Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Regina had always found refuge in being outside. Before the crown and the endless expectations that came with it, she would escape the castle walls whenever she could, riding through the woods or wandering the paths beyond the castle, especially when Emma was beside her. For a few hours, beneath the trees and open sky, she could almost forget that her future had already been decided for her.

When she came to the palace, the woods were no longer hers to disappear into, and the gardens gradually became the closest thing she had to that freedom. She learned their winding paths and quiet corners, finding a kind of peace among the hedges and towering oaks that she could no longer find anywhere else.

But now, even the gardens felt unfamiliar.

Regina sat alone on the weathered stone bench beside the fountain, her gaze fixed absently on the water as it spilled endlessly over carved marble, the sound gentle enough that it should have been soothing. Instead, it only made the silence inside her feel louder.

She had dressed without thinking that morning.

Or perhaps that wasn't entirely true.

She had dressed the way the Evil Queen always did.

Black silk draped heavily over her frame, the fitted bodice stitched with intricate silver embroidery that curled like thorned vines across the fabric before disappearing beneath the long sleeves. The gown narrowed sharply at her waist before falling in dark, sweeping layers around her feet, every inch of it regal, severe, untouchable. A deep purple cloak rested discarded beside her on the bench, abandoned the moment she'd stepped into the morning air.

She looked exactly as the kingdom expected its queen to look.

Powerful.

Unapproachable.

Feared.

She hadn't realized how much she hated it until she'd caught her own reflection in one of the castle windows on her way outside.

For one brief, foolish moment, she'd almost turned around. Almost gone back to change into something softer. Something that belonged to Regina instead of the Evil Queen. Something Emma might have recognized.

Instead, she kept walking, unable to convince herself that woman still existed.

Her crown remained untouched in her chambers, she couldn't bring herself to wear it—not today, not after everything that had happened.

The last two days had passed in a haze she barely remembered moving through, each hour blurring into the next until time itself had begun to lose shape. She had attended council without hearing a single word that had been said, signed documents she couldn't remember reading, dismissed advisors halfway through meetings because concentrating on matters of state suddenly felt impossible when every thought, no matter where it began, found its way back to the same place.

Emma.

The corridor.

The look on her face.

"I never thought you would use it on me."

Regina squeezed her eyes shut, but it did nothing to keep the memory from returning. No matter how many times she replayed it, the ending never changed; she still saw the scarlet magic erupt from her hands, watched Emma's body strike the stone wall, and heard the disbelief in her voice afterward. She had spent her entire life hating what Cora's magic represented—the control, the fear, the way it stripped choice from the people she claimed to love—and yet, in a single thoughtless moment, Regina had done exactly the same thing.

The realization settled deeper every time it surfaced, hollowing something out inside her until even breathing felt heavier than it should.

A pair of footsteps approached quietly across the gravel path before stopping several feet behind her.

"Your Majesty?"

Regina didn't turn.

"What is it?"

"The council has inquired whether you'll be returning before midday."

"I won't."

The answer came without hesitation.

The guard waited, as though expecting further explanation.

None came.

After a moment, Regina spoke again, her voice quieter this time.

"I do not wish to be disturbed today."

"Of course, Your Majesty."

"By anyone."

The guard bowed his head.

"I'll make sure of it."

Regina gave the faintest nod, her attention never leaving the fountain as the footsteps began to retreat before stopping once more.

"There is... one other matter, Your Majesty."

Regina closed her eyes briefly. "What?"

"The knight."

Something inside her stilled.

The guard cleared his throat carefully, "She remains in the castle."

Regina turned then, confusion knitting across her face before she could hide it. "She what?"

"She has not left, Your Majesty."

The words refused to make sense. Why would she stay? The question slipped from Regina's lips before she even realized she had spoken it.

"Why?"

The guard blinked, clearly caught off guard by the question. "I could not say, Your Majesty."

Regina looked back toward the fountain, though she no longer really saw it. Emma should have left; anyone with sense would have ridden as far from the castle as possible after what Regina had done, because she owed her nothing—not even another chance. When the guard finally stepped away, leaving her alone with the quiet, Regina welcomed it. For the first time since Emma had been dragged from the castle ten years ago, she truly believed she had lost her forever.

Her chest tightened as she considered what Emma's life might have looked like if she'd never known Regina at all. She would never have been dragged from the castle, never spent ten years in a foreign kingdom training for a life she hadn't chosen, never crossed half the realm chasing stories about an Evil Queen only to find someone she had once loved. She never would have stood in that corridor, looking at Regina with hurt in her eyes, only to watch her raise a hand against her. Emma's life had been shaped by what Regina had taken from her, and for the first time, Regina wondered if she'd been wrong all along to believe that loving Emma meant finding her. Perhaps the kindest thing she could have done was let her go.

The thought lingered only for a moment before voices carried across the gardens.

At first, Regina paid them little attention. The castle was rarely quiet for long, and she had grown accustomed to servants and guards passing along the outer paths throughout the day. Usually, they had the sense to keep their voices low, but today, apparently, they did not. The muffled exchange grew steadily louder, accompanied by the unmistakable sound of boots shifting against the gravel as whatever disagreement had begun beyond the hedges drew closer.

Regina pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes briefly. She had asked to be left alone. Was even that too much to ask?

The voices continued, one of them rising into a sharper tone as more footsteps approached.

Enough.

Without so much as looking up, Regina lifted a hand lazily, irritation outweighing thought, and sent a harmless pulse of purple magic sweeping toward the source of the commotion. The spell was only to silence the disruption, the enchanted gust separating whoever had been crowding the path before scattering a shower of leaves into the air.

"Must every conversation in this castle happen at the top of your lungs?" Regina called, finally looking up. "I asked not to be distur—"

The words caught in her throat.

Emma stood several yards away, helmet tucked beneath one arm, polished silver armor gleaming in the morning light as two bewildered Black Knights stumbled apart on either side of her.

For one suspended heartbeat, neither of them moved.

One of the guards recovered first, immediately lowering his head.

"My apologies, Your Majesty," he said hurriedly. "You ordered that no one disturb you."

Regina's gaze remained fixed on Emma.

"You've done your duty."

The guards exchanged a glance.

"You may leave us."

Without another word, they bowed and quickly disappeared down the garden path, leaving the silence to settle between Regina and Emma once again.

Regina looked back toward Emma.Her gaze dropped instinctively to the armor.

The sword at her hip.

The helmet beneath her arm.

Something inside her sank.

"...You're leaving."

It wasn't a question.

"I wasn't sure if I would be," she said, looking down  briefly at what she was wearing. 

Regina frowned.

Emma met her eyes again. "I figured that depended on what you had to say after what I’m about to tell you."

The words settled gently between them.

Regina searched Emma's face for a long moment, expecting anger, accusation, anything, but instead, all she found was quiet resolve.

After another long silence, Regina shifted slightly on the bench, making room beside her.

"Come... sit."

Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Emma hesitated only a heartbeat before crossing the path toward her and lowered herself onto the bench beside Regina without a word.

The stone beneath them was cool from the morning air, though neither seemed to notice. They simply sat there, separated by only a few inches now, listening to the quiet murmur of the fountain as water spilled endlessly over weathered marble. Somewhere in the gardens, birds sang to one another, blissfully unaware that the world had shifted for the two women sitting beneath the shade of the old oak tree.

Neither of them spoke.

Regina kept her eyes fixed on the gravel beneath her feet, her hands folded tightly together in her lap as though keeping them still required more effort than she could spare. Beside her, she could feel Emma watching her—not impatiently, not expectantly, but with the same unwavering gentleness that had always made Regina feel more seen than she knew how to survive.

She didn't understand it.

After everything that had happened, after everything she had done, Emma was still here.

She should have hated her.

She should have ridden as far from this kingdom as possible and never looked back.

Instead... she had come to find her.

A familiar pressure began to build behind Regina's eyes, and before she could stop it, a single tear escaped, slipping silently down her cheek before falling into the folds of her dark gown. She made no attempt to brush it away. Another followed, then another, each one arriving with an ease that almost startled her, as though her body had finally decided it could no longer carry ten years' worth of grief alone.

Emma noticed.

Without saying a word, she reached across the small space between them and gently rested her hand over Regina's.

The warmth of the touch was almost unbearable.

Regina's fingers twitched instinctively beneath Emma's, and whatever fragile control she had been clinging to gave way completely. Her breathing faltered as tears spilled more freely now, no longer quiet enough to ignore, her shoulders trembling despite every effort to steady them.

Emma didn't pull away.

She didn't ask Regina to explain herself or insist that everything would somehow be alright.

She simply stayed.

When Regina's breathing grew more uneven, Emma shifted closer until there was no space left between them at all. She slipped an arm carefully around Regina's shoulders, hesitating only long enough to give her the chance to move away if she wanted to.

She didn't.

Instead, Regina leaned into her almost instinctively, burying her face against Emma's shoulder as the first sob finally escaped her as Emma pulled her in closer.

Years of carefully guarded composure unraveled all at once as every loss she'd spent so long carrying alone crashed over her in a single, overwhelming wave.

She cried for the girl she'd lost beneath crowns and duty, for the kingdom she'd ruled through fear, and most of all because Emma was still holding her.

After everything.

Emma's embrace never loosened.

One hand rubbed slow, comforting circles against Regina's back while the other remained intertwined with hers, as though silently reminding her that she wasn't alone anymore. She let Regina cry until the sobs gradually softened into shaky breaths, and then into silence once more, neither of them feeling any urgency to fill it.

When Emma finally spoke, her voice was so quiet that it blended almost seamlessly with the sound of the fountain.

"I've been in love with you since we were eighteen."

Regina froze.

Slowly, she lifted her head from Emma's shoulder, her tear-stained face turning toward the woman she'd spent ten years mourning, disbelief settling across her features as she searched Emma's eyes for any sign that she had somehow imagined the words.

Emma only smiled sadly.

"I was going to tell you that day," she admitted, her thumb absentmindedly brushing across the back of Regina's hand. "The day they took me."

Regina frowned slightly.

"I'd spent so long trying to convince myself that what I felt would eventually go away if I ignored it long enough, but it never did." She laughed softly at herself, though there was little humor in it. "I was so nervous. I must've rehearsed what I wanted to say a hundred times while I walked through the castle."

Her smile faded.

"On our walk that day, I was going to tell you. And then the guards came."

She looked down briefly before meeting Regina's eyes again.

"They dragged me away before I ever got the chance to tell you that I loved you."

The words settled between them with a quiet finality, answering a question Regina had carried with her for a decade without ever daring to ask.

"I've loved you every day since."

Emma took a slow, steady breath.

"But..." Her voice caught for only a moment. "I can't love the Evil Queen."

Regina felt something inside her sink.

Of course.

She understood.

How could Emma love someone who had become everything she once promised she never would?

Before Regina could retreat back into that familiar ache, Emma squeezed her hand gently.

"I'm not giving up on Regina though."

Regina looked at her again.

Emma's eyes were unwavering.

"I never came here for the Evil Queen."

Her thumb brushed lightly over Regina's knuckles.

"I came here for you. And I know the Evil Queen is not who you are."

Regina looked at her, her vision blurring again.

She tried to speak, wanting desperately to tell Emma that she had loved her too, that she had spent ten years wondering what might have happened if the guards had arrived five minutes later, and that no matter how hard she'd tried to bury the girl she'd once been beneath crowns, vengeance, and magic, she'd never truly been able to let Emma go. 

But the words refused to come, caught somewhere between everything she wanted to confess and everything she was still afraid to say.

Emma didn't rush her. She simply remained beside her, their hands still intertwined, giving Regina all the time she needed to find the words.

Regina swallowed hard before her free hand drifted slowly toward the pocket hidden within her gown. She searched for a moment before withdrawing it again, her fingers curled tightly around something small.

They trembled.

Slowly, she opened them.

Resting in the center of her palm was a faded baby blue string bracelet.

The once-bright thread had dulled with age, softened from years of being handled until it was almost gray in places. A few of the tiny beads that had once been woven into it were missing now, leaving small gaps where they'd long since fallen away, but despite the years, despite everything...

It was unmistakably the same bracelet.

The one Emma had slipped back into Regina's hand the night she was dragged from the castle.

Emma's breath caught.

Her eyes fell to the bracelet, and for a long moment, she simply stared.

She understood.

Without saying a word, she reached over and gently lifted it from Regina's palm, turning it over carefully between her fingers before looking back at her.

Regina's eyes filled again.

"It was all I had left of you," she whispered, her voice breaking around the confession she'd carried for a decade. "I couldn't... I couldn't leave it behind."

Emma's thumb brushed lightly over the faded thread before she closed her hand around it with infinite care.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Emma's fingers remained wrapped gently around the faded bracelet, her thumb absentmindedly tracing the worn blue thread as though trying to imagine the countless times Regina must have held it over the years. 

Regina watched her quietly, her heart pounding against her ribs as she searched for the words she'd wanted to say for so many years.

"I..."

Her voice caught.

She laughed softly through the tears, frustrated with herself.

"I don't know why this is so difficult."

Emma looked back at her, offering the smallest smile. "You don't have to rush."

Regina nodded once, taking a slow breath she wasn't sure reached her lungs. 

"I loved you too." The confession came barely above a whisper. "So much that it terrified me."

Emma's eyes shimmered.

"I just..." Regina swallowed, her gaze falling briefly to their joined hands. "I didn't understand what it was until they were dragging you away."

She closed her eyes for a moment, remembering it with painful clarity.

"I remember trying to reach you. I remember screaming your name. And somewhere between watching them pull you through those gates and realizing I couldn't stop them..." She shook her head slowly. "It was like everything became painfully clear all at once."

Another tear slipped down her cheek.

"I loved you. I was simply too late."

Emma didn't answer immediately.

Instead, she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around Regina once more, holding her with the same quiet certainty she always had, as though ten years had never passed at all.

Regina melted into the embrace almost instantly.

This time there were no violent sobs, only quiet tears soaking slowly into Emma's shoulder as she let herself simply be held.

Eventually, Emma pulled back just enough to look at her.

"Do you remember," she asked softly, "the last time we were here?"

Regina smiled faintly through the tears. "You stole apples from the kitchen."

Emma let out a quiet laugh. "You were convinced we'd get caught."

"We almost did."

"We did."

Regina couldn't help the tiny smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth.

The memory lingered between them for a moment before Emma's expression softened again.

"You told me something that day."

Regina searched her face.

"You said all you wanted was a life that belonged to you."

The smile disappeared.

Emma looked around the gardens slowly, taking in the towering castle behind them, the guards patrolling its walls, the kingdom stretching endlessly beyond.

Then she looked back at Regina.

"Does this feel like that life?"

Regina's gaze followed hers, drifting toward the castle she had spent ten years ruling.

The throne.

The walls.

The crown left behind in her chambers.

"No. It hasn't for a very long time."

Emma didn't speak yet, she simply listened.

Regina let out a slow breath, her shoulders sagging beneath a weight she'd forgotten she was carrying.

"I spent so many years believing that if I just held onto it long enough..." she murmured, "...if I became powerful enough... if I found you..."

Her voice faltered.

"I thought eventually everything would feel worth it."

She looked down at her hands.

"It never did."

Emma's thumb brushed gently across the back of Regina's hand, before she spoke again, "Then why are you still holding onto it?"

Regina laughed once. It was a hollow sound.

"Because I don't know who I am without it anymore." She looked toward the castle again. "Everyone sees the Evil Queen now. My people. My enemies. Even the children in neighboring kingdoms grow up hearing stories about me."

She swallowed. "I've worn her for so long that I don't know where she ends and I begin... I don't know how to stop."

Regina's breathing shortened, and her fingers tightened around Emma's instinctively before she caught herself and pulled away.

"You shouldn't be here," she whispered, the old fear slipping back into her voice.

Emma reached for Regina's hand again without hesitation. "It's okay."

Regina looked at her.

Emma stood slowly, still holding onto her hand, giving it the gentlest tug. "Come on."

"What?"

A small smile found its way onto Emma's face. "Let's go for a walk."

Regina frowned faintly. "A walk?"

"Like we used to." Emma's smile warmed, touched with nostalgia. "It was always easier to talk when we were walking."

For the first time in what felt like years, Regina found herself wanting to follow.

They left the garden without deciding where they were going.

Emma still held Regina's hand as they stepped onto one of the winding stone paths that cut through the castle grounds, though somewhere along the way their fingers naturally slipped apart, not because either of them wanted to let go, but because they no longer needed to convince themselves the other was real.

For a while, they simply walked.

The familiar rhythm of their footsteps settled between them almost immediately, just as it always had all those years ago when neither of them quite knew how to say the things weighing on their hearts. Somehow, conversation had always come easier when they weren't looking directly at one another.

Emma smiled faintly. "I forgot how much you liked walking."

Regina let out the smallest laugh. "I forgot how much you talked."

"I do not talk that much."

Regina lifted an eyebrow.

Emma sighed dramatically. "I might've talked a little... after I got comfortable."

"A little."

Emma nudged her shoulder gently. "I was trying to keep you entertained."

"You were trying to distract me."

"It worked."

"It did."

The smile lingered between them for another moment before Emma looked ahead again, her expression softening.

"So..." She glanced over. "What happened after I left?"

Regina's smile faded, though not completely. "I became queen."

Emma gave her a look. ​​​"That happened before I left."

Regina huffed out something that almost resembled a laugh. "Right."

Silence settled again before Regina continued, more quietly this time.

"The first few years were..." She searched for the right word. "Hard."

She spoke honestly now, without trying to justify herself, the walls that had stood so firmly between them finally beginning to crumble.

"After Leopold was gone, I thought I'd finally be free." Regina's gaze drifted toward the gardens, her expression distant. "There was no one left to control me, no one standing between me and the life I'd spent years wishing for. I thought I'd feel relieved."

She gave a quiet, humorless laugh.

"Instead, I was angry. I was lonely, and I was grieving, and I had absolutely no idea what I was supposed to do with any of it. I'd spent so long thinking about the day I would finally be free that I'd never stopped to consider what came after."

Emma listened quietly, her hand still resting in Regina's.

"I didn't know what to do," Regina continued. "I didn't know what I wanted, or how I was supposed to rule a kingdom that was suddenly mine. So I started learning magic."

Her fingers tightened slightly around Emma's.

"At least magic made sense. There were rules to it. Things I could learn, things I could control. The more I understood, the more powerful I became, and for the first time in my life, there was something that belonged entirely to me."

Regina paused, her expression darkening slightly.

"I think I mistook that feeling for knowing what I was doing."

Emma said nothing.

She didn't need to.

Regina already knew.

"I created the Black Knights and sent them looking for you."

Emma looked at her. "I know."

"They searched everywhere anyone thought you might have gone." Regina's voice grew quieter. "I tried magic, too. A locator spell."

Emma frowned slightly. "On what?"

Regina hesitated before her gaze dropped to the bracelet in her hand. "This. It was the only thing of yours I had."

Emma followed her gaze, understanding slowly dawning.

"But obviously it didn't work," Regina continued. "Every time I cast the spell, it led me right back to myself. I thought I was doing something wrong, that I hadn't learned enough yet, so I kept trying."

A faint, bitter smile touched her lips. "Eventually I realized the spell didn't recognize it as yours anymore. You'd given it to me. As far as the magic was concerned, it belonged to me."

Her fingers brushed absently over the bracelet. "So I sent the knights farther. Every few months they returned empty-handed, and every time they did, I convinced myself I simply hadn't looked hard enough."

Emma's heart tightened.

"I kept thinking that if I found you..." Regina shook her head. "...everything else would somehow make sense."

They walked a little farther before Regina finally looked sideways at Emma.

"And you?" Regina asked after a moment. "How have you been?"

Emma glanced at her, then looked ahead again with a faint smile. "My story's a little less exciting."

"I doubt that."

"Trust me. The first couple of years were awful."

Regina's attention shifted toward her.

"I didn't know anyone. I barely understood how anything worked, and suddenly I was expected to spend every day training alongside people who'd been preparing to become knights their entire lives. The other guys who'd been sent there with me were always talking about how brutal the training was, telling stories about people who'd been pushed too far or hadn't survived it. So, yeah..." Emma gave a small laugh. "I was terrified."

Regina smiled faintly. "You? Terrified?"

Emma shot her a look. "Oh, absolutely."

"I find that difficult to believe."

"Well, I wasn't completely helpless."

Regina raised an eyebrow. "No?"

"I knew how to fight."

"Oh, I remember," Regina said with a laugh. "And I was shocked, to say the least."

Emma smirked. "I was wondering if you'd bring that up."

"You also defeated six of my guards just days ago."

"There were five."

"There were six," Regina corrected.

"I'm almost positive it was five."

"It was six."

Emma looked at her for a second before both of them broke into laughter.

The sound caught Regina off guard. It had been so long since she'd laughed like that—without calculation, without performance—that for a moment she almost didn't recognize it as her own.

"You've definitely gotten better at fighting my guards since ten years ago," she said, still smiling.

Emma's smile softened. "Yeah. I had a lot of practice."

"I suppose you did."

Emma glanced down at her hands. "Although, honestly, I didn't know anything about proper technique when I got there. I just knew how to survive. You learn a few things when you're on your own—how to read people, how to tell when someone's about to swing, where to hit if you need to get away, when to run before things get worse." She shrugged. "I'd gotten into enough fights to figure out the basics."

"Street fighting," Regina said.

"Pretty much."

Emma was quiet for a moment before continuing, her voice a little softer. "I think that was probably the first time anyone had looked at me and seen something useful instead of something that needed to be controlled."

Regina's expression tightened at that, but Emma continued before the moment could become too heavy.

"The formal training was a whole different story, though. Turns out knowing how to punch someone in the face doesn't make you a knight."

Regina's mouth twitched.

"They worked me harder than I thought was possible. There were days when I could barely lift my arms afterward, and plenty of times when I wondered why I was putting myself through it when I could've just walked away."

"But you didn't."

Emma looked at her.

"No," she said simply. "I didn't."

Something proud settled into her expression as she looked ahead again. "Eventually, I started getting good at it. Really good. I learned how to use a sword properly, how to fight on horseback, how to protect people instead of just myself. I even learned to think a few moves ahead instead of just reacting."

Regina watched her with quiet curiosity.

Emma smiled. "And somewhere along the way, I realized I actually loved it."

"You love being a knight?"

"I do."

There was an easy certainty in her voice that Regina hadn't heard when they'd first reunited.

"I like knowing where I belong," Emma continued. "I like being able to help people who can't protect themselves, and when someone comes to me for help, I actually get to do something about it." She glanced down at her armor. "Being one of the few women in the order wasn't always easy, but honestly? It just made me want it more. I wanted them to know I belonged there."

"And eventually they did."

Emma smiled. "Yeah. Eventually, they did."

Regina was quiet for a moment, studying her with something warm in her expression. "You became exactly what you wanted to become."

Emma's smile softened. "Maybe." She looked toward the distant castle walls. "Although I'm not entirely sure how happy they're going to be with me when I finally go back."

Regina frowned. "Why?"

Emma gave her a sheepish look. "I've been gone for days."

A small laugh escaped her.

"I was supposed to be on patrol when I heard the stories and pieced together that it was you. Then I decided I needed to find out for myself, and apparently that turned into riding halfway across the realm without telling anyone where I was going."

Regina's lips twitched. "That sounds like something you would do."

"Yeah, well..." Emma sighed, though she was smiling. "I'm pretty sure I'm going to have a lot of explaining to do when I get back."

She looked at Regina again, her expression becoming softer.

"But I don't regret coming."

Something in Regina's chest tightened.

Emma held her gaze for a moment before looking ahead again, and the two continued walking side by side through the winding garden paths, the distance between them feeling smaller than it had in ten years.

For a while, neither of them spoke.

The conversation had settled into something easier now, the kind of quiet that no longer felt like something either of them needed to fill. Regina found herself listening to the sound of Emma's footsteps beside her, strangely aware of how natural it felt to simply walk beside her again.

And then, almost against her better judgment, another thought surfaced.

She hesitated before finally speaking, "Did you..."

Emma glanced over. "Did I what?"

Regina's composure faltered just enough to make her look almost nervous.

"Did you... meet anyone?"

Emma frowned. "What do you mean?"

Regina tried for casual and failed spectacularly. "While you were away."

Emma stared at her for another second before realization dawned.

"Oh." A smile slowly spread across her face. "You mean... did I date anyone?"

Regina immediately looked away. "I suppose that's one way of putting it."

Emma's smile widened.

"Are you asking because you're curious..." She tilted her head, watching Regina carefully. "...or because you're jealous?"

Regina let out an offended little scoff. "I am the Queen."

Emma laughed. "That's not what I asked."

A faint flush touched Regina's cheeks, though she did her best to ignore it. "Answer the question."

Emma's smile widened. "You really want to know?"

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't."

"You sounded pretty jealous for someone who insists she's only asking out of curiosity."

Regina gave her a pointed look. "I am not jealous."

"Right."

"I am simply... interested."

"Uh-huh."

Regina sighed, though the faintest smile threatened the corner of her mouth.

Emma let her tease her for another moment before finally relenting, her expression softening as she considered the question seriously.

"No," she said. "I didn't."

Regina's eyes flicked toward her. "Not once?"

"I went on a few dates."

Regina's expression tightened before she could stop it.

Emma noticed immediately.

"Dates," she repeated, amused. "That's all they were."

Regina looked ahead again, pretending she hadn't reacted. "And none of them became anything?"

"No." Emma was quiet for a moment before adding, "I tried, I guess. There were people who were interested, and there were a couple I genuinely liked, but..." She shrugged. "It never felt right."

Regina's gaze returned to her. "Why?"

Emma gave her a small, knowing smile. "Do you really want me to answer that one too?"

Regina hesitated. The answer was obvious enough that she almost didn't want to hear it. Still, she nodded.

"I think part of me was always waiting for something I couldn't really explain."

Regina's chest tightened. "Something?"

Emma looked at her, her green eyes warm with something that needed no explanation anymore. "Someone."

For a few steps, neither of them spoke.

Regina looked down at the path, suddenly very aware of how close Emma was walking beside her, how easily their shoulders nearly brushed whenever the path narrowed, how different this moment felt from the life she had convinced herself she wanted.

Then, because she couldn't help herself, Regina asked quietly, "Did you ever think about coming back?"

Emma's expression changed. "Every day."

The answer came so quickly that Regina stopped walking.

Emma took another step before noticing and turned back toward her.

"I thought about it more times than I can count," she admitted. "Especially during the first few years. I wanted to know what happened to you. I wanted to know if you were okay. I wanted to know if you ever thought about me."

Her voice softened.

"But every time I thought about actually coming back, I'd remember the life I'd built, and I'd wonder what I could possibly be to you anymore."

Regina's heart ached. "You were never nothing to me."

Emma's eyes met hers. "I know that now."

The words were quiet, but they carried the weight of ten years.

Regina looked away again, overwhelmed by how much she was learning about the life she'd missed, about the woman Emma had become while Regina was busy becoming someone she never wanted to be.

After a moment, Emma reached for Regina’s hand again, gently threading their fingers together before tugging her forward and starting down the path once more.

"So, Your Majesty..."

Regina raised an eyebrow.

"Are you done interrogating me?"

A faint smile finally appeared on Regina's face.

"For now."

"Good." Emma glanced ahead, then back at her. "Because I have a few questions of my own."

Regina's smile faded slightly. "Oh?"

Emma nodded. "Yeah."

There was something more serious in her expression now, though not yet the heaviness that had filled their earlier conversations.

"I want to know what your life actually looked like."

Regina's steps slowed.

Emma didn't press her.

She simply waited.

And after a moment, Regina nodded.

"All right."

They continued along the garden path, their hands still loosely intertwined as Regina considered the question, her gaze drifting toward the trees ahead as though the answer might be easier to find somewhere beyond them.

"My life was..." She paused, searching for a word that could possibly contain ten years of it. "Complicated."

Emma gave her a small smile. "That's a very Regina answer."

Regina's lips curved faintly before she looked away again.

"I suppose it is."

For a few moments, she said nothing, her steps carrying them farther beneath the shade of the trees.

"After you were taken, I didn't know what to do with myself," she finally admitted. "I had spent so long believing that if I simply endured everything long enough, eventually my life would become my own, and then you were taken from me before I ever had the chance to find out what that might look like."

Emma's expression softened, but she didn't interrupt.

"My father tried to help in the ways he knew how, although..." Regina's smile faded slightly, as she shook her head. "He has always been kind, but kindness wasn't going to bring you back. No one knew where you had gone, and I couldn't explain why losing you felt like losing something I had never even been allowed to call mine."

She drew a slow breath.

"Leopold was still king, which meant my life was still largely dictated by the expectations that had been placed upon me before I understood what they meant. I was supposed to be a good wife, a good queen, obedient and gracious and grateful for the life I'd been given."

Emma glanced at her.

"And you weren't."

"I tried." Regina's answer was quiet. "At first, I really did try. I thought perhaps I could convince myself that this was simply what my life was supposed to be, that maybe if I stopped fighting it, I would eventually stop wishing for something else."

She looked down at their joined hands.

"But then I remembered what it felt like to be with you."

Emma's fingers tightened gently around hers.

"And suddenly pretending became impossible."

A breeze moved through the trees, stirring the leaves overhead as Regina continued walking.

"Rumplestiltskin was the one who showed me that I didn't have to accept everything that happened to me. He taught me that magic could give me choices I'd never been allowed to have before, and at first, that terrified me."

"Because of your mother."

Regina nodded.

"I had spent my entire life watching my mother use magic to control people, to force them into whatever shape she wanted them to be. I hated what she had done to me, and I swore I would never become anything like her."

Her expression tightened.

"But there was something intoxicating about realizing that I could finally make decisions without someone else being able to take them away from me."

Emma listened quietly.

"Every time I used magic successfully, I felt a little less helpless. Every time someone tried to tell me what I should do and I realized I could simply refuse, it felt like I was taking another piece of my life back." Regina's voice softened, though there was something sad beneath it. "The problem was that eventually I stopped knowing where taking my life back ended and taking control of everyone else's began."

Emma's eyes remained on her. 

"So that's when it started."

"Slowly."

Regina nodded. "I didn't become the Evil Queen overnight. I simply became more willing to do things I once would have considered unthinkable, and every time I crossed another line, it became easier to convince myself that the next one wasn't really a line at all."

She was quiet for a moment before adding, "And underneath all of it, I was still looking for you."

Emma's expression changed. "All those years?"

"Every single one." Regina's answer came without hesitation.

"I sent people whenever I heard rumors of a lady knight. Travelers, merchants, soldiers, anyone who might have heard something about a young woman who matched your description. I searched neighboring kingdoms myself whenever I could, and when I couldn't..." She swallowed. "I sent the guards in my place."

"Did you ever think you'd actually find me?"

"Every time."

Emma looked down. "What happened when you didn't?"

Regina's gaze hardened slightly, though the sadness never left her eyes.

"At first, I was disappointed. Then I became angry. Eventually, I stopped allowing myself to feel anything when they returned empty-handed because feeling it every time was unbearable." She gave a small, bitter laugh. "But the anger never really went away."

Emma was silent for a few steps.

"And then Leopold..." Regina looked ahead, her voice becoming quieter. "That's when everything changed."

She didn't elaborate.

Not yet.

There were still pieces of that story she wasn't ready to place between them.

Instead, she looked toward Emma, her expression softening again. "But enough about me."

Emma raised an eyebrow. "Nice try."

"Are you still planning to leave?" she asked, changing the subject.

Emma looked at her.

Regina kept her eyes ahead, watching the path wind through the trees as though the question were nothing more than idle curiosity, though the slight tightening of her fingers around Emma's hand betrayed her.

"When we get back," she clarified. "Are you going to leave?"

Emma was quiet for a moment.

"I don't know."

Regina's heart sank despite the fact that she'd been expecting the answer.

"You said you had to return to your kingdom."

"I do."

"And you've been gone for days."

Emma smiled faintly. "Yeah. I'm probably going to have some explaining to do."

Regina nodded, though she couldn't quite hide the disappointment that settled across her face. "I suppose you have a life there."

"I do."

There was no accusation in Emma's voice, and somehow that made it harder.

Regina glanced at her. "You've built something."

"I have."

"A place where you belong."

Emma looked at her for a long moment before answering. "I thought I did."

Regina's brows drew together. "What does that mean?"

Emma slowed her steps slightly, turning toward her.

"It means that I loved the life I built, Regina. I worked hard for it, and I'm proud of what I've become, and I'm not going to pretend that none of it matters just because I've found you again." She paused, her expression softening. "But I also spent ten years wondering if I would ever see you again, and now that I have, I don't know how I'm supposed to just ride home and pretend this didn't change everything."

Regina's throat tightened. "I don't want to take that from you."

"I know."

"I mean it." Regina's voice became quieter. "You deserve the life you've made. You deserve to go back to the people who care about you, to your work, to whatever future you had before you came here."

Emma studied her. "And what future did you have?"

Regina looked away. "None."

The answer came so quietly that Emma's expression changed.

"I had a kingdom," Regina continued, "but I don't know that I ever had a life. Not one that was mine, anyway."

She looked down at their joined hands.

"And I don't want you to give yours up because you feel sorry for me."

Emma's expression softened. "I don't."

Regina finally looked at her. 

"I don't feel sorry for you," Emma said, the certainty in her voice making Regina's chest ache.

"I love you," Emma continued, "and I want to see what happens now. I don't know what that looks like yet, and I'm not going to pretend I have all the answers, but I'm not going to walk away from you just because things are complicated."

Regina searched her face for any sign that Emma was saying what she thought Regina needed to hear. She found none.

"Even after everything?" Regina asked quietly.

Emma's fingers tightened around hers. "Especially after everything."

Regina looked down at their joined hands, her thumb brushing slowly over Emma's knuckles.

But Emma was choosing her.

Regina stopped walking.

"What is it?" Emma asked, turning back toward her.

Regina didn't answer immediately.

She simply looked at her. At the green eyes she'd spent ten years remembering, at the familiar curve of her smile, at the woman standing before her who had somehow grown into everything Regina had always known she could become and yet still looked at her with the same tenderness she'd shown her when they were eighteen.

"I don't know what to do with this," Regina admitted, her voice barely above a whisper.

"With what?"

"With you still being here."

Emma's expression softened. "Then don't do anything."

Regina gave a faint, almost disbelieving laugh. "You make that sound very simple."

"Maybe it can be." Emma stepped closer. "Maybe you don't have to figure out the next ten years tonight."

Regina's breath caught.

She could feel Emma's warmth now, could see the tiny flecks of gold hidden within her green eyes, and suddenly all the things she'd wanted to say seemed to disappear beneath the overwhelming realization that this was real.

Emma was here, and Regina had spent ten years believing she'd never get another chance.

Her gaze dropped briefly to Emma's lips before she could stop herself.

Emma noticed.

Neither of them moved for a moment.

Then Emma's hand rose slowly, giving Regina every opportunity to pull away, before her fingers came to rest gently against Regina's cheek.

Regina closed her eyes.

The touch was so familiar and yet so impossibly new that it nearly brought her to tears again.

When she opened her eyes, Emma was still there, waiting.

Regina leaned forward first.

Barely.

Just enough.

Emma closed the remaining distance between them.

The first kiss was soft, almost tentative, as though neither of them quite trusted that after ten years of losing each other, they were finally allowed to have this. But when Regina kissed her again, there was nothing tentative about it. Her hand slid from Emma's wrist to the side of her neck, drawing her closer as their lips met with a sudden urgency that made the years between them feel almost unbearable, all the restraint and longing they'd carried finally breaking through in a single moment. Emma leaned into her without hesitation, one hand settling against Regina's waist as the kiss deepened, lingering until neither of them seemed willing to be the first to pull away.

Ten years of wondering, searching, remembering—and somehow, kissing Emma again didn't feel like discovering something new. It felt like finding something she'd been missing for so long she'd forgotten what it was like to have it.

When they finally separated, neither of them moved very far.

Their foreheads rested together, their breathing uneven, and Regina let out a quiet, disbelieving laugh that sounded almost foreign coming from her.

For once, there was nothing standing between them. There was no Evil Queen, no past they needed to make sense of, and no future they had to figure out just yet. There was only Emma and Regina, standing together in the quiet garden, and for one brief, almost impossible moment, it felt as though they were eighteen again, walking beneath the trees with their whole lives still waiting ahead of them.

For a little while, Regina allowed herself to stay there, suspended in the strange comfort of having Emma beside her again, before the sight of the castle beyond the hedges slowly pulled her back to reality.

The guards stationed along the walls. The villagers beyond the gates. The throne waiting upstairs. And everything Regina had done to make certain no one would ever take her power away from her again.

The weight of it settled over her shoulders once more, and Emma seemed to notice the shift in her expression.

"So..." she said.

Regina looked over.

Emma glanced toward the castle. "What are you going to do?"

Regina's brow furrowed slightly. "About what?"

"You know what I mean."

Regina sighed softly. "I can't simply undo ten years, Emma."

"I'm not asking you to."

Regina looked at her, surprised.

Emma stopped walking. 

"I'm not asking you to give up your throne. I'm not asking you to stop being a queen, and I'm certainly not asking you to hand your kingdom over to someone else." Her expression softened. "You fought your entire life to have control over your own choices. I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't have it."

Regina studied her carefully. "Then what are you asking?"

Emma hesitated before answering. "Stop hurting people."

Regina's expression immediately tightened. "Emma—"

"I mean it." Her voice remained gentle, but there was no uncertainty behind it. "You can rule however you want. You can use your magic. You can have your guards. You can make whatever decisions you think are best for your kingdom. But you don't have to kill people because they disobey you, or torture them because they won't tell you what you want to hear."

Regina looked away. "You don't understand."

"Then make me understand."

Regina didn't answer.

She knew what Emma was asking of her.

And she also knew she wasn't ready to promise it.

"I don't know if I can be the kind of queen you're asking me to be."

"I'm not asking you to be a different queen." Emma reached for her hand again. "I'm asking you to be Regina."

The words lingered between them.

Regina looked down at their hands, her thumb moving slowly across Emma's knuckles.

"I don't know what that looks like anymore."

"Then maybe you can figure it out."

Regina gave her a small, almost defeated smile. "You make everything sound so easy."

"I know." Emma smiled faintly. "I'm working on that."

Regina laughed softly, but the uncertainty remained.

She wasn't convinced.

Not yet.

Maybe she couldn't be.

For ten years, she had built her entire existence around the belief that power without fear was power that could be taken away. Emma could tell her she didn't need to hurt people all she wanted, but Regina wasn't sure she knew how to rule any other way.

Still, she could try. Maybe.

Emma glanced toward the castle.

"You should probably tell your people where you are before they decide I've kidnapped you."

Regina raised an eyebrow. "They'd probably thank you."

Emma laughed. "I'm serious. And I should go back too."

Regina's smile faded. "You mean leave."

"For a little while." Emma squeezed her hand. "I've been gone for days. If I want to remain a knight, I should probably explain why I abandoned my post and disappeared without telling anyone."

Regina nodded reluctantly. "Will you return?"

Emma smiled. "Give me a few days."

Regina's eyes searched hers. "And then?"

"I'll come back."

The certainty in Emma's voice eased something in Regina's chest.

"Promise?"

Emma's smile softened. "I promise."

Regina nodded.

But for now, Emma had given her something she hadn't had in years.

A choice.

Regina wasn't ready to make it yet.

But she wasn't running from it, either.