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When Emma wakes up, it’s to a pounding headache and a throat that feels dry as the Sahara. She groans, wondering why she keeps drinking this much when she goes out, because she simply cannot hold her liquor anymore. The sun is shining relentlessly in through the open drapes that she was too drunk to close when she got home last night, and she squints her eyes and reaches blindly around on her bed in search of her phone.
When her fingers finally clasp around something square and hard, she grabs it and presses the round button to see the time. Yuck, 10:37 – that's why there’s so much noise in the kitchen. Henry must have been up for hours.
She drops her phone to the mattress again and stares up at her ceiling. She has to take a moment to breathe calmly and prepare herself for a Saturday full of quality time with Henry. It’s her weekend off, and yesterday, like most Fridays she’s not working, Mulan took her out for beers and darts. Mary Margaret – that saint of a roommate – willingly and happily watches Henry every time Emma goes out to unwind. She’s probably the one making a full breakfast for Emma in the kitchen right now, too, and David is probably there, as well.
Mary Margaret supports Emma’s Friday nights out, because she wants Emma to meet someone . She wants Emma to find her happily ever after . She wants Emma to find her true love. Emma’s last endeavour into love had not been great; she’d been left while she was five months pregnant by Henry’s father who did just not want to have a kid right now when he thought further about it , and thus Emma had become single with a kid on the way and a fucking demanding job as a deputy at the station. Mary Margaret had taken her in, of course, to help with the baby and to save on some bills, and now she is trying to get Emma back out there again. She probably wants Emma to move out so David can move in, and Emma’s trying, she’s really trying, but it’s like all the people she ends up in bed with stay exactly like that; one-time encounters in bed.
There’s a padding of feet in the hallway outside, adorable giggles heard through the door, and Mary Margaret’s hushed Henry, be quiet, your momma’s sleeping! , before Emma gets herself together.
“I’m up,” she announces through the door, and she clears her throat once more and pulls herself into a sitting position. She's only in her underwear and a tank top, and her floor’s a mess with last night’s discarded clothes, but her door is creaked open, and Henry’s small face peeks inside.
“Momma!” he cheers when he sees that she’s wide awake, and he pushes the door open with a bang and rushes forward. He leaps onto the bed, and Emma manages to catch him, and soon they are a mess of giggles, sheets, limbs and Emma’s blonde hair on the bed. “Momma, M’n’M and me made breakfast!” Henry announces.
Emma tickles his tummy. “Ya’ did? What did ya’ make?”
Henry giggles even more. “We made bacon! And eggs! And toast! And coffee!”
Gasping, Emma makes a surprised face. “Did you make the coffee?”
Pausing, Henry stares at her in all seriousness. “Momma, M’n’M made the coffee, I made the toast, because I’m a big boy!”
“That makes sense!” Emma laughs, and she scoots him over on the mattress and picks up a pair of old shorts from the floor. Tugging them on, she watches her son watching her, and she then pulls her hair into a bun and moves to pick him up. “Come here, Kid,” she mumbles, and she presses a kiss to his forehead and ventures towards the kitchen.
David is eating from a full plate – he just got home from a night shift if Emma remembers correctly, so he’s probably heading to bed soon – and Mary Margaret is sipping a cup of coffee with bare feet on the chair and a lovestruck smile on her face. They are the perfect picture of true love, and Emma has never met anyone more suited for each other.
“’Morning Em,” David mumbles between a forkful of scrambled eggs.
“’Morning,” Emma replies and sits down by the table. She reaches for the coffee pot immediately. “Rough night at the station?” she continues to ask, then reaches for the plate of bacon to offer both herself and Henry some.
David nods. “Yeah. Humbert and I had to break up a fight at The Rabbit Hole.”
“Mulan and I went to Granny’s for food, then Aesop’s,” Emma explains. She snatches a piece of bacon with her fingers and takes a bite out of it; damn, it is exactly what she needs, salty goodness to cure her hangover.
Mary Margaret says, “Did you have fun?” She then reaches over to cut Henry’s food a bit, brushing his hair back and pushing his toy cars closer to his plate.
Henry picks up the firetruck immediately and starts zooming it across the table accompanied with sound effects.
Emma swallows her coffee. “Yeah! Uhm, yeah. We uh – we just drank and played darts?”
Mary Margaret eyes Henry and then looks back at Emma with a special kind of glance. “Did you...” Meet someone? She mouths the last part, and Emma groans.
“No, I did not meet -” she stops talking, brow furrowed, as she thinks of something. A flash or red lips and brown pigtails enters her brain and she pauses. “Or maybe I did?” she adds, now meeting Mary Margaret’s very excited gaze. “I think I- I think I might’ve met someone?”
Squealing, Mary Margaret claps her hands together. “Emma!” she cheers. “That’s amazing!”
David pushes his chair back. “Calm down, M’n’M,” he murmurs and presses a kiss to her hair. “Don’t get too excited, honey. And I’m off to bed.”
Emma shoots him a thankful smile. “We’ll go to the park after, so you can sleep quietly,” she promises him.
As David shuffles off to bed, Mary Margaret turns back to look at Emma. Her cheeks are flushed, and she clearly wants to know all about it, which Emma is really not prepared for considering her hangover. “Tell me more!” she demands, and Emma sighs.
“I seriously can't remember a lot,” she warns, just because. She owes it to Mary Margaret though, doesn’t she, because Mary Margaret always helps her, and she lives vicariously through her sometimes, and she does want what’s best for her. So, Emma yawns and continues, “It wasn’t even at the bar. It was the new waitress at Granny’s? Ruby, I think?”
“Ruby Lucas!” Mary Margaret says, “I did hear she just moved back into town.”
Emma nods and forks some egg. “Yeah, we uh- we got to talking. She's back in town and working there, I guess? She seems sweet enough.”
Mary Margaret palms her coffee cup and raises it to her lips. “She really is. She always used to hang out with the older kids, like Graham and his other friends, so I never spent much time with her outside of classes. She was a bit of wild girl back in the day.”
Crossing her legs, Emma sheepishly continues to eat as she nods her head. “I think we spoke for like thirty minutes while Mulan flirted shamelessly with Belle from the library – she uh, she gave me her number, I think?”
Gasping, Mary Margaret grins excitingly. “Oh, Emma! I'm so happy for you! You should call her right now.”
Emma reaches across the table and lovingly brushes Henry’s hair back. “I uh, I guess I might do it later,” she says, casual, as she tries to imagine what it would be like for the kid if she did finally date someone; someone who got to meet him and be a part of his life. That's why it’s been so hard up until now, because she damn well wants it to be someone who wants Henry in their life just as much as they want Emma in it. That is proving to be rather difficult as most people her age squeak a little when she mentions that she has a four-year-old kid at home.
She just wants what’s good for her and Henry, and she’s not quite sure that Ruby Lucas can be exactly that. It cannot hurt to give it a try though, can it?
-----
Henry is running around on the playground with Nick and Ava from preschool, and Emma is staring down at the napkin she found tucked away in her dirty jeans from last night.
It's a bit crumpled, it has a perfect lipstick kiss on top, and beneath it in cursive is written Ruby 617-103-3100. It’s a clear invitation to reach out to her, and Emma definitely wants to. Now that her hangover is better, she remembers their conversation more vividly, and she definitely laughed a lot. Ruby seems cool, and if she wants to join Emma for coffee some day after work, she wouldn’t say no to that. The only thing she’s concerned about is whether Ruby will be cool with Henry being in Emma’s life; she seems young, and perhaps not one to be tied down with a kid, but who knows. Some people surprise you, and Emma is not going to write her off quite yet.
She casts a glance towards Henry on the slide, and then fixes her phone out of her jacket. She stares at the note, wondering whether to call her or write a text, but eventually decides to text. If Ruby had a late night yesterday, perhaps she’s still sleeping, so Emma quickly composes a message.
Hi R. Thanks for last night. Would you like to drink coffee with me someday? / Emma.
She shoots the text off without thinking more about it, and then goes to see how Henry is doing. He has tired himself out playing, but he has plenty of stories to tell Mary Margaret and David, so they venture back home to the apartment, where Emma places him in front of the television with a movie. David is still sleeping, and Mary Margaret is fluttering about, baking cookies and preparing dinner, so Emma throws herself onto the couch, and only then does she look at her phone again.
She squeaks out in surprise when she sees that there’s already a reply from Ruby’s number, and she rushes to open the text to see what she says, only to realise that... it’s not Ruby. Apparently?
Hello Emma. I’m a bit confused, as I did not meet you or see anyone last night. I was at home, drinking wine on the couch. However, the R is right. /R
With a furrowed brow, Emma sits up on the couch, thumb hovering above the keyboard. She hits reply on instinct, wanting to continue this conversation, but a small part of her can’t help but be slightly offended that apparently Ruby gave her the wrong number. It’s not like Emma thought they were True Loves or any of Mary Margaret’s bullshit when they talked last night, but she still feels like they had fun. They had fun, didn’t they? Why would Ruby give her a fake number?
“Fudgenuggets,” she mumbles, because Henry is right there, although immersed in his movie. This R person though – they seem to be reaching out to her, or is she wrong? It’s doesn’t feel like she’s being written off in that text message, so Emma gnaws on her lip and tries to figure out what to reply back to R.
Oh. So apparently the cute girl from Granny’s gave me a fake number. How neat. I don’t suppose you’re interested in chatting with a single woman in her late 20s who drinks too much coffee and work s terrible hours? /Emma
Henry’s voice pulls her out of it. “Mamma! Can I have some juice?”
Emma pockets her phone and smiles down at Henry. “Sure thing, Kid,” she says and lovingly runs a hand through his mop of brown hair. She goes into the kitchen to fetch him some juice, and then retreats back to the couch. She’s not sure why, but something about R in the other end makes her keep glancing down at the phone to see if maybe she has received a reply.
----
Emma and R text back and forth all through the weekend. It’s kind of odd, really, for Emma to be in such contact with someone she has never even met (or has she? It's hard to tell, but after prying on Sunday morning, she learns that R also lives in Storybrooke, and what, exactly, is the chance of that?). She’s pretty sure that R is a woman, too, not that R told her that specifically, but it’s just something about the way they write.
She quickly grows fond of R. She’s not sure if it’s the subtle sarcasm or the terrible jokes they make, but Emma finds herself grinning down on her phone more often than not. It's so much that Mulan notices immediately when she goes into work on Monday; apparently Emma suck at hiding anything, because Mary Margaret was also making hints and asking questions at breakfast.
“Ruby?” Mulan asks as she wriggles her eyebrows and jumps onto the desk to snatch one of Emma’s bearclaws and eat it blatantly right before her eyes.
Emma places her phone on the desk, face down. “Nope,” she says, popping the ‘p’ and grabbing a bearclaw as well.
Mulan licks her lip. “Alright. But someone’s got you all goofy, so did something happen on Friday that I missed?”
Wiping her fingers in her jeans, Emma says, “Nope. Actually, Ruby appears to have given me a fake number. The R I’m talking to though? Seems awesome.”
Mulan appears confused for a second or two as she listens to what Emma says. “She did? But Ruby’s like... awesome.” She pauses, eyes flickering. “That doesn’t make much sense.”
Emma shrugs. She doesn’t really care at this point; it’s not like she is in love with Ruby or anything, and R seems interesting. She likes the rough edges and the dry humour. “I guess? But I’m not complaining, I’ve been texting with R instead...”
Mulan snatches her phone from the desk before Emma has time to stop her, and her curious fingers are scrolling up the screen in eager as she reads the things Emma has been writing with R about. It’s not like they have shared any personal things that are not for other’s eyes, but it still feels odd, because it feels private . She bites her lip and awaits Mulan’s response.
Eventually, she puts the phone down. “You’ve been writing a lot,” she says.
Emma grabs the phone quickly, before Mulan can snatch it once more. “Yes, and what of it?” she challenges. She's grinning, but she’s serious somehow, because she doesn’t want Mulan to make a fuss of it.
“Do you even know who is on the other end?” Mulan challenges her.
“I don’t, I just know they’re awesome,” Emma replies back, and then reaches for another bearclaw.
Mulan looks worried, however. “Just be careful, it could be a creep, ya’ know?”
Emma clutches the phone tighter, feels its hardness against her palm. She knows it’s not a creep, she just knows. There's a connection there, somehow, even if she hasn’t told R everything yet, like the fact that she’s a police officer and has a four-year-old kid at home. She doesn’t know much about R’s life either, except that R works a lot in an important job and lives alone. It feels like just enough, however, and Emma just wants to find out more. “It’s, it’s not,” she tells Mulan softly, and they lock eyes for a few moments, their gazes intertwined, before a ball rudely hits the side of Emma’s face.
“Hey!” Mulan hollers, and Graham has entered the bullpen from his office, papers tucked beneath his armpit. “What’d you do that for?”
Graham grins childishly. “Stop the chitchat, deputies,” he says, jokingly stern. “I’m heading off to my meeting with the Mayor in thirty minutes, and I need the two of you in your patrol car.”
Emma sticks the phone into her jacket pocket; she thinks she’ll let Mulan drive for once, because then she can sneakily keep texting R while they’re out. “Sure thing, Humbert. Where do you want us?”
“By the high school,” Graham says. “There’s been a lot of vandalism lately, and the Mayor wants us to show our faces.” He runs a hand through his beard and grumbles. “Anyway. I’ll be a while; we have reports to go through.”
Killian Jones shoots a paper ball at their Sheriff. “Be weary of the Evil Queen, will you? We don’t want her to cut our budget back further. I swear, my radio went out the other day.”
Emma flicks him lightly on the arm. “Or maybe you forgot to turn it on right, Jones,” and he flicks her right back with a huff.
Mulan whoops, and David joins in. “The Evil Queen will tear your reports to shreds, Humbert.”
Emma laughs, and Graham makes a calming motion with his hands. “Hey guys, come on!” he begs them, but there’s a happy glint in his eyes. “She’s my old friend! Don't hate on her.”
Killian guffaws, and Emma grabs her radio from the docking station. “There, there, Sheriff, we’ll play nice,” she says and turns around to throw the car keys at Mulan, who catches them easily. “I have yet to meet this old friend of yours, but I can’t say I’m looking forward to the encounter. She sounds like a hardass.”
“She has to be,” Graham shrugs, but she can tell that he appreciates her effort nonetheless. “She’s a Latinx woman with the most powerful job in town. She can’t go easy on me.”
Throwing a glance at Mulan, Emma says, “Sure, it’s not easy controlling your lazy ass. Play nice, Humbert.”
Graham rolls his eyes. “Be careful!” he yells after them, as he always does, when the door to the station smacks close behind them, and Mulan and Emma foolishly race towards their car.
----
At first, she has plenty of time to send messages to R when they sit in the car, because absolutely nothing happens as they’re driving around the neighbourhood. Mulan keeps talking about Belle, and Emma hums in the right places, while she sends – at least she thinks so herself – hilarious and awesome messages to R. It kind of feels like they’re flirting a little bit, although Emma can’t be sure. R writes cheeky things back and Emma grins down at her phone a great deal. However, in the middle of writing a message that is most definitely flirty ( If you think rocks are hard, you should see my abs), Emma has to throw her phone into the glove compartment, because Felix from the high school – and yes, she’s on a first name basis with him, she’s taken him in that many times - is blatantly graffitiing the wall of the library, and if that doesn’t set Mulan off.
They rush out of the car, and soon the boy is running from them, and he has friends, and it’s a whole thing. It’s only hours later when they have finally processed the vandals, talked to parents and given stern lectures that Emma has time to look at her phone again. She’s left R’s flirty message on read, and so she quickly sends her message back and attaches another one.
So sorry. Got caught up in work.
R replies quickly; quicker than they usually do, and Emma feels a nervous flutter in the pit of her belly that she hasn’t experienced in many years.
That’s OK. For a while I feared I might have overstepped, so I am happy to hear that wasn’t the case.
R had thought about her while she hadn’t written to them, Emma realises. R had thought that Emma might have taken their flirtatious message the wrong way, and if that doesn’t indicate that R likes their correspondence, too, Emma doesn’t know what will. That knowledge sends another flutter through Emma’s body, and she grins to herself as she contemplates how to respond back to that one. She knows what she wants to do – she actually wants to ask R out for coffee to get to know them better, but she also realises that that means she’ll have to open up about her own life, including Henry. It kind of feels right though. As if R could definitely be the person to accept both Henry and Emma’s job and Mary Margaret’s mushy lovestruck brain because they like Emma and everything.
Before she has time to answer however, Graham ventures out of his office to grab a cup of coffee. Killian sees this as the perfect opportunity to yank his chain and he kicks back in his chair, legs on the table. “Hey Sheriff! How did the meeting with Mayor Hardass go?”
Graham pours himself a cup of coffee and casually leans against the wall. “Well, I’m glad you ask, Deputy Jones, because it actually went very well.”
Mulan grins. “How well?”
Shrugging, Graham continues, “Oh you know. She seemed relatively distracted today.” He sips his coffee, pondering. “I mean, at first – she was smiling. She kept glancing down at her phone and replying to messages. Altogether too unprofessional, but when I suggested that, she practically murdered me with her eyes.”
Emma laughs. “How dare you suggest she’s unprofessional.”
“I’m only alive because we’ve known each other forever,” Graham replies, sipping his coffee once more. “But then she got kind of mad later on. Annoyed and distracted, and in the end, she cut next month’s budget with 10 percent.”
A collective groan is heard from the present officers, and Killian fires an elastic band at their boss. “You angered the beast, Humbert!” he whines. “There goes the office donuts.”
Emma laughs once more and reaches for her wallet. “You know what, Jones? Donuts are on me today. I’ll go get some right now.”
“You for real?” Killian says, and when Emma nods, he grins. “You’re the best, Swan!”
“And you better remember it,” Emma warns him, before she stalks out of the station. She fishes her car keys out of the pocket of her leather jacket and unlocks the Bug. She’s about to get in to drive down to Granny’s to get those donuts when she decides to pick her phone out of her jacket too. She leans against the Bug and stares down at R’s last message, front teeth digging into her lip as she contemplates what to write. She’s not sure at all, so instead, she decides to be brave and presses the number.
She watches it ring for a few moments, almost hangs up because she feels silly and stupid for just calling, but then there is actually a voice on the other end.
“Hello? Emma?”
“R,” Emma breathes, because she’s not sure what else to say.
R hums on the other end of the phone, and Emma is now completely sure that R is a woman. “For a moment I thought you were going to leave me hanging this time as well.”
Emma sighs with relief, loving the slight banter in R’s voice and that hoarse rasp that she most definitely finds attractive. “Twice in one day?” she questions lightly, “How would I dare.”
“Very wise decision,” R replies, and she’s quiet for a moment, thoughtful, before she continues. “Well, to what do I owe the pleasure then? I do have a job to take care of, you know.”
With a smile, Emma slips into the Bug, tries to imagine R on the other end of the phone, sitting by her desk in her important office, talking to Emma on the phone. “So do I,” Emma replies and stuffs the keys in the ignition. “In fact, I am on the very important task of getting donuts from Granny’s.”
R chuckles. “Donuts. Don’t tell me you’re a police officer, Emma. That would be very cliché of you.”
Emma pauses, the ignition running. “Well actually, I - I kinda am?” she puts the phone on speaker, responsible as she is, before she puts the car in reverse.
“I was merely joking,” R replies, but she sounds very amused.
“Well, now you know,” Emma smoothly says as she turns the car down Main Street towards Granny’s. She could have walked, but then she’d have to carry the donuts, and this is much better. “So uh... is that going to be a problem?”
R simply says, “Why would that be a problem, Emma?”
“If I were to ask you out for coffee,” Emma says, just as she parks the car right outside Granny’s entrance. “Would me being a police officer be a problem?”
Sounding thoroughly surprised, R says, “You want to ask me out for coffee?”
Emma laughs. Of course she wants to ask her out for coffee, because R is the first person in a long while who doesn’t bore her, and who sounds attractive when she talks, and Emma just wants to meet her. “Yeah,” she says, slipping out of the car and closing the door with a smack.
R is quiet for a long time; so long that Emma fears for a moment that she might have hung up the phone, but then she breathes out heavily. “I accept,” R replies, although she sounds slightly worried. “When and where shall we meet?”
Stomped, Emma stares into nothing as she contemplates that. She knows nothing about R, and she honestly hadn’t thought she’d convince her to meet up so soon, so she says the first thing that comes to mind. “Tomorrow at six after work. Meet me at Granny’s. I’ll be the one in the red leather jacket.”
“That sounds atrocious,” R replies, and Emma is pretty sure that she means it, but for some reason it doesn't matter at all. “I will see you at six.”
Emma can tell that she is about to hang up the phone, so she quickly blurts out. “Hey! What’s your name?”
“R.”
“But how will I know it’s you?” Emma breathes. She shouldn’t be, but she is so intrigued about the mystery, and she just wants to see if R is as attractive as her voice suggests she is.
R chuckles. “I will know it’s you,” she simply says, before she hangs up the phone, and Emma is left staring down at the ground with a stupidly sheepish grin on her face, because of course R will find her. Everything about R so far has been a mystery, so why would this be any different.
------
Mary Margaret is ecstatic, of course, to hear about Emma’s mystery coffee date, and Emma tries to downplay how excited she is, herself, but it’s kind of hard. She and R keeps texting back and forth, and it’s so much that even Henry notices and asks her who’s on the phone so much.
She just can’t help it. She grins. Literally grins down on her phone all goofily because R’s sass and sarcasm is right up her alley. At this point she’s pretty sure their coffee date will go exceptionally, because how could it not with these odds. Emma obsesses about what to wear, and David makes fun of her at work, but when she leaves the apartment at ten to six, it’s with nervous butterflies in her stomach and her faithful jacket on her shoulders.
She slides into Granny’s and tries not to make a spectacle of herself, because she can see that Ruby is actually at work today, and yes, Emma figured that this day would eventually come, because she goes to Granny a little too much, but she had kind of hoped that a bit more time would have passed. It's not that she’s mad at Ruby or anything like that, it’s just a bit embarrassing. And the odd thing is, Emma felt like Ruby had actually wanted to give Emma her number that day. She’d been enthusiastic in writing it down – even pressing a kiss to the page. It is all really strange, actually.
Emma slips past Leroy – a common visitor in their small cell at the station due to his preference for fist fights at The Rabbit Hole – and into a booth near the back with a few minutes to spare. She has a feeling that R is a woman who takes punctuality seriously, and she tries to get comfortable in her seat, even though she’s very nervous and Mary Margaret’s it’s fate, Emma, fate! swirls around inside of her mind along with words such as true love and happily ever after. She swears, Mary Margaret has poisoned her sceptic mind with her positivity.
Mary Margaret is awesome though, and she is taking care of Henry tonight; feeding him dinner and tucking him in if need be.
She reaches for her phone to see if Mary Margaret has contacted her about anything, but as she does, a shadow falls above the table, and Emma glances up to find a woman staring down at her. At first glance she appears intimidating – and Emma knows it’s R, there’s not a doubt in her mind - because she’s dressed to kill in high heels, a tight pencil skirt and a dress shirt with a blazer on top. Her face is immaculate with blood red lips, and she’s so far above anyone Emma has ever dated or slept with that Emma squeaks as she lays eyes on her.
R says, “Emma?”
Emma can do nothing but nod, but now that she studies R closer, she sees a nervous flicker of a smile on her lips, a hand lingering over her stomach. She appears relieved as she slides into the booth and tentatively takes a seat in front of Emma. Emma keeps staring at her, seriously regretting her chosen attire; she’s here in her work clothes with messy jeans, white tank top and leather jacket, sitting across from a woman like this. She knows R sounds attractive over the phone, but damn. Perhaps R is already regretting this meeting; she must be very disappointed in Emma’s looks. She could get any woman – or person– for sure, and she’s drinking coffee with Emma ?
Lips perched, R says, unamused, “So, the red leather wasn’t a joke.”
And Emma swears she has seen her before. Emma swears that she’s seen this gorgeous woman somewhere, but she just can’t place her. There’s something about her stoic demeanour, something about her attire that – combined with her voice – makes Emma sure that she has seen her around Storybrooke, perhaps even interacted with her. She can’t quite place her, but the nagging feeling is definitely there.
Emma snorts. “You thought I was kidding? I don’t joke about my jackets.”
“Jackets? As in plural?” R says, and holy shit, she’s arching one eyebrow and looking at Emma with thinly veiled amusement.
“I might have more in other colours,” Emma casually replies and leans back in the soft booth.
R crosses her legs and gets more comfortable in her seat. “So,” she says, “you’re a police officer, Em-ma?”
The way she says Emma’s name does something strange, yet very nice, to Emma’s body. “Uhm yeah?” Emma hoarsely replies and nods her head. “Yeah, at Storybrooke Station. I’m a deputy. It’s shit hours sometimes, but I like the work.”
“I can imagine,” R replies. “I know Sheriff Humbert from high school.”
Emma whistles. “Wow. I should’ve known. I could have interrogated him for information about you. Of course, doing such thing would require me to know your name.” She licks her lips, puts a challenge out there for R to meet, and she’s pretty sure she’s not going to disappoint, because R seems to never do so.
R chuckles. “Wouldn’t that be nice?” She pauses, as if assessing if Emma is truly serious, but then she adds, “It’s Regina.”
Regina. That name seems fitting. What other name could this gorgeous woman in front of her have? “Regina,” Emma repeats, tasting the word on her tongue. “If you’re not scared off quite yet, I’d like to get us some drinks?” She moves to pull back, but a hand on hers freezes her on the spot.
“Coffee’s on me,” Regina says, before she grabs her purse and moves through the diner and towards the counter.
Emma can’t help it – she watches her go. The sway of her hips, the bop of her perfectly coiffed hair. Everything is attractive on this woman, and Emma can’t tear her eyes away. She stares at her from afar, for a moment feeling like she is in one very unrealistic dream, but she is soon torn out of her haze when Leroy laughs from his seat a few tables over.
She turns to stare him down. “What?”
Leroy pushes his chair back. “Just can’t believe the mayor is at Granny’s. It’s been a while since she’s been anywhere except her office.” And then he winks at her and turns towards the door, and Emma is left gaping after him because holy fuck.
It's the mayor. She’s drinking coffee with fucking Mayor Mills, and she didn’t even realise it. And not only that – Mayor Mills is fucking gorgeous and funny, and everything that Emma wants, on top of being the most powerful person in all of Storybrooke. Emma has heard the stories of how much she is feared and that she can be kind of a hardass – hell, she’s been part of telling those stories and teasing Graham about his friendship with her – but it cannot be easy to be a female woman in power. Especially – Emma swallows loudly at the thought – when you're also attracted to other women.
Maybe nobody knows . Emma is pretty sure she would have heard it in the town gossip mill if people knew. One hears some surprising things from the drunks in the slammer on weekends.
Suddenly, Regina sits right back in front of her, and Emma composes herself. She’s not going to be weird about this discovery, she’s going to be as normal as she’s been the entire time they’ve spoken.
“Our coffees will be right here,” Regina smiles, and she seems a bit more relaxed. She takes her blazer off and drapes it over the back of the booth, before folding her legs again.
“Thank you,” Emma squeaks, and Regina yet again raises an eyebrow, and Emma pulls herself together. “I uh, I was just, uh-” and she cuts herself off, because she actually has no idea what to say. The very intimidating title of Mayor Mills keeps flashing before her eyes, and she’s a stuttering mess. She's a mere deputy, but this is the mayor. The woman Graham has multiple times told her he fears when he goes to their weekly meetings. The woman who just yesterday cut their budget with 10 percent.
“Yes, Emma?” Regina smiles, apparently a little amused by Emma’s stuttering words.
Emma’s breath hitches. “I’m sorry, May-” She stops talking, caught by her own stupidity.
Regina pauses, frozen in her seat as her smile stiffens. “You figured out who I am, didn’t you?”
Teeth digging out to bite her lip, Emma forces herself to relax. This woman in front of her, it’s not Mayor Mills, at least she doesn’t want to be, not right now. She wants to simply be Regina, who’s drinking coffee with Emma, and that’s that. Emma has to at least try to accommodate it. “You’re Regina,” Emma says, and then she sits up straighter and tucks her hair behind ear. “Simply just Regina.”
Regina is clearly still on defence, probably used to being ditched and treated weirdly, and Emma refuses to do the same. Regina carefully relaxes her shoulders and breathes out deeply, as if assessing whether or not Emma can be trusted. “Alright,” she slowly says, nodding her head softly. “I’m Regina, and you’re Emma. So. Tell me more about yourself.”
It’s not the first thing Emma had planned to say, but she figures she might as well get it over with. She just messed up big time, so she should be upfront with Regina. She grins, trying to act casual. “I uh, I actually have a kid at home, I thought you might want to know that?” She reaches for her phone and quickly unlocks it while she refuses to meet Regina’s eyes. She’s not quite ready to see the disappointment in there; the probable fact that a woman like her with a big career just does not want to be tied to a young kid. Emma forces herself to find a picture of Henry however, and slides the phone across the table for Regina to see. “His name’s Henry. He’s four.”
And the look on Regina’s face is absolutely not the one she had expected. When Regina’s eyes land on Henry’s smiling picture, she absolutely melts. Her smirk grows into the purest smile Emma has yet to see from her, and her dark eyes shine. “Oh,” she whispers as her eyes raise to meet Emma’s, “he’s so cute .”
“Yeah?” Emma nervously questions as she pulls her phone back across the table. Her fingers feel clammy, but a sense of relief washes through her.
Regina says, “My father’s name was Henry. I always wanted to name my child after him.”
Their eyes meet, and Emma feels entirely stomped; as if this may be the start of something truly extraordinary, that neither of them had really thought. Fate can be funny like that, and Mary Margaret’s voice echoes inside of her head, because this is some shit right out of a romantic comedy.
Two cups of coffees are placed on the table in front of them, and Emma tears her eyes away from Regina’s. She pauses however, when she realises that it’s Ruby standing there, and now that the coffees are on the table, she’s simply just looking down at them with an enormous smirk on her face.
“Yes, Ruby?” Regina says and reaches for her coffee, sliding it across the table in its saucer.
Ruby’s grin brightens even more. “Just admiring my handiwork,” she simply says and flicks her long hair behind her back with a swoosh. She seems entirely too pleased for her own good.
Emma freezes, and Regina’s eyes narrow in on the waitress. “What do you mean ‘your handiwork’?” she snarls, and Emma gets a feeling that the two of them know each other.
Ruby laughs; laughs so loudly that a few curious gazes turn towards them. “Oh, Regina, my oldest friend.” She places a hand on Regina’s shoulder and, very seriously, continues to explain. “I was trying to hit on Emma last Friday because I want to smooch her, but as we got to talking-” Ruby pauses to look at Emma, who’s simply staring at her with wide eyes, “-I realised that I could not smooch her, because she was perfect for you! So naturally, I gave her a fake number , a.k.a. your number , so she’d get in touch with you. You can send me flowers and chocolates as a reward. Thank you,” she finishes, before she pulls her hand back and stares expectantly down at the both of them.
Regina’s eyes narrow even further, and she practically growls at Ruby. “ Leave,” she demands, and Ruby yelps loudly and is out of there in five seconds.
Emma meets Regina’s eyes across the table. Her palm is hot against her coffee cup, and she can feel that her cheeks are flushed with slight embarrassment. Regina looks positively furious with Ruby, although there is a slight hint of amusement on her face. Emma breathes, “So uh, I guess getting your number by mistake was too good to be a coincidence, huh.”
“Ruby has a tendency to mess with things she shouldn’t,” Regina states.
“But uh,” Emma pauses, heart beating madly in her chest, “we’re still good, yeah?” She can’t wait to tell Mary Margaret these turn of events; for all her tales of true love and fate, Emma can’t wait to top them with a case of it wasn’t fate, but a meddlesome friend with good intensions. She’s kind a nervous though – for only a moment – that Regina will somehow regret their coffee date because of this and pull entirely away from her.
Regina’s shoulders relax, and she reaches for her cup, too. She takes a long sip of it, and her face is unreadable, until she finally cracks a smile. “Well, as meddlesome as Ruby is, we can’t very well slant her for her matchmaking skills. I was under the impression that this date is going very well.”
Emma cracks a smile, too, and she feels herself relax. “So was I,” she says, and they smile at each other, and Regina chuckles, and Emma swears she hears Ruby whoop somewhere in the kitchen. “Do you want to go for a walk and then grab some dinner?”
“If you are so inclined, I have leftover lasagne and a bottle of red wine at home,” Regina suggests. There’s a dangerous lilt to her voice, a suggestion that Emma is never going to be able to turn down.
“Sounds perfect,” Emma says.
And it really was.