A/N: Please be mindful of all typical Leo related warnings - this story deals with Regina and Leopold's marriage and the non-consensual nature of it.

There is a very brief mention of Hook and Neal within this, but they are very much past history. This is Regina and Emma feeling out their relationship.

They're kissing, and it's good; kissing is always good for them. They meet in the middle of the Queen's large bedroom, coming together with equal amounts of passion and fervor and need and somehow they always seem to find a very comfortable and easy rhythm when it comes to this particular part of their often turbulent, but still very much wanted and in its own weird kind of way imperfectly perfect relationship. It's soft lips and rough teeth and the complicated but delicate dance-steps that spell out the sensual give and take between these two strong defiant women.

It just works.

What doesn't work nearly as well for them (or at least for Regina), however, is the way Emma forcefully pushes the Queen back down onto the massive mattress, her pink lips sealing against Regina's (that part is fine - more than fine; really, Regina thinks that she could possibly let go of everything in this kiss, in just the sweetness of Emma's soft touch and the raw honesty of it).

What does doesn't work nearly as well is how Emma's strong hands immediately jump up to Regina's wrists, pinning them back and away from the Queen's body; Regina doesn't at all mind being topped by Emma (their relationship defies these terms in their most conventional sense, and though Emma often has the positioning of the dominant partner when they hit the sheets together, Regina has seldom struggled to exert any degree of control over Emma or this little erotic thing of theirs), but being restrained even by someone whom she loves is…problematic.

To say the least.

She tries to push herself through it for Emma (the blonde clearly doesn't mean her any harm, and it seems to her that Emma enjoys being able to hold her down in this manner and isn't being with someone whom you love all about finding compromise) but tonight, Regina can't.

Tonight, her body is weary from fighting off the monsters who never seems to stop coming and her mind is tired from always wondering when they will rush Storybrooke once again, their talons sharp and cruel and their eyes beady and focused only on destruction. So many years ago, she'd been the monster in the shadows, but now everything is different. Now she's a hero.

And she's tired.

Yesterday, she would have just closed her eyes and told herself to focus on the feel of Emma's warm reassuring hands, and the softness of her lips as they traced their way down, and both of those things would have been easy for Regina to do. Today, though, she sees flashes of something behind her eyes every time she closes them.

Tonight, she hears a door closing and hears footsteps approaching, and they're too heavy to be Emma's – Emma doesn't walk softly or gracefully, but she has never walked like that. Tonight, the hands holding her wrists above her head send her back forty-five years and she can't.

She just can't.

"Stop," Regina whispers. And then says it again. Louder, almost frantic. Pleading, even.

Emma ceases her movement and her touches almost immediately, frowning (perhaps no one is as attuned to that word as Emma is, and it makes Regina wonder about all of the things in her lover's background and history that she's never really had the courage to ask her about).

"What's wrong?" Emma asks, her hands still on Regina's wrists, still holding them high above the Queen's very naked body. Emma herself is still positioned over her.

Regina doesn't answer the question, can't for the moment. Instead, she demands of her lover, "Let me go." Her voice is shaking far more than it should - far more than she wants to give it the right to. But the King is in her mind, and so are the other lovers who thought that they could control her (there was another man besides Graham, and he's buried in the forest somewhere, long dead because he'd believed that he could own the Evil Queen). "Emma, let me go!"

The blonde does as ordered to, wrenching backwards in a hurry, her hands rushing up. "What did I do?" Emma asks. She seems suddenly afraid, her eyes wide, and it's a reminder for Regina of all the ways that both of them are so very lost. All the ways that life has made them so.

It's a reminder that none of this is Emma's fault.

Regina breathes in and then out, a hand settled on her bare chest, just above her heart as it pounds away in time with the spike of her anxiety. "Nothing. You did…but we should…we should talk." She scowls at this because she'd promised herself that she wouldn't allow the demons of her past to damage her present and her future, but she of all people knows better.

What is behind you so very often finds a way to get back in front of you again.

"I thought…" Emma looks at her in confusion, the blue-green eyes which had just a few brief moments ago been blown wide with lust and desire for the brunette woman now appearing to be startled and afraid. She asks tentatively, "Did I do something…I don't understand." Then, as if thinking that perhaps she's approaching this all wrong, "Are you all right? Are you hurt?"

"Yes. No. Both," Regina admits, a hand weaving through her dark hair.

"I don't…I'm sorry?" Because surely, it had to have been something she did wrong.

"No. Don't apologize, Emma; this isn't your fault. I'm not upset with you at all. Really, I'm not. This…what just happened, this isn't your problem." She frowns, then huffs in annoyance.

"If it's your problem, it's my problem; that's the whole point of being together, right?"

"Yes, but I promised myself I could get through this, and not make a fool out of myself…"

"Okay, then I really don't – wait, are you breaking up with me?" Emma asks suddenly, her words tumbling gracelessly over each other in her frantic haste. Then, "In the middle of sex?"

Regina makes a face that can only be described as baffled. "What? No. Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm…really trying not to be? But we're both kind of extremely naked and -"

"The King."

"What?"

"Your hands."

"What?"

"You were restraining me," Regina says, her words sounding exasperated, but also vulnerable. She reaches for a bathrobe and pulls it on, waiting until Emma follows her lead and reaches for the blue button-up shirt that she'd been wearing when she'd arrived. "Not that. A robe."

"I am so confused."

"I'm quite fond of that shirt on you, Emma; if you put it on, I'll want to take it right back off -" she chuckles to herself, a smile overcoming her lips. She sighs. "And…we need to talk."

"Okay," Emma says and finds a second robe; it's a poor fit to her style and she feels rather silly wearing flowing gray silk instead of her typical terrycloth, but there are bigger issues here. She reluctantly pulls the robe closed and then looks up. "What did I do?" she asks again then.

"You did nothing," Regina replies. "Intentionally, anyway."

"You said the King?" Emma prompts.

Regina nods slowly as she sits back down on the bed they've been sharing. She looks back up at the anxious blonde and then pats the spot next to her, and waits for Emma to join her. After a hesitant beat, the sheriff settles next to her, still unsure what she is allowed to do. But then Regina's hand is snaking out and taking hers and Emma finds herself sighing loudly in relief.

"I love you more than I think you can even begin to imagine as being possible," Regina tells her as she turns to face Emma, her unoccupied hand reaching up to lightly caress the younger woman's soft cheek. "I only start with that because I need you to understand that none of what is going on in my head is your fault. I need you to know that what we have - inside and outside of this room - means everything to me. Being with you, having this family, it has helped me to find myself. You have have helped me to see that I could be something more than I believed."

"Regina -"

"Please?"

Emma nods, her own hand lifting up to cover the one of Regina's on her face.

"You know that my marriage to the King was...unwanted."

"I know you were married to him against your will," Emma confirms.

"I was stupid," Regina states. "I had planned on running away -" she laughs humorlessly. "I actually believed at the time that I could get away from a King with a particularly malicious possessive streak. Of course, at the time of my planning, I didn't know that. I had planned to run away, and Rumple talked me into going back. But that was me, Emma; I thought if I could just learn enough magic, I could bring Daniel back and then he and I could hide away together and live happily ever after. By the time I not only realized but truly understood and accepted that that was never going to happen, I'd already had two miscarriages." Her eyes lift to Emma's.

"You did what you had to do," Emma tells her, her voice kind and gentle. "So if you think I'm going to hold you trying to survive against you, well then that'd make me a huge hypocrite."

"I know, and your willingness to look beneath the surface and to not case judgment freely has always been one of the things I have adored about you the most," Regina says. "But, it's hard...in the Enchanted Forest, no one asked me why I was unhappy; I was wealthy beyond words, cloaked in the finest fabrics in the land and had my every whim catered to. As far as anyone who walked into the castle was concerned, I should have been ridiculously happy."

"Money can't buy me love," Emma murmurs. Then shrugs. "Beatles."

"I am aware of them," Regina chuckles. Then, "I believed that I could learn to live with it. I told myself that I could…survive. There was even a time when I told myself that I just needed to try harder - to give him more of what he wanted - in order to make him happy. I thought if I made him happy, then he would learn to love me. And maybe...maybe that would be enough."

"It seldom is.

"Try never. The truth is, I was only a wife to him because it entitled him to my body. And because he had decided that I would be a good mother." She swallows. "Early on, it wasn't so bad. He was careless and rough, but not cruel. After my third miscarriage, that changed. I made the mistake of protesting once and -" she lets out a weary sigh, frowning like she thinks even relaying this story makes her weak. "He put me back into my place. And then continued to do so. More and more as we went along, he reminded me of what he saw me as. His whore."

She can practically hear Emma's jaw grinding.

"Then he started holding my wrists over me to stop me from getting away from him."

Emma reacts with expected horror, moving back and away. "I'm sorry. I -"

"Emma, no, stop," she says, lifting her other hand up and placing it on Emma's other cheek, preventing her lover from running away from her. "Stop feeling angry about letting me down and just listen to me, my dear; I'm not telling you all of this because I want you to be furious on my behalf; I'm telling you because there's nothing I enjoy more than making love to you, and I don't want to ever see his face when you're kissing me. I don't want him to ever be in our bed."

"I know," Emma tells her.

"You know...what?"

"What you're talking about. The restraining..." she clears her throat.

"Neal?" Regina asks, disbelief peppering her tone. He just hadn't seemed the type to her.

"No, never. And not really Hook, either. He was a lot of bluster, but never really dominance. It was...someone I dated after I got out of prison. Though dating is probably a generous way of putting it. I met him while I was tending bar at a really seedy club and it was pretty much just rough sex. I guess the one thing he taught me was how to force power otherwise I'd be completely without it."

"He hurt you?"

"Yeah. A time or two before I got smart and realized that was the game between us. Then, I learned how to do it back. And he liked it. Encouraged it." She looks at her hands. "You and me, we're both so goddamned screwed up, Regina. I used sex as a way to feel something and you -"

"Used sex as a way to get control back after it had been used against me in order to take it away from me. We're the same and we're different, Emma. But this...this is good for us."

"Is it?"

Regina smiles softly. "I believe this is what adults in a committed relationship which they very much hope to never walk away from do: they talk out their issues and they establish their boundaries. We both have so many, but...Emma, what do you enjoy? Is restraining me -"

"No, not really. It's just something I do," Emma tells. "I didn't even think about it." She frowns at that. "Which kind of makes me really awful, doesn't it? It never even crossed my mind."

"You're not awful. You didn't know. But now you do. Can you try…not to do that?"

"Of course." She leans in then and kisses Regina, a plea for forgiveness there as well as a promise. But then Regina is pushing her back, her hand splayed out lightly on her chest.

"I'm not delicate," she promises. "And I don't mind rough. If you want to take me up against that wall or over the desk in my office, I'm not going to complain, but I need you to -"

"Not restrain you."

"Yes. I have no desire to get away from you, but let me if I need to."

"What did you see tonight?" Emma asks. "When you were on the bed?"

"Him. Above me. And like I said, he's the last person I ever want to see."

"Why? Why tonight?"

"It's been a long few weeks fighting off those Mid-World goons; exhaustion tends to make my mind wander and there were footsteps and then your hands and…I wish I could get him out of my head forever, but I don't think that that will ever completely happen. But you –"

"I can do better."

"You didn't do anything wrong," Regina assures her again. "Just be aware of the things that I can't do," Her fingers tap against Emma's cheek. "Watch me carefully as you always have."

"I can do that."

"And tell me what you don't like."

"What?"

"Every time you have held me down, I convinced myself that this was something you liked and I made myself push through it for you. Because I want you to be as happy as you make me." She holds up her hand to stop Emma from protesting. "Old habits break hard. For both of us. You and I have just wanted to be...wanted and loved. Doing whatever we need to in order to -"

"Get those things, yeah; I get it," Emma sighs. "You'd be surprised, though: I don't really have many off-buttons – nothing that's a severe trigger, anyway. I had to learn to get rid of them to survive." She looks down and away, her face shading red with the shame of her admission. But then her chin is being lifted up and Regina is staring right back at her, her dark eyes intense.

"Like you said before, we do what we have to do and just as you would have been a hypocrite to judge me, so would I be. And I won't be that. Ever. Don't ever be ashamed of admitting that you survived to me," She runs her thumb past Emma's lips. "I don't care what you've done in your past to get to here, I only care that you're who you are. And you see me as who I am."

"My favorite Mayor," Emma teases.

"Yes," Regina chuckles and then leans in and kisses Emma again, this one a bit less chaste and far needier; the conversation isn't over yet, though, and so Regina pulls away again. "It's taken me a very long time to understand that I am not to blame for what my mother or the King did to me. I am to blame for the choices that I made afterwards, but not for him. But that doesn't mean that I am able to just erase the memories I have of him. I would do anything for you -"

"I don't want that."

"I know. Which is why I'm telling you something I could never have told anyone else. Something I would have been afraid to tell others. Because I trust you more than I've ever trusted anyone else." She blinks several times, trying to brush back the tears that are forming on her eyelashes.

But then Emma's fingers are rising, and she's the one brushing them away.

"Are you okay with me...on top?"

"Oh, yes," Regina chuckles then, her sadness replaced with mirth. "And if you want to hold my hands, I have no issue with that. Just...don't try to remove me from being able to use them."

"I won't," Emma assures her.

"Good." She leans in and kisses Emma gently once again. She allows for a second and third kiss, and then whispers, "And if there is ever a time when something is simply too much for you -"

"I'll tell you."

"Promise me," Regina presses.

"I promise." Her head tilts again. "Are you up for this still?" She motions back to the bed.

"Not as much as I was. What I'd really like -"

"Animated movie or summer blow-shit-up film?"

Regina laughs, deep and throaty. "I was wrong about what I said before."

"You were?" Emma asks, her brow furrowing.

"Yes. I said that there's nothing I enjoy more than making love to you, and while that's definitely in my top two, I think that perhaps it has to come behind laughing with you."

"The Emperor's New Groove, it is," Emma answers with a wide grin that masks the urgent need she has to do something really embarrassing. Like maybe cry or hug Regina as hard as she can.

She starts to step away, but then Regina is pulling her back by the hand and without any kind of real hesitation or preamble, they're kissing again and good Lord, yes, this is truly perfect.
"Thank you," Regina murmurs, their lips still lightly touching.

"Thank you for trusting me."

Regina lifts Emma's hand to her lips and kisses her knuckles; Emma sighs.

And then Regina says, "Now go put the movie on. I'll make the popcorn."

"Whatever my Queen desires."

"I do like the sound of that."

Emma wiggles her eyebrows, steals one more kiss and then exits the room.

Leaving Regina to sigh in relief.

Her eyes drop down to her wrists, and she finds herself rubbing at them.

Until her chin lifts and she announces to the room - to the ghosts in her mind - "I'm done with you. You've owned too much of me for too long." She knows it will never be so easy – as she'd said to Emma, she will never be truly free of the ghosts of her dead husband, but this is a start. She thinks scathingly of a selfish old man who had used a young girl as a play-toy, and then thinks lovingly of the beautiful woman downstairs - Leopold's granddaughter in blood only.

A woman who is bent and damaged in her own ways, but never broken.

Regina looks in the mirror and sees the same description looking back at her.

She drops her hands to her side, and then walks out of her room.

Refusing to see this night as anything less than a win over the ghost of him.

-Fin