The Way

Chapter One

A/N: I promised myself I wouldn't write a fanfiction about these two and you can see how well that went. This will twist plotlines around and such to make the monstrous pile of SwanQueen subtext in the series make us shippers happy. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters. If I did I'd be rich.

Daniel's body was pale and still. The raven haired woman stared down at him, tears leaving hot trails down her high cheekbones. Her fingers stroked absently through his short hair. If only he were just sleeping. The wound in his abdomen may have been covered by cloth, but the blood had long since soaked through, betraying the truth of his demise. Regina closed her eyes and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"Goodbye, my love," she whispered, her heart broken.

But when she righted herself again and opened the dark eyes to gaze one last time at her beloved, the body on the table was not Daniel's.

The former queen's eyes widened in shock and she staggered forward a step, finding her hand tangled in hair. Long hair.

Blonde hair.

"...Emma?" she whispered, her voice cracking as her gaze traveled down the woman's body until they fell upon a wound in the very same place where Cora had ended Daniel. Only this wound was fresh. This blood was hot and...there was so much blood. And...she was still alive.

"Emma!" Regina cried as her eyes linked with those of her former nemesis.

"...Gina..." Swan's voice was weak. Regina had seen enough death in her life to know what was happening. She was dying.

"No...Emma, no!" The older woman shoved her hand onto the wound and pushed, straining to stop the bleeding. She willed magic into her hands, but it wouldn't come. Why wouldn't her magic just work? She heard Emma whisper her name again, but it was jumbled and broken.

And when Regina looked at her again, the light in the blue eyes had gone out.

"Emma!"

Regina's body shot upright in her bed, the sheets thrown astray and her pillow nowhere in sight. Her palm flew to her heaving chest as she struggled to breathe. The dark brown hair was sweat dampened and stuck to her face.

"Mom?"

At the sound of her son's voice the woman gasped and her gaze flew to him. He was standing in the doorway of her room, his hand on the doorknob, a concerned expression on his face.

"Henry," she breathed, forcing a smile to her lips. "I'm sorry dear, I didn't mean to wake you."

"Are you...okay?" He took a step into the room but his mother stopped him.

"I'm fine Henry. It was just a dream. You can go back to bed."

"It sounded more like a nightmare."

She looked down at the strewn sheets.

"Do you want to tell me about it Mom?"

Without missing a beat, "No, dear. Not tonight."

He nodded, and turned to leave. She watched him go, and when she heard the telltale click of his door closing, she was up in an instant. She didn't care that she was in her robes. A pair of decent shoes, a swift journey down the stairs and an attractive black jacket flung over her shoulders a moment later and she was on her way to Gold's.

Emma Swan flipped lazily through the pages of a magazine as she sat in her patrol car. It was nearly 3 in the morning, and night patrols were rather pointless in Storybrooke as it were. But the sound of heels on concrete that suddenly pervaded through her open windows caught her attention, and she lowered the magazine to look for the source of the sound.