Mary Margaret, for instance."
Regina blinks. "What?"
Emma keeps talking while inertia is carrying her. That's how it always is with Regina, a wild barrel downhill without a seatbelt. "She keeps forgiving you," she says. "Over and over and over to the point I've started to think she might be as crazy as you are. But when we came in and saw you lying there on the vault floor...you should have heard Mary Margaret's voice when she called out to you. She was really scared you were dead."
"I doubt that," Regina's expression is placid and unreadable.
"I know you do." The sadness in Emma's voice surprises even her.
Regina lifts her gaze and stares at Emma as though this information makes no sense, then she looks away again.
A long minute passes in silence and the hum of the street lamp. A car rushes by on a road two blocks east.
Then Regina surprises the hell out of Emma. "I never wanted to hurt anyone. My life was never supposed to go like this. I tried to stop it. It...Snow was supposed to be..." The other worldly moniker rolls from Regina's tongue, a testament to how far she has travelled in the moments of silence. But her last thought remains unspoken.
Emma decides to go for broke. "Henry said something to us, once. One night...when Grumpy was...voicing his frustrations, his..."
"...hatred...," Regina supplies, gaze on the jade stone on her ring finger.
Emma tilts her head in surrender. "His hatred of you. And Henry...he'd finally just had it, and he started yelling at everyone. And...you didn't hear this from me, he'd kill me if he knew I told you, but...what he said was, 'She's not evil...she's just...damaged.'"
For an instant Emma swears she can see a Regina without armor, the Regina who opened her arms to Henry at 2am after every nightmare, letting him crawl in beside her and sleep in her sheltering embrace. The Regina who begged David for one more moment with the man she loved, when she could have thrown him across the room. But then she is Mayor Mills again. "Ah," she says, "so you've all decided I'm defective, and that's been the problem all along."
Emma shakes her head. "No, that's not it. Defective would be the way you were born. Damage is...something that's done to you later."
Regina does not speak, but Emma can see her throat muscles working in the darkness. She watches her swallow, hears her clear her throat. She sees the increase in Regina's breath rate, and she swears she can hear a trace of tears.
Emma speaks into the silence. "...and maybe...maybe that's why you missed what was going on with Henry. Because...because you know better than I do, how going through something that bad can change you, make you do things that you never would have done before."
A soft, pained breath escapes Regina's lips and pulls at Emma's chest. Regina turns away, recrosses her legs, trades her tea from one hand to the other. She looks for a moment like she has something to say in reply, but then seems to decide she's not safe to speak.
The words hover in the mist of their visible breath.
A full minute passes and Emma has drunk more than half of her coffee, when Regina says, "I suppose..." She is trying hard at something, and the words appear foreign and awkward in her mouth. "I suppose...you haven't exactly had the best few days, either. Are you...are you all right?"
Emma blinks. This is the first time since her arrival in Storybrooke that Regina Mills has shown actual concern for her or offered a kind gesture that was not directly tied to the care of Henry. Yet Emma has heard this tone before, in half-shared moments of tenderness between Regina and her son. The warmth feels genuine, and she finds it is both unnerving and comforting to feel Regina's mothering concern directed her way.
Emma tries her voice. "I, uh...yeah, I'm...it's been a bit of a wild ride. I'm not really sure what normal is, anymore, I think. I'm starting to think crisis mode is a way of life."
Regina gives a soft, vaguely bitter laugh. "That I understand, dear. Just don't...," and then she is frowning at the space of bench between them, giving real effort to finding her words, "...Try not to spend so much energy fearing a potential future, that you miss what you do have right now."
It's Emma's turn to stare. Because, bloody hell, there is this real and loving woman in there somewhere behind the Queen. And maybe Henry is right, maybe she is a good woman, just horribly, horribly damaged. She has committed undeniable atrocities, yet she is still here, in this small cozy town, drinking peppermint tea, because the mere thought she had failed as a parent has made her physically ill, and she is trying to offer comfort to the woman she fears will steal her child.
"Yeah," Emma says softly. "That's pretty much what David said to me. It's easier said than done, though, right?"
"It's easier when you're looking at Henry."
Emma falls into a genuine smile. "That it is." She takes another sip of her hazelnut coffee.
For a long time, the two women are quiet, strangely comfortable in this simple companionship. Emma worries, sometimes, when she forgets Regina could kill her with a twist of her wrist.
When Regina speaks, her voice is unguarded as she says, "I'm sorry, I'm just...I'm really tired."
Emma nods. "Okay." After another moment, Emma uncrosses her legs and pushes to her feet. She takes a step around the bench, then turns back to say without pretense, "Come back in and join us when you're ready."
Regina gives a single acknowledging nod. She does look tired, deeply tired, in a way Emma is not certain Regina has ever before let her see. Emma finds herself almost wanting to stay, feeling unexpectedly protective. But she walks away, leaving Regina in the wintry chill, alone on a bench at the edges of the street lamp's light. Inside, Granny's is warm and bright and filled with people she loves.
*****
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