Chapter Text
It was a Tuesday morning that Regina Mills turned Emma’s life upside down. A damn fine Tuesday morning, actually, with sun a-shining and birds a-singing and cars a-honking, and Emma really would’ve liked to enjoy it for a while longer than she was allowed. It wasn’t all Regina’s fault, though, in hindsight, but when Emma was in one of her grumpy moods she didn’t much care about that. Then she’d grumble and mutter and huff, gladly blaming Regina for everything until she took in her friend’s tired and annoyed face and remembered that she was really the one better off between the two of them. After all, there was a reason for why Regina didn’t say anything until she absolutely had to. And Emma’d be ashamed and apologetic, awkwardly smiling in not-quite-apology, because when it came down to it she cared about Regina way too much.
To the ends of the Earth, and Beyond. Quite literally.
***
“Emma! There you are”, Regina said relieved as she finally encountered her friend.
“Reggie!” Emma shouted happily, tossing her a smile before directing a stern glare at the man she was staring down, lest he get ideas. “What brings you to these parts of the woods? Listen, could you give me a hand here? I really need to pee but this asshole is trying to steal my Bug.”
“I’m not stealing your car, ma’am, it’s being towed,” the man protested but no one paid him any attention.
Regina raised an eyebrow, giving her friend a critical onceover. “Is that why you’re prancing around half-naked?” she asked, indicating Emma’s bare legs, as she had unfortunately run out of her apartment without putting pants on.
Emma looked down and blushed when she noticed her state of undress. “Yeah,” she shrugged a little awkwardly, “I was just making coffee when I looked out the window and saw this guy sniffing around my car. You’re lucky I thought to put shoes on!”
“I wasn’t sniffing around…”
Regina’s other eyebrow went up at this as she stared dubiously at Emma’s choice of footwear. Flip-flops did not equal shoes in her mind.
“Right,” she said, not deigning to respond to her friend’s rambling. “Now, how about we go to a bar for a glass of cider? There’s something very urgent I really must speak to you about, if you don’t mind.”
“Uh, Regina, remember I’m trying to stop a guy from stealing my car? I can’t just leave! Not to mention I’m in my underwear. And it’s, like, 10 AM.”
“…for the last time, ma’am, I’m not stealing your car…”
Regina raised another eyebrow as she finally looked over to the poor towing guy. (No, she really did. Emma had no idea how it happened, but strange things always seemed to happen around Regina.) He cowered away from the sudden attention.
“Be a dear and run along, won’t you?” she stated imperiously, without a doubt of being listened to.
The guy stared for a second, swallowed convulsively before saying, in a detached voice: “Yes, ma’am.”
Emma looked on confusedly as she got into the tow truck and drove away. “One day you’ll have to tell me how you do that,” she said.
“Maybe sooner than you think, dear,” Regina muttered, shrugging out of her coat and handing it to Emma. "Now come along. We’ve no time to lose.”
Emma dutifully put on the coat to cover her bare thighs and gave the Bug an affectionate pat before hurrying to catch up with Regina (who always stalked away impressively fast considering the ankle breaking heels she favoured), her flip-flops making an annoying flapping sound with every step.
“So, what’s up, buttercup? What’s so urgent it requires booze at ten in the morning? And you’re missing work; you never miss work! It must be the end of the world,” Emma joked.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” Regina answered, dead-pan, and Emma snorted.
“No, really, I didn’t think I’d live to see the day that Regina Mills didn’t go into office unless it involved acute from-the-neck-down paralysis. And even then you’d only miss the morning meeting while being fit with a wheelchair.”
Regina smirked, but Emma couldn’t help but notice that it was less lively than usual, without the teasing evil glint to her eyes. They power-walked together in contemplative silence until they reached a bar Regina deemed acceptable. They took a table by the window and Regina ordered in several bottles of very potent apple cider.
“Drink up,” was all she said, and though Emma was burning with curiosity she followed orders. They went through a bottle and half that way, before the alcohol finally seemed to loosen Regina’s tongue.
“I need to talk to you about something, Swan,” she said, her words only slightly less precisely enunciated. “There’s something you don’t know about me, something important, and I need to tell you.”
It finally clicked into place for Emma. “Oh my God,” she said, horrified, because she didn’t do this kind of emotional crap. “Is this your coming-out speech? Because there’s really no need, I mean, I obviously don’t have a problem with it and I guessed kind of a while ago, I mean, it’s really kind of obvious, when you think about it, you know, that you’re a…”
“Alien?” Regina smoothly interrupted at the same time as Emma said:
“…lesbian. Wait, what?”
“Oh, you thought I was…” Regina had the gall to laugh. “Well, I guess I am, in a way? Though, I’ve never understood you earthlings’ need to put labels on such things. And all this stupid antiquated prejudice – I mean, honestly, you are all the same species but do you see anyone caring about that? This place really is speciest; it’s like you’re still living in the Dark Ages!”
Emma stared. Emma laughed (because it had to be a joke, right?). Emma stopped laughing (because strange things really happened around Regina even when she wasn’t being unbearably weird). Emma hid her face in her hands and massaged her temples as she felt a headache coming on. Emma decided to stop caring about the fact that it was barely eleven in the morning and took a deep swig of cider.
The problem was that Regina had absolutely no sense of humour. Sarcasm, yes (in fact it was Regina’s number-one form of communicating). Humour, no. So, she’d never pretend to be an alien just to try to give Emma an aneurysm for a laugh. Which left three options: A) Regina had an (even more) evil twin; B) Emma was hallucinating this entire conversation; or, C) Regina was in fact an alien.
“Who are you and what have you done with Regina?” Emma asked coldly, eyeing the strange woman across from her.
“I’m right here, Emma,” Regina sighed. “Really, I should have known that you’d be stupid about this. Is it so much to ask that you believe what I’m saying?”
“Uh, woman, in case you didn’t hear yourself, you actually just told me that you are an alien. You expect me to just believe you?”
“I don’t see why not,” Regina huffed, affronted. Then she sighed. “Emma, remember when we first met?”
Emma did. After all, it wasn’t every day you met a beautiful woman singing “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” while waving around an umbrella.
Regina nodded. “Didn’t you think that was fairly weird?”
Emma shrugged. “I just always kind of assumed that it was a weird fetish of yours. Or that you had an alternate personality or something.”
“Mary Poppins was the only thing we ever managed to pick up of Earth culture,” Regina explained patiently. “I don’t know why, but something about the wavelengths in Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious make for an amazing reach. It can be picked up on from over half a galaxy. We thought it was a greeting deliberately transmitted from Earth, so when I came here I tried to replicate it.”
Damn. That kind of made sense.
“So, you’re saying you’re an alien. From, like, outer space. Wait, where are you even from?”
“A small planet in the vicinity of Betelgeuse. The name wouldn’t mean anything to you. It’s not really pronounceable in your language. In fact, I think there is only seven people in the universe that can pronounce it properly. It requires a very unique shape of the mouth and a dexterous tongue.”
“O …kay,” Emma said slowly, trying to wrap her head around the fact that her friend, and secret crush, actually grew up on another planet and not in a small town on the coast in Maine as she’d claimed. “Cool. So… Why are you telling me this now?”
“Well, the world as you know it is about to end in about thirteen minutes and forty-two seconds, so I thought I’d save your life. You’ll be so much easier to handle if you don’t have a nervous breakdown while were sneaking onto the ship, so I calculated that by plying you with alcohol and giving you some background information we can put it on hold for about sixteen hours and seven minutes, which is really a much more convenient timeframe. Now, we have about twelve minutes and fifty-one seconds to get out of here so I suggest you get a move on. Oh, and bring the booze.”
Regina stood, slightly unsteady, and headed for the door while rummaging after something in her handbag. Emma blinked owlishly as sunny morning light filtered into the dim bar through the door Regina left open. Then she grabbed the only unopened bottle of cider remaining, and followed her friend. “Wait, hold on!” she shouted.
And then she saw the space ships.