Work Text:
1989
The playing card hovers just above the surface of the table and Regina digs her fingers into the armrest of the chair to keep her mother from seeing them tremble.
‘Good. Now raise it higher.’
Regina tries her best to ignore the presence behind her and the nails digging into her shoulder where her mother’s hand grips too tight, and she wills the card to float. The card struggles another few inches into the air and Regina breathes out a sigh of relief. The hand on her shoulder tightens, and the card begins to rip.
‘Ah, ah,’ Cora tuts from behind her. ‘Control.’ A hand pulls at her hair, harder and harder until Regina is struggling to keep her head steady and the card floating and her body still. Her mother does not let go until Regina starts to cry and the card continues to float in front of them, now whole and undamaged.
Cora releases her, and the hands that hurt her only a few seconds ago are now gathering her up, holding her close. She is still small enough to be picked up, and she folds into her mother’s arms gratefully.
‘I’m sorry, my love,’ Cora murmurs. ‘But you know why I must do this to you.’
The answer is automatic, hammered into her since before she can remember, and Regina delivers it through choking sobs.
‘Because I have to be ready.’
*
Two years later, a man walks into child protective services and tells the woman in charge that he has come to collect his niece. He takes a surprisingly long timepicking her out of the small group of children that are gathered in the play area of the office, but eventually he smiles and crouches in front of a little girl with tangled blonde hair.
‘Hello, little one,’ he says. ‘Are you ready to go?’
Emma Swan- small, tough Emma Swan who has just been removed from a foster home for fighting with the other children, stares at the man with the limp and kind eyes and dangerous smile and hesitates. She glances at the social worker, who is looking at the man like she doesn’t really see him, like she’s maybe a bit asleep. The man watches Emma Swan glare at her social worker, unconsciously picking at the illusion he has placed over her, and he dances a little jig inside. Finally, finally, he has found the child he has been looking for.
He wills himself to be patient, and he waits as Emma turns her gaze back to him.
‘Are you going to hurt me?’ she asks.
‘No,’ he says immediately. ‘But we will need to leave now. I have places to be.’
Emma slides off the couch.
‘Okay,’ she says. She waits patiently while he goes through a pile of official papers with her social worker and when everything is done, they leave.
When her social worker attempts to type Emma’s details into the database she finds that the man’s name is illegible, and she is in the middle of dialling his phone number when she is struck by a blinding headache.
By the time she has it under control she has forgotten what it was she had been in the middle of doing. She sweeps away the pile of scrap paper that’s suddenly appeared on her desk, and by the time she leaves for the day, every memory of a girl named Emma Swan has been scrubbed from not only her mind, but every database in the country.
(he was particularly proud of that little piece of magic).
So she moves on to the next case, and Emma Swan and the man who guards his true name like a treasure but tells her that she can call him Mr. Gold head off into the night together. Across the country, another little girl memorises spells and runes as though her life depends on it.
(it does.
It will.)
*
A riddle: what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object?
It doesn’t. Happen, that is. These forces know better than to tangle with each other. The force must be softened to a gale, and the object must be able to yield, if only a little. The point is victory, not destruction of the universe.
So they pass on their most powerful traits to willing (or simply able) proxies. Convenient, if not especially moral.
These two would hardly be the first people in history to do battle via their children.
*
One of the few advantages of being immortal is patience. Both Gold and Cora are content to spend whatever amount of time it takes to prepare. Cora needs time to mold her too-soft daughter into something to be proud of, and Gold finds that Emma Swan is much less trusting than is convenient. He finds that she is most resistant to direct orders and he focuses on hallucination and perception manipulation. Emma is entranced, following the mystery and non-reality of the worlds he builds to distract her, and he uses the opportunity to teach.
She learns best when actively doing something, he discovers, and he teaches her how to create a basic illusion, an empty white room. He stands in the centre and explains the principles of magic as best he can while she wanders around and pokes at the walls.
Four years after he took her, she knocks on the study door of his New York house and hands him a single white rose. He watches with pride as it swirls and shrinks into a small white mouse. He balances it on his palm, measuring its weight and warmth and the shine in its beady eyes.
‘I’ve been practicing,’ Emma says nervously, when he does not say anything.
‘Very good,’ he says. Years of purposeful searching and it was an unplanned night-time walk that took him past the building where Emma Swan’s aura shone like a star. Now she stands before him, the culmination of uncountable years of revenge, hunching against a recent growth spurt and hoping for more praise.
‘You have progressed well,’ he adds. He smiles. Eons of practice have given the ability to project any emotion he wishes, and Emma brightens at the warmth and love she sees there.
‘Now, go and get ready. We are going out for dinner.’ She nods and scampers out of the room. The mouse turns back into a rose, and he tucks it into his lapel with a smile.
*
Cora is not as kind.
Or perhaps she is kinder, depending on whether your definition of kindness involves truth.
Regina knows exactly what her mother thinks of her, at all times. She can calculate the exact amount of disappointment by the tension in her shoulders or the weight of her footsteps. She measures her mother’s mood in steadily smaller increments that leave her sensitive to even the slightest suggestion of change. She knows why she is being trained.
Her mother is a great believer of need being the greatest motivation for learning. She teaches Regina how to heal by bending one of her fingers back until it breaks.She teaches Regina locator spells by leaving her in the middle of a crowd, with strict instructions not to ask for help. Regina learns new spells with a desperation that colours her magic with a dark purple streak that her mother smiles upon seeing.
Regina works hard, because despite all the disappointment, she knows how much her mother loves her. Her mother told her how long she waited to have the baby that could be perfect, the baby what would grow to be big and strong, and protect them from the man who is coming to kill them both.
*
2001
‘Mother?’
Regina is sixteen, and spends far too much time staring out of her bedroom window. She has never been out of the house unaccompanied, and she can feel the oppressive atmosphere in the house press against her like a living thing.
‘Yes?’
Her mother is sitting in the living room, reading a book that Regina has never seen before, and she looks at Regina expectantly. Regina tries not to fidget.
‘I was reading...’ Careful, she thinks. Her mother must be handled tactfully at all times. ‘I was reading about higher level spells, and they all place emphasis on the spellcaster’s physical fitness.’
Her mother makes a dismissive noise, and Regina takes that as permission to continue. She steps forward and places the brochures in her hands onto the side table.
‘I thought if I had- if I spend more time getting stronger, my spellcasting would be better.’
Her mother finally puts the books down and glances at the brochures, which are a slowly-collected pile of advertisements from different clubs and gyms in the area.
‘You want to do this? To improve your casting?’
‘Yes,’ Regina lies. Her mother gives a martyred sigh.
‘Which one?’
‘The horse riding,’ Regina says. Please, she adds silently.
‘I will take it under consideration.’ Her mother flicks her wrist, and Regina understands that she is dismissed.
Three days later, her mother announces that she will be allowed to take horse riding lessons. She accompanies Regina to the first class but quickly becomes bored, and Regina is left alone in the ring with an instructor and a group of excitable eight year olds.
Riding is like nothing Regina has ever done before. It makes her tired, and it makes her muscles ache in a way that she isn’t used to, but it makes her smile in a way that she hasn’t since she was very small.
Regina loves riding, but she loves just being in class almost as much. The children are sweet, and the instructor is kind. He doesn’t ask too many questions, and he is patient when he teaches her how to handle a horse.
Her chest hurts when he smiles at her.
But she is careful, so careful to keep her feelings hidden. Her mother doesn’t need to be there physically to see what Regina is doing, and Regina works her strongest cloaking magic to keep her mother out.But it’s difficult to keep emotion in when there is so much of it. It feels like trying to stop a river with a twig. She realises for the first time, how small her life is. She doesn’t have friends, or any other family, or a job. She has a tutor for her schoolwork, and her mother.
So she tells her mother that there are extra riding classes, and works harder at home. She kisses Daniel and almost cries because she didn’t know it was possible for a firm hold to not make her want to crawl out of her skin.
Her magic begins to lighten to a worrying shade of lilac, and she hoards her feelings closer.
One day he gets to the stables and her class is cancelled. It’s cancelled the next day, too, and the manager tells her that Daniel has gone missing. She knows what’s happened almost immediately, and she runs all the way home
‘What did you do?’ she demands.
Her mother rises and frowns.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘Dan-’ she stops to sob. ‘You hurt him. I know you did.’
‘Sweetheart. Why do you think I did anything to that boy?’
Regina can’t answer through her tears, and her mother leads her upstairs by the elbow. She follows along because she hurts, and following her mother has always come second nature to her.
She is tucked into bed.
‘I think that class was too much for you, my dear. It’s best to keep you here, where it’s safe.’ Her mother sounds soft, caring. It feels like a slap.
‘You killed him.’
‘Dearest.’ Regina wishes that her mother would shout, or throw something. This insincere sweetness makes her want to be sick. ‘You can’t prove that.’
Regina feels herself go cold at her mother’s words. She turns to icy hatred that wants nothing more than to leave this house and this liar forever, but her hate is ever so slightly outweighed by her fear of the ever present danger of the man she’s supposed to kill.
So she stays.
*
Emma is sixteen, and she’s starting to ask questions.
She’s lived in seven different states and more cities that she can remember since she’s been living with Mr. Gold. She has a few bags of belongings and no friends, because Mr. Gold tells her it’s dangerous. Teachers never remember her, and she never knows where the nearest convenience store is. She spends what feels like most of her life in the backseat of Mr. Gold’s car.
She didn’t question this much when she was younger, because she saw what he was and still followed. She saw a peculiar gray behind his eyes and let him take her because for the first time she was wanted, and maybe loved.
So she tried not to mention the moving, or the haphazard schooling, or the long periods of time when Mr. Gold would leave her on her home with enough food to last until he got back.
But Emma is sixteen now and she’s braver than she was when she was fifteen, and she feels like she has the right to ask some questions.
‘Why did you pick me?’ she asks. They are having a rare dinner together, and Mr. Gold quirks his eyebrow.
‘I saw you have a gift, my dear.’ It is a rote answer, one that Emma has heard what feels like a million times.
‘But-’ she shuffles her feet under the fancy tablecloth. ‘Why?’
He gives her a long, considering look, one that makes her squirm.
‘Would you prefer that I left you where you were?’
‘No!’ she says quickly. ‘I just want to understand,’ she half-mumbles. ‘You never tell me anything- like what you do, or why we move or why you’re teaching me all that magic stuff.’ She lowers her voice, always mindful of the people around them, laughing and talking and living a life that Emma knows very little about.
He sighs.
‘I suppose I knew I would have to tell you one day. But not here. Can you wait until we get home?’
It’s not really a question, but Emma nods anyway, and rushes through her steak. Mr. Gold waits patiently, sipping on a glass of water.
They take a cab home, because Mr. Gold has put his car in storage while they are in Manhattan, and Emma tries to be calm, stop her heart from hammering in anticipation.
The study is the room in every house that they’ve lived in that never seems to change, no matter what the actual house is like. It has the same heavy furniture and dark red upholstery that Emma still remembers from her very first day at his house. She sits down on the velvet couch by the desk and clasps her hands together.
Mr. Gold takes him time, pouring them both a glass of brandy and inviting her to sip. She does, and suppresses a wince.
‘I have tried to shield you as best I can,’ he says. ‘But you’re right, it’s time I tell you the truth. Emma, someone is after us.’
‘Who?’ She can feel that she’s holding onto to the glass too tight, but she can’t let go.
‘A woman by the name of Cora,’ he replies. ‘She has been after me for a very long time. She has almost succeeded, many times.’
He looks old, for the first time. Haggard, and favouring his injured knee as he limps to sit in the chair opposite Emma.
‘She killed my wife,’ he says. ‘I took you to protect you from her. And to help you, so we can defeat her together.’
Being here in this dim room, holding onto a glass of brandy
(Mr. Gold has never offered her a glass before)
Emma feels like a co-conspirator, an equal, for the first time.
‘Will you help me?’
‘Of course, yes. Of course.’
‘Can you promise me that?’
‘Yes.’
He smiles, and Emma feels a sudden surge of protectiveness. She wants to hug him, something she has never done before. She wants to tell him how grateful she is that he trusts her enough to tell her things, to let her help him.
‘Thank you, Emma,’ he says. He smiles a flickering, catlike smile that Emma misses through the buzz of the brandy.
*
Emma Swan is sixteen, and loyal, and brave. She wants to keep her family safe.
Regina Mills is sixteen, and cold. Her home is cold, and the outside world burns with danger. She wants to be free, but she is a good student. She will plan and wait instead of striking out.
*
2013
The first thing Regina thinks when she meets Emma is that it’s a shame she is so beautiful. Regina likes beautiful things.
The first thing that Emma thinks when she meets the other woman is ‘ow.’ She winces as the wall behind her scratches her back as she struggles to free herself from the phantom grip at her throat.
The woman smiles unkindly up at her, and presses harder. Emma’s vision begins to blacken around the edges and she kicks out, catching her on the chin and toppling her to the ground. Emma takes the opportunity to dismantle the binding spell.
The other woman growls, and throws a fireball at her. Emma ducks out of the way. Another, and she avoids it easily.
The empty parking lot they are standing in lights up in flames, the tarmac bubbling as the viciously hot fireball sinks into the ground.
Another fireball hurtles toward her, bigger and hotter and blacker and tinged with black, and Emma pulls up a shield. The magic licks at the edges and she concentrates until the fireball burns itself out.
Emma drops a nest of hissing snakes to the ground at the woman’s feet, and she scrambles to get rid of them before they bite. She turns them to oil, and they ooze into the ground. Emma frowns.
‘You’re good,’ Emma says.
‘Better than you,’ she replies.
They fight for longer than either had planned, until they are both running on empty. Emma has lost a chunk of hair from a badly blocked fireball and she can see that her opponent is bleeding from several small cuts.
They fight until it becomes clear that there will be no victor today, and eventually the other woman uses the very last of her magic to teleport back to the small apartment that she has rented at the edge of the small town they are in. Emma wearily follows suit as soon as she is alone.
*
The next day, the Storybrooke Daily Mirror reports that there was a minor earthquake during the night. The locals look for the appropriate insurance, Emma and Regina uneasily remind themselves to control their magic use and Cora and Mr. Gold congratulate themselves on the successful beginning of yet another battle.
*
‘You didn’t tell me what to expect,’ Emma accuses.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.’
Emma is grown up now, but no one can make her feel small like he can. She grasps for words.
‘I thought she would be-’ More evil. Less angry.Less desperate.
‘She is exactly what you are,’ he says. ‘A warrior.’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know if I can do this.’ Now that she is here, actually fighting, it feels more like murder than anything.
‘Emma,’ he sighs. She feels magic flow down the phone line and shivers. ‘You promised.’
*
The next time they meet is deep in the woods. The temperature has begun to drop below freezing and Emma’s boots crack through the thin layer of ice on the ground.
The woman is up ahead, a fireball clutched in her fist. She smiles, and it is dangerous and lovely and Emma sidesteps behind a tree.
‘Coward. I know you’re here.’ Emma carefully peeks from behind the tree. She can almost see the frustration rolling off her in waves, the murderous intent in her clenched fist. ‘Come out where I can see you.’
Emma inches forward slowly, minding where she steps and hiding in shadows until she is close enough to touch. The other woman must hear something, because she whips around, lips curling into a snarl.
She opens her mouth to say something but before she can Emma reaches forward, and pulls them both into the world she spent the whole night creating.
The place she’s made is a perfect replica of the Main Street of Storybrooke. The woman blinks in shock before stalking up to Emma.
‘Get us out of here.’
‘No,’ Emma replies.
The woman throws a fireball at her. Emma stands still as it floats away like a balloon.
‘This is not a fair battlefield.’ Emma shrugs.
‘Trickster’s daughter,’ Emma says. The woman looks at her, and deliberately turns away. She runs a hand down the nearest lamp-post.
‘You could have taken us anywhere and you choose the town we live in. What a criminal waste of imagination.’
Her voice is pitched low, and amused even now.
Emma steps forward and puts her foot on the lamppost. She takes another step and walks up it, her body parallel to the floor and her hair trailing downwards. The woman watches her, dark eyes wide and wary as the world curves into a dome and Emma steps down neatly in front of her.
The woman stares. Her fingers twitch like she is thinking of trying magic again, but they loosen by her sides.
‘You are very good,’ she says begrudgingly. Emma nods in acknowledgement, taking in the woman in front of her. She would be shorter than Emma is it wasn’t for her heels. Her hair is dark and cropped close to her shoulders, and she doesn’t look much older than Emma.
‘If you’re going to kill me, I would prefer that you do it now.’
And she could, easily. She could leave this woman here and kill her unconscious body in the real world. She could kill her dream self and leave her body in a coma. But she can’t.
‘I’m not going to kill you,’ she says. Pain explodes behind her eyes and she groans, dropping to her knees.
She is breaking her promise, and it is punishing her for it. And somehow, the brutal punishment makes it easier to rebel.
‘No,’ she says again, louder. ‘I’m not going to kill you.’
*
The stupid girl says the words like they are a possibility, like they could do anything else. Like Regina could do anything else. This isn’t the plan. They are supposed to fight, and Regina is going to win and she escapes –her mother, her obligations that even now are urging her to try to attack while the girl is on the ground.
If they don’t do this, then Regina will never be free.
‘This is not how it works.’ Regina’s voice is tense, and nearly panicked. She takes a moment to compose herself. The girl is still on the ground.
‘Why not?’
It’s an idiotic question, and Regina doesn’t bother to answer it.
‘You’ll fight me,’ Regina asserts. A knife appears in her hand and she slashes at the girl. It turns to dust as it passes right through her.
Not fair, she wants to say. Illusory magic has never been her strong suit. She’s not sure how to get herself out safely, and this infuriating woman is watching her like she’s just a particularly interesting zoo animal.
‘Then release me,’ she demands. ‘You’re wasting my time.’
Time that she can be using to discover how to destroy an opponent who is clever enough to stop herself from being destroyed but too stupid to go on the offensive.
The woman looks at her, sharp green eyes boring into her and catching her breath in her chest, and then they are back in the forest and Regina is alone.
*
Emma teleports back to the apartment that Mr. Gold had rented for her when she first moved to Storybrooke. Her head still throbs and she stumbles to the fridge for a beer.
The spell that keeps drawing them together is dormant now, lulled by the extreme amount of energy that Emma expended to maintain the world she built.
She has a nap, and sits down with some graphing paper and a calculator. She only has a couple of days before the bonding spell pulls them together again.
*
The next time is easier. Emma knows the other woman now; knows her fighting style. She knows when she will be most distracted
(trying to kill Emma, of course)
And she takes the opportunity to place a hand on her arm and pull them both into the world she had created two nights before.
This one is a heady mix of jungle and the last big city that Emma lived in. Large, bright flowers bloom from high-up windows and trail vines down to street level, where they twist to form long, arching doorways. The air is a heady mix of exhaust and pollen and it makes Emma’s eyes water.
The woman jerks her hand away and glares for a second before recoiling from a fur-covered tree that brushes up against her back.
‘What is this place?’ she says. She keeps her back to Emma and walks a little way away, trailing a finger across some kind of fire hydrant/rosebush mix. Emma watches her, and trembles from the effort of maintaining the illusion.
‘I don’t know,’ she says.
‘Why did you bring me here?’
To distract you. ‘To talk. I don’t want to kill you.’ Her head throbs in warning. She grits her teeth against it, but it is already less painful than it was before.
‘You know the rules.’
‘Thunderdome. Two women enter. One woman leaves. I know.’
She’s not doing what she’s supposed to, she knows, but blindly trusting Mr. Gold has left her locked in a town that she can’t escape.
‘What’s your name? Emma asks.
‘None of your business,’ she snaps.
*
Fighting an opponent who has little interest in hurting her is not what Regina was prepared for.
Regina can’t do any damage while she is not in control of their surroundings, and the woman keeps on taking control, spiriting them away to a world of her own making.
It’s difficult to fight when parts of Regina start to bleed into the worlds. She sees an old doll of hers once, floating past them in a mountain spring. A tune from a music box plays once, when Regina is trying to find an opening that will let her escape, and she freezes.
‘What is it?’ The other woman is insultingly relaxed, reclining against a lounge chair she conjured out of nowhere.
‘Nothing,’ she says.
It’s difficult to fight an opponent who weaves your childhood into their weapon, who creates a whole world to keep you entranced.
*
‘You win,’ Regina says. She is exhausted, confused by the destruction of her escape plan.
They are standing in the middle of a lake, and the night sky is lit up with a million stars that stretch down to touch the opposite end of the lake. The other woman shifts next to her.
‘You win,’ she says again. The words taste acidic on her tongue. ‘So what do you want to do?
The half light makes the woman’s green eyes as dark as the ocean. Her hair moves lightly in the breeze.
‘Hell if I know,’ she says.
*
Meeting without a pre-prepared escape route is one of the scariest things Emma has ever done.
They sit in the only diner on Main Street and Emma sips at a hot chocolate. The woman opposite her gulps down black coffee. Emma waits for the other shoe to drop, for a blast of energy to finish her off, but nothing happens. The woman just looks tired at the idea of being alive.
‘Emma. My name is Emma,’ she starts.
There is a long pause. Emma takes another sip of hot chocolate.
‘Regina,’ she says, when Emma has more or less given up.
It’s a start.
*
And maybe Regina should have seen it coming. The ridiculously overblown locations, the patience, and Emma’s ill-concealed joy when Regina didn’t attack at the diner. In Regina’s defence, she hasn’t had much experience with this kind of thing.
They are at another neutral location, the Storybrooke Library, huddled around a table. Regina is outlining the mechanics of the magic that seals them in the town and Emma looks at her and blushes.
‘What?’ she demands.
‘Nothing,’ Emma says. Regina clears her throat and drags her chair closer to the table and their arms brush, just the smallest bit of pressure and –
-Oh.
Emma can draw enough out of Regina’s mind to put parts of her into the illusions she builds, and Regina finds that she can also reach into Emma’s mind, just enough to see emotion swimming to the surface of her mind.
Emma blushes brighter.
‘Stop that,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t mean anything. Just- whatever. Can we get back to this?’ Emma waves towards the table in an expansive, casual gesture that fails at trying to hide her nerves.
They work, and Emma holds herself rigid in her chair and refuses to look at Regina. Regina plans and feels grateful to her, for her care and her messy curls and her solid presence next to her, for the tentative feeling of trust that clings between them, slight as gossamer.
*
They kiss, eventually.
Not that day, but on a day very much like it. The spell pulls them back together and Emma just feels so much – it sparks off her and sends glimmers of light towards the ground – and Regina looks so sorry. For her.
The look in Regina’s eyes breaks her resolve and Emma kisses her hard and a little clumsy. She takes a breath, opens her eyes and kisses her softly. She tugs at the back of Regina’s dress and Regina kisses back and it feels like Regina is killing her a little but Emma can’t stop.
They kiss, and the spell holding them in Storybrooke stats to split down the seam. The crack sends a beacon of magic so strong that several beings in several worlds sit up and pay attention, and the two that have the most at stake hasten towards the town.
*
‘They’re coming.’ Regina is laid across Emma’s bed, curled up and watchful as Emma gets dressed. She pulls Emma closer and winds her fingers into her hair, and Emma wraps a strong arm around her and holds her close. She loves this about Emma, this fierce protectiveness and loyalty that makes Regina’s heart swell in her chest. Emma’s mouth presses to hers and their teeth collide and the metal taste of blood seeps into Regina’s mouth.
‘I know,’ Emma says. Their next kiss is tart, like blood and desperation and Regina closes her eyes and tries to pretend that this will end in anything other than disaster.
*
They meet with their respective guardians separately; Emma in the local park and Regina in her apartment.
‘You disappoint me, Regina,’ Cora says. ‘Months I waited to hear from you, only to find that you are trying to break the rules.’
Regina had forgotten how quietly dangerous her mother can be. But she is older now, and stronger, and she stares back steadily.
‘You chose me, mother. To do this for you.’
‘I didn’t choose an embarrassment.’ Regina has felt little for her mother over the last nine years, but her scorn still stings.
‘You’re stuck with me,’ she retorts. ‘You need me.’ The thought makes her smile, just a little.
‘You arrogant child,’ Cora says. ‘You assume that you are in control. You assume that you are the first of my children to rebel.’
Regina stops, shock halting the words that were about to form.
‘Oh,’ Cora says, with a sickly smile. ‘You thought you were the only one.’ Her mother steps closer. Her eyes are onyx. Regina shrinks back.
‘I have been alive since the moon was hung in the sky and you thought you were the only one.’
‘How many?’ Her mother allows her a rare, brief glimpse into her mind, and Regina recoils. She sees children, hundreds of children, training and dying and fighting for – for what?
She doesn’t realise that she’s said the last part out loud until her mother answers.
‘My dear,’ she answers. ‘What else is there to do?’
*
‘You got me wrong,’ Emma says.
‘I suppose I did,’ Mr. Gold returns mildly.
The local soccer team practises drills in the open space across from the bench where they are sitting, and the shrieks of the small children in the playground fill the air.
‘I was never the kind of person who would kill for you. For this.’
‘I had my hopes that you would eventually come around.’
She can feel Regina through a weak mental link, sorrow and hurt bounding across as she catches glimpses of her conversation with her mother. She closes her eyes for a moment.
‘How long has this been going on?’
‘Long enough. If it’s any consolation, you are by far my most gifted student.’
He is calm, controlled, an old doctor used to doling out bad news and expecting the patient to comply with recommendations.
‘I don’t understand.’ She feels broken. She loves this man. ‘Why you would do this to me.’
‘Emma.’ He sounds soft, and not a bit sorry. ‘It’s in my nature.’
*
The mental link that they had established a few weeks ago grows stronger as Emma tries to put him out of her mind.
Now? She asks. There is a long pause before she receives an answer, and it comes weakly when it does.
Yes, she hears.
Mr. Gold is still speaking. She feels Regina bind them together, and quietly snake her magic out to trap her mother too. Emma lurches forward and grabs onto his bony wrist and yanks, as hard as she can. He startles, and starts to fight back, but Emma is more prepared than him and she fights harder.
The world begins to disappear in a blaze of white, and Emma can feel something dripping from her nose, but a blinding power comes roaring down their shared mental link and Emma uses their combined strength to transport all four of them into the world that she and Regina have spent the last few weeks creating.
*
(Say an unstoppable force absolutely had to meet an immovable object. Let’s also assume that we wanted to keep the universe intact. How would you do it?
Take away the foundation of the immovable object. Weaken them both.)
Regina blinks awake to see her mother on the ground next to her. She scrambles to her feet and backs away, whipping her head around to try to get her bearings.
She knows that at least she and her mother have been pulled in, judging by their surroundings. They stand next to a line of stalls, all either black or white, that stretch out in a long line along Regina’s right.
The ground is alternating black and white, thin red-coloured paths tangling like ribbon and spreading out in every direction. Every path leads to a new tent, or one of the rides that loom above her.
Emma told her that she had based the design on a circus a foster family had taken her to when she was five.
‘We need it to be as confusing as possible,’ she had said. ‘We’ll have to keep them on their toes.’ Emma had showed her how to construct the world, where to find the hidden ways that she built into all her illusions, and Regina’s heart had ached at the trust Emma was giving her.
But something has gone wrong. They are not in the right place. She will have to find a way to get her mother to the opposite corner of the circus.
She turns around to a hoarse chuckle.
‘Well done,’ Cora says. ‘It’s been a while since someone tried to fight back.’
Cora is standing, smoothing her suit and tucking her hair back into its elaborate bun. She conjures a ball of pure blackness that tugs at the breath in Regina’s lungs.
‘My dear,’ she says. ‘I suggest you run.’
Regina follows one of the ribbon roads, whipping through the circus as Cora cackles behind her. Her magic barely works here, and she had underestimated how powerful Cora would be.
She ducks and weaves, and the only thing that saves her from being sucked in by one of Cora’s energy balls is her extreme familiarity with the place they are in. She cuts across alleys, crashes into tents with empty stages and no audience and makes her way to the hall of mirrors, her mother right at her heels the whole way.
*
She skids to a stop at the entrance, and gasps in pain as one of her mother’s energy balls manage to graze her arm. It burns like acid, eating away at the sleeve of her shirt and singeing her skin. She hisses and wipes it away as best she can.
The hall of mirrors is dimly lit, lengthening her shadow and making it difficult to see where she is going. She stumbles forward.
‘Regina. Honestly, this is beneath you. I did not raise a coward.’
Regina ignores her, and catches sight of her reflection in the mirrors. Some make her taller, some shorter. Some show multiple versions of her. One has no reflection at all.
And then her mother is in front of her, and her heart stops.
‘You always made it so difficult. You make everything so difficult.’
Emma. She reaches out desperately. Emma. Please. They are supposed to make a last stand here, together. Regina can’t do this alone.
Nothing. Her mother takes a step forward.
‘But I love you. Just come with me.’ She stretches out a hand towards Regina and Regina shakes her head. She takes an unsteady step back.
Emma should be here already.
‘Regina.’ Steel threads through her mother’s voice. ‘Come here.’
She catches a glimpse of her reflection in one of her mirrors. The reflection raises a finger to her lips and shakes her head silently. Regina tries to keep still and pay attention to her mother, whose eyes have started to glow a deep purple.
Her reflection points a finger to her left, towards an ornate mirror with a silver frame, at least two feet taller than Regina.
No, she thinks.
Her reflection nods vehemently. She takes a deep breath, turns to the mirror and sprints towards it. There is a rush of air behind her and her mother grabs onto her arm.
‘Stop-’ she is saying, but Regina staggers forward and leaps at the mirror, bringing her free arm up to protect her face and squeezing her eyes shut.
She doesn’t smash into glass, like she was half expecting. Instead she feels cool silk fluttering on her skin, and she opens her eyes to a large, white tent. She can see two figures at the other end, one slumped on the ground, and the other standing over her. Mr. Gold- it must be Mr. Gold- looks up from when he was staring at Emma’s unmoving form and scowls.
‘She brought you, too.’ Regina isn’t sure who he is speaking to, her or her panting mother somewhere to her right, so she keeps silent.
‘And they blocked us from sensing each other.’ Her mother shoots her a baleful glare.
He takes several steps towards them. Emma had told her that he has a limp, that there is no evidence of that here. He almost skips to the centre of the ring, and he doesn’t stop until he is standing beneath the opening in the roof of the tent.
‘Clever girls,’ he says. His voice lilts at the ends of sentences, giving it an almost sing-song quality. ‘Tricky little children, thinking they can defeat us here when they cannot in the real world.’
The air feels thick, like treacle, and Regina struggles to breathe. She backs away towards Emma. He stops her with a flick of her wrist.
‘No, no’ he says. ‘You wanted us here. Don’t run away now.’
‘Stop toying with her,’ her mother says, exasperated. ‘End it.’
Maybe it is the dismissive way she says it, or the way her mother doesn’t even bother to look her in the eye as she speaks. Regina feels something splinter down the centre of her, and magic, hotter and stronger than Regina has ever used before comes rushing to the ends of her fingers.
She pushes at the containment spell covering her body, and makes just enough space to reach a hand into the pocket of her coat, searching for anything that will help her. Mr. Gold waves a hand, and a golden cloud leaves his palm and heads straight for her.
Regina pulls out a compact, flips it open and angles the mirror as best she can.
The cloud hits the mirror, and bounces off in a straight line towards her mother, who does not have time to do much more than flinch away. The gold cloud is instantly repelled by Cora’s own magic, which glows black around her, and Cora gasps as her own magic intensifies.
The black and gold multiplies, thickening so she can’t see her mother anymore, and Mr. Gold walks forward jerkily, like a marionette. Their magical output grows stronger and stronger, each trying to defeat the other one, and a bright white light fills the tent. A low pitched humming starts up, and Regina sprints to Emma and throws herself over her body as Mr. Gold and her mother crash into each other, letting off a sonic boom that shakes the ground and makes one of the poles in the tent topple to the ground.
Regina buries her face in Emma’s neck and refuses to look up. If they escape and come for her she doesn’t want to see it coming. But nothing attacks her. Instead there is thunder and metal screeching against metal and the smell of ozone becomes so strong that Regina thinks it’s going to choke her.
Eventually there is silence, and the tent becomes quiet and dark. She slowly raises her head and catches sight of her compact lying silent and inert on the ground.
(if you are lucky, they will simply cancel each other out.)
*
‘Emma.’
Emma’s face hurts. Her body feels like it’s been run over by a truck.
‘Emma.’ Someone is shaking her gently. She cracks her eyes open.
Oh. Right.
The taut material of the tent stretches over Emma’s head and she focuses on that until her head stops ringing. Regina hovers above her, running an anxious hand over her shoulder.
She tries to speak, but her mouth is sore and her lips feel swollen and one of her molars feels loose, so she turns to the side and heaves. Regina makes a small noise of disgust but helps support her as Emma spits blood onto the pristine white of the ground.
‘Are you alright?’ Regina’s eyes are large in her face, and Emma gives her a painful smile before dragging herself to a sitting position.
‘Did it work?’ Regina reaches into her coat pocket and pulls out a compact.
‘Not exactly our plan,’ Regina says with a weak smile. ‘But I think it worked.’ Emma flips it open.
The mirror has been replaced by a chaotic mix of colour that splashes across the disc, and Emma takes it carefully.
She winces at the energy in the disc, at the immense push and pull between Gold and Cora. It feels painfully taut, like a guitar string on the edge of breaking. It feels like all the carefully balanced energy will break loose if she keeps a hold of it, so she passes it back to Regina, who carefully wraps it in a scarf.
‘I think something of them imprinted onto this,’ Regina explains. ‘I can’t think what else it could be.’
‘Well,’ she says. The tent is peaceful now that it’s just the two of them, but she doesn’t want to be here any longer than she has to be. ‘Help me up?’
Regina stands, and offers Emma a hand. Emma struggles to her feet.
‘What did he do to you?’ Regina’s voice is steady and matter of fact, and Emma shrugs. She doesn’t want to talk about him, about the cold anger he turned on her when he realised that he truly couldn’t leave unless she let him.
‘Ready to go?’ Regina nods.
Emma closes her eyes and imagines the circus collapsing around them, folding into nothingness. Regina’s hand winds around hers and she holds tight and thinks of real, and home, and free, and the circus falls to pieces around them, early morning mist burned away by the sun.
*
Emma opens her eyes on the same bench that she had sat on what feels like hours ago. A quick look at her watch confirms that it’s only been half an hour since she and Mr. Gold first met here. She leaps to her feet, a distant part of her mind noting that she doesn’t hurt anywhere, and she is alone on the bench, and takes off in the direction of Regina’s apartment.
They meet halfway, down a side street that leads to a shortcut, and Regina grabs at Emma and pushes her against the wall before Emma can even say anything.
‘We did it,’ Regina says. She looks happier than Emma has ever seen her, practically buzzing with joy, and Emma slings her arms around her and pulls her close.
She smells like ginger and citrus, just like always, and Emma buries her nose in her neck.
‘Of course we did,’ she says, her voice slightly muffled. ‘We rock.’
‘Oh- wait,’ Regina says. She wriggles away and pulls the wrapped compact from a pocket. ‘This came back with me.’ Regina unwraps it carefully and they both stare. The compact seems duller in the daylight but it still makes Emma uncomfortable, and she shifts away.
Regina shoots a quick, dark look at her before opening it up and smashing it against the wall. It connects with a loud crunch and shatters, and the colour fades almost instantly. There is a rushing in Emma’s ears and she feels the spell holding them to town disintegrate around them. All of a sudden the air is clearer, and the sun is brighter.
Mr. Gold is gone, and Emma is alone, and free. It stings something awful and makes her feel lighter all at once.
Regina releases a choked sob next to her.
‘I don’t know why I’m crying,’ she says thickly. She swipes an impatient hand across her face.
Emma wants to tell her she gets it, but the words won’t come, so she tugs Regina closer and kisses her cheek. Regina tastes like salt and Emma kisses her again, winding her hands through her hair and keeping her close.
She waits for Regina to pull away, to disentangle herself and thank Emma for her help and walk away, but Regina just sways into her and hums when Emma’s hand circles her waist.
‘I don’t-’ Regina starts. ‘All my life- this has been my life.’
‘We can figure it out slow,’ Emma says. ‘I mean, it’s not like I have any plans.’
Regina pulls back, and Emma rubs at the smeared makeup underneath her eyes.
‘Do you ever?’ Regina asks, and continues without waiting for an answer. ‘We can start with lunch at Granny’s. I’m starving.’
Emma pushes herself off the wall.
‘Sounds like a plan.’
They make their way out of the alley, and Emma finds her hand holding on to Regina’s, maybe tighter than is really necessary. But Regina doesn’t let go, and maybe that’s enough for now.