The intimacy of a home can be taken in an instant, Regina realised. You can build and build upon the memories, upon the foundations of a marriage, but there's no stopping the cascade of horror when it all comes falling apart, reminding you just how fragile your control over everything outside of you really was.

As the numbness overtook her, Regina sat still in her empty bed, motionless and rigid. The bags under her eyes weighed upon her, much like the emptiness in her heart. With faint awareness, dark eyes tracked the movements of her wife of three years undress as she glazed through the room. She tossed yet another one of her leather jackets onto the nearest chair and stripped down until only her plain black boy shorts and white tank top remained. Just a few weeks ago, Regina would have instantly reprimanded her for such carelessness but now a misplaced piece of clothing didn't even rank in how wrong her life had turned. Without so much as a glance at Regina, Emma slipped into the bed with her back facing the mayor, nuzzling into the pillow.

Regina stayed seated for a few minutes. She had felt the shift in their marriage slowly eat away at them. The arguments and fights grew increasingly. The love they felt so strongly when they first met slowly falling away as stubbornness, hurt, anger and malice replaced all that was once good.

God knows Regina tried. She still always tried.

She laid down and inched towards Emma but there was no change in the blonde. Not physically at least.

"Can I hold you?" Regina asked, her desperation and fear seeping through her words but she didn't care. When it came to Emma she had tossed her pride aside long ago.

Since the day she said it was over.

Emma shrugged. "If you like," was the cold dismissive answer.

Regina swallowed but still took the fleeting moments that she could.

She pushed closer and wrapped her arm around the woman she so passionately loved but had no idea how to keep.

They were ending.

She remembered the last argument where she witnessed Emma just shut down and completely forget (or forced herself to forget) that she once loved her wife.

Sheriff Graham and Deputy Swan were having problems with documenting necessary files and paperwork that their jobs required. So naturally, Regina took it upon herself to hire someone who was more than capable in office work.

But Emma took it a little too seriously.

"So you just don't think I'm capable of it, do you?" Emma accused.

Regina stood tall, allowing the secretary she'd hired for the police force cower behind her while Graham tried to shrink himself behind his desk.

"It's not whether I believe in you or not, but whether you are performing as required. It's in your job description, Deputy Swan. I suggest you read it and comply with it."

Regina had tried to keep their professional and personal lives separate but it was far more difficult than she'd expected. Especially when Emma's lack of tenacity in doing her job, in every way required, left her with more slack to cover. As if she didn't have enough of that from the rest of the idiot council members.

"Bullshit," Emma retorted before she went on a tirade consisting of words and sentences that Regina was, sad to say, more than used to hearing already.

Finally, with one hard look and her heart securely locked away, she spoke not as a wife but as a mayor. "If you want to victimize yourself, blame your sordid little past or blame me in your sad attempt to look for excuses to not do your work. I suggest you enter therapy sessions with Doctor Hopper and leave it out of your occupation. It is not my place to make leniencies just because you lack the emotional health to handle it."

The words had their effect. Emma was stunned into silence. Regina had been cruel before in their arguments to the same level as she was now, perhaps more on some really bad days. But something in Emma completely switched off after that.

The two outsiders in the room had managed to extricate themselves out of the line of fire, unnoticed by both women as they stared each other down.

"Well, fine then. It's over. We're done. You don't have to put up with me anymore," Emma spoke, her voice derived or both love or anger, the two extremities Regina had grown so used to over the last year.

Regina let it roll off her back. Threats of leaving weren't uncommon between the two. Not anymore. Regina had said it often enough but Emma's only said it once and the last time she did, Regina pushed herself onto the woman in their conjugal bed and begged panicked whispers for her to stay. Emma did. She thought things might improve after that but they only got worse.

That night when Emma came home from work, something was different. Usually, after a fight, she came after Regina to apologize but instead, she left it alone. Regina tried to reach out to her and ask what was going on but Emma just waved it off. In her anger she raised her voice, demanding why Emma wouldn't try to just talk to her when she'd always tried to give her the same respect. Emma turned and glared at her. The next words that fell from Emma's lips spread through her like poison. But it didn't hurt. It didn't burn. It just ate. Ate away at everything in her being until there was nothing left but the shell of skin and bones while her soul rotted away.

"Why should I? We broke up remember?"

That was two weeks ago.

Regina had tried everything. Begging, pleading, shouting, loving, holding, caressing. But the more she tried, the colder Emma became. It was almost like all the love she felt for Regina once, was just tossed aside in the blink of an eye, carried away on a passing breeze.

So she knew.

She knew everything was changing, but like a child clinging on to the fantasy of Santa being real, she held on to Emma, hoping all the love she poured into her arms would make her want to stay again.

Three more weeks passed.

Emma wanted to move back to Boston but things were complicated. Henry's well being had to be put first. Arrangements had to be made. Legalities had to be sorted.

Divorce papers had to be signed.

The night before Emma's chosen date to leave, Regina, worn down to the point of insanity (and she did go insane for a little bit there), curled herself into sheets next to Emma who surprisingly still shared the same bed with her.

She was allowing the emptiness to fill her for a few minutes. It was as if her heart had taken too much and said 'no, I need a break here now' and just bolted itself locked completely. Regina no longer felt, no longer breathed, no longer thought. Her body went on, but everything else that made her human fled from the daily onslaught of pain.

In a flash, Emma rolled onto Regina's body, letting her weight fall into her. Regina should have been happy. Been glad for this last voluntary show of affection (was that what it was?) but she didn't really feel anything. Her mind and heart had taken too much. But she loved Emma, she knew that. Somewhere inside the barren wasteland of her senses, she knew Emma was still someone she would fight heaven and hell for.

So she tried to be strong.

She raised her arms and held Emma but there was no desire there. Not even love. She had already wasted all her emotions.

So it was just… one last small act of comfort for the woman who was leaving her.

Then Regina felt something. A small gasp in Emma's voice as her body pushed deeper into Regina. Regina knew that movement well.

With a numb emptiness, she did the only thing she knew how to do where she was able to completely give to another. Emotions were one thing, but the physical was always easy for Regina. So she began kissing Emma's neck and Emma responded immediately.

Their lovemaking was disconnected, unfeeling. One just laid there and let her body be filled by a woman she couldn't stand, for all Regina knew, and the other was just offering her last act of services as a wife.

When Emma finally came on her palms and fingers, she felt her wife (ex… ex wife) grasp at her and pull her close. But it wasn't the same. Not anymore. The feeling of surrender Emma once showed when she allowed Regina to make love to her was gone.

She might as well have fucked a stranger.

Regina, in her exhaustion, fell on top of Emma, breathing heavily as her heart stilled. She tried to collect herself when she felt Emma's hands fall on both her shoulders. She looked up, confused. The way her hands were there, the way Emma's face contorted with something that looked like pleasure and… greed. Regina knew that face well. She read the need on her hardened jaw, her taut lips, her narrowed eyebrows, the tension in her palms that touched her shoulder blades and knew exactly what Emma wanted.

It was something Emma hadn't allowed her to do for over two years. Not since… well, that was a long time ago.

Regina just looked at her pleadingly. But whether she was pleading for a 'yes' or a 'no' she had no clue. Without thinking, she whispered: "Would you… would you like me to go down on you…?"

It was a few seconds before Emma hissed out a yes and nodded with her eyes shut tight. Like she was trying to block out everything while taking all at once. Regina moved slowly, her lips twitching as she moved down familiar muscles and skin.

If she would be allowed her taste one last time, just one last time before it was all over, she would take it. Kissing her as vigorously as she could, she came down Emma's waistband and roughly pulled off her undies and pants. Once the garments were tossed aside, she dove her head between Emma's legs.

But the second her mouth fell on Emma's clit and her tongue pushed between folds to absorb a taste long forgotten, Regina immediately wanted to stop. But Emma's insistencies kept her going.

"God… don't stop… keep licking…."

So Regina licked.

I'm going to throw up…

"Keep… licking…."

Her speed increased.

Make it stop… please make it stop…

"Please… don't stop…"

Regina sucked harder, her fingers entering Emma once more, and thrusted with force. She wanted her to come quickly. She wanted this to be over with. Her body fulfilled and obeyed the needs of her insistent lover but everything else hid away in the depths of her conscious.

Not like this… never like this… was her last thought before Emma gripped at her head and forced her down further.

No...

When Emma came into her mouth, filling her tongue with a flavour she refused her senses to comprehend, she crept up the bed, ignoring Emma's satisfied look as she crawled into a fetal position, facing away from Emma.

"What's wrong?" Emma asked. Again the voice of a stranger. No love, no concern. Just… nothing…

"Nothing…" Regina whispered, forcing her heart to shut away from the truth of what she felt. Something so intimate, so pure, so beautiful… it shouldn't have been like this. This wasn't how their last moments of intimacy were supposed to be. Not where she felt like a Persian harlot used and tossed aside once her body had served its purpose.

"You just performed oral sex on me and then you moved away. I think I know when something's wrong Regina."

Regina felt the slash of those words cut into her spine and then her chest. Her voice. Her voice was so foreign, so unfamiliar that Regina didn't want to listen. She'd just fucked her the way a whore would and now she was being yelled at with nothing but annoyance.

She swallowed.

"No really, I'm alright. I'm just… tired…"

She heard Emma huff. "Fine."

They both went to sleep. With a numb ache and a frozen heart, Regina soon lost conscious to the only escape she had.

The next morning, Regina and Emma went about their routine. The mayor helped Emma pack away her things, sort out her belongings and brought them down to the car.

She saw Henry standing at the doorway staring expectantly at Emma, as if he was seeing a stranger too.

"Don't worry kid, I'll be back to visit often," she said as she ruffled his hair. But his face only contorted with hurt and confusion. She's talking like she's just going for a short trip, like he didn't see what was really going on.

His parents… his moms… they were splitting up…

Angry, he slapped her hand away and ran up the stairs to his bedroom.

"Henry…" Regina spoke softly, but the child wasn't listening. She couldn't say she blamed him. She was feeling exactly what he felt, after all.

Abandoned. Tossed aside.

Not worth staying for.

She walked up to Emma and stared at her without really seeing her. "Your things are all sorted out, I assume?"

Stay.

Her voice was so small, so meek.

When did she become this pathetic, slobbering mess?

Emma nodded. "Yeah, I got everything I need, I think. If you find anything that's mine, just send it up. You have my address right?"

Regina nodded. "Yes… I do…"

Please don't go...

"Good," Emma turned and got into her car. "Tell Henry I am sorry…" for the first time in months, a little bit of Emma's emotions finally seeped through. And Regina didn't know if she hated herself and Emma for not being the source of that guilt or happy that her ex-wife did at least still care about their son.

"I will…" Regina whispered.

I'm sorry, I'll do better. Please do-

Emma started her car, a truck she was borrowing from David, and drove off.

Regina stared behind the disappearing vehicle. Once out of sight, she pushed her hands into the pockets of her yoga pants and returned into the house. As she passed by Henry's room, she could hear his heavy crying. She wanted to go in and take care of her son, but not yet. Not when she was about to break too.

So she went into her room and closed the door lightly behind her.

Her eyes fell on the bed, gleaming with evidence of the sins from last night. The stains seemed to mock her under the glimmering rays of sunlight that penetrated the room. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she pulled off the sheets of the bed, the pillows, the blankets, and went down the stairs. In a dazed state, she forced everything into the laundry machine.

It was only when she pressed start and the machine began to twirl in its cleansing process, that she fell to the floor and finally broke.

"There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds."

- Laurell K. Hamilton, Mistral's Kiss