Chapter Text
When Emma wakes up, it’s dark and her head hurts and she doesn't know where she is or how she got there.
The last thing she remembers, she was talking to Regina on the street outside Granny’s, the two of them arguing about living arrangements with Henry, trying to work out some kind of shared custody agreement.
But that was outside and it was at night, and now she’s laying on a bed in an unfamiliar room, grey pre-dawn light filtering in through the window.
She sits up, and slick, cool silk sheets slide under her hands as she braces her palms on the mattress. She focuses on sitting upright as she tries to get her bearings, forcing herself not to panic. Other than her complete confusion, she seems to be more or less okay, except for a dull ache in her right shoulder that makes her groan and stretch. Or, at least, she tries to stretch, but she can’t move her right arm, something heavy weighing her down.
She tugs a little harder, and something warm constricts around her wrist, and then she hears someone groan. She feels a rush of adrenaline as she blinks into the semi-darkness, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the lack of light.
When they do, when she can finally see what's happening, she squeezes her eyes shut again almost immediately, willing for this all to be a dream. It must be a dream. Please god, let it be a dream.
Because if it’s not a dream, that means that she’s in bed with the Evil Queen, their wrists bound together with a strange-looking cuff, thick black leather that ripples with the tell-tale purple glow of magic. So she keeps her eyes closed tight, and takes a couple of deep steadying breaths, trying to calm down, trying to convince herself when she opens her eyes, everything will be fine.
But then: “What the hell is going on, Miss Swan?” Regina says, and her voice is all too real, destroying any hope that this is just a really messed-up nightmare.
Emma blinks her eyes open, and yep, it’s real. She’s still chained to her worst enemy. Excellent. “I have no idea,” she says.
Regina pushes herself into a sitting position and tries to roll away, practically yanking Emma’s arm out of the socket in the process.
“Ow!” Emma yelps, tugging her arm back down to a non-painful position, Regina’s hand bumping up against her hip. She reaches up with her free hand to rub her sore shoulder. “Jesus Christ, Regina.”
Beside her, Regina freezes, her eyes wide as she sees the cuffs. Then: “What did you do?” she demands, her voice going hard and shrill.
“What did I do?” Emma repeats, incredulous. “Seriously, Regina? You think I did this?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t handcuff us together.” Her hair’s all rumpled from sleep, and she’s still wearing the same grey dress she was when they were arguing about Henry in front of the diner, but she manages to sound as haughty and superior as ever.
“And you think I did?” Emma scoffs. Man, she is unbelievable.
“I have absolutely no idea, Miss Swan,” Regina says, leaning down to get a closer look the bonds. The magic seems to ripple slightly as Regina gets closer to it, but it doesn't fade at all; if anything, it seems to get brighter. She spends at least a couple of minutes looking at it, turning her wrist every which way, and then using her free hand to feel along the edges of the cuffs, her fingertips surprisingly gentle as they trace the line of the leather that joins the two of them together.
"Well," Emma finally says. She knows she should probably let Regina take her time to figure out what they should do, but it's getting a little weird, the way Regina's keeps stroking her wrist. “Can you get us out of it?”
“Of course,” Regina says haughtily, sitting back up and tossing her hair out of her eyes. “Hold still.”
She tugs on Emma’s wrist again, holding their arms out away from their bodies. She moves her free hand so that it's over the cuffs and flourishes it, a plume of purple smoke enveloping their hands. And that’s it. Or, that should be it, except that when the smoke clears, the spell hasn't been broken, their wrists still bound together by the leather cuff, the violet haze of the magic glowing dimly.
Emma’s wrist is starting to hurt, the leather rubbing painfully against her skin. Finally: “What are we going to do now?” she says.
Regina doesn’t answer, just sighs, and reaches up to drag a hand through her hair. When she does, she brings Emma’s hand with hers, the gesture weirdly intimate, Emma’s fingers brushing against the crown of Regina’s head.
“I have no idea,” Regina finally says, and it’s enough to unsettle Emma, the Evil Queen admitting she doesn’t know what to do.
“Okay, well,” Emma says, trying to think. “Maybe we should try and find out who did this to us? Get them to reverse the spell.”
“And where would you suggest we begin looking?” Regina demands, putting her hands on her hips, Emma's hand moving with hers.
“I don’t know,” Emma says, trying to ignore how her hand is basically resting on Regina's hip. The fabric of her dress is surprisingly soft against Emma's skin. “Who besides you and Gold can perform magic?”
“No one,” Regina says, and then narrows her eyes at Emma. “Except you.”
And, seriously? Does Regina actually think Emma would do this? “I. didn’t. do. this.”
“Hmm,” Regina says, like she doesn't believe anything Emma's saying, like she legitimately thinks Emma's decided to use her rudimentary magic skills to chain herself to her worst enemy.
“I didn’t,” she grits out, clenching her non-handcuffed hand into a fist. “And, besides, why would I even want to?”
“I have no idea, Miss Swan.” Regina starts to cross her arms over her chest, but stops when Emma’s hands come too, brushing up against her chest. Regina freezes, and the look of outrage on her face would be comical if Emma's heart weren't suddenly not beating right.
*
Once they establish once and for all that Emma is in no way responsible for their current predicament and that Regina can't just magic the cuffs away, they head downstairs, where Regina promises there's a solution to the problem.
The house is quiet, Henry apparently having made his own way to school, and Regina pulls Emma down the stairs and through the living room and into what must be her office. There are shelves and shelves of books, but Regina heads determinedly towards the far side of the room, to a small collection of books with dark spines, titles written in a language she doesn't understand.
After a couple of minutes of searching, Regina apparently finds what she's looking for, reaching up to pull a large, leather-bound book from the shelf.
She flicks open the cover and then licks the index finger on her free hand before she starts paging through the book. Finally, she stops, drawing one blood-red nail down the page, and then tapping it twice decisively. “Here we are.”
Emma squints down at the book, curious despite her irritation. There aren't any words on the page, just strange symbols arranged in a complicated pattern, nothing that looks like what Emma assumed a spell should look like. "This is it?" she asks doubtfully.
“Give me your hand,” Regina demands instead of answering, holding out her cuffed hand, palm up, and flickering her fingers in a come-here gesture. “We need to do this together.”
“I can’t read that.”
Regina rolls her eyes. “You don’t need to read it. Now --” she snaps her fingers impatiently, gesturing again for Emma’s hand. “Give me your hand.”
Emma only hesitates for a second before she twists her wrist so that her hand is in Regina’s, palm-to-palm, their fingers intertwined. “Now what?”
“Now,” Regina says, glancing sidelong at Emma. “We break the curse.”
As Emma watches, Regina leans over the spell book, blowing gently on the page, until a thin rust-colored mist separates from the pages, rising into the air and then hovering towards them. Emma breathes in when Regina does, and it's like suddenly the magic's inside of her, hot and powerful and alive. She tightens her grip on Regina's hand, and it's like they're connected by more than just the cuff, like they're the same person, and Emma's heart is pounding so hard she thinks it might beat right out of her chest.
An electric warmth sparks between them, the cuffs getting hot enough to burn, and purple smoke envelopes their hands. When Emma looks at Regina, it's like she's lit from within, her dark eyes bright, her pupils wide and ringed with violet.
The magic is more powerful than anything Emma's ever encountered, filling up every part of her, making her feel more alive than she's ever felt, and she can tell Regina feels it too, the two of them grasping each other's hands, holding onto each other as the power flows between them. But then, when the magic clears, that bright-alive feeling draining from Emma's body, the cuffs are still there, the two of them still bound together by the curse.
“Damn it!” Regina snaps the book closed and actually stomps her foot, like a child throwing a tantrum. "That should have worked."
Yeah, it probably should have, with magic that strong. But it didn't. Emma just stands there, trying not to freak out. Okay, so. Regina can’t break the curse. That doesn’t mean the curse can’t be broken at all, right? All curses can be broken. She’s basically living proof of that. What she and Regina need to do is to not panic, to figure out their next move and do whatever they can to break this spell.
*
They end up going to Gold because he’s the only one they can think of who might be able to tell them something about the magic that’s binding them together. He’s in his shop, of course, and he looks up with a small, secret smile when they walk in together, their bound wrists hidden under Emma's red leather jacket.
“Mayor Mills and Sheriff Swan,” he says, folding his hands against the counter, his mouth curling up at the corners. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“We need your help,” Emma says, moving quick to cut Regina off before she says something that will just piss Gold off.
“And why might that be?” he asks. He’s still got that little smile, but there’s a curious glint in his eye.
Instead of answering, Emma pulls the jacket off their wrists, pulling Regina’s hand up with hers to show him the cuffs. When he sees what’s happened, the corner of his mouth twitches. “Well, well, well,” he says, picking up his cane and making his way around the counter. “What do we have here?”
“It’s a spell,” Regina says, and Gold smiles indulgently.
“Yes, I can see that,” he says, leaning closer to their wrists and tracing one finger along the line where the cuffs bind them together, this look on his face like he’s admiring the craftsmanship of the magic. “And who cast it?”
“We don’t know,” Emma admits, resisting the urge to squirm under his examination. “But we were hoping you could help us break it.”
“Help you?” Gold says, straightening and giving them a shrewd look.
Beside her, Regina sighs, annoyed. “Yes, Gold,” she says. “Help us.”
“And what will you give me in return, dearie?”
“Anything,” Emma says. Regina shoots her a sharp look, which Emma ignores. She knows making deals with Gold is bad news, but there’s no way in hell she’s staying handcuffed to Regina any longer than is absolutely necessary.
“Anything,” Gold repeats. He grins broadly at them, his gold tooth glinting in the dim light of the shop. “How about…” he says, flourishing one hand in the air. “A favor? One from each of you?”
“Done,” Emma says quickly. Beside her, Regina is glaring at Gold, not agreeing to his deal.
“And what about you, your majesty?” he finally asks. “Do we have a deal?”
Regina exhales heavily, starting to cross her arms over her chest. When Emma’s hand brushes up against her breast, Emma’s breath hitches in her throat and Regina stops suddenly, her arms dropping down at her sides. “Fine,” she says. “Break the spell and I’ll owe you a favor.”
Gold grins, triumphant, and then waves a hand over their wrists, a flourish similar to the one Regina tried just a little while ago. The smoke that appears is a deeper, richer color than Regina’s magic, and Emma waits for the pressure to lift off her wrist. But it never does, the cuff getting hot and tight, but when the smoke clears, it's still there, still binding them together.
“It didn’t work,” Regina says tightly, and Gold looks puzzled, his head tilted as he squints at the cuffs.
“Indeed it didn’t,” Gold says vaguely, and Emma's stomach drops.
“What do we do now?” she asks, trying not to panic. It’s just, if Gold can’t break the spell and Regina can’t break the spell, they’re pretty much out of luck. And Emma can't spend the rest of her life shackled to Regina. There's no way.
“Well,” Gold shrugs, his face going serene and bored again. “It seems like you’ll need to find a more powerful magic.” He turns away from them, limping back behind the counter.
Emma blinks. "A more powerful magic? You're the most powerful person in this town."
Gold smiles. "Well, I'm flattered you think so, Miss Swan. But, alas, it seems I'm not powerful enough to break this particular curse."
"So what the hell are we supposed to do now?"
“I’ll begin to work on a counter-curse," Gold says with a shrug. "But I'm afraid I can’t make any promises. You may have to try alternate methods.”
“Alternate methods?” Regina repeats. “What the hell does that mean?”
“It means, your majesty, that there are other ways to break curses.”
“What ways?”
“Oh, you’re a smart woman, Regina,” he says, giving her a knowing wink. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”
Regina just stares at him for a few beats and then she gets a panicked look on her face, her eyes going wide and worried. “Oh, no. No way,” she says, sounding as nervous as Emma’s ever heard her. “That’s not the way, Gold.”
But Gold doesn’t answer, just shrugs and heads behind the curtain that blocks the back of the store, effectively dismissing them. When they don’t leave, Gold sighs and folds his hands over his cane, the corner of his mouth turned up in an almost-smile. “Like I said, dearie. I’m sure you’ll figure something out.”
Regina stares at him, eyes wide, and Emma tries to ignore the slightly sick feeling in her stomach, the one that tells her she knows exactly what Gold and Regina are talking about.