"Cause love is my permission to be who I am

No inhibitions 'cause you understand

Freedom to breathe, oh baby, love is you."

Chrisette Michele, "Love is You"

I.

They put Henry to bed. Already tall and barely getting through the gangly phase of his adolescence, they put their baby boy to bed. Regina tries to ignores the shadowing remnants of the Queen's presence in her home, but there's a tangle somewhere in her lines of thought, a tension between feeling like there had been an intruder here and feeling like she is the intruder.

"Something's bothering you," Emma says above a whisper to Regina in the yellow light of the kitchen. Regina looks to her and sees the tiredness in her eyes, how it extends all the way to her shoulders and the shaking of her hands. She wants to hold them, but hers have been shaking, too, and perhaps that's a boundary they haven't quite felt out yet.

"Many things are bothering me," Regina says as she looks Emma in the eyes, the edges of her own crinkled into a small smile. This feels shaky, too, this newfound openness. Mastery in repression had left her with the Queen. "It's… It's what Henry said to her."

Emma leans against the counter, the tip of her boot settling close to Regina's. "About her being alone."

"She's still me." Regina looks away, hair falling like a curtain against her cheek. "She was me. And I was her."

She feels Emma's fingertips rest gently on her forearm, and a part of her wants to cry because even Emma's movements carry the weight of a death sentence she's already accepted, even when she had told Regina that they'd do this together, that neither of them were dying.

"Did you think it was a good idea? For me to get rid of her?" Regina asks. The lines on Emma's face are not a far cry from the Dark One's, after all.

Emma smiles, shakes her head. "If it was what you wanted."

"Was it what I wanted?"

Emma doesn't answer, and the silence collects and accumulates in Regina's eyelids. It hits like someone tearing out her heart and smashing it against a wall, and the weight of Emma's visions and all those implications drowns in the pit of her stomach. That night on the roof, Snow had told her to do it, but Emma––would there be anyone left in this god forsaken Earth who would ask ––

Regina shakes the tears away. "I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize," Emma says, softest Regina's ever heard her. "What do you need from me?"

She grasps Emma's cold hands, then, thumbing along her hard knuckles. The answer bubbles up inside of her so quickly, but she refashions it just as fast. "I need you to promise me that you'll fight." Emma opens her mouth slowly, about to say of course, that's a given, but Regina continues on, "Whatever that looks like."

There are marks of uncertainty and fear in the way Emma stares back at her, but she nods. "Okay," she whispers. "Okay."

The Queen makes an attempt on Zelena's life the next day.

Regina's has her curled up on the floor of the foyer with Robyn tucked tight in her arms, the brush with death too close for comfort and had it not been for Regina putting herself in between at just the right time, it would have been the end, maybe. Zelena cries over and over that she's sorry, she's sorry, she's sorry. Regina holds her, kisses the top of her stupid red head. It's okay, it's okay, it's okay. You're a fucking idiot, the worst big sister to ever exist, but it's okay. I love you, I love you.

When she has her hide away in the guest bedroom, the Queen materializes in a flurry of purple smoke in the hallway. "Let me see her."

"Absolutely not," Regina says, voice rising with the pressure of anger on her chest.

The Queen bites back with twofold fury, and Regina knows that look so well , even outside those dark jewel studded gowns. "I deserve to see my sister !"

"Whom you just tried to murder ! And what, because that impish cowardly bastard of a Dark One told you to? In exchange for something he would never honor?"

In a flash Regina has her neck in an airtight grip, long nails threatening to puncture her skin. It's more than unsettling to see the Queen up close like this, seeing the snarl caught on her teeth when her own mouth open and closes like a fish out of water.

"You think you're so much better than me," she growls, eyes wide and arms shaking. "You think you can shed me like old skin and forget !"

She must feel her own strength around her neck, because then she lets go as quickly as she had come at her. Regina takes copious gulps of dizzying breath, rubbing at where the Queen's grip was.

"Is that what you think I did? Forget?" Regina rasps.

"I know that it's what you did," The Queen says, and disappears.

II.

The next time Emma sees Regina, there are more lines underneath her eyes. The Queen's been quiet these days, and they're all still working tirelessly to prepare for Emma's judgment day in between trying to live normally, trying to cope with Snow and David's modified sleeping curse. Trying to make sure Neal gets taken care of. Looking for safeguards and spells and enchantments to figure out the identity of Emma's to-be murderer, and what to do with that knowledge once it's been attained.

Above all of this Emma still has a damn job, but her patrol runs have been done in distraction and the unpleasant sensation of her body not being hers. Too often she feels like floating up and away, watching herself man the steering wheel like she's watching someone else do it.

Regina gets in the passenger seat of the cruiser holding both of their cups of coffee.

"Thanks for coming with me," Emma says, taking her cup with careful sips at a stoplight.

"Of course," Regina replies softly, digging her chin into her scarf.

"I'm having a hard time staying grounded."

The light turns green and Emma puts the cup in the holder, sees Regina turn her head to her in the periphery of her vision.

"What can I do?" Regina asks.

She feels herself shaking, and the caffeine was probably a poor choice. Regina always orders them way too strong for sanity. "Just talk to me. About anything." She pauses. "Except for––you know, the stuff."

"'The Stuff,' very specific."

Emma smiles, breathes out a laugh. It's been awhile since she's done that without force.

"You know what I mean. The day that's coming."

"It's not going to come," Regina says firmly.

Emma passes through empty streets. It's only 7pm, but winter has the sun setting practically mid-day. She looks at houses and their lit windows, shadows of people going to and fro. She counts them.

Of course Regina would make this tense. Emma has half a mind to tell her to get out and go home, but the other half needs her here. She wants to tangle her fingers with hers, to feel something other than the wheel.

Emma tightens her hold instead.

"Henry and I used to go there often," Regina says quietly, pointing lazily against the glass. Emma flicks her eyes in that direction and laughs. Storybrooke Arcade.

"I bet you play a mean Dance Dance Revolution."

"I'll have you know that I do," Regina grins. Emma conjures up the image and laughs, and laughs, and Regina's smile only gets wider. "Dam Dariram. Challenge mode. Henry used to laugh, just like that, at his mother who spent her day behind a desk and telling him that too many screens would ruin his vision except on days like this."

Emma nearly begins to weep in the middle of her heavy laughter, because she scoops into the memories of New York and that missing year and sees them doing the same, except she was never behind a desk and all they ever did was play video games, anyway.

"In New York," she says, wiping away at her face, thankful for this stoplight, "That's the only song he'd ever play."

And then something churns in her stomach, and maybe it's the stupidly strong coffee, maybe it's the feeling of sickness she's been repressing since she's been having the visions, maybe it's because –– because she has all these memories and wants and –– Regina told her to fight but it doesn't change that she might –– she might ––

Her heart pounds relentlessly and she can't really breathe, and Regina's voice calling her name is distant. Emma smacks around for the door handle with numb fingers and when she finds it practically ejects herself out, runs to a muddy side of the road by the forest.

"Emma," Regina calls out after her, and she hears a door slam a little too loudly. "Emma, what's wrong?"

Emma's mouth feels numb and she shakes her head, holds on to Regina's shoulder.

"Hey," Regina says, as calmly as she can, rubbing Emma's back. "Just breathe. Slowly. I'll count with you."

She hasn't had a goddamn panic attack in years, and these days in her life it's hard to differentiate what's natural and what's magic. And god, she's so tired of magic.

"I didn't ask for this," Emma cries when she begins to come down. "I didn't ask for any of it. I didn't ask to be savior, I didn't ––"

"I know." Regina's cradling her, getting mud on her knees. Guilt drips from her throat. "I know, I know."

"I'm not who people think I am," she says, and for a moment she feels the sighs of the Dark One resting in the back of her mind. "And I can't do this alone. I'm going to be alone when it happens, and I don't––"

She feels teardrops fall behind her ear. Regina doesn't say anything, just continues to rub her back with an open palm, and hums. When Emma's breathing grows quieter, she notices the door of the cruiser is still open, and the side door mirror glares at her with their distant reflections.

Regina calls one of the other deputies and has him finish the rest of Emma's route. She brings her home to Snow's, tells her to let Emma sleep after getting cleaned up. She tells her to tell David to tend to her when they trade off. Mother her, for god's sake, and you, Emma, let them take care of you.

Emma lies down in her bed, body fresh but mind still murky. Snow sits upright behind her, combing through her yellow head with her fingers.

"Snow," Emma whispers.

"Yes, honey."

"Do you ever." Emma swallows, stares intently at the wall and feels too acutely her own palm on her cheek. "Do you try to keep yourself from wanting something, because. Because it's like you don't deserve it?"

Snow continues combing instead of respond, a quiet request to elaborate.

"And then, and then you do want it and it just. Everything falls down like a dam."

"Emma, my darling," Snow says, and Emma can hear the suppressed sobs in her throat. "You're allowed to want. You're allowed to grieve."

Emma sighs, a question on her tongue about Regina, what about her, what is she allowed, but says nothing instead.

In the dark hours of morning, Emma goes to the bathroom. Snow insists on keeping all the mirrors covered, but Emma stares and stares. Her hands grip the edge of the bathroom sink, and she can feel the Queen watching, just as she did the night before at the side of the road. Just as she did many times before.

She's figured it out long ago, somehow. She thought it would change things, this knowledge, and she has no foundation for pretty much anything beyond the fact that she just knows .

"I know it's going to be you," Emma says tiredly, sadly. "And I just want you to know. That I forgive you."

The mirror rumbles and rumbles with the undercurrent of raucous laughter.

III.

She thinks she's gotten somewhere. Regina has held the Queen in the core of her being before, has kept her checked and balanced before, has kept her quiet before. She can do it again.

Regina works tirelessly in the vault, air tinted with smoke from all the potions and serums she's concocted in an attempt to reverse this ridiculous Jekyll-and-Hyde effect. She thinks she's got it, just one drop more, if only her shaky hands would let her––

"Haven't I already told you this before," a sharp projecting voice says behind her, and Regina turns around with an irritated growl. "Anything you dream up, I've already dreamt it."

"What do you want now ," Regina nearly cries, frustrated to the brim.

The Queen flashes her wide eyes and a dangerous smirk, head tilted as she sways forward. Her hands are hidden behind her back. "Just wanted to show you my new toy."

Regina's eyes well up at the sight of the sword she draws. "It's you," she whispers. "You're the one under the hood."

"It's not exactly rocket science, my dear." She slithers her fingertips along the the flat of the blade. "Savior born to take down the Evil Queen. Evil Queen takes down Savior. We didn't exactly do things right the first time around, did we."

"No," Regina says, shaking her head, and it's not under her control that she lunges forward in desperation, only for the Queen to hold out her hand and immobilize her body. "No! No!"

She laughs, and laughs. "Look at you! You're so weak !"

"Please, stop," Regina cries, and she doesn't care about that now, she doesn't care, "Don't do it. Please don't do it. Not her."

Something in the Queen stiffens, that performative mask slipping away for just a moment, but it quickly hardens into calm fury. She steps closer to Regina, face inches away, pressing the hilt of the sword below Regina's chin.

"No."

The Queen storms away and Regina is left crying out Emma's name over and over.

She can feel the cusp of satisfaction in her chest when Emma Swan stands in front of her, sword in hand in the damp night. It's a perfect fit, she imagines, this sword in the savior's body, and with it she'll pull out that perfect amount of justice in one swift go. Against Snow White, the King's rotten lineage that even dares to have a savior as an heir, after all they've done.

"Do away with that stupid cloak," Emma spits out, with little fire. "I know it's you."

"Suit yourself," The Queen says and acquiesces, draping it off in one motion. She revels in the way Emma's body freezes, how she holds her breath just so. "Not easy is it. Fighting a foe with the face of someone you hold dear."

"Shut up," Emma growls, and lurches forward.

She's stiff and choppy but she's quick. The Queen knows the outcome of this fight and she's banking on it like no other investment she's made, but she can't be sloppy. Emma Swan is here to fight, and she delights in it.

Emma slips on the soaked ground, her sword the only thing keeping the Queen from slicing into her neck.

"Why do you keep fighting?" The Queen asks, smirking with narrow eyes. If she's truthful to herself, there's a ball of frustration couched in there, somewhere, but.

"I made a promise," Emma says, heaves forward with enough force and the Queen laughs. A mistake on her part, because soon Emma finds an opening, just above her chest. And for a moment, the world stills, sixty-something years collecting behind her eyes. But, even then.

She watches Emma's eyes widen and the sweat run down her dirty brow. She flicks Emma's sword away, made easy with the slackening of her grip in her moment of weakness.

"Didn't anyone tell you never to hesitate," she shouts, no more grins, just anger. From where, she's not quite sure, but the way Emma dares look at her like she's Regina ––

She points the sword toward Emma whose eyes have shut in anticipation, ready to take the plunge, and she hears Snow White, David, and Henry run into the scene, and she's ready , but––

She's shaking–– and the horrifying sound of Regina crying no, not her , rings in her ears, and she remembers kneeling in the hay trying and trying to kiss Daniel awake, kiss him alive.

Emma opens her eyes and looks up, her entire body tensing, "What?" she says. "What are you doing?"

Henry and the others call out Emma's name, but they don't step any closer. They all know––they know this was not part of the vision. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Regina wasn't supposed to ––

"I can't," she says, angrily, still keeping the sword in place, hovering over the soft flesh of Emma's stomach, and all it would take is two seconds. She looks at Emma, suspended in too many emotions and thoughts no doubt, no words but all breaths. The Queen can feel herself crumble. "She loves you," she says, and something in Emma's eyes change. "That fool is in love with you. And so, if I kill you… Well, then…"

"Regina…"

All the anger and pain she had refashioned into something else pushes itself out of her mouth and she can't explain why , to Emma , of all people, but it's because–– because––

"I was created when Daniel died, you know," she says. "I was born because a part of Regina had also died that day, too. Continued to die. Because of Snow White. Because of the King , because of ––"

The sword shakes in her grasp and her arm wobbles, suddenly tired. Emma holds the flat sides of the blade in between her hands, becoming steadier. This fool would stab herself if Regina asked her to, probably.

"Then she goes off and makes friends with Snow, and with the King's granddaughter. Suddenly would die for them. As if there were nothing the world wouldn't give if it meant Regina were putty in their hands." She cries openly now, and the tears sting her face. She doesn't want this. She tries to imagine Emma slain on the floor and it does nothing for her. "How could she forget all that I had done in her name? How I had fought for her because no one else did?"

"Do you remember when we first met?" Emma asks, eyes bright, palms still around the blade.

The memory of that stupid yellow bug, Henry rushing away from her embrace. Emma, tired in every part of her body yet still so vigilant.

"How could I forget," Regina says. "I wanted to kill you, soon as I saw you."

"And then you never did. Like you're not doing now." Emma dares step closer and Regina pushes the sword closer, the tip grazing the cloth of Emma's shirt.

"Do not test me, Emma."

But she keeps going forward, each step she brings the blade higher and higher, from her abdomen to her chest, to her neck. "And remember when I broke Henry's sleeping curse, and you told him you loved him. Remember when you got me and Snow out of the well. When you busted our asses through Neverland, saved us, saved me , again and again and again."

Regina winces. "That was Regina. "

Emma shakes her head. "It was you, too. You're Regina, too." Regina wants to laugh, but tears come out instead, and she doesn't understand, she doesn't–– "It's like I told you once, as the Dark One. There are never just good and bad sides of ourselves. We are just one person." She looks off to the side and makes a concession. "Even if that's inherently false at the moment."

Regina understands.

"You have a choice right now," Emma says, wriggling the sword to her neck. "You can do what you think is justice. Or you can stop fighting, because you don't need to anymore. You have friends and family –– you have me –– who will fight for you."

"And what?" Regina rasps with bared teeth. "Content myself with being a coward ?"

"No," Emma says. "Being loved ."

Regina implores Emma with her eyes, still not letting go of the handle.

Then she remembers, she remembers who is standing here, watching. She laughs , cackles more like, and it startles Emma. The Queen rips away the sword, leaving a shallow cut on Emma's palms that sting nonetheless if Emma's sharp " shit " indicates anything.

"I must applaud your performance, Miss Swan."

"Regina, no––"

"As if I'd trust you. You watched as she crumbled my heart into dust."

She raises the sword, but something stupid happens.

"Mom!" Henry rushes forward, puts his body in between them. He stands up straight and looks defiantly up at her, because he knows . God he knows.

Emma makes a jolt to grab him away, but she puts down the sword, lets it swing lazily, because where do you even go from here. "What now. Another speech about how I'll never win because I'm evil, will always be alone."

He softens. "You can win, but not like this."

The answer catches her off guard. "You've all been ruined," the Queen says, shaking her head like she hadn't been crying openly in front of her enemies just five minutes ago. Like an exhale, she puffs away.

IV.

They find Regina nearly unconscious in the vault. The Queen had locked her in for when the immobilization spell wore off, and Regina had wore herself nearly to death trying to counter her own magic.

Emma realizes it doesn't quite hit Regina when she's the one lifting her off the floor. Her eyes are still unfocused and the lines on her face are deep, hair mussed, mumbling over and over, "Emma, I need to warn Emma, Emma…"

"You dipshit," Emma says softly, hoisting Regina up to her feet with her arm around her waist. "I'm right here."

Regina looks at her then, snapped out of her daze. Emma can't help but smile brightly when Regina holds her breath before steadying herself to wrap her arms around Emma, the first time she's ever done that.

"You're here," she says. "You survived. Does that mean––"

"No," Emma says into her shoulder. She closes her eyes.

"But how?"

Emma places a kiss right above Regina's ear. "I fought," she says. "In whatever way that looked like."

"We need to talk," Emma says to Snow when she enters the apartment.

"Yes, darling?" Snow responds from the couch, looking up at her in the peace she finds that Emma is, for certain, not dead.

But Emma can't entertain that just now.

"Regina's found a way to bring the Queen back to her. And you need to do nothing but let her do it. And once that's done you and her need to have a long, long talk about everything that went on in that castle."

Snow opens her mouth to protest, like Emma's committed the biggest offense, but Emma cuts in.

"You need to ask what Regina needs, not tell her what you think she needs." Emma swallows, suddenly feeling too harsh. She slacks her shoulders. "Okay?"

Snow sighs. She smiles. And perhaps she may not get it, but there's hope yet, if not for the love her daughter, and the love she says she has for Regina. "Okay," she says. "Okay."

Regina texts her in the middle of the night to meet her at the bench by the pier, and tells her not to bring anyone. She slips out in half her pajamas, too sleepy to change completely, but coming to Regina in what is unofficially their "spot" in full-on PJs is probably not the wisest gesture she's ever made.

She might not mind. After all, according to the Queen, she is––

Emma approaches the bench to find Regina and the Queen standing there behind it. The Queen––Regina, in her mind, still, still–– turns to look at her, eyes shining with uncertainty, brows still furrowed in doubt at her.

"Is this…"

"Yes," Regina says, exhaling and putting her hands flat on her thighs. "We wanted you to be here to see it, and in case anything went wrong."

Emma looks between the two of them, and nods. "Yeah. Of course. Thank you."

She feels stiff, however, and adds while pointing behind her. "I'll be over there, though. In case you need like, privacy. Or whatever."

The Queen rolls her eyes. "Oh, please."

They use the privacy nonetheless. Emma watches them standing close together, bathed in moonlight, as Regina hands her the serum. They hold it to their lips but don't drink just yet, and she can see from the movement of Regina's mouth that they're not quite ready to. The Queen's shoulder shakes, perhaps from laughter, perhaps from crying. Regina raises her head to kiss her forehead with her free hand holding the back of her neck, a gesture so intimate that Emma wants to look away but can't. She knows then that the Queen is crying. She can hear faintly, "It's okay, it's okay."

They drink.

Emma closes her eyes, lets the sounds of light beaming and culminating into a singular sigh paint the picture for her. When she opens them, it's Regina, as she was. The Regina that's always been, will continue to be. She smiles at her, leans on the back of the bench.

She walks towards her, her bandaged hands in her pockets and making a show of not knowing why they're here with feigned swagger. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Oh, shut up," Regina sighs, grabbing Emma by the lapels of her jacket. She stops with their foreheads leaning on each other, noses brushing. If getting stabbed in the stomach didn't kill her, this surely would.

"In case you were wondering," Emma says, barely above a whisper. "I'm like ass deep in love with you, too."

Regina chuckles, and god. "I know." Of course she knows.

"Okay, good," Emma mumbles, and kisses her. Sweet, slow, and firm. Kisses her like she wishes she had when she rose out of that well, when she said goodbye and Regina sent her and Henry on their way to New York, when she saw her again. Kisses her like tonight would be the night she died, but knows that in the end her tomorrows belong to Regina. All of her.

She gets her stupid bandaged hands out of her pockets and holds on to Regina for dear life from the backs of her shoulders. Regina holds onto her, too, hands lovingly settled around the back of Emma's neck like they've always belonged there. We do this together, is unsaid, together, together.