TITLE: Tremors

AUTHOR: BirdBrain711

PAIRING: Regina, gen

RATING: T

SUMMARY: She has allowed herself to become complacent, to assume that her own happy ending would come if she just waited long enough. Post ep for 1.05.

Tremors

It is perversely fortunate that the collapse happens on an uninhabited edge of town. This way it is merely a vaguely unsettling spectacle to most of the residents, easy to pass off as a freak event, a throwback to the town's forgotten past.

In reality the tunnels run beneath the entirety of Storybrooke, a catacomb created by the remnants of powerful magic, a complicated time bomb lying in wait for the prime moment to take the ground from beneath their feet.

Most days, Regina tries not to think of this reality. She keeps the thought isolated to a carefully-compartmentalized corner of her mind, reserved for those particular threats which are entirely out of her hands.

She is losing control. This fact has been blatantly obvious since the night Henry vanished before her eyes, since he returned inexplicably with Emma Swan in tow. Emma isn't the only challenge Regina has faced in Storybrooke, but so far she is the most persistent.

And now, with a slow, insidious clarity, Regina is beginning to wonder how long she has been missing things, allowing the signs to be buried. Henry has been at once distant and defiant lately, but that has not seemed so unusual. The rift between them has only widened as Henry has grown. Now Regina feels as though she might be poised on the edge of it, on the brink of falling in.

She has allowed herself to become complacent, to assume that her own happy ending would come if she just waited long enough. Now it feels as though it is slipping through her fingers like quicksand, brimming over the edge as she tightens her fist.

..-..

The Sheriff's office feels like a warm, dark cave. Regina waits in the still darkness, seated in his chair, knowing that he will come as he always does. She wonders as the minutes tick by whether he is truly still occupied at the site of the collapse, what other things he might be doing unbeknownst to her.

She does not flinch when he comes in at last and turns on the light. It is he who jumps, flushing with shock like a schoolboy caught in a prank.

When she does not speak immediately, Graham sighs, running a hand tiredly through his hair so that it sticks out at odd angles. "Guess I should have been expecting this."

"Yes, you should have." Regina gets to her feet, meeting him now at eye-level. "What the hell were you thinking? Or were you thinking at all?"

To her surprise, Graham holds his ground this time. "I wasn't aware that I needed to defend my professional decisions to you. You've been telling me I needed to find a deputy practically since Emma arrived. Win-win opportunity, right?"

He is mocking her, Regina realizes with a cold surge of anger. He must have been perfectly aware of her intentions, the implicit order which she has only partially voiced: Find a deputy to help us control Emma Swan. And yet suddenly he has chosen defiance, like Henry. She wonders who is next.

"And do you really think it's a good idea to hire someone with a history of delinquency? Someone you, Sheriff, have already had to arrest—twice?" Her hands go instinctively to her hips, seeking out a position of increased power. "This is Storybrooke, not the Old West."

"I think," says Graham, after a calculated pause, "that you've been trying very hard to get rid of Emma. And I think that if you succeeded, it would be a very bad thing for your son."

Regina scoffs, taken aback by his audacity. "What, now you're a martyr? Trying to save me from myself?"

Graham shrugs. "No. Now I'm going home. It's late, and I've got a job to do tomorrow."

He turns and shuts the light again, leaving Regina bathed in darkness and the ripples of her own burgeoning doubt.

..-..

The morning after Henry's rescue, she finds Emma out jogging in the middle of the street, in sweatpants and one of her barely-there tanktops. Her clothing seems almost an insult to the town, thinks Regina, as is her attitude, running around at the crack of dawn like she understands the way things here work, like she might actually belong.

Regina waits by the front gate, knowing that Emma has sighted her from the end of the street.

"Miss Swan," she calls out, when Emma is within earshot. She is determined not to demean herself by shouting in public.

"Good morning, Madam Mayor," says Emma brightly, coming to a breathless stop. She looks entirely too pleased with herself.

"Keeping in shape, I see."

Emma smiles. She has not missed the hint of a challenge. "Well, you know. I want to be able to do my job."

"Yes, about that job." It isn't what Regina wants to ask, but feels somehow more appropriate in this moment.

"What?" Emma crosses her arms, catching her breath. Her cheeks are flushed a delicate pink, and she looks somehow softer than usual, warmer, more inviting. Everything that Regina—as a parent, especially—is not.

"I can't say I agree with Sheriff Graham's judgment," Regina answers carefully. "But in this case I suppose I could be convinced to defer to his professional authority." It seems very important to establish as a deliberate choice, a charitable gesture on her part. "I just hope you're prepared to take your obligation to this town seriously."

Emma raises her eyebrows. "And why wouldn't I be? I don't care what you think of me, Madam Mayor. I don't care what you think of my past. I am here now for Henry. And you can be damn sure I intend to make it count."

Regina plasters on the skeleton of a smile. She can hear Archie's words, reverberating in the back of her mind like aftershocks. Someday, you may find yourself in a custody battle. This is what she wants to ask, wants to know. But to speak the words aloud seems somehow to give them credence. For once, she remains silent.

"Excuse me," says Emma, sensing the shift. She takes off down the opposite side of the street, picking up speed as though shedding the weight of her past as she moves.

Her footfalls seem to echo through the stillness of the early morning, stirring something in the depths beneath the town. Something which has only just begun to awaken.