Chapter Text
Emma was not feeling fine at all. She had not been feeling fine all week, and the week before that, and probably the week even before. She had spent all day cleaning up her house like she usually did on shitty days or when it rained. Luckily for her, it was both, and it gave her the perfect excuse to clean up, occupy her mind and stop thinking about it. Emma had just dropped her broom when what she’d been trying to avoid everyday for weeks came back to haunt her again and again, like always .
Gut wrenching memories of Emma, I- I can't do this and flashes of Regina's face, tear stained, running away. Heartbreaking memories of how she'd felt only three weeks ago, how she'd felt her heart crushed in her chest. How she still felt like that, weeks after. Because it was too big to overcome. She absolutely did not want to relive it once again, but her mind did not listen and the moment started playing right in front of her eyes.
Emma tried to hold back the tears she knew were coming. She fixed the pale ceiling, but her eyes were already watery and one blink was enough to make a first set of tears fall.
She had not been so hopeless and lost since Henry had brought her to Storybrooke, ten years ago. She had not been feeling so lonely since she'd had a family. But it felt like she didn’t, not anymore. She’d lost one of the most important people in her life , and it felt like everything had just shattered around her, these ten years reduced to ashes.
This is the last song I'll write about you
She sat on her couch, circling her legs, taking her phone from her back pocket, and opened her message app. She clicked on the first name in her favorites and briefly typed out what was going on in her mind, but deleted immediately. She absentmindedly tapped her phone against her knee, thinking about what she could send. She'd been dying to text Regina, quite literally, and breakdown after breakdown, she'd figured out this wasn't the best idea considering the last time they'd talked was what led her to this. However, Emma couldn't do anything against the fact that she had feelings , as painful, destructive and friendship-ruining as it was.
Throwing her phone away on the coffee table, Emma buried her face in her arms, torn between sadness and anger. Why was her life so fucked up ? Not once had she felt something right .
Out of love when she still should be deeply , totally indifferent when she should care most, weaker when she should be the strongest, sad when everyone was truly happy for her . And in love when she most certainly shouldn't be.
I need to move on,
I think you do, too
You were all that I wanted
You know that you still are
Regina was seated against her headboard, filling out some paperwork. She'd been in this state for weeks, sad, unmotivated, like she was no longer alive. She'd been working from home – which turned out actually pretty easy because she didn't have to be at the town hall to fill out reports about Grumpy hitting a wall at Granny's, Granny threatening Grumpy with a butter knife, and whatever conflict was going on between Arendelle and Maleficent at the moment – for two weeks now, working, eating, sleeping. And the last ones were troubled. Haunted by dirty blonde curls and blue eyes and a half smile and an I love you before the smile turned into a heartbroken expression and the eyes filled with water.
Regina leaned the back of her head against the wall, breathing heavily.
This was all her fault.
Emma was heartbroken because of her. She was not smiling anymore because of her.
She should've known it, an Evil Queen couldn't be right for Emma. She could only be destructive. Regina would have preferred to know that before she broke her last heart, though. Especially that one.
“Fuck it,” she whispered only for herself to hear, getting up from her bed and rushing to go downstairs.
She grabbed her phone, briefly looking at the time, and opened her call app. Regina stopped short, her thumb hovering over the call button. She’d been thinking about calling Emma for weeks , almost hitting the button before tears started burning her eyes.
This had been the most critical point of their relationship, and the worst thing was that she had never seen it coming. Worse than that, she had denied everything she felt at that moment and ran away from Emma .
This needed to stop. Regina couldn’t go on and try to ignore her feelings. She'd spent so long trying to convince herself she needed to move on, more time than she'd like to admit, but this hadn't worked. She had really tried to do so, shrug it off, but she couldn’t. She just couldn’t.
Emma was too hard to forget, and she should know that after all those years, tears, all the times they’d been ripped apart. Not once had she forgotten her – not even the time Emma did not know her anymore, living her picture perfect life in New York with Henry and a fiancé, when she’d thought she’d never see her ever again – and they had always found a way back to each other, sometimes not even consciously. Despite all that, she wasn’t sure they could find a way back after this time, though.
Regina couldn't hide it, she only wanted one thing. She had always wanted this one thing, never thought she'd be able to get it. And here she was, three weeks after sabotaging her one chance at love. With the person she truly wanted to be with.
However, Regina couldn’t keep moping, locked up in her house like a prisoner afraid of the light.
She had done that once, and she did not want to do it again.
Taking her car keys, she stormed out of her house, not even caring to lock up. Who would try to break into her house anyway, you'd have to be crazy. Everyone here knew she still liked to fireball everything that moved around her.
(And if you asked the good questions, everyone also knew there were two people on earth she would never fireball. Her son, and his birth mother.)
'Cause I've been alright, yeah
But you showed me better
I know that we're changing
But nothing feels different
Popcorn was exploding in the microwave, shifting Emma’s attention from the vague point she was fixing on her wall, thinking of how disappointing her life was, to it.
Once she took it out of the microwave, she decided she wasn’t hungry anyway and put it in a plastic box before opening a cupboard in the kitchen and shoving it inside.
Emma still couldn’t believe what had happened. She’d been drowning in her sorrow for three weeks, and still, she couldn’t wrap her head around it. She had lost her best friend forever. She should’ve bit her tongue, she should’ve second-guessed it before blurting it all out. She should’ve known how Regina felt, after those years spent knowing her, and should’ve kept her mouth shut.
She could still see herself and Regina, just after they’d almost been blown up together once again, trying to gain back composure as they still weren't really standing straight.
They were covered in ashes, struggling to get back up. Deciding to stay seated on the ground until their heads weren’t ringing anymore, they started talking and joking, their usual daily banter honestly. Still, there was something special about that moment, Regina was softly laughing, and Emma knew . She knew exactly what she felt, why her heart seemed to burst out of her chest every time she talked to her, why she couldn’t help blushing whenever the mayor flashed a smile her way, why she spent entire days with her and yet never got tired of it.
“Regina… I have something to tell you.”
Regina glanced at her, a smile just as bright as her brown eyes underneath the ash covering half of her face.
“We’re friends, right ?”
“I hope so,” the brunette scoffed. “I haven't gone through all the redemption thing for you to call me anything less than a friend. We've come a long way since the fights at the beginning, huh ?”
“Ten years is a long time. We've changed, so has everyone.”
“Maybe. Yet, there's one thing that still doesn’t feel different.”
The us was implied.
“But I think I like how it is now,” Regina went on with the same cute smile plastered on her soft lips, that made Emma’s heart flutter.
I'm breaking the silence to say
“I have been… thinking, and I guess I have to tell you. We’ve been through so much together, we’ve fought so many people, in so many different realms, with nothing but our magic combined, it still amazes me to this day, the way everything somehow always just works out when we're together. I… I love you, Regina, and I don’t think I can ever forget this,” Emma said with a half smile. “I’ve loved you for years now, I just… I think we could… try, if you want to,” she ventured, her voice showing her insecurity and her vulnerability.
Regina was stunned, mouth half open, eyes wide. She prepared herself to say something, but kept her mouth closed and a tear fell down her cheek.
“Emma…” the brunette started with her ever so soft voice, but for the first time in years , the way she said her name did not mean anything good. For the first time, Emma heard Regina’s heart break in a single little word – her name. “I… I’m so sorry-” her voice broke. “I can’t… I can’t do that. You deserve someone who can give you everything you need, everything you could ever want, someone you can have a normal, great, and… magical life with, and I’m… I’m not that person,” she cried.
Tears were leaving trails on Regina’s pretty face. The woman was crying so heavily, and Emma’s heart crushed. Regina brought a hand to cup Emma’s cheek, tears still dropping from hers.
“I’m- I’m sorry, Emma,” she added, her voice shaky, breathing heavy.
She dropped her hand from Emma’s cheek, wiping away her own tears as she still stared at the blonde girl, hurt in her eyes.
Emma stayed alone, in the street, heartbroken.
She didn’t remember when she’d started crying, or when she’d gone back home. Regina was the only one she had ever seen herself actually be with, and even after this, she still was. This had been an awful day, and Emma was not over this. She most certainly could never be.
Regina drove to Emma’s on autopilot, not even knowing what she was going to do. But Emma deserved to know the truth, she deserved to not be left in the dark like Regina did that day, when she’d opened up her heart and Regina had thrown it away like it was nothing but an insignificant piece of broken jewelry.
Emma was more than that. Hell, she was more than anything else. Brighter than the sun, shinier than the purest diamond, and so much more than broken jewelry. This was for sure.
I'm breaking the silence to say
Emma heard the doorbell ringing.
“Who's this ?”
“Emma ?” Regina ventured, getting closer to the door.
Emma froze when she heard her voice through the raindrops crashing all around.
“Emma, I just wanna talk.”
Emma could hear Regina's voice breaking a little, just like it did that day.
She didn't want to face her. She wasn't ready, not yet. She would probably never be.
“Why would I want to talk ? Remember how it ended the last time I talked ?” Emma said loud enough for Regina to hear through the door.
She knew her voice gave away her hurt, and what sounded like abandonment issues, but she was past worrying about that when she talked to that woman.
“I know I hurt you, and I'm so sorry. You have every right to be angry with me, really.”
Emma opened her door, facing Regina. The sky was grey, and it kept raining heavily. The brunette had been outside for less than five minutes and she was already pretty wet.
“Why are you here ? Why did you even want to see me ?” Emma told her, her eyes watery only at the sight of the woman who’d broken her heart. “You made it clear you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
“No. Emma, that’s not what I meant. I told you you deserved better than me. I can’t give you what you want.”
“And I told you all that I wanted was you. Only you, Regina. I don’t need anything, especially not the stable life I’ve never even had in the first place, or anything else that you thought I needed. You were all that I wanted. You were the person I wanted to have a ‘magical’ life with, there was never anyone else.”
“Emma…”
“I know. You’re ‘not this person’. You already told me, no need to remind me.”
Emma turned back, ready to head back in.
“Wait. Emma, please.”
The blonde woman turned around to face Regina once again.
If in ten years' time,
I'm still on your mind
Would you call, and
Say you want this
No matter where we are,
You still have my heart
'Cause I locked it,
And I promise
You're the locksmith
“I should’ve never told you any of this. You opened up, and I only broke your heart. But I want you to know that this is the thing I regret the most,” Regina said through the small tears coming to her eyes already. “I have thousands of things to regret, and yet, this is the only one that had me spiraling for weeks. The only thing I really ever want to mend.”
Emma stared at her, hurt still all over her features.
“I have been alone in my house for the past weeks, and the only thing that I could even think about was what happened three weeks ago. What I did to you. I never wanted to. And I thought about calling you every single day , but I figured out I owed it to you to be honest with you, in person. The truth is that I love you Emma, and I want this. I broke my heart along with yours that day, and I regret it. I thought I could get you out of my mind, help the both of us, but I can’t. I’ve spent the past ten years loving you, and it’s the best thing I’ve ever felt. I just wanted to protect you from me , because I don’t want you to be hurt the way everyone else was by me. I wanted you to be fine, have the life that you really wanted, not be stuck with me until you ended up ruined like everyone that I ever loved. Emma, I’m in love with you . No matter where we are, in different realms, different cities, or just in different rooms, I love you. No matter how many people I could meet, how many people could claim to be my true love, I don’t care. I know that it’s you. It’s always been you. You changed me. You made me love again when I thought I could never. I’ve spent my life thinking love was a weakness, that I didn’t need to trust my heart, that I didn’t even need it, I didn’t realize I had given it already. I locked it away when I was only nineteen. But now I know I gave it years ago, to you. My heart belongs to you. It will never be anyone else’s, it’s yours ,” Regina told her, tears covering her cheeks.
Emma couldn’t help but cry when she saw Regina putting her armor down, sharing this, even though it was infinitely hard for her. Emma was really hurt, but this was more important than what the other woman had done in the past. Regina was telling the whole truth, she was admitting all her feelings, while perfectly knowing Emma could close that door right now and reject her in a way that was even worse than a few weeks ago. Regina was doing that for her .
You’re the one that I can see
Me growing old with
Build a house, I see it now
You plant me roses
And everything we dreamed about
Came into focus
“You’re the only one that I ever want to love. The one I can see me having a future with, rebuilding the family we already had, living anywhere in the city, the country, the whole wide world, the realms. Without any comfort, without a dressing room, without indoor plumbing, I wouldn’t even care as long as it’s all with you, ” Regina said, tears dropping. “So yes. Maybe we have changed a lot in the past decade. But it was the best years of my life, because I spent every second of it falling in love with you, and it was all worth it. All this time, all these fights, all these realms, I don’t regret anything that we did, because you were here , with me, the whole time. And sometimes we have to be brave, and accept change. And I’m still learning, but I accepted my feelings for you a long time ago, Emma.”
Emma could hardly see the difference between tears and rain, but she knew Regina was putting her soul into this, she heard her voice crack, and she knew she was only telling the truth. She had never lied to her about something so important, anyway. She could never.
“I don’t care if I have to wait a day, or another decade. I will never get over you, I don’t think I ever want to. You’re extraordinary, Emma, and I’m already lucky to have had the chance to tell you.”
“Really ?” Emma whispered.
“Yes. Emma, you have had the key to my heart since the very first day. I could’ve kicked you out of town as soon as I wanted to, but there was a reason I didn’t. I get that you’re angry with me, I deserve it. But I needed to tell you. I’m so sorry for what I did that day. And if you just want me to leave now, I’ll do it.”
Emma stared at Regina with a glimmer of hope in her eyes, which made the smallest smile bloom on Regina’s lips as she took one tiny step closer.
“So you… you love me ?” Emma stuttered, her initial shock still here.
“I love you. I will always be around for you, and if I have to wait another decade, then be it. As long as you know it.”
Emma was still hurt, and she wasn't going to forget that, but this mattered more. This was Regina talking feelings, putting herself at risk just so Emma would feel better about it. This was love.
“How about not waiting ?” Emma replied almost in a whisper, taking a step closer too.
Regina smiled brightly through the tears and the rain, and a second later, their lips came crashing together, in a mix of new found happiness and the promise of a future together. That was it. Emma had Regina’s heart, and Regina had hers. This would never change, not tomorrow, not in ten years.
So here's to hoping