Chapter Text
“I’ll always love you I promise” Emma whispers to Regina as they stand by the town line. Regina holds back a sob wishing that could be true. She steps forward before taking Emma’s hands in her own.
“When this curse comes we won’t have existed Emma. You won’t remember us, you won’t remember me. I, your family, we’ll all just be stories”
“No Regina, please there has to be another way” Emma pleads.
“I wish there was Emma but you and Henry need to escape, you need to take care of each other and one day I will come back for you I promise”
“I won’t know you” Emma sobs.
“I guess I’ll just have to find a way to get you to fall in love with me” Regina says through a broken smile.
“Don’t take too long Regina. I know you say I won’t remember but my heart will know someone’s missing”
“I love you Emma” Regina says knowing there isn’t much time. She quickly pulls Emma to her for one last kiss. She takes as much time as she can savouring the taste of lips against her own and the feel of hands clinging tightly around her waist.
She pulls back with a reluctant frown before gesturing for Henry to join them, “You two are the reason for happiness and the curse is going to take that away but my gift to you is good memories, a good life for you and Henry, one where you’ll never have given him up, you’ll always have been together” her voice trails off on the last word. Together. That’s all she wanted, her and Emma together.
“It won’t be real” Emma says with a frown that breaks Regina’s heart all over again.
“The past won’t but the future will be and for you to have one I need to let you go”
Emma quickly pulls her in for another tight hug as she whispers into Regina’s ear, “Just know that I love you, no matter what I remember I love you and I will save you. I will get you back and we will be together. I love you. I love you” she repeats it, her words swallowed by tears as she says goodbye.
“I love you too” Regina whispers back for what she hopes is not the last time.
The last thing she sees before she turns away is a tear streaked face climbing into a yellow bug.
It’s Snow who notices. It’s Snow who sees that Regina always takes watch and that she won’t sleep in the day. It’s Snow who sees that Regina is exhausted, that she needs to sleep. No-one else dares tell that to the obviously fatigued queen. No-one knows what to say to her.
They used to fear her for her evil. Now they look at her as she fails to control her tears and can only offer pity and sympathy. They all see the dark circles under her eyes and the way she falls further and further behind as they journey forth through the land, unwilling to take the rest she so clearly needs.
It’s when they make camp at the end of the first week in a parcel of land they can only hope is safe that Snow walks over to where Regina is sitting by herself. Since they arrived back the other woman hasn’t spoken a word, she just follows and cries lost in her thoughts of people she’s lost. She won’t let them in, she won’t let them help her and Snow can’t sit back and watch Regina collapse in on herself anymore. She still believes that they will all be reunited with Emma and Henry and she knows deep in her heart that the person they’ll both want to see more than anything is Regina. No matter what Regina thinks she isn’t alone, she has people who will help her if she’ll only let them but Snow knows her better than the rest of them. She knows Regina won’t be the one to make the first move, not when it comes to this, she knows it has to be her who does this.
So she sits down next to the silently crying woman. “Regina?” she asks in concern, “Do you want to talk?”
Regina simply looks through her before resting her head on her knees and giving back into her sobs. Snow frowns, in all of her days she’s never seen the woman look so broken. Grief stabs through her own heart as she pictures her daughter and grandson, she wonders where they are, if they are happy, if they are safe. At the least this time she knows they’re alive and that they have each other. One day they’ll come back to us she needs to believe this, she needs her faith in order to carry on in this land they were forced to return to, a land she knows is not Regina’s home and is not her own because it is missing two vital pieces.
She sighs at the other woman’s silence before putting an arm around Regina’s shaking shoulders. At the motion Regina flinches before looking up in confusion.
“I miss them too Regina, not like you do I know but you aren’t alone so please don’t let yourself think that. Let us help you because one day we will see Emma and Henry again and I want you to be there for that” she explains, “And you need to sleep” she adds quietly.
“I can’t” Regina says.
Snow blinks in surprise at the hoarse gravelly words that finally emerge from Regina’s lips. “What?”
“I can’t sleep” she clarifies.
“Why?” Snow asks though she has a feeling she knows the answer.
“Because I see her face, I see her face as she gets into that car begging me to stop her or to have another way and I didn’t. I don’t, Snow I don’t have another way. I promised her, I promised I would never leave her, that I would never let her go and I did. I let her go. And all I can see when I try and sleep is her face begging me not to” Regina sobs. “I can’t sleep because I don’t want to dream”
Snow lets her tears loose as Regina speaks, the heartbreak palpable in the air and for a few moments they just let themselves be two women united in grief, crying over Emma. Snow feels Regina’s head loll against her shoulder and she releases a shuddering breath as she begins to sob with the former queen. Neither one of them are queens in this moment nor are they even Snow White and Regina, they’re just two people bound by the loss of a person they loved.
It’s Snow who recovers first lifting Regina’s head up forcing the other woman to look at me, “I know it hurts. I know how it feels to constantly see that face looking back at me but you had to let her go or we would all have died. You’re a hero Regina because you saved your family and one day they will come back to you but you need to be strong and I know you can be. And on those days when you don’t feel you are I’ll be here, we’ll all be here for you to lean on. Just please let us help. Sleep” she says the last word softly feeling Regina fall into her offered hug resting her head against Snow’s shoulder once more, “Do you think she’ll hate me?”
The quiet question barely reaches Snow’s ears and when it does it sends a fresh bout of guilt and grief through her, “Regina she could never hate you. She loves you”
“Always” Regina mumbles more to herself.
Snow nods with a painful smile as she begins to run her hands through Regina’s hair remembering how once upon a time her stepmother would do the same to comfort her. Much has changed since then and the woman before her is her stepmother no longer, she’s her daughter’s true love, a woman who Snow has seen battle with redemption before becoming a hero, she’s someone Snow is glad is in her family. Much has changed between them since the days when Regina would soothe Snow to sleep but she still remembers the words Regina would whisper to her, she repeats them now, “Sleep perchance to dream”
The two women rest together in their bed, Regina curled tightly into Emma’s side holding onto her as best she can. Emma wakes suddenly jostling her.
“Em what’s wrong?” Regina asks groggily.
“I just, I dreamt you were gone” Emma says as she gulps, her heart aching miserably at the thought.
“I’m right here Emma. I’ll always be here” Regina reassures her reaching up to play with golden curls.
Emma wraps her arms back around Regina and feels the weight of the woman in her arms. She takes a deep breath inhaling the scent of her, reassuring herself that she is not alone, that Regina is with her. She doesn’t dare shut her eyes in case the woman slips away from her.
Regina frowns shifting herself up to look deep into the eyes she loves, “Sleep Em, sleep; perchance to dream” she whispers caressing Emma’s cheek.
Emma looks at her, “What if I don’t want to dream?”
Regina sighs, “Trust me Emma your dreams will be good”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ll be here to make sure they are”
Emma smiles before letting Regina play with her hair and rub her back until she feels drowsiness creep over her. “I love you Regina” she mumbles as she falls asleep.
Regina smiles, “I love you too Emma. Always” she whispers kissing her on her forehead. She doesn’t go back to sleep. Instead she holds on to Emma, watching her sleep and wishing her good dreams.
Emma wakes with a start in her New York City apartment. She sits up her hand reaching out on instinct only to hit empty air. She dreamt of her again, the woman soothing her to sleep. Her heart pangs in her chest, a feeling she’s been having since the dreams began, a feeling like something is missing.
She wishes she knew who this mystery woman was. She wishes that the love she feels in the dream didn’t hurt so much when she woke up to nothing.
“Whoever you are I’ll find you” Emma whispers to the night sky.
She flops down on the pillows hoping sleep will come to her once more.
“Sleep; perchance to dream” she hears whispered to her in a rich deep voice that instantly soothes her. She frowns wondering where it came from before letting that voice whisk her back to dreams.