OUAT fic: Not A Fairy Tale Romance (Regina/Emma) Part 7

[seriousfic]

Title: Not A Fairy Tale Romance
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,951
Characters/Pairings: Regina/Emma, Graham/Kathryn
Notes: This fic is an AU as of 1x07 - The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Previous: Part 6
Summary: Regina would give anything to get Henry back. She'll have to.

Ten days.

Nothing.

She couldn't sleep. She couldn't eat. Emma ushered her to bed, to breakfast, to dinner, but her stomach always felt knotted. It was only when Emma doled out touches—her hand on top of Regina's, her arms squeezing Regina's shoulders—that Regina could feel a little hope.

She hated that. She knew it was false. Addictive, but false.

Another night of lying in bed, letting tears leak out of her eyes, and then the nightmares so bad it would be like she didn't get any sleep at all. Even Emma lying next to her didn't help.

"I knew he'd leave," Regina muttered. At least it felt good to say that. "They always leave."

"He's not gone," Emma retorted, linking the arm she had around Regina's waist with another one under Regina's body. "We'll get him back. You know, after I gave birth, I didn't know if I could go through with the adoption. I knew I couldn't provide for him, I knew there was someone who could give him everything I never could… but, God, holding him? I didn't want to let him go. It's like my body wasn't programmed for it. I might as well slit my wrists. Then they told me about you—mayor of a small town, everyone loves her…"

"Why are you telling me this? Is there a point? Is this helping me get him back? Why are you still here, even? It's not like you need to sleep with me to be near your son anymore…"

"Regina! What the hell?" Emma sat up. Regina stayed there, curling in further on herself without Emma to hold her in place.

There. That was better. They could have a nice shouting match and she'd feel something aside from nothing. A kind of profound nothing, like she'd felt after her father's death—not an absence, but a presence. That was her fault too. Coming here, then bringing in Henry—all her fault.

Emma was saying something, but Regina didn't hear her as she ran to the bathroom and vomited into the toilet, speckling the pristine porcelain. Luckily, she hadn't eaten much. She pulled the lever; when it didn't flush fast enough, she pulled it again. Emma was next to her by then, easing her over against the bathtub and wiping her lips with bathroom tissue.

"You're the only person I know who has toilet paper and tissue paper in your bathroom," Emma said. "As for your question, I'm still here because I don't want you to be alone. I said I loved you and I'm going to keep saying it until it gets through that boyish haircut of yours."

"It's not boyish," Regina sniffled. "It's from the 1940s."

Emma ruffled it. "I would kiss you if you hadn't just thrown up." She sat down next to Regina, petting her leg. "I love you."

"Yes," Regina said.

What was it you were supposed to do in these situations? Cry on someone's shoulder? She didn't have any tears left, but she rested her head on Emma anyway. It felt alright. Not nice, with Emma's bony shoulder propping up her cheekbone, but alright. She'd have to move around more to get comfortable and she didn't have the energy. She just slouched against Emma.

"If I'd have known this would happen, I wouldn't have… I wouldn't have done a lot of things." So that's what it was in her belly. Regret.

"Like adopting him?" Emma now had an arm around Regina's head and was petting her hair, like there might be a switch hidden in her follicles. Turn off the pain. "You know how many times I wish I hadn't given Henry up? But then we never would've met."

She could tell her. Regina could tell her. What was the downside? Nothing could feel worse than this. "I'm going to tell you two things and I don't want you to… reply, or say anything back."

Emma petted Regina's hair again, leaving a lock dangling across her field of vision. "Okay."

"I'm in love with you." She wasn't even sure it mattered. Emma would probably leave her soon. Once she heard the second thing. "And I'm not sure I know what to do with that."

Technically, Emma kissing her then didn't count as a reply. Regina wouldn't gainsay her.

"Second?"

Regina wished more than anything that she could curl up in Emma's lap, go to sleep, wake up with this all over. Instead, she lifted herself off Emma. Looked her in the eye. "I know who took our son. Don't ask me how I know or why I haven't said anything—"

Emma grabbed her by the chin. "Who?"

"Mr. Gold."

Emma stood. She almost ran out the door, but instead she shut it, paced furiously, turning back to the door, turning back to Regina, not sure where to go.

Regina just sat there. "He helped the adoption go through in the first place, and he's made threats… everyone kept asking me if there was anyone who had reason to take Henry, and there wasn't, but Gold. It was a long time ago, but Gold has reasons."

Emma finally crossed her arms, holding herself very carefully still. "I'm going to go talk to him. Will you be okay, if I leave you here?"

"Yes."

"I don't want you to tell anyone where I'm going. Nothing that can get back to him."

"Why? Afraid you won't get a warrant?"

"I'm not going to try."

***

Emma wasn't sure who she was worried more for, as she sped through Storybrooke, the small town suddenly not nearly small enough. Regina or Henry. Henry she could get back, and nothing had happened to him. That was just unthinkable. But Regina. Regina had damage. Emma had always sensed it; no one was that perfect. But she'd also seen a lot of people in crisis mode. People whose families were being broken apart, sons going to jail, husbands going to the gas chamber. They fell apart. Not Regina; she self-destructed.

How much anger was in her? Okay, shit that deep, probably childhood. Not that Emma was a psychiatrist, but it was a good rule of thumb. And then having Henry reject her—what was that? Some kind of vicious cycle? She was worried he'd reject her, so she kept him at arm's length, so he rejected her? That sounded right—ish.

The thing was, Henry and Regina were a package deal. Would Emma want it any other way? Regina was amazing, and beautiful, and otherwise awesome. But would she ever let Emma in, or would she always be in martial arts mode, waiting for Emma to throw the first punch so she could strike back?

Could Emma live like that? Slowly coaxing Regina out of her suspicion and paranoia, just to get to the point that any normal person should start at?

Emma's headlights picked up the sign for Gold's store. Luckily, she had enough experience pushing down her own issues that she could do the same for Regina's. One hand on her gunbelt, she went to try the door. Like the sign said, closed. She was willing to shoot the lock open, but luckily she could suppress her own issues as well as Regina's. She picked the lock.

Her nightvision was good enough to navigate her through the store without stubbing her toe on anything. There was no sound. She drew her gun, held it close to her waist as she tried each door, listened for the slightest noise, even sniffed the air for blood. She'd come upon a dead body once; she'd never forget the way it'd flavored the air.

It wasn't until she looked under the cash register that she found Henry's storybook.

***

The odd thing was, it was easier for Regina to function without Emma. She couldn't call it anything else, it was a mechanical process. She realized her stomach was rumbling and her mascara was running, so she reapplied her make-up and went downstairs to fix herself a quick meal.

It was the love. All that… energy coming from Emma was just tiring. Without it, she could turn inward and crudely aim herself at the next thing that needed doing.

Love was a weakness. She'd been right to think that. She could cut ties, feel nothing. No. That wasn't right. She didn't know if she could do that. Live without love. There was a part of her that sprung to life around Emma, and Henry now too. Even now she could feel it, a solidness in her chest, like bone. She liked having it there.

"And how have your days been, Madame Mayor? Peaceful, I trust."

Regina was used to how Emma said her title. A little wink to the power she wielded, some playful antagonism. Gold said it with disdain, always reminding her that her power came from him.

Regina looked at him. He didn't have Henry with him. The bone in her chest splintered and cut into her. "Where is he?"

"Somewhere safe. If you don't trust my honor, believe I'll protect my investment." Gold sat down at her table. Where she and Emma had sat, kissed, an eternity ago. "I could do with some tea. Please."

Regina's hands shook as she moved to obey. "Please. Tell me where he is."

"In the car. Well, the trunk."

Regina dropped the teapot she was holding. "Bastard!"

Gold tilted his head, like he'd caught a puppy up to some adorable mischief. "Aw. Now you'll have to start over again. Better hurry. I'm parched."

Forcing her hands steady, her eyes clear, Regina picked up a second teapot. The one she used when she didn't have guests over. It was homey, but dependable. She used it to make tea for Emma. They tried to get Henry to develop a taste for it instead of Gatorade.

"Why'd you come here?" Regina asked. A nice, soft question.

"Ah. Therein lies the tale." Gold was still holding his cane. He tapped it on the floor twice, then sat it down on the table, stretching out with his hands behind his head. "You know what I like about this world? No one believes in magic. Things that go bump in the night, monsters in the closet, boogeymen under the bed—they just tell themselves it's not there. And it isn't, of course; magic died out here long ago. I learned about this world a long time ago—they dream about us. Mix up our stories, make them into their own foolish trifles. And soon, I dreamed up the greatest bargain of them all. Enter this world—use my magic on the unsuspecting population—rule for all eternity."

"Bullshit," Regina spat, her hands feeling distended from her as they brewed the tea on their own, turning on the stove, setting the pot atop it. "It was my choice to come here. I used the curse."

"Someone had to. Eventually. Here or there, as soon as you build the world's biggest bomb, someone just has to push the button. But I thought it would be some warmongering general. Who'd have thought it'd be someone as pathetically malleable as you?"

While he was busy berating her, Regina slipped a kitchen knife into her pocket. "So if this was all to get you here, why do you have Henry? Let him go."

"No, Madame Mayor. You still fail to see what I'm accomplishing here. Just because I'm in this world doesn't mean I can use its magic. There need to be some adjustments. That's why I made sure to hold the curse back just until little Emma was born?"

"Little Emma? What are you talking about?"

The teapot hissed. Gold smiled. "Better get that."

"No. Tell me what's going on!"

Gold nodded his head to either side. "Alright. I can see you're worked up." He stood. "Perhaps we can continue this conversation tomorrow, when you're calmer—"

"No!" Regina picked up the pot. "No. Just give me a moment."

"Ah. There's a good girl." He sat. "Making a handicapped man stand unnecessarily, though—hardly politically correct. You may have an image problem in the next election."

She dropped a mug in front of him and poured. "Emma Swan. What does she have to do with this?"

"No mug for yourself? You won't be joining me?"

"I'm not thirsty." She put a hand on the table, sagged against it. "Please…"

"Oh, alright. I'd have thought you'd figured it out by now, but—Emma Swan is the daughter of Prince Charming and Snow White."

"That's impossible," Regina said certainly. "That child was—"

She trailed off. Gold took a drink, smiling. "Funny how things come around. You condemned a child to death, now here you are, begging for the grandchild's life."

"I'm not that woman anymore."

"No. You've just forgotten you are. That's alright. We'll work on that. Just to remind you, Emma was prophesized to end the curse. That's powerful magic there. Magic that had to be outside the curse to come to fruition. And when she mated with one of the locals—I must admit, it's a wonder what a little wine can do—her bloodlines' magic merged with the latent magic of this world."

It was all so ridiculous Regina had to laugh. She chortled, falling into her chair. "So what? Henry's a wizard?"

"He saw through your spell, didn't he? No, he's definitely no wizard, but he does have magic within him. Full-blooded, a strain of power adapted to this world but stronger than anything it's produced in a thousand years. Imagine what I could do with that power, in a land completely unprotected from it? I could rule. You of all people should know the appeal of that."

"Henry will never help you." Regina bit her lip, the thought of Henry marshalling tears behind her eyes. "He's a good boy."

"Aye. We're in agreement. And I've no use of a catspaw. So what we need to do is get his magic—into me."

"So do it, and leave us be."

"My. So quick to condemn your new home to my tender mercies. No, it's not that simple. Unfortunately for us, magic here runs along similar lines as magic back home. No one under the age of innocence can enter into a bond; I can't make a deal with him, no matter how hard I try." He laughed. "I had the boy half-mad with hunger, sweating buckets from the embers under his feet, screaming that he gives me his magic, and still… nothing."

Regina slapped him. They sat there, Regina expecting to be killed at any moment. She couldn't muster up an ounce of regret. "You're a monster."

"You'd be a fine judge of that. As I was saying before you interrupted, I need the permission of the boy's mother for a deal to be struck. Laws of magic."

"Go talk to Emma. Henry will be the first to tell you—"

"You're his mother, daft woman. After all, you're the one he was screaming for." Gold read her mind. "Touch me again and I'll rip into you like a dog digging for a bone."

Regina folded her hands together in her lap like she was trying to break them. Gold finished his tea.

"Now then. Tell me I can have Henry's magic."

"What happens to Henry?"

"Well. There is a reason I couldn't just ask nicely. Magic's a part of him. On a subconscious level, he uses it and that poorly-drawn book of his to see the connections behind the veil. How do you think he seemed to know always how to weaken your curse? It's a very valuable skill. And ripping it away will leave him… somewhat the worse for wear. Nothing a few years in therapy won't fix. Hence, my offer. I'll give you a new child. One with less… troubling genetics. A daughter, perhaps? I'll even stop the clock again. You can have your little world… and I'll have mine."

Regina drew her hands against each other, nails digging into the skin, blood welling to the surface. She couldn't do it. She just couldn't.

"Come now," Gold said, seeing the indecision on her face. "He was never really your son. He was a puppy. A fashion accessory. A Chihuahua. He knows it, why don't you?"

"You said… he cried out for me."

Gold smiled at her. "Who didn't he cry out for?" Reaching into his coat, Gold produced a contract. Very new, very neat, a thin sheaf of type-written pages bound together by a common paper clip. A fountain pen came with it. He set the papers down in front of Regina, the pen atop it. "Sign there, there, and initial here."

"No."

Gold's smile grew. "Oh, I'm sorry, how rude of me. Please."

"I know the deal we have. I know what it'll mean. I'm telling you no."

Distantly, the wind howled. Gold leaned forward, his hair falling forward out of its careful part. "We had a deal. This curse for your cooperation. If you break the deal, you lose everything. Your entire world—your precious happy ending—all gone."

Regina was very calm. The bone in her chest was very solid. She had regrets, oh, she had regrets—not saying goodbye to Emma was only the start—but at this stage, there was nothing she'd do differently. Her choice was made. There was a freedom in the inevitability of that. "It's not about my happiness."

Gold twisted the head of his cane. The sheath slid down its length, exposing cold, sharp steel.

"Well look at that. We have struck a bargain after all." Gold held the blade to Regina's throat. "Your life for his."