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“White Mocha Latte with whip for the Savior,” Emma began as she slid into the driver seat of the sunshine yellow bug, holding two paper cups. She kept the one in her left hand and passed the one in her right to Regina. “And a dirty chai for the Queen.” Emma’s eyes lit up with mirth trying to stop from saying the next bit, but unable to contain it. “‘Cause the Queen likes it dirty.”
Regina accepted the cup with a roll of her eyes. “Really, Ms. Swan? Trust you to make a sophomoric innuendo.” She paused and met the Sheriff’s gaze with hooded eyes. “And you have no idea how dirty the Queen likes it, dear.”
Emma visibly gulped and mumbled something about the weather before she started this rat trap and drove off. The Mayor counted it as a victory, not reading too much into her reaction. Besides, they were friends. Friends joked around like this, didn’t they? Truth be told she didn’t know how to be someone’s friends. The closest she came was with the same so called Queens of Darkness they were going to spy on this very night. And their banter bordered on the dark and disturbing. There had been a bit of this kind of humor however it wasn’t this light and offhanded.
They drove to Mr. Stillman’s lot and exchanged the Bug for a dirty, nondescript pickup truck.
Regina watched Emma seemingly struggled with the door handle and then searched for the keys. It took the Queen a moment too long to figure out what Emma had done. At first she thought it was because of the general incompetence. But it was only when they were driving down Main Street that Regina had realized what the Savior had actually done.
“Emma did you steal this truck?” she asked, sipping her drink.
“I did not-not steal it?” the Sheriff offered, giving her answer more like a question than a definitive statement.
“Do I need to remind you that you are the Sheriff of this town?”
Emma huffed. “Morality isn’t black and white, your Majesty.”
That threw her. She hadn’t expected that. Emma was embodiment of light. Perhaps not by choice. However, Emma was shaped by the choices of others as much has she been driven by her own choices. But where the Savior had put herself on the correct path, Regina had chosen darkness time and again. At her worst the former Evil Queen never questioned her choices. She had convinced herself she was right, just. She was morally obligated to seek revenge. Everyone else who thought differently was wrong and confused. Only when Regina sought redemption did she discover that morality was a bleak field of gray. And it didn’t matter how much good a person did, there was no washing the blood off their hands once it got on them.
And that was certainly true for the Mayor.
“Don’t look at me like that, Regina,” Emma said, pulling her out of her musings. “It’s complicated. Outside the town line there are rules. Government, laws. You break the rules, you go to jail. Or worse. Here… it’s not so easy. Everyone has done something that would land them in a cell. Me, my parents, Gold, Killian…”
“Me…” Regina whispered, looking forward.
“All of us,” Emma stressed as she turned to an empty road near the docks. “No one is wholly good or wholly evil. Hero, villain. The lines are blurred here. All I know is that in Storybrooke, we make our own rules, we live by our own laws. And most days, I don’t think any of us is much of a moral authority here. I’m the Savior but I don’t walk on the water. I mean, only when it freezes, I guess.”
The joke was a failed attempt at levity. Emma did that when she was uncomfortable. When the emotions or rather subject matter got too real. She used humor to shift focus. And just like dishonesty didn’t work between them, neither did this unsubtle endeavour to move the spotlight.
“Emma…”
The Sheriff sighed, pulling off to the side of the road. “Fine. My point is that despite what my parents did to me, I’m still capable of darkness and light. Hell, I’ve done a few things I’m not proud of when I got here.”
“Such as?”
Emma was quiet for a moment. “I shouldn’t have put my hands on you.” She explained further. “When Henry was in the hospital and I found out the truth about everything. I put my hands on you. I shouldn’t have done that.”
Regina frowned. “Emma, Henry was in the hospital because I put him there. You had every right—”
But the Savior didn’t let her finish. “I kept Henry from you.”
Again, the Mayor saw the logic in that choice. “You just found out I was the reason you didn’t grow up with your family and I had tried to kill your parents and you. If I had been in your shoes—”
However, Emma ignored that point too. “I changed the past. If I hadn’t—”
This time Regina didn’t let her finish. “You saved me from myself. Perhaps not completely. If you hadn’t saved Marian, I would have her killed. I know it’s one evil act in a long line of many but it’s one less evil act.”
“I still hurt you,” Emma added, quietly.
Regina took a deep breath and let it out slowly, bringing cooling coffee to her lips just to buy herself some time. “I would have killed my soulmate’s wife, Emma. How long do you think Robin and I would have lasted once that secret came to light?”
She had time to think about it. If Robin was happy, then she was happy for him. Regina believed that she deserved this. Robin’s heart wasn’t as dark as hers. He deserved peace and happiness. And that’s why she let him go. He was always going to be noble. He was always going to do the noble thing. Perhaps she needed someone that had walked a path similar to her own.
“Regina…”
But the Queen waved her hand at whatever Emma was going to say. “No, Sheriff, I have done horrible things. Murder, torture,” her voice dropped to just above a whispered as she confessed, “Rape.”
It was the first time she had said it out loud. She looked back on her time with Graham and there was no other word to call it. He had no free will. She controlled him. He could give his consent no more than she could give her consent to the king all of those years ago. It was only until recently that she labelled it for what it was. And the realization sickened her. Regina had truly become everything she hated. Emma looked at her, confusion filling her eyes. She didn’t get it either. No one would. Only true monsters would. Because only now was she seeing the true depths of her darkness.
“Regina… I… Um…”
“I know what I did,” the Mayor said. “I know I deserve what’s happening to me. If good is supposed to prevail over evil, then you’re right, by the laws of any place, I should be in chains.”
“But you’ve tried to change your story,” Emma insisted.
“What I’ve done to redeem myself doesn’t change what I did to corrupt myself,” Regina replied. “I’ve studied my story every possible way. Change a few key choices and I’m the hero overcoming an abusive mother to find my own happiness. I could have become a trusted advisor to your mother. Taken my gift for strategy to help Robin fight off a tyrant. Or with a sword and a bow saved some other princess or prince from to a similar fate. But I didn’t. I allowed my hate and anger to consume me. And I became a monster.”
Silence befell the cab. No one said a word. Minutes went by and no one spoke.
“You could have faced off with an evil princess in your fifties.” Emma broke the silence with a cryptic interjection that left Regina cocking her eyebrow at the Savior before she continued. “Say you do any of the things you described. You become the hero our son always wanted you to be. You settle down with someone. You start a family. You find happiness. My parents never steal Lily away from Mal. I grow up a princess capable of evil and Snow and David don’t know. And I go dark. Really dark. I would have been a spoiled princess born in a golden cage, growing up with a sense that the world was mine and I could use it as I wanted to.
“Who knows what those choices would have done, Regina? Henry might not have been born if you chose a different path.”
“Are you saying that everything happens for a reason?” the Mayor asked.
But the Sheriff shook her head. “I’m saying that everything happens, Regina. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Like I said before, the world isn’t black and white and the line between good and evil is muddled at best. Change the point of view of a story and boom, you see it from a new perspective. The seemingly good guys do something unspeakably evil. And the villain’s story is just one of survival.”
“Emma…”
“Oh, you think that I wasn’t mad at you or that I didn’t hate you for what you did,” Emma began as if she knew what the Queen was thinking. “Because I did. I am on some days; when you’re being an asshole mostly. But the rules here are different. They’re different from the rules in the Enchanted Forest and they are different from the rules in the Land Without Magic. Killian was a pirate that killed for sport. Forgiven. Robin stole from people and whatever his reasoning it was still wrong. Forgiven. Gold was just as evil if not more so than you on your worst day. Forgiven. My parents stripped me of my free will and burdened an innocent child with my darkness. Forgiven. We’ve been pretty lenient with the ends justifying the means. And if we apply that same logic to your case, Madam Mayor, then you should be forgiven too.”
She gave Regina a very pointed look. “You were a survivor, Regina. And you acted as most survivors act. You crossed the line, sure. You robbed me of my family and my childhood. You killed, you tortured in more ways than one. But goddammit, your Majesty, I even seen how hard you try. You could have killed Zelena, but you didn’t. You could have reverted back to Evil Queen status when I changed the past. You could’ve but you didn’t. I’d call that progress. I might have been pissed at you, but you’ve tried to set things right. And what kind of hypocrite would I be if I didn’t try to forgive you?”
Again, they fell silent.
“I’m not doing this so—”
“I know, Regina. You’re not doing it because you need me to forgive you. I’m saying this so you learn how to forgive yourself.”
“Emma, some of the things I’ve done…”
“Yeah, some of them are beyond forgiveness. I get it. I mean not completely. I haven’t done some of those things and couldn’t begin to understand. But I get being low and I definitely understand making choices you're not remotely proud of.” She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. “When people look at me all they see is the destiny. They see me as the savior, the sheriff, Snow and Charming’s daughter. But if they knew their great hero’s armor was tarnished like I know mine is, they might see that everything isn’t as clear cut as they think.”
Regina finished her drink. “Thank you, Emma.”
“Anytime, your Majesty,” the Sheriff told her. “What are friends for?”
“We are friends, aren’t we?” the Queen asked.
Emma smiled. “Yeah. I mean, we are, right? Friends, I mean. Friends with a confusing and convoluted past but friends nonetheless. We’ll make this work. I don’t know how but half the fun is figuring it out.”
The Mayor chuckled. “You and I have very different definitions of fun, Ms. Swan.”
The Sheriff joined her. “Yeah, my idea of fun is hot coco with the kid and his other mom watching some cheesy action flick as per our Christmas tradition. And your idea of fun is playing magical super spy so we can figure out if Gold and your old mean girl buddies are on the up and up.”
“I’m doing this so we can have more of those Christmas traditions, Emma. Even if it’s watching two movies that have little to do with Christmas other than the fact that they occur around or on Christmas,” Regina explained. “When this is over we can go back to that. But not before we make sure it’s safe.”
Emma’s grin brightened, showing off those adorable dimples she had grown accustomed to. “See, you deserve your happiness, Regina. No more or less than the rest of us do.” She paused for a second before she added. “And Die Hard and A Long Kiss Goodnight are two of the greatest Christmas movies of all time. Total classics.”
“You are clinically insane,” Regina deadpanned.
But Emma shrugged. “Probably. And you’re my friend. What does that say about you?”
“I think it’s been well established that I don’t make good choices, Sheriff. And I’m a terrible judge of character.”
Emma’s lips quirked, trying not to laugh. “You did alright with Forest-Scented. He was a good guy.”
Regina studied Emma’s expression. It wasn’t the first time she had mentioned Robin, giving him some backhanded compliment. The Savior had a rolodex of nicknames for her Outlaw, but Forest-Scented was among her favorites. It came up more often than the others. Regina didn’t understand why Emma did this. She first thought it was payback for how Regina spoke of Captain Guyliner. But it went deeper than that. Emma always said something complimentary only marred by some throw away nickname that could be seen as annoyingly charming or affectionate. But she knew Emma. Despite playing an idiot, the Savior was no dummy. She made few wasted choices and everything she said for a reason. So what was the reason for the way she talked about Robin?
“Why do you do that?” the Mayor finally asked. “Why do you always say something nice about him followed by something borderline insulting?”
“What?” Emma frowned. But didn’t deny it outright. “I have nothing but good things to say about the great and noble Lord Pinecone.”
Regina pointed her finger at Emma after that statement. “See? That. That right there. What is that? Do you have something against Robin?” The Sheriff gaped at her her, her mouth wordlessly in motion as she tried to speak. The Mayor rolled her eyes at Emma’s silence and pressed on. “What is it, Emma? I deserve to know.”
“He’s impossible to dislike,” the Savior blurted out and rambled on. “He’s so nice and kind. He was-slash-is obviously crazy about you. And he has that cute kid. And I messed that up. And I want to be upset about that. But… But I’m not. And I’m upset that I’m not upset about it. Because I should be upset about it. I hurt you. I hurt my… my friend. And my friend loves this great guy who she can’t have and I’m the reason and I’m upset that I can’t find a single thing wrong with him other than the fact that he smells like trees and he’s short… I mean shorter than who I pictured you being with. Like some tall, dark, and handsome type, who when he smiles you can see a flash of the devil behind his eyes.”
“Are you describing my perfect mate or your own, Ms. Swan?” Regina asked, coolly, thinking of course about Captain Tightpants.
“Like Killian?” Emma fired back and then laughed. “No. I mean someone who’s less into leather and more into Jazz music and classical literature. And who looks amazing in a three piece Armani suit.”
“You have a very vivid imagination.”
After a moment Emma continued. “Killian and I… There is no Killian and me. Just so you know. For the record.”
“Tell that to him, he seems to think—”
“Trust me, Regina, whatever you’re thinking, it’s far from the truth. Killian’s in love with a dead woman and he’s sorta moved on but not with me. And I’m…”
She didn’t continue but Regina needed to know. “You’re what, Emma?”
And then it happened. The unthinkable. The last thing Regina expected. One moment she was looking at Emma, her body turning to face her and the next Emma’s lips were on hers. The kiss was brief and awkward and unexpected. Regina didn’t know what to say or do and Emma was facing forward trying to look innocent.
“You’re gay?” Regina had to know.
Emma scoffed. “Me? No, I’m not gay.”
The Queen cut her eyes at the Savior but couldn’t keep the smile from quirking the ends of her lips. “You just kissed me.”
The Sheriff finally ventured to met her eyes with a smirk. “Ok, I’m gay.” Then she paused. “Gay for you? Bi? Pan? Look, I like people. It has nothing to do with what’s between their legs. And I like you, Regina. You’re pretty great.”
They were quiet for a moment before Regina asked the obvious question. “Who has Killian moved on with?”
“Before I say anything, just know that he hasn’t acted on it but he talks about it only always and I think there might be something real, at least on his part,” Emma said. “Killian’s in love with Robin.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s surprising.”
“No, no. It’s not that,” Regina replied. “I just didn’t figure Killian for the type.”
“Oh, he’s totally the type. He told me about it in Neverland. Not the stuff with Robin but he’s romantic past… with men. I told him about my past with women. We bonded. Became friends. I knew something was up when I kissed him. And he knew there was something up between us when you and me did that thing with moon. And after he found me after the second curse, we both thought there could be something there. I mean there was obvious that thing with you and Robin happening. And Killian knew that he had feelings for you. And I knew you had feelings for Robin. So we both backed off.”
“You’re an idiot,” Regina breathed but her smile was just as bright as Emma’s and she offered her hand to the Savior who took it. “We’ll talk more about this tomorrow. After we deal with Rumple and as you put it my old Mean Girl Buddies.”
“So, we have a chance?” Emma asked.
Regina nodded. “I think we might. Besides, I’ve always had a preference for blondes.”
The Savior chuckled. “You and Maleficent. I knew it. What you did? Only something an ex girlfriend would do.”
“Keep talking and I consider a similar course of action with you, Emma.”
“And this is me shutting up.”
“Good girl.”