#how do we feel about hanahaki with a devastating twist 🤔

[coalitiongirl]

Regina cuts her off, her stomach roiling. “You talk about me with Henry?” Emma shrugs. “You come up sometimes. He really does care about you. And I think you care about him.” “You think?” Regina demands, and her fists tighten. “You think?” Emma turns away from her, focuses on Henry on his swing. Regina follows suit, letting the sight of him calm her. He’s going higher and higher, and he kicks off his shoes when he’s at the top of the swing, sending them flying across the playground. It’s so normal, so much like a scene from a year ago, before everything had fallen apart. “I wasn’t sure,” she says. “I didn’t know if you…if you saw him as something to have. Or if you really loved him.” Regina seethes. Something in her chest withers and dies. She’s furious. She isn’t hurt, because she will never give Emma Swan the power to hurt her again. “This town still stands only because Henry is inside of it. And you think that I don’t love him?” Emma doesn’t respond to the threat, which had been stupid and will set Regina’s time with Henry back again, she’s sure. “You didn’t kiss him. When he was…after he ate that turnover. You didn’t even try to kiss him awake.” Regina had sat in the hospital room and wept, had felt the world falling apart around her, and no, she had not kissed Henry as Emma had. How arrogant it is, to believe that a kiss can work magic. How privileged it is for the laws of the world to break only for you. “I am no Charming,” she spits. “I don’t get beautiful fairytales, and I don’t expect them. Forgive me for being a realist.” Emma is silent. When Regina turns, Emma is watching her again, and there is a lingering something in her eyes. Not quite pity, not quite sorrow. But understanding, and Regina hates seeing it more than anything else. Hates the way that her heart leaps, and the next few breaths hitch and don’t emerge right.