People always said heroes didn't care whether they lived or died. At the moment, Regina didn't care either, and she knew from hard experience that she wasn't the hero. Maybe such protagonists were just people with even more issues than her. That was heartening.

All her life, all she'd wanted was not to be the victim. Now she knew—far too late, of course—that there were worst things to be. A victimizer, for instance. Well, she'd die as she started, Regina the victim. Only now there'd be someone to mourn her. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, dying, as long as she was mourned. Dying couldn't make it any harder for Henry to love her.

Greg stood by the controls, ready to let her have it. Would this be the worst pain, or would she simply feel the hurt stop? No matter. She wouldn't let him see her weak either way. She might be a victim, but not his. She'd been broken by far better.

"Don't take it too personally, dear." Her teeth didn't chatter. She was grateful for that. "I killed my father too. I guess it's just a bad habit."

Greg sneered. He opened his mouth to say something—probably about magic being impure, the boy had grown into a tepid conversationalist—but then-

"Freeze!" Emma shouted, vaulting into the room barely sans white horse, her gun held out like a lance. Regina rolled her eyes. Rescued by Emma Swan. She almost would've preferred becoming a baked potato.

Denied his vengeance, Greg's face took on an animalistic quality. He looked at Emma with pure hatred, simply for interrupting him. Regina could barely see the sweet young boy she'd cared for. With genuine sympathy, she realized she'd cast on him the worst curse imaginable. She'd made him like her.

Then Greg made a break for it. Emma fired at him—more out of reflex than a true killer's heart, Regina thought, being in the trade—but her bullet hit the doorway. A loud echo and the flecks of wood hitting the floor, that covered up his fading footsteps. And instead of running after him, like a good little lawman, Emma bent over Regina. Practically cooing.

"Nice shot," Regina said acidly. "That doorway was a much bigger threat than the vindictive psychopath." Her body, held taut by the threat of death, relaxed and ushered back in all the aches and soreness. She could taste blood in her mouth.

"Yeah, but I wasn't aiming at you." Emma holstered her gun and started undoing Regina's straps. She was saying something else—maybe more witless blather, maybe a patronizing attempt at comfort, but Regina couldn't hear it. Finally, she could sleep. Finally, the pain was fading…

She came to. The same gray ceiling was spread out over her. Experimentally, she tried to move her arms. They were still locked into position. She looked over at Emma, who was still at her side, still working on the leather straps.

"These are really tight," the Sheriff said apologetically.

"Yes, Miss Swan, I am quite aware of that."

Emma stopped and put her hands on her hips. "Okay. Let me just think for a second."

"Oh my god," Regina muttered.

"No, no, I've got this. I just need to—" She took hold of a buckle and jiggled it a little. That did nothing. "Okay. That was a failed experiment—yes—but at least we know that doesn't work now—"

"How can you be this bad at rescuing people? Your family business is rescuing people. It should be simple genetics."

"Yes, well, they didn't raise me, did they? Whose fault is that?"

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Emma. How did that feel? Like getting strapped to a table and electrocuted? Because that happened to me five minutes ago!"

"Okay, fine." Emma took a gravity knife out of her pocket. "This is to cut the straps, not stab you. FYI."

"Why do you carry a knife?"

"I like to be prepared."

"To what, mug someone? God, you're butch."

Regina fell silent as Emma cut away at her straps. They were thick and hardened—taking time to cut through. Emma sawed away, only occasionally letting herself look at Regina's face. Regina looked back at her, resenting the look of pity that was overcoming Emma. She tried to think of another sarcastic remark, but nothing came to mind.

"So why'd the world's worst tourist want to kill you, anyway?"

"I killed his father."

"Ah." The pity was gone from Emma. Good. "You know, if you stopped killing people, this would probably stop happening to you."

"And if you stopped drinking, you would probably stop having to fish your panties out of the gutters."

"That was one time and it was Oktoberfest. Hey!" A thought came to Emma. Regina tried to be sympathetic. It must've been an unfamiliar sensation. "Was Tamara in on this?"

"Who's that? Moorish woman?"

"Whoa, racist."

"Everyone in this town was teleported here from the equivalent of your Europe. We're not exactly the Rainbow Coalition. Who is she?"

"Neal's fiancé," Emma said, with an 'eeesh' look on her face that Regina was horrified to realize was mirrored by her own.

"I do hope the wedding's off. One wicked stepmother is enough for Henry."

"Don't be so hard on yourself."

"I was talking about you."

Emma rolled her eyes. She cut faster. And finally, with a ridiculously pleased look on Emma's face, the leather came off.

"Okay, now for the other one—"

Regina took her freed hand, reached over to her captive one, and deftly undid the strap.

Then she looked ridiculously pleased with herself.

"Well," Emma said, "of course you know more about bondage than me…"

Regina levered herself up on her arms. Then she scratched her nose, eyes closed blissfully. That'd been bothering her for a good half-hour.

"C'mon," Emma said, turning to leave. "Let's get you out of here."

"Leave, hell. I want to find that amateur hour sadist and—" Regina tried to step off the table, but halfway through their end of the bargain, her legs resigned. She flailed about on flat feet for a moment, arms windmilling, before Emma swooped in and caught her.

Damn Charming, Regina thought. Probably had a sixth sense for when someone was swooning.

Emma set Regina heavily back down on the table. "Guess I should've asked if you could walk first."

"Hilarious," Regina sniffed. "Would you stop standing there and build me a stretcher?"

"Out of what, tuna? Oh, and I don't know how to build a stretcher."

"Who doesn't know how to build a stretcher?"

"I'm sorry, they didn't teach me about it in the orphanage. How would you build a stretcher?"

"Why am I expected to know that? I was a woman of means."

Emma folded her arms. "So, what, you know what fork you're supposed to use to eat a donut?"

"A pastry fork. Obviously."

"Seriously, that's a thing?"

"Ms. Swan!"

There were times when Emma smoldered. There was probably a better word for it, but Regina couldn't think of it. She looked at Regina probably much like an addict looked at a needle, from time to time, a kind of hateful fondness, maybe a moment of reminiscence that Regina had given her son an upbringing far better than her own at the same time she'd ensured Emma had had such a piss-poor childhood in the bargain. It tended to make Regina feel like they had some kind of connection, like there was so damn prophecy written about the two of them that she just hadn't read yet.

And, without so much as a sour look, Emma roped her arms under Regina's body and picked her up.

"Ye gads, you're strong," were the first words to come to Regina. She said them. Which was unusual, both because she tried to refrain from the more antiquated language in her vocabulary, and because it could be taken as a compliment. She tried to recover: "By which I mean butch."

"Yeah, maybe you should find a way to make salads with all those apples instead of pies, Jabba."

"Please just get me to that scale-model car of yours. And the backseat had better be big enough!"

"Why, is my man-handling awakening something in you?"

"Yes. Just about everything I've eaten over the last ten years. It seems to want to immigrate to your shirt."

"Don't, it's one of yours."

Emma stumbled on a water-warped board. Regina's arms instinctively flew around Emma's neck, clutching her tightly as they almost toppled over. She was suddenly overcome by the fruity-soap smell of Emma's perfume—who was she kidding, Emma didn't wear perfume, that was her.

For her part, Emma didn't voice any opinion on Regina clinching her like they were about to step over the threshold.

"Well, I'm glad to see you've gotten over Neal," came Tamara's voice.

Emma spun around, nearly dropping Regina, to face her. She ended up staring into a taser aimed directly at her.

"That's her!" Regina yelled, sounding more offended than frightened. "The Moor!"

Tamara cocked an eyebrow. "Whoa. Racist."

"Hit her! Hit her with something!" Regina demanded.

Tamara smirked and was beginning to say something that started with the word 'unholy' when Emma threw Regina at her. Tamara instinctively caught the flailing woman and went down. Regina landed on top of her. The taser landed a few yards away.

"Get off!" Tamara struggled to push Regina away, at least until Emma caught her in the face with a stout kick. She went limp.

"I've never been so glad you wear men's boots," Regina breathed.

"I've never been so glad your boobs are bigger than mine. Bitch is pinned down like the Brooklyn Brawler."

Regina staggered to her hands and knees. "And your ex has poor taste in women. There's a surprise." She forced herself up off her hands. "I think I can stand…" She dropped to her knees on Tamara's ribs.

"Do you need help?" Emma said, trying to make it sound as little like an offer as possible.

"No, that was just for good measure."

Regina reached out to grab a hole in the wall and used it to drag herself up to her full height. After staring at her for long enough to be certain she wouldn't fall, Emma knelt to handcuff Tamara. Then they started limping (in Regina's case) to Emma's car.

All the way there, Regina remembered that Emma was keeping close to her, ready to catch her if she fell.

That night, the sheriff's office was Storybrooke's hottest nightspot. Tamara was in the jail cell, Granny was coordinating the search for Greg over CB radio, Ruby was playing Checkers with Henry to keep him out of harm's way. Emma held down the fort, interrogating Tamara while Mary-Margaret tended to Regina. Her mother had insisted.

After two hours, Emma had gotten nothing from 'the other woman'. She stepped into her office and there Regina was on the cot, drinking straight from the bottle of vodka she had stashed. Emma had been looking forward to that.

The rest had been good for Regina, although it'd also allowed her time to bruise and become feverish. There was a sheen of sweat over here as she grappled with the aftereffects of her ordeal; hollows under her eyes; bandages marked red where the electrodes had burnt into her skin.

Emma had her hands on her hips and was about to open fire when Regina beat her to the punch. "They're anti-magic zealots, there are more of them but not in town, they want to kill us all, and they work for someplace called the Home Office."

Emma blinked. "They told you all this?"

Regina shrugged. "The way people hurt you can tell you much more about them than they intend. Thank you for the drink. And for your deft handling of that trollop."

"I was just trying to hit her with the hardest thing available: your head."

Mary-Margaret came back then. Making tutting noises, she relieved Regina of her liquor, which Emma rescued from the desk she set it down on. Ex-boyfriends being back on the market brought out the need for liquid courage.

"And they have a spell that can destroy Storybrooke," Regina said, with a gratified smile as Emma spat a shotglass's worth of Absolut into Mary-Margaret's hair.

"Where would they get a—" Emma narrowed her eyes at Regina. "Oh. Right."

"How could you think to do such a thing?" Mary-Margaret protested airily, her hands fisted so one couldn't be clapped over her heart.

"What were my choices? Submit to a lifetime of imprisonment in your fairy-tale kingdom or stay here as the only family I have left is whisked away. You'll forgive me if I decided to explore other options."

Emma didn't know why she took Regina's side just then—if that was what she was doing at all. She just felt like Regina needed someone to stick up for her, just at the moment, not ever again. "Mary-Margaret?" she uttered, questioningly, chidingly.

Mary-Margaret looked at her, equally shocked. She settled into the subtly disgruntled look she tended to get when Emma wouldn't call her mother. "It was under consideration. We hadn't even decided to return to the Enchanted Forest."

"You had. And you'd decided what to do with her."

"Rumpelstiltskin's cell is the only place we could put her where she wouldn't be a threat."

"And then what?" Emma insisted. Her hands gestured for her, flying around of their own accord. "Do you let her out to the prison yard to exercise? Does she get to go on furloughs to see Henry on his birthday, or his wedding, or ever?" Mary-Margaret was giving her a look—obviously not. Not when leaving that tiny, windowless space would give her her magic back. "What about parole?"

"Don't be ridiculous! Of course we would let her out, if she proved herself."

"What? Sane? After being inside a box of rocks for every hour of every day until you were satisfied she'd had enough? Yeah. Yeah, that'll reform her." Emma jabbed a finger at Mary-Margaret. "You were so aghast that she separated you from me, and now you want to do the exact same thing to her and her child."

"Henry is not her child, you've said it yourself."

"Well, maybe I shouldn't have!"

Mary-Margaret fell silent. It took her a long time to gather her arms up and fold them across her chest. "No one wants to say it, Emma, but the less influence she has on Henry, the better off he'll be. All she'll do is turn him into a hurt and lonely version of herself, just like Cora did with her."

For a moment, it looked like Emma was taking her words under consideration. Her brow furrowed. She blinked slowly. Then: "I think you might be upsetting the patient."

Mary-Margaret left without another word.

Regina laid on the cot. She'd pulled the sleeve of her sweater—someone had put it on her, she'd been so cold when she'd left the cannery—down over her left hand. And she was twisting the excess fabric harder and harder around, wondering why it wouldn't rip, why it stayed together.

Emma closed the door behind Mary-Margaret. "Sorry. You don't deserve that. Not right now."

"You should kill me." Regina let go of the sweater. She started turning it the other way.

"Excuse me?"

"The next time I cast a spell or brew a potion or summon a monster. You should just kill me. It would make a very fitting end for the story. A shame I can't turn into a dragon, but you can't have everything—"

"No one's dying," Emma said. "Not even Tamara."

"You'll want to keep her under heavy guard." Regina's voice, while staying as carefully modulated as ever, lilted ever so slightly as she shifted the discussion. "Mendell has feelings for her. He won't attack Storybrooke while she's trapped inside. Love really is my favorite weakness…"

Emma bowed her head, raising a hand to knead her sinuses. "Look, you can stop. Mary-Margaret didn't mean that stuff. She's just stressed. Whatever spell she used to find you must've taken a lot out of her."

Regina thought about it. She remembered the faded marks on Mary-Margaret's skin, like rashes, corresponding to where she'd been shocked. Phantom pain. She must've gotten a share-spell from Gold. Just like him not to give away anything more useful. The petty link was only good for long-distance relationships.

For one moment there, Mary-Margaret had felt her pain, and it had transformed her into a queen without room for the usual sanctimonious piety. Who knew? With time, and pain, perhaps one day she'd even admit to a little vindictiveness. It was just a bit gratifying.

And Emma had stood up for her. Somewhat. A little. More than most anyone else in her life. For just a moment, she'd been treated fairly, without regard for her reputation or past offenses. Emma had said that it was wrong to treat a person in a certain way, any person, even an adversary. A simple conviction, spoken with steel instead of self-righteous light. That kind of good Regina could admire. It was the same fairness she'd striven for, when the thought of Snow White wasn't demanding her darker instincts. Pain for the enemies who'd inflicted the same on her. Rewards for the servants that followed her faithfully. Certainly, that was worth some devotion, wasn't it? Not love, no, but perhaps some loyalty?

Regina's thoughts were a mess. They had been since the first shock had went through her. Anger had kept her together, kept her from slipping into a morass of self-pity over what she'd done to Greg's father and all the other things that had earned her suffering. Now the anger was gone, and it had something to do with how Emma was even now looking at her not with pity, or condescension, but a sort of plain-spoken concern. Like she was a person, and not just a rabid dog to be kept fenced up.

"May I sleep here?" Regina asked, just to get Emma to stop staring at her.

"Of course."

"I could move if necessary. It's not a problem."

"No, stay there. I might need to throw you at some more people."

Regina closed her eyes. She was tired of looking at Emma. Tired of being awake. "What would you do?" she asked, nonetheless. "If I gave you the choice of life in prison or life without Henry?"

Emma's voice took so long to come that Regina at first thought she had slipped out the door. "Depends. Would blowing up the town be an option?"

A smile formed Regina's expression. "Perhaps we have more in common than we'd like to admit. Not much more, but…"

"Nah. I couldn't have taken a beating like you did."

"I could test that theory, if you like."

After Emma shut the door behind her, Regina could've sworn she heard a bit of a laugh.

Regina woke up in the middle of the night. An evidence box had been set up beside her as a nightstand. On it was a reading lamp, which she gratefully switched on to find bottled water and a pillbox of Advil. She took them gratefully. The pain had faded, but now it was a constant, ingratiating itself into everything she thought or moved.

Nonetheless, she got up and saw the station was deserted. All except for Emma, in the hallway outside the office, cross-legged over a map of Storybrooke. She had a decent view inside the office and now she noticed Regina was awake. She got up and slipped through the door with practiced ease.

"Morning," Emma greeted. "Technically."

"Did you find him?"

"Not yet. We checked every sector, but it's like he just disappeared. I've been trying to find out where he could be hiding that every tracker in town didn't check…"

"Always the last place you look," Regina said. "When you find him—try to bring him in alive. He… dangerous. Not bad. Someone just made him a certain way." Emma was giving her a look that she couldn't quite… quantify. It wasn't pity, but it felt that way. More a kind of… understanding. Pride, almost. "The people who trained him. God knows what lies they filled his head with."

"We'll go as easy on him as we can. It's who we are around here. At least, who we try to be."

Regina thought of plan, schemes, plots. How she could get revenge on Greg Mendell from a sickbed. How could she use Emma's newfound sympathy to her advantage. How she could twist the facts in Henry's eyes to make this look like Snow White's fault, or Charming's, or Gold's. Anyone's but hers.

And then she thought of the way Emma was looking at her, and how it shifted like light through a prism. Now it was almost apologetic. It was like everyone else had a filter they saw her through—an image called The Evil Queen that was painted atop her—and it blocked out all the things that didn't fit with the stories they'd been told and the sins they'd witnessed and the worst of her, not the best, not even the average, the normal.

Emma was looking at her like—like Henry had once. Just as a person, no better or worse than anyone. As not just a list of evils done and waiting to be done, but as pain and sorrow and the chance of succumbing to them and the possibility of conquering them. She had so wanted to be just the Queen, not Evil, but Emma took both those heavy words away and left her Regina.

It was such a weighty thing to be contained in a look, but then, hadn't she looked at Daniel once? Little more than looked, and been looked at, and that's where it had all began.

"Come here," Regina said firmly, but yet more gently than her voice had been pitched in a great long while. The usual threat in her voice had evaporated.

Emma found herself coming closer. Regina swept her sheets aside. She was bare from the waist down, silk panties all that was left of her bottoms. Emma looked a little bit away.

"I had to undress you," she said, blushed, then quickly added "so you could sleep. No one else was watching. Just us girls. So it wasn't like I saw anything that I don't have. Just, you know, less of it…"

"You," Regina began delicately, "saved me."

"It was nothing."

"Rescued me," Regina persisted, "from mortal peril."

"Are you getting at something and can it involve pants?"

Regina crossed her long legs. Emma watched their progress. "You are one of noble birth who safeguards the realm. You are, ipso facto, a knight."

"Huh?"

"And I am, of course, a member of the royal family. There are certain honors afforded a knight who rescues royalty."

"Regina, you don't have to reward me, I was just doing what anyone would've wait is this reward cool?"

Regina sat up. It was hardly a struggle. "Traditionally, the reward is a kiss from a maiden fair."

"Oh. Oh, like, you. Well, that's okay. We can just, you know, say we… whatever. Just not anywhere… anywhere."

Regina smirked. No plans. No plots. No schemes. Just playing things by ear. Spontaneous, bold, and probably quite stupid. It seemed to work for her opposite numbers. "It's one kiss, Emma. Of course, you could always beg for more."

"Regina, I may still have feelings for Neal. Last night I had a sex dream about him and he was dressed in green tights. Zero clue what that was about."

"Let me kiss my brave knight," Regina insisted. "I'll feel much better about being rescued. And it really is only one kiss. A simple token of gratitude and affection."

"So you're gracious and affectionate now, huh?"

"I am," Regina said, "doing my best."

Emma sighed. "No tongue."

"Really, Emma! It's not half as sordid as you make it out to be." And Regina took Emma's hand and held it to her lips.

Emma was completely abashed. She even tittered a little, seeing Regina about to kiss the back of her hand. Only for Regina to turn her hand over, lower her lips to the gentle pulse at her wrist, and clamp her lips down on it. She sucked hard, her teeth a sharp counterpoint. Emma gasped at the sudden pressure, the intense… feeling. A shudder went through her body.

Regina looked up at her. Her lips were moist with the same wetness that marked Emma's wrist. "Not very satisfactory, was it?"

The little shake of Emma's head confirmed for Regina that she'd been thinking of something—hoping for something—more taboo. And what she'd gotten was just too much of a taste to do anything but whet her appetite.

"One more?" Regina exerted a sly pressure on Emma's arm, pulling her downward almost to her knees. It was done with a hold weak enough that Emma could've broken free at anything. She didn't. She held still as Regina's face came closer, its beauty filling her view even as her lips filled Emma's world.

The kiss was quiet, peaceful, and not nearly as assertive as Emma would've thought—not that she'd thought about it, at least not more than five minutes ago when Regina started offering. It was that very yielding that captivated Emma. She began thinking about a real kiss from Regina, passionate, demanding, domineering.

And then how she'd kiss Regina back. Passionate. Demanding. Domineering.

Regina pulled harder on Emma's arm, like a rider at a horse's bridle, guiding her into the cot beside her. It was just big enough for two, though their bodies were squeezed together. At the moment, that was just fine with Emma. Regina made more room for her guest by holding herself over Emma. She looked Emma in the eyes with a cool, prissy challenge that would've driven Emma crazy a month ago. It still did.

Regina bowed her head again, but just as Emma was parting her lips, Regina lowered her head further. Down to Emma's neck. Down to the first button of her blouse. She kissed it, open-mouthed, her tongue running over the little ivory button. With a few deft licks, she'd guided it out of its hole. The button popped free and a heaving breath from Emma opened up the very top of her blouse. Regina looked down at the new skin possessively. She licked her lips. They tasted of sweat.

"One more," Emma said falteringly.

Regina lowered herself a half-inch. Emma tensed up. Her lips parted, dry and needing. Regina eyed them. "Yeah," she said smugly, lowering herself on top of Emma. All of her. "That's what I thought."

The pain was gone.

Mary-Margaret returned to the police station that afternoon to find Emma was nowhere in sight. Her Bug was gone from the parking lot, so she'd probably headed home for a change of clothes after pulling an all-nighter. Regina was in the little break room/cafeteria, wearing her own fresh clothes… an ensemble that looked close to some of the items Emma had borrowed from her. She was sipping tea and reading the newspaper, looking like a king in her castle to Mary-Margaret's eyes. Probably just pleased with herself for not being behind those bars for once.

"Regina," Mary-Margaret said eloquently, as if she could erase their last several conversations by disregarding them properly, "where's Emma gotten off to?"

"Said something about needing clothes," Regina said, not looking up from her paper. "I would've disagreed, myself."

Mary-Margaret nodded along as if that made sense. She did feel bad about the other night. She'd told the truth about Regina, but perhaps the truth had been a little harsher than it might've been. Well, there was no stone so rough that it couldn't be smoothed out. She grasped for a conversation to have with her erstwhile stepmother.

"Interesting spell last night," she said. "Like walking a mile in someone else's shoes. I never would've pegged you for someone who snacks between meals, but I do think I sensed you having a midnight snack. Very interesting taste, at that. What was it, exactly, Regina?"

Regina set down the paper. For the first time, she smiled at Mary-Margaret. "Snow, I am oh so very glad you asked…"