Emma didn't mean to overhear the conversation. She literally stumbled onto it. Woke up in the middle of the night with Regina gone and the weirdest longing in her gut, decided she wasn't getting back to sleep, and went to find the nearest watering hole to wash some of the accumulated sweat and grime off her body. Only after a few minutes of traipsing in the jungle, she heard Regina's voice ring out.

"I won't do it, Gold." She was strident as the mayor ever had been.

Gold's voice sounded more amused than displeased. The way he was when he expected to get what he wanted no matter what. "Is this the 'new you,' Regina, debating every single decision that isn't the truest, purest white? We both know you're going to do it. Destroying Neverland's magic will render Pan powerless. Once we do that, it's a simple matter of picking up Henry and leaving this accursed place."

"And after we do, this island will fall apart without magic, taking the Lost Boys with it." Emma peeked through the foliage in time to see Regina put her hands on her hips. Crouched down, neither of them noticed her in the bushes. She could've announced herself, could've gone back the way she came, but she wanted to make sure they weren't up to no good.

No. It was Regina. She wanted to know if Regina really had changed. If the kind, loving mother she'd caught glimpses of over the past few months was finally coming to the forefront out of the darkness.

Gold scoffed, his amusement faltering. "Lost Boys. Our enemies. They all chose of their own will to follow Pan. Who cares what becomes of them?"

"Henry will."

Gold threw his hands up, the violence of the gesture hidden by the hint of flamboyance in it. Emma could just as easily imagine those hands wrapping around Regina's neck. "Oh, he will, will he? Is that what passes for your conscience these days, dearie? Imagining what will please or displease the little prince?"

"It seems to work better than thinking of Belle."

Regina strolled past him, even as he walked past her. They paced in opposite directions for moments, almost circling each other and almost walking alongside one another. Then Gold stopped, facing away from her.

"Of course, you're forgetting one thing, your highness. Henry's already made his choice. Quite a few of them, actually. And none of them were you."

Gold didn't see Regina flinch, but Emma did. She also saw her gather herself. "He is my son."

"He's Emma's son. You're just a glorified babysitter. And now there's no more need of you. He has Emma. He has Charming. He has Snow. He even has Neal. Four perfectly decent people to watch over him, to say nothing of hangers-on like our good doctor Hopper and sweet little Ruby. With all that goodness, what would he want with you?"

Again, Emma saw Regina gather herself—fortify herself, breathing in like she was about to dive deep underwater. "I am his mother." But she sounded more uncertain than she ever had to Emma.

Gold turned to point an unwavering finger at her. "You're not a mother. You're barely even human. You, my dear, are the Evil Queen. Everyone knows it. Everyone remembers it. Even now, they call you that to your face. You may have claimed that title, dearie, but now it owns you. And as much as you pretend to the moral standard of one of the boy's comic books, he will always detect the stench of what you are beneath. Like a body under the floorboards. Queen Regina, daughter to two parents murdered by her own hand, widowed by two men brought low by her actions, the thief of happiness and the harbinger of evil. What's the point in fighting it? Who are you trying to fool? Yourself?"

"I…" Regina began, and then she did something Emma had never seen her do before. She faltered.

"You are evil. Rotten to the core. Want to see for yourself? I can pluck your heart from your chest and show you. You can take out a magnifying glass and check for a glimpse of lovely, reassuring red. You may even find some. Your love for Henry, let's say. But it too will grow cold and dark, you mark me. You will never win his love. He doesn't want anything to do with you, and I can't imagine anyone else feeling differently. All you have to offer is pain and loss, so why not use that? Wasn't that what Emma asked of you? To be the Evil Queen? It's all you're good for, after all."

Regina wasn't just hurt by the words. Emma could see it all over her face; a face she once would've called armor. Now she could see right through it to the cracks in Regina's soul, tears that had always been there and were only getting wider now. The broken woman was showing all her damage. Even in her recent confrontation with Emma, when she'd bared her soul to comfort her rival, she'd done so from a position of power. Showing only enough weakness to comfort, only in the context of Emma being at her lowest. But this was a Regina Mills that was being knocked down, her foundations eroded, whatever she used to get her through the day—perhaps something as simple and weak as the hope of seeing her son again—ripped away.

Emma was transfixed by it, barely believing what she was seeing and hearing, searching for the trick. It had to be an act, some attempt to capture her sympathy for some reason. But no one was that good an actress. And hearing her own name, used as ammunition against Regina, shocked her out of her stupor. She rose up and barged through her cover.

"Hey!" she shouted, charging Gold like a bulldozer. "Hey!" she said again, jabbing her finger into his chest. "Who said you could talk to her like that?"

Gold was almost as surprised as Regina, whose mouth dropped like a little girl's before her shame caught up with her and she looked away. Caught in her humiliation by the person closest to her of this motley crew, wishing there was some place she could hide, some way she could just disappear without magic. Vanish from the face of the earth.

Gold, however, seemed richly amused with the interruption. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me, motherfucker." The obscenity directed at Gold caught Regina's attention all over again. She looked to Emma and the man towering over her once more, in disbelief. "Who gave you permission to talk to Regina that way?"

He halfway scoffed and halfway laughed. "I don't believe I need permission to tell the truth. The woman is a cancer, only capable of inflicting harm. The only use she is to us is directing that harm in the proper direction. If she won't, then she's useless."

"She is the mother of my child," Emma retorted. "Our child," she corrected, and caught a grateful look from Regina out of the corner of her eye that would've been heartwarming if she weren't so pissed with Rumpel. "And she's done a hell of a lot more for our kid than you have for yours."

Now Gold didn't seem amused at all. His eyes flashed dangerously, giving Emma the uncomfortable feeling of being… inspected. She suddenly realized why Hook called him the Crocodile. "Ah. I see what this is. You're worried her failings as a human being reflect on your own. Well, let me assure you, dearie, whatever sins you've committed pale in comparison to hers. However you may doubt your love for the boy, it is there. But Regina… she is a monster. She only clutches the boy close to her to assuage the guilt in what little is left of her soul—"

Emma's hand blurred. There was a resounding echo into the forest.

Regina raised her hand to her mouth.

Emma had just slapped the Dark One.

Now it wasn't just simile. His skin had broken out into scales like a crocodile's, gleaming like armor, fangs replacing teeth and dark pools replacing his eyes. He seemed a few inches taller without ever seeming to grow. And all his attention was focused on Emma.

"That seems like the sort of thing you'd want to apologize for," he said, and though it was in his normal cadence, his voice vibrated with the madness Regina was well-familiar with.

"Yeah. I'm sorry I didn't do it sooner. Get the hell away from me. And stay the fuck away from Regina."

His smile was a shark's, trying to decide which limb to detach first, and seeing it aimed at Emma, so stupidly fearless, broke Regina out of her trance. She stepped forward, turning night into day with a flame in her hand the size of a basketball. It flickered blue in places, the effort of its summoning dusting Regina's forehead with sweat.

"You heard the lady," Regina said. "I suggest we call it a night."

"Would you really test your might against that of a god?" he asked, already picturing her backing down as she had so many times before, giddy with delight at the prospect.

"Absolutely," Regina replied. "Don't worry. I don't expect to win, Dark One. But I do expect our battle to rip this island apart. With your son on it."

"And yours as well," Gold retorted, though his cheery voice had gone strained. "If you can call him that."

"Mutually assured destruction. My favorite kind. What's it to be, Rumpel? Let blondie get away with hurting your feelings or lose what's left of your family?"

With a sneer, Gold backed away. Regina dispelled the fireball. "Well. I can see I'm not wanted. Perhaps you can go a few days without my help. We'll see if you still find me so abhorrent then."

And in a blast of red smoke, he was gone. After an instant, the cloud had dissipated. Then Regina felt safe to collapse, sagging against a fallen tree as if she'd just run a marathon.

"Do not," she panted to Emma, "ever do that again."

"Does he talk to you like that all the time?" Emma asked, bursting with concern.

Regina ignored her. "You just had me picking a fight with an evil god. I'm good, but I'm not that good, and I think we have enough sociopathic deities on our plate at the moment."

"Answer my question," Emma persisted.

Regina shook her head. "It doesn't concern you."

"You're Henry's mother," Emma tried to offer up one of her boastful smiles, but it was harder than usual. "It's a small club, but it's ours."

"That was a good line to use on Rumpel, but don't turn it on me."

"Then don't change the subject," Emma retorted. "Has Gold talked to you like that before?"

Regina closed her eyes. "He can be very charming when he wants to be." She opened them. "And he can remind me of my place. When he wants to."

"Your place?"

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" Regina rose, filled with her usual agitation, and as good as it was to see her back to herself, Emma didn't like her walls being back up. Not now that she knew part of what lurked behind them. "He was the master, I was the apprentice. I only had what independence he allowed me. Even now—" Emma could see Regina pull herself in, sever the parts of herself that felt gratitude toward Emma. "Even now, sometimes I need to be reminded of what I am."

"And what's that? A woman who made mistakes?"

"I think we both know 'mistakes' doesn't quite cover it."

"Like he has room to talk!" Emma stomped around Regina. "Even in comparison to 'the Evil Queen,' the Dark One isn't a title that has me thinking rainbows and bunny slippers."

"The Dagger does that to him," Regina argued. "I made a choice."

"Yeah, difference is I see you trying to do better, and I don't see him doing a damned thing about his little potato peeler." Emma sat down on the log and, to Regina's surprise, pulled her down beside her. "I want you to tell me about this. Right now. Don't sleep on it, don't let it scab over, don't let it be any less real than it is now. Tell me the first time he spoke to you like that. I want to know."

"And you have the right?" Regina offered sardonically, looking at Emma like she was once more the woman who'd come to Storybrooke on a wing and a prayer, the idiot Regina had taken her for.

"That's up to you," Emma returned. "But I care. I promise you, I care."

Regina shook her head dismally. "You don't understand. It's always been like that between us. Or… I called to him for help. I called to him. And he gave me what I asked for and more. He offered me power, independence—revenge."

Emma snorted, arms crossed. Regina could see the thought written upon her face. And look where that's gotten you.

"It was a good deal," Regina protested. "Better than your grandfather gave me, and that was my only other option." She remembered the vivid thought—her running away from her engagement, only to be caught by the king's men and dragged back in chains. A prisoner once more, only deprived of any comfort she once might have had. Any opportunity to escape, however violently.

Had Rumpelstiltskin planted that seed?

"All he asked was that I prove my commitment to him. My dedication to magic. It always comes with a price, you see."

"Like what?" Emma asked flatly.

"There was a…" Regina waved her hand like she was shooing away some persistently buzzing insect. "A woman. About my age. Maybe younger. He was teaching her magic. I don't know why she wanted it. I don't even know her name. Perhaps she just wanted to summon up food for her family during the winter months." Regina looked Emma in the eye, her pupils deathly still. They did not waver. They did not seek anything. "I ripped her heart from her chest and crushed it in front of her. That pleased Rumpelstiltskin. After that, he taught me much."

"And he wanted you to do it," Emma guessed.

Regina nodded. "Nothing could've pleased him more."

Emma's head tilted back, eyes closed, hands pressing tightly to her head. "And when you had doubts—whenever you shied away from his 'lesson plan'—he reminded you of her. Of how worthless and evil you really were, so what difference does tip-toeing a little further into the Dark Side matter? Now that you're bad."

Regina stared at Emma. Her silence confirmation enough.

When Emma looked back at her, her eyes were red. "Don't you see what he's done to you? What he did?"

Regina stood abruptly. Leaving Emma behind. "I made my choice. Over and over again, I did what I had to do and what I wanted to do. Rumpelstiltskin only gave me the tools. I used them myself."

"No, that's what he wanted you to think." Emma stayed sitting, looking up at Regina, a deliberately weak positioning. It confused Regina greatly. "You never had a choice, Regina. Not from the moment he laid eyes on you."

Now Regina understood. She fixed Emma with a glare. "Don't you dare make me a victim. I chose. I am the Evil Queen."

"You don't have to say that anymore." Emma stood, but not as Regina had. Slowly, skittishly. Like Regina was a wild animal that might startle. "I always had this idea that you were—born bad somehow. How could you do such terrible things to such good people otherwise? But it was never you, was it? He—he broke you."

"I'm not broken," Regina threw in Emma's face, her eyes burning. "I am evil. I have been all along. I've stopped running from it; I was born with magic. I grew up with this potential. That's why my mother loved me. She saw herself in me."

"No, Regina. You're nothing like her. And you're nothing like him. You're…" Emma looked into Regina's eyes. So frightening. So off-putting. The bad in there just below the surface. "You're like me."

Regina shook her head instantly, more a seizure than a gesture. "I'm not. I'm not! I'm not a victim!"

And in a puff of purple smoke, she was gone. The cloud lingering long after, carrying the scent of her, the violence of her passage. Emma watched as it slowly faded into the night air.

Jesus.

When she got back to the camp, Mary-Margaret was up. Lying awake next to David, taking what comfort she could in his silent presence before she had to leave it to face the day. "We seem to be out two sorcerers," she said as Emma laid down across from her.

"I'll take it up with Human Resources."

Mary-Margaret smiled ruefully. "Emma, I'm so sorry I said those things; I didn't mean to carry them…"

Emma held up her hands. "It's alright, mom. It's fine. Fifteen apologies is more than enough."

"It doesn't feel like it."

"Here either. But I'll let you know when it does." Emma set her head back and stared up at the stars. So different than how they were in Storybrooke, let alone Boston. Without man's light to compete with, they didn't just take up the sky. They ruled it.

A little like Regina. In Storybrooke, she was almost in her element. Removed from some of the toxins that she'd always suffered from, given a measure of love, she'd been able to flourish a little. A plant given water and sunlight, but trapped in a glass of its own making. She'd grown as far as she could.

Back in a fantasy land, she had free rein. She could spread as far as she wished, be the Evil Queen once more. But her pain grew with her. It threatened to blot out the love she carried, strangle the woman that had been such an unlikely comfort to Emma. And somehow, it felt like Emma's responsibility. Like she owed Regina.

"Mary-Margaret," Emma said, hoping the woman hadn't caught her earlier slip, "I have to ask you something about Regina. You said when you first met her that she was good. But when did she start to… you know… break bad?"

"Hard to say," Mary-Margaret said after some deliberation. "She kept so much to herself, her pain especially. Maybe someone could've helped her if she didn't; but then, that's what started all this trouble in the first place. But I do remember the first time I was really afraid of her. When she married my father, the party was four times longer than the ceremony, and she barely put in an appearance. I went looking for her, and I finally found her in one of the castle's tallest towers. She wasn't crying, not even then—she just had this look in her eyes, zoned out, you know? Like she was remembering someplace far away, and it was so vivid to her that if she just let it take her, she could stay there forever." Mary-Margaret looked at David. She took his hand and, in his sleep, he tightened it on hers. "I tried to cheer her up, said something foolish about how I was sure my father would make her as happy as Daniel ever could. She didn't say anything, but she gave me this look—I could've sworn, even then, that she was thinking of killing me."

"But she didn't," Emma said.

"No. Regina's always had a… complicated relationship with morality."

"If she blamed you for Daniel's death, why didn't she kill you first? Why wait? She hasn't ever struck me much as the type to be patient."

Mary-Margaret shrugged. "Who can tell with Regina? She's a mystery. Even to herself, I think."

In the morning, Regina had returned without anyone noticing her. Breakfast was her treat, a boar staked over the fire. Emma managed a real smile at what a Regina gesture it was; peace offering and threat all at the same time. She ate heartily, made polite conversation as she could manage, mostly discussing their efforts to find Henry. Her way of letting Regina know the topic that had driven her away wouldn't be approached again until Regina was ready.

And the rest of the day, she stuck close to Regina's side.

"Are you trying to get me alone?" Regina asked by the time the sun was high in the sky. "Should I be worried for my virtue?"

"It's called the buddy system," Emma replied, "not the booty system. David has Mary-Margaret, Hook has Neal… and those two deserve each other. So that leaves you and me."

"I think I'd prefer Hook," Regina groused, though with good humor. "Love some good stubble."

"I haven't shaved my legs in over a week," Emma shared, "if you've got a craving."

In the rear of their little convoy, Hook and Neal were having an argument. Probably over who would get to take Emma to prom. By unspoken accord, she and Regina sped up. The brush was thick up ahead, so Emma got ready to do some macheting, but Regina just waved her hands and the plants before them withered and died. She led Emma through a corridor of browning carcasses. Romantic.

"I can tell you're just dying to ask me some of your burning questions," Regina said, casually crunching shriveled leaves underfoot. "What are you hoping to hear? That Rumpelstiltskin gave me a bubbling green potion and after I drank it, I stopped wearing white and began kicking puppies?"

Emma busied her hands gathering up her frazzled hair behind her head. "I always knew Rumpel rigged the game to find his son. But I thought he just took advantage of what people would've done anyway. I had no idea he was… hands-on." A line from an old song occurred to Emma. "You didn't fall from grace, Regina. You were pushed."

"Oh, defending my virtue now? Perhaps you are sweet on me. Shall I tell Killian and Neal so I too can join in the arm-wrestling over you?"

Emma stopped, as much danger as that put her in of David and Mary-Margaret catching up and overhearing. She watched the edges of dead foliage around her, the narrow division between withered death and vibrant green life. "You know how I grew up. I got into some pretty bad spots. Do you think if someone had given me a magic Get Out Of Jail Free card, I wouldn't have taken it?"

"Ah, yes, but you're an idiot and I'm smart. I should be held to a higher standard than you."

Emma rolled her eyes. Regina hadn't slowed down. She had to step lively to catch her. "All the times you said you weren't the Evil Queen and now, what, you just accept it?"

"I accept reality. You didn't get a magic Get Out Of Jail Free card. I did, and I used it, and people are dead. My choice."

"Yeah, and if Henry got his hands on a gun and shot his toe off, would you hold the person who gave it to him accountable?"

Regina's head swiveled to Emma. "Don't use my son against me."

"Don't hold yourself to a standard no one can meet. That's not what being good is about."

Regina was walking faster. "You might've fooled me."

Emma sped up, not willing to let Regina get away from her, flee. She was tired of looking at Regina's back as the mayor turned away. "It's about making mistakes, it's about fixing them, it's about owning them—"

"Isn't that what I'm doing? Helping you get your son back?"

"While wallowing in how evil you are. Trying to enjoy it, even. Regina, I've seen evil. None of those guys needed to take a seminar on beating their wives, they just did it. You're not that."

"Then what am I?"

"I think you're a scared and vulnerable woman who thinks all she has left is how evil she is, so she's holding onto that as tightly as she can because she thinks it's better than nothing."

Regina glanced at Emma, now alongside her. "Pop psychology nonsense."

"Maybe. But you'd be wrong. You let the Evil Queen die, you won't be left with nothing."

"I'll have Henry?" Regina joked, as if the very notion was absurd.

"You'll have me."

Regina didn't talk after that, just set her chin and kept walking into the dying jungle. Emma didn't press. But that night, when they made camp, she didn't have to go looking for Regina. The woman laid down across from her and went to sleep, her profile presented to Emma. They dreamt facing the same full moon.

Rumpelstiltskin didn't return the next day, or the one after that. Emma stayed close to Regina anyway. Her presence wasn't as bad as all that. The others might resent Pan, or fear Neverland, but Regina was the only person who seemed as irritated with the situation as Emma. She didn't respect their adversaries, she was downright sarcastic with them. And Emma liked that far more than making heroic speeches about how evil would never triumph. She'd been in the real world. She knew it did, way too often.

On their fourth day of looking for Tinkerbell's chalice—one more thing they absolutely, positively needed to save Henry—Rumpelstiltskin made his reappearance. Nothing grand or dramatic. He seemed too resentful for that. One minute, Emma was joking with Regina, in that way they had where they insulted each other more and more gently until whatever they hated about the other had diminished to nothing. The next, Gold was over her shoulder.

"I'd like to speak to Regina alone, if you don't mind."

Emma contained herself admirably. She'd seen this happening in her dreams. It usually had Gold grabbing her head and twisting it right off, so a passive-aggressive request was no big deal.

"Don't think so," Emma replied.

"Oh, how sweet. The mayor has hired herself a bodyguard. And do you think I intend to hurt her?" Gold asked, his question so weighted that Emma almost took a step back from it.

"I think you already have."

"Emma, leave," Regina ordered, hurrying to Emma's side. "Whatever Gold has to say, it's between him and me."

"No, it isn't, Regina. Not anymore." Emma had faced down bikers, rapists, and Russian mobsters. That didn't mean evil overlords weren't above her paygrade, but a guy two hundred pounds heavier than her could take her out just as well as insane cosmic power. The only counter, in both cases, was to put on a shit-eating grin like you already had a plan to depart this mortal coil with their testicles if they started something. "Anything you want to say to her, you can say to me, buddy."

"'Buddy'," Gold repeated. He'd been working on his dark amusement. Grinned at Emma's words like they were a Bill Cosby routine. "Feeling protective, are we? I suppose after a full decade of leaving your babe to the wolves, that paternal instinct must kick in like a bitch."

Emma just grinned wider. He couldn't hurt her with Henry. Giving a child Regina for a mother wasn't anything to feel guilty about. But it did confirm her suspicions about Gold. "You know what you are?"

"What am I?" Gold returned. "A cocksucker? A motherfucker? A dirty cunt? Do please dazzle us with your vocabulary, Miss Swan."

"You're a bully," Emma said. "Nothing more than a guy who got picked on as a kid, so as soon as he got his growth spurt, he started taking it out on people smaller and weaker than him. The thing is, even bullies grow out of it eventually. It takes a real asshole to stay that way all their lives. They wind up wizened and alone, in retirement homes where even the nurses don't like them. Just waiting to die, with no one caring. But can you imagine the kind of asshole who can keep up being a big goddamn bully for hundreds and hundreds of years? Say what you will about Regina, but how long did it take her to get tired of being a bitch? To want to love someone instead of controlling them? For all you twisted her and lied to her and manipulated her, when the day finally came, she got more joy out of being a mother than she ever did out of your Curse."

"I sincerely doubt—"

"I'm not finished!" Emma interrupted, her finger shoved in Gold's face. "You think you're special, some master manipulator, but you're not. You're just a sick son of a bitch who preys on lost, lonely people. And I've met plenty of people like you. Not just in Boston. Growing up. In the foster system. People who had the audacity to call themselves parents. People so twisted and unhappy that they deliberately mess up their own kids as some sort of fucked up challenge. That's what you did to Regina. You think it took some kind of genius, breaking down a woman who was already on the edge? It didn't. It just took cowardice and cruelty. And you know what? Thank God your son got away from you when he did, because I think that's the only reason he's as good a man as he is. Feel free to leave again, Gold. Don't come back this time. I don't want your help, and I especially don't want you anywhere near my family."

Gold didn't smile, didn't sneer. Just bared his teeth. "You're making a mistake." His eyes swooped to Regina. "Surely, you realize how foolish she's being."

Regina nodded tightly, arms folded. "I do. I absolutely do." Emma met her eyes, stricken. "But I also wonder how much of that disdain I feel was instilled in me by you. I wonder how much of it is your hatred and bitterness, masquerading as good sense. And I don't have an answer. Maybe I never will. But I trust Emma. And I trust her love for our son. If she doesn't want you here, I don't want you either."

His face was frozen, not transforming or shifting—like it couldn't process what it was being told. "Mistake!" he repeated.

Regina shook her head. "I summoned you half a lifetime ago, and it never felt right. This feels right. Leave."

When the red smoke came this time, it was enough to blanket them both like fog. They coughed until it went away, leaving not a trace of Gold.

"You think he's gone for good?" Emma asked.

"Not hardly," Regina answered. "But he'll stay away until he thinks he has us at a disadvantage. If we're smart, that won't be for a long time." She glanced at Emma. "So he'll probably be back soon."

"Hey!"

"He was right. It was a mistake." Regina got her bearings and continued on her way. Towards Tinkerbell's Chalice. "We could've used his power."

"I don't care about his power, I care about you," Emma retorted. "It's not good for you, having him around. He brings out the worst in you."

Regina glanced back at Emma. "I assure you, I don't need him for that."

"Yeah, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you're a saint. But there's a lot more to you than the picture he would paint. And when we get Henry back, that's the person I want helping me raise him."

"You—" Regina stopped, "want my help?"

"Regina, Henry got himself kidnapped by Peter fricking Pan a few months after he got poisoned a few months after he ran away to Boston. I'm going to need all the help I can get."

Regina grinned to herself, head pitched low. Then she lifted her head and let Emma see it. She had one hell of a smile. "You know, I've been queen for a long time. Yet I believe this is the first time I've ever had a white knight come to my rescue."

Emma smiled herself. Tried to figure out why the hell she was blushing.