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It’s been a quiet evening – too quiet – on patrol and Emma’s spidey sense is starting to get a little itchy. She curses herself for even thinking the word – every rookie learns pretty damn fast that the Q-word is never to be spoken aloud on pain of death. There’s exactly one hour left of her shift, just enough time for someone to cast yet another curse or try to freeze the entire town or unleash a plague of flying monkeys now that she’s thought about how peaceful her shift has been.
Sure enough, just as she’s dreaming of a hot shower and a couple of hours in front of the TV, a call comes in.
“There are multiple reports of an explosion and concerning noises from a house on Mifflin Street,” the dispatcher says. “Someone has been reported as yelling die, die die.”
She knows Mulan’s just come online for patrol, but she’s taking this one, never mind that she should be on her way home right now.
“I’m on it.”
Emma doesn’t wait to hear the rest; she already has the lights and siren on and her foot almost goes through the floor of her cruiser in her haste to get to what is almost certainly going to be Regina’s house.
She gets there in what has to be record time, the panic in her head screaming louder than the sirens on her car, and her suspicions are confirmed when she sees the people milling around outside number 108. She recognises some of them as Regina’s neighbours; others she’s not sure of, but some of them seem familiar.
She rushes up the pathway, not sure what she’s going to be met with. Her gaze immediately locks on the front door which is wide open and…
And Henry and Regina are there out on the lawn, safe and sound, albeit a little worse for wear. Henry has a smudge of soot on his cheek and Regina’s normally immaculately coiffed hair is more than a little dishevelled. But she counts two arms and two legs each, heads firmly attached and no visible bleeding.
They’re okay.
The tension she’s been holding in her shoulders since she’d received the call recedes a little and her heart feels less like it’s trying to smash its way out of her chest.
She hurries over to them, holds Henry at arms-length to inspect him before pulling him into a tight hug.
There’s a muffled, “Hey Ma,” before Henry extricates himself from the hug, pulling a face as he removes a strand of her hair from his mouth.
She turns to Regina. “What happened? Are you both okay?”
“There was an intruder,” Regina says, running a shaky hand through her hair.
“Where is he? Is he still in the house?” Emma’s hand immediately strays to her sidearm as she prepares to meet whatever threat might be lurking within.
Regina shakes her head. “I took care of it.”
“What did he look like? Did you see where he went?” Emma’s mind is already leaping ahead to all the things she needs to know to take this bastard down.
“Uhh, it’s, he’s not in any condition to trouble anyone further. It’s nothing you need to worry about. I mean, I’m sure you’ve got far more important things to deal with,” Regina says, a little too glibly, Emma thinks, considering her house had just been broken into.
“I’m the Sheriff, Regina. If there’s a dead body in your house, it’s kind of my business. And I was told there was an explosion.” She puts her hands on her hips, resolute as she says, “I’m not leaving until I’m sure you’re both safe.”
Regina rolls her eyes. “You know, I can take care of things.” She waves a hand and conjures a shaky-looking flame.
Henry, who has been silent throughout this exchange, which Emma has attributed to the shock of whatever has happened tonight, starts laughing.
Emma switches her attention from Regina, concerned that maybe he’s not as fine as he’d initially seemed.
“Kid, are you okay? Did you hit your head?”
“I’m fine, Ma. It’s just the intruder… the intruder was about this big–” he holds a finger and thumb about an inch apart “–had eight legs and answered to Itsy Bitsy.”
“A spider,” Emma says, as evenly as she can manage. She bites her lip to keep herself from joining Henry’s laughter when she sees Regina’s face, which has paled even at the mention of the word.
“It was enormous – much bigger than Henry realises – and almost certainly deadly. I did what I had to do to keep Henry safe.”
“Mom, it was on the wall minding its own business.”
“That’s what it wanted you to think. Then, when you were least expecting it, it would have closed in for the kill.”
“Sure Mom,” he says, his tone conciliatory, but not particularly convincing. He turns to her a moment later. “She blew it and half the house up, and she kept screaming at it to die. It was pretty epic,” he chokes out, before collapsing into another fit of laughter.
Regina purses her lips. “It wasn’t that bad. There might be a little smoke damage on a couple of the walls, but it seemed like a proportional response to the level of threat the…” Regina grimaces before continuing, “…the level of threat the spider posed.”
Emma, rather sensibly, decides not to comment on this. “So where is this eight-legged terrorist?”
“In the kitchen.” Regina looks at her fearfully. “You’re not going in there. Are you insane? What if there are more?”
“Pretty sure they don’t travel in packs.” Emma decides not to mention that documentary she watched after a night shift where there were thousands of flying spiders that landed in a field. Regina visibly shudders, presumably just at the mention of a pack of spiders.
“No, spiders would travel in clusters,” Henry pipes up. “We covered collective nouns in English class last term.”
“Anyway,” Emma says, pointing to her feet, “if there are more, I’ll take care of them. These boots are made for stomping.” She notices Regina’s not looking nearly as reassured by this as Emma had hoped. “And, if all else fails, I’ll shoot them.”
Both Regina and Henry’s eyes brighten at that last part. “Really?” Henry asks a little too eagerly.
“No.” There’s grumbling from both of them at that, which she decides to ignore.
She walks towards the front door with Henry close on her heels, and after a moment of hesitation Regina follows, presumably because she can’t be trusted by herself to ensure Henry’s safety from the arachnid threat.
The spider, or what’s left of it, is hardly bigger than a quarter. Emma prods at it with the toe of her boot and it crumbles into a tiny pile of ashes. Yep, definitely dead. Regina really had taken care of it and then some.
“You know, from the way you described it, I was kind of expecting something bigger.”
“Any bigger and it would have blocked the whole sun.”
Emma ignores Regina’s exaggeration and looks around. The kitchen walls are decidedly singed, but otherwise, everything looks safe.
“I’ll do a quick–” At Regina’s look she amends that statement. “–a very thorough sweep of the rest of the house to make sure there aren’t any others lurking around.”
She methodically works her way through the house, and unsurprisingly it’s spotless, with not a spider in sight, except for Henry’s room which is messy enough that a small family of dragons could be hiding in there and nobody would know. She figures Henry’s smart enough to take care of any rogue spiders before his mother sees them, so she decides not to disturb any of his piles of mess.
Satisfied, Emma makes her way back to the kitchen, which Henry and Regina have since vacated. She finds them out on the lawn again, where Regina is pacing, apparently deep in thought.
She looks up when Emma approaches. “I’ve been thinking, and it must have been my sister. You should arrest her.”
“Because there was a spider in your house? That seems kind of drastic.”
“My curse, my town and I can assure you I didn’t put any spiders in it. Zelena must have put it here to mess with me.”
Emma thinks for a moment and realises that in fact, she hasn’t seen any spiders since she came to Storybrooke. Certainly a few cobwebs around the place, presumably for dramatic effect knowing Regina, but every last one of them had been completely unoccupied.
“Why are you so weird about spiders, anyway?” Emma’s not sure she’s ever seen Regina afraid of a thing before. Less tangible possibilities, like losing Henry, sure, but monsters in and of themselves have never seemed to phase her. It’s odd and a little disquieting to see her so shaken by something so small.
“I’m not weird about them,” Regina snaps. “They have too many eyes, they have fangs and they’re everything that’s wrong with the universe.”
“Is this why the new Spiderman movie isn’t screening anywhere in Storybrooke? I tried to go see it last weekend.”
“Spiderman,” Regina hisses. “As the Mayor of this town, I will not have that filthy pro-arachnid propaganda polluting young minds. Spiders aren’t people, they’re the embodiment of despair.”
Emma’s taken aback by the venom in Regina’s tone.
“I was grounded for a whole year when Mom found my stash of Spiderman comics,” Henry whispers, as Regina continues to rant. “It was worse than the time I stole her credit card and hitchhiked to New York to see Yaz play on their reunion tour.”
Regina finally runs out of steam and Emma says, “I guess I’m just a little surprised. I mean, I’ve seen you face down a Chernabog without batting an eyelid…” She trails off at the look she gets from Regina.
“Emma, don’t push this.”
Emma holds her hands up. “Okay, okay. I get it. I’m sorry I asked.”
“So, are you going to arrest Zelena?”
Emma sighs. “Regina, you have to know that I can’t arrest your sister just because there was one normal, everyday spider in your house. Maybe if it had been ten feet tall and spitting fire, but one garden-variety…”
“How do you know it was a garden spider?” Regina interrupts her, looking at her suspiciously.
“You’ve got me there. I don’t know. I mean, the poor little thing was so badly charred it could have been a centipede for all I know.”
Regina seems like she’s winding up for another tirade and Emma’s not sure she’s got the energy to deal with it. She cuts her off. “Tell you what, if any more turn up, call me and I’ll take care of them. Doesn’t matter what time it is, call me and I’ll be there.” And truthfully, Emma really would drop everything for her no matter how small the problem. A stubbed toe, a dripping tap, an incy-wincy spider: Emma would be there in a heartbeat.
“If any more turn up?” The look Regina gives her sits somewhere between utter contempt and abject horror. “Any more spiders and I’m burning this whole town to the ground,” she says bleakly. “We can rebuild.”
“You know, I kind of like living in a town that isn’t a smoking pile of ashes, so I’d prefer if you’d just call me,” Emma says, but Regina doesn’t seem to hear her.
She can see Regina spiralling right in front of her eyes. “Hey, it’s gonna be okay.” She reaches out and catches Regina’s hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “I promise.”
Finally, Regina snaps out of it and gives her a watery smile. It’s not much, but it’s progress.
*****
She’s half-expecting a call from Regina for most of the rest of the evening, but her phone remains obstinately silent. She’s just put her pyjamas on when there’s a knock on her door.
She peers through the peephole and hurriedly opens the door when she spots Regina and Henry on the other side.
“Can we stay here tonight? I tried to get a room at Granny’s, but she’s refurbishing.”
Emma’s surprised to hear that, because Granny’s rooms would have been dated in the ‘80s when Storybrooke first came into being, and she can’t quite see her decor entering the 20th century any time soon. But that oddity is unimportant, because right now Regina’s standing on her doorstep, just before midnight, looking utterly lost.
“Was there another spider? I meant it when I said you could call me.”
“It wasn’t just one spider,” Regina says, a haunted look in her eyes. “There were thousands of them. Everywhere I looked there were spiders. I tried to destroy them, but they just kept on coming.”
She looks over at Henry, expecting him to crack a joke or laugh at Regina’s over-reaction, but he looks shaken up as well.
“Why don’t you come in and get settled and then you can tell me more about what happened?”
Regina stays where she is, her eyes darting around examining every visible surface of Emma’s hallway.
Emma rushes to reassure her. “I can promise you there are no spiders here. There’s a raccoon that sometimes steals my trash out of the can, but that’s about it.”
Henry and Regina finally come in and Emma looks down at the extremely large suitcase on the doorstep.
“I’m surprised you took the time to pack if there were that many spiders.”
“I packed a few things after you left, just in case there was another emergency. It’s lucky I did.”
Emma grunts as she picks up the suitcase. It’s even heavier than it looks.
“There are three more in the car, if you wouldn’t mind helping out with them,” Regina says.
Emma rolls her eyes, because she knows ‘helping out’ means carrying them all, but she doesn’t protest. She regrets that when she almost puts her back out carrying the rest of the bags in, but the grateful smile she gets from Regina is enough to make the pain vanish like it was never even there.
She puts the last of the bags down in the living room. “Wow. Did you bring your entire house with you?”
“No. Just the essentials for a night or two away.”
Emma raises her eyebrows, because based on the weight of those bags, Regina’s brought enough stuff to outfit an expedition team to the South Pole.
“Sit down and I’ll get you both something to drink.”
She heads to the kitchen and grabs a soda for Henry. For Regina, she pours a generous measure of Scotch, puts the bottle down, changes her mind and brings it with her. She suspects Regina might need more than a little liquid fortification to recover from whatever fresh ordeal she and Henry have been through this evening.
Regina takes the drink gratefully and knocks it back in one go. Emma silently hands her the bottle and Regina pours herself another very generous drink.
“So, is the house still standing this time?” Emma asks, after a while, when Regina finally seems like she’s regained some semblance of calm.
“Yeah. She was going to blow everything up this time, but I stopped her,” Henry says. “Mom locked the whole house in some kind of magical barrier.”
Regina’s tone is bleak as she says, “You had a point. Some of them might have survived and been blown around Storybrooke. I couldn’t let such evil be unleashed on my town. After everything we’ve survived, I couldn’t stand the thought of this being the end.”
“Hey. We’ve made it through worse and we’ll make it through this too, Regina,” Emma says, trying to keep Regina from launching into another emotional death spiral.
“You’re wrong, Emma. Nothing could be worse than this. I’d rather face an army of Chernabogs, a dozen amnesia-causing curses and every Dark One in history all at the same time, rather than this.” Regina’s face is set in a grim expression as she knocks back another shot of Emma’s best Scotch like it’s water. “I killed thousands of them and they just kept coming. I’d have run out of magic long before the world ran out of spiders. All I could do was try to keep them contained.”
“We’re not going to let them win.”
“I’m not interested in hope speeches, Emma. Just let me enjoy my last few moments on earth with the people I care for.” She pulls Henry into a sudden, tight hug that almost makes him spill his soda. “Henry was so brave. He killed dozens of them armed only with a can of Mortein.”
Emma can see she’s not going to get anywhere with Regina in the mood she’s in. “Maybe we should all try and get some sleep. I’ll go get some blankets for the sofa.”
She heads to the linen closet and when she returns, Henry and Regina are discussing sleeping arrangements.
“Henry, I’ll take your bed and you can take the sofa,” Regina generously offers.
“No way, Mom. You’re the shortest person here. You should take the sofa.”
“Don’t forget I have the power to send your PlayStation to the Enchanted Forest. Or maybe I’ll turn it into an abacus.”
Henry rolls his eyes. “There’s like sixty people in town these days who could open a portal to get it back if I slipped them a twenty.”
Emma sighs, because she can see exactly where her night is heading. An uncomfortable, probably sleepless night on her very small sofa. It’s not the worst place she’s ever slept, not by a long shot, but she’s gotten used to a few creature comforts in the last few years.
“I’ll take the sofa, you can have my bed, Regina.”
“I won’t kick you out of your own bed.”
“And I won’t make you sleep on my sofa.” She’s not in a hurry to find out just how grumpy Regina will be after a night on her hideously uncomfortable sofa. Besides, Regina’s already had an awful night and if there’s anything Emma can do to make it less terrible, well this is a small sacrifice.
When Regina looks like arguing further, Emma says, “I picked it up second hand. I think one of the dwarves owned it before me.” The look of distaste that crosses Regina’s face suggests that Emma’s won this argument.
“I guess we’re sharing, then.” When Emma opens her mouth to continue the argument, Regina cuts her off. “It’ll only be for a night, until I can manage to sort something else out.”
*****
Sleep doesn’t come easily to Emma and she can tell by the fitful tossing and turning next to her that Regina’s finding it difficult as well, although presumably for vastly different reasons.
She’s always nursed somewhat less than platonic feelings towards Regina, even in those awful early days when they’d been at each other’s throats all the time. (Okay, maybe especially when they’d been at each other’s throats). Over time, those feelings have shifted, grown, evolved into something more, something much bigger. Lying here, she’s struck by the irony that everything she’s ever wanted is close enough that she could just reach out…
But no. Regina might as well be an entire world away, because she’s never done anything to suggest that she feels the same way as Emma, no matter how much she wishes otherwise.
Emma’s shaken from her musings by Regina thrashing particularly violently, and the muttered no that follows is enough to clue Emma in on what’s happening.
She hesitates for a moment, but Regina shows no sign of settling, so she reaches out and shakes her shoulder gently.
“Wha…what?” Regina sits bolt upright.
Emma switches her bedside light on. “You were having a nightmare.”
She’s surprised when Regina leans against her, is more surprised to feel Regina shaking when she puts an arm around her.
“Hey, it’s okay. It was just a dream.”
“No, it wasn’t just a dream. It was awful. The government genetically-engineered giant killer spiders in a space shuttle and then the shuttle crashed and the spiders got out and started killing people. I tried to warn everyone, but no one would listen to me and then this giant spider wrecked half of LA.”
She doesn’t say what she’s thinking, that it sounds like the plot of some godawful sci-fi B-movie. “It sounds terrible. But you’re okay now, Regina. You’re safe here with me.”
“I know it’s stupid, but I just can’t stop myself from feeling this way.”
“It’s not stupid,” Emma says softly. She strokes her hand up and down Regina’s arm soothingly until Regina regains some kind of control of her emotions. “Maybe you should try to get back to sleep. I can keep watch, make sure you’re safe.”
“No, it’s fine. You need to sleep too.” Regina does take her suggestion though and lays back down, but she’s still agitated.
Emma switches off the light and they lie there for a while, silent, except for the sound of Regina’s breathing, harsh and ragged.
“Can you hold me for a while?” Regina asks, her voice brittle.
Emma doesn’t respond, just shuffles across the bed a little so she can sling an arm around Regina. Evidently, it’s not close enough, because Regina moves back until there’s barely a place where they’re not touching.
After a while, Regina’s breathing that had been far too quick settles and Emma finally feels Regina relax back into sleep.
Emma lies there holding her, listening to her breathing, slow and even, and this time there are no more nightmares. Eventually, Emma follows her into sleep.
*****
At Regina’s insistence, Zelena is Emma’s first port of call in her investigation.
She decides to cut right to the chase. “Did you unleash a plague of spiders on Regina’s house yesterday.”
“Now let me think for a moment. Yesterday… yesterday… What did I do yesterday?”
Zelena paces back and forth for a couple of minutes while Emma grows more and more impatient.
“Let’s see… In the morning, I ate a bagel with a thin smear of cream cheese and a green smoothie. I spent a couple of hours reorganising my closet – there’s enough room for both you and my sister in there if either of you are getting sick of hiding in your own, by the way – then I watched an episode of Antiques Roadshow. After that, I got a bikini wax – and just in case you were wondering, the carpet does match the drapes – then I went to the Rabbit Hole for a post-wax appletini.”
Emma interrupts, before Zelena can share any more uncomfortable detail or make any other jabs at her and Regina. “Thank you, Zelena, for that unnecessarily detailed account of your morning, but that information isn’t even slightly relevant to my investigation. How about we fast-forward to the bit where you cursed your sister’s house with a zillion spiders last night?”
Zelena gives her a sunny smile. “You’re talking to the wrong witch. Although, I really wish I had thought of that.”
“I don’t believe you,” Emma says flatly.
“I didn’t do it. I do have to thank you, though; you’ve given me some wonderful ideas to torment my sister with.”
Emma crosses her arms and tries to look as intimidating as she can. “If you try anything, I will launch your ass into the sun so fast you wouldn’t even have a chance to say there’s no place like home.”
“Ooh, look at you being all protective of my little sister. And for the record, I would never say that.” She points at Emma’s notepad. “Make sure you write that down. It’s very important.”
“Zelena…” This time she manages to inject something into her tone that erodes Zelena’s smile.
“Look, I didn’t do it,” Zelena says, suddenly serious, “and I don’t know anything about who might have. If it was flying monkeys, sure, point the finger at me, but it wasn’t. I’ve just been trying to lay low, keep my nose clean, that sort of thing.”
“Fine. But if I find even the smallest shred of evidence that points in your direction I’ll be back. And next time, I won’t be anywhere near as nice.”
She leaves, unsatisfied, and not just because Zelena somehow always manages to get on her absolute last nerve. As much as she hates to admit it, every one of her instincts is telling her that Zelena didn’t do it.
*****
It’s been a couple of days of utterly fruitless investigation. Regina had given her a list of everyone who might have a grudge against her, which has pretty much amounted to Emma going door to door to every house in Storybrooke.
Regina’s starting to look a little strained by the need to constantly keep the magical barrier up around 108 Mifflin Street, and Emma’s running out of ideas.
“Maybe we could ask my mother to lend us some of her bird friends to get rid of the spiders,” she suggests.
Regina pulls a face. “Not a chance. Those bluebirds are jerks. They crap on my car every opportunity they get. I hate to think what they’d do to my house.”
She joins Emma under the covers and flops back onto the bed rather melodramatically.
Regina’s promise to be out after a night had proved a little complicated. Real estate vacancies in Storybrooke weren’t exactly abundant after several successive curses and the waves of new migration from the Enchanted Forest and other lands that had come in their wake.
If she’s honest, Emma isn’t exactly unhappy that Regina’s shot down her only workable suggestion so far for fixing the problem of her uninhabitable house, or that Storybrooke’s real estate situation is so dire. Even though this whole sharing a tiny apartment and a bed thing is kind of excruciating, it’s also the happiest she’s been in a while.
There’s something just so perfect about waking up next to Regina, about sitting down to pancakes with Regina and Henry, about seeing all of her very few cosmetics and toiletries be forced off her bathroom shelf by the sheer volume of Regina’s various lotions and potions, and her closet space reduced to two hangers and the very bottom shelf. If a little (okay, a lot) of sexual frustration is the price she has to pay for this comfortable domesticity, then she’s willing to pay it.
“Yeah, you’re probably right.” Emma punches her pillow in frustration. “I just wish I could do something. I hate feeling so useless.”
“It’s not your fault. This is down to the sociopath who unleashed an entire army of nope on my house.”
“An army of nope?” Emma cocks her head to the side. “Can’t say I would have ever expected you to say that.”
Regina fixes her with a glare. “Are you calling me old?”
“I definitely didn’t say that,” Emma says, but she can’t quite keep a smile from creeping onto her face.
Regina hits her with a pillow, or tries to. Emma catches hold of her arm and the pillow drops uselessly over the edge of the bed. Regina remains poised above her, smiling and not making any attempt to free herself from Emma’s hold.
“I do have a teenage son, you know. There are some days Henry communicates exclusively in the form of memes.”
Emma sighs. “I know. I can’t keep up either. Sometimes, I feel like I don’t know how to talk to him anymore.”
“This is so sad Alexa play Despacito.”
They both start laughing and Regina collapses down onto her, a fact which Emma finds that she is not even slightly sad about.
“Pretty sure we did that wrong,” Emma says, between gasps of laughter.
There’s a bang on the wall from Henry’s bedroom.
“Keep it down, Moms,” Henry shouts. “Some of you have never had to listen to your parents doing weird stuff in bed and it shows.”
*****
It’s been another thankless day of chasing down non-existent leads and Emma’s completely out of ideas. She drives over to 108 Mifflin and sits in the cruiser, staring up at the house, hoping that some kind of inspiration will strike, or a lead will magically appear. As a policing strategy, somehow, it’s always seems to work out for her in the past and she hopes that this time will be no different.
Inspiration doesn’t exactly strike, but after a few minutes of sitting there, someone does helpfully stroll down Mifflin Street and come to a stop right in front of number 108. The person/future suspect stands there while Emma watches.
When the person doesn’t move on after a couple of minutes, Emma gets out of the car.
There’s an old woman – no, an old lady – staring at the house and she has a peculiar smile on her face. She seems familiar, somehow.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” Emma asks.
“Maybe. I work in animal control for the council.”
Emma screws up her face as she wracks her brain for inspiration. “No, that’s not it,” she says, even though she deals with animal control on a near-daily basis.
Her conveniently excellent – if a little selective – memory throws up a random scene from a few days ago, and Emma knows that she’s onto something. The old lady had been standing among the crowd of people outside 108 Mifflin when she’d responded to the explosion.
“You were here the other day.” Emma pins her with a suspicious glare.
“Was I? I’m getting old, dear, and I have so much trouble remembering things these days.”
“Do you know something about the magical spider infestation?”
“No, dear,” she says, sounding for all the world like a sweet, innocent old lady.
Emma’s not convinced. “I don’t believe you.”
The old lady’s sweet façade falls, in a win for Emma’s excellent policing work and incisive questioning, and her face and voice twist into something ugly and spiteful. “Fine, I did it, and I want that bitch of an Evil Queen to suffer like I did. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have a fly buzzing around inside you for 28 years?”
Emma makes an appropriately sympathetic noise and the old lady continues. “All I wanted was one spider so I could get rid of it, but no, the Evil Queen had to go and curse all the spiders away just when I was about to swallow one.”
“Pretty sure that wasn’t the point of the curse,” Emma mutters under her breath. She plasters on a fake smile figuring she might as well get a full villain confession speech out of her, because as she’s discovered, they are completely admissible as evidence in Storybrooke’s court of law. “Please continue telling me all about how the Evil Queen screwed you over.”
“I suffered greatly. My insides tickled so much that I had to drink a bottle of vodka every day just to calm them down.”
Emma’s pretty sure that just one bottle of vodka, let alone 28 times 365 bottles of vodka, would be more than enough to kill any fly, but she doesn’t say it. “So why now?
“I spent years trying to think up a fitting revenge. And then one day, I was browsing for knick-knacks in a quaint little store on Main Street and I found this.” She holds up a carving of a spider and Emma can feel the magic pulsing from it towards 108 Mifflin.
“Was this quaint little store Mr Gold’s pawnshop by any chance?” Emma asks, already certain of the answer.
“It was.”
Emma sighs. She really needs to find a way to close that place down; three-quarters of the crises that threaten Storybrooke seem to manifest from some MacGuffin or other that just happened to be gathering dust in the pawnshop.
“You know I have to arrest you, right?”
The old lady smiles. “I do.”
“So you might as well undo whatever you did with that thing before I take you down to the station.”
Her smile widens. “I don’t think so.” She opens her mouth further, toothless and wide, and pops the spider carving into her mouth.
The old lady lets out a maniacal laugh, but a moment later, the look of unhinged glee on her face shifts to pained surprise. As Emma watches, the old lady changes, her body stretching and transmuting in a very unsettling way.
Emma surveys the scene in front of her. Eight legs: check. Lots of glittering, terrifying eyes: check. Enormous fangs dripping with venom: check. A giant ball of nope: check, check and check.
“Well Regina’s really going to hate this,” Emma mutters to herself. She draws her service weapon and fires at the giant spider-lady. Three rounds bounce harmlessly off her chest. A blast of pure magic has a similar effect.
“Oh shit!”
She backs away, trying to buy herself enough time to think of another solution. She’s still wracking her brains when her phone rings. Normally she’d ignore it in the middle of fighting an invincible spider-lady, except it’s the ringtone she’d set for Regina. She hesitates and it rings out, but a moment later her phone goes off again.
She picks up this time.
“Kinda busy right now, Regina. Can I call you back?”
Spider-Lady advances on her and Emma fires another round in the hopes it will intimidate her, even though her bullets aren’t actually doing anything.
“Was that a gunshot? Just hold on, I’m coming.”
“No, don’t. I’ve got this under control,” Emma lies desperately, even though she knows the situation is currently the literal opposite of under control. She doesn’t want Regina to have to face this creature from her literal nightmares.
It’s no use. Regina hangs up and a moment later, there’s a puff of purple smoke and Regina’s standing next to her. She chances a look at her and is completely unsurprised to see that Regina is on the verge of a meltdown.
“Holy shit, that’s the biggest fucking spider I’ve ever seen. Nope. Nope, nope, nope, nope, NOPE!”
It’s definitely serious, because Regina’s swearing, which she never, ever does.
“I did tell you not to come,” Emma says, keeping one eye on the spider-lady and one on Regina, which is kind of giving her a headache. For a moment, she wishes she had more eyes, like a spider, but realises that whatever miniscule chance she might have with Regina would definitely be doomed if she had spider eyes.
Emma drags Regina out of the way of a line of web that’s speared in her direction and Regina finally seems to grasp their situation.
“Take this, you hairy-legged mutant!” Regina screams, as she throws a fireball at Spider-Lady. It burns the remnants of the web projectile, but Spider-Lady is otherwise unharmed.
“I don’t know how to kill her,” Emma says, in desperation. “Bullets don’t work and my magic seems to be useless, so if you have any suggestions, now is definitely the time.”
“It’s not like there’s a giant can of bug spray lying around,” Regina says, looking at her helplessly.
Emma’s hit with a sudden pang of regret at the thought of losing everything they have and everything they could have been.
They’ve faced a lot together over the years. Countless battles against increasingly ridiculous creatures in absurdly improbable situations and locations, and Emma knows there’s no one else she’d rather have by her side than Regina.
She knows it’s a cliché, but staring in the face of certain death for the eleven-hundredth time or so, she thinks maybe this is the one that’s going to be the end of it all and she can’t leave it like this.
There are things she needs to say to Regina, things she needs to get off her chest, and as yet another of Regina’s fireballs dissolves uselessly on Spider-Lady’s armoured thorax, she can’t help but wonder if she’ll ever get the chance. If she doesn’t say something now, what if they never face another certain death situation together? What if they survive and Storybrooke enters a new, unprecedented era of peace and prosperity and Emma never gets to make that near-death confession of her feelings?
It feels like a now or never moment, so she takes a deep breath, dodges a flying glob of venom and turns to Regina. “Regina, there’s something I need to tell you.”
“You stole my favourite shirt? I already knew about that and I’ve forgiven you. It’s not like I’m going to have a chest to wear it on once this evil spider-bitch is finished with us, anyway.”
“No, there’s something else that I’ve wanted to say to you for a long time.”
“Can’t it wait?” Regina gasps out as she ducks out of the way of another strand of web.
“I’m not sure it can.”
“If it’s about the time you took a chainsaw to my apple tree, I’ve moved on.”
“No, it’s not that either. What I was going to say was…”
“My lasagne’s the best you’ve ever tasted?”
“I mean, it is, but what I really wanted to say was…”
She abandons her last attempt at confessing her feelings when she notices which house they’ve been driven back towards and an idea springs to life. She taps Regina on the shoulder and points towards it. It takes a moment, but Regina gets her drift and grabs hold of her hand.
Emma hopes the house’s resident isn’t home, as they channel their magic. The house shudders for a moment, and Emma wonders if even together they’re not strong enough. But then, a terrible creaking sounds out as the house tears free of its foundations. With one last push, they move the house into position above Spider-bitch and their eyes meet for a moment, before Regina shouts, “Now!”
They both release their magic at the same moment and the giant shoe house comes crashing down on Spider-Lady.
There’s a satisfying crunch and Emma grins triumphantly. Her smile wavers a moment later when they’re showered in dead spider-lady guts, but even that isn’t enough to dampen her mood entirely, until she remembers that she never got the chance to finish her certain-death situation confession. It’s the third time this month she’s tried to say something, and every time they’ve defeated the enemy just before she had a chance to confess.
Regina reaches out and runs a hand through Emma’s hair and Emma can’t help but lean into the touch a little. “You had a piece of Spider-Bitch in your hair.”
Their moment is interrupted when the front door of the shoe opens and the old woman who lives there sticks her head out. She throws a loaf of stale bread at them and yells, “You bloody hero types are always wrecking things. You better pay for the damage. And make sure you get me a 60-inch flatscreen or I’m taking you to court.”
Emma and Regina look at each other and Regina rolls her eyes. “Everyone in this town is so ungrateful.”
They begin the long trudge home, magic utterly spent, still covered in spider guts.
“So who was that, anyway?”
Emma shrugs. “Some weird old lady who swallowed a fly back in the Enchanted Forest and wanted to cure herself by eating a spider. Except, you cursed all the spiders away.”
“She blames me because I stopped her from swallowing a spider and instead brought her to a land where surgical anaesthesia is a thing and people don’t die from paper cuts?”
“Did you even have paper in the Enchanted Forest?”
“No, but that’s beside the point.”
They continue walking and after a while, Regina stops and turns to her. “So what was so important back there that you wanted to tell me?”
“I, uh, I…” Emma swallows, trying to summon the courage to be honest with Regina about her feelings, a prospect which is vastly more terrifying than facing down a couple of dozen invincible spider-ladies.
“I think I left the iron on when I went out,” she says instead.
“Do you even own an iron?”
Emma has to think about it for a moment. “Ye-es?”
Regina folds her arms. “Was that a question or a statement?”
“Oh look. Pongo’s escaped again.” Emma points across the road, where Pongo is very conveniently peeing on a tree, Archie nowhere to be seen. “I should probably take care of this.”
“Okay. Well I guess I’ll just head home and make sure the iron is switched off,” Regina says, and there’s something in her voice that Emma just can’t quite place, but there’s another detail she can’t help but fixate on.
Home. She likes the way it sounds when Regina says it.
*****
When she gets home, Pongo having been safely returned, Regina’s sitting in the living room, freshly showered.
“I swung by your house on the way home and the spiders are gone.”
“I know. I could feel them disappear as soon as we squished that overgrown bug.”
Emma makes a move to sit down, but she gets a stern look from Regina and thinks better of it. “How many times do I have to tell you, no spider guts on the sofa.”
“Sorry. I should probably go shower.”
Emma heads to the bathroom and scrubs herself clean of any icky remnants of the battle. When she returns to the living room, she notices Regina’s suitcases, packed and sitting by the door.
“So I guess you’re heading home soon,” she says.
“I suppose so. I mean, I’ll wait until Henry’s home from school, but now that the spiders are gone, I don’t really have a good reason to stay.”
Emma leans against the doorframe and tries not to allow her disappointment to show. She knew this time had to come, that Regina wouldn’t be content to continue forever with this strange platonic bed-sharing arrangement that has developed over the past few days.
“You must be pretty glad to see the back of me,” she says. “I mean, I know my place isn’t what you’re used to.”
“Not exactly,” Regina says ambiguously. She looks down, fidgeting with a frayed edge on the sofa.
“Emma, I have a confession to make. I lied when I told you Granny was refurbishing and there were no vacancies in town. The truth is, there were other places I could have stayed.”
Emma frowns, trying to understand why Regina might have lied about that. “Were their kitchens too small? Because I know how hard it was for you dealing with my tiny kitchen.”
“No. That wasn’t reason.”
“No full-length mirror?”
Regina rolls her eyes like Emma’s said something particularly stupid. “No.”
“Was there a shower in the kitchen? Because I once lived in a place in New York that had the shower in the kitchen. It was kind of weird soaping up while someone was making an omelette right next to me.”
“Ugh. You can be so dense, sometimes.” Regina throws her hands up in frustration. “Do I have to kiss you so you’ll get the message?”
“Would you?” Emma asks hopefully, even though she still has absolutely no idea what’s going on.
Regina stands up and crosses the room and Emma’s frozen, wondering if Regina really is going to kiss her for some inexplicable reason. Regina pauses right in front of her and looks at her for a moment in a way that has Emma squirming. She makes another exasperated noise before leaning in and capturing Emma’s lips in a sweet, gentle kiss.
Emma’s still confused, though. When they break apart, she says, “I still don’t get why you lied.”
Regina leans in and kisses her again and Emma thinks that Regina can lie all she wants about Storybrooke’s real estate situation just as long as she keeps kissing her like this.
“How about now?”
Emma shakes her head vigorously. Regina tangles her fingers in Emma’s hair and pulls her in for another kiss.
“Now?”
“Nope.”
Regina sighs and kisses her again, although based on the sound she makes when Emma sucks her lower lip in between her teeth, Emma doesn’t think Regina’s actually finding this to be much of a chore.
“Still confused,” she says when they come up for air again.
“Do I have to explain everything in minute detail?” Regina asks, looking up at the ceiling in search of Emma’s not sure what. Emma nods, because she’s not sure what else she’s supposed to say.
“It’s because I feel safe with you, you idiot. I know, no matter what, you’ve always got my back and I don’t think I’d have made it through this without you.”
“Oh,” is all Emma can manage in response.
Regina sucks in a deep breath, before continuing. “Even knowing there was an eight-legged apocalypse bearing down on us, these last few days here with you and Henry have been some of the happiest of my life, even though you don’t have a full-length mirror or an iron or a kitchen that’s big enough to store more than one mouldy pop tart in. What does Henry eat when he’s with you, by the way?”
Emma blushes at that and mumbles something vague about vegetables, because she’d almost managed to forget about the dire food situation when Regina and Henry had first showed up on her doorstep.
“So what I’m getting from this is you value me for my spider-killing skills.” She thinks for a moment and then her face falls. “Now that Storybrooke’s free of spiders, I guess that means you won’t need me anymore.”
Regina sighs. “It’s not just about that, Emma. But maybe you should stay with me tonight, just in case another spider gets lost and finds its way to Storybrooke. And maybe we can talk about this a little more.”
“I suppose I could do that, just to make sure you’re safe,” Emma says, as calmly as she can manage, even though her insides are tickly like there’s confetti and streamers and fireworks going off.
*****
Later that night, they’re lying in Regina’s much more spacious bed (which Emma had thoroughly checked for spiders before they engaged in other, much more enjoyable activities).
“You know, you never did tell me why you’re afraid of spiders,” Emma says, her curiosity getting the better of her, even though she knows it’s a fraught topic.
“Does there have to be a reason other than they’re spiders?”
“I don’t know. I guess it just seems like people always have some terrible, dark, traumatic backstory for things like this and I wondered if you were the same.”
Regina sighs. “I suppose, after everything, I can trust you with this, my deepest darkest secret. You know how Gold is both Rumpelstiltskin and the Beast?” she asks.
“Yes,” Emma says, not quite sure where Regina’s going with this. The whole fairy tale crossover thing has always done her head in a bit.
“Well, long before I was the Evil Queen, my favourite food was curds and whey. And,” Regina pauses, taking a deep breath, “and one day I was sitting on a tuffet eating some when this enormous spider came along, pulled out a sword and threatened to kill me if I didn’t give him my curds and whey.”
“Do spiders even eat curds and whey, whatever that is?”
Regina shrugs. “I don’t know. I didn’t stick around to find out. And ever since then…” Her voice cracks and she trails off, unable to continue.
Emma reaches out and gently cups Regina’s face. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”
“Yeah,” Regina says softly. “But it’s in the past now. I’d rather concentrate on what’s in front of me: on this. On us,” she says, as she leans in and kisses Emma.
And on that point, Emma’s more than happy to oblige.