I Need You to Promise Me Something

"Emma?" Regina's voice echoed throughout the dim, empty building that resided on the edge of Storybrooke. "I know you're here. I did a locator spell."

She cast the locator spell about an hour ago and left immediately when she got the results. She did not even tell anyone. Reporting her whereabouts to Charming or Snow had not even crossed her mind as she grabbed her coat and walked out of her office in search of Emma.

"You know I'm not leaving, so you may as well come out." For a slim second Regina actually wondered if she was talking to no one. After all, Emma could have easily left the abandoned factory in the time it took her to drive there. So for the time being Regina hoped she was actually talking to a person and not just an empty room.

After spending a few minutes standing there in the middle of the large room Regina was about to start looking around when she saw something out of the corner of her eye.

"What are you doing here, Regina?"

The reformed Evil Queen acted instinctively to the voice by spinning on the balls of her feet to see the new face in the room.

Emma did not look good.

Her hair was a mess from the humidity and the probable fact that she had not brushed it in days. Her clothes were tattered and her eyes—well they were black.

Regina took a slight step closer to her friend. "I'm here to help you."

She shook her head once. "You can't help me."

Her voice was not the same. It had the same ring that it always had but the way she spoke—it was like everything word she said had an evil underlying meaning to it. Regina tried not to read too much into it and told herself it was probably nothing.

"You don't believe that." Even though Emma was intentionally trying to avoid her gaze, Regina did not refrain from trying to make eye contact. She thought that if Emma could just look at her…well maybe it could help. "If you did, you wouldn't be talking to me right now."

Emma was silent for a few moments before sighing and finally lifting her gaze. When their eyes connected Regina had to refrain from showing how startled she was. Emma looked positively evil and it was initially shocking. "You shouldn't be here."

"And yet I am." Regina shrugged. "Emma…" She proceeded forward with caution. "You need you to come back to us. You need to fight this for us. For everyone. For Henry…and for me."

Emma realized Regina was getting closer and began to step back. She wrapped her arms around herself and looked at the ground to avoid Regina's gaze once again. "I can't. You don't understand."

Regina froze at her friend's sudden initiative to step back with every step forward she took. "You're right, I don't. But I know you. You're not the kind of person who backs down from a fight. And this is a fight."

Emma said nothing. She just stood there with her back turned to Regina, crouching ever so slightly. She actually stayed silent for so long that Regina began to get worried.

She warily started to approach once more. "Emma?"

Regina half expected her to run away and was surprised when her friend actually allowed her to approach. As she came up from behind, Regina noticed that Emma's hands had moved from around her waist to either side of her head.

When she closed the last few feet that stood between her and Emma, Regina noticed that it was no longer silent.

Emma was actually muttering the same sentence over and over in a nearly silent tone. Regina would not even have heard it if she were not so close to Emma. "It hurts."

"What hurts?" A comforting hand went to her friend's shoulder.

That was an action she came to regret when Emma reacted to the feel of her friends hand by snapping her head towards Regina. Her expression was malicious as she spat, "I said I can't fight it!"

Regina was immediately hit with a wind of magic and thrown across the room until she hit the far wall. From there she fell to the ground and had an initial loss of breath from the experience.

She did not give up though.

Almost as soon as she hit the ground, Regina pulled herself onto her knees and got up once again. This time she leaned on the wall for support as she stood and looked at Emma.

Regina was expecting her to attack again but instead she was crouched over cradling her head like before. "Oh god," she muttered loud enough for Regina to hear. "I feel like my head is going to explode."

The former Evil Queen decided to play the same hand and try approaching once more. "Emma, talk to me. What's wrong?

"You can't help me," she whimpered through a constant groan of pain. "I'm the Dark One now, you shouldn't be here."

Regina did not listen. She simply continued walking towards the woman that was in agonizing pain. "Didn't you hear me?" Emma's head snapped up again and her eyes caught Regina's in their dark pool of blackness. "Go!"

Regina froze. She was expecting Emma to hit her again but instead went back to her standing fetal position.

"Emma," Regina coaxed as she approached closer. "Emma, look at me."

Then she was standing right in front of the woman who had become the new Dark One only last week. She was standing in front of the woman who blew up an empty cabin at the edge of the woods only days before, just for the fun of it. She was standing in front a dear friend that she was slowly losing to the Dark One's spirit as days went by.

"Emma," she said one final time as the two of them stood right in front of each other.

Regina reached down and took her friend's hands away from her head. She then put her hands where Emma's previously were and lifted her head so that their gazes could meet.

"The Dark One is always there, Regina. It pushes at my head and I can only hold it back so much of the time…It always manages to break through."

The poor former Evil Queen did not know what to say. She saw the pain and innocence in her companion's eyes and tone and knew there was nothing she could do to take it away. She was useless and unable to help—it felt awful.

"I'm going to find a way to get it out of you. I promise." When she realized that she had tightened her grip on Emma's head, she dropped her hands so that they cupped her face.

" I need you to promise me something." Emma let out a shaky breath and her friend could see that she was holding back tears. When Regina's eyebrows raised as if asking what she needed to promise, Emma continued. "You can't let me hurt anyone."

"I won't." She said certainly.

"If I do…"

Regina shook her head. "It won't come to that. I won't let it."

"But if I do, I want you to stop me—whatever it takes."

"Emma, I can't—"

"Regina, please…"

It was silent for a moment. Regina was weighing her options in her head but eventually had to give an answer. "Alright," she sighed. "But I need you to fight for me. I need you to be the strong and stubborn person I've known you to be and fight this for me, until I can cure you."

"I promise."

And in that moment, Regina did not know what she was thinking. She did not know what she was doing as she gently leaned in and closed the distance between her and this woman she had grown so close to.

As their lips touched Regina felt for the shortest of seconds like all of her problems might just fade away.

But then it was done. The two of them had pulled apart and when Regina opened her eyes, Emma had disappeared.

She once again felt alone as she stood in the dim and seemingly empty room.

A/N- Thank you so much for reading. I know how we're all on hiatus after the season finale but that mostly had to do with Captain Swan and who actually ships that, am I right? What am I doing? No one even reads the authors note. Well if you did end up reading this thing I am honestly very sorry. Have an awesome day. -Saraphine