Chapter Text
Emma was acting strange. One minute she was the concerned friend, following Regina after an encounter with Zelena and listening to her talk about how much it hurt to know even Rumplestiltskin thought Zelena was more powerful than her. But the next minute, Emma was avoiding her gaze and acting as if they were still fighting all the time, which they weren’t. And come to think of it, even that was strange. Regina was used to a certain amount of banter with Emma, and ever since she’d come back from New York, she would just shrink away whenever Regina started to rib her about something.
Regina was over it. She was supposed to be preparing for this ridiculous witch fight with Zelena as soon as the sun set, and all she could think about was why Emma was behaving the way she was. And Regina couldn’t afford to get distracted. So she did what she did best, and confronted things head-on.
When Emma opened the door of her room at Granny’s, her face registered surprise, delight, and finally wariness - the exact rotation of emotions she seemed to be exhibiting towards Regina all the time these days.
“Miss Swan,” Regina prompted. “May I come in?”
“What? Of course! Sorry.” Emma moved aside to let her in, closing the door gingerly behind her.
“Henry’s not here - he’s with my parents,” she added.
“That’s fine. I’m actually here to see you.”
“You are?”
Regina glanced around the room at the single chair and double bed. She opted to sit in the chair, and Emma automatically moved to perch on the edge of the bed, facing her.
“Yes. Something is different between us since you came back from New York, and since I can’t remember the last year, I’m going to assume it’s you. So tell me what’s going on with you, Miss Swan.”
Emma fidgeted in her seat and looked down before standing up and going over to look out the window.
“Nothing’s going on,” she said, turning around. “I’d just forgotten what it was like here, with wicked witches and standoffs at sundown. New York felt easier to deal with.”
Regina narrowed her eyes at her. “While I’m sure that’s true, that doesn’t explain the way you’ve been acting towards me. One minute you’re my best friend and the next minute you ignore me. And before I go to said standoff at sundown, I need to know what’s going on, and whether you’re going to have my back.”
Emma sighed and went back to perch on the bed again.
“I’m sorry, Regina. Of course I have your back. Always.”
Regina saw and heard her sincerity, and acknowledged it with a curt nod before staring pointedly at Emma, waiting for her to continue.
“OK, fine. Fine. You’re right. I’ve been … acting weird around you.” Emma got up again and started pacing across the threadbare carpet.
“God, how do I even say this?” She stopped to look at Regina for a second.
“Just spit it out, Miss Swan. I promise I won’t bite.”
Regina watched as Emma’s eyes widened for a moment and wondered what in the hell she was about to tell her. Emma visibly shook her head before sitting back down for the third time.
“Alright. Just, can you stop with the Miss Swan thing? We’ve been through too much, Regina.”
Regina inclined her head in apology.
“Thing is,” Emma continued, “I was dating somebody in New York last year. A woman. And you remind me so much of her. Or, well, I guess she must have reminded me of you, but I didn’t know it at the time.”
Whatever Regina had expected to come out of Emma’s mouth, this was not it. She had no idea how to respond, so she simply said, “oh.”
Emma let out a gruff chuckle. “Yeah, ‘oh.’”
“What’s her name?” Regina asked finally, finding this was the only suitable question that came to mind.
“Clara,” Emma replied softly, and Regina could hear the emotion laced in her tone.
“She broke up with me a couple of weeks before I came back,” Emma said with her eyes down, her voice uneven. “I was pretty devastated, actually. She said I wasn’t communicating.”
“Shocker,” said Regina without thinking. At Emma’s glare, she shrugged. “I did just have to force this information out of you after, how long have you been back? Three weeks?”
“I know,” said Emma, looking defeated. “You’re right. And so was she.”
Regina softened her gaze. “We’re a lot alike, Emma. Neither of us like feeling vulnerable. But I trust you, and I’d like to think you trust me, too. You can talk to me. We’re … friends, or something, aren’t we?”
Emma laughed for real at that, and Regina smiled at her.
“I think ‘or something’ sums it up pretty well,” Emma replied. “Look, I didn’t want to make things weird between us, so that’s why I didn’t tell you. But I guess I managed that anyway.”
“Given our history, dear, me looking like your ex-girlfriend was probably not going to make things much ‘weirder’ than they already were.”
Emma looked down at her feet. “You don’t look like her,” she mumbled.
“What was that?”
Emma looked up and tried again. “You don’t look like her. You act like her, and sound like her, though. Here.”
She pulled out her phone and found a picture of her and Clara. Regina looked down at the admittedly very pretty woman in the picture who, with her shock of curly strawberry blonde hair, long pointed nose, and pale freckled skin did in fact look nothing like her. She stared at the picture for a moment, and then looked up at Emma, who was standing close enough that Regina could smell her shampoo.
“You look so happy,” she observed.
Emma smiled sadly. “I was, for a while.”
“Well, I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
Emma returned to her seat on the bed. “Thanks. And I’m sorry I’ve been so … distant. It’s just … being around you made me miss her, and also not, because when I’m around you I feel like I did around her.”
Emma stopped, clearly embarrassed that she’d said that part. But Regina was intrigued.
“And what is it about me that reminds you so much of her?”
Emma looked at her this time, finally meeting her eyes.
“It’s that you see me. You said it - we’re a lot alike. And behind your confidence and bravado is something tender and scared, just like there is for me, and I know you see it when most people don’t.”
Regina held her breath. Emma had never said anything like this to her before. They were friends, yes, and Regina felt a connection to her that went beyond their love of Henry. But this? This was new. And not entirely inaccurate. And that, more than anything, was terrifying. She held Emma’s gaze for a second longer, and then looked away, unsure of what to say.
“And, well, you both give me shit about the dumb stuff I do,” Emma said finally. The tension in the room broke and Regina found herself smiling.
“I’m sorry,” Emma continued. “You came here to clear things up so you don’t get distracted tonight, and I went and made things worse.”
Regina shook her head as she stood up and went to sit next to Emma on the bed. While Emma’s revelation hadn’t exactly made things less complicated between them, Regina was reassured by it. Hearing that her presence simultaneously reminded Emma of her heartbreak and soothed her from it made her behavior make a lot more sense. And also helped Regina put her finger on the electric charge that seemed to spark through the air between them sometimes, and then disappear as soon as she noticed it.
“I’m glad you told me all of this, Emma,” she said softly. “And speaking of tonight, I have a favor to ask you. A very big favor, in fact.”
“Anything. Name it.”
“You might want to hear what it is first, dear.”
Emma smiled at her, and Regina felt a funny kind of fluttering in her stomach that she knew had nothing to do with her nerves about this showdown with her sister.
“I want you to hold on to my heart,” she said.
Emma stared at her. “What?”
“My heart. It’s a bad idea for me to walk into this fight tonight with my heart still in my chest. Zelena could get to it and control me, and that would make everything so much worse. So …”
Regina took a deep breath and plunged her hand into her own chest. She’d done this so many times, it no longer really bothered her, despite the physical pain it caused every time. She pulled out her heart, blackened but still beating red at its core, and held it out to Emma.
“Will you keep this safe for me?”
Emma’s breath hitched as she stared at her. Regina had been intending to ask this of her before their talk, and even given what she’s found out, she was completely sure it was the right decision. For all that she had mistrusted Emma for a long time, she had also seen how fiercely the woman would fight for someone who had placed their faith in her. Emma would take care of her when asked.
“Regina,” Emma whispered. “You’d trust me with … your heart? Literally?”
Regina nodded, holding it out to her. Emma took it gingerly, and looked around for something to put it in. She located a small cloth bag and carefully tipped the heart inside before wrapping the bag in a scarf and putting it in the drawer next to the bed. Regina smiled at her, and closed her eyes to conjure a protection spell around the drawer, sealing it closed.
“Thank you,” she said to Emma.
Sensing that they were both ready to go and try to make sense of the past half hour, Regina went to the chair to grab her coat.
“Well,” she said, her voice losing its soft edges and returning to the usual state of “confidence and bravado,” as Emma had put it, “I should go prepare to destroy my sister. I trust you’ll make the necessary arrangements to keep everyone else out of harm’s way?”
“Yeah. Yes. I’ll make sure the street is clear.” Emma cleared her throat, and Regina tried not to smile at her futile attempts to look unperturbed. “Good luck.”
“Thank you Miss … Emma,” Regina corrected herself. “I’ll come back for that” she tilted her head towards the bedside table where her heart was nestled, “in the morning.”