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There’s a fight. Not the kind that she’s used to, with fists and blood, but another kind – the kind with words that hurt worse than a slap to the face and tears falling down already stained cheeks. She isn’t even sure how it started but if she’s being honest, she knows that it was a long time coming. They were never going to work – she’s too stubborn and he’s too cruel– but she had hoped that they could make it happen. She’s not even sure why – she doesn’t love him and she never has – but she had hoped nevertheless.
Part of it, she thinks, was the pressure of everyone around her. Her parents, her friends – hell, even her son – they all wanted her to be happy. She doesn’t know that she ever had a choice. And she thinks that maybe, if it had been ten years prior, before she realized that she deserves more than a broken relationship, she could have been happy. She could have settled. But she’s not that girl anymore, so she leaves him.
She wishes that it could have been different, that they could have ended the relationship on good terms, but she knows that it couldn’t have happened that way. He isn’t good for her, though everyone thought that he would be. She can remember all of the moments when she needed him, when she really needed him, and he turned his back on her. She can remember the hurtful things he’d said to her, always in a calm, frightening voice.
“I loved you.”
“That’s why you’ll always be an orphan.”
“I want to hurt you like you hurt me.”
The words have run through her head thousands of times, and she has yet to find a way to rid her mind of his voice as he said them, a voice so filled with hatred and cruelty that she will never understand it. She’s confused, doesn’t understand how he can hate her so much one moment but claim to love her the next. She knows that she was wrong, but she was so afraid of losing him, of losing the one person in her life who seemed to /want/ her, that she was willing to do anything. It doesn’t excuse it, but she hoped that maybe it would be an explanation. He isn’t good for her, and maybe she isn’t good for him either. When he tells her to leave, to get out of his house, she doesn’t hesitate.
She’s no longer confused. Before, she confused persistence with desire, want with need, and lust with love.
Emma thinks that maybe she’s just destined to have bad taste in men, that maybe she’s going to be alone forever.
When he kicks her out, she packs a bag hastily and leaves the house that he bought for her. It that was just that – a house – because it never truly felt like a home. Her parents’ apartment, that feels like home. 108 Mifflin Street, that’s home too.
Emma’s starting to realize that maybe home isn’t a place, it’s people. It’s the people she loves, the people who love her.
Home isn’t a house filled with furniture she didn’t pick, filled with clothes she’s not even sure why she’s wearing. Home is Henry. Home is her parents. Home is Regina. Home is the smell of mom-cooked food, and Regina’s famous apple pie that she was scared to eat the first time, but ate for a show of trust.
Home is trust.
Home is love.
Home is family.
Home is not Killian.
And yet, despite now knowing what home is, Emma’s unsure of where to go as she stands on the porch of his house, unsure of whether she should get a room at Granny’s or go back to her parents, or to just walk around town aimlessly.
She opts for the third choice and starts walking, no destination in mind. Thoughts are running through her head of him, wondering where it all went wrong and if it was ever even right.
Her feet carry her to the docks, the sound of the waves crashing against the wood soothing to her ears. This is a place with many memories of him, of the Jolly Roger, and yet she has made it hers. The water brings her peace. It is her place now, not his. The moon is high in the sky, and she stares up at it with a content smile on her face.
She should be devastated. Her marriage just ended, the longest, most stable relationship of her life over – and yet all she feels is relief. Relief, because she’s done with a relationship that causes her nothing but pain. Relief, because he’s gone.
She’s glad Henry hadn’t been there to witness what happened, hadn’t seen the glass filled with rum that came flying at her head as she closed the door behind her. She didn’t even slam it shut.
Emma’s lost in her thoughts for what probably amounted to an hour, and then she hears footsteps behind her. She doesn’t want to turn around.
What if it’s him?
She turns around. It isn’t.
“What are you doing here, Emma?” Regina asks, her hands in the pockets of her long jacket as she walks up. It’s chilly outside, and Emma suddenly feels the cold.
“He kicked me out.”
“Who?”
“Killian.”
Regina looks at the bags sitting at Emma’s feet and frowns. “What do you mean he kicked you out, Emma?” She asks slowly, the rage clearly building behind her chocolate eyes as she meets Emma’s ocean blues.
“I mean he kicked me out, we’re done. We’re over.”
It takes the brunette a moment to process. “What do you need?”
“I don’t know.”
Regina nods, and then pauses. She nods again, this time to herself, as if she’s making a decision. “Alright, then. Let’s go.”
“Go where?”
“Home.”
And for some reason, Emma doesn’t question it. Home is where Henry is, where Regina is. Home is not where Killian is. She picks up the bags at her feet, slings one over her shoulder, and nods. And then they walk.
“How did you know?”
“Belle called me. Said you were walking around town with some bags. She said you looked lost.”
Again, Emma doesn’t question why the woman called Regina, not her parents. Why she called anyone at all.
“Oh.”
They walk in silence now, keeping a steady pace as they walk to the mansion.
Emma doesn’t seem to be capable of saying much as Regina takes the bags from her hands and hands them to Henry, explaining that Emma is staying the night and can he take these to the guest room? Emma doesn’t need to see Regina’s face to know the look she’s giving Henry, the ‘I’ll explain later, just do as I say’ look. She’s staring at her feet, but she can see it clear as day in her mind. She can see the confusion on Henry’s face, but understanding too. She can see the anger on Killian’s face.
Regina’s hand on her arm snaps her out of her thoughts.
“Why don’t you go sit in my study? I’ll make us a drink.”
Emma nods. She’s glad Regina found her. Her mother would have started with a hope speech, maybe tried to get her to go back to him, but not Regina. Regina knows that this is time for drinking.
She walks to the study and sits on the couch. She takes a deep breath and sits up straight. She’s okay.
“I’m okay,” she whispers to herself.
“Yes, Emma,” Regina says, entering the study with two glasses in one hand and a bottle in the other, “you are.”
Looking embarrassed to be caught talking to herself, Emma takes one glass and holds it out. When it’s full, she waits, then clinks hers with Regina.
“To divorce, right?” She laughs. It’s mirthless, but it’s a laugh nevertheless.
“Emma,” Regina says.
“Don’t do that.”
“Don’t’ do what?”
“The pity eyes, Regina,” she says, shaking her head. “We don’t… That’s not us. We don’t do pity.”
“It wasn’t pity,” she protests.
“It was.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
They sit like that for a few minutes, Emma pouring herself a refill because god knows one isn’t enough, before Regina breaks the silence.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know,” Emma admits. “We never really clicked. I thought we did. I don’t know, maybe I just wanted to believe we did. But we didn’t.”
Regina tilts her head to the side, her question obvious but unspoken.
“I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“Of course you had a choice, Emma,” Regina says, shaking her head.
Emma takes a moment, debating her next words. “Did I?”
“Yes.”
And somehow, Emma knows that they aren’t talking about Killian. “Do I still?”
Regina hesitates. “Yes.”
Emma doesn’t hesitate. In the most graceful motion she’s ever done in her life, Emma is out of her seat, crossing the room to where Regina is standing by her desk, and is pushing her against it. She gently caresses the woman’s cheek, pauses, and then leans in and presses her own lips to Regina’s. She’s cautious at first, but when Regina responds to the kiss, Emma pushes her further against the desk and cups Regina’s face with both of her hands.
It only lasts a few seconds before Emma pulls away slightly, but her hands are still on Regina’s face and their bodies are still pressed against each other.
“I’ve wanted to do that for years,” Emma says breathlessly. She closes her eyes for a moment, never wanting this moment to end, and only opens them when Regina speaks.
“I’ve been waiting for longer,” Regina replies. She reaches out and wipes away a smudge of her own lipstick from the corner of Emma’s mouth.
Emma wonders if Killian ever looked at her with that much adoration in his eyes and thinks that he couldn’t possibly have, she would have noticed.
She wonders how she never realized she had a choice. She’s always had a choice.
And she made the wrong one.
“Sorry I’m late,” Emma says quietly, a smile on her lips.