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“You’re going back?” Emma asks, cursing herself for the slight squeak in her voice. “Why?”
Regina frowns. “We don’t know what they’re doing yet. I have to.”
“No you don’t.”
“Yes, Emma, I do. Why do you care what I do, anyhow?”
Emma sigh and runs a hand through her hair. “We’ve been over this, Regina. I care about you. I’m just… I’m worried about you.”
“Worried that I’ll go back to my old ways?”
“No! Worried something will happen to you!”
Regina turns away and wraps her arms around herself. “I’ll be fine,” she murmurs. “Those three have nothing on the power I can still dig up if I have to.”
“I don’t know.” Emma walks around to stand in front of Regina. “Maleficent’s pretty scary.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, for one thing, she can turn into a goddamn dragon. And she got resurrected from the dead so who knows what kind of unearthly powers she has now? And we have no idea what she’s planning, and she’s got creepy allies, and there is no reason for her to stand that close to your face when she’s talking to you!” Fuck, she thinks to herself. Did not mean to say that last part out loud.
Regina arches one trim eyebrow, her eyes squinting as though trying to decipher Emma’s words. “I’m going undercover with three of the most powerful foes this town has ever faced,” she says slowly, “and you’re worried about how close one of them stands to me?”
Emma’s face burns red, and she stares at her shoes in a weak attempt to escape Regina’s sharp gaze. “I just meant… I don’t know, it’s weird, that’s all I mean, she clearly wants to bang you.”
“Emma, look at how close you’re standing to me right now.”
She does, and for the first time she’s fully conscious of the space between the two of them – or lack thereof. Their chests are maybe a foot or two apart, and there’s barely breathing room between them. “Well, this is different,” she says softly.
“How so?”
“Well, I… I don’t want to destroy you.” Such simple words for such a complex feeling, her brain murmurs.
Regina smiles gently. “I don’t want to destroy you either.” And there it is, out in the open, spoken in a secret code only they know. Because the two of them, they don’t have to say it to know it’s there. And maybe it’s better they don’t say it just yet.
Emma pulls away and catches Regina’s hand, guiding her to the couch and sitting down with crossed legs. “So… you’ll stay here tonight?”
Regina sighs. “I have to go, Emma. You know that.”
“I know, I just… make sure Maleficent keeps her distance, yeah?”
“Emma, are you jealous?” Regina smirks.
“No!” There’s a long pause, during which Emma’s face burns redder and redder every second. “Okay, maybe a little. But can you blame me? She looks at you like a possession, like she owns you. It weirds me out, even without the whole… feelings thing.”
Regina glances away, her shoulders hunching ever so slightly, and maybe anyone else but Emma would have been completely oblivious.
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing.” But obviously it’s something, with the way her eyes widen and she looks like the broken teenager she was years ago. “You’re not far off,” she says finally. “Maleficent and I have a history.”
“A history. Like you and Tinker Bell?”
Regina smiles softly. “No, not like that. Our time together was nothing like that.”
“So tell me.” When Emma’s request is met with silence, she leans forward and touches Regina’s arm with feather-light movements. “Look, you know you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, right? But it can help to talk about it.” She squeezes gently. “I wanna be there for you.”
After a long while, Regina finally sighs and brushes her hair out of her eyes. “Maleficent and I… it wasn’t anything at all like what I had with Tinker Bell – or even with you. It was born out of circumstance, not friendship. She needed someone to have power over and I was standing right in front of her. Powerless.”
Emma slides her hand down to grip Regina’s, gripping tightly and offering herself as an anchor. “You don’t have to keep going if you don’t want to.”
Regina shakes her head. “No. I want you to know. Because she wasn’t like my husband. No, she was gentle, and turned everything into a lesson. And if ever she pushed too far she was always so sweet to me afterward – held me, and comforted me, and made me feel like I was the entire world. I was young and naïve and by the time I realized what it truly meant when she called me ‘pet’, it was too late. I fell much too hard for someone who could likely never know love again.”
“What happened?”
“I was much more optimistic back then than I am now, so I had hope for her. I even thought that maybe she could be my happy ending.” She scoffs. “How foolish I truly was.
“I told her how I felt – I even used the word ‘love’ – and she laughed in my face. ‘Oh, what a fool you are!’” Regina says in a crude mockery of Maleficent’s cold drawl. “‘As though a child like yourself could ever hold my heart’.” She heaves a shuddering sigh, fighting the moisture building in her eyes. “I left the next day to return to Leopold’s castle and the next time I saw her was when I stole the curse from her.”
Emma frowns. “I thought you said she was your only friend.”
“She was. Even after that affair she continued to send me messages and gifts – more to taunt me than anything else, but they were nice. It got lonely in that palace with no one to talk to.” She folds her arms around herself, shoulders slumping and eyes falling shut.
Emma leans closer and encircles Regina in her own arms, whispering comforting words in her ear. “Are you sure you’re okay to go back?” she asks as she pulls away.
“I have to, don’t I?”
“No. we can figure out another way.”
Regina sighs. “It’s too late for me to back out now. Besides, I want to do this. They need to be stopped.” She stands up, moving to the other side of the room to pour herself a glass of cider.
Emma follows her to the table, catching her hand. “Call me later, yeah?” She smiles sheepishly. “I might be a little bit jealous.”
“Emma…” Regina’s face flushes and she ducks her head so that her hair falls over her face. “Trust me. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”
Emma shrugs with a smirk. “I worry.” She squeezes Regina’s hand. “I’ll see you later.”
Regina nods. “Later.” She takes her coat from the hook by the door, draping it around herself and pushing her arms into the sleeves with infinitely more grace than anyone Emma’s ever seen. With a soft smile, she steps forward and grabs Emma’s hand, pairing a gentle squeeze with a ghost of a kiss on her cheek. And then she’s out the door, leaving Emma standing alone in a living room that isn’t hers with an idiotic smile.
She shakes her head, unable to wipe the grin off her face just yet. “Later,” she chuckles to no one but herself. She flicks off the lights and follows Regina out the door, stomach whirling and head spinning. Her phone buzzes in her pocket, indicating a text from Regina.
Granny’s takeout when I get back?
Emma smiles. Sounds perfect. Later, gator.
Emma’s about to pocket her phone when it buzzes again.
:)
She smiles, not just at the text, but at everything that transpired today. Slowly, she shuts the front door behind her, glancing around at the multicolored flowers just beginning to bloom all around the front yard. She imagines tending them with Regina, learning how to make them grow exactly right. She imagines picking a few from their roots and handing them to Regina on Valentine’s Day, and kissing the smile right off her face.
Her own smile, of course, won’t go away for the rest of the night. She’s accepted that fact. But for now, the only thing to do is go home and wait for Regina to get back with news. She bids the flowers and her imagination a silent goodbye walking down the driveway to her old beat-up best friend.
She drives away without looking back.