"If we may digress a little," Dr. Mitchell asked leaning his elbows on his knees. "Why stay away now? Are you ready to call her?"

Emma hesitated for a second, fidgeting with her fingers in her lap as she mulled over the question she haunted herself with every day. "Look at me, doc," she answered quietly. "I'm a mess."

"It looks to me like you're cleaning up just fine."

The mansion looked the same as the last time she had seen it. Freshly mowed lawn. Open wrought iron gates. Trimmed hedges. Rose bushes outlining the pristine white panels. It was the same house she had dreamed about, wished to come home to, longed to step into one more time if just to see the family that resided there. But it wasn't the same. Not with how much time had passed.

She sat in the rental for a full five minutes, looking up at the mayoral mansion. Was Regina even still Mayor? How did that even work here? Her fingers tightened. She should have called. She should have called so long ago. She should find a phone and call now.

Her palm sweat and Emma fiddled with the keys in the ignition. Maybe it was better this way. Her mind was too warped and her body too scarred. But she had fought. God, had she fought for the chance to get better. She wasn't the same person Regina loved. Not by a long shot.

But you promised, she told herself. If you got out alive, you'd come back for her because you promised.

To hell with promises, Emma just wanted to see her. Just one more time, even if it was the last time, just one more time and she'd be okay.

So with a steadying breath, she stepped out of the car and made her way up the path and onto the porch. The doorbell rang loudly inside the mansion, and a beat passed before Emma thought that perhaps no one was home. Then the door swung open and her breath stopped.

Regina. It was Regina. Regina, lips parted in disbelief and eyes blown wide, stood just inside the threshold. Regina, the woman she had dreamed about nearly every night for as long as she could remember, was standing in front of her. Her hair was longer, curling past her shoulders, and though the evidence of her age appeared in the crinkles of her eyes, Regina was still the most beautiful woman Emma had ever seen. Most importantly, making Emma's breath catch in her throat, Regina was there.

"Hi," Emma said lamely with a timid shrug of her shoulder because after three years of waiting for this moment everything she thought that would happen just flew out the window.

Happy tears. Yelling. Shouting. A hug. A kiss. More kisses. Anything other than the gaping expression plastered on Regina's face. She opened her mouth again to speak but her face scrunched up in confusion just as Regina slammed the door shut.

Her heart sped up and dropped to her stomach, dread pooling deep into the pit of her gut as she stared at the wooden door barring her. Before Emma could even think to turn tail and run or ring the doorbell again, the door opened slowly, just the teensiest crack as Regina peered through the opening.

Emma ducked her head closer and smiled softly. The dread that swirled in her gut fluttered up into her chest. Unbidden tears came to her eyes as she stared upon the older woman, her smile growing with every second. "Hi," she repeated.

"You're here?" Regina croaked as the door opened just a bit wider.

"Yeah."

Regina shook her head and shut her eyes. "No. No you're dead."

The blonde swallowed hard. "I know."

"You know?" Regina hissed and the door was open fully, her eyes blown wide again, and though glassy, the fire behind them still flaming.

Emma pressed her hand to her mouth, stilling her quivering lip because even if she was gonna get cursed out on a porch, she didn't care because she had waited so goddamn long for this moment and she was going to take it. Regina looked older, worry lines creasing her forehead and eyes, her hair longer, curling around her shoulders. She was so goddamn beautiful.

Regina's gaze had zeroed in on Emma's hand, the prosthetic pressed to her lips, and whatever words she was going to spew left her as she moved her own hand to her lips to hold back an impending sob. "You—you're not dead?" She asked shakily, holding herself tight.

Emma shook her head. "No. I'm here."

Whether they both moved or the earth itself had split just so that the two women could embrace tightly, they found each other sobbing into the other's neck, gripping tightly, keeping each other here.

Chapter 25

Chapter Notes

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

AN: If you guys get a chance, check out this wicked awesome trailer that the lovely misslane has done for this story! www.youtube.com/watch?v=piM_rOMIia8 or just look up "Letters From War 2015 | SwanQueen | HunnyFresh Fanfic"

The mansion was different than when Emma was last here. The black and white theme associated with the house was painted over in the most vibrant colours she had seen. Despite the obvious brightness of the mansion, what drew Emma up the foyer and into the hallway were the pictures hung up on the walls. Crinkled photographs protected behind the most delicate ornate frames. Her lips twitched. They were hers. One she kept hidden in a bag long forgotten encased in the one place she felt was home.

Her heart swelled with longing, with the rightness of being there, but she couldn't squash the niggling feeling in the back of her mind that her time was up. Once they had retreated into the house, separating their hold on one another, neither women had said a word, both awkwardly shifting from one foot to another, gauging the other's reaction. A flood of emotion was welling up inside Emma like a flooded dam after a heavy rainstorm, and as she examined the pictures, she could feel the cracks holding the water at bay. She was a stranger in this household, nothing more than a fond memory. In a town where time stood still, life went on despite Emma holding tightly with a vice-like grip.

The tension in the air shifted when Regina closed the door, leaning against it as her eyes followed Emma's track. The blonde tightened, her fist closing in uncertainty as she slowly circled to face Regina, her left leg limping just the slightest bit as it acted up in nerves. "You painted."

Regina nodded. "This past Christmas. Henry picked out the colours."

Emma swallowed hard and chanced a glance at a frame of a not so little boy beaming up into the camera, his cheeks caked with dirt as he stood beside a little sapling of a tree. "He's big," she said in wonder.

Regina's hollow steps echoed in the foyer, her heels clicking against the hardwood as she approached the blonde. Her arms crossed over her stomach when she stopped just shy of intimate in front of Emma, and though the younger woman had been pretty good at reading people's behaviour, she wasn't sure what was happening then. Closed off posture. Stiff back. Emma's breath quickened. This was too much.

"You're here," Regina repeated in a disbelieving whisper.

"Yeah," Emma croaked quietly.

The brunette shook her head slowly, her bangs falling into her eyes as she struggled to form words around her shock. "Where were you?"

The familiar tension coiling Emma's bones flitted through her as memories came unbidden to her mind. With a deep exhale and a release of her fist, the tightness relinquished its hold and she shrugged half-heartedly. "That's a really long story."

"Three and a half years." Emma stopped at the strain in the normally put together woman's voice and watched as chocolate eyes glistened with unshed tears. Regina visibly shook, though the hold she had around herself dimmed it to a minuscule vibration. "That's how long you've been gone for. Three and a half years. I don't care how long your story is. What happened to you?"

Emma took the tiniest step forward, her right arm outstretched as instinct told her she needed her fingers laced with Regina's, and it had been far too long since then. But she paused just before contact and stuffed her hands into her jacket pocket hastily.

"I was captured," she provided simply in a quiet voice. "I don't know their names, and I doubt I ever will. My saving grace was that they thought they could trade me for one of their guys or provide information." She chuckled dryly, unconsciously touching the scar on her cheek suffered under a shaky yet desperate knife. "I'm pretty good at resisting."

A tear escaped as Regina's eyes bore holes into Emma's body. The blonde could hear the questions: What did they do? Are you okay? You're here? You're really here? Emma held her breath, chest swelling, threatening to burst, as Regina took a small step of her own, closing the gap between them by yet another inch. "You were held hostage for all this time? They told me you were captured, but—"

"No."

Regina stopped and her watery eyes narrowed in confusion. "No?"

Their time apart made Emma romanticize this moment nearly every day, helping her rationalize her decision to stay away. She remembered a time where she was sitting in an armoured car, excited to see the look of ecstatic shock on Regina's face when she surprised her at Christmas. That time was stolen from her, and in its place, a three-year gap where the soldier kept a phantom figure of this woman she called lover engraved deeply in her mind. Regina with her dark chocolate eyes that twinkled with mirth whenever she was pleased. The melodic velvet of her laughter as cheeks dimpled in happiness. The firm touch of her grasp as their hands found each other in synchrony. So consumed in the memories that kept her hanging on each day, Emma nearly forgot that those same chocolate eyes that brightened with joy could also darken in undisguised contempt.