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“Regina, please, just let me explain!”
It was hard for Regina to see through tear filled eyes and harder still for her to keep her knees from buckling under her weight as every bit of happiness she thought she had disintegrated around her.
“There’s nothing to explain,” she yelled back; her anger was starting to win out over sadness.
“Yes there is, if you would just stop being so stubborn for one second-”
Emma didn’t get to finish her sentence, cut off by Regina’s open palm connecting with her cheek.
Regina recoiled as if she was the one who had been slapped. She felt a churning sense of guilt and horror over what she had done to a woman she loved. If nothing else, those emotions adding to the chaotic ones she was already feeling showed how far she had come since her days as the Evil Queen.
She thought that progress was thanks to Emma. Now she could see that her regression would also be thanks to the blonde as well.
Anger was the easier emotion and so she let that fill her. “I think you need to leave.”
“Regina, babe,” the pet name forced a sob to rise in her throat that she refused to let out of her mouth. Not now. Not in this moment.
“Now, Miss Swan!” She hadn’t called Emma by her last name in two and a half years.
The door slammed shut with such an air of finality that Regina had to cross her arms over herself just to make sure her chest wasn’t actually splitting in two.
She just barely made it over to the couch before she began to cry in earnest.
“Thank you for coming over,” Regina says stiffly as she opens her front door. She does her best to ignore the palpable awkwardness between her and Emma.
“Yeah, well, for Henry’s sake, right?” The coldness radiates from Emma more strongly than she had ever thought she would experience. It cuts straight through her.
“Of course. He’s upstairs, right now,” she explains, gesturing up the staircase that was, at one point, theirs.
“Thanks.” The curt response is hardly out of Emma’s mouth before the blonde disappears up the stairs and down the hallway.
Regina bites her cheek and goes into the kitchen to get something- anything would do, honestly- to soothe her nerves. She has severely overestimated her ability to be in the same room with Emma for even that short time. Rejection had hurt enough the first time.
Unfortunately for her, the strongest thing she has in the house was cider. It would have to be enough for now. She pours a good measure of it into her glass and sits down at the dining room table, listening for any sounds that might filter down from upstairs.
It isn’t too long before she hears that familiar stomping- how many times has she asked Emma to not do her best impression of an elephant while upstairs?- coming down the staircase. Reflexively she straightens up in her seat before Emma comes into view.
“The kid’s knocked out cold,” Emma shrugs, her hands shoved into her pockets awkwardly. “I guess that’s from the doctor’s meds?”
“Yes, the Tamiflu pills they gave him have been keeping him asleep fairly consistently.” The conversation feels awkward and stilted but it’s nothing she hadn’t expected. How does one behave normally after what they have gone through?
“That’s good,” Emma says, rocking back and forth on her heels like she can’t decide if she wants to stay where she is or go back upstairs just so she doesn’t have to continue with this conversation.
“Can I get you anything?” Regina offers, trying to ease the tension between them. That sets Emma’s feet in motion, heading for the kitchen.
“No, that’s okay. I can get it. Is everything where it was?” The question is innocent and perfectly valid, yet it twists painfully in Regina’s stomach. Afraid of what might come out of her mouth if she attempts to speak, she nods.
“Okay, great.” Emma disappears behind the wall and Regina lets out a soft sigh of relief. They have lasted this long without tempers flaring high. Maybe there is hope for them yet.
After a moment of indecision, she gets up and follows Emma into the kitchen. She doesn’t speak, merely watching her ex-wife move around what used to be their kitchen. She is struck with memories of them making breakfast together, working around each other cohesively without having to say a word. As odd as it was they just…worked.
And then of course there were the far more intimate moments Emma had been so keen to instigate in this room, despite her protest of how insanitary it was. The blonde would just smirk and push aside her protests, quickly turning them into gasps and moans and-
“Jesus! Regina, you scared me!” Emma’s startled shriek pulls her out of her memories.
“Sorry,” she mumbles. Emma looks at her strangely- Regina hardly ever mumbles anything- but she can’t bring herself to care. It is for the best anyways. She hasn’t let herself think too much on what had transpired between them since the separation papers were signed and filed. Emma is no longer there and thinking about it only hurt her more.
“I just didn’t hear you come in,” Emma shrugs, but she doesn’t stop giving Regina that weirdly calculating look, like she doesn’t know what to make of her. After being together for two and half years, that sort of look had pretty much completely disappeared between them.
“Emma, what’s wrong?” The blonde had been looking jittery all evening but for the life of her, Regina couldn’t figure out why.
Her question earned her a warm smile in response and a, “Nothing,” with a squeeze of her hand over the table.
Regina eyed her curiously but let the subject go. She was far too happy to push right then.
The night was no different than any of the other dates they had been on since the burgeoning of their relationship. Maybe the restaurant was a bit more upscale than they usually went to, but there wasn’t anything really out of the ordinary.
“I love you,” Emma said simply. The sappy smile that tugged at Regina’s mouth had taken some getting used to but nowadays she was more than happy to offer it up to the blonde.
“I love you too, dear,” she responded before picking up her glass of wine and sipping at it. Suddenly she felt something definitely not wine hit her lips. She jerked back in surprise.
“Is something wrong?” Emma asked, obviously trying very hard not to smirk. Regina knew right away that something was up.
“Emma,” she began in a warning tone, “did you put something in my drink?” God, that sounded like a horrible cliché line from a film. Without waiting for an answer she peered down curiously into her cup. While her attention was elsewhere, she missed Emma sliding out of her chair.
Looking up, she gasped to see Emma on one knee in front of her. Her heart thundered against her chest as the reality of what she was looking at fully sank in.
“Well, yeah,” Emma said in answer to her previous question. “But that was just a decoy.”
She bit back a laugh.
“Regina, I can’t begin to tell you how lucky I feel to have stumbled into your life the way I did. I’ve come to love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. You know I’m not very good with being romantic or anything,” a chuckle escaped her and a few of the others in the restaurant who were now watching, “so I’m just going to cut to the chase. Regina Mills, will you marry me?”
Her, “Yes,” was muffled as she dragged Emma up by her chin and kissed her for all she was worth.
Applause erupted around the room.
“Are you going to be okay to keep watching Henry by yourself?” Emma asks, concern bleeding through the unaffected tone she put on.
“I will be fine,” Regina sighs. In all honesty she hadn’t gotten much sleep over the past few days, too busy staying up and doing her best to keep Henry’s fever down. She was sure her exhaustion shown through the bags that were forming underneath her eyes.
“You don’t look fine. Someone needs to be up to take care of the kid,” Emma reminds her. Regina’s exhausted state- both physically and emotionally- gives way to the underlying anger that boils to the surface readily.
“Yes and for the past three months that someone has been me and me alone,” she snaps. Her anger seems to startle Emma. Regina is somewhat glad when the blonde does back down, instead rising to meet her with a temper that has always been able to match her own.
“And whose doing was that, exactly?” Emma hisses back, her voice soft like she’s trying her hardest not to hell and wake Henry.
“Yours, if you do recall,” Regina points out. Emma’s frustration mounts visibly in the way her hands shake at her sides.
“No, Regina, it was yours for pushing me away so quickly.” Regina laughs derisively at that, a cruel sound she had never wanted to apply to anything regarding Emma.
“No, my dear,” her voice drips with disdain, “it was yours for allowing me to walk in on you cheating.”
Regina stepped gracefully out of the Benz in front of the bar that Emma had introduced her to. She wasn’t one to frequent bars much, but it was a Saturday night and Henry was out with one of his friends some school so Emma had insisted on them having a fun time that night.
With the way Emma’s words had dripped with suggestion of what exactly that fun night would entail, Regina couldn’t find it in her to say no.
“Besides,” Emma had informed her the night before, “I’m not going to let any sleazy guys hit on you so don’t worry.”
“My hero,” Regina had smirked and playfully pretended to swoon.
That night the bar was crowded with rowdy partygoers as Regina had predicted. She felt overdressed in her pencil skirt and red blouse but she had gotten held up at work and hadn’t exactly had time to change in something more appropriate. Either way, Emma liked seeing her in her office clothes and she was the only one Regina was trying to impress.
She scanned the crowd, looking for the familiar head of bright blonde hair. Emma wasn’t hard to find as her hair really did stand out, even in the dim atmosphere of the bar.
Pushing her way past people, Regina finally got a good view of Emma. Immediately she wished she hadn’t.
Emma was kissing someone- she had no idea who- and very thoroughly from the looks of it. Her hands were on the man’s shoulders and his arms were very securely around her hips, their lips moving together passionately.
Regina’s stomach dropped into the floor.
The noise that tore itself from the back of her throat must have been loud because Emma immediately tore away from the man, her horrified expression zeroing in on the brunette. She must have also gathered the attention of the people surrounding her because when she turned on her heel and fled, people moved out of her way fairly easily.
She could hear Emma calling her name behind her, but her only thought was to get to her car and get back to their home before she completely broke down.
Blasting music- something she so rarely did to begin with- she barely managed to keep it together long enough to stumble blindly through her front door. How Emma beat her there was a mystery.
“Regina, please, just let me explain!”
The entirely valid accusation of Emma’s indiscretions is what pushes her to the breaking point. She grabs at her hair in frustration before rounding on Regina once more. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you! I. Was not. Cheating!”
Regina scoffs at the lies coming from her mouth. “So I suppose my walking in on you kissing someone other than your wife in a bar right before a date we were supposed be on together isn’t grounds for that accusation?”
“You don’t know what happened,” Emma yells. Regina is suddenly thankful for the medicine Henry had taken. He really did not need to hear this.
“I saw it with my own eyes,” Regina reminds her with a roll of said eyes. “I think I know what happened.”
“No you don’t! You never gave me a chance to explain,” Emma accuses, like the entire situation was her fault.
Regina opens her mouth to reply, but Emma cuts her off.
“No! You don’t get to speak.” There was a dangerously desperate note in Emma’s voice as the blonde stepped closer to her. “You never gave me a chance to tell you that the man in the bar was an ex from years before I met you-”
“Is that supposed to make me think better of your indiscretions?” Regina cuts in. Emma ignores her in favor of continuing her explanation.
“We started talking and he said that he never really moved past our relationship. I didn’t even get the chance to tell him about us before he kissed me. The whole thing lasted maybe three seconds before I pushed him off of me. You just happened to walk in at the worst possible time and,” Emma’s voice cracked as her eyes started to well with tears, “you never let me explain.”
The blonde paws at her eyes, turning away with a defensive hunch to her shoulders. Regina still isn’t sure what to believe- the story she has been considering true for the past months or the one that Emma is telling her now.
“I suppose that was easier than admitting you might be wrong,” Emma taunts her.
That accusation is more than Regina is willing to take. She shoves Emma backwards, unable to take what the blonde was implying.
“Don’t you dare try and make it seem like this was about pride for me,” she hisses, tears jumping into her eyes. “Letting go of you was the hardest damn thing I have ever had to do. I loved you then and even though I wish I could just stop after what I saw, I still love you.” The admission slips from her lips like it has been waiting to do so ever since she mailed the separation papers to Emma. “So fuck you for thinking it was anything-”
Emma cuts her off this time by kissing her more forcefully and more desperately than she has ever experienced from her. It takes her a moment to regain her bearings as all of her thoughts are swept up in the blissful feeling of kissing Emma once more.
Soon enough she comes to her senses and shoves the other woman back. “What the hell?” she asks, less angry than she is shocked and uncertain.
“I miss you,” Emma admits earnestly. “I just…hearing you say those words again…I’m sorry.” Emma ducks her head and goes to move away but Regina grabs her by the collar and hauls her back to her, kissing her like Emma is the only source of oxygen in the room.
Emma is happy to comply, her tongue sweeping along Regina’s bottom lip and then into her mouth while her hands curl against Regina’s hips.
Regina has missed this far more than she realized. Her hands curl into Emma’s hair, holding her in place and never wanting to let go ever again.
They do, eventually, but only when a sleepy voice startles them from the kitchen door.
“Mom? Ma?” Henry asks, confused to stumble upon this unexpected but happy surprise.
When Emma and Regina turn to look at Henry they’re both smiling in a way that they haven’t in three months.
“Come here kid,” Emma grins before pouncing on Henry and pulling him into a hug sandwiched between his two mothers.
“Does this mean what I think it does?” Emma asks tentatively, careful not to be too elaborate in case Regina needs more time to think. She feels a fondness for Emma’s carefulness that she hadn’t let herself feel in a while.
“I love you,” she answers in return.
“I love you both,” Henry pipes up, his voice muffled from his current position.
That’s all the answer either of them needs.