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Things had changed on the first night of the graduation trip. A two week stay at a suite in Montreal, with an eat-in kitchen and not enough queen beds for the three of them. She could recreate the scenery in blueprints, could map it out, frame it. The gray-upholstered barstool with a high back that Henry occupied while Emma put away the grocery delivery. The dim vanity light above the marbled bathroom sink as she removed her makeup, creased beyond help from a day of traveling and smiling. The wall papered in silver stripes that she’d leaned against with her arms crossed upon finding Emma preparing a makeshift bedroll on the floor using spare linens.
Henry had watched from his own bed, glancing up from his phone with a grin at Regina for her gentle admonishment, and Emma, defeated, had trudged over to the only other bed in the room with a wry smile and a comment about how her old bones probably would have hated her in the morning anyway.
Emma always has to make light of the hard thing, always has to chase down the bitter pill with froth instead of anything substantial. Maybe this helps her acclimate to difficult truths. Because, no, they are not old, but they are getting older. They have an 18-year-old son. There will soon be more lines around their eyes than there were the year before, will soon be more gray blooming at their temples and on the crowns of their heads.
On that first night in Montreal, that is what Regina had fallen asleep thinking about. The future. The yet-to-be-written. And she had woken with a sort of melancholy ache in her throat that she hadn’t been able to swallow. Until she had turned onto her side. Until she had seen the shape of Emma beside her. Regina had watched, comforted by Emma’s soft, even breathing, captivated by the slow rise and fall of the covers. Emma had been facing away from her, blonde hair splayed out dangerously close to Regina’s own pillow, and Regina still remembers that warmth. Remembers never wanting to do anything as badly in her life as she’d wanted to reach out. For a hand, an arm. Anything. Any physical proof that she does not have to let Henry go–the hardest thing she will ever do–by herself.
That had been her first confrontation with this chamber in her heart labeled “Emma.” She’s encountered it before, of course, but she has never sat with it. Has never offered for it to come inside, to take its coat and give it a home.
Her feelings for Emma are objects she toys with, the noncommittal battings of a cat’s paw against a felt mouse. She kicks at it, lodges it in unreachable places, pushes it into corners of the house until she forgets about it. Weeks pass. She rediscovers it by accident like a lost friend, decides, for the first time, to put it in her mouth. To know how it tastes, how it feels. She begins to take it to bed with her, to protect it, to carry it around with her.
She has never been so deeply in love and this quiet about it; usually, it is a forest fire. But this is deliberate. This is by design. She has tempered the flames for rationality’s sake. It has been two months since the graduation trip, six weeks since they’ve been back, and three weeks since Henry leapt onto his motorcycle and ventured off into a portal. And for three weeks, Emma has been so incredibly present. Regina doesn’t want to imagine how unbearable the grief of Henry’s departure would be if she had to face it alone. If she had no one to share the empty nest with.
That’s why she’s been so quiet. Because she has the good sense not to ruin it all. To not look a gift horse in the mouth, lest she spook it. She is pleasantly, delightfully, surprised that Emma has even stayed in Storybrooke without Henry. He was the reason she came here, the reason she built a life here. Regina thought she’d be long gone by now, back in Boston or some overpriced studio in New York.
But Emma is here. She’s in the big, blue house across town, and she is at Granny’s sometimes for breakfast, and she is at the Sheriff’s station, and she is, most favorably, on Regina’s sofa with a glass of cider in her hand as a movie drones on in the background of their conversations.
They have finally reached the stage where they can flip through Regina’s old photo albums without one or both of them crying. The first week, they had been too emotionally void to bother with anything other than dinner and idle chit chat. Sometimes, there hadn’t even been dinner. Sometimes, dinner had been a bottle of wine or something stronger. If the first week had been an angry, open wound, the second week had been the mottled bruising around the edges–sore but staunched. Not actively painful unless something presses on it.
Week three going into week four is when they try the coping mechanism that is nostalgia, which is arguably healthier than pretending they aren’t sad. It’s the most Regina has laughed in two months, Emma zeroing in on the least flattering pictures of Henry and providing commentary that has tears in Regina’s eyes out of love and amusement rather than despair.
“Wow,” Emma says softly after their laughter has died down, pointing to a picture of Henry in a Sheriff Woody costume, her finger running over the smile on his face, the dimples on his cheeks. “He looks so much like you there.”
Regina still feels the ghost of a smile at her lips, but her brows pull together at the observation due to how blatantly absurd it is–if anything, Henry resembles Emma. Regina has seen herself in Henry, certainly, but only in his behaviors, his attitudes. It stuns her into silence that anyone, especially Emma, could look at Henry and see her own features reflected back at them.
Emma finally draws her attention away from the photo when Regina doesn’t say anything, glancing at her to smile sheepishly.
“Sorry,” Emma says. “He just…he smiles with his eyes like you do.”
“No one’s ever said that,” Regina says, for lack of anything more meaningful.
“Seriously? I saw it all the time.” Emma takes a sip of her cider and leans back into the sofa. “When he’s mad too. He would always get that same wrinkle between his eyebrows.”
Regina sets the photo album on the coffee table before them, littered with a half-empty pizza box, takeout plates, and a decanter. She picks up her own glass of cider and settles back into the couch cushions as well with a sigh.
“When he was a baby, I remember trying to imagine what his mother might look like. How much of you he might’ve inherited, so that maybe I’d be able to recognize her if I ever needed to. It wasn’t often because the thought of you completely terrified me.”
Emma huffs out a laugh, lazy and soft from inebriation.
“Yeah, ‘cause I’m so scary.”
“You were,” Regina says with a solemn tone, turning her head to meet Emma’s gaze. “To me, you were the worst thing I could imagine. I used to have nightmares about a faceless birth mother showing up and stealing him away. About a savior breaking my curse and locking me out from the freedom I’d built.”
Even saying it aloud, it feels so far away now. Years ago, entire lifetimes. And then words that Emma had spoken to her in the mines beneath Storybrooke.
You may not be strong enough, but maybe we are.
Regina has held onto those words all this time, has held them closely, because what a thrill and a privilege it was, even back then, to dare to dream of the potential for an equal. A co-parent. A friend. Someone to help shoulder the burdens.
“Yeah. I kind of ruined your life for a while,” Emma says quietly, averts her gaze to tap her thumb awkwardly against the glass in her hands.
“Well,” she says with a wince, “I ruined yours first.”
Emma looks at her again, and she’s wearing a small smile this time, warmth in her eyes, and Regina feels her heart clench at being on the receiving end of such a tender expression.
“Now I can’t imagine it without you. How’d that happen?”
Regina laughs, ducks her head if only to hide the heat rushing to her cheeks.
They talk more about the past, and it doesn’t feel like dwelling anymore, doesn’t feel like unpacking painful memories from boxes in the attic. It just feels like reminiscing with a best friend. It feels familiar, comfortable. It feels like something that previous versions of her never thought she’d have.
She doesn’t remember when the conversation dies down, doesn’t remember falling asleep, but she must have because suddenly she is waking to a dull pain in her neck and pins and needles in her bicep.
They are still on the couch, and Regina has slept nearly sitting up with her arm propped up on the sofa, her head resting on it, and she dreads the day’s impending muscle aches. But there is also a lovely weight on her side, soft and warm, so she blinks a few times to gain her bearings and glances down to see Emma pressed into the crook of her, legs pulled up and stretched out onto the other end of the sofa with her head near Regina’s ribs.
Without thinking, without breathing, she does the thing she’d wanted so desperately to do in Montreal. The hand that isn’t currently experiencing a recirculation of blood falls gently to the side of Emma’s head, and she rests it there for a moment or two, and then a bit longer. When she starts delicately brushing blonde hair from Emma’s face, Emma stirs and inhales as though she has come to. But Regina doesn’t allow that to stop her.
Emma hums, a wonderful, beautiful sound that vibrates against Regina’s rib cage, crawls into her chest.
“That feels good,” Emma mumbles drowsily, and Regina scratches lightly against Emma’s scalp, continues to run languid fingers through her thoroughly slept-on hair and delights in her ability to cause these soft, sleepy noises. “Did we seriously crash here?”
It’s rhetorical, so Regina doesn’t answer, but she does note with a bit of abject sadness how Emma’s tone is starting to lose its dreamy quality, how more and more of reality is beginning to creep into this morning.
She removes her hand from Emma’s hair, and Emma takes that as her cue to lift her head and blink the sleep from her eyes.
Best not to tempt fate. To not entertain ideas that are nothing more than impossibilities. But she has allowed herself one small moment, and she will survive on that for a while like a feral animal accepting scraps.
She catches the time with a glance as Emma pulls her phone from her pocket. Just past eight. Typically, she has already had her coffee by now, has already started the Benz and is on her way to the office. But it’s Sunday, and she has nothing pressing on her agenda other than cleaning up the mess they’d made on the table last night.
“David tried to call,” Emma says, already in the process of redialing and bringing the phone to her ear.
Regina listens to Emma talk to her father, watches her sigh and rub at her forehead like she’s frustrated each time she pauses to let him speak.
Emma has made comments in the past, brief and vague, about feeling unsatisfied with her job. Apparently when all the happy endings are restored and all the villains dry up, there isn’t much to police in this town besides high school sporting events. And Regina can understand how that could be frustrating. Of course she can, because Emma just likes to feel useful. But it does eat at her sometimes, that Emma might someday attempt to seek a more fulfilling career elsewhere.
She’d ask her about it, but it’s almost as though Emma is afraid to talk about it too much. Like if she expresses any discontent in one area of her life, the rest will start to slip away too. So Regina watches Emma grin and bear it as she hangs up the phone.
“Mudslide at the animal shelter,” Emma says, running her hands over her face, then through her hair in an attempt to tame it. “In case you wanna add that to your bingo card.”
“And they want you on such a renowned case?” Regina teases, and Emma shoots her a mildly amused look as she reaches for her boots and begins fiddling with the laces to step into them.
“You know, you could just go evil again for, like, a day. Give me something to actually do.”
“Keep leaving dirty dishes in my sink and I might.”
“You have a dishwasher.”
“Yes, and rinsing them off takes less than five seconds,” Regina says. Then, more fondly, “You’re worse than Henry.”
“Yeah, where do you think he gets it from,” Emma says with a grin as she rises to her feet. She grabs her jacket from where it’s draped over the back of the couch and slides her arms into it, pushing her hair out from where it gets bunched up underneath. Emma surveys the damage of their night, long abandoned pizza and cider glasses staring back at her from the table. “Sorry you have to clean all this up. If you come over tonight, I’ll cook for you.”
“Wow, offering a stack of burnt pancakes as compensation. How could I refuse.”
Emma rolls her eyes as she grabs a slice of cold pizza and takes a bite.
“My pancakes are amazing,” she says around a mouthful on her way out of the living room. Then, calling over her shoulder as she opens the front door, “I’ll see you tonight.”
And Regina ponders in the silence, not for the first time, how inconceivably lucky she is.
Emma stomps up the steps to her house in the dark in wet, squelching boots, unlocks her door and immediately slams it behind her upon entry in a culmination of exhaustion and irritation. She will have to come back to leave kibble out for the little stray cat she has affectionately named Eight Ball, but that will have to be later. She kicks off her boots, because this cold, damp sensation has got to go, like, now, and strips her socks off with them, leaving it all on her doormat in a sad, sopping pile. She is half-tempted not to throw her clothes into the washer and, instead, to save them as a permanent reminder to start thinking about a career change.
What kind of job consists of safely relocating twelve dogs and seven cats during a thunderstorm? And it’s not like she can complain because at least it’s not getting decked by a giant snow monster or traveling to the pits of literal hell or being stabbed through the chest with a sword on Main Street, but come on. Is there no in-between? And when the hell did Savior become synonymous with Sheriff?
But she can’t start thinking like that. Despite all of the chaos, she is grateful, she reminds herself. Grateful to have people here who care about her. Grateful for her own house, her own space. Grateful to have dodged the bullet that marriage would have been, despite how covertly disappointed her own mom had seemed when she’d called off the wedding.
Most of all, above everything else, she is grateful to have raised a son with Regina.
She has a somewhat normal life now, and that doesn’t happen to people like her, so if her primary qualm is falling short of her own potential at work, then she can cope. She’s been through worse.
In an attempt to silence the thoughts from further intrusion, she pulls her phone from her back pocket and presses play on one of the more obnoxious rock songs in her library, holding down the button on the side until the volume is turned all the way up.
Her jeans–one of her favorite pairs of jeans–have a gnarly tear in the left knee from where she’d fallen flat on her face in swampy muck. She’s caked with mud and grass stains, dripping water all the way down the hall as she flips the light on in the laundry room and begins shedding layers.
Emma yanks her shirt off over her head, cursing when it gets caught on her damp, tangled hair. She throws the shirt into the washer, then places both hands on either side of the machine and leans her weight against it with a sigh.
Henry used to make this a lot easier. Having him around meant she could never really find anything to complain about. Even on days like today, the consistent promise of dinner or movie nights with him and Regina would bring a smile to her face.
It still does now, as she remembers the offer she’d extended to Regina this morning.
God, Emma had been a wreck at Henry’s graduation party. Guilt and panic had started a war in her chest, had formed a big enough lump in her throat until she’d had to strategize a getaway while everyone was distracted enough by drinks or gifts or conversation that she could sneak off to the bathroom in the back of Granny’s.
With shaky hands, she’d turned the faucet on and allowed water to fill her cupped hands, bringing it up to her face to quell the flush in her cheeks. She’d caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, and for some reason the ruddy, unkempt sight of herself in an already fraught moment had broken the seal, and she’d hunched over the sink for support as her head fell and her shoulders shook.
She doesn’t remember hearing the bathroom door open, but suddenly she’d smelled Regina’s perfume, and it had been like feeling sunlight on her skin for the first time after a dark winter. Regina’s arms had gone around Emma, and Emma had quietly sobbed, “I didn’t get enough time with him” into Regina’s shoulder.
And then Regina had said kind and lovely things in a soft and soothing voice about how much Henry loves her, how lucky he is to have her in his life, how he’s going to carry her love and her strength in his heart regardless of where he decides to go. When Emma had felt sufficiently embarrassed, she’d pulled away to compose herself, had made some comment or another about how she hopes he doesn’t pick Wisconsin because the Packers suck. And Regina had rolled her eyes, and that had been that.
They haven’t talked about it, but something changed that night, at least for Emma. It had felt like the definitive closing of one chapter and the seamless transition into the next. Emma’s not sure Regina knows what an endless comfort she is for her, what a lifeline Regina is after decades of Emma relying on absolutely no one but herself.
It’s a strange feeling. It’s also kind of beautiful.
She hears no indication of another’s presence–her music is too loud–but suddenly she sees movement out of the corner of her eye, and her heart skips as it does when one misses a stair, fight or flight causing her muscles to tense before she realizes who is in her house.
Emma immediately fumbles for her phone to cut off the shrieking and shredding of guitar, pitching the space into abrupt silence as Regina stares at her from the doorway of the laundry room.
“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Regina says. “I saw your car in the driveway, so I used my key. Are you…is everything alright?”
She watches Regina take in the state of her, shirtless and muddy and leaning over the washing machine like she’s lost her mind. Emma stands up straight, turns to face Regina, which–she’s not thinking, maybe that’s a problem, because there is still the matter of her being shirtless.
“Uh…yeah. Bad day,” she says with a shrug. “I’ll be fine. The animal shelter’s gonna have to operate out of the Sheriff’s Station for a while. Until they can rebuild.”
Regina’s lips quirk.
“Yes, I’ve heard. As the Mayor, I am fairly involved with the town’s goings-on.”
“Yeah? Weird. I didn’t see you out there wading through mud in a thunderstorm.”
“I don’t know how you always manage to forget you have magic in these scenarios.”
“I didn’t forget,” Emma argues. “The animals were already scared. The last thing they needed was to see some crazy witch waving her hands around making a bunch of smoke and trapping them in kennels.”
Regina smiles apologetically.
“I brought takeout,” Regina says. “You can just owe me one.”
Emma wants to cry, fiercely and desperately. The sensation rips through her, pushing between her ribs and climbing up her throat.
Regina has relieved her of the burden of cooking because she is thoughtful and caring. Because Emma hasn’t texted her all day, so she probably assumed they’d need to make other arrangements. But Regina does things like this all the time without Emma needing to ask, without Emma ever needing to feel small or inadequate.
Emma breathes out a laugh and lifts her arms up to cross them over her chest, attempting to retain a sliver of modesty as she navigates feeling vulnerable.
“I will,” she promises. “I’ll owe you one.”
But something else has captured Regina’s attention, something other than Emma’s words.
Emma watches Regina’s eyes fall to her stomach, the movement of her arms apparently drawing her eyes to the area, and Emma has seen this look. It’s one that takes over when Regina is in her vault studying ancient magic, admiring long-forgotten spells and incantations that have been all but lost to time. It’s one that Regina wears when she is both analyzing and appreciating.
Emma usually watches Regina’s wonder from her periphery, as enthralled by her passion as Regina is by the curving, slanting words of a tome. Emma does the same now, eyes locked on Regina’s expression as Regina takes a few steps closer, unable to speak or move for fear of shattering the moment–because it is a moment. Emma’s just not sure why. Is Regina staring at her chest?
Emma’s lips part because she wants to say something, but she can’t. Instead, she releases an unsteady breath and waits, Regina now mere inches away from her.
Regina finally meets her gaze after a few heartbeats, and Emma offers a lame half-smile. It is unsettling in a bone-deep way, this strained sense that Emma should be saying something or doing something that she just can’t figure out. It is also incredibly thrilling to not know what comes next. To let Regina look at her like this with no inclination of what she might be thinking.
“I’m…I don’t mean to stare,” Regina says, glancing down, and when she nods towards Emma’s midsection, that’s when Emma realizes.
Her stretch marks. They are on full display, and Regina has never seen them because no one has ever really seen them. They remain covered even at pools and beaches because Emma has always been too wracked by the shame of giving up the baby who made them. But this is Regina. This is Henry’s mother too, and she loves him too, just as Emma does, and Emma loves her.
Emma loves her.
She would give anything to be able to hear the thoughts swimming in Regina’s head right now. Is she thinking what Emma is? That this is where she carried their son? Where she kept him safe? Where he lived, his first home? Is Regina thinking, too, of how he is gone now, and these silver-pink markings are the only real proof of him? Are they a reminder for her that he was here? That he was loved?
Regina’s fingers twitch at her sides, and she glances back down at Emma’s stomach, so Emma finally drops her arms from where they’ve been crossed, lets them fall as a subtle invitation.
“Oh, it…it’s okay,” Emma tells her. “Um…you can touch me.”
It’s much more than that; Emma wants her to. And Regina reaches out like she can’t help it, carefully and slowly as though Emma is fragile. As though it’s a privilege to have Emma under her fingertips.
Upon the first contact of Regina’s fingers on her skin, her stomach muscles jump, and she flinches slightly. Regina takes her hand away apprehensively, but Emma huffs an embarrassed laugh.
“Your hands are cold,” she says, and there is a breathless quality to her voice that she surprises herself with, so she awkwardly clears her throat to get rid of it.
This makes Regina smile, and Emma watches her shoulders relax as she realizes that Emma had been startled rather than uncomfortable. She replaces her hand, fingers splayed along Emma’s lower side as her thumb delicately grazes the faint lines, feeling every indentation, every groove, every softly jagged edge.
Emma can’t take her eyes off Regina as she touches her, can’t recall a time she’s ever been handled with such reverence. She feels monumentally undeserving, as though something like this could only ever happen in cruelty. As though Regina will pull her hand away any second now and ask her how she could have done such a thing, growing a child and then sending him away.
That’s what Emma feels when she sees these faint lines on her skin. When she catches a glimpse in the mirror or when she’s getting dressed in the morning. There is a lot of shame here, a lot of guilt, and Regina is smoothing it all out with every graze of her thumb.
“Thank you,” Regina says, and Emma licks her lips, can feel Regina’s breath against her face.
“For what?” she wonders dazedly, blissfully lightheaded from the proximity.
Regina's fingers now move lazily along Emma’s stomach, and Emma can hardly breathe, body buzzing like a livewire.
“For giving us our son.”
Emma shakes her head in protest, wants to argue that Regina is the one who gave Henry a home when she couldn’t, who loved him heedlessly when he felt abandoned by a mom he didn’t know.
But then Regina is pulling away and smiling fondly, and Emma has to blink a few times to regain her common sense.
“Change out of those jeans,” Regina tells her, reluctantly taking her lingering hand off of Emma’s skin and stepping out of her space. “Your food’s getting cold.”
When Regina has retreated entirely from the laundry room, Emma finally fucking breathes, feeling swimmy-headed and too dumb to remember her own name. And she allows herself to miss that touch, that unconditional tenderness she’s just been shown. That same tenderness from Regina that she’s been shown in the past but has ignored in favor of protecting herself from another blow of rejection after a lifetime of too much.
But Regina doesn’t stifle her affection like she used to, and Emma is getting better at wanting things without fear.
And all they really have now is each other.
Ordinarily, Regina prefers to keep Snow far away from any official town business, but tonight has been one particular event where she’s been happy to hand over the reins. A single’s mixer at the Rabbit Hole is not exactly Regina’s idea of time or money well-spent. Unfortunately, Snow is annoyingly persistent, and the only way to get her to stop calling and texting every four hours is to just give her what she wants. And it’s harmless, really, if not incredibly eye-roll inducing.
But it hadn’t been a horribly orchestrated event. The bar had looked nice enough, for a bar. Thoughtfully decorated, red streamers spanning the length of the ceiling and white cloths over each table. Candles everywhere, and that had immediately registered as a fire hazard in Regina’s head, but she’d let it go, opting to choose her battles.
Regina’s deep discontent, as her heels click against the pavement on her walk home, stems from Snow’s comments earlier in the evening–how she’d hoped Emma would show up, and it’s just too bad she’s all alone, and wouldn’t it be nice if she could find someone to spend her time with now that Henry’s gone?
She’d bristled as soon as Snow had said the words, and she hasn’t relaxed since. Because Emma has been spending her free time with her, and for some reason, it hasn’t occurred to Regina that Emma would want to start dating. Now this foreign thought of Emma finding someone else to fill her spare moments has caused a nasty, possessive wave to wash over Regina, leaving a bleak pit in her stomach.
She has no claim to Emma, of course. Emma would be well within her right to start dating again, especially after such poor relationship experiences in the past. The fallout with the pirate had been difficult, Regina knows. Emma deserves dinner dates on weeknights and weekend getaways. She’d start cancelling her lunch breaks with Regina, sporadically at first and then altogether, and Regina would have to pretend to be happy for her despite repeatedly getting her feelings hurt.
She’s just someone Emma shares a child with. Nothing more.
The shrill chime of her phone cuts through the silence of empty Main Street, and Regina stops walking to pull it from her pocket, glancing at the screen then sighing before she answers.
“Emma, I’m not very good company right now,” Regina says by way of greeting, but Emma barely lets her get the words out before she is bursting with her own news.
“Eight Ball’s missing,” Emma says on the other end of the line, and she sounds frantic, like she’s been running and is too winded to speak in full sentences.
“What?”
“I can’t find her. She hasn’t shown up for the past two days, and she never does that. She’s always here.” Emma takes half a second to exhale. “Is it crazy if I ask you to come help me look for her?”
Regina grits her teeth, biting back whatever frustration is threatening to jump forth. Instead of lashing out, she hangs up the phone and waves a hand, enveloping herself in a cloud of purple smoke and appearing on Emma’s front porch. Emma startles from where she’s standing at the bottom of the porch steps.
“You made a career out of finding criminals but you can’t find a cat?” Regina says as she descends the stairs. As she moves, so does her shadow, and in the glow of the porch light, Regina sees tears in Emma’s eyes. “Have you been crying?”
“Have you been drinking?” Emma fires back as Regina comes nearer. “You smell like a bar.”
“The single’s mixer was tonight. Thanks for showing up to offer your support.”
“Okay, well, I’ve kind of been having an emergency that I think is a little more important than some stupid event.”
“It’s a stray cat,” Regina says flatly.
“She could be dead,” Emma snaps. “And it would be my fault for not taking her in.”
“Yes, and who told you weeks ago to do just that? You didn’t listen to me.”
Emma recoils a bit.
“What the hell is your problem?”
“I don’t have a problem,” Regina argues. “I told you, I’m not in a good mood.”
“Because I didn’t go to the mixer?”
“No, it…” Regina purses her lips and drops her head to stare at the ground, deflating with an exhale as she remembers who she’s talking to–Emma, the only person in the world who, when Regina says jump, asks how high? Her anger is misdirected, firing off in the wrong direction. She knows Emma would have been there if not for Eight Ball simply because Regina wanted her to be. “Your mother said something to me tonight that was a bit hard for me to hear.”
Emma frowns, crossing her arms and taking a step closer as though Regina’s vulnerability must be treated as a secret so as to not scare it off.
“What was it?”
Regina raises her head, meeting Emma’s gaze again, and swallows.
“Emma, I really don’t want to go there right now.”
“Seriously? You’re just not gonna tell me? I thought…” Emma licks her lips, rolls her eyes like she’s annoyed about having to share her feelings. “I thought we were doing a thing here.”
Regina releases a short, defeated laugh, heart starting to race and skin starting to flush uncomfortably, bringing her hands up to her hips to steady herself as she shifts from one foot to the other.
“You’re going to get bored,” Regina says, then shrugs. “This is going to get old for you, and you’ll want to leave, or maybe you’ll stay, but you’ll be distant. You’ll meet someone, and all of this will stop, and I’ll be alone, and I know that makes me sound horrible and selfish, but forgive me if I really enjoy what we have.”
Emma’s expression is blank as she processes Regina’s words, sliding her hands into her back pockets and nodding. It is painfully quiet for several seconds until Emma finally speaks.
“Sounds like you’ve got my life figured out for me.” There is a sarcastic bite in Emma’s tone, and Regina shakes her head to argue, but Emma continues. “You think I’m just gonna bolt someday? That I don’t have feelings and that I don’t care about anything here? What are you even talking about?”
“Henry was the reason you came to this town. With him gone, I thought you might find it pointless to stay.”
“You’re here,” Emma bursts, like it should be obvious. Like Regina is an idiot. “What, do you just think I’ve been, like, tolerating you or something?”
“I think I’m easy for you,” Regina shoots back. “I think you got comfortable with how things were when Henry was here. I think you’re not very good at navigating change, and you like being around me because it’s familiar.”
“I like being around you because I like you. In case that wasn’t clear when you almost had me moaning for you in my laundry room last week.”
And something right on the tail end of Emma’s sentence catches Regina’s attention. Not the words themselves–which, they do, but if Regina focuses on them too much, she will forget the current task at hand. What captures her interest is a sound. A tiny, squeaky, almost imperceptible mewing sound.
“Emma,” she says quietly, eyes darting around to try and match the sound to something physical.
“Look, I know it’s not–”
“Shut up,” Regina hisses. “Do you hear that?”
She follows the noise, has to listen incredibly closely among the trilling of grasshoppers and the occasional cicada. Regina carefully chases the sound all the way to the lattice lining the bottom of Emma’s porch where there is a small gap just big enough for a cat to squeeze into.
Regina magicks away a section of the lattice, and the mewing is still soft but much louder over here. Emma quickly falls to her knees in the dewy grass, scrambling for the flashlight on her phone and shining it into the darkness. Regina leans down near her, sees a black cat nursing two, tiny kittens, one tuxedo and the other calico.
“She was pregnant,” Regina nearly whispers.
“She’s a mom,” Emma says quietly, then lowers her phone and places her hands on her thighs, taking a steadying breath. She stays like that for a moment, and Regina lets her, doesn’t take anything away from her as Emma rejoices in Eight Ball’s safety and newfound motherhood.
When Emma finally does stand, her words from before come crashing back into Regina’s mind like a wrecking ball, destroying whatever composure she’d had left. And Emma, naturally, starts trying to smooth it over, to sweep it under the rug, but Regina’s so far from interested in that. All the two of them do is keep things to themselves, and now, at this particular point, when Emma has already said the thing out loud, there is no world in which they simply ignore it and move on.
“Regina, um…I shouldn’t have said anything. Before. About...”
“You should have said something long before now,” Regina corrects, and Emma frowns.
“Why? So you could let me down easy? So you could feel sorry for me?”
“I’m in love with you,” Regina says, and her voice gets away from her a bit in how it rises. She never intended for this to be the way, never intended to mention it at all, and the way it has just exploded out of her makes her huff an annoyed breath. “God, you’re insufferable.”
But Emma says nothing. Just watches her, studies her with intent, eyes scanning Regina’s features like she’s looking for a lie that she’s not going to find. She takes a step closer, and whatever raw, angry electricity had been buzzing between them seconds ago begins to dissipate, dialing itself down to harmless static, then fizzling into something else entirely as Emma takes yet another step towards her.
“You mean it?” Emma asks. “You love me?”
Regina licks her lips.
“It was Montreal,” she explains. “Or–it was before then. Maybe just short of the whole time. But after that trip, I…and then Henry was leaving, and it was just us. I didn’t want to risk losing you too.” Regina moves closer, and she’s effectively in Emma’s space now, watching the way Emma’s gaze seems to linger on Regina’s lips. “You said–when I touched you…” Regina lets one of her hands come to rest on Emma’s stomach, mimicking their positions from a week ago. “You felt it too?”
And Regina hates asking, hates how small it makes her feel to inquire about reciprocation like she’s some doe-eyed damsel, but she hadn’t known how Emma felt at the time. That’s why Regina hadn’t pushed for more, why the encounter had been so tame.
But Emma ducks her head and laughs softly, and Regina’s fingers tighten in the fabric of Emma’s shirt as Emma stirs up all her feelings of affection with one small sound.
“Yeah. Yeah, with you, I pretty much always feel it,” Emma tells her as she meets her gaze again. “Um…I still owe you one. If you wanna come inside.”
Regina pokes her knuckle into Emma’s stomach playfully.
“A bowl of cereal while we watch SVU reruns doesn’t count as dinner.”
Emma swats at Regina’s hand.
“Shut up. I’m trying to be romantic.”
Regina smiles, quietly giddy in a way she never imagined herself to be. It is a warmth in her chest that touches each corner, that fills the space and illuminates even the darkest parts. And she ignores the sadness that threatens to tinge this feeling and stain, must ignore it, because she won’t grieve for lost time when Emma is right here in front of her finally saying all the right things. She will not be swallowed by that particular sea of bitterness.
This is real now. All the knowing looks and unspoken rules over the years, all the uncertainty and the invisible boundaries and the careful coloring inside the lines–whatever could have been isn’t, but they still have what could be. So, she gestures to Emma’s front door.
“Lead the way.”
In Emma’s kitchen–in the sink, on the countertops, the stovetop–there are signs of love. It is scattered throughout the room in pots and pans and measuring cups and spoons, in ingredients left out and the oven door left cracked to allow the heat to escape. The faucet drips, because it always does, and the sound the drops make as they collide with the empty stockpot below provides a sort of metronome effect. Some way to keep the time, because otherwise it would be entirely lost in this space.
Emma has made a macaroni and cheese bake, which, despite Regina’s judgement, she is quite proud of. A rich roux, Gruyere and cheddar, smoked paprika, leftover shredded chicken from a rotisserie seasoned just right. The breadcrumbs on top of the cheesy crust add a nice texture, and as soon as Regina takes her final bite, Emma raises her eyebrows.
“Well?”
“For an elevated dish, it’s impressive,” she tells Emma, and Emma attempts to nudge Regina in the thigh with her knee, but the barstools are too far apart for her to fully reach.
“You could have just said it’s pretty damn good.”
“You sprinkled Panko over noodles and cheese,” Regina says. “Calm down.”
Emma shrugs.
“Fine. You’re cleaning my kitchen. And my dishwasher’s broken, so have fun with that.”
Regina stands from her barstool to take her now empty plate over to the sink. She rounds the counter and turns the faucet on, and Emma follows behind with her own plate in tow.
“I never agreed to that.”
“It’s not something you agree to,” Emma tells her. “I cooked, you clean up. It’s an unspoken rule. It’s polite. Shouldn’t you know this, being a queen and all?”
Regina’s lips quirk, and Emma watches in amusement, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms as Regina starts spraying off the dishes.
“When I was a queen, I was never polite.”
Regina’s tone is mostly playful, but there is a certain tinge of regret to it that Emma only recognizes because she has come to know her so well.
She reaches for the saucepan Regina is currently rinsing, scooting closer into her space to nudge her out of the way.
“Here, I was just messing with you. Let me do it.”
“No, it’s alright. I actually enjoy the cleanup,” Regina says reassuringly, and Emma hesitates, unsure if she should insist or busy herself with wiping down the messy countertops instead. But then Regina turns her head and meets Emma’s gaze, and Emma forgot how close she was standing, so this newly realized proximity makes her mind go blank for a moment. “I like to know that we ate well.”
…Oh.
It’s staggering how Regina’s sincerity always cuts through Emma so cleanly, the way she weaves sentimentality through everything she says and does. It’s in her eyes and the set of her jaw and the curve of her mouth. Everything she is has always tossed a match to Emma’s insides, and Emma’s never bothered to name it before, but they’re doing that now, right? They’re finally naming the thing?
Regina already has, and it nearly caused Emma to throw up her own heart onto the front lawn an hour ago. And of course Regina knows now that Emma wants her to touch her, because that had also pushed its way past her lips so fast she didn’t even think about what she was saying until it was already out.
Was that stupid? If Regina hadn’t reciprocated, could Emma have ruined a decades-long friendship with a few clumsy, misplaced words? The mere thought of that almost makes her nauseous.
But that was earlier. That was before Emma invited Regina in for dinner, and this is now, and Emma doesn’t know what she’s supposed to do. She’s not sure what would be too much, but she doesn’t want to seem weird by not offering enough either.
Emma nods, licks her lips.
“Okay,” she says quietly, manages a weak smile.
Wiping down the countertops it is.
Emma goes to move out of Regina’s space as Regina plugs one side of the sink and begins filling it with water. As she grabs a washcloth from a nearby drawer, she watches Regina’s hands from a distance. Watches as Regina removes her rings and sets them on the counter. Watches as she takes the dish liquid and squeezes. Watches as she moves her fingers through the water to create bubbles.
Those same hands were on her just last week. Those hands have touched her skin, have praised her for her strength and empathized with her weakness. Those hands have seen the soft side of her that she keeps hidden from everyone else. And they did not turn her away.
“Emma?” Regina says over her shoulder, and Emma blinks, shuts the drawer a bit too hard.
“Yeah?”
“Could you pull my hair back for me?” Regina asks, and Emma is already coming back to her, hovering by her side. “It keeps falling in my face, and my hands are wet.”
Emma’s pulse starts thrumming faster. Regina’s hair has gotten longer, no longer a short, styled bob. It reaches past her shoulders, and Emma does notice Regina keeps having to toss her head each time she looks down at the sink.
“Uh, yeah,” Emma says, fighting through the dense fog in her brain. She glances around as though a hair tie is going to magic itself into existence before remembering she has one on her wrist from where she’d had her own hair pulled into a ponytail while searching for Eight Ball hours prior. “Yeah. Um…”
Regina stops lathering up the dishwater, turning the faucet off and pitching them into silence. Emma swallows, comes to stand behind, and Regina tilts her head back just slightly so Emma can gather all of her hair into her hands, but as soon as Emma’s fingers touch soft, smooth silk, her rationality disappears.
Is this how Regina felt with her fingers on Emma’s skin, grazing across her stretch marks? Did she feel overwhelmed? Stricken with desire? Did she feel desperate? Did it ache?
It is immensely distracting. She wonders if Regina feels her lingering or if she is too preoccupied by scrubbing the pot she’s currently holding. Emma’s hands follow the length of Regina’s hair, and she absentmindedly curls a strand around her finger.
“It’s nice,” she tells Regina, and Regina laughs softly.
“I have nice hair?”
“Yeah.” Emma curls another strand around her finger, hypnotized by the way it falls back into place. “It’s soft. It feels nice.”
Regina is quiet for a moment, and she slowly stops scrubbing the pot in her hands. She seems to relax a bit, rolling her shoulders as she tips her head forward a bit.
“It feels nice having your hands in it,” Regina says.
Her voice is just a touch lower than it had been before, adopting a velvety quality, and a bolt of want travels sharply down Emma’s spine. Emma, selfishly, wants to hear more.
She slides one hand beneath Regina’s hair, making her way closer to the crown of Regina’s head. Once she reaches where she wants to be, fingertips hugging Regina’s scalp, some primal part of her brain takes over and Emma tugs.
Regina inhales sharply, and Emma hears it, relaxes her grip for fear that Regina might tense or pull away altogether.
“Emma,” Regina says, and it comes out as a plea.
It’s still between them for several seconds, moments passing in silence. The foam from the bubbles in the sink. The water dripping from the faucet like a metronome. Soft breathing. Heartbeats.
She pulls Regina’s hair again.
Regina, quick and fierce, immediately drops the pot she’d been washing with a clatter into the soapy sink water, rounds on Emma in the very next instant. Her wet hands grasp both of Emma’s wrists, and her grip is loose but firm, and Emma sees the quiet fire in Regina’s eyes. The water from Regina’s hands starts trickling down Emma’s arms, dripping off her elbows. She wonders how long Regina has wanted this, remembers Regina’s words from earlier.
Maybe just short of the whole time.
She leans in without hesitation, pressing her lips to Regina’s in one confident, decisive maneuver. And Regina matches her passion as she kisses her back, removing her hands from Emma’s wrists and holding either side of Emma’s neck instead, using the leverage to deepen the kiss. Emma’s neck feels damp, cold from the water on Regina’s hands, but Regina’s touch is warm and encouraging.
It’s bizarre. It’s fucking perfect. Heat floods Emma’s body as Regina licks into her mouth, and all Emma can think to do is take another fistful of Regina’s hair. This time, when she gives it a soft tug, Regina moans for her, and Emma pulls away to curse against Regina’s lips. She uses the hand she still has in Regina’s hair to gently tilt her head so she can bury her face in Regina’s neck, pressing her lips to Regina’s pulse, then lower as Regina accommodates her angle.
Regina hums, presses her body more solidly against Emma’s, and Emma drops her hands to Regina’s waist to hold her closely. As Emma takes her time trailing her mouth along the column of Regina’s neck, Regina slides her hands beneath Emma’s shirt, pushing up past the fabric of it to run fingertips along her back, her sides.
Emma shivers at the first contact of it, then melts into the touch, lifting her head to once again find Regina’s lips with her own. She crowds Regina against the counter as Regina’s hands come around to press against Emma’s stomach, and it is urgent, and it is frenetic, but it feels so, so good.
Regina breaks their kiss to sigh, and Emma immediately rests her forehead against Regina’s, both of them sharing the same air for several moments.
“Emma,” she breathes, “take off your shirt.”
Fuck.
It’s been an embarrassingly long time since she’s done anything like this, and as she slowly crosses her own arms over her waist to reach for the hem of her shirt, she feels her hands shaking. It’s nerves, or it’s lust, or it’s the simple fact that it’s Regina.
She lifts up her shirt at the hem, pulls it off over her head, and no sooner than Emma is tossing it onto the floor, Regina’s hands are on her again.
“You know, no one ever sees these,” Emma says quietly, stomach muscles clenching as Regina’s fingers graze over the skin there. “You’re the only one who’s ever been this close.”
She means close as in, more than just a physical sense. She means close as in, Regina is the only one who has been this emotionally connected to her, who has seen one of her deepest vulnerabilities. She means close as in, they both share that vulnerability, even if Regina doesn’t have the same markings. It is a feeling, one that unites them and pales in comparison to anything either of them could ever build with anyone else.
Regina lowers her hands to pop the button of Emma’s jeans, glancing down and following the lines with her thumbs all the way down until she reaches the waistband of Emma’s underwear. Emma swallows hard. Regina stares at the very scars that landed them in each other’s lives, and Emma stares at her.
After a few agonizing seconds, Regina meets Emma’s gaze with a small smile.
“High praise,” she teases quietly, and Emma exhales a laugh, relief settling into her bones at Regina’s attempt to lighten the mood.
Sometimes she imagines what her life would be like if Henry had never brought her to Storybrooke. If he had never been curious about her, if he had never been given a book of fairytales. She imagines her old apartment in Boston, empty and cold. She imagines her old job that she probably would have continued until she was too old to keep up with criminals. She imagines a version of herself who is unsatisfied, alone, and not a savior. And if she had never known anything about Henry, if she had never met him, had never met Regina, then she might be okay with that life.
But now that she has this, now that she has raised Henry to adulthood side by side with Regina, now that she knows better, she pities that version of herself. She pities the Emma who would never know what Regina’s mouth feels like under her own. She imagines that alternate version of her life now and she mourns, grieves for everything she wouldn’t even know she’s missing.
Basically, what Regina will never truly understand, what Emma doesn’t bother trying to argue, is that the honor is entirely hers.
So she doesn’t try. Instead, she leans back in, kisses Regina soundly, and settles into the version of herself that is here and now.
Emma wakes to soft, early morning sunlight filtering in through the curtains. There is a weight across her midsection–an arm, she finds when she glances down to where the covers have shifted to her waist in sleep. An arm that is connected to Regina, Emma notes with a little skip in her chest, and she follows it first with her eyes, then the tips of her fingers.
She trails her hand up then down Regina’s arm with a smile, taking advantage of the position Regina is currently in to study her. Regina is lying on her front, head turned away from Emma, dark hair contrasting against the stark white of her pillowcase.
Emma’s not sure for how long she counts then recounts the handful of freckles on Regina’s back, how many times she runs her hand along Regina’s arm, before Regina begins to stir.
“You snore,” Emma tries, gauging Regina’s wakefulness, and when she feels fingers pinch her side, she knows she has Regina’s attention.
“I don’t,” Regina mumbles, and Emma grins to herself.
“How would you know?”
Regina finally turns her head in Emma’s direction with a sigh, eyes still closed, and Emma’s heart gets caught in her throat from being allowed to see this side of Regina.
“I haven’t even opened my eyes yet and you’re already starting with me.” Despite her complaint, Regina scoots in closer to Emma, their bare thighs brushing beneath the covers. “Don’t make me kick you out.”
Emma barks out a laugh.
“Kick me out of my own bed?”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t.”
Regina blinks her eyes open at that, unable to keep a smile from pulling at the corners of her lips, and Emma immediately wants to kiss her.
“I might.”
“I guess I’ll leave, then,” Emma says, and she makes no effort to move, but Regina’s arm tightens around her all the same.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
It’s lighthearted, soft, but Emma senses the vulnerability hidden just beneath the surface. It’s in Regina’s eyes, the way she pleads without saying anything at all. It pings on Emma’s radar, demanding her reassurance, her care.
“No, I’m not,” she promises.
Regina props herself up on an elbow then, her other hand smoothing over Emma’s stomach, and she leans down to press her lips to Emma’s.
It is as ridiculously dizzying as all the ones last night had been, wonderfully surreal, just overdue enough to make her feel so giddy that it’s almost stupid. One of her hands finds Regina’s back, fingertips glancing along the expanse of exposed skin, warmth soaking into warmth.
She never dared to hope they’d ever be here. She wanted, obviously. But it was never something that felt possible, always just out of reach. They didn’t even make it to the bed. Or, they did. Eventually. Very eventually. She hasn’t had sex on a countertop since she was in her twenties, but Regina had touched her in the kitchen last night like if she didn’t have her right that second, the world would fall out from under their feet.
That’s what years of pent up longing will do, Emma supposes.
“Do you remember the morning of Henry’s graduation?” Emma asks as Regina buries her face in Emma’s neck.
Regina hums.
“Not my finest moment,” she mumbles, and Emma feels the soft vibration of the words against her own throat.
She smiles fondly at the memory. She’d shown up to Mifflin with a tray of coffees and a bag of breakfast sandwiches from Granny’s. Henry had answered the door, had taken the brown bag from her to help.
“Congrats, grad. Where’s your mom?” Emma had asked, and Henry had winced.
“She hasn’t come downstairs yet,” he’d told her, and Emma’s eyes had nearly bulged out of her head, she’s sure, because it was already 7:30. “You’re definitely gonna need that.”
Henry had nodded towards the coffees in Emma’s hand, which, great. Regina was probably training for Henry’s graduation day the moment he could count to three. Emma had been entirely out of her depth and felt completely unprepared and never even expected to watch Henry grow up, let alone watch him walk across a stage and earn his diploma. She’d needed Regina, had been counting on her level-headedness for that particular occasion. She hadn’t considered that Regina would be having a hard time too.
“Right,” Emma had said knowingly with a nod. “Well, wish me luck.”
Henry had saluted her, then disappeared into the kitchen to eat his sausage and egg biscuit.
Emma remembers making her way up those stairs, remembers not knowing what she’d find on the other side of Regina’s door. She’d been so careful when she knocked, had been even more careful when she gently turned the knob and pushed the door open.
“Hey,” she’d tried, stepping into Regina’s bedroom and shutting the door behind her. There had been a motionless lump beneath the duvet, and Emma had approached with care. “Regina,” she’d said, louder but still gentle. When Regina remained unresponsive, Emma had rolled her eyes and shoved at Regina’s legs over the covers. “Look alive, old lady.”
Which, that had worked, but at what cost, because Regina was immediately upright and glaring at Emma as though she’d put a curse on her.
“If you didn’t have coffee, you’d be flying backwards out of that window right now,” Regina had said, snagging a cup from Emma’s tray.
“Sorry. You wouldn’t answer me.”
Regina had taken a sip of her coffee, and Emma noticed the quiet, the stillness. How it wasn’t Regina’s usual calm demeanor but something more. Something stained with feeling. She’d watched Regina fidget with the push button on her lid, had known Regina doesn’t fidget unless she’s upset.
“What’s going on?” Emma had asked quietly, ducking her head until she could finally get Regina to meet her eyes. “Talk to me.”
When Regina had finally looked at her, Emma could see her eyes were red-rimmed and swollen, like she’d been crying all night. Her face had been blotchy and flushed, and her hair was messy and unkempt from countless times of running her hands through it.
“He’s leaving, Emma,” she’d told her.
It had shattered Emma from the inside out. To hear Regina, who is usually so eloquent, so composed, so regal, say a mere three words had been jarring enough that Emma hadn’t really thought about what to do next. Her body had moved on its own, placing the coffee tray on the floor and shuffling up in bed next to Regina. She’d put an arm around her, allowed Regina to rest her head on her shoulder.
“I know,” Emma had said softly. “I’m sad too.”
Regina shifts, and Emma is brought back to present day, back to a perfectly content Regina with no puffy eyes or broken heart.
“I think I was gonna tell you then,” Emma says, and Regina lifts her head from Emma’s neck, props herself up again to look at her.
“Tell me what?”
“That I love you,” she says. “You were so sad. You looked…it just seemed like you felt so alone. I wanted you to know you weren’t. But I didn’t say it.”
Regina frowns, reaches up to brush hair from Emma’s face.
“Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t know. I was scared.”
“Are you still?” Regina asks quietly. “Scared?”
Emma shakes her head, feels the corners of her lips quirk.
“Are you?”
Regina smiles, warm and soft and glowing, and Emma’s heart swells with affection. Regina leans in for a slow, languid kiss, and when she slides a thigh between Emma’s legs, Emma gasps.
“The only thing I’m scared of is that I may want you like this every day,” Regina teases against Emma’s parted lips, and a rush of pleasure settles low in Emma’s stomach at the combination of words and friction.
“Glad we’re finally on the same page,” she manages breathlessly, and Regina’s soft laugh fills the quiet room before she leans back in.