Henry padded quietly down the hallway the following morning, a twinge of worry in his gut coming about at the sight of his mother's bedroom door left open. When he noticed that, not only was she missing from the bed but that the bed did not appear to have been used at all, the worry increased. Had she slept at all? Perhaps she had just risen early, and made the bed in the process. After all, Emma had stayed the night. Maybe she actually had been able to get to sleep and in the process managed to get back to her normal schedule at last.
As he rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs and started to cross the archway into the living room, the young man stopped in his tracks, halted by the sight before him.
His mother lay on the couch, her head resting on a pillow that had been placed against Emma's shoulder. Emma was awake, and when she saw him she offered him a one-shouldered shrug—any movement of her other shoulder was otherwise inhibited by Regina's weight. She lifted a finger to her lips to silence the questions that must have shown in his expression, and the boy only smiled. His smile grew when Emma made a gesture to indicate 'coffee!' and promptly moved into the kitchen to brew some.
The end of his tongue slipped out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on scooping the coffee grinds into the machine without spilling anything. Regina hated it when he made a mess, and he had a feeling she was going to be grumpy enough upon discovering the manner in which she had fallen asleep. He didn't want to give her any more reasons to lash out. He paced the kitchen for a few minutes, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. When it did, he carefully filled a mug and made his way back out to the living room, almost wondering if he should tip-toe so as not to wake his sleeping mother. Emma reached for the mug with an exaggerated level of caution, making Henry giggle.
He may have been worried about making a mess of the coffee maker, but Emma was in a far more risky position—she seemed legitimately frightened for her life at the possibility of waking the fallen queen.
Deciding his mother—mothers—were fine to be left alone, Henry disappeared back to the kitchen to grab an apple. He'd known Emma would help his adoptive mother, in one way or another, but he couldn't help his surprise at such an open display of weakness from Regina. For most of his life she had insisted she was infallible, however discreetly, and he had never known her to show any sort of attachment to anyone but him. That was, until Emma Swan arrived, by his own doing.
Emma's presence had threatened his adoptive mother's status in Henry's life, he knew, but he also knew by the manner in which Regina often engaged with Emma that she would neveractually hurt her. Or so he had believed, until the incident with the apple turnover. Even then, Regina could have chosen to kill the woman, but she did not. She chose the lesser of two evils—the curse which stood a chance of being undone.
For a long time, Henry had wished Emma would come to live with him and Regina in the mansion. And, for a long time, he had been certain it would never happen. But he was old enough now to know that, when Regina saved Snow and Emma at the well, the look his mothers had shared was something much deeper than gratitude. There had been relief there, churning behind both pairs of eyes, and he knew Regina had never allowed such emotion to slip through the cracks before that moment. The brunette would operate under the guise that she had saved Emma to save her relationship with Henry, but the boy knew otherwise. While that had been the reason in part, he knew from experience that Regina only ever helped those that were important to her. And, until that day, he'd thought he was the only one she cared for. Apparently he'd thought wrong.
Snatching his backpack and Once Upon A Time from the floor beside the door, Henry set aside his musings. He still had an hour before he needed to be to school. An extra long walk wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, he really didn't want to be in the house when Regina woke up.
Emma stiffened when she felt the woman laying against her begin to stir.
"Here we go..." she thought, mentally cringing at what was to come. Somehow she didn't think Regina was going to take well to waking up alongside Emma Swan, of all people.
The dark eyes opened slowly and squinted, groggy and confused for a moment or two.
And then, all hell broke loose.
Regina's body shot upright and her eyes were wide and distraught. She stared at Emma, who only stared back at her in apprehension. The woman's voice was still hoarse from fatigue as she began to let the words fly. Emma's mood soured the more the woman talked, the corners of her lips falling farther and farther downward.
"What are you still doing here?" Regina cried, though she made no move to get up. "Here? On my couch...with me! When I invited you to stay the night I didn't mean to have you—"
Emma had had enough. She held up her hands as she cut the raging woman off.
"Excuse me, Madame Mayor!" she snapped, throwing the pillow onto the other end of the couch. "I just spent the better part of the last ten hours stuck in the most uncomfortableposition possible, the whole left side of my body numb, with you kneeing me in the bladder at least once an hour, all so you could get some real sleep for the first time in a month. And you know what, Regina?" She didn't wait for a response. "You did sleep, and you didn't mutter or scream or cry once. Your gratitude is appreciated. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm hungry, late for work and I really have to use the bathroom."
Regina, thoroughly scolded into silence, stared after the blonde as she jumped up from the couch and practically fled to the bathroom. Her heart was pounding, not entirely out of anger, but surprise and...something else? She couldn't pinpoint the exact emotion, but it wasn't a welcome feeling. This wasn't her...this sobbing, emotional wreck of a woman...the sort of woman who had nightmares and couldn't sleep unless she was with someone else. The sort of woman who fell asleep against her once-nemesis. The sort of woman who panicked at the sight of that same person wounded and dying in her subconscious mind.
Puffing her cheeks as she exhaled sharply, Regina rose to her feet and made her way to the kitchen. She sought distraction from her thoughts more than nourishment, but when Emma returned from the bathroom, no number of apples could distract her from the sight of the woman in uniform. Her dark eyes briefly scanned her once-rival up and down, a strange tension settling in her chest.
With the frustrated scowl Regina saw marring her face, Emma looked positively dangerous. The handle of an oddly familiar blade sticking out of her boot and the pistol strapped onto her belt didn't help in that regard. Regina's gut twisted and threatened to expel the contents of her stomach. She had let her guard down. It didn't happen often, but somehow Emma Swan had made it happen, and that bothered the older woman immensely. She had been foolish to do so. How did she know she could trust Emma? Even having minimal experience in magic, the blonde could have very easily killed Regina while she slept. Still Regina had slept...and she had slept well. The knot in already present in her stomach tightened, and she frowned.
"Planning to go to war, Miss Swan?" the brunette bit out, struggling to regain her composure in the wake of her embarrassment at her behavior the past night. Naturally, lashing out was the only reaction she knew. Emma rolled her eyes and swung her outer jacket closed, buttoning it up to conceal the pistol. The blade, however, was still quite visible, and Regina's breath caught in her throat as she realized why she recognized it. She had seen it in her nightmares. It was the very same one that had so often impaled Emma's body. A rush of adrenaline threatened to overwhelm her as she found herself once again considering her dreams might be something more.
"I just like to be prepared," Swan retorted as her hands moved to her hips, breaking Regina from her musings. Her gaze was firm and steady on the woman she must, at this point in time, quite hate. Then the younger woman's face softened, just a touch. Regina was aware of every minescule expression the blonde could ever make, and noticed it immediately. There was something different about this one. She hadn't seen it before, and it both worried and intrigued her at the same time. "I'm going to go now. If you need something..."
Regina quickly shook her head.
"I won't. One night of mortification is quite enough, thank you very much."
The frown returned, and she gave a curt nod and turned to leave.
"Right. See you."
Abruptly swept up by guilt at her own cold words, Regina's eyes rolled in worried annoyance and then, "Swan...wait. Please." But her voice fell on deaf ears, and Emma continued walking. "I said...wait."
Emma halted this time and rotated slowly to face her, one hand on the doorknob. Her eyebrows were raised, expecting Regina to speak.
"I...I'm sorry."
As though this was the last thing she expected to hear come from the woman's lips, Emma's brow furrowed.
"For what?"
Now Regina felt her weight shift on her feet as uncertainty took control. She looked at the floor, but soldiered on regardless.
"I never meant to drag you into this. And I didn't mean to make you feel...violated."
Looking even more confused now, Emma released the doorknob and stepped close to the rim of Regina's personal space bubble. Her head tilted.
"Violated? What are you talking about Regina?"
Russet eyes lifted now, falling on blue.
"Last night...my actions...I was groggy, not in the right mind..." The brunette trailed off.
"Wait...you mean the strip search?" Emma asked. Regina darted her gaze back to the floor and sensed the Sheriff was about to laugh, but the laughter never came. "Regina...believe me, you've done far worse to me than a simple panicked hunt for injury. I'm not feeling violated at all."
If the words were supposed to make the fallen queen feel better, they didn't. She had done much worse to Emma, both directly and indirectly. She had taken her family from her, her childhood...the safety and security of knowing she was loved and cared for. As a result Emma had seen herself unfit to mother Henry, and so, she had given him up. Even though this had ultimately allowed Regina to gain the facet of happiness that came with adopting him, she couldn't ignore what she had done to steal his mother's. Regina had only ever truly gone after Emma when she had been a threat to Regina's relationship with Henry. Before that, anything she had done had been directed at Emma's own mother. At Snow White. Emma was just the unfortunate recipient of the consequences.
So why, then, could Regina seem only to concern herself with the fact that Emma might be disgruntled and offended by something so simple as a touch?
"Regina...?"
Emma's voice pulled her from her ruminating, and Regina took note of that same soft look upon the blonde's face as had been there just a short time earlier. She shivered unconsciously, spooked.
"I...I'm glad it didn't bother you."
Regina tried to muster a thank you, but it wouldn't come.
"I'll see you around Regina."
And with that, Emma Swan was gone, her form disappearing behind the decorative front door. On the inside, the former evil queen felt an uncommon twist in her chest. She stumbled forward toward the door and her palm flew to cover her heart, her face contorting into a wince as the pain tried to overwhelm her. A gasp left her lips and then the pain was gone as quickly as it had arrived, and she found that she was leaning with her other palm shoved against the surface of the closed door. As she righted herself, trying to catch her breath, Regina Mills began to fret.
She'd felt that once before.
She'd felt it the night her mother had killed Daniel.
No sooner had Emma Swan stepped off the sidewalk and climbed into the beaten yellow bug than she felt an odd sensation strike her abdomen. It was warm at first, and then grew hotter, until she was gasping in pain and ripping her shirt upward to search for a cause. Only when the cool air touched her skin did the pain cease.
Blue eyes widened in shock and fear as they came to rest upon a strange sight indeed.
The skin of her abdomen was red and blistered, as though it had been burned.
It was the very same place Regina Mills had laid her hand in a panic, searching for an injury that didn't exist.
Hadn't existed.
Until now.
Emma shook her head and spoke aloud.
"There's no way that's a coincidence."