Snow White always knew when something was off with her family, and Emma was no exception. Her daughter had returned home to the loft not ten minutes ago, and already her dark haired mother was fretting.
"You're moving funny Emma."
From her place at the island, the blonde woman stiffened, but she didn't turn to look at her mother. Solving that problem on her own, Snow came around to the opposite side and pressed both palms against the surface, raising her eyebrows and waiting until Emma did finally look up. She heard her daughter sigh, and tilted her head.
"It's nothing, just a few sore muscles from training today." Emma's voice lacked the bored honesty it usually harbored when she spoke of training, and Snow saw right through it. She frowned.
"You never wear loose-fitting shirts on training days."
For another moment, Emma and Snow's eyes stayed connected. Then, with another great, heaving sigh, the princess stood and lifted her shirt. Snow gasped and covered her mouth, then rushed around the island to fuss.
"What the hell happened Emma?!" she cried, poking at the blisters and earning a reactive shove from her daughter. Stumbling back a step, her eyes darted from the injury to Emma's face and back again. "Did you spill hot oil on you or something? This needs to be treated at the hospital!"
"Let's go with that theory," Emma responded, sitting back down and sounding tired. "It'll be fine. My magic will heal it quickly enough."
"Emma, you don't know how to use magic yet! It doesn't just work that way. Besides, burns are the one thing magic has a hard time healing, since magic comes from within and burns typically happen to the outermost areas of the body. Doctor Whale needs to see this!" Snow White was nearly in a panic state, but Emma only shook her head.
"No, Mary Margaret. I've been burned worse than this in the past and always healed. I know how to treat burns—I took classes when I became Sheriff, remember? This is nothing."
Snapping her mouth shut and pursing her lips, Snow didn't respond right away. When she finally did, her voice was strained, but resigned.
"Just...promise me you'll keep an eye on it Emma. If it's not looking any better tomorrow..."
"I'm going to bandage it now, I just didn't have time before work this morning."
The blonde seemed to have realized her slip before Snow did, but when Snow saw her expression, her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"This...happened before work, Emma?"
Gritting her teeth so loudly that her mother could hear it, Emma nodded.
"You weren't here last night. Wait...what were you doing last night? You said you were going to..." The dark haired woman's mouth fell agape, but Emma had already fled up the stairs. Snow White's hands clenched into fists.
She'd known Regina had been...displeased...at the breakfast, but this...this was inexcusable.
Regina frowned and closed the ribbon between the pages of her novel at the rather insistent knock which came from the direction of her front door. Everything in her body ached, emanating from the area around her heart. She stood up gingerly, annoyed that she was forced to move from the one comfortable position she had found thus far, and strode stiffly toward the entry. Not bothering to look through the peep hole, she flung it open and scowled at whomever dared stand on the other side. When she saw who it was, she crossed her arms and leaned against the doorframe.
"This better not be another invitation."
Snow White was upon her in an instant, forcing her way into the house and backing Regina up against the wall at the back of the entry, her forearm crossing the taller woman's throat. Regina, quite shocked at such a display of physical violence from the so-called pure one gasped and lifted her chin in an effort to maintain the ability to breathe.
"You did this! What did you do to her?!" Snow bellowed, jabbing her elbow into Regina's windpipe, making her cough. "Whatever you did, you need to fix it, and you need to fix itimmediately!"
Sputtering and utterly confused, Regina wrestled herself away from the wall and composed herself, straightening her blouse and giving a few last coughs before staring straight into the pure one's eyes.
"I don't know what you're talking about! What happened to who and what makes you think I'm responsible?!"
Snow stood, her hands balled into quaking fists, and gave every appearance of disbelief. In another moment, she was shouting at her nemesis again.
"Because she was with you last night Regina! You can't play stupid with me, I know you have something to do with this! You always have something to do with it when someone gets hurt!"
Here Regina froze.
Hurt? She knew to whom Snow was referring, but she asked anyway.
"Who...?"
Snow rolled her eyes, exhasperated.
"Emma!"
As if it had surprised her, Regina's brown eyes widened out of instinct. Somehow hearing it made it more true.
"What do you mean she's hurt? What happened? I just saw her this—"
"Damn right you saw her this morning! And she was fine when I spoke to her yesterday! So excuse me if I find it just a little suspicious that she's now injured and refusing to go for help."
The older woman was growing irritated now, for Snow still had yet to mention the actual circumstances surrounding Emma's injuries. Something in her gut twisted as the worse-case-scenario ran through her head.
A rarely used nickname. Lifeless blue eyes. So much blood...
"Where...where exactly is this injury?" the fallen queen asked, her words tentative and uncertain. For a moment, she saw a flicker of confusion in Snow White's features.
The pure one knitted her brows and said, "Her lower abdomen...left side."
Regina felt herself fall back against the wall as the gravity of the situation hit her—along with another wave of pain in her chest. Her palm fell over it and she closed her eyes. Could this really be happening?
She was caught off guard when Snow started talking, tilting her head in the process.
"You...really didn't do this, did you Regina?" the woman asked, her voice having returned to its typical gentle tone. Her expression though, looked more concerned than ever before, and she seemed to be hanging on her nemesis' every possible word. Then she grew suspicious again. "But you do know something about it. There is still something you're not telling me." Regina's eyes snapped open again and burned into Snow's.
"You're right, there is," she snapped coldly, her upper lip curling just so. "But it has no place here, and it will neither help nor hurt Emma to have you know."
Snow dropped her eyes for a moment, and then, "You called her Emma." Her eyes grew larger.
On the other end of the scale, Regina's eyes narrowed. Damn.
"It is her name, is it not?"
"You never call her Emma."
"As important as the words I choose to use to refer to your daughter truly are, I'm certain there are much more pressing matters at hand, Snow. Like, say, the fact that she could in fact be bleeding to death, wherever it is she happens to be right now, while we are standing here discussing the issue."
"Bleeding to death?" Snow inquired, shaking her head in question. "Regina, she's not bleeding to death."
Russet eyes looked at her counterpart, distrusting.
"Then what...?"
"She's burned."
Another stab of icy pain ripped through her chest, and the woman almost doubled over. Snow White, apparently surprised but ever the motherly one, lay a hand on the ex-mayor's shoulder.
"What's going on Regina? Are you okay?"
Clenching her jaws together, she nodded with only a faint grunt of discomfort, but she still struggled to breathe.
"Where is she now?" asked the fallen queen between gasps as she once again leaned against the wall for support. The intensity of these pain waves was growing, and she had a strong feeling she had been wrong about magic not being involved with the dreams. This was too sudden. Too powerful.
"At the loft."
Regina winced, her eyes squeezing shut at another stab under her breastbone.
"Let's get the hell over there, then, shall we?"
Emma Swan stared at her stomach in the bathroom mirror, astounded by the sight before her. What had once been just blisters was now an enormous swatch of dark purple, as though she had been struck by a shot put ball. Tenderly she touched the flesh, hissed at the surge of anguish that emanated from that single point, and promptly vomited into the sink in front of her. Coughing and wiping at her mouth, she noticed her eyes were bloodshot and her face rather gaunt. It occurred to her then that she had eaten very little that day, and had drank even less. But just as she convinced herself to give the apparent injury the night to heal, another rush of pain cut through her, and she collapsed to the bathroom floor. She pulled up her shirt again and gasped as a three inch long line appeared, like an incision scar, and it was then that the normally strong and stoic Sheriff did something she had rarely, if ever, done.
She fainted.