A Queen Without Power (Once Upon a Time; Regina/Emma)
TITLE: A Queen Without Power
CHAPTER 7: Formalities
FANDOM: Once Upon a Time
PAIRING: Swan Queen (Regina/Emma)
SPOILERS: Season one (in its entirety)
RATING: PG (for now)
SUMMARY: "So... are we gonna talk about last night at all?"
*****
Emma awoke to the sound of birds chirping just outside the window, almost overly-musical. Her vision was dark even when she opened her eyes, and it took her a moment to register the fact that she had fallen asleep wearing Regina’s eyeshades. Grunting sleepily, she pushed herself up on one elbow and lifted the eyeshades off with one hand.
She was facing the night table, and her gaze immediately settled on the steaming cup of coffee waiting there for her. Emma smiled to herself, the scent of hazelnut reaching her. It wasn’t hot cocoa with cinnamon, but she could get used to it. Then, as if realizing all at once what she was smiling about, she quickly schooled her features and set the mug down, reaching for her pants.
Once she had dressed, she took the mug with her downstairs, able to hear Regina chiding Henry to stop playing with his food.
“Morning,” she greeted.
They were at the table in the dining room. Henry was pushing pieces of a waffle around in the syrup on his plate, drawing with it practically, while Regina read the paper.
“Good morning, Miss Swan,” she was greeted cordially. “I trust you slept well last night?”
Emma smirked, catching Regina’s eyes over their respective mugs of coffee. There was a slight upward tilt to the queen’s lips and she smirked all the wider at it.
“Yeah, really well. Thanks. That’s a ridiculously comfortable mattress.”
Henry glanced up, looking between them in confusion before he addressed Emma. “You slept in her bed?”
Emma caught herself, feeling a Freudian slip had just escaped though there had been nothing subtextual about her invasion of Regina’s space. “Uh... yeah. She was still up and I was tired, so...” She trailed off, hoping that would suffice.
But she knew Henry better than that. Inquisitively, he turned to Regina. “Then where did you sleep?”
Regina kept her eyes on the paper, lips pursed as she cleared her throat and replied shortly, “Elsewhere.” Then without allowing for a beat, she glanced up and asked her son, “Are you finished with your waffles, or will you be painting with them all day?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I’m done.”
“Very well. You know what’s next, then.”
The boy nodded, “Yep, dishes,” and gathered up his plate, glass and fork before taking them into the kitchen.
Emma raised her brows appreciatively. “He still listens to you. That’s a good sign.”
Regina never moved her eyes from the newspaper, pausing briefly to turn the page. “At this point, he’s probably just afraid I’ll do something terrible to him if he doesn’t.”
She frowned thoughtfully at that and shrugged one shoulder. Seemed accurate enough. Then, she leaned back in her chair. “So... are we gonna talk about last night at all?”
Regina spluttered, in the middle of a sip of coffee, and set the mug down hard on the table. Some of the liquid sloshed up around the sides. “What do you mean?”
Emma stared in surprise for a moment, wondering where that sudden burst of nervousness had come from in this normally cool and composed woman. Then, she tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. “Uh... I mean, when we did that spell.”
“Oh.”
Again, she watched Regina curiously. Her chest seemed to heave for a moment and there was immense relief in her tone. Had she caught the queen off-guard? “Yeah. So... when you grabbed my hand, I saw something.”
“Really.” Regina’s tone was still a bit tremulous, and she wasn’t meeting her eyes as she grabbed her coffee mug and studiously wiped off the droplets of spilled coffee with her napkin.
“Yeah. I thought maybe...” She leaned on the surface of the table with her folded arms, crossing her legs at the ankle, “They were your memories or something.”
Regina sighed, training her efforts on the small puddle of spilled coffee on the black polished table. All the while, Emma read her body language, trying to ascertain just what exactly she was nervous about.
“Why do you think they’re my memories, Miss Swan?”
Emma closed her eyes briefly, holding up a hand to stop her. “Okay, before we go any further,” she met Regina’s gaze, “Why don’t we drop the whole ‘Miss Swan’ formality act.” She raised her brows. “Okay? We’re... we’re working together, sort of.” She exhaled the briefest of chuckles as she added, “Hell, we’re kinda roommates at this point. Let’s just call each other by our first names.”
Regina nodded. “Very well, then.” She met her eyes as she corrected herself, “Emma.”
She felt an unusual mix of a pang and a shiver at the sound but shoved it away. “There. Much easier.”
“So, Emma--”
There went the unusual shiver again...
“What on Earth gave you the idea that what you saw during the spell were my memories?”
“Because you were there.” Furrowing her brows, she hoped she wasn’t insane. “You saw them too, didn’t you?”
Regina looked down for a long moment, her erratic cleaning having stopped, before she replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She narrowed her eyes sharply at the brunette, wondering if she’d forgotten her “super power” already.
But she didn’t have a chance to pry further as Henry came back into the room, practically tackling her for a hug. “Day three of Operation Python?” he asked.
“Not exactly.” Emma’s eyes were still on Regina, still trying to get through to her, but to no avail. The queen had thrown the barriers up once more, so she sighed and wrapped her arms around her son. “Today I thought we might pay a visit to your, uh... grandparents.”
His eyes lit up. “Really? Cool!”
“Why?” Regina asked, a hint of suspicion in her tone.
“Well,” Emma quirked a brow, “I’d sure like to get an idea of what else Gold threw into their heads at that meeting last night.”
“Smart.”
Emma nodded, leaving out the silent part of her plan, which was to try to get information from Snow White about what exactly had spurred Regina toward the need to curse everybody.
“Why?” Henry asked curiously. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah,” she exhaled, but didn’t feel like elaborating further. The less Henry knew about what was going on, the less danger he’d be in. Or so she hoped, anyway.
“Like what?” he prodded.
She sighed, “Just go get changed.”
Henry ran off and Emma watched him go, able to feel Regina’s eyes on her. “And if Henry reveals that I’m still around?”
“Oh.” Her stomach fell, though she was uncertain as to why. “Forgot about that.” Turning over her shoulder, she promised, “I’ll talk to him.”
**
“So why can’t we tell your mom and dad that Regina’s still in Storybrooke?”
“Because, kid,” Emma sighed, already weary of Henry’s inquisitive nature today. “I told you. If they find out, they will probably tell Rumplestiltskin, who may end up going after you just to get back at Regina.”
“So why does she care if Rumplestiltskin goes after me?”
She gaped at him. “Henry! You have got to stop this. Okay? Regina loves you and you know that.”
“No she didn’t. I bet she just pretended all this time.”
Emma sighed. “Trust me. People can fake a lot of things -- happiness, sadness, illness, whatever.” She met his eyes briefly as they turned off onto Mary Margaret’s street. “But the way a mother loves her kid?” She shook her head, turning her eyes out the windshield again. “No way you can fake that.”
“So you’re saying you want me to be nice to the evil queen? For Operation Python?”
“I’m saying I want you to be nice to your mother. For no reason other than the fact that she’s your mother.” She shot him a look, and that was the end of the discussion.
**
“Emma?” The prince was the first one to greet them when they knocked on the apartment door. He immediately broke into a smile and pulled her into a hug. “My beautiful daughter, it’s so wonderful to see you again.”
Emma feigned a smile, still feeling a little odd being called a ‘daughter’ by people who looked no older than she was. “You too.”
He leaned back briefly, calling toward the upstairs loft, “Snow, Emma and Henry are here to visit!” before he stepped aside and swung the door open wide. “Come in.”
He smiled at them both as they came in and hung up their light jackets, his eyes on Henry. “I, uh...” He chuckled, glancing to Emma. “I must admit, when I imagined visiting with my grandson, I imagined myself much older.”
Emma nodded, wondering why he was so well-spoken as the prince but such a bumbling wreck as David Nolan. “Yeah, this whole thing’s kinda weird, huh?”
“Indeed.”
“Emma. Henry,” Snow White greeted them, grasping a bit of her long linen skirt in each hand as she came down the stairs under the adoring gaze of her husband. “So wonderful to see you two again.” She embraced them, ruffling Henry’s hair. “How are you doing, Henry?”
“Just fine, Miss Blanchard,” he replied. Then he smiled, covering his mouth briefly. “I mean... Grandma.” He made a face, tilting his head curiously. “Do I call you Grandma? You don’t look like one.”
She giggled. “I certainly don’t feel like one, either.” She reached out her hand, then. “Come. I’ll make us some hot cocoa with cinnamon.”
“Cool!” Henry took her hand and followed her into the kitchen.
Emma and Charming smiled after them before turning to one another, Emma’s thumbs in her back pockets. “Sorry to just drop by--”
“No no, we’re always happy to see you. We were actually hoping we would have seen you last night at the town hall meeting.”
Emma’s eyes flitted toward Henry ever-so-briefly, who was giving her a curious look. She shook her head as subtly as she could, telling him not to question it.
Then, she turned back to the prince. “Yeah, sorry. I just... didn’t know how long it would take, and I didn’t want to leave Henry alone for long--”
“I imagine not,” he sighed, folding his flannel-clad arms over his chest. “Not with Regina on the loose.”
Emma fought the minor irritation that bubbled up at that comment. “Right, exactly.”
“Oh, James?” Snow called, pushing a mug of hot chocolate toward Henry while he sat on a barstool. “Could you fill Emma in on the meeting last night?”
“Certainly, my love.” He then gestured for Emma to follow him into the living area.
Prince James, she thought, never having heard him called by his real name, even by Henry. She took a seat on the ottoman James directed her toward, while he took a seat in the adjacent arm chair.
“Last night, at the meeting, we received a visit from Rumplestiltskin,” he told her, voice low and quiet so as not to be overheard.
Right, Emma thought. During which he lied his ass off and got you to believe him.
Outwardly, she nodded. “Okay...”
“It seems that Regina is the one that brought magic back to Storybrooke. And we have reason to believe that she is working on a new, more powerful curse.”
“Rumplestiltskin told you this?”
He nodded.
Emma paused, just staring at him and hoping she didn’t look too incredulous. “And you believe him?”
“Well...” He tilted his head, leaning around her to throw a surreptitious glance toward Henry and Snow White, who seemed to be chatting happily. If possible, his voice became even more hushed when he turned back to her. “In all honesty, I don’t trust that man any further than he can be thrown.”
She refrained from smiling. Perhaps there was hope for these two yet.
“But he was correct in his assertion that you would be the one to break the curse. That you would return on your 28th birthday to begin the final battle. I believe he deserves at least a little credit where that’s concerned.”
“And Snow White?” Emma raised her eyebrows, hoping her voice and her face showed nothing but neutrality. “What does she think?”
“Snow, she’s...” Another glance toward the kitchen, then he turned back. “She’s quite... fervent, let’s say... in her quest for justice.”
Her brows quirked. “So she wants to get revenge on Regina.”
“More than that I fear, my child.” He glanced down at his lap, elbows on his thighs and hands rubbing together in the space between his knees nervously. “The level of focus she has on this goal is... unnerving.”
Emma searched his eyes back and forth, a glimmer of dread low in her gut. “What are you saying?”
James’ eyes bored into hers, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “I’m saying I don’t believe Snow will be satisfied, until Regina is dead.”
TBC
{x-posted to onceupon_fanfic and regina_emma}
CHAPTER 7: Formalities
FANDOM: Once Upon a Time
PAIRING: Swan Queen (Regina/Emma)
SPOILERS: Season one (in its entirety)
RATING: PG (for now)
SUMMARY: "So... are we gonna talk about last night at all?"
*****
Emma awoke to the sound of birds chirping just outside the window, almost overly-musical. Her vision was dark even when she opened her eyes, and it took her a moment to register the fact that she had fallen asleep wearing Regina’s eyeshades. Grunting sleepily, she pushed herself up on one elbow and lifted the eyeshades off with one hand.
She was facing the night table, and her gaze immediately settled on the steaming cup of coffee waiting there for her. Emma smiled to herself, the scent of hazelnut reaching her. It wasn’t hot cocoa with cinnamon, but she could get used to it. Then, as if realizing all at once what she was smiling about, she quickly schooled her features and set the mug down, reaching for her pants.
Once she had dressed, she took the mug with her downstairs, able to hear Regina chiding Henry to stop playing with his food.
“Morning,” she greeted.
They were at the table in the dining room. Henry was pushing pieces of a waffle around in the syrup on his plate, drawing with it practically, while Regina read the paper.
“Good morning, Miss Swan,” she was greeted cordially. “I trust you slept well last night?”
Emma smirked, catching Regina’s eyes over their respective mugs of coffee. There was a slight upward tilt to the queen’s lips and she smirked all the wider at it.
“Yeah, really well. Thanks. That’s a ridiculously comfortable mattress.”
Henry glanced up, looking between them in confusion before he addressed Emma. “You slept in her bed?”
Emma caught herself, feeling a Freudian slip had just escaped though there had been nothing subtextual about her invasion of Regina’s space. “Uh... yeah. She was still up and I was tired, so...” She trailed off, hoping that would suffice.
But she knew Henry better than that. Inquisitively, he turned to Regina. “Then where did you sleep?”
Regina kept her eyes on the paper, lips pursed as she cleared her throat and replied shortly, “Elsewhere.” Then without allowing for a beat, she glanced up and asked her son, “Are you finished with your waffles, or will you be painting with them all day?”
He smiled sheepishly. “I’m done.”
“Very well. You know what’s next, then.”
The boy nodded, “Yep, dishes,” and gathered up his plate, glass and fork before taking them into the kitchen.
Emma raised her brows appreciatively. “He still listens to you. That’s a good sign.”
Regina never moved her eyes from the newspaper, pausing briefly to turn the page. “At this point, he’s probably just afraid I’ll do something terrible to him if he doesn’t.”
She frowned thoughtfully at that and shrugged one shoulder. Seemed accurate enough. Then, she leaned back in her chair. “So... are we gonna talk about last night at all?”
Regina spluttered, in the middle of a sip of coffee, and set the mug down hard on the table. Some of the liquid sloshed up around the sides. “What do you mean?”
Emma stared in surprise for a moment, wondering where that sudden burst of nervousness had come from in this normally cool and composed woman. Then, she tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. “Uh... I mean, when we did that spell.”
“Oh.”
Again, she watched Regina curiously. Her chest seemed to heave for a moment and there was immense relief in her tone. Had she caught the queen off-guard? “Yeah. So... when you grabbed my hand, I saw something.”
“Really.” Regina’s tone was still a bit tremulous, and she wasn’t meeting her eyes as she grabbed her coffee mug and studiously wiped off the droplets of spilled coffee with her napkin.
“Yeah. I thought maybe...” She leaned on the surface of the table with her folded arms, crossing her legs at the ankle, “They were your memories or something.”
Regina sighed, training her efforts on the small puddle of spilled coffee on the black polished table. All the while, Emma read her body language, trying to ascertain just what exactly she was nervous about.
“Why do you think they’re my memories, Miss Swan?”
Emma closed her eyes briefly, holding up a hand to stop her. “Okay, before we go any further,” she met Regina’s gaze, “Why don’t we drop the whole ‘Miss Swan’ formality act.” She raised her brows. “Okay? We’re... we’re working together, sort of.” She exhaled the briefest of chuckles as she added, “Hell, we’re kinda roommates at this point. Let’s just call each other by our first names.”
Regina nodded. “Very well, then.” She met her eyes as she corrected herself, “Emma.”
She felt an unusual mix of a pang and a shiver at the sound but shoved it away. “There. Much easier.”
“So, Emma--”
There went the unusual shiver again...
“What on Earth gave you the idea that what you saw during the spell were my memories?”
“Because you were there.” Furrowing her brows, she hoped she wasn’t insane. “You saw them too, didn’t you?”
Regina looked down for a long moment, her erratic cleaning having stopped, before she replied, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She narrowed her eyes sharply at the brunette, wondering if she’d forgotten her “super power” already.
But she didn’t have a chance to pry further as Henry came back into the room, practically tackling her for a hug. “Day three of Operation Python?” he asked.
“Not exactly.” Emma’s eyes were still on Regina, still trying to get through to her, but to no avail. The queen had thrown the barriers up once more, so she sighed and wrapped her arms around her son. “Today I thought we might pay a visit to your, uh... grandparents.”
His eyes lit up. “Really? Cool!”
“Why?” Regina asked, a hint of suspicion in her tone.
“Well,” Emma quirked a brow, “I’d sure like to get an idea of what else Gold threw into their heads at that meeting last night.”
“Smart.”
Emma nodded, leaving out the silent part of her plan, which was to try to get information from Snow White about what exactly had spurred Regina toward the need to curse everybody.
“Why?” Henry asked curiously. “Did something happen?”
“Yeah,” she exhaled, but didn’t feel like elaborating further. The less Henry knew about what was going on, the less danger he’d be in. Or so she hoped, anyway.
“Like what?” he prodded.
She sighed, “Just go get changed.”
Henry ran off and Emma watched him go, able to feel Regina’s eyes on her. “And if Henry reveals that I’m still around?”
“Oh.” Her stomach fell, though she was uncertain as to why. “Forgot about that.” Turning over her shoulder, she promised, “I’ll talk to him.”
**
“So why can’t we tell your mom and dad that Regina’s still in Storybrooke?”
“Because, kid,” Emma sighed, already weary of Henry’s inquisitive nature today. “I told you. If they find out, they will probably tell Rumplestiltskin, who may end up going after you just to get back at Regina.”
“So why does she care if Rumplestiltskin goes after me?”
She gaped at him. “Henry! You have got to stop this. Okay? Regina loves you and you know that.”
“No she didn’t. I bet she just pretended all this time.”
Emma sighed. “Trust me. People can fake a lot of things -- happiness, sadness, illness, whatever.” She met his eyes briefly as they turned off onto Mary Margaret’s street. “But the way a mother loves her kid?” She shook her head, turning her eyes out the windshield again. “No way you can fake that.”
“So you’re saying you want me to be nice to the evil queen? For Operation Python?”
“I’m saying I want you to be nice to your mother. For no reason other than the fact that she’s your mother.” She shot him a look, and that was the end of the discussion.
**
“Emma?” The prince was the first one to greet them when they knocked on the apartment door. He immediately broke into a smile and pulled her into a hug. “My beautiful daughter, it’s so wonderful to see you again.”
Emma feigned a smile, still feeling a little odd being called a ‘daughter’ by people who looked no older than she was. “You too.”
He leaned back briefly, calling toward the upstairs loft, “Snow, Emma and Henry are here to visit!” before he stepped aside and swung the door open wide. “Come in.”
He smiled at them both as they came in and hung up their light jackets, his eyes on Henry. “I, uh...” He chuckled, glancing to Emma. “I must admit, when I imagined visiting with my grandson, I imagined myself much older.”
Emma nodded, wondering why he was so well-spoken as the prince but such a bumbling wreck as David Nolan. “Yeah, this whole thing’s kinda weird, huh?”
“Indeed.”
“Emma. Henry,” Snow White greeted them, grasping a bit of her long linen skirt in each hand as she came down the stairs under the adoring gaze of her husband. “So wonderful to see you two again.” She embraced them, ruffling Henry’s hair. “How are you doing, Henry?”
“Just fine, Miss Blanchard,” he replied. Then he smiled, covering his mouth briefly. “I mean... Grandma.” He made a face, tilting his head curiously. “Do I call you Grandma? You don’t look like one.”
She giggled. “I certainly don’t feel like one, either.” She reached out her hand, then. “Come. I’ll make us some hot cocoa with cinnamon.”
“Cool!” Henry took her hand and followed her into the kitchen.
Emma and Charming smiled after them before turning to one another, Emma’s thumbs in her back pockets. “Sorry to just drop by--”
“No no, we’re always happy to see you. We were actually hoping we would have seen you last night at the town hall meeting.”
Emma’s eyes flitted toward Henry ever-so-briefly, who was giving her a curious look. She shook her head as subtly as she could, telling him not to question it.
Then, she turned back to the prince. “Yeah, sorry. I just... didn’t know how long it would take, and I didn’t want to leave Henry alone for long--”
“I imagine not,” he sighed, folding his flannel-clad arms over his chest. “Not with Regina on the loose.”
Emma fought the minor irritation that bubbled up at that comment. “Right, exactly.”
“Oh, James?” Snow called, pushing a mug of hot chocolate toward Henry while he sat on a barstool. “Could you fill Emma in on the meeting last night?”
“Certainly, my love.” He then gestured for Emma to follow him into the living area.
Prince James, she thought, never having heard him called by his real name, even by Henry. She took a seat on the ottoman James directed her toward, while he took a seat in the adjacent arm chair.
“Last night, at the meeting, we received a visit from Rumplestiltskin,” he told her, voice low and quiet so as not to be overheard.
Right, Emma thought. During which he lied his ass off and got you to believe him.
Outwardly, she nodded. “Okay...”
“It seems that Regina is the one that brought magic back to Storybrooke. And we have reason to believe that she is working on a new, more powerful curse.”
“Rumplestiltskin told you this?”
He nodded.
Emma paused, just staring at him and hoping she didn’t look too incredulous. “And you believe him?”
“Well...” He tilted his head, leaning around her to throw a surreptitious glance toward Henry and Snow White, who seemed to be chatting happily. If possible, his voice became even more hushed when he turned back to her. “In all honesty, I don’t trust that man any further than he can be thrown.”
She refrained from smiling. Perhaps there was hope for these two yet.
“But he was correct in his assertion that you would be the one to break the curse. That you would return on your 28th birthday to begin the final battle. I believe he deserves at least a little credit where that’s concerned.”
“And Snow White?” Emma raised her eyebrows, hoping her voice and her face showed nothing but neutrality. “What does she think?”
“Snow, she’s...” Another glance toward the kitchen, then he turned back. “She’s quite... fervent, let’s say... in her quest for justice.”
Her brows quirked. “So she wants to get revenge on Regina.”
“More than that I fear, my child.” He glanced down at his lap, elbows on his thighs and hands rubbing together in the space between his knees nervously. “The level of focus she has on this goal is... unnerving.”
Emma searched his eyes back and forth, a glimmer of dread low in her gut. “What are you saying?”
James’ eyes bored into hers, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “I’m saying I don’t believe Snow will be satisfied, until Regina is dead.”
TBC
{x-posted to onceupon_fanfic and regina_emma}