The Tie That Binds

Chapter Seven

"Regina," Emma softly whispers, leaning up on her elbow to hover above and express her seriousness. "That's not your fault. Take it from a lost little girl that spent most nights crying for her parents, wondering the same thing, why did they give me up? Why didn't they love me enough to keep me? There is this hole in my heart and a hole in Henry's from adoption."

"Yes, well, because of that, he turned on me, blamed me like I had stolen him away. He swore up and down that I didn't love him all because you gave him up and subconsciously, he thought he was unlovable."

"I know and I get that-"

"Do you? Do you understand what it's like to devote eleven years to your baby, spend eleven years protecting him and making sure that nothing ever hurts him, just to have him yell in your face that he hates you and that he has his real mother and you are nothing to him?"

Regina finally takes a chance to analyze Emma's reaction and the wet green eyes leaking teardrops of regret are the last thing she expects to see. She swallows down her own emotions but it's too much, everything is thick and too much and she can't stop the tears spilling down her cheeks.

"I'm sorry-"

"I don't want your pity-"

"This isn't pity," Emma firmly declares. "I really am so sorry. I didn't think about much of anything when he dragged me to Storybrooke. I was fighting my own battle in my head with meeting him because I swore I would never see him again. I was so lost in my own emotions, I didn't think about you for a split second. And he kept going on and on about curses and you being evil and I was scared, Regina. I thought there was something radically wrong with him and I just wanted to help him and you were so cold and mean to me and I thought that maybe you were like that with him. And yeah, I never held him while he cried or soothed him, but I gave birth to him and he is my blood and motherly instincts took control and I felt this need to protect him."

"I would never hurt my son."

"I know that now, now that I have gotten the opportunity to get to know you."

Regina sighs. "I do feel guilty that I lead him to believe that he was crazy about the book, but I panicked. I was pushed up against a wall and the fear of losing my son trumped all rational thoughts."

"I see that now. I get it, because right now, I'm ready to do whatever it takes to get our son back."

Regina nods slowly, her eyes trailing away from Emma's intense gaze to stare blankly at the moon, persuading Emma to lie back down beside her. She hopes Henry is looking up at the same moon and can feel her. She really hopes that he doesn't give up and he trusts that they are coming. God, she hopes that hole in his heart isn't expanding from doubt and making him feel like a lost boy all over again. 

Slowly, Regina's eyes wander back to Emma and she replays the woman's words over again.

"You're a lost girl," she faintly whispers. "That's what you needed to stop denying for the map to appear."

"Yeah, I'll always be just a little lost girl. It doesn't matter that I found my parents or that they never wanted to give me up. The fact of the matter is that they did and I have been lost ever since."

Regina observes as Emma screws her eyes shut again, painfully clenching and wishing that the ruthless cries from the boys will end. Without a true thought in Regina's mind, she waves her hand from one end of the mattress to the other, her signature purple smoke shimmering as it rains down around them.

Emma's eyes immediately snap open, her body jerking in surprise. "They stopped. Why did they stop? I can't hear them...oh god, Henry-"

"Emma, relax. I placed a sound barrier spell around the mattress to block out their cries for you."