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She doesn't see Emma again for four days.
She used to count the hours in a day back when she was first married to King Leopold. She hasn't done it since. Hasn't cared or needed to measure time in that way for years.
She counts each hour of the four days. Emma shows up in her bedroom at hour ninety-four. Just two hours shy of the full four days. Robin isn't there. Suddenly, everything had felt like it was moving way too fast, and she asked him to stay with the Merry Men. He agreed. He is always so agreeable. Regina used to love that. Now, it's beginning to grate on her nerves.
Emma appears in her bedroom. The same smoke that used to fill up her nostrils when Rumpelstiltskin appeared to her permeates the air, and Regina has to force herself not to gag.
Emma doesn't say a word, just stands there. Her hair tangled and matted, body shaking. Regina reaches out for her anyway, but Emma recoils.
“I can't control it,” she admits with a pained whisper. “It's like... like it's eating me alive.”
“Emma,” Regina breathes.
“Tell Henry that I love him.”
Regina tenses, then jumps forward, trying to catch Emma in her arms and hold her in place. “No,” she says fiercely, “you tell him. Show him,” she pleads. “Don't leave him.”
“I can't—” Emma lets out a sob, “—I can't, Regina. I have to leave Storybrooke. I can't be somewhere where there's magic. I can't control it. You have no idea what it—I have to leave. I'm sorry.”
“Emma,” she begs, “we'll fix it. We just need to—”
“I don't regret it,” she says fiercely, finally sounding something like Emma Swan. “Be happy, Regina, okay?” she asks. “I promised. I'm making good on my end. Let yourself be happy.”
Regina's eyes narrow. “Emma Swan, don't you dare—”
She's gone. Faster than Rumpelstiltskin was ever able to disappear, Emma is gone. And Regina is alone.
…
…
Henry grows quiet and sullen.
He never pulls away from Regina, in fact, he leans into her more than he has since he was a toddler. But, he is visibly miserable. Regina cannot be happy if Henry is miserable. She can't even conceive of it. Henry needs Emma Swan, so Regina needs Emma Swan. Truthfully, there is a dullness to her days without Emma there to bicker with. She has become accustomed to having an annoying shadow, backup, a friend. She doesn't want to have lost that. She has lost everything that she ever wanted at least once. It's not fair that after everything they've been through together, all of the work they put into their relationship, finally, now that they can stand to be in the same room together without angry declarations of 'he's my son', even seeking each other out, Emma is just gone. Regina is only halfway loathed to admit, she can enjoy Emma Swan's company from time to time.
Now, she can't have it. Because Emma sacrificed herself.
For Regina.
Again.
And then she ran, not even allowing Regina the opportunity to try and return in kind.
…
…
Fuck Emma Swan. Regina thinks over a week later.
Fuck her noble heroics, and her cowardly inability to stay and face the consequences of her actions. Regina will be damned if she is just going to sit by and live her life while Emma gets to just save the day and leave them with all of the pieces.
Regina starts calling Emma's cell phone three times a day. She eats a meal, she calls Emma Swan.
She never gets an answer. The phone just rings and rings and rings.
She keeps calling anyway.
…
…
Snow White is inconsolable.
Just like when she was a child, she seeks out Regina when she's upset. Regina tolerates it because she knows that Emma would want her to. But she can only stand so much simpering.
So, she puts her to work. If Snow is going to come and cry about Emma being gone every afternoon, then she's going to help Regina find her while she does it.
Calling Emma hasn't worked. Not via cell phone or the dagger's magic. Regina has no idea how Emma is fighting it. She knows that Rumpelstiltskin was never able to. In a way, she's proud. Emma is stronger.
In a way, she's terrified. Because Emma is stronger.
It becomes a routine: Snow arrives promptly at noon. They share lunch. Neal goes down for his nap, and then they make their way through every book on magic that Regina can get her hands on. By the third week of it, Regina realizes that she actually looks forward to Snow White's company. They don't actually speak much, chatting about almost nothing of importance while they eat. (Never about Emma.) Then, they put Neal down for his nap. (Regina only ever sees Emma in his face. Not Snow. Not David. Not even Henry, perhaps in time.) Afterwards, they tend to fall into a companionable silence as they work until Henry arrives home from school.
Regina refuses to admit that she needs this just as much as Snow does.
…
…
She neglects Robin.
She doesn't do it on purpose, doesn't even realize she is doing it until he finally explodes at her. Frustration built up from over two months of unintentionally being ignored. There is a child growing inside her sister's belly that belongs to him, and Regina is spending all of her time desperately trying to find her son's other mother.
Avoidance is easier, especially when she isn't even aware of herself doing it. Not until long after the damage is already done.
Thankfully, they don't part on bitter terms. Robin doesn't seem to understand—not fully—her need to find Emma. Regina isn't even sure that she fully understands it herself. But neither of them is willing to continue to try and force something that's no longer there.
They agree to remain friends. With the child on its way, they don't have much of a choice. But, Regina doesn't feel forced into his friendship. If anything, a weight feels like it has been lifted off of her chest. Her soulmate is her friend. She finds that she doesn't need anything more.
…
…
Her sister is another story.
Zelena spends the first month that Emma is gone throwing up nearly everything that she eats. Regina gloats, doesn't even feel ashamed in doing so. Zelena's taunts and barbs don't hold as much weight with her hair sticky and her forehead resting on a cool toilet seat. They come across as more habitual than anything else. Regina lets them wash over her, ignoring her sister or shooting back a few retorts of her own. They lack the venom with which they used to carry. Both sisters are aware of this, and both silently choose to ignore it.
Regina has never witnessed a pregnancy firsthand before. Despite the precariousness of the situation, she finds herself fascinated by the changes happening in her sister's body. The moment that Zelena glares down at her barely showing stomach, and growls, “you let me eat, or I'm going to get your aunt to zap a fireball at you,” it hits Regina that this child is her family. She is going to be an aunt. This child belongs to her in some way. Zelena looks up, a pout on her face that twists into another glare, “What?” she snaps.
Regina finds herself smiling. This child is going to need her if they don't want to grow up traipsing around in the woods or gauging their mother's moods all of the time.
Zelena doesn't appear to have a single maternal bone in her body. She seems confused and annoyed at the changes that her body is going through. Angry with the source, and constantly vowing to get payback once they're out and old enough. She's whiny and falls asleep at the drop of a hat. (Once against Regina's shoulder on the couch for over two hours. Neither has said a word about it to each other since.) But, she does begin to soften around Henry.
He is the only one who can coax her out of a bad mood, or into eating something after she has thrown up the entire contents of her stomach already.
He is the one who convinces her to help with the research about The Dark One's magic. Very reluctantly, after weeks of standing around and telling them that ,they are getting nowhere without a single offer to help, she sits down on the couch and lifts up one of the books, handing it to Regina. “Try this one,” she says without looking her in the eye.
Regina takes it. “Thank you,” she says. Zelena only shrugs, flipping through another.
Regina sits there, with Henry, Zelena, and Snow, and for the first time, thinks of it as sitting with her family. David is upstairs, changing Neal's diaper, and Robin and Roland are on their way to bring food for everyone. Regina's house has never had this many people in it before.
But, there is still one person missing. One person, she realizes, who gave each of these people to her. If not for Emma, not one of them would be sitting here in her living room, willingly helping her. Caring about her after Emma is gone.
When everyone but Henry and Zelena has gone home, Regina silently cries herself to sleep.
…
…
Hook does not join them in their research.
He spends the first week that Emma is gone complaining that his love left him. The second week, he stumbles around town in a constant stupor, rum bottles littering the docks. David and Snow are sympathetic. “He loves her, Regina,” Snow says, as if it excuses his behavior. Two days later, he yells at Grace and Ava as they walk down the sidewalk, telling them to leave men alone if they're not going to bother sticking around. Two thirteen-year-old girls. Henry tells her later that Grace had cried in the park for two hours, afterwards, terrified. Regina nearly incinerates Hook on the spot.
David's sympathy wanes after that. Snow takes a little longer.
Somewhere in the second month, after Regina and Robin part ways officially, Hook shows up drunk on Regina's front porch in the middle of the night. He lurches forward as Regina comes to answer the door, groping at her drunkenly.
“It's all your fault,” he hisses. “She should have left the darkness to you. Why would she save you?”
Regina hates him. Has always hated him. She conjures up a fireball and holds it down between his legs, eyes lighting up at his hiss of fear. “Because she is a better person than the both of us. You never deserved her.”
He laughs, loud and cruel and suddenly sober. “And you do?” he bites. Regina's eyes widen. She almost drops the fireball. “Yes, your majesty," he sneers. "I've seen the way that you look at her. Longing.” He laughs again. “It's pathetic. As if she could ever love you, after all that you've done to her. To her family.”
Regina is momentarily speechless. His words cut deep, deeper than she even knew until they were said out loud. Like saying it somehow makes it all very real, where it hadn't been, before. Before she can kill him where he stands, Zelena appears behind her. Her laugh is far more cruel and mocking than Hook could ever attempt.
“What a pathetic excuse for a man,” she says. “No wonder Swan ran as far from you as she could manage. Go take a shower.”
Hook looks like he is about to start swinging his fists. Regina gets control of herself, the fireball in her hands growing, and he backs away.
“It's your fault,” he says again, then leaves.
“Has he ever bathed?” Zelena asks. “Gods, what a foul stench.”
Regina still hasn't moved.
“Will you make me that lovely heated chocolate concoction?” Zelena asks.
The fireball evaporates in her hand. “Make it yourself,” Regina snaps and slams the door closed.
“But I'll burn myself! I'm a pregnant woman!”
Regina ignores her. Half an hour later, there is a knock on her bedroom door. When she opens it to yell at Zelena again, she finds a mug of hot chocolate set down in front of her on the floor. Zelena nowhere in sight.
“This better not be poisoned!” she yells out; the only way that she knows how to say 'thank you' to Zelena. The cackle from down the hall is the only you're welcome that she receives. Somehow, it feels like enough.
…
…
After nearly three months of nothing, Regina's cell phone rings at ten-forty pm on a Tuesday. It's from an unknown number. The area code looks familiar, but Regina doesn't know it off the top of her head. She doesn't usually answer the phone if she doesn't recognize the number; if it's important, then they can leave her a message. But, she picks up the call.
“Sorry it's late,” Emma's voice says, low and hesitant.
Regina sucks in a breath. “Emma,” she whispers, afraid to startle her somehow. There are a million questions on the edge of her lips. Where are you? What have you done? Why did you leave without giving us a chance to help? Why did you save me? Is Hook right? She doesn't ask any of them. Instead, she breathes slowly. In and out. Then asks, “Are you alright?”
Emma laughs, slightly cruel and mocking, sounding nothing at all like herself. “What do you think?”
“I think you should come back so we can help you,” Regina snaps, unable to help herself.
“You can't,” Emma says, stubborn as ever. Regina wants to slap her.
“We've been reading everything we can get our hands on. Even Zelena is helping! We have a couple of ideas, Emma. You can't just give up.”
“Why?” she whispers, sounding small. “I did my job. I broke the curse. Everyone has their happy endings. Even you. I did what I was supposed to. Why can't I just be done now?” her voice cracks. “I'm tired, Regina. Fighting its power is too hard. It's made to be.”
“So, don't try it by yourself. Where are you? We can—”
The line goes dead.
Regina curses and flops angrily back onto her bed. She barely gets an hour of sleep.
…
…
The calls keep coming.
The area codes constantly change; Emma is on the move. Running scared, Regina thinks on days when she is feeling especially bitter.
The calls never last for longer than five minutes. Sometimes, Emma doesn't even say a word the whole time, and Regina can just hear her breathing. So, she fills up the silence by telling Emma about their days. Henry: doing well in school, but still sullen and missing Emma. Snow: determined to find her daughter, working harder than anyone apart from Regina. David: locking up Hook most nights for drunken disorderly, punching him in the face the second time that he attempts to show up and terrorize Regina.
Emma snarls at that information, but she still doesn't speak.
So, Regina continues. Zelena: finally able to keep foods down, beginning to show, moody and petulant as ever. Robin: steady and calm in the face of her moods, able to referee between the two sisters whenever they start in on a particularly large argument. There's a woman who goes by Tiger Lily cropping up in the conversations that Regina has with him. After a moment's flare of jealousy, she finds herself happy for him. For the way that his face seems to soften and lights up as he speaks of her, unaware of what's beginning. Regina doesn't tell him.
Emma's breathing is shallow during that conversation. Regina presses on until the line falls dead.
She explains their theories, all of the information about The Dark One that they have gathered together so far. Emma never listens to that for very long, but, with each new call, she remains on the line for a little while longer. It feels like something.
…
…
“Is it better?” Regina asks, “out of Storybrooke?”
“It's easier to control.”
They're both silent, for a beat. Then, Regina says, so low that she can barely hear herself speak, “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Saving me.”
The line goes quiet. Regina sighs, assuming that Emma has hung up again. Then, so quietly that Regina thinks maybe she imagines it: “Anytime.”
The line falls dead.
…
…
She starts to recognize the area codes. Emma is moving back east. When she sees the area code for Boston pop up for the third time in a single week, she gets into her car and drives, dropping Henry off with The Charmings.
It's a huge city, and she is grasping at straws, but she pays for a hotel room anyhow.
Emma calls her nightly nowadays. Nine o'clock on the dot. She still refuses to speak to anyone else. Not even Henry. No matter how many times Regina tries to offer.
She has been in a hotel in Cambridge for four days straight, and the same number has shown up on her phone each night. Regina takes another wild chance and googles it. Maybe, for the first time in history, her luck has finally changed. It's the number of a cheap motel in Lowell.
She gets in her car immediately.
Regina arrives a little after two o'clock in the afternoon. She buys herself a cup of coffee in a small cafe across the street and pretends to read a magazine for three hours.
A flash of blonde hair catches her eye, and something twists inside her gut. Regina rises from her spot, pays the girl behind the counter, and walks outside. She follows the blonde hair down the strip of motel rooms and then knocks on the door exactly three beats after Emma slips inside.
When she sees Regina, she looks unsurprised. “I should have called from payphones, huh?” she says in greeting.
She looks terrible. Her skin is taut and sallow, like she hasn't been eating properly. Regina can see coffee cups littering the room behind her, explaining the jittery energy coming off of Emma. She looks like she is vibrating, twitching her fingers and legs, unable to keep still. Her hair is stringy and dull, and her clothes hang loose on her frame.
Regina wants to pull her into a hug. So, surprising herself and Emma, she does.
Emma goes stiff in her arms, then jerks backwards. “Regina, I—”
“Come back with me. We can fix this.”
“I've tried,” Emma insists, tugging at the bottom of her dirty t-shirt. “What else do you think I've been doing for the last seven months? Partying my way across the country?”
“We have research and—”
“Yeah, so do I. It's all a crock of shit and you know it, Regina. I'm The Dark One. It's not going to go away unless we release it like with Gold. Then it just has to go into someone else. That's not—I'm not putting that on someone. It's...” she sighs. “I can handle it. I've got magic of my own, and outside of Storybrooke... it's easier.”
“Emma... you look terrible.”
“Gee, thanks,” she says dryly. “You look really awesome, too.”
“I didn't — if this is what you consider 'handling it', then you're incredibly misinformed on the definition.”
“I'm fine,” she insists.
“No, you're not.”
Emma stares at her for an uncomfortably long time. “Why do you care?” she whispers. “Do you feel guilty cause I took it from you? Don't okay. Please.”
“No. Well, a little. But no Emma, Henry needs you. Your parents and your brother need you.”
Emma laughs, that cruel little pitch that used to spill out of Rumpelstiltskin. Regina steps backwards from it on instinct. “I'm so fucking sick of them needing me,” she mocks. “It's about damn time they solved their own problems.”
“Emma—”
“No!” she screams. “I don't owe them anything. They gave me away,” she hisses. The hair on top of her head is crackling with static. Her magic boiling in her veins, straining to be released. Emma's fists clench together tightly. “I broke their goddamn curse. That's what I was made for, and I did it. I don't owe them shit anymore.”
Regina tries again. “Henry—” she starts.
“I gave him up.” Emma snaps. “I never wanted to be a mother.”
It's like she hauled off and slapped Regina in the face. It's also maybe one of the biggest lies that Emma has ever told. Regina can see it in her eyes. Emma is trying to convince herself of these words so that she can justify herself. But, there is also some truth to them, brought out cruelly by The Dark One.
“What about me?” Regina asks, because she is nothing if not a masochist.
“You?” Emma laughs. “What about you?”
Regina steps forward. Slowly. Approaching a woman that she barely recognizes anymore, but, despite her own denials, cares about so very much. Something in Emma's eyes flashes with panic, begging Regina to stay where she is. She doesn't listen. Slowly, so slowly, she reaches for Emma, pulling her close for the second time. Instead of wrapping her arms around Emma, Regina tilts her head forward. If Emma is going to run, if they truly can't fix this, Regina at least has to know. She has to try.
She presses her lips against Emma's.
Magic crackles through the air, shocking Regina enough to snap herself back from Emma, one hand still clinging onto her tightly. Light pink fills the air and surrounds them, and Emma gasps. She doubles over and gasps like someone has stabbed her. Regina watches, horrified, as Emma's whole body shakes. Black smoke begins spilling out of her and Emma lets out a whimper.
“Get out!” she yells in a panic. “It'll go into you!”
“I'm not leaving you.” Regina insists.
“Regina, please.”
She squeezes Emma's hand tightly. “No.”
Emma falls forward, Regina holding onto her tightly as the darkness pours its way out of her, swirling around above their heads. Regina can feel the malice in it and wants to run as far from it as she can. She grips Emma's hand tighter. “I've got you,” she whispers. “It's okay.”
As suddenly as it came on, the darkness is gone. Only the light pink hue remains, wrapping itself around the two of them, almost protectively. Emma loses the energy to hold herself upright and drops down with a heavy thud. Regina kneels down to the floor, hugging Emma tight to her while she cries. She lets out harsh, shaky sobs, like her lungs are full of water and she can't catch her breath fully. Regina strokes her hair and waits it out.
“Where'd it go?” Emma finally asks after she's caught her breath.
“There isn't any magic here. And it's not in me.” Regina has no unearthly idea. “Maybe it's just... gone.”
Emma shakes her head. “It's too powerful to just disappear,” she tries to sit up a little, but gives up, curling closer into Regina. “It was...” she chokes, “it's not gone. It'll never be gone.”
“You don't know that.”
“Regina—”
“If it's not all contained in one person, it could be weaker. We'll find out. I promise,” she says. “But it's not going back in you,” she adds firmly.
“How'd it get out?” Emma whispers.
“I—” Regina swallows, “—I don't know.”
“You kissed me,” Emma reminds her quietly. As if she could forget.
Regina feels the urge to run again, this time, out of a different kind of fear. “I did,” she says instead.
“That light pink stuff... that's what True Love looks like bottled up.” Emma says slowly. Regina knows this. Knew the very minute that she felt the shock that ran through her body as her lips connected with Emma's. She is the one who grew up in the world of True Loves and Magic. She is very aware of what it looks like.
“I—” she starts.
Emma tilts her head up, giving Regina a toothy grin. “Do you have the hots for me, Regina Mills?”
Regina shoves her away. “Absolutely not.”
Emma laughs. A real one, not a trace of malice or The Dark One in it, just a happy Emma Swan. “Oh my god, you totally do.” The laugh is real, but there is still a haunted look in her eyes. Regina realizes that she needs to joke about this right now. She presses her lips together and tries to keep herself from smiling. “You looooove me,” Emma sing songs. “You want to kissss me. How's the rest go? You ever seen Miss Congeniality? Give me dooonnnuts. Wait, no, that's not right.”
Regina rolls her eyes and removes herself from the dirty motel floor, smoothing down her skirt with as much dignity as she can muster.
Emma looks up at her, sober, no longer laughing. “You gave me True Love's Kiss and saved me,” she whispers in awe.
Regina can still hardly believe it herself, but, it makes many of the things that she has been feeling for the last few years fall into some sort of sense. She looks down at Emma Swan: the woman destined to ruin her entire life. Instead, she is the woman who woke her up. Who looks at her and only ever sees her as Regina, the woman, not any of the titles that others have forced upon her. Emma helped give Regina back her son. Her sister. The two idiots. The woman looking up at her nervously from the floor gave Regina what she needed to let go of some of her anger, to allow herself to be happy. Free. She smiles softly. “I did.”
Emma's face lights up momentarily. “Damn, we shoulda just made out seven months ago and been done with it,” she teases. Regina lets out a loud, hearty laugh and Emma grins up at her. Her skin still looks sallow, and there is a haunted look around the edges of her eyes that won't just disappear overnight, but, she is alive. She's no longer The Dark One. And, apparently, she returns Regina's affections enough for True Love's Kiss to work.
“Next time,” Regina says, offering her hand to pull Emma up off the floor, “when I say come home, listen.”
Emma takes her hand, and rises, coming up only inches away from Regina. Her gaze immediately falls down to Regina's lips. Regina smirks. “Sounds like a plan,” Emma says, then leans forward and kisses her.