Thank you for your patience. I'm one of those people that tend to work well over 40 hr. weeks. By brain sometimes is more interested in not thinking than trying to write anything out that makes sense.

Storybrooke, for all the magic and mystics and myth that resided within it, was a mundane runt of a town. It was too small both in spirit and mind to be considered worth saving. Yet, time and time again it had been offered a second chance to show its worth to a world that didn't even know it existed. It was self-important, drowning in its ego and filled to the brink with people who didn't deserve her loyalty. Yet, she was forced in giving it anyway, because that was the rule that had been written long before she had even been born.

And so she stood looking out the window bothered by the fact that nothing outside of it had changed. Cars drove by as they always had, squirrels scurried about on the ground as birds flew overhead, and people went about their business like their lives' routines were not fundamentally altered. There was a distinct lack of evidence that anyone noticed that the air they breathed was created and sustained by their Queen and that their souls rested in the hands of a Darkened Savior.

"You seem distracted, love," Zelena called from her place on the thinly padded bed she'd been forced to sleep on since she'd been locked away by the mighty band of heroes who failed to give merit to the modern justice system consisting of a fair trial. "You don't seem quite yourself. If I'd have to guess, I'd say my dear sister has done something to ruin all your fun. You seem," she errantly waved her right hand about as she searched for the proper words to insult her visitor, "almost human".

"That's not a bad thing," Emma said as she turned from the window. "You should try it some time."

"Oh," Zelena covered her heart with her hands, "and here I thought we were friends, you and I."

"I have no friends," Emma declared. "They never prove their worth."

Zelena hiked her brow. "So we do have something in common. Shall we be besties?" She clapped her hands together excitedly. "Perhaps, I'll be better suited to your current predilections than my dear overindulged sister."

Emma couldn't help but smile at Zelena's manufactured enthusiasm. She knew that Regina's long lost sister had done horrible things, but she couldn't help but liking the winding exploration of Zelena's unfiltered madness. It was refreshing to deal with someone who wasn't trying to pretend life was normal.

"Tell me about Regina's heart," Emma demanded instead of directly responding to her companion's sarcasm. "You wanted it more than you wanted her dead."

Zelena chuckled. "And here I thought that you knew that it's always the heart that matters. My esteem for you, Dark One, is really hitting an all-time low."

Emma felt a flare of anger crash against the back of her mind. Her silent passenger was waking up and it wanted to join the conversation. Despite the vagueness as to what the motivation her alter ego had in wanting to play with the witch, she let it out choosing to sidestep the consequences of losing control. "You're such a privileged child and you don't even know it," it accused..

"You've obviously forgotten," Zelena quickly shifted, instinctually knowing to begin garnering her defenses, "I'm in the looney bin shut off from all human contact."

"And you're alive," It helpfully pointed out. "You always forget to mention that while you're moaning about how absolutely rubbish your life's been in all of its twists and turns."

Zelena raised her brow. "Life is subjective." She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers as if she were mimicking the pretend motions of a cartoon hocus pocus act. "You try living without magic, Your Darkness."

Emma casually walked towards Zelena, their eyes latched onto each other not breaking contact even as Emma invaded Zelena's personal space. "But it's the heart, right," Emma asked as she placed her hand inches from Zelena's chest, "that matters? As long as you still have it then your life remains yours."

Zelena stiffened and her eyes narrowed slightly, but she forced herself not to move. She knew the Dark One well enough to know that any sign of retreat or self-preservation would lessen her worth. "But my heart isn't quite the one you want to control, is it?" She deflected. "I don't really think I'm either of your types."

Emma shrugged. "A heart's a heart. I think I probably should have taken yours sooner-ripped it out the moment you threatened to be the next incompetent destroyer of our world."

"Besides the fact that it doesn't suite your desires," Zelena inched backwards, covering her retreat by flipping her hair away from her face, "I'm sure that beneath your unfortunate bout of amnesia that you are aware that you can't control a witch whose magic is bound. It's like pulling on a string with nothing tethered to the end of it."

"And," Emma added as a memory of a previous experience unfaded from the lives she had lived that were not her own, "if I take your heart now it would kill you."

"As well as my sister's lover's precious little bundle," Zelena looked down at her protruding belly for effect, hoping Emma would find sympathy where the Dark One would not. "Say what you will about Regina, but she never would abandon a child."

The insult was meant to hurt both her and the previous form of the Dark One, Emma knew that. She was more than aware that Zelena had always been watchful-always seeking out the silent pain of those around her so that she could measure and weigh the power it held over her enemies. Though she was a powerful witch, Zelena was not a master of raw power. Her strength was in her ability to slowly strip the defenses of others away.

She could not win in a battle against the Dark One or Emma. They both knew that. Yet, they both also knew that Zelena was using her strongest weapon too soon in their play for dominance. She didn't hold enough knowledge yet to strike out at Emma's insecurities. She didn't understand Emma's tie to Regina, underestimated its value and its strength. She didn't know that Emma held Regina's heart within her chest, and didn't know the power it gave her...or the mercy.

So although the Dark One wished to press its advantage and claim control over the witch, Emma stepped away and let the small victory escape. There was no honor in beating the broken witch. "In the Old Magic," Emma easily retreated back to the original core of curiosities, "two hearts had significance, what was it?"

Not unused to the unpredictable cadence of the Dark One, Zelena let her defeat rest in its death at her feet until she figured out another way to use the flurry of the Dark One's emotions in her favor. "Are you worried about the Charmings?" she wondered. "Are you afraid that your parents will be able to smother out your bad magic with the thing Regina did to them?"

"Afraid?" Emma's left brow peaked. "I have never feared a Charming."

"Perhaps a poor choice of words," Zelena immediately acquiesced. "But my inadequate verbiage aside, that kind of binding cannot be ignored considering your current magical restrictions."

"I have no restrictions," Emma easily admitted yet offered no further explanation.

Zelena's eyes narrowed and she looked into Emma as if she were attempting to look directly through flesh. "You wouldn't have been so bold as to have killed my dear sister, would you have?" She asked without leaving breath for an answer. "That would be the most efficient way to break out of the fetters that control you, but I suspect the bits and pieces that keep you Emma wouldn't allow for that." She edged off of the bed she still sat on. Finally bold enough to challenge the Dark One now that she had been given the ammo to do so. "Tell me, what is it you've done?"

One of the many faults of being an Imp was the tendency she had acquired to brag about her victories. Emma wanted to see Zelena's face after she confessed that she had managed to take the Evil Queen's heart. She wanted to see all the terror that would cross Zelena's face as the weak little witch realized that her power had become absolute.

But, the weaknesses of the Imp were not necessarily her own. Emma had Regina's heart pounding away in her chest, reminding her that there was another kind of power in capturing an enemy with slight of hand instead of an iron fist.

"Tell me what it means to have two hearts," Emma demanded.

Zelena's mind worked at solving the puzzle wrapped inside of Emma's question, but she didn't have enough of its pieces to decipher any meaning. "Old magic," she answered as she waved the entire notion of its significance away. "Not worth doing really since both hearts must be shattered to have two in one body."

"So my parents," Emma wondered, "their hearts are broken?"

"Well," Zelena drew out the word, "not entirely. They have True Love so, there's that and it does help them not die. But broken is broken, dear. There's no returning from that. Honestly, if my inept sibling's magic was any weaker they'd be dead."

"Why can Regina do that kind of magic?" Emma directly asked knowing the answer meant something beyond even her current understanding.

Zelena's eyes shifted to a spot just beyond Emma's right shoulder. She, too, often wondered why Regina had been adept at a magical art that very few even knew had existed. "Because she's given everything though she doesn't deserve it."

"Me and her both have it in us," Emma chose to ignore Zelena's bout of irrational jealousy. "That can't be random coincidence."

"I suppose not," Zelena agreed. "It does make an odd sort of sense that you both would carry a bit of the Old Magic since you're both so annoyingly hard to kill."

"I'm glad to see that you're using your time so wisely," Regina's voice broke into their conversation like she had been a part of it the entire time, and perhaps a part of her had been since she could feel the ebb and flow of emotion as Emma and the Dark One badgered Zelena.

"Well, haven't we been a bad girl." Though her words were meant to goad Regina, Zelena had no real desire to risk a physical altercation and slid back to the safety of her thin mattress. "You don't write. You don't call. You don't bother at all to let me know you've got control of the most powerful Dark One to exist in recent history. You just take all of your toys to play with them in a corner all by yourself."

"I have nothing to say to you," Regina told her sister, her tone intentionally dismissive.

"You don't even want to check on the bundle of joy?" Zelena rubbed her hand across the slight bump of her stomach. "Robin would certainly disapprove."

Emma's heart filled with the cool heat of adrenaline and she felt the wisps of possessiveness float across her consciousness. She had never considered herself to be the type of person to take ownership of another, but she felt the urge to step closer to Regina to claim the other woman and let Zelena know that Regina belonged to no one else.

Regina raised her brow as Emma moved to her side, but decided not to comment on it. Instead, she kept her attention focused on her sister. "Robin may certainly have his opinions, but they no longer concern me."

"What do you mean?" Zelena immediately questioned. "What have you done?"

"She's done nothing," Emma answered on Regina's behalf. "It was my Darkness that he couldn't handle."

"Then he left you?" Zelena pointed to her sister. "Well isn't that truly disappointing. All my machinations and it's you who destroys your own happiness by choosing honor over true love." She gave a faux laugh. "Given everything and always turn it to rubbish."

"Watch yourself," Emma warned. "It is only her mercy that has kept you alive. Do you honestly believe that the Dark One and the Queen couldn't find a way to sustain a growing child without its host?"

"Old Friend," Regina placed a calming hand on Emma's arm. "Don't." It wasn't a demand, although it would have had no meaning if it had been. The dagger could not control a heart that did not live within its power.

But control...power...dominance...whatever word used to describe the loss of being master of one's own fate, even if it no longer applied to the rules of the relationship between The Queen and the Dark One, that did not been it was void between Emma and Regina. They had bound each other in Old Magic, and the meaning of such power and control escaped them both.

And since it was the Old Magic that Emma chose to obey and not a demand for submission, Zelena-ever observant and waiting-noticed. Because the Dark One never obeyed willingly. It always struggled just a bit...hesitated a mere moment before giving into its eternal shackles. But Emma had not hesitated-she had not submitted. She had chosen.

"Forgive me," Zelena offered artificial apologies. "It's easy to forget one's manners while cooped up alone. There's simply no one around to practice them on"

"You're done here." Regina told Emma, and then reached out her hand. "Henry is waiting."

Emma took the offered hand and as soon as Regina felt Emma's skin against her own she removed them from her sibling's presence.

Zelena curiously watched them disappear in a smell of magic that smelled oddly foreign to what she had normally associated to the mixing of Emma and Regina's magic. If she were anyone else, she might dismiss it and just attribute the odd mixture to the adding in of the Dark One's own unique signature. But Zelena didn't outright dismiss anything. If she had then she would have been dead long ago.

"The power of two hearts, eh Dark One?" Zelena asked the empty room. "I guess you never did bother to learn about the power of Souls...pity that."