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Sometimes when Emma’s fucking her, she freezes. Some part of her brain reverts back to the young girl being used by a man who’s pretending she’s a dead woman. Logically she obviously knows Emma is nothing like her grandfather. Emotionally even she knows Emma is nothing like her grandfather. Emma is kind, gentle sometimes even when Regina doesn’t want her to be. Emma loves her with all her heart and she makes it so obvious every day that Regina worries Emma will think she doesn’t love her just as much purely because she’s not as good at showing it. But sometimes just being in sexual situations is enough to make her hear a stream of “just behave. Just do as he demands and it’ll be over soon,” In her head.
Usually Emma notices, probably from Regina reacting to something with a flinch that she would usually react to with a moan or a whimper. Usually Emma stops and she whispers, “hey, hey sweetheart. It’s okay. We don’t have to tonight if you’re not up for it. He’s dead, Regina. It’s just me. It’s Emma. You’re safe. I love you. I love you so much.” And Regina will unfreeze. Some nights she’ll want to stop and cuddle instead and some nights she’ll just have Emma reposition them so that they can make eye contact and she can see it’s Emma touching her. It’s actually one of the only times Regina let’s her call her sweetheart without at least an eye roll. They’re lucky that almost all the physical appearance genetics Emma inherited from Snow are ones Snow inherited from Eva. And that Emma looks so much like David. (Granted that’s sometimes a problem of it’s own because Regina isn’t exactly past all her issues with either of Emma’s parents but loving their daughter as much as she does helps her forgive them when they accidentally say something insensitive because they don’t realize she was hurting herself when she was hurting them.)
Once or twice though, Emma hasn’t noticed. She’s kept going, not realizing Regina has frozen. Not realizing Regina is silent. And on those nights Emma kept going until Regina’s body defied her emotional turmoil and came anyway. Then Emma noticed when she moved to spoon Regina and Regina kind of rag dolled in her arms. Sitting there with her thoughts. She was incredibly apologetic, even crying enough that part of how Regina snaps out of her frozen state is this almost maternal instinct to comfort someone she loves so much that’s crying. Maybe it’s a little fucked up that “maternal instincts” are what help her out of a situation caused by a man who was trying to make her into a mother far too young, to satisfy his daughter’s request of a little brother or sister. And maybe it’s a little fucked up that she has “maternal instincts” for a woman she usually enjoys having sex with, but it’s not like she and Emma are related by blood and it’s not like Emma is actually a child. No matter how little Emma can sometimes get. So Emma apologizes and cries and feels so guilty that Regina can’t possibly be mad at her because it’s obviously not her fault.
They have a safeword. You’d think that would solve the problem but sometimes Regina gets in a state that she can’t even protest that way. She wants so badly in those moments to be good. To only do what Emma wants from her, so Emma won’t hurt her. And it’s super fucked up because Emma would never. Emma wouldn’t even want to. Emma sometimes even shies away from spanking her or giving her orders. So Emma is working on getting better at being observant enough to notice Regina isn’t okay, and Regina is working on getting better at telling Emma when she isn’t or at least doing something more obvious than freezing. They’ve both talked about it with Archie, which is maybe a conflict of interest but it’s not like there’s another therapist in town and they both so badly need therapy. Besides they both want him to have the best interest of each other anyway. It’s only happened once, "it" being Emma not noticing and not stopping, maybe twice if Regina has blocked out a time it’s happened, which she wouldn’t put past her subconscious. But according to Emma that’s already too many times. And maybe Emma will never forgive herself. Maybe Regina is hurting her by freezing, but try as she may Regina doesn’t know how to stop. And Emma has suggested they could just not have sex, though it did look like it physically pained her to suggest such a thing and Regina is inclined to also feel pained at the concept.
But Emma makes her feel so loved both with sex and every thing else they do together in their hectic lives. And the percentage of times they’ve had sex that she’s frozen is very low. So it’s fine. It’s fine. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. But they’re both so broken.
Emma likes when she’s mean. She enjoys when she hurts her or threatens her or chastises her. But sometimes Regina can see Emma revert to the young girl abused by foster parents. Hit and yelled at simply for doing things a young girl is supposed to do. So Emma isn’t immune to freezing either. And to Regina’s knowledge there’s never been a time when she hasn’t noticed and stopped. “It’s alright, darling. Mommy isn’t actually mad. I’m just playing. I promise baby, just playing. Come here, let me hold you” although maybe she has done it and Emma hasn’t told her. That’s a horrifying thought, so she has asked Emma and Emma insists she hasn’t but just the idea that Emma would lie to her about that, that Emma would be so scared of disappointing her that she wouldn’t tell her if she were hurting her makes her feel awful. Awful enough sometimes that she’s even considered ending their relationship over it. She’s done so much and she's got so much guilt, and she knows she doesn’t deserve Emma. She knows that no matter how much redeeming of herself she does she will never deserve the beautiful soul that is her girlfriend. She doesn’t deserve Henry either but she’s never considered abandoning him over it. And she doesn’t have the will power to leave Emma either. She’s tried a few times. When she’s feeling particularly guilty. Emma insists that she doesn’t deserve her either, though that’s ridiculous.
Archie says that these problems are inevitable when you take two people as broken as them and put them in a relationship. Well okay, he didn’t use the word broken and he also implied that they’re more likely to understand each other than anyone less traumatized would, but she and Emma have agreed that “broken” isn’t all that offensive of a term because they would never want to fix each other anyway. They love each other because of their brokenness not in spite of it. They’ll be okay. Sometimes they’re not. But most times they’re better together than either was before they met and Henry seems thrilled to have parents that love each other. So if nothing else it’s worth it for their son. She’s gotten to the point where she can’t imagine her world without either of them and she doesn’t want to. Even if it means making nice with the Charmings and Rumple for Emma’s and Henry’s sakes. They both have such a large capacity for love. In fact seeing that trait of Henry's in Emma is part of how she fell for her in the first place. She tries not to remember that conversation she had with David about Emma and Henry getting being too forgiving from Snow.
She knows she doesn't deserve it but she's honored to be one of the subjects of that love.