"There's a lot you missed, Ruby." So much has happened since her brother's coronation and so little of it is good. She let her emotions completely destroy her control of her magic at Ingrid's taunting, she'd killed a woman to protect Henry without knowing that she couldn't hurt him in the first place. Without Regina with her, Lily might have been another casualty, too, and for what? To protect her family was a handy excuse, but the reality was she was angry enough that she didn't want to be the good person and try and do things the hard way anymore.

Ruby probably hasn't seen Emma cry often, yet there's a burn at her lashline she would love to ignore but can't quite. She presses the heel of her free hand at her eye, almost like she can force the tears back through sheer determination. She'd been so sure about all this in the moment. That was when she thought she would have her whole family to help her. That was before she had felt how easy it was to slip. Now, she's not sure. Now she's pretty terrified.

"I'm going to try." She has no other choice. Emma is not a person to give up, no matter the odds. That didn't make any of this much easier. She couldn't say she was sure it'd work out, anymore, but that didn't mean she was going to give in before she gave it everything she had. She just wasn't as confident now.

She laughs, a little brokenly, at the determination that she not run off. Maybe it was tempting, maybe a part of her considered it... the rest of her knows what that feels like. She won't leave without saying goodbye. If she's learned anything about being left behind, at least she knows it's a little easier when she knows she'll be alone. "I won't leave." Not unless she has to.