Title: Underground
Fandom: Once Upon a Time
Pairing: Swan Queen (Emma Swan/Regina Mills) but mainly Emma.
Spoilers/Warnings: Perhaps. Short fics/drabbles with various OUAT pairings, based on List Beta/Hero from '30 kisses' prompts on LJ.
Summary: Sometimes fever-induced delirium can prey on your deepest fears.
Disclaimer: This is purely fictional. I own none of it.

[…]

A/N: This just might be the craziest thing I've ever written. And I've edited and toned it down a bit; it was even crazier when I first wrote it. You'll maybe find it easier to understand if you dream a lot (I do, a lot. 70% of people around me irl don't dream at all. Hopefully you're not one of them). There's this state when you're dreaming and you know you're dreaming, you're even aware of your bed and other things around you, but the dream still goes on, without you being able to control it. It's called lucid dreaming, I'm told. And then there's the rapid-fire change of scenes in dreams. This fic takes its cue somewhat from that. There is also the fact that fevers higher than 105 degrees can lead to seizures and delirium, even hallucinations. This is an exaggerated version of scientific facts, I admit. Now I'll end the long, torturous, pointless A/N and let you read. Feedback would be appreciated.

Title from the prompt.

Swan Queen, mainly Emma: underground

There were voices which were floating and beating in her ears like a drumbeat. Something inside her was on fire and she shivered as something else wrapped tight around her body. Was it blankets? The voices merged into one, a hundred shades to it, slow, far off.

"Are you okay, baby?" Concerned. "Oh, God, Emma! What's wrong?" Worried.

Hands over her forehead. Cold. She shivered. Rushing feet and the beeping of a dial tone. She closed her eyes.

…

And Emma was back underground in the mine's air shaft, only it was much darker than before. She looked up but she could not see the little square of light which should have been there, where the other end of the rope attached to her harness seemed to disappear. She looked down but all was darkness. She was looking for something but she wasn't sure what it had been. The rope was suddenly, abruptly slackened and she found herself free-falling. Terror gripped at her heart, and she closed her eyes tightly and screamed.

…

There was wailing in the distance, and pulsating red lights. She was grabbed, picked up, moved, bumped, jostled. Feet rushing along, voices.

"I just came home and found her like this." Panicked. "She was fine in the morning, just a little fever."

Another bump, metal scraping over metal, and then sudden stillness and then the revving of an engine.

"Step on it, she's burning up!" Urgent, hard.

A mask over her face, and a blurry, tear-stained face bent over her. She closed her eyes.

…

When she opened them again, Emma was back in the air shaft and the walls were trembling and falling apart. There were sounds of distant explosions, and sirens. They were bringing the mines down, Emma remembered. Someone was stuck down there and she had to get to them, but they should've stopped the explosions by now. They were making things worse. The walls were falling down all around her, all over her. Had they forgotten she was down here? A sudden surge of panic made her pull hard on the rope, trying to somehow communicate, to remind them that she was down here. But the rope was taut and she was suspended at the end, turning round and round, hanging there as the walls fell apart around her, spinning until she was dizzy and disoriented, her eyes closing.

…

A rush of air on her face and more jostling, rougher, faster this time. Steady thumps of too many feet rushing beside her as she floated on a gurney, and the pressure of a hand in hers.

"Twenty-nine year old female, high grade fever caused by infection, delirious and non-responsive." Efficient.

"Is she going to be okay?" Breathless, afraid.

"We can't say anything right now, Madam Mayor." Careful, detached.

A flash of white, sterile walls and cold, rough sheets. She closed her eyes.

…

She came to with a jerk, and Emma was back in the air shaft, and Archie was hanging by his umbrella to the steel clamp attached to the belt of her harness, but there was something wrong and Emma was screaming. And someone else was screaming down below, and someone was screaming up above.

The screams from down below grew smaller and smaller until they couldn't be heard at all, the screams from up above grew in intensity and violence as they were pulled above jerkily until she was face to face with the mayor who was clutching her shoulders hard enough to leave bruises, shaking her hard, screaming at her because where was her son, and someone was crying, sobbing, huge wrecking sobs, and Emma realized it was her, and she could not breathe and the world spun around her in garish Technicolor. She tried to hold onto Regina's hand, but Regina pushed her away. A dizzying blankness overcame her.

…

Voices, too many voices. She shivered and shivered, her heart beating hard, painfully hard.

"The anti-pyretics are taking too long, we need to bring her temperature down immediately!" Urgent.

"Prepare the tub, we need to soak her in ice water!" Commanding.

And then she felt it, an instant, wrenching pain in her chest, a silent sob in her throat.

"She's crashing!" Loud. "Get a cart in here!"

"What's happening to her?" Screaming, brittle.

"Get her out of here!" Urgent. "Push an epi, fast. Paddles, charge to fifty."

There was a jolt and a flash. She felt nothing. Someone was screaming no.

"No pulse."

"Again. Charge to a hundred."

…

The black curtain lifted, Emma opened her eyes and she was back in the air shaft again, and she looked up to see the bright square of light and Henry looking down at him. She waved at him but he didn't smile, and Emma felt a cold fear grip her heart. She told him to pull her up but he shook his head sadly. And then Graham looked down at her from beside Henry. He shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry," they said. "I'm sorry," and then they let her go and Emma was falling, falling down into the dark. Emma was falling and screaming, and darkness gathered around her, sinking into her, plucking at her flesh with cold fingers.

…

"Let me see her!" Screaming, scared, panicked.

"Charge again." Controlled.

Another jolt. Wild, staccato beeps.

"I see sinus rhythm." Relieved. "We have a pulse."

"Emma!"

"Her heart is fine for now, but we need to lower the temperature."

"But she's going to be okay?" Relieved, afraid, hopeful.

"Hopefully. If we can bring her temperature down." Reassuring.

Shivering and a stiff, aching soreness in her chest. Hands lifting her, moving her. She closed her eyes.

…

When the dark cleared, Emma was back in the air shaft, being lowered down, and the lower she went, the darker it got, until the darkness hung around her in thick, opaque sheets, but she couldn't stop. She had to go on. She had to find something. Someone. Her feet hit solid ground with a thump that resonated in her whole body, and she let go of the harness, and she ran. She was the savior, the hero. She was here to conquer the darkness. She saw a dark shadow of something wavering in a corner ahead in her path, but by the time she reached it, it had run off around other corners. Rats scurried around in the shafts and crannies, she could hear them.

She ran and she turned corners. They wouldn't end! And then in one of the deepest, darkest mines Emma found her. "You have to come," she told the dark-haired woman shrouded in shadows, "because I came for you." But the shadow shrank back into the corner, and when Emma picked Regina up, she was light as a feather, light as a shadow in her arms. And Emma ran, and she ran hard, but the shadows crept up on them. They slid over Emma like slime, like oil, and clung to Regina, wrapping themselves around her. And Regina screamed at her but Emma wouldn't let her go. Shadows gathered and gathered and covered both of them, wrapping them in ice cold darkness, and Emma screamed.

…

They poured water over her. It was so cold, it burned. She shivered. Tried to go down to get away from it. Hands held her tightly, keeping her face out of the water. The whole mass was heavy on her skin, her waterlogged robe weighing her down. Cold, ice cold, freezing, numbing cold. Cold, hard hands. Until one gently tucked hair behind her ear.

"It's okay, it's going to be okay." Soft.

She shivered and closed her eyes.

…

When Emma opened her eyes, she was back in the air shaft, but she was not in the harness. She panicked but then she realized she was being held in strong arms wrapped securely around her. She looked up and found herself staring into Regina's dark eyes. Explosions shook the walls around them, but they were moving steadily upwards, towards the little square of bright light. Henry looked down at them and waved. Emma closed her eyes wearily and rested her head against Regina's shoulder, too tired to do anything else. Slowly, steadily the rope was taking them upwards. Emma didn't ever want to open her eyes again, scared that if she did, she would be back in the air shaft below with some other twisted version of her nightmare. Slowly blackness overtook her.

[...]

This time when Emma opened her eyes, she was lying flat on a soft surface and someone was shining bright yellow laser beams into her eyes. She cringed, trying to fight them back.

"Ah," said a nasal voice. "She's up, Madam Mayor." Dr. Whale.

"Thank heavens!" Regina. A rush of air. A cool-fingered hand on her cheek. An impossibly soft whisper.

"Emma."

She felt a sob choking her from the inside, making her tremble from head to toe, a scream rising up from somewhere deep, fighting to be let out of her throat. Emma clamped her jaw tightly shut, as her body convulsed from the effort of keeping it all in, the realization of being free from the nightmare too overwhelming. She felt strong arms wrap around her, gathering her in.

"Hush," said Regina in her ear. "It's all right. You're better now. I'm here. It's going to be okay. You're going to be fine."

And that was when Emma finally let go, let herself go fluid in those arms, secure in the knowledge that it really was okay now. Dr. Whale was speaking in big words. She heard 'febrile seizures', 'acute delirium', and 'fever dreams bordering on hallucinations' and then she tuned him out, too tired to concentrate. She turned her attention instead to the arms that held her, the hands that were stroking her hair and her back gently, the lips peppering soft kisses on her forehead. It was easier to almost forget the nightmare, burying her head in the nook between Regina's neck and shoulder, holding onto her with both hands. Almost, but not totally. She shuddered, thinking of the darkness and the terrors under the ground.

"Henry!" she suddenly remembered, sitting bolt upright.

"He's in school. I had to almost carry him there, he wasn't ready to leave your side."

Emma sighed in relief, returning to her previous, comfortable position.

"Thank you."

"Don't," Regina began, but choked a little as her voice grew heavier. "Don't you ever get sick like that on me again, you understand?"

Emma laced one hand through hers, and, bringing it up to her lips, planted a soft kiss on it.

"I'll try, I promise."

~fin~

A/N: So what do you think? Too crazy?

Edit: Any typos (unless glaringly grammatical) are ffnet's which is hell-bent on messing up all my docx. Sorry about that, guys. It won't let me edit!