Note: This was an exercise to grasp Regina's voice that sort of got away from me. I'm not a very prolific or quick writer, but I'm breaking my own no WIPs rule in the hope of getting back into the habit of writing. The title is from Elizabeth Bishop, 'I am in need of music': I am in need of music that would flow/Over my fretful, feeling fingertips,/Over my bitter-tainted, trembling lips,/With melody, deep, clear, and liquid-slow. Originally posted over at AO3; it took me a while to figure out how to work .

To say all of this is Emma Swan's fault would be, in Regina's opinion, entirely accurate.

1.

Emma is at the doorway, gun pointed at Regina's head.

Beyond that door—locked and sealed; protected, no doubt, by Rumpelstiltskin's spell—is Snow White, and the final step in Regina's long, long road to salvation. And so Regina says, 'You know why I'm here, Miss Swan,' baring her teeth. Clever girl, not relying on her magic—Emma Swan is a child of this world, and bullets pierce the skin of peasants and Evil Queens alike. 'Now move away.'

'Please stop,' Emma says, hoarse. Her aim is steady, much like her heart. 'You don't have to do this,' she says. Plaintive, as though the Savior isn't ashamed to lowerherself to plead with the likes of Regina.

Emma Swan, Regina thinks now, has always been a contrary creature. Had she worked this out when the curse still held, she would have perhaps—

No, she tells herself. No more regrets.

'This is between your mother and I,' Regina says with a sneer, 'so why don't you run along and let the grown-ups do the talking?' She takes a step closer, and another one. She briefly considers transporting her to another place—the forest, perhaps, or in the middle of the lake—but Regina's magic is unpredictable around Emma, and there's no telling where it'll lead them again. This is not the day for traveling new worlds.

Emma's arm does not waver, even as her face crumples and she says, 'What will I tell Henry?'

Another step, and the barrel of the gun is cool on her forehead.

'The truth, Miss Swan. Tell him that the Evil Queen had her vengeance,' Regina says, 'Just like in his book.' Her foolish heart clenches at the thought of his face. She'd meant to shield him from the world, always, but her son has chosen the truth instead and there's no turning away from that now: she is the evil she'd hoped Henry would never know.

'You know I can't let you do that,' Emma says simply. 'That's why I'm asking you to stop.'

'Do this, then,' Regina tells her, gesturing at the gun still pressed onto her forehead, noting the way Emma's eyes widen. 'Because that's the only way you'll get me to stop pursuing Snow White.'

'Regina, I—'

A moment's hesitation; a window of opportunity. For all her bounty-hunting ways, Emma is still too easily taken—or perhaps it's the company she now keeps, Regina thinks darkly, her mind flashing back to Rumpelstiltskin's no good lout of a son—and in minute Regina has her backed up against the wall, one hand wrapped around her delicate throat.

Of course, Emma Swan isn't one to back down without a fight, and so the barrel of the gun comes to rest painfully hard against Regina's windpipe.

'I'm sure you've been tempted,' Regina tells her, voice now lowered to a silken purr. Emma's eyes are impossibly wide, and Regina gives in to whimsy—presses forth until their lips brush, oh-so-lightly. 'Haven't you?' Regina says, smiling.

It's an act designed to shock and disarm, and so Regina isn't quite prepared for the way Emma moves, no, lunges forward, capturing her lips in a bruising kiss. An ambush, Regina thinks, plain and simple, the gun jammed awkwardly against her cheek and an impossibly obstinate Emma Swan stealing her breath.

'I've been tempted to do a lot of things,' Emma tells her when they part for air, 'and now I'm asking you to stop because I'm tired of all this. So is Henry. He deserves better than this, we all do.' She looks at Regina with shining eyes, so earnest and hopeful that Regina cannot stand it.

'And what would you have me do, Miss Swan?' Regina snaps, 'Hold hands with your parents and sing paeans to peace?' Her lips still tingle with Emma's kiss, and that must be why she doesn't dismiss her outright. Regina has been ambushed, ensnared, trapped by Emma Swan's underhanded ploy—she is, understandably, a little disoriented.

'Just sign the truce,' Emma says. 'They'll leave you alone. I'll see to it that they do.'

Truce is surrender, Regina wants to say; truce is sitting down like an obedient canine and waiting for morsels from the mistress' plate.

Regina has had enough crumbs to last her an entire lifetime.

'You can do whatever you want. You can go wherever you want,' Emma urges, fingers digging into Regina's forearm. 'You can—' Love again, she can almost hear Daniel say, before Emma swoops in for another breath-stealing kiss. 'A fresh start,' Emma says when they break apart again, cheeks pink in a way that's not entirely unbecoming. For one so inarticulate on the whole, Emma Swan sure knows how to put forth an effective sales pitch.

Effective, and almost entirely unworkable.

The truth is banal in its utter plainness: Regina has waded too far down her path of rage and vengeance to even contemplate a turnaround of some sort anymore. She's certain, should she attempt a return, the route would be as tedious as the one she's followed up until this point.

And besides, the only thing she wants in this world—however unattainable, now—is right here in Storybrooke. Where else would she go?

'That's all very... charming, dear,' Regina says, breathier than she'd like to admit, 'but you and I both know how this is going to end.' Her head on a pike. Or—

'It will end the way we want it to end,' Emma says, taking hold of Regina's other arm in an inelegant grip, not letting go of her gun. 'Listen to me.'

She sounds like her son when he's trying to convince her of something that's really, really important, Mom, you have to pay attention!, and that is almost certainly why Regina allows herself to look into Emma Swan's eyes and what she sees there is—

Light, blinding and white, swallowing her whole while the ground beneath her feet is begins to give way, split apart and then her magic begins to surge and she's falling, falling—

'Regina?'

Someone has taken hold of her shoulder and is vigorously shaking her back and forth. Regina ignores it, keeping her eyes resolutely shut even as the voice grows more insistent, 'Regina? Come on. Regina. Wake up!'

The voice is grating and all-too-familiar. Emma Swan, her mind—still foggy—supplies, and she reaches out to wrap her fingers around the hand that continues to manhandle her like a child with a ragdoll. 'Stop it,' she says, hoarse.

'Oh thank god you're awake,' Emma says. She looks, when Regina can finally make herself open her eyes, oddly relieved.

'I'm afraid it'll take a lot more than youto get rid of me, Miss Swan,' Regina says, caustic, disregarding the way Emma's face falls at her comment. Emma Swan is Snow White's daughter—caring, she supposes, comes with the territory. It baffles Regina; always has, even if she is grateful that her son has inherited some of that generosity of spirit. It means that he might someday look on her memory with something other than fear or disgust.

She stretches her limbs, noting the way her back protests and her bare arm brushes against what feels like...coarse sand?

She sits up abruptly, then, taking in her surroundings that look nothing like Storybrooke: sand, endless sand, a few rocks here and there, and beyond that, the sea.

Regina gapes. She suspects her mouth falls open at some point, like one of Henry's ridiculous cartoon characters, but for once she is too aghast to bring herself to care about such gracelessness on her part.

Beside her, Emma Swan clears her throat. 'About that—'

'What did you do, Miss Swan?' Regina turns to her, furious.

'Uh, magic?' Emma appears vaguely sheepish.