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Chapter Text

Emma gingerly sits on a chair next to the bed that Snow had been using to watch Regina while she slept. She winces when the chair legs scrape on the floorboards, but Regina doesn’t react, so Emma figures she’s deeply asleep. But then it occurs to her that maybe Regina  can’t  react, that she’s taken a turn for the worse. 

She reaches out, hand hovering over the averted features, and reassures herself as she feels warm steady breaths against her fingertips. She withdraws her hand, fisting it on her thigh. Tightening her jaw and grimacing, Emma feels her cheeks heating with self-directed anger at being unable to find Henry’s mother sooner, save her from the harrowing torture by Greg.

“I’m…so…God, I’m sorry, Regina.” She looks away from the burn marks on Regina’ temples, clenching her eyes shut, but then sighing, she opens them, studying the few things of Regina’s set on the small bedside table. 

Her gaze first falls to the damnable cuff; though refusing to remove it herself, Blue had acceded to Emma’s demand for instructions (”I’m the goddamn Savior, for god’s sakes, let me save her!”) and told her how to remove the magical restraint. Blue hadn’t been as sure as Emma that Regina wouldn’t simply blast them all to smithereens the minute she regained consciousness.  

Next she replaces items spilling from a small purse; a wallet with Regina’s drivers license. Emma traced the triumphant smile, unable to immediately push it out of sight. Absurdly she wondered how Regina had acquired her driving skills, what things must have been like for the grown woman who had known only horse and carriage riding when she first came to this world. She sighed. Starting to put away the wallet, Emma spied the corner of a photograph misaligned within the leather pockets. Withdrawing it, she nodded in affirmation of her silent guess. It was a picture of Henry. He was maybe eight years old, and he was smiling. Probably the last time for a while that he had looked at his mother with anything other than animosity. No wonder Regina kept it.

She thought of how Henry sat vigil most nights since they had recovered Regina. He certainly didn’t hate his mother now.

“I should have found you sooner,” Emma muttered. “What a great tracker I am, huh? God damn it, I do this shit for a living.” She lifted out her cell phone from her jean pocket. She flipped through her apps and smiled grimly as she flipped open a GPS app that pinged Henry’s phone like a heartbeat. Listening to it for a moment, she exhaled, releasing anxiety. She’d snuck it on after getting back from the Enchanted Forest, wanting to know where he got off to every time he left her. 

Regina’s phone made a soft sound. She glanced at the screen, noticing it was announcing a meeting at Town Hall for that afternoon. “Monthly budget meeting. You still keep careful watch over this place, even after all they’ve shit on you, huh?”

Careful watch. Emma froze with Regina’s phone in one hand, her own in the other, gaze bouncing back and forth between the devices.

“What are you doing with my phone, Miss Swan?”

Emma blinked and dropped the device back on the bedside table, glancing toward to find Regina had opened her eyes and was studying Emma.

“Just cleaning up,” she said quickly; but she didn’t put the phone down or away. “Um…you nee..can I get you anything?”

“My phone made a noise.”

“Meeting,” Emma said. “City hall budget. I don’t think you’re gonna make it.”

Regina sighed. “I never removed the recurring appointment.”

“That’s fine.” Emma held up the phone. “Would you consider adding something to your phone, so this doesn’t happen again?”

“What?”

“A GPS tracking app.”

“Whatever for?”

“I use one to keep track of Henry,” Emma admitted. “I’d like…well, it might prevent what happened to you.”

“What happened to me will never happen again.” Regina’s tone sounded determined.

Emma wiggled the phone in her fingers. “Maybe not, but…as a precaution? There could be more people out there willing to hurt you.”

Regina’s gaze narrowed. “I can take care of myself.”

“Of course you can. I’ll just stand by while someone else’s vendetta tries to take you away.” Regina’s eyes began to widen. Emma added quickly, “Think of Henry!”

Regina’s hand fell from mid-air, having been reaching for the phone to snatch it away. Her fingers folded over one another on her stomach. Emma’s gaze drew up Regina’s slowly rising and falling chest when Regina spoke quietly. “All right.”

Emma’s gaze found tired brown and held them for several beats of her heart. She finally nodded, dropped her gaze. “Screen lock?” she asked.

“Henry’s birthday,” came the quiet reply.

Emma swallowed, dropped her focus to the phone and entered the numbers. She should have guessed. That’s who she was doing this for, right? Emma didn’t want to have to tell Henry that she couldn’t find his mother. Ever again.

But when she looked up a few moments later, feature activated and her own phone told to look for it, she met Regina’s quiet contemplative expression and knew that wasn’t the only reason.

Between them, Emma’s phone emitted two asynchronous beeps. Henry’s and Regina’s. Her heart rate settled into the space in between, calm, reassured. She tapped the app on her phone shut and the noise vanished.

Regina’s raised eyebrow lowered.

“Thank you,” Emma said.

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Go to Chapter 2 to read scenario 2.

Chapter Text

“Gimme your phone.”

They’d been left alone by Snow and David in the library at Emma’s request. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Just. I told you I’m going to have your back on this.”

Regina is puzzled but she hands over her phone and watches Emma pull out her own phone, scroll through a couple screens, and then tap an app. In her other hand, Regina’s phone lights up. 

“Checking to see that my app still works. Been a couple curses, but…” Emma looks up and smiles. “Still works.” She hands back the phone.

“What is it?”

“It’s a tracking device.”

“No! If they catch sight of you…” Regina bites her lip, unwilling to reveal the danger of Emma being around the other queens; danger she was trying to protect her from.

Emma shrugs. “I’m pretty sure I could handle it, but… this way, they won’t know I’m there.”

“But you didn’t…” Realization came to Regina. “How long has that been on my phone?” she asked sharply.

Emma winced. “Since we got you back from Greg and Tamara.” She winces again; Regina winces a lot in memory of her torture. “I…It seemed important to keep track of you.”

“How many times have you used it to find me?”

“Used it once in Neverland, after you’d run off.” 

Regina recalled their argument about Neal. 

“But then we went to New Yor…” Emma trailed off, getting a wry look on her face. “I should have realized you were back. My phone started making random noises about a week before Hook showed up.”

Regina looked at the phone. “You’ve been tracking my whereabouts for a year?”

Emma winced again, but then squared her shoulders. “Yeah.”

Shifting her gaze from Emma’s face back to the phones, Regina frowned. 

“It’s just so I can watch your back, all right? We don’t want…”

“Stop.” Regina knew she should feel violated, but… she pocketed the phone and lightly patted the outside of the coat pocket to check it laid flat and unnoticeable. She felt warmed by the idea that Emma tracked her. Had been tracking her. She looked up at Emma again. Friends, right? She quirked her lips in a brief smile.

Emma’s smile broadened. “You’re welcome, Regina.”

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