Chapter Text
The drive home – the drive back to Boston – is harder every time she does it.
Emma’s spent plenty of time on never-ending stakeouts, so she knows just how long a minute, an hour, a day can seem. But even by those standards, the days she spends in Boston drag on and the weekends in Storybrooke are over in the blink of an eye.
She spends a lot of tedious hours on the road thinking about the nature of time and what it means. She and Regina had been together less time than they’d been apart, but three years hadn’t been enough to wash away the imprints Regina had left all over life.
She remembers hearing that time is non-linear and she hopes that’s true, because maybe there’s a happy ending that comes sometime after a divorce that came before they’d ever really had a chance to get to know each other. They’re bending time now, folding it back on itself so they can make the milestones they never really reached before. There’s a first date and then a second, a third, a fourth, a tenth. There are kisses goodnight, and slow, careful connection and reconnection.
Tonight, she’ll get home to an empty apartment and she’ll search for a way to speed time up again, but the hands of the clock are heavy and she struggles to move them, no matter how hard she wills them to turn.
She’s done more push-ups in the past three months than she’s done in the past ten years. It takes the edge off a little. There have also been more cold showers than she’s had since her days in group homes, but the days are getting colder and she’s not sure how much longer she can take it. It seems as good a reason as any to make a change. That, and a few hundred miles away, the two people she loves are settling down to sleep under another roof and she’s not sure she wants to miss out on any more of that time with them.
*****
She’s already running late, but she swings by the Sheriff’s station anyway. Mulan looks up from some paperwork and a smile lights up her face when she sees Emma. “Someone steal your spark plugs again?”
They haven’t seen much of each other in the past few months; Emma’s been caught up in rebuilding things with Regina. But she’s hoping soon enough she’ll have a chance to make up for that.
Emma shakes her head. “She’s running like a dream, spark plugs and all.”
“Somehow I doubt that, unless you’re talking about the kind of dream you have after eating cheese before bed.”
Emma glares at her for a moment, because no one gets away with insulting her car, but then remembers that she’s here to ask Mulan for a favour.
Mulan seems completely unperturbed by any of it. She looks curiously at Emma. “So why are you hanging out in this dump instead of rushing home to that beautiful ex-wife of yours?” She pulls a face. “You know everything about that sentence is completely weird, right?”
Emma takes a deep breath, because a lot of her hopes are riding on this and she’s not sure what she’ll do if it doesn’t come off for her. “I was kind of wondering if that deputy job’s still in the pipeline.”
Mulan raises an eyebrow. “You know someone who’s interested?”
“I might,” Emma says, trying to play it cool, because she knows Mulan’s going to give her shit about this.
“As it happens, we do have a vacancy in the department,” Mulan says brightly. Then, her smile turns a little devious and Emma’s stomach drops. “The successful candidate will need to overcome a gruelling test that few have ever even come close to passing.”
“What do I have to do?”
Mulan screws up a sheet of paper and throws it to her. “Sink three baskets in a row… from the six-point line.”
She follows the line of Mulan’s finger which is pointing at a spot halfway across the office, with the photocopier in the way of a clear shot.
“Seriously?”
Mulan nods, her face solemn. “Seriously. That’s the test and you need to pass if you want the job.”
She lines the first one up and it takes every bit of expertise built during her wasted youth to sink the shot, but it’s clean. The second one falls just as nicely and she throws a smug grin in Mulan’s direction, because she’s just about to ace this stupid test. She’s already celebrating internally, and maybe that’s why she’s a little too casual taking the shot, because it bounces off the rim and rolls sadly across the office, a testament to her crumpled dreams.
“Can I have another shot?”
“No second chances here,” Mulan says, shaking her head.
Emma’s face falls because it seems like she’s screwed everything up.
Mulan sighs and tosses something in her direction. “Okay, this just feels too cruel. I thought it would be funny but it’s more than a little tragic.”
Emma catches it reflexively and when she looks down at her hand, she realises she’s holding a shiny new deputy badge.
“The job’s been waiting for you this whole time. I mean, it’s not like I’m ever going to find a more qualified candidate around here.”
*****
“You’re late,” is the greeting she gets from Regina when she opens the door.
It’s not quite the welcome she was hoping for, but then Regina’s pulling her inside by the lapels of her jacket and pushing her up against the now-closed front door. A moment later she’s being kissed absolutely senseless. And okay, this is more like it, and maybe she shouldn’t rush to move back to Storybrooke if this is the kind of welcome she’s going to get.
“I missed you,” Regina rasps out and Emma can’t help but wonder where she managed to find enough air to speak, because after that kiss Emma’s not entirely sure she’s actually even alive any more.
As much as she’s enjoying this, she can hear Henry’s thundering footsteps stirring upstairs, so she kisses Regina softly and whispers, “Later.”
“Promise?”
“Definitely.”
She straightens out her shirt just in time for Henry to come running down the stairs.
“Hey, Emma.” He pulls a face that makes her think maybe she hasn’t been quite as clever as she thought she had and she self-consciously rubs a thumb against her lips, because it seems like Regina’s not wearing kiss-proof lipstick.
“Go set the table, kid.”
He grumbles about it for a moment, until Regina points in the direction of the kitchen, with a stern go.
“Maybe you guys are so gross that I’ve lost my appetite,” he tosses back over his shoulder, but she can see that he’s grinning as he walks away.
“If only he’d lose his appetite,” Regina sighs. “I swear he’s grown two shoe sizes just this week.”
They follow him in a moment later and sit down to dinner.
Emma pushes her food around on her plate instead of inhaling it in her usual style because she’s absolutely bursting to tell them her news.
Regina eyes her curiously. “What’s going on, Emma?”
“I’ve got a job in Storybrooke.”
“How long for?” Henry asks and neither he nor Regina are nearly as excited as she thought they would be.
“Forever, I hope, if that’s okay with you both.” She pulls the badge out of her pocket and slides it across the table. “You’re looking at Storybrooke’s newest deputy sheriff.”
That seems to get the message across, and this time the response is a little more in line with what she’d been hoping for. Henry picks up the badge and starts trying out poses with it and Regina smiles softly at her. And if Emma didn’t know her well enough she’d take that reaction at face value, but there’s a tension around her eyes that Emma can’t help but notice.
Later, lying in bed, she gets to the bottom of it.
Emma props herself up on her elbow and searches Regina’s face for an answer. “I can’t help but think you’re not entirely happy about my news.”
“I am happy, Emma,” Regina says a little too emphatically and Emma shakes her head, because she can tell there’s a lie in there somewhere.
“So why does it seem like the opposite?” she asks.
Regina sighs. “I’m happy for me. Having you here is all I’ve ever wanted. But is this what you really want? Tying yourself to a job that you’re ridiculously over-qualified for?”
“It’s just a job, Regina.” Even with the situation, she can’t help but laugh, because Regina seems to have this strange misconception about what she actually does.
“Do you know what I did this week while I was away? One day I spent hours sifting through someone’s garbage. Another day I spent ten hours straight sitting in my car waiting for a meeting that never actually happened. And yeah, I caught a couple of bad guys and I got paid and that was about it. The whole time, though, all I could think about was how much I couldn’t wait to get back to you.” She reaches out and smooths the line that’s formed between Regina’s brows, runs her fingers down the angle of Regina’s jaw.
“I do this stuff because it’s what I’m good at, so why not get paid to do it right here in Storybrooke where you and Henry are?”
“What if you get tired of it?”
Emma shrugs. “Maybe I’ll try my hand at gardening or bartending or something else entirely. Whatever it takes, I’ll find a way to stay here, because this is what makes me happy.”
She leans in and kisses Regina gently. “I love you.”
And now, when Regina says it in return, Emma has no more doubts.