I glared at the waxed wick of the candle, willing it to do something, anything. I could nearly feel a vein popping in my forehead, and I was definitely breaking a sweat under the hot afternoon sun.

"Miss Swan, you'll need to try harder than that."

"I am trying as hard as I can, Madame Mayor," I grit out. It's been three days since that night that Regina had calmed down my magical outburst. She seemed to take my expressed need to learn to control my magic quite seriously and had insisted we start sooner than later.

She had me trying to light a candle, which I found ridiculous. We were on a wooden ship, for one. For two, it was windy. How the hell is a flame supposed to stay lit in the wind?

When I complained about these things, Regina rolled her eyes and said, "It is a magic flame, Miss Swan. It stays lit until you choose to let it go out."

I squinted at her, "So like.. If it set the ship on fire, I could just make it go out because I wanted it to?"

"That is the general idea," her tone implied her boredom heavily, and she crossed her arms.

"Wait, is it like Greek fire? Like you throw water on it and it doesn't go out?"

Regina narrowed her eyes at me, "Well, I suppose you'll find out when you light the damn candle, now won't you."

I huffed and rolled my shoulders. It was one thing to let magic just happen while being... Well, freaked out. It was another to try to use it consciously for a specific purpose. I still have no idea how the dream catcher thing worked. And, I mean, the diamond didn't really count either; it was just pulling my magic from me. I decided to take a break from trying to light the stupid candle sitting on the small table near the middle of the ship.

I looked around, noting that Regina was standing with her arms crossed looking out at the horizon. She seemed pretty lost in her own thoughts, and I had a more than a couple guesses at what occupied her mind. The dark haired woman was looking slightly better since that night, and I was glad for that.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. I shouldn't be so concerned about Regina's well-being. She's a grown woman, she can take care of herself. Against my will, my mind flitted briefly to all the times I had stepped in to stop something or someone from hurting Regina. I furrowed my brow for the umpteenth time. Later, I told myself, Think about this later.

Hook was at the helm of the ship, occasionally checking the map and adjusting the wooden wheel as needed. He wasn't such a bad guy, really.. Well, once you got past the constant drinking... the crude innuendos... the apparent lack of good hygiene... continual self-serving motives...

Mary Margaret and David- I mean, Snow and- well... Mom and Dad? I shuddered. It was weird having parents that were the same age as you. Having parents at all is nice, it was comforting when we thought we were going to die in the mine, it's just.. They're a little late and a little young. I sighed. They do try though. Anyhow, they were at the front of the ship, and from the looks of it, were having a rather heated conversation. I wonder what that's about.. Note to self: Ask after this stupid candle is lit.

Gold was nowhere to be seen, having retreated to his cabin below moments after we had landed in the foreign waters. He had sarcastically told Hook that he trusted the pirate could get us where we needed before descending into the belly of the ship. Mary Margaret kept leaving dishes of food for him outside the door, which always returned empty, so obviously he was still alive in there. I had seen how he and Belle had said goodbye, like it was a forever goodbye, not a "see you in three weeks" goodbye. I couldn't imagine how he felt, knowing he might never see someone he loved again, especially right after losing-

I choked at my own thought. Neal.. In the turmoil of the portal drop and trying to figure out how the ship worked and the lack of good sleep, I had almost forgotten my heartbreak over losing him yet again. I buried my face in my hands as tears pricked at my eyes. I felt sick. I kept seeing his face, scared as he dangled over that portal. I remembered how he loosened his grip on my hand, how I had clung to him harder but still couldn't on... I wrapped my arms around my waist and tried to go through the breathing exercises that Regina had led me through the other night.

Someone said my name. I couldn't tell who it was over my swirling thoughts. A hand landed on my shoulder, and I jerked away, gasping and finally coming back to my senses. Mary Margaret stood with her hand outstretched towards me, David standing not too far behind her, worry etched on both of their faces.

"Emma?" Mary Margaret began, "Are you alright?"

I swallowed hard and nodded, "Y-yeah.. Just thinking. About-"

"About Neal?" she offered, her worry easing into compassion. I nodded once more, and she started to say something, but I interrupted.

"Look, I'm.. I'm just gonna go lie down for a bit."

"Don't you want to talk about it?" Her hand slid down my arm and tried to take my hand, but I pulled away. She withdrew it, visibly hurt.

A wave of guilt washed over me, but I was hurting too. I needed my time. I shook my head to her question and made my way down to the cabin I shared with Regina. Slowly, I climbed into my top bunk and curled up on the thin mattress, trying to ignore how claustrophobic the small space made me feel. I heard some footsteps, and the door opened. Suddenly I was irked that Mary Margaret would try to force me to talk by following me down. "Can you just leave me alone? I don't want to talk about it, okay?" I snapped to her over my shoulder.

"I didn't come to talk about that," Regina's voice wasn't as hard as it had been earlier.

I rolled over onto my side and looked at her, but the apology I was about to give stuck in my throat. I couldn't read her expression, but it was a new one. She stepped over to the edge of my bunk, her lips pursed. We were nearly eye to eye, her standing and me laying down.

"You lit the candle," she said quietly.

I scoffed. "Well at least the magic actually did something this time, instead of being crazy like last time."

The corner of her mouth twitched, "It wasn't crazy. Merely undirected, Miss Swan."

"Seemed pretty directed with yours..." I mumbled, before my eyes widened as I realized what I said.

Regina's eyebrow quirked, "You felt that?"

"What, you didn't? You were the one doing it," I countered somewhat harshly.

The muscles in her jaw flexed, and I could see her walls come back up as she stepped back from my bunk and slid into her own beneath me. I sighed and rolled onto my back, immediately regretting my tone.

I don't know how long we had both laid there before my mouth betrayed me. "It was nice."

"What was, dear?" The annoyance in her voice was clear.

I bit my lip, unsure of what I was exactly trying to say, "I mean.. using magic. With you. Together. It was nice. It was..." I trailed off. I don't know where I'm going with this. My mouth had a mind of its own.

"It was.." she agreed with me quietly, and I almost fell out of my bunk. Regina Freakin' Mills agreed with me? "It has been some time since I have been able to use magic with someone that has nearly the same capacity for it as I do. Aside from-" Her voice faltered, and I knew she meant her mother. She was silent for a few minutes, but I knew her. She was turning inward, much like I did not thirty minutes previous. On a whim, I turned over onto my stomach and let my arm dangle over the edge of the bunk, my hand hanging down in the space between our bunks.

Several more minutes passed before I felt it. My hand started tingling as my magic fought to escape me. The sensation was still weird to me, but I tried to relax and let it flow. I smiled into my pillow as I felt those now familiar purple tendrils mingling with my blue ones. Our hands weren't touching this time, but our magic was. It was comforting, almost as good as my baby blanket.

"Tell me more about magic," I blurted suddenly. Regina's magic faltered in its caress of my own but recovered quickly.

"Well," she began slowly, "Magic, as I've said, is ruled by emotion. Certain types are more driven by different emotions. Attack magic is fueled mostly by anger; defense magic more by fear. Healing magic is finicky, mostly requiring a great deal of need to work instead of an emotion."

I listened closely as she talked, her knowledge conveyed to me in the rich tones of her voice. This was something she had studied extensively, I knew, but hearing her talk about it cemented the thought in my mind. I could almost see a younger Regina poring over magical textbooks. One thought led to another, and suddenly I was snickering to myself wondering which Hogwarts house she would've been sorted into..

Our magic was still intertwining with itself, over and over. Biting my lip as I concentrated, I tried to press my own blue tendrils more fully into hers.

"Yes, Miss Swan?"

I flushed as I realized she felt it as much as I did. I cleared my throat and asked, "What kind of magic is ours? When it's like this, I mean. It's not really.. It's not attacking or defending.. So what is it?"

Regina was silent in her bunk below, so I continued. "I don't think it's healing magic, even though maybe we both have emotional wounds, because the magic only works on physical wounds, if I understood you.."

"I don't know what it is," she told me flatly, retracting her magic from me. "I've never experienced it before."

I sighed and pulled my arm up. It was dead from hanging over the edge anyway. This is ridiculous. It's starting to look like a pattern. I would get emotional, we would share magic, I would talk about what it is, she would clam up. Whatever this was had to stop. Maybe no more talking about it... Whatever "it" was. Time to buck up, Swan. Not feeling anything is an attractive option when what you feel sucks, right? Time to not feel so much. Focus.

A faint yell came from above deck, "Land ho!"

I started and swung my legs over the side of the bunk, my stomach lurching as I remembered the mission and Henry. That not-feeling thing was gonna be hard.. Regina was also climbing out of her bunk; by sheer luck, my legs hadn't smashed into her head.

We both made our way up into the rosy light of the sunset, and I squinted at the lump of island looming ahead of us. "That's it?" I yelled to Hook, who still manned the wheel.

"Aye," came the dark reply, "That's Neverland."

AN: I've been convinced to continue writing this, so I'll be changing the story status to "inprogress" and changing the rating to T to give me a little more room to expand on a physical relationship later on. From here on out, it'll be more of a season rewrite. Feel free to leave constructive criticism or opinions. I'm quite open to suggestions.