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They do Fridays as a family now. 

It’s one of those careful little changes that had settled into an established fact over time, begun with a throwaway we should do this again after the first time that a villain had attacked Storybrooke when the curse had broken. Emma had gone to Regina’s father’s crypt, where Regina had been hiding out from the town and brooding, and had asked her for help.

The most surprising bit about it, she thinks sometimes, is that she’d even asked. She’d been a mess of emotions toward Regina right after the curse, furious and confused and beset with thoughts of the way they’d wept for Henry together. But Gold had left town and Regina had been Storybrooke’s only hope, and she’d agreed to come out and protect it.

They’d had their first awkward dinner on the night after the fight, when Henry had been looking at Regina with shiny hopeful eyes and Emma hadn’t had the heart to separate them. Henry had moved back into his house, but they’d set a firm Friday night date, Henry and Emma and Regina at the old movie theater in town. There are twenty-eight years of films to catch up on, and the theater has been compensating by showing new movies every week. Emma had sneaked into a few of these movies as a kid, and Henry is less than impressed by older special effects but happy to be sandwiched in between his mothers. 

Regina looks so content tucked in there beside Henry, their early resentment fading and the relationship stronger for it, that Emma never suggests that they do anything else on Friday evenings. They follow the same routine every week– the theater, then takeout on a bench at the park. It’s spring, moving toward summer, and the weather is just right for their weekly outings. Archie says that it’s good for all three of them, and since Regina’s actually been visiting Archie, they don’t question it.

And so this is their routine, and Emma hadn’t thought it had been a bad idea at first. It’s the easiest way to keep Regina on track from going all Evil Queen again, keeping her happy with Henry, and the town is still on edge about that. Emma isn’t as sure that Regina will snap. She’d been sure that she would snap, and she hasn’t fallen apart yet, and she thinks that a part of that is these Friday family nights that give them a breather from the…from whatever Storybrooke has become, post-curse. 

It had been simple and happy, a quiet bit of distraction from whatever Disney villain has shown up to wreak havoc twice a month, and Emma’s beginning to find that she likes spending time with Regina. Regina is whip-smart and funnier than Emma’s ever given credit to her for before, and she adores Henry with that fierce love that defines her. 

She’d gotten in the habit of sticking around after she walks Regina and Henry home, kissing Henry goodnight and having a nightcap with Regina. It’s been nice, quietly perfect in a way that neither of them had ever thought possible with their history, and Emma wakes up on Saturday mornings with the sensation that if the weekend would be over now, it’d still have been kind of great.

Nightcaps had become casual lunches here and there, public outings to reassure all of Storybrooke that Regina is still behaving. Emma and Regina are almost friends, and it’s good . Storybrooke might face certain apocalypse twice a month, but Emma is perfectly content with how things are going with Regina, at least. It’s the one thing she’s doing right in a world that’s been tilted off its axis.

And then one afternoon, when Emma is washing dishes after Henry had dragged Regina to the loft for an impromptu dinner, Mary Margaret had said, “What are you going to do?” 

“About what?” Emma had said, and Mary Margaret had nodded toward the TV. Henry and David are watching the baseball game, and Regina is ridiculing the players’ form as though she’s ever played baseball for a moment in her life. David eyes her with marked wariness, but he’s beginning to loosen in her presence, too, objecting to Regina’s criticism without the fear or bitterness that might have come before.

Regina looks back at them, her eyes questioning, and Emma offers her a sheepish smile. Regina’s eyes turn warm, soft and affectionate, and Emma knows , just like that. “Oh,” she says dumbly. “I…don’t know.” 

There had been a time when she and Regina had loathed each other, when every interaction had left them spitting mad and standing too close for comfort. There had been a heightened attraction that had come with fighting, and Emma had been alive with it, her skin thrumming with the need to do something.

That had been a long time ago. She doesn’t know what to do with this , with the emotions simmering beneath Regina’s gaze that Emma doesn’t return. Mary Margaret gives her a knowing look. “Be careful with her,” she murmurs. “She’s more fragile– more volatile – than she’ll ever admit.” 

“Yeah.” Regina heartbroken is a Regina no one in Storybrooke needs to see again, a vicious woman who scorches the earth with her fury. Regina is unpredictable, and Emma has the sinking feeling that, if this all implodes, they’re going to lose everything.

Regina doesn’t know yet. It’s absurd, that Emma should know her heart better than she does. But Emma has been good at reading people for too long to believe that most people are in touch with their feelings. And Regina doesn’t interact with her like someone repressing this thing she’s feeling.

Emma doesn’t want to name it. It feels presumptuous to call it love when it’s Emma who is the recipient. Emma has spent a lifetime never knowing love, and she can’t imagine that this is where it starts– a one-sided emotion from a woman who had destroyed an entire world over her last love. 

But it’s something that festers deep within Regina’s heart, and Emma doesn’t know what to do with it. 

So she does what she does best and ignores it.

At first, it’s almost painful. She takes a few days to avoid Regina completely until she can’t bear it, and then she shows up in Town Hall on Tuesday with a few bags from Granny’s. Regina exhales when she sees Emma, like she’d been holding in a singular breath for days, and Emma feels like the worst person in the universe. “Hi,” she says.

Regina says, “Oh, has the great savior finally deigned to grace us with her presence?” in a voice with a touch of bitterness, and Emma relaxes. The thing Emma can’t talk about is still there, obvious in Regina’s gaze and in the way her hand grazes Emma’s as she takes the bag from her, but acrimony is a language they both speak well. 

“Sorry I’ve been cleaning up your messes,” she huffs out. “There’s a line out the door of the station of people who can’t move on from the curse and think I’m supposed to save them.” 

Regina scoffs, settling into her seat. “It’s been three months. Isn’t it time they got over it?” She steals Emma’s fries, her fingers brushing against Emma’s, and Emma freezes for a moment. Her first impulse is to snatch her hand away, but she fights it. There is no reason to pull away. Pulling away will make this more than it is. 

And then Regina says abruptly, “I’ve been asked to step down as mayor.” 

Emma stares at her in consternation. “ What ? Who?”

“It was only a matter of time,” Regina says, and Emma can hear the rage simmering beneath the surface of her words, the thickness that might be tears beneath that . “I did curse them all into a twenty-eight year Groundhog Day with plumbing and antibiotics. Silly, evil me. They weren’t going to let me continue to rule them.” 

“That’s bullshit,” Emma says, and she squeezes her hand around her bottle of root beer. “You’re the only one who knows how to keep the town running. Who do they want to replace you with?” One look at Regina and she knows. “My mother? She’s great with ten-year-olds, she really is, but she’s no you–” 

She stops. Regina is staring at Emma, her eyes wide, and she says, “I didn’t think…I thought you would tell me I’d be better off stepping down.” 

“Are you kidding? Storybrooke needs you. I won’t let them do this,” Emma says. She doesn’t think about how that might be construed, she doesn’t, because the thing hanging between them has fallen to the back of her mind. Regina needs her job, needs to be the protector of this town, and that’s all that Emma is thinking about right now. “I’m going to talk to them. Who is them, exactly, because if Mary Margaret was a part of this and didn’t say a word to me, then–” 

“ Emma ,” Regina says, tenderness in her voice. Emma’s heart swoops. “It’s all right. If this is what they need to believe that I’m reforming–” 

“It’s a load of crap,” Emma snaps, standing. “They don’t want you reformed. They want you punished. And it’s not right. David can get up in front of the town and shout about second chances and clean slates until his throat is hoarse, but if it only applies to everyone but you, then that isn’t justice. I’m going to fight this.” 

She squeezes her fists, alight with righteous fury, and she spins around. “I have to talk to them,” she says, heading for the door.

She turns back for a moment in the doorway. It’s a mistake. She catches sight of Regina, still seated at the desk with a french fry in her hand, and she looks–

Stunned. Like she’s just been hit by a truck. Her gaze is stricken, and the french fry slips out of her hand, and Emma knows, right then, that Regina’s finally figured out what’s been so clear to everyone else. 

Emma twists around and hurries out the door, standing on the other side and breathing hard. 

A few moments later, she hears something hard get thrown into the wall of the mayor’s office.

Regina is irritable and snippy with her for days, snaps at Emma when she’s just a few minutes late to bring Henry home and clenches her jaw when she sees Emma at Granny’s. It takes everything Emma has to be even-tempered about it, to not allow herself to be provoked. Regina is too good at getting under Emma’s skin, and Emma refuses to allow them to regress again. 

Instead, she focuses on the council of royals who have decided, apparently, that Regina has finished readjusting the town to the modern world and can no longer be trusted. “So, what, she does the hard work and then you fire her?” Emma demands. 

“The people don’t feel safe.” That’s Kathryn, sitting on the opposite side of the room from Mary Margaret and David. She looks troubled, uncertain of this whole plan, but her words are sure. “We have to look at our kingdoms and what they need.” 

“Give her an oversight committee,” Emma says. “Give her term limits. But don’t push her out of office. She’s good at this. And you all know it, or you wouldn’t have waited until now to ask her to step down.” 

Mary Margaret says loyally, “I think Emma has a point. I have no idea how to be mayor. There’s a lot more paperwork than I ever had to deal with as queen–” 

“I’m familiar with the work involved,” Albert Spencer says sleekly, and they all freeze, turning to face him. He smiles, his expression icy cool. “If our options are the Evil Queen or an incompetent girl, I think we can arrange something…a little more reasonable.” 

This is the moment when they’re going to have to choose, when someone like Kathryn– good and smart and who might work in the best interests of her people– will have to step in. This is the moment to concede Regina’s position to someone who will never be as good at it as she is. 

Emma straightens. “If you try to put anyone else in charge without a fair vote, I’m going to take Regina and Henry and leave town,” she says. Mary Margaret stares at her, betrayed, and Emma really hopes that this bluff will work. A part of her still wants to run away from Storybrooke and never look back, but she tamps it down, forces it to be silent. “No more saviors here.” She pauses and jerks a thumb at Spencer. “And if you put him in charge, I’m going to drag him over the town line and wipe his memory. Got it?” 

Kathryn quirks an eyebrow. “Looks like we’ll be scheduling in an election this November,” she says, a ghost of a smile on her face. Emma doubts that she’ll ever forgive Regina for passing her over to Gold, but Kathryn is a sensible sort. She knows what’s best for this town.

Now, Emma just has to persuade Regina to run for reelection. The mayor’s office is packed up for the day, so she heads down to Mifflin, hoping against hope that Henry isn’t home yet. 

Regina doesn’t answer the door, not after repeated knocks and the doorbell is rung. She doesn’t answer her phone, either. Emma has a sudden, wild thought– what if Regina’s been hurt , what if the meeting with the royals had been a distraction, what if– 

Something surges from her, raw and wild light like she hasn’t seen since she’d kissed Henry’s forehead and broken the curse, and Regina’s door is flung off its hinges. Emma doesn’t think twice about it, not yet, and she tears into the house and finds Regina rushing into the foyer, fear in her gaze–

“What the hell did you do to my door?” she demands, her eyes still wild. “I thought another gang of dwarves had shown up with pitchforks.” 

“Sorry,” Emma says, staring at her. Regina looks fine, untouched, except for a few stray hairs that have come free from her perfect styling when she’d rushed into the foyer. “You weren’t answering the door. Or your phone,” she says, holding hers up.

Regina’s eyes narrow at her, that simmering anger that lurches on the verge of heartbreak when she sees Emma these days. “Has it ever occurred to you that I might just not want to speak to you?” she snaps.

It stings, and Emma recoils. “Fine,” she says. She’s sworn that she won’t let Regina drag her into a fight, that she can be understanding and sensitive and all the things that she isn’t when Regina gets nasty. “Let me just…fix the door and I’ll get out of your hair.” 

She lifts her hands again, tries to figure out whatever it was that she’d done with…magic?...to the door. But nothing happens now, no wave of magic or unpredictable force. “Okay. That’s fine,” she says, squinting at the door. It’s mostly intact. The hinges have just been yanked out of the wall. 

Regina has a junk drawer in the kitchen, so Emma heads past her to find the screwdriver. Regina stands very still, a storm roiling behind her eyes, and she takes a step back when Emma walks by her. 

But the door is less easily fixed than Emma had thought. The screws don’t go in right, and she teeters on a chair and tries again, and again, until her fingers are starting to ache and she can feel Regina’s eyes boring into her. “Just a few more minutes,” she promises. “I’m going to get this done. I just need–” 

The door slips out of her grasp and nearly topples to the floor. Emma shoves it back into place, straining as she stabs the screwdriver at the hinge again with dogged determination. “I got this,” she pants.

The door glows. For a moment, Emma thinks that she’d inadvertently done magic again. But when she turns around, Regina has her hand extended, and the door is frozen in place. “It’s all right,” Regina says, and she just sounds tired now, the fury fading away. “You’re hurting yourself.” 

Emma looks at her hand. It’s raw, angry red lines across her palm that she hasn’t noticed until now. Regina walks to her, taking Emma’s hand in hers, and Emma stands very still. Her heart thumps, and she’s afraid– not of Regina, but of what might happen next, of the question Regina might ask her. 

She wonders, for one long moment, what might be the cost of lying. Of saying yes, I feel it, too and keeping Regina– keeping her happy, keeping her content, keeping her a friend. Is it worth it?

Is it ever worth it to surrender yourself to someone else, to pretend that there are feelings when there are none? Or is that only a protracted cruelty to each of you, dragging out a lie that will only hurt worse and worse once it becomes too much to ignore? 

Emma won’t lie to Regina. And whatever the consequences are– whatever hurt will come from rejection, whatever resentment or distance might follow– it will be what it will be. 

She holds her breath, but Regina only touches Emma’s hand and lets the marks on her palm fade away. “There’s soup on the stove,” Regina murmurs, and she looks at Emma with a gaze that is muted and unreadable. “Come eat something.” 

And they’re okay again.

As it turns out, none of the royals decide to run for mayor of Storybrooke. “It’s beneath them,” Mary Margaret says, scrunching up her nose to indicate exactly what she thinks of that. “They won’t deign to fight for the people’s approval. They think it’s their god-given right.” 

Of course they do. “And you’re not going to, either, are you?” Emma asks, looking at Mary Margaret with sudden suspicious. 

“And have you disown me? I think not.” There’s a note in her voice that has Emma looking at her askance. “Emma…” Mary Margaret prods. “Are you sure that…that supporting Regina in this is the best idea?” 

Emma blinks at her. “Regina as mayor is the best idea.” There is nothing glamorous about being mayor of Storybrooke. It’s a lot of work and very little satisfaction from it. If there’d ever been an appropriate punishment for Regina’s crimes, it’d be having to serve Storybrooke like this. And Emma knows that Regina is exactly what the town needs.

Regina had been just as outraged at the indignity of running for her own position, but Henry had won her over with his eager enthusiasm. Fortunately, there are few others who have shown interest in running for mayor against Regina and Emma’s support of Regina, and they’re more infamous than even Regina is. Emma had had to talk her out of using the slogan Mills for Mayor: at least I take responsibility for my murders , though she suspects that Storybrooke might have taken it in stride.

“That’s not what I mean.” Mary Margaret twists her hands. “I know that Regina is…is a decent ruler, when she isn’t on the warpath trying to murder people. The kingdom did quite well in her hands. I’m not trying to interfere with her campaign. But are you sure that you should be the one helping her through this?” 

Emma stops, looks at Mary Margaret. Her mother , which is a thought she’s been adjusting to for months and still doesn’t sit well. There have been minor threats to the town in the months since the curse but little more, and she’s had plenty of time to smile through tearful reunions and force away thoughts of abandonment. “Because of her…” Emma can’t finish the sentence.

“Because of her feelings for you,” Mary Margaret says gently. “Maybe some distance from you would do her good.” 

Emma shakes her head automatically. “I can’t. Henry is…they’re fragile enough as it is. Everything is simpler when I’m there, too. I can’t take that away from Regina. And–” She shrugs, guilt welling up. “Regina doesn’t really have any other friends, okay? I’m not running off because of something she hasn’t even brought up.”

“And what happens when she does bring it up?” Mary Margaret murmurs. “Do you think she’ll take your rejection well?” 

“I don’t know,” Emma lies. Because she does know, she can imagine Regina’s humiliation shifting into fury and nastiness with the sinking sensation in her stomach. Regina had spent a year fumbling through a relationship with Henry that had been adversarial at best, and she’d really loved him then, had been more hurt by that rejection than she’ll ever be by Emma’s. “It’s not like I don’t…I do like her. Just…platonically. I’m not going to slam the door on her and run away. I don’t want to hurt her.” 

And pushing Regina away now would hurt her just as much. 

“Gold is back in town,” Regina says with a sour look on her face. It’s Friday night, and Emma has successfully pushed Mary Margaret’s questions from her thoughts to enjoy their family night. They’d just watched Jurassic Park , and Henry has run ahead into Granny’s to order their dinner takeout. 

Regina had waited to drop that bombshell until Henry had left them, but she’s been on edge all night. Emma puts a hand on her arm and takes a step away from her, that careful balance of concern without intimacy. “You saw him?”

The last time anyone had seen Gold, he’d been trying to sic a wraith on Regina. Emma and her parents had fought him off before he could brand Regina, and Emma had spent the next week sleeping in the station, guarding Regina from angry townspeople until the fury had ebbed. 

She’d heard that Gold had disappeared from town with a girlfriend who may or may not have been locked in the asylum by Regina’s orders for twenty-eight years. (“She was safe there,” Regina sniffs when asked. “It’s not like it was any different than anyone else’s fate.” Regina still has trouble conceding that her worst crimes are crimes , but she is quiet and introspective for days after they’re brought up.) The fewer people they have wreaking havoc or trying to kill Regina, the better.

Regina nods, tugging her arm away from Emma. It’s gentle, but there is a hollow loss in Regina’s eyes, a careful wariness at Emma’s touch that Emma chooses not to comment on. “With Belle and a man I’ve never seen before. Rumor has it that he’s Gold’s son.” 

“ Son ?” Emma echoes. “Gold is a dad ?” 

“I don’t envy any child subjected to him,” Regina says dryly. “If he parented like he taught…” Emma doesn’t like to imagine Regina, barely more than a child, learning magic with someone like Gold. “I suppose the son is the reason why he orchestrated…all of this.” She waves vaguely at Granny’s in front of them. “My training and descent into darkness. The curse. Your destiny. All to find the Land Without Magic and his son.” 

She weaves together their lives in a simple statement, turns their pasts into the machinations of a man who has been manipulating both of them from the moment that he’d met them. Emma clenches her fists. “I don’t like being used.” 

“Neither do I,” Regina says, but her voice is devoid of anger. “I wonder what we’d do for Henry, though.” 

Emma looks at her. Regina’s eyes are distant, and she watches the door to Granny’s with muted sadness. It’s a moment in which Emma hates this unrequited thing between them, hates that Regina has feelings for her. She wants to reach out to squeeze Regina’s hand, wants to slip her arm around Regina’s shoulders and stand with her, wants to be close to Regina in a joined moment, but she can’t. Not without giving Regina false hope. Not without implying something she doesn’t mean. 

“Everything,” she says instead. “We’d do everything.” And Regina smiles at her, fierce and fond, and Emma is overwhelmed at the affection in her gaze. Being cared about– loved, sometimes she allows herself to think– by Regina is like drowning, being swept away in a depth of emotion. 

More than anything, Regina deserves someone who feels the same way. Not Emma, who can only fumble through scenarios in which she lets Regina down kindly, in which they never have to deal with this elephant in the room at all.

Emma has to say something. She can’t let this keep going, not when it’ll just get worse and worse, when maybe Regina can still move on here and they can preserve their friendship. “I think,” she starts, turning away to stare at the door to Granny’s, “We should–” 

The door opens. Emma sees Belle first, smiling as she steps down the stairs to the outside eating area, and she stops talking because they’re about to have to deal with Gold. But it isn’t Gold walking with Belle. 

It’s a man, laughing with Belle, carrying a takeout bag in one loosely swinging hand. “You can’t tell me Papa wouldn’t die if you showed up at the pawn shop with an iPad,” he’s saying. “Something out there with more answers than he has? It’d–” His eyes flicker over Regina and Emma once, then return to Belle, and then his words die in his throat. 

Emma’s shoulders stiffen. Regina looks at her with sudden concern, sensing the waves of horror emanating off of her. Neal– Neal Cassidy , the creep who’d left her in prison with a broken heart and a new life growing inside her– Neal says, his voice strained, “ Emma ?” 

And Henry pushes open the door to Granny’s and takes the steps two at a time, three milkshakes balanced carefully in a cardboard drink holding in one hand and a shopping bag with their dinner in the other, and runs to them, calling, “Hey, Moms! Granny gave us extra apple pie.”

“She’s got nothing on my apple pie,” Regina says automatically, but her eyes are sharp as she takes in the situation. Emma’s heart is beating so loudly that she’s sure that everyone in her vicinity can hear it. Neal is looking from Henry to Emma, his eyes wide, and she knows that he’s doing the math, knows that he’s already figured it out– she hasn’t said a single word, and Neal has taken in everything around him and made her with the skill of a seasoned conman– 

Regina reaches over to Henry with one hand and pulls him against her in a smooth motion, wrapping him securely in her embrace. With her other hand, she takes Emma’s hand, and Emma nearly sags in gratitude. There is no expectation in her touch, nothing but warmth and protectiveness, and she says, “Emma, take the milkshakes, will you? Let’s go.” 

She inclines her chin toward Belle. “Belle. Nice to see you out and about.” It sounds sincere. Maybe a tiny bit apologetic.

“Regina,” Belle says warily, but Emma knows from experience how hard it is to believe the worst of Regina when she’s with Henry, when the love between them seems to fill continents with its breadth. 

Neal is still gaping, open-mouthed, the words gone again, and Emma can see more of Henry in his face now than she’s ever remembered of him. There’s the same furrow to their brows, the same dark eyes, the same chin , for god’s sake–

She’s breathing hard, close to panic, and Regina tightens her grip on Emma’s hand. “Let’s eat at home today,” she says abruptly. “I can feel the mosquitoes out for murder.” 

Henry looks at her in surprise, his eyes moving from Emma to his mother. “Okay,” he says uncertainly. “Hey, who was that guy?” 

Emma’s heart stops. “What?” she croaks.

“The guy at Granny’s. With Belle– is that Belle from Beauty and the Beast?” Henry says, distracted. “ Cool . Anyway, he was looking at you like he knew you.” 

Regina says smoothly, “Everyone knows me. I’m the Evil Queen,” with just the right self-deprecation in her voice. Henry is quiet then, thoughtful in the way that he gets when he’s thinking about Regina and her valid-but-not reputation. He doesn’t ask about Neal again that night.

It isn’t until Henry is in bed, Emma huddled on Regina’s couch in the study with her third glass of cider, that Regina says, “Tell me he isn’t Henry’s father.” 

She doesn’t need to clarify. Emma sinks down against the couch, her mind still woefully clear, and Regina says again, her voice hard, “Tell me that Gold’s son isn’t Henry’s father.”

“I can’t,” Emma says miserably. “I don’t– I don’t even know how any of this is possible , let alone–” The story spills out of her, a stilted explanation of what she’d thought had been love, had been Neal and Emma against the world. There had been weeks together, running across the country with only the bug and their endless schemes, and then she’d been roped into a terrible con and framed for Neal’s crimes. 

“He never came back. I kept thinking that there was some…that he’d been killed or worse, but then he sent me the keys to the bug and I knew that he’d run. He’d been too much of a coward to face me again.” Emma laughs bitterly. “I was seventeen . He was older. Much older, I guess I know now. And I was stupid enough to love him–” 

Regina flinches. Emma stops abruptly, remembering her audience. And someone pounds on the door to the house, loudly and insistently. 

Regina rises, waving a hand. Magic settles onto them both, and Emma sees in the mirror as the tearstains disappear from her face and the flush vanishes from her cheeks. The faint buzz she’d gotten from the cider is gone. “Let’s go,” Regina says grimly. She’s changed from the long sweater and leggings she’d gotten into, the soft look replaced with a pantsuit as sharp as her eyes.

She pulls the door open while Emma hangs back, just out of sight. “Mr. Gold,” she says coolly. 

“Cassidy,” Neal says. “It’s Cassidy.” To his credit, he doesn’t recoil at Regina’s deadly tone. But if he’s really Gold’s son, he must be accustomed to worse evils than Regina has ever been. “I heard– Is Emma here?” 

Emma freezes. Regina doesn’t miss a beat. “You bang at my door at eleven at night to demand to see someone who doesn’t live here? You really are Gold’s son,” she says, a perfect eyebrow raised.

In a perfect world, Neal would back down now, slinking away like the coward he is. But this is a deeply imperfect world, where Emma’s entire life had been predetermined at birth, where she’d spent a lifetime alone before being thrust into a family who’d left her, where her closest friend has made the mistake of falling for her. Where Neal Cassidy can saunter into her life, eleven years later, and ask about a child he doesn’t deserve. “My father told me,” Neal says, defiance in his voice. “Henry is–” 

“Henry is Regina’s son,” Emma snaps, stepping into view. She doesn’t know which of them she’s saving right now, Neal from Regina or Regina from Neal. She thinks, with a dim sort of resignation, that she might just be saving herself. “I gave him up for adoption after you left me to rot in prison. So step back .” 

Neal closes his eyes. “August told me that it was the only way you’d be able to fulfill your destiny,” he whispers, and Emma gapes at him in disbelief, in renewed betrayal.

Regina speaks, her voice low and dangerous. “So you abandoned a child ?” 

“I didn’t know about Henry–” 

“I wasn’t talking about Henry,” Regina sneers, and Neal takes a step back. “Get out of my sight,” she grits out, and she slams the door in Neal’s face. 

Emma sinks back against the wall. Regina closes her eyes. “I can’t lie to Henry again,” she whispers, her voice wet with regrets. “I can’t have him hate me.”

“I know.” It’s cathartic, watching Regina chase Neal away, but they both know that once Henry finds out about this, they’re going to have to follow his lead. Henry will never forgive them otherwise. “He’s going to want to meet him. But you– you call all the shots, okay?” She looks up at Regina, and a part of her is terrified that this is it, that Regina will never be able to forgive her for dragging Gold and his son into the fragile little family that she’s built with Henry. A part of her is terrified at the thought of losing Regina.

But Regina only nods, and she reaches up to brush a stray lock of hair from where it’s been plastered to Emma’s cheek. Emma stops breathing, stops thinking, panic rising again in the same exact way as it had when she’d seen Neal. If Regina says something now – if Regina tries to kiss her–

She has nightmares sometimes of pushing Regina away, of Regina’s eyes going black and unforgiving and flames appearing in her hands. Of Regina hurt and broken, something between them severed forever. Of terse interactions that have none of the warmth that Emma’s fought for, ruined forever because of feelings Regina didn’t choose and Emma doesn’t want. 

But she gets a reprieve today. Regina tucks the hair behind her ear and says, “Stay in the guest room tonight. I don’t think he’s going to give up if you leave the house.” Emma follows her silently up the stairs, her heart bruised and pounding after a night she’d never expected.

Henry, of course, is furious and bewildered and then thrilled. “My dad?” he repeats, and he whirls around to stare at Emma with fierce accusation in her eyes. “You told me he was a hero. That he died saving lives–” 

“Henry,” Regina says, and her voice brooks no argument. There is always hesitance in her tone when she has to reprove Henry now, the fear that comes with a son who once might have run away. But today, defending Emma, she doesn’t quail. “Emma thought that you were too young to know the truth last year. You’re still too young to know the truth,” she says with a scowl, and Henry is quiet now, listening. 

They tell him more than is perhaps necessary, more than a kid needs to hear about what his dad had done in the past, but Regina is calling the shots and she will happily throw Neal under the bus for Emma’s sake. Emma is quietly grateful for it. 

At the end, Henry looks troubled, but he’s still sitting at the breakfast table, picking at his eggs and watching Emma uncertainly. “Is it…is it okay if I still want to meet him?” he says, and Emma nods.

“Of course you can,” she says, and she’s just so relieved , because Regina is in control and she trusts Regina more than she does Neal or herself or even Henry’s judgment. Regina is the one to call Gold and tersely inform him that our sons will be having a playdate (and god, this whole thing sucks royally, but Emma still laughs helplessly under the hand clamped to her mouth when she hears Regina phrase it like that). 

Neal and Henry meet at the park under Regina’s watchful eye. Emma hangs back, even when Neal heads over to her and sits down on the bench beside her. “I screwed up,” he says, his shoulders slumped. “I’ve regretted it since the moment I left–” 

Regina is there in a flash, hovering over them like a protective mother bear. “Last I heard, this was time set aside for you to get to know my son, not hit on his other mother,” she snarls.

Neal doesn’t back down. “All due respect, Your Majesty, ” he says stiffly, “But Emma and I have plenty of history that didn’t start when I showed up in Storybrooke. You have nothing to do with what we might have to say to each other.” 

Emma can practically see the fire spitting from Regina’s eyes. There’s an uncertainty beneath it, a doubt that hurts Emma on Regina’s behalf, and Emma says coolly, “I have nothing to say to you.” Regina exhales, barely visibly.

Neal looks pleadingly at her. “Em,” he starts, and Emma turns away. 

There is something freeing to having someone around her who understands , who refuses to allow her to be forced into recriminations and apologies. Mary Margaret is already charmed by the idea of a star-crossed love story , and even Gold has been giving her an oddly assessing look in the streets. Regina might have her own reasons for wanting Neal to stay away from Emma, but she’s still furious on Emma’s behalf and distrustful of him for both of them.

But still, later that day, Emma says, “Why did you do any of this?” Henry has gotten ice cream with Neal, and Emma can see him in the store, speaking excitedly to his father. Regina and Emma have gotten their own ice cream, sitting at the outdoor tables in a not-so-friendly reminder to Neal that they’re still supervising. 

Regina runs her tongue over her ice cream, and Emma’s stomach swoops, just a little. Regina is still pretty damned attractive, which makes it even harder to resolve to be noble and honest about her lack of feelings instead of just…making a move and trying to keep it casual with a woman who cares too much. “Because Henry needs it,” Regina answers, and Emma has to struggle to remember what she’d asked.

“No, I mean…” She swallows. She’s careful to never bring up Regina’s feelings, to never put them into a situation where Regina might someday make a move and have to be rejected. This feels too close to that, to inviting dangerous heartbreak. 

But she doesn’t understand, because Regina has been nothing but solicitous for days, maybe longer. Regina has been holding her hand through this whole Neal thing and has asked for nothing in return, and it makes no sense. Regina could have left her to pick up the pieces of her relationship with Henry, could have put Emma through exactly what Regina had gone through last year when Emma had showed up. “Why did you do any of this?” she repeats, and she can hear the pleading in her voice. 

Regina smiles at her, a wealth of emotion in her gaze, and there are no expectations within it. “Because you needed it,” she murmurs. Emma’s heart is warm, beating wildly against her chest. It seems very silly, suddenly, that she’d ever doubted that Regina might be in love with her, that this is anything less than that selfless adoration. Regina is in love with her, and it’s as clear as the love on Regina’s face when she sees Henry.

She’s the only one who’s gotten close to Regina since the curse had broken. She’s the only one who has been kind to her. It has to be that simple, has to be some kind of simple transference of gratitude into love. But Emma’s mouth is dry and she can’t even think that Regina’s love is so fickle, so easily led. She can’t disrespect Regina’s affection, no matter how impossible it is that Emma is the object of it.

It’s not fair that she can’t feel the same way. It would be so much simpler if she did, if she could match the kind of love that shines in Regina’s love. Regina deserves that from her. 

But neither of them have ever known much of what they deserve.

Regina is still seeing Archie twice a week. She hasn’t mentioned it to Emma, but Emma sees her from the station, crossing the street from Town Hall to Archie’s office. Henry goes once a week, too, but those visits are becoming less and less necessary as he adapts to his ever-changing life. He’s happy , bouncing back from miserable years with the flexibility of a well-adjusted child, and Emma envies him sometimes. 

She doesn’t go to Archie. Going to Archie would mean admitting that something is wrong , that her life hasn’t instantly become the fantasy she’d once dreamed it might be if she’d find her parents. She’d gotten older and grown more cynical about it, had instead envisioned shouting at her parents for abandoning her, had envisioned making them cry for what they’d done to her.

Now, she’s twenty-nine and she’s met her parents, and it’s a strange blend of everything she’d imagined. They’d thrown her into a wardrobe and left her to fulfill a destiny of pain and loneliness, but they’d done it for their people. If she yells– if she’s angry – she will never live up to the person they’re sure she is. She keeps it all down instead, hides it away and hopes all the resentment and tears will keep in the dark recesses of her mind.

Yeah, she really can’t go to Archie. 

Instead, she sits down next to him on a park bench one afternoon and scratches Pongo behind his ears. “Nice weather, huh?” she says, and it becomes a babble. “It’s finally getting a little cooler. I’ll probably regret saying that when the fall comes and it’s freezing, but it’s–” 

Archie says gently, “Emma, do you want to talk about something?” 

“No. Nope. Not me,” she says, alarmed at the thought, and she clears her throat. “I actually wanted to ask you…” 

“I can’t discuss my clients with you,” he says, his eyes knowing. “Even Regina.” 

“Right. HIPAA. Uh…does that even count here? Like, what takes precedence, Enchanted Forest law or American law or– I think she’s in love with me,” Emma blurts out, finally giving up on small talk. “What am I supposed to do with that?” 

Archie studies her face, giving very little away. Emma can see the flicker of acknowledgement in his eyes, though, the lack of surprise. “Do you feel the same way?” he asks.

Emma blinks at him, startled. Everyone else– okay , Mary Margaret, she doesn’t talk to anyone else about this– has taken the fact that Emma doesn’t reciprocate as a given. “No. I care about her. But not like that . I don’t do…that, anyway.” She sucks in a breath, blowing it out through parted lips. “I just…do you think she knows? That I don’t…” 

More than anything, she doesn’t want this to hurt Regina. She doesn’t know when her first concern had shifted from Regina will burn down this town to Regina’s feelings might be hurt ; but somewhere along the way, protecting Regina had become her priority. “How do I make sure that she doesn’t get hurt?” 

“I think,” Archie says carefully, “That you are both adults, and you care very much about each other. And as long as that is clear when you talk it out, you can come out of that conversation as friends.”

“Yeah.” Emma doesn’t know, can’t imagine Regina making herself raw and vulnerable and being able to shrug it off after the fact. “Maybe.” She jerks her head to Archie, still jumpy. “Sorry. You were just kind of sitting here, and I showed up and tried to have a whole appointment with you. Can I pay you? I feel like I should pay you.”

Archie shakes his head, bemused. “I’ll see you around, Emma.” His eyes flicker toward the shop in front of them, toward the man leaning against the doorpost, and Emma realizes with a sinking feeling that she’d made a mistake in coming out here. Main Street is too small, too compact, and it’s too easy to see everything going on from any shop. And Neal still gives police stations a wide berth, but here she is, sitting opposite the pawn shop and all on her own.

She gets up abruptly, twisting around, and Neal chases after her. “Em, wait. Please. I just want to talk.” 

She quickens her pace. “I don’t want to–” 

“Emma, come on .” Neal’s voice is pleading, is unlike the easy confidence that used to ooze off of him. “For Henry’s sake, at least. You know it’s better for him if his mother can stand to look at me–” 

She spins around, infuriated. “Do not bring my son into this,” she bites out. “You don’t get to talk about him. You left me in prison –” 

“I didn’t know.” Neal breathes in a shuddering breath. “Do you think I would have given a damn about what August said if I’d known that I had a son ? I was…god, Emma, I would have given you a lot more than just the car and the money if I’d known…” His voice trails off.

He clears his throat, his eyes still begging her to listen. “I’ve spent so many years running away from my father that when August told me you were going to wind up back there, I did what I’ve always done and ran. From my dad. Never from you. It was a cowardly, selfish thing to do, and I would– I want to spend the rest of my life making it up to you. I’m so, so sorry.”

He’s shaking, on the verge of tears , and Emma just stares at him. She doesn’t want to fight. She’s tired of fighting, of being angry at everyone all the time. And all she can think to say now, blankly, is, “I only got the car.” 

Neal blinks at her. “What?” 

“Not the money. Just the car. I guess August kept the money.” It’s a tiny distinction, one that wouldn’t have made much of a difference in her decision to give up Henry, except how can she really know that? How does she know what would have been, if she’d had a tiny bit more? “It’s…whatever.” 

Neal looks at her in agony. “I’m sorry, Emma. I wish–” 

She cuts him off, unwilling to hear more of him wallowing in recriminations. “It would have gone like this, anyway. Destiny, right?” And Neal launches himself into her arms, hugs her tightly, and Emma puts her hands on his arms and hugs him back. This is easier, and it is what Henry will need from them, and she’s too tired to hold onto grudges and resentments forever.

That’s all.

But when she pulls away from Neal, she remembers again the downside of Main Street, of the three blocks that make it impossibly easy for everything that happens on them to become public knowledge.

Regina is standing in front of Town Hall, her eyes glued to Emma and Neal. They’re narrowed, wary and suspicious, and Emma swallows and tries a limp wave.

There’s a new tension between Regina and Emma, even as Neal fades into the background. He doesn’t have the temerity to approach Emma more than before, at least, but he keeps a careful and polite distance from her and smiles from across Granny’s without demanding anything more. Emma is grateful for it.

She’s less grateful when Regina slots into the same distance that Neal does, with strained smiles and excuses to avoid Emma as much as possible. Emma knows that it’s because of Neal, somehow, because of the hug that she’d seen– is Regina jealous ? Is this how they’re going to fall apart, over Neal Cassidy? Emma is furious at the mere possibility of it. 

So when Henry appears at their regular meeting place on Friday afternoon with his eyes downcast as he admits, “Mom isn’t feeling well tonight. She said we should go without her,” Emma snaps . There are limits to this , to whatever petty reasons Regina has decided exist to avoid Emma. They don’t give up their Friday nights. Ever .

“Okay,” Emma says, her teeth clamped together. “Why don’t you sleep over at the loft tonight, too? Give your mom some time to recover.” Henry knows that something is wrong, but he’s tactful enough not to comment on it. They watch the movie and eat takeout and are both silent, too miserably aware of their missing third, and then Emma walks Henry back to the loft and leaves him with Mary Margaret.

She bangs on Regina’s door, heedless of the time of night, and Regina is finally irritated enough to yank it open. “ What , Emma?” Regina demands, her face flushed and her eyes dark. She’s wearing what she always wears on Friday nights, the long cardigan and leggings that make her look soft and beautiful and anything but an Evil Queen, but the scowl on her face is all royalty. 

Emma is not cowed. She storms into the house, slamming the door behind her, and she snaps, “I’m not dating Neal. I’m not interested in dating Neal. And we do not miss Friday nights as a family over some stupid–” 

“He’s interested in dating you ,” Regina says, stepping back. She flattens herself against one wall, and Emma flattens herself against the other. They’re like matches in a room filled with hydrogen gas, each of them ready to explode, and they know it. “He’s still sure that you’re going to give him another chance, and you do nothing to dispel that illusion.” Her voice is challenging.

“Lots of people are interested in dating me,” Emma says through gritted teeth. It’s the closest they’ve gotten to talking about the thing , and she can see the way Regina’s eyes narrow almost into slits. “But I’m just interested in surviving this town, and if that means that I have to be a little more forgiving than I’d like–” 

Regina scoffs. “He left you to rot in prison for his crimes! And you’d forgive him?” 

And god , Emma’s just so tired of this, of outrage and of defending every choice she makes. “You’ve done far worse than Neal, and I’ve forgiven you ,” she bites out. It’s a mean, low blow, the kind she’d sworn she’d never do once it had become clear that Regina had been willing to change. But she can’t take it back. It hovers between them, the fuse that will light the two of them on fire, and it sparks and burns. 

Regina laughs. It’s higher than her natural laugh, bitter and scathing, and she stalks forward. “You’ve never forgiven me,” she snarls. “You’ve been keeping me like a caged pet .” Emma plasters herself against the wall of the foyer, her heart pounding as Regina nears. “You’ve been playing house with me, parading me out for the town to see that I’ve been tamed. That I’m all yours now, a penitent public servant. Did you think I wouldn’t notice?” 

She’s close now, bristling with barely-restrained fury. Emma can’t speak, can only gulp in breaths and quiver with her own anger and the spark of electricity that dances between them. “You hate me,” Regina spits out. “You hate your parents. You hate Neal and this town. But you pretend, and you pretend, and you pretend most with me. Because you know that I’m so pathetic – so desperate for kindness– that if you grant me even that, I’ll prostrate myself before you.” 

“Stop it,” Emma manages. “ Stop –”

Regina laughs again, a cool rumble like a purr that sends a jolt of wanting through Emma’s belly. “Then tell me the truth,” she breathes. “Tell me how much you hate me.” 

Emma scrubs at her face for a moment. “Archie had no idea,” she says wearily. As if caring about Regina was ever going to be enough for this. 

“Archie?” Regina echoes, her eyes narrowing. “What about Archie? What have you been saying about me to–?”

“What do you want me to say?” Emma demands, cutting her off before there’s another explosion. She’d gone to Regina’s house to– to defuse the tension between them. To make it clear that there’s nothing between her and Neal. To get back to where they’d been. Not this , the raw truth that Regina is pulling from her as deftly as she might yank out a heart. “You want me to say that I’ve forgotten what you did to me? To my family? That you’re the reason I grew up alone?” She hates thinking of Regina like this , through how she hurts instead of how she heals. “You want me to dredge up every last bit of trauma until I do hate you? Do you think that that’s how– that’s how you’re going to stop–”

She doesn’t say loving me . She isn’t that cruel.

Regina moves forward again, and this time, she touches Emma. Emma can feel her skin prickling at Regina’s touch, can feel her heartbeat speeding up as Regina caresses her cheek. Emma can’t read the look in Regina’s eyes. It’s hungry and angry and oddly removed, and it could mean a thousand different things. 

“I am the Evil Queen,” Regina purrs, her breath warm against Emma’s ear, and Emma shakes, furious and desperate for her at once. “I want you to stop pretending that you see me as anything but that.” Her eyes are empty now, and Emma twitches with need, with the urge to do something utterly stupid –

She shoves Regina back. “Fuck you,” she says, breathing hard. “Fuck you to hell .” She stumbles for the door, leaving Regina staggering back, satisfaction fading to devastation on her face. Emma turns away, yanks the door open with shaky hands and slams it behind her as Regina sinks to the floor. 

She makes it as far as her car, slipping inside and shutting the door, before she lets out a long, furious scream loud enough to wake up half the block.

She sleeps in the station, unwilling to go back to the loft and face Henry or her parents. She hadn’t meant to fight Regina, hadn’t meant to trigger whatever the hell that had been, and now it’s done and they’re going to have to talk about all of this. About things Emma was never going to talk about, and she’s filled with endless despair just thinking about them. 

When she wakes up, the station is bright with sunlight and her parents are standing in the doorway, their eyes grim. “There’s been a murder,” David says, and his next words hit her like a hurricane. “Archie is dead.” 

Regina had been seen last night entering Archie’s office. It had been around midnight, right after their fight, and Emma remembers bringing up Archie last night with dazed horror.

But no . Regina had been furious last night, but she had been alight with her own self-loathing, had been frighteningly still with it. She’d wanted Emma to admit that she hates Regina, had been determined to force it. 

She hadn’t gotten violent. She hadn’t used magic on Emma. She isn’t the person she’d once been, and Emma blinks hard and says, her voice raspy, “It wasn’t Regina.” 

Emma doesn’t hate Regina, even in that shadowy part of her mind where she locks away her worst emotions. It’s startling to know that, to realize that her darkest resentments have been replaced with thoughts of Regina’s smile, of her fierce protectiveness and her eyes when she’d said because you needed it . Regina might never believe it, but Emma knows, and she has to sit down on her desk with a thump. “Regina wouldn’t do that.” 

Mary Margaret and David exchange a fraught glance. “We don’t want to believe it, either,” Mary Margaret says at last. “But there’s…” 

“Regina’s missing,” David finishes. “We went to her house this morning and found it empty.” 

Emma is unconvinced. “That’s not about Archie,” she says. “That’s– we had a fight last night. She’s probably sulking in her crypt.” 

“We went there, too,” Mary Margaret says gently, and she bites her lip and says, “You had a fight last night?” 

And then, too late, Emma realizes what that must sound like. “It wasn’t like that,” she says swiftly. It had been like that, kind of, but she is sure, one thousand percent certain, that Regina wouldn’t have killed anyone. “She wouldn’t–” 

Mary Margaret’s eyes are grave. “She’s in love with you, Emma,” she points out. “And you’ve been…well, you and Neal–” 

“There is no me and Neal,” Emma says, her voice sharp and a little too shrill for Mary Margaret not to hear the panic in her voice. “Regina is not a suspect here. And I am the sheriff of this town, and I won’t have anyone implying that she’s murdered anyone when our son could–” 

Their son, who is standing in the doorway of the station, his face ashen as he listens to their conversation. Emma freezes. A part of her wants to lash out at her parents, wants to blame this whole damned town for breaking Henry’s heart. But that isn’t an option right now, not when Henry looks as though his world is falling out from under him. 

She reaches for him, holds him tightly, and whispers promises into his ears. We’ll find her. She didn’t do this. This isn’t her anymore . She’d been angry last night, but now, she only aches for Regina. She only wants to see her again, to hear her side of the story, to find Archie’s real murderer and make things right with her best friend again–

Oh, god, what if Regina really had done it? If Emma will have to face Regina again, savior to villain, and they’ll have to fight each other again– if Regina will have to come back from this , if there’s any coming back at all–

When David and Mary Margaret take Henry to school, leaving Emma behind in the station, Emma huddles in her chair and cries and doesn’t know why.

The royal council has made a stir about Regina’s disappearance after Archie’s death, but Emma is firm with them. “We have no evidence pointing to Regina as responsible for the murder,” she says. “There are no visible signs of a struggle–” 

“Because she tore out his heart ,” snarls Albert Spencer. “This is a pathetic cover-up. And you want that woman to be elected mayor come November? I want her in prison.” 

The others are nodding, dissatisfied. Emma clears her throat. “Well, seeing as you have no authority in this town except in your minds, I’m going to continue to run this investigation professionally.” She takes a smug enjoyment in seeing the way that Spencer’s mouth snaps shut.

But Kathryn says, “Maybe it is best that I run opposite Regina for mayor.” Emma shoots her a betrayed look. She meets Emma’s gaze. “We need someone…impartial in charge of this town,” she murmurs. “I know you’ve been instrumental to Regina’s changes lately. But I haven’t forgotten what she’s capable of.”

“Neither have I,” Emma says tightly. “But she didn’t do this .” 

She wouldn’t be hiding if she had. Emma knows Regina by now, and she knows that Regina on a self-destructive bender would have announced herself by now. She doesn’t deal in shadows, concealing herself and letting others run around fighting over the blame. When Regina does something vile, she stands behind it. 

Emma and Henry dig through the house, then the crypt, searching for clues to where Regina might have gone. Her car is still parked in her driveway, a single reassurance that she couldn’t have possibly left town. “Maybe she’s hiding in the woods until we find the murderer,” Henry says hopefully. “Maybe she’ll be back soon.” 

They find their way into the vault beneath the crypt, and Emma even manages to find a secret room inside of that. It’s tastefully designed, decorated with couches and mirrors and dresses that Regina must have worn back in the Enchanted Forest. It’s more comfortable than Emma had imagined the vault, but there’s no sign of Regina in there, either.

Regina has left behind a worn copy of a spellbook on one couch, and Emma picks it up. There’s a photograph holding her place. Regina had been looking at a potion meant to cure a common cold, and Emma feels a pang as she remembers how sniffly she’d been last Friday at the movies. Regina had berated her for getting a cold in the middle of the summer, and now she–

She turns over the photograph, and her heart hurts. It’s a recently printed picture, a selfie that the three of them had taken together last month. They’re crowded together on a park bench, Henry’s head on Regina’s shoulder and Emma beaming at the camera as though she’s deliriously happy. Regina’s face is turned from the camera, focused on Emma, familiar love shining in her eyes. 

Emma squeezes her eyes shut and presses it back into the book. 

They go to Gold next, who mmhms a lot and then says, “I did sense a portal opening somewhere in Storybrooke recently. But I can’t say if it was after the cricket’s death or not.” Neal is busying himself with something on the shelves, pretending not to listen to their conversation, and Emma is just fine ignoring him back. “Perhaps it’s time to accept that Her Majesty has done the deed and moved on. We’re all best off without her.” 

Emma seethes. “Bold words from the man who made her,” she snaps. 

Gold laughs. “Has she claimed that?” he says, his voice light. “She always did excel at shifting the blame.” He dusts an object on the counter. “Regina made her own decisions. I only offered her what she chose to take.” 

“You offered a desperate girl a way out,” Emma says tightly, all too aware of Henry beside her. He listens to them with his eyes averted, but she knows he’s taking in everything. “And now you want me to write her off?” 

Gold spreads his hands. “She seems to have written you off,” he says easily, and Neal spins around. 

“Papa, enough ,” he says. Emma looks at him in surprise. “Henry, why don’t you go get something to eat at Granny’s?” Neal says, holding out a ten-dollar bill. “Something sugary and terrible for you.” Henry blinks at him, then Emma, and Emma nods tightly. 

Gold makes himself scarce as Henry leaves, and Neal says, “The portal was opened before Dr. Hopper’s death. He commented on it days ago. Maybe weeks.” He looks angry and a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry.” 

Emma shrugs. “It’s not your fault your father is…” She gestures. “You know.” She doesn’t have to resent him for that .

“Yeah.” Neal shoves his hands into his pockets. “But he’s being an ass right now and he thinks it’s on my behalf, so…” He lets his voice trail off.

Emma has a sinking feeling when she says, “On your behalf?” 

“He’s an ass ,” Neal repeats. “And he’s…” He laughs, a short burst that has no humor in it. “He thinks that with Regina gone, we’ll just be one big happy family again. He didn’t frame her,” he says hastily. “But he’s happy to see her framed.” 

“You don’t think she did it?” It’s the warmest emotion she’s felt toward Neal in eleven years. 

Neal shrugs. “She hasn’t killed me yet, has she? I can’t imagine Dr. Hopper was anywhere as high as I was on her kill list.” Another humorless laugh. “As if I’d ever try to take either of you from her. I know my place.” 

That hits wrong. “Wait.” Emma holds up a hand. “Take either of us ? What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Neal just looks at her, and Emma laughs shortly. “I don’t know what you think was going on, but I’m not seeing Regina, Neal. We’re barely managing at friends .” 

“Come on, Em.” And Neal rolls his eyes, grinning at her. “You might not be dating, but you’re obviously spoken for . If you’d ever looked at me the way you look at her, I’d have climbed right into that prison and gotten locked up, too.” 

“That’s– that’s deeply insensitive,” Emma manages. “And wrong. Very wrong. There’s this whole…unrequited thing going on with us, but it’s going to be fine. Once I find her, anyway. Regina’s–” 

Neal shakes his head. “Come on , Em,” he says again. “You’re telling me that you aren’t in love with Regina Mills? What is any of this , then?” He gestures at her, and she glances at her reflection in a dusty old mirror, then takes a step back. 

She looks terrible . Her hair is tangled and messy, pulled back in a ponytail without being brushed through first. Her eyes are red-rimmed and her face is pale and wan, and she looks like she’s– like she’s being haunted by this case, like she’s falling apart as she tears through town searching for Regina.

God . Neal’s reading too much into this. She’s just– she’s trying to find a friend , a friend who’d fought with her and then disappeared. A friend who’s being falsely accused of murder. She’s heartbroken on Regina’s behalf, not because of–

She doesn’t do love, has wiped it so utterly from her heart that she isn’t capable of it anymore for anyone but Henry. She cares for Regina like she cares for Mary Margaret or David, like she cares for Ruby or Archie, like she cares for a friend , not–

She can feel wrenching despair, and she twists around, clasping her hands against a shelf as she stares into the mirror. Her heart clenches, and she wants to sob again, thinking about Regina alone and untrusted. Thinking about Regina with her finger running along Emma’s cheek as she pleads with Emma to hate her, thinking about Regina’s smile that had brought Emma to life, thinking about Regina and the fictional reality that Neal had believed in where they’d been in love.

She thinks about loving Regina for an unguarded instant, and she nearly collapses with the weight of the pain flooding her heart. 

There must be something on her face when she makes it into Granny’s, because heads turn as she stumbles in. Henry is there, and so are her parents, sitting together with him and drinking cocoa like it isn’t a weekday afternoon. “Hey,” she says, sitting down beside Henry, and she can feel their eyes boring into her, studying her expression and the way she slumps in place.

Mary Margaret says, “Oh, Emma,” and that’s enough for Emma’s shoulders to shake and her heart to feel as though it’s constricting in her chest. Mary Margaret reaches across the table to squeeze her hand. For once, her face is clean of suspicion and doubt, and is only sympathetic. There had been moments before the curse had broken when Emma had felt as though Mary Margaret had been mothering her, and she’d resisted them since she’d found out the truth of her parentage.

Today, she just wants to fall against Mary Margaret and let her be Emma’s mother again. “I don’t–” she begins, but she knows it’s all written across her face, more than she’d ever meant to reveal. Mary Margaret squeezes her hand again. “I just want to find her,” Emma says, her voice small. “She didn’t hurt Archie. She wouldn’t have.”

“She wouldn’t ,” Henry agrees fiercely. “I know my mom better than anyone. I was the one to figure out who she really was.” And he wraps an arm around Emma’s free arm, the two of them united in their defense. “Archie was helping us. Mom liked him. Mom liked…Mom was happy with me and Emma. She wouldn’t have risked any of that.” 

Mary Margaret considers them, then looks at David. David shrugs. “If Emma and Henry say it, then it’s good enough for me,” he says, as though it’s that simple , as though they’ve finally decided to put aside their resentment and suspicion and help find Regina.

They go back to Gold’s shop, Mary Margaret leading the way. “He won’t help–” Emma begins.

“He’ll help me,” Mary Margaret says grimly, and she pushes the door open. Inside, Neal is arguing with Gold, his voice low, and his lips curve up in satisfaction when he sees their visitors. 

“See?” he says, jerking a thumb at them. “They’re back. You’ve gotta give them something. This is your grandson’s mother we’re talking about–” 

Gold sneers at them, his eyes dark and displeased, but he holds up a vial. “Inside here,” he says grandly, “Is one of Regina’s tears.” 

“How do you have–?” 

“Because I do.” There’s cold dislike on his face. “Add your tear to the mix and you’ll be able to feel whatever Regina does. Perhaps even see it, if the spell is strong enough. Miss Swan?” 

“No,” Mary Margaret says. “I’ll do it.” Emma stares at her. Mary Margaret smiles at her, a quavering smile. “You’ll want to go after her right away, won’t you?”

Emma swallows. The words stick in her throat, and for a moment she can really see it– imagine being a child with a mother like Mary Margaret, imagine calling her mom and being loved and never being alone. “You would do that…for Regina.” 

Mary Margaret blinks, again and again, and a tear rolls silently down her cheek. Gold captures it in his vial, and Mary Margaret murmurs, “You know, there was a time when I wanted nothing more than to be Regina’s family. I never imagined that it might happen the way it has.” She gestures to Henry and Emma, and Emma swallows, her heart still heavy with too many emotions all at once. “She makes you happy. You make her like…like she once was. Like she was when I loved her. This is the least I can do.” 

The hug is tentative, stilted in the way that all of Emma’s hugs have been since the curse had broken, but then Henry throws his arms around them both and Emma falls into the hug, her eyes shut tight and her body warm. 

And then Gold combines the tears in a dropper and drops them into Mary Margaret’s eye. Mary Margaret flinches, stumbling back, pinning herself against the wall. “No,” she whimpers. “No, no–” 

“What’s going on?” Emma demands, the words raw. “What’s happening to her?”

“She’s afraid,” Mary Margaret says, breathless. “She’s very, very afraid.” Emma’s heart sinks. “There’s…there’s someone here. Someone she knows. I can’t get any visuals– just flashes of sensation, and maybe a few other– I think I smell the sea. But it’s musty, like…” 

Neal says, “Like a ship,” but Emma’s already taking off, racing to the bug and sending it screeching down the street toward the docks.

She’s barely searched the docks. They don’t come here much, not beyond a casual walk on the boardwalk with Henry, and Regina has never showed much interest in the sea. There aren’t as many places where Regina might be, too. She checks the cannery now, moving through it as swiftly as she can, but she has no luck there. 

Regina is afraid , and that keeps her moving, keeps her searching the beach and the docks until her eyes are blurry and she stares out into the ocean in despair. Maybe Regina had boarded a ship to leave town and been taken hostage. Maybe Regina is trapped in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean by now, or–

She blinks. There’s a ripple of water, a low tide that washes over the beach, but there’s something odd about how the water sits in front of her. Just beside the dock, the water seems to be moving around something– something that isn’t there, that is only empty space–

Someone has concealed a ship here. 

She kneels, throws a rock, and watches it vanish in mid-air. Carefully, she steals across the dock, walking toward the space where the rock had disappeared, and she finds an invisible, hard ramp that stretches from the dock to thin air.

When she steps through, she’s on the deck of a ship, large and impressive and just a hair fantastical. “Pirate ship,” she mutters to herself, because of course they have another villain in town. Storybrooke has never been so lucky to avoid a Disney invasion, post-curse. And Regina must be on this ship.

She pulls out her gun and runs. 

She sees the man the moment that he sees her– sees the hook on his hand and groans aloud as he smirks and rushes her. She sidesteps him, seizing him from behind and then throwing him at the side of the ship. He tumbles overboard, and she doesn’t stop to see what happens next.

There’s a ladder down from the deck, leading into thin and narrow passageways, and Emma climbs down and catches sight of– Archie , bound and gagged in the shadows. She unties him quickly, near-frantic, and he whispers, “Be careful. She’s there.” 

“She?” Emma echoes, and Archie shakes his head.

“Cora,” he breathes, terror in his eyes. 

Cora . Regina’s mother . Emma has only heard stories, but they’re enough to make her heart thrum with panic, her throat clogged with something like terror. Cora has done all of this. Of course. Cora is the one who’d have a vested interest in Regina’s isolation from Storybrooke.

She sends Archie to get the others and creeps down the passageway, hearing a voice from one of the rooms. A woman, her tone cool and confident, and it sends a chill up Emma’s spine. “Do you think anyone will ever come for you, darling?” Cora purrs. Emma approaches. Regina isn’t bound or restrained. Instead, she stands very still, backed against a wall as her mother stands before her. Emma can see the dried tracks of tears down her cheeks. “It’s been days. There’s a murder investigation ongoing, and you’re the prime suspect. None of them will ever believe anything but the worst in you.” 

She reaches up to stroke Regina’s cheek. “Did you think they would miss you?” she croons. Abruptly, she changes her appearance, is Henry looking up at his mother. Regina averts her eyes, and Cora’s fingers press into her cheek instead, jerking it around to face her. “Do you think I would ever trust you again?” she says in Henry’s voice.

She shifts her appearance again. Now, it’s a second Emma looking at Regina, her eyes sharp. “Did you think I might fall in love with you?” Cora asks in Emma’s mocking voice. “That I might see the good in you? You’re the Evil Queen. No one will ever love you–”

“–except for me,” Cora finishes, and she is herself again, gazing up into Regina’s blank eyes. “I am the only one you will ever have,” she breathes. “And it is past time that you see that.”

Regina looks away, her eyes flickering toward the door. Emma knows the instant that Regina sees her peering in, knows it from the way that Regina stiffens and then tries to rearrange her face into an expression of despair. But it’s too late.

Cora says, “ Oh , what’s this, do we have a visitor–” and Emma kicks the door open, holding out her gun with both hands.

“Get the hell away from her,” Emma snaps, and Cora laughs, light and airy. 

“The Swan girl,” she says, and Regina cries out, “ No , no , not her –”

Cora’s lips curve into a cold smile. “You’re right on time for a lesson Regina still hasn’t learned.” Emma fires her gun. Cora raises her hand– the bullet stops in midair– the gun flies across the room as though summoned– and she strides forward and buries her hand in Emma’s chest.

Emma chokes, struggling to breathe. It feels as though she’s being suffocated, as though she’s having a heart attack, and Regina is shouting and everything feels so very far away. Cora says coolly, her eyes on Regina, “Love is weakness,” and Regina shakes her head, but she looks suddenly young, suddenly heartbroken, her hands outstretched but frozen as Cora’s hand closes around Emma’s heart.

“No,” Emma gasps out, and she can feel fingers clenching around her heart. But she can also feel something else, something stronger that glows around her like a shield, washing over her like it had when she’d kissed Henry’s forehead or when she’d torn down that door. Love is weakness . Maybe for Cora, who is twisted and evil, but it will never be that for Emma or Regina again. “It’s strength,” she says, and the magic pours from her with so much power that Cora is thrown across the room.

Regina snaps into action as Emma staggers backward, sending sparks of energy at her mother and fighting with electric bolts of lightning. Cora retaliates, hatred on her face, and the lightning strikes the walls of the ship and sets them on fire. “Regina,” Emma says urgently, her heart still skipping beats and her body unresponsive. “Regina, the ship is going to burn down–” 

It takes another few minutes of scorched wood and fire around them before Cora is finally knocked out. “We have to get out of here,” Emma pants, struggling to stand. “Regina–” 

She staggers forward, the smoke and the flames licking at the walls of the room around them, and Regina waves a hand and Cora disappears in wave of purple smoke. “Archie is here,” she says in a throaty, hoarse voice, and Emma doesn’t know how anyone could have suspected that Regina would have killed Archie when she cares , so much, and it’s so clear in her wet eyes.

“He got out,” Emma says. The room is burning around them, and she’s almost in front of Regina, reaching out to her. She lands heavily, one hand on Regina’s shoulder and one on her wrist, like they’re dancing instead of holding onto each other in a burning room. She blinks away tears that are because of the smoke irritating her eyes, not– “ Fuck , Regina, I’ve been so worried about you.” 

“Mother framed me and kidnapped me,” Regina rasps, and she reaches out to finger a lock of Emma’s hair, twisting it between her fingers. “She wanted…well, you saw what she wanted.” She trembles, and her hand drops lower to press against Emma’s chest. It lands where Cora’s hand had been, replacing the memory of cool, clawing fingers with warmth and love, and Emma trembles beneath her touch. “And you…” There is quiet wonder in her voice, but there is something else as well, something heavy and rich with emotion. “You…”

Emma lurches forward and kisses her, clasps her hands against Regina’s cheeks and holds her there. The room is going up in flames around her, but Regina is kissing her back, tongue and teeth and lips in a messy tangle that tastes like tears and need and love. Emma’s heart is racing again, her skin alive like it hasn’t felt ever before, and she sways with Regina, kisses her again and again–

And then there’s a pressure on her chest. Regina pushes her away, her eyes wide and her lips swollen. “Don’t ever do that again,” she says, her voice hard, and she flicks her wrist and teleports them both from the ship.

They reappear in the station, Cora locked in the cell in front of them with her wrists restrained by a glowing magical coil. Regina stares at Cora and avoids Emma’s eyes.

And Emma, her heart bruised and lost and yearning, wants to sob again.

They still do Friday nights as a family, and Regina doesn’t skip out on another one. Instead, their Fridays are spent with absolute focus on Henry, stiff conversation on their park bench and Regina flinching when their hands touch. Regina doesn’t invite Emma in for nightcaps anymore, and Emma doesn’t ask to be allowed into her house.

It’s what she deserves, Emma thinks miserably, after all that time that Regina had been in love with her and it had been unrequited. Regina seems to have moved past Emma at last, just like Emma had hoped , but it’s a hollow victory now. It feels a lot more like defeat. 

She loves Regina, craves her presence and her smile like never before. She has a single memory of a kiss to cling to, a breathless embrace that had felt life-changing until Regina had rejected her, and it’s all she can think about some days. She’s in love, pining away her days and missing Regina more than ever, and Regina doesn’t feel the same way.

It’s a miserable, miserable experience. She feels a renewed sense of compassion for Regina, though it feels laughable now. Emma had missed her chance, had pushed her feelings away for too long, and now she’s lost Regina.

Storybrooke moves on. The news that Archie is alive and that Regina had been framed is accepted by the town with barely a shrug. But Kathryn puts aside her mayoral campaign and throws her support behind Regina, and Emma sees them once outside Town Hall, a tentative smile on Regina’s face as they shake hands and speak in low tones. 

Regina really does go for blondes, it seems, and Emma nearly dents the side of the bug when she thinks about that. 

Cora spends a good week in the asylum before they agree that she’s better off in a land without magic. It’s Neal who drives her to the nearest town and leaves her there with a phone equipped with GPS tracking. They aren’t stupid enough to let her disappear unsupervised. Regina cries in silence as she watches them drive away over the town line, and Emma just wants to hold her, to comfort her and give her the support she needs right now.

Instead, it’s Mary Margaret who takes Regina’s hand, who murmurs to her and lays her head on Regina’s shoulder as Neal’s car turns around a bend in the woods and is gone.

It’s fine. It’s good , even. More and more people are warming toward Regina, and Emma wants that, wants Regina to be appreciated and to fit in in Storybrooke. There’s no reason for her to feel this vulnerable, this fragile, as though she’s going to shatter like glass if she spends any more time around Regina.

They do Friday nights, but they don’t do lunches together anymore. They nod to each other in the street, jerky acknowledgements that send more pain shooting through Emma’s chest. There’s a meeting at Town Hall one Friday where Emma is expected to attend and sit beside Regina, and Regina avoids her gaze and sits stiffly, hands pressed to her lap, while Emma watches her and wants to weep.

She doesn’t. After the meeting, she says, “Regina,” and Regina jolts, a pile of folders falling from her arms. “I’m sorry,” Emma says hastily, crouching down to retrieve them. 

“No, it’s my fault–” Regina tries to grab them first. Emma looks up and Regina’s face is right in front of her, only inches apart, and Emma can’t breathe.

They don’t move, frozen in their positions. “You were going to say something,” Regina murmurs, her breath cool on Emma’s lips. 

Emma shivers, alive with wanting. “I…what?” she finally manages. She hadn’t had anything to say to Regina, truth be told. She’d just craved to see her face her, to have some kind of contact again. “Oh,” she says. Regina’s eyes are dark. Have they always contained these fathomless depths? “Uh. I just wanted to say–” 

“Yes?”

Emma deflates under the force of Regina’s gaze. “I’ll see you tonight,” she says finally, and she flees from the meeting room before she makes even more of a fool of herself.

Henry sends her a text that he’ll be going to the theater with Regina, so Emma comes early and shifts from foot to foot as she waits for them to arrive. But when the door to the theater opens, Regina is alone. 

She looks startled. “Henry said he’d be coming with you,” she says carefully. 

Oh. Emma’s cheeks flame. “He told me the opposite,” she says, glancing absently at the wall and then freezing. The poster at the theater for this week proclaim proudly that the movie they’d been due to watch is The Parent Trap .

That little shit . Regina sees where Emma’s looking, and her jaw tightens. “Oh,” she says tonelessly.

They stand outside the theater in uncertain silence, fiddling with their phones and avoiding each other’s eyes until the movie has already started and there’s no use in going inside. Finally, Emma says, “Can we…can we talk?” 

Regina inclines her head. They walk in the park, the summer humidity giving way to a brisk autumn breeze, and Emma blurts out, “I don’t know what I did wrong.” She feels like a fool to express it, like a child begging for forgiveness. “But I miss you, and I’m– I’m sorry–” 

“Stop,” Regina says, and her voice is anguished. “Don’t apologize , you were just trying to help– it just isn’t–” She takes a breath, and Emma can only listen, stricken by the pain in Regina’s voice. “I know you heard what my mother said,” she says finally. “About my– about how I feel about you.” 

Emma stares at her. Regina shrugs unhappily. “I don’t need you to…I don’t need to be pitied,” she says, her voice dull. “You didn’t need to kiss me as…as some kind of reward or apology or…whatever you were trying to do.” 

There is a strange frustration rising within Emma, a strange hope. “What are you talking about?”

Regina shakes her head, her own face twisted in frustration. “I’m in love with you,” she says, and Emma’s mouth snaps shut. “You must know it by now. I’ve never…I’ve never been very good at hiding it.” She looks to Emma, her eyes sharp and determined. “And I swore to myself that I would never, never make you feel as though you had to reciprocate. I don’t want you to feel obligated, or want you to feel as though any part of our friendship is contingent on– on those feelings of mine. I never wanted you to feel like you had to kiss me.” 

“Regina,” Emma tries, and now her heart is soaring. 

But Regina plows on, ignoring her interruption. “I don’t want anything from you. I just want you to be– to be happy here. To have what you want from your parents and Henry and even fucking Neal , whatever that is. I want to give you whatever you might need from me,” she says, and her gaze is pleading now. “I just wanted you to be loved.” 

Emma finds her voice, her throat scraped and the word strangled as it emerges. “Yeah,” she says. Her hand reaches out of its own accord, touching Regina’s face, tracing a line from her temple in a curving motion down to her jaw. She takes a step forward, then another, and Regina shakes her head, opens her mouth to protest but says nothing aloud. “Yeah,” Emma says, and she presses her palms to Regina’s and her forehead to hers. “That’s what I want for you, too.” 

Regina lets out a gasping sob, and Emma entangles their fingers, holds her in place again. Their noses bump together, but Emma waits, afraid to spook Regina as they inch closer and closer. “I love you,” Emma whispers, and the motion of her lips brushes them against Regina’s. “Maybe I’m a little slow on the uptake, but I catch on eventually.” 

“Emma,” Regina breathes, and their lips touch and stay, a kiss that isn’t quite a kiss, that is only their lips touching between ragged breathing. It feels transgressive, sweeping over Emma as surely as any intimate physical touch might, and Emma is drunk on it, on Regina’s touch and her gaze and the way she shivers against Emma. They are standing in the middle of a well-lit park on a Friday night, and this moment is a long time coming.

Emma wants to drag Regina back to her house, to pin her against a wall and kiss her until Regina is gasping for breath, until she is wild-eyed and wild-haired and writhing against her. Emma wants to stretch out on the beach with Regina beneath her, luxuriating in long kisses and easy, gentle touches. Emma wants to try out more of the magic that she’s beginning to accept that she has until she feels overcome with the power of it, with Regina’s energy surging through her like a whole different kind of desire. 

But it’s Friday night, and this is a beginning that she’ll never give up. They will have plenty of time for everything that follows, and Emma wants all of it. “Hey,” she murmurs against Regina’s lips. “Do you want to go pick up dinner and sit out here for a little while?” 

Regina only nods, a brief jerk of her head, and they trade gentle kisses as they walk hand-in-hand down the path toward Granny’s.