Once Upon A Time: Not Forgotten

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Amnesiac Regina Mills builds a relationship with Emma Swan
16.9k words
4.45
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Part 2 of the 3 part series

Updated 08/31/2017
Created 02/13/2014
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Zev95
Zev95
1,577 Followers

A/N: This story takes place during season 2 of Once Upon A Time.


"Regina? Ms. Mills?" Dr. Whale. He was still talking. "Have you understood everything I've told you?"

"Yes." Regina had asked for a glass of water while he explained it to her. Twenty grueling minutes. Now, she ran her finger over the rim of the glass. "Car accident. Brain damage. Amnesia. We've had this conversation five times already, over the course of the last year. I'm no longer mayor, and my treatment requires me to stay inside my own house. Otherwise, I could become confused and wander off. Like a stray dog." She smiled, almost unwillingly. "Henry's been taken away from me and sent to boarding school, seeing as it's distressing for him to see me like this. And I'm supposed to be getting better, though the fact that I can't remember growing my hair out would argue against that."

"It is a good sign," Whale argued. "Three months since a relapse. That bodes very well indeed."

Regina nodded. It was a forced gesture. Like someone was turning a crank and making her do it.

"Would you like to be alone?" he asked.

"Yes," she said instantly. "I would. It seems like something I should get used to."

***

Emma was waiting outside. All the cold cream and wet towels Mary-Margaret could muster couldn't diminish the damage. Her face was so bruised it looked like she was wearing face paint, a cast around one arm, a limp when she stood, as she did now, too eager for news of Regina.

"She bought it?" Emma said, all her injuries somehow just making her more imposing.

"Judging by the stunned silence, I'd say so."

"Thanks. I owe you one."

"If you'd like, we could settle it this evening—"

"Whatever you're about to suggest, think hard about it. I'vejustmanaged to forget you had a one-nighter with my mom."

"Duly noted."

***

Emma came over during the weekend. Several reasons. She had nothing to do; she couldn't look at Henry without feeling guilty. The bruises had had time to fade. And she just needed to see Regina. Needed to; a funny choice of words, but accurate.

Regina answered the door with a sunny enough smile. It died a little upon finding it was directed at Emma, but only a little. The woman they had posing as Regina's nurse was gone; it wasn't good to give anyone too much access to Regina, knowing what she'd done. Regina still had the scar from someone who had gotten close and carried a knife. Emma wondered if she'd found it yet.

"Sheriff Swan," Regina said, having been waiting for Emma to speak. Emma had been waiting too; it'd never occurred to her that she'd be speechless. "I wasn't expecting you to show up here. Or to have been so damaged in shipping."

Regina's voice made it less of a jibe than it could've been. "Drunk and disorderly. Got very disorderly. Mind if I come in?"

Regina didn't move from blocking the door. "If you're going to ask about my whereabouts on some such night, I'm afraid I won't be very forthcoming."

"Regina..." Emma smiled. The lie climbed up her throat. It had such an easy passage; she wanted to make things right with Regina so badly. She wanted to beg for forgiveness from a woman who had separated her from her family for twenty-eight years. "It's Thursday. I always come visit on Thursday."

Regina blinked. "Why?"

"To talk about Henry, at first. Then, just to talk."

Henry's name was like Pavlov's bell. Regina fought it, but surrendered quickly. She stepped out of the way. "Inside."

The manor seemed chillier than before. Maybe with Henry got, Regina changed the thermostat to something she liked. Or maybe the nurse messed with it.

"How is Henry?"

"He's good," Emma said, trying to be honest. She knew instinctively she wouldn't have many chances for that. "He asks about you. When we talk."

"Skype?"

"Telephone."

"You should try for visual contact," Regina said. "I read it in a magazine, Contemporary Family Life. It's reduced divorce in military families with overseas deployments by thirteen percent."

"Oh. Okay. I'll keep that in mind."

"Coffee? Tea? Hot cocoa?" Without the front she put up, Regina was almost desperate to please. Emma knew that feeling. Being visited in prison.

When someone came into your dark little world, even though they saw you at your worst, it was perversely pleasurable. You couldn't get enough of it. Because it was proof that there was an outside, that you were being drawn there by an unbreakable safety line.

Regina didn't have a release date, of course. She just had Emma.

"Water's fine."

Regina nodded and went to get it. She came back with bottled water. Of course.

"He doesn't believe in fairy tales anymore," Emma said.

Regina didn't hesitate an instant. Her face didn't change a bit, except with relief. "Good. I was beginning to worry."

That was it then. Regina really couldn't remember.

Goddamnit.

***

Next Thursday, Emma came back. Whatever Regina had forgotten, she remembered Emma's blanket statement that it was a weekly occurrence, this... thing. It wasn't that long ago that Emma would've taken a steel-toed boot to the ribs over seeing Regina on a guaranteed weekly basis, but now it seemed almost fitting to ingratiate herself so. Like penance or something.

Not knowing what else to do, she fell back on college etiquette. Bring over some movies and get high. Not that she'd believe Regina, or at least thisRegina, would light anything but a candle in a hundred years. But the movie part was sound.

"'Kill Bill'," Regina read, staring at the DVD case like a martinet searching for a spot of dust. "What a memorable title. And by Quentin Tarantino. A memorable auteur as well."

"You hate Tarantino," Emma not-quite-asked.

"I don't find spewing profanity and high school boy banter to be the height of dialogue. Any decent playwright gets that out of their system by the second play. Do you think Pinter would have his characters go on about some self-indulgent trivia?"

Emma almost giggled. Stripped of context—quite forcibly, in this case—Regina's domineering nature and perfectionist attitude was almost endearing. A pain in her ass, but apply it to something as silly as a kung-fu movie and it was hilarious. Regina probably had a scathing dismissal of Pogs stored somewhere in her hard drive.

"Give it a chance. For me."

Emma bit her lip, realizing what she'd done, wondering when she'd ever become such a good liar that she could bring up some nonexistent friendship just like that. Regina seemed to be having similar thoughts, her own doubts about Emma, but in the end, she was an any-port-in-a-storm girl.

"Twenty minutes, Sheriff Swan. And if I don't like it, we'll watch one of my films. I have a stunningly clear recording of a Russian ballet troupe ordered from PBS..."

***

Twenty minutes in and Regina surely noticed the time, but she left the remote squarely in Emma's hands. She had her legs folded, a pita chip neatly situated between her fingers, ready to make the trip from its bag to Regina's mouth when the woman dedicated she'd burnt away the calories of the last one. Emma should've brought popcorn; of course Regina didn't have any.

She herself sat at the opposite end of the couch, feet up on the coffee table. If Regina was judging her for it, she did so silently. They kept watching, the only noise besides filmed conversation about kung-fu movies being Regina's pita chips disappearing.

Then the ending.

Emma never had been great at school. Things slipped her mind. She had a great head for ex-cons and informants, not literature, and things like who exactly had killed Julius Caesar took a permanent vacation long before tests came along. So while Emma remembered the scene of the Bride hacking through a hundred hopefully-well-paid stuntmen, she'd forgotten the ending. Where it was revealed that Bill had taken the Bride's daughter and raised her as his own.

"I'd like to watch the next one," Regina said evenly, the credits rolling.

"Yeah. Sure. I've got it in my car."

When Emma came back, Regina was still sitting there, kneading the empty bag of pita chips into a small, small ball.

"Would you like a pizza?"

"Huh?"

"A pizza." Regina looked at Emma. "I'm told they're quite popular. We could order one and eat while we watch 'Volume Two'."

"Yeah, okay. I'll call."

***

The pizza came and Emma paid for it, hustling the delivery boy away before he could get a look at the big bad witch. Regina ate daintily, but cleaned her plate. She even had some of the breadsticks Emma had sprung for. And they watched Beatrix Kiddo get her bloody satisfaction.

After, the DVD menu looped on the TV, the pizza box sat empty on the coffee table, numerous wadded up napkins littered the floor, and Regina was casting longing looks at the cupboard where she kept the Hefty bags. But she was far too comfortable to move.

"That was enjoyable," Regina stated, like Emma was supposed to write her opinion down as law. "No one talking about comic book characters' sex lives."

"Do you think Quentin Tarantino is Kevin Smith? Is that it? He won an Oscar."

"So did Marisa Tomei." Regina stretched and yawned. "How'd you know I'd like it? Don't tell me I forgot turning into a Tarantino fangirl."

"I thought you might have a zeal for justice."

"Is that the most diplomatic way you could come up with of calling me a spiteful bitch?"

"Come off it. You know I don't mean it like that."

"You should." Regina abruptly stood, turning away from Emma to hide an embarrassing marinara stain. "I've been meaning to apologize to you. The last few days, I've been going over what little I can remember. And I haven't been as gracious as I pride myself on being—not toward you."

Emma should've felt weakened, sitting down while Regina stood over her, but at the moment, Regina was anything but imposing. Rounded shoulders. Head downcast. She looked like a parishioner at a fire and brimstone sermon.

"It was a... pretty stressful situation," Emma said, surprised at the pity she felt, even now. When had writing Regina off as a bitch become so hard? "Your kid ran away and then he came back, dragging a... replacement mommy. That's, you know... not exactly something Dr. Spock covers."

"Still, things could've gone smoother. The person I try to be would've made them go smoother; the person I am didn't." Regina tilted her head to the side, seemingly at the perfect sense this made. "I just had this... fury towards you. Like you were trying to steal Henry." Emma felt a stab of guilt. Since she actually had tried, once or twice. "And somehow, that anger's just gone now. Maybe with Henry away, I don't feel so possessive. It's a horrible thing, a mother feelingpossessivetoward a child. As if that's some kind of love."

"I wouldn't know," Emma said in a small voice.

"I just want you to understand that I'm sorry for the way I acted and I hope that from here on out, we can be friends."

"Of course." Emma helped her smile along, making it a little wider than the one she felt. "We already are friends, Regina."

"Good. I'm glad to hear that. That's good." Regina's hands mated, fiddling together for dear life. "I should go get some bleach on this stain. If I let it set, this blouse will be ruined."

She hastened off. With her gone, Emma handled the clean-up, knowing how Regina would hate a spot in her spotless house. Sure, maybe she would've have just swept the crumbs under the sofa, but what Regina didn't know—

"Emma?" Regina asked from the doorway, now wearing a white T-shirt with an esoteric art logo—buncha squiggly lines—over the stomach. Her black bra glared through it, contrasting with creamy skin, and Emma tried not to stare. Weird, seeing Regina Mills so... human-y.

"Yeah?"

"The next time you talk to Henry, let him know... I would appreciate it if you passed on that I'm thinking about him. And I hope he's doing well in his studies and that if he needs anything he can tell you and you'll pass it on to me and—" Regina bunched her hand in her mouth. Emma had the impression of tears. Then Regina gathered herself and it was like flipping past a TV channel without lingering, just a blip of image and sound. "Tell Henry I miss him. If you don't think that will trouble him."

"Sure," Emma said. "Right. Is it alright if I," Emma jerked her thumb at the door. "I mean, should I stay? Or something?"

"No, no, I have things." Regina nodded. "Online things."

"Good. Okay. Thanks for the pizza."

"Thank you for the movie," Regina said politely, and nodded her head slightly. "Don't forget to take it with you."

Emma remembered. Otherwise, she'd have to come back to Regina's. She'd hate that so much.

***

Henry was parked in front of the TV when Emma got home, Mary-Margaret's apartment, David's apartment. The family's apartment.

"I already finished my homework," Henry said, not looking away from his cartoons. He was still operating on Regina-rules, expecting the law to get laid down if he had a toe out of line. And yet he got good grades, his teachers loved him, his friends were good kids... Emma knew he hadn't gotten that from her.

She went to him and hugged him tightly, tight enough to shut out the noisy world and hear his tiny heart pumping soundly.

"What was that for?" he asked afterward, not quite ready to go back to Nickelodeon.

"Nothing," Emma said. She'd have to practice lying somehow. She was going back to Regina's house in one week.

***

It didn't end up taking that long to see Regina again. Call it whatever—Emma knew guilt, the orphanage nuns had instilled in her enough Catholicism to regret picking dollar bills off the ground (but not, oddly enough, doing drugs or driving getaway cars—a bit of a lapse in her moral education). The thing that compelled her to visit Regina early, on a bright and warm Wednesday while everyone was still working and learning, didn't feel like a guilty conscience. It was more like a tense muscle. She knocked on Regina's door and Regina answered and it was like she'd popped a kink in her neck. Ahhhh...

"Sheriff Swan," Regina said uncertainly, but cheerily enough. "Is there a problem?"

"No, no problem. I was just wondering if you'd like to... hang out."

"Hang out?" Regina repeated, brandishing the phrase like it was the name of a sex act Emma had just suggested performing on her.

"Yeah, like, ya know... bros." Emma nodded, as if she were 100% on-message.

Regina tilted her head, considering it. "What did you have in mind?"

Emma had actually been trusting in Regina's type-A personality to fill in the blanks there; 'I'm painting the house, Emma, so I suppose you can do the blue trim if you're not too pathetic about it.' But that was old Regina. New Regina was all... cuddly. It was disconcerting despite itself. Maybe that was just the fact that it was Emma's fault.

"We could go for a walk," Emma said, out of the blue. Unlike most things that came out of the blue to her, like what exclamation to use in front of Henry when she had just hit her thumb with a hammer, this one she liked. "I know you're kinda on lockdown, but I'd be there, so it's no big deal. If you get confused, I'll just put a leash on you."

If Regina was taken aback by that joke, she hid it well. "Why, Sheriff Swan, I didn't know you'd read Fifty Shades of Gray."

"Shut up, would ya?"

***

After a brief pause for Regina to throw on a jacket (unnecessary for the balmy weather, but it tied her ensemble together) and force some tea down Emma's throat (also unnecessary, but it tasted good), they were on their way. Regina's manor was a little ways out of town, superior by its isolation. Emma wondered what had stopped her for putting it on a mountain overlooking Storybrooke when she'd enacted the curse. Was the housing market bad even for magical spells?

They soon came to the end of the sidewalk and set out into the woods. Emma consulted her iPhone and saw they were miles from the mystical 'city limits'. The dwarves had spray-painted and even fenced in the boundary. No one was taking any chances with it, not after what it'd done.

"Not much conversation for a social call," Regina commented from up ahead. Emma sighed. Her brooding was getting to be a thing.

"Sorry. Maybe I just wanted some company."

"I wasn't criticizing. It's nice, having someone to share the fresh air with. And..." Regina reached out to take Emma's hand. Her skin was surprisingly warm, like it'd been in the light long enough to absorb all of the sun's rays. Emma felt the heat rise up her arm. "Keep me from wandering off," Regina finished.

Emma smiled to herself. Goddamn, this Regina was friendly. Almost an improvement. Well, no, wait... shit, here came the brooding again.

"So what do you do all day?" Emma asked, eager to change the subject. She'd have to stop comparing Regina to the person she'd been. It wasn't fair to anyone.

Regina was taken aback by the question, but she didn't show it. She just squeezed Emma's hand a little. "Well, I knit. Catch up on my reading. Watch some TV shows whose names I will not divulge."

Emma grinned. "TLC, right?"

"I cannot confirm nor deny..."

"It's not Grimm, is it? Tell me it's not Grimm."

"Quit before you lose access to my DVR."

"Didn't know I had it."

"Well, if you need to record something and Mary-Margaret also wants to watch something, and David wants to record something also, I suppose you could watch your show over at my place. I really bought that TV for Henry. Without him, it's being wasted on... Derek's abs."

"Oh my god, Teen Wolf, you ho."

"Well, I suppose it's best that comes out now rather than the next mayoral campaign." Their walk took them over the old toll bridge, the wooden planks doing their usual song and dance underfoot. Regina clung a little tighter to Emma, bringing her other hand around to steady herself on Emma's upper arm.

Intellectually, Emma should've been disgusted—theEvil Queenwas pawing at her. But she just wanted to put an arm around Regina and keep her even closer. That was guilt. Had to be.

"I remember this place," Regina said distantly. "David Nolan." Her voice quickened. "This is where we found him. I remember him finding me on the street and asking me for directions back here. I suppose it was his and Mary-Margaret's 'spot'. I could've recommended a good bistro."

And Emma's body caught up to her intellect. It felt wrong being here with Regina, in someplace special to her parents. It felt like having sex in your parents' house—not that the houses she'd... christened... had belonged toherparents, but she recognized the feeling secondhand.

Off the bridge, she took a turn and steered them downriver. Regina relaxed her grip, instead settling her arm firmly into the crock of Emma's elbow. Emma felt all Victorian, like she was a Jane Austen character out for a stroll with her BFF, talking about how tight Mr. Darcy's ass looked in dem pantaloons.

Alongside them, the river sparkled and bubbled. Regina's eyes seemed drawn to it, like a kid visiting a zoo. Emma didn't know what was with her. Surely, she'd seen a dinky creek before, right?

"You want the truth?" Regina asked.

"Uhhh..." Emma replied eloquently. She half-expected Regina to start telling her about some shrunken heads in her freezer or something.

"I've been thinking of redecorating. Spending so much time in my house lately—having nothing to distract me—it doesn't seem suitable anymore. I walk around and it doesn't feel like my home. It's more like... a movie set, and someone's filming a biography of my life, but it's not me playing me, it's some actress and she's doing a bad job, the script is—" Regina raised a hand to her head, warding off a migraine. "It gives me nightmares, some of the things in my house."

"What do you mean?"

Zev95
Zev95
1,577 Followers