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She’s awake before Regina most days. Awake and already in the kitchen preparing coffee in her pajamas, usually stirring in her creamer as she stands by the window, watching the sun paint the sky, listening to the birds as she waits for Regina to come downstairs. It’s not a routine, not really, but if it was, then she’d be breaking it this morning.
Emma’s yawning off whatever’s left of her sleep, engulfed in this book of laws from the Enchanted Forest, absently turning the page and sipping from her still steaming mug.
Regina had found the book in her vault yesterday afternoon, and she’d given it to Emma for her to look over because her knowledge of the justice system only really extends to this realm.
It’s interesting, learning about these things. Emma’s reading over the death penalty when she hears a sleepy groan from the kitchen doorway.
“You’re not making me read anything until you give me that,” Regina says, pointing at the mug of coffee in Emma’s hand.
“Did you know that up until three years ago, the Enchanted Forest still guillotined its criminals? I mean, only for the really bad stuff, but still.” Regina just hums, and Emma rolls her eyes. “Oh, come on. That’s not reading. That’s just talking.”
“Fine, then no reading or talking.”
Regina makes a grab for Emma’s mug, but Emma moves it out of her reach.
“This is mine,” she says, feels a smile pull at the corners of her mouth. Regina has become significantly less of a morning person with the passing of time, and Emma finds it more endearing each day. “I haven’t made yours yet. I was distracted.”
Regina pouts at the prospect of having to make her own coffee, and Emma goes back to reading.
“When I gave you that book, I didn’t think it would end up glued to your person,” Regina mumbles.
“Are you seriously complaining about me doing research?” Emma shuts the book on her bookmark—a small tarot card adorned with The Lovers that she’d found inside when she’d first opened up the cover. “There’s information in here on passing new legislation. I’ve been trying to figure out how to help you with your new amnesty decree, and now maybe I can.”
“It’s my responsibility,” Regina says immediately, consistently refuses to let anyone carry her burdens. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know, but I want to. You shouldn’t have to draw up a whole new law by yourself.”
Realistically, Emma knows that’s how it works. Regina is the queen of all the realms. She creates the mandates and executes them, and it’s different from what Emma is used to. It doesn’t seem fair, that Regina should have to come up with a law that provides villain amnesty all on her own. It’s so much work. Emma can tell that much just from what she’s read so far in her book. Plus, these are villains they’re talking about. People who are adept at finding loopholes. As a former criminal—and villain, sort of—she’s going to make sure Regina doesn’t get screwed over on her own decree.
It had been Emma’s idea in the first place. After they busted a magical black market—because apparently that’s a thing—Emma had realized there were a lot of accomplices involved, buying and selling, being made to do the dirty work for the sorcerers and witches who were pulling their strings. Some of them had even claimed to be under a spell, or claimed that their hearts had been taken. Until some sort of arrangement can be made for their freedom, they’re all going to remain locked up, innocent and guilty alike. That’s where the decree comes in. But the logistics are still messy.
Regina seems content to ignore her, seems…suddenly preoccupied, walking over to Emma as her coffee brews and running her finger over the tarot card poking from the top of the book.
“Where did you get this?”
“It was in the book when you gave it to me,” she says. “Why? It’s not, like, cursed or something, is it?”
“No,” Regina says distantly. “No, Facilier gave me this card. He said it was my future.”
“Maybe it’s a sign,” Emma says, half-joking and half…not. The look Regina gives her communicates well enough that her comment was a bad idea. That Regina knows exactly what she’s implying and that she doesn’t want to start their morning like this.
“Emma, don’t,” she tells her.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
Regina’s stance on the subject is firm, unyielding, but Emma can never just let it lie. Regina seems so tired so often, and Emma just wants to help, and if they’re married, then Emma has official, legal authority to govern equally with Regina. They can split the responsibility, just like they co-parent Henry. It’s the same thing, almost. Sort of. It’s not like they would be married, married. It would just be another act of teamwork.
The beeping Keurig behind them puts an end to the conversation, and Regina goes to retrieve her coffee.
“Sorry,” Emma mumbles anyway into the awkward silence, and Regina doesn’t say anything else about it. Just starts talking about how Lucy wants to visit again soon, how Henry and Ella deserve some time to themselves, and Emma has to force her mind to move on from thoughts of calling Regina her wife.
It’s February, and the big, creaking tree in Regina’s front yard is bare as it sways with the breeze. She follows Regina up to the front door, watches her fumble with her key only once before unlocking the door, and it shouldn’t surprise Emma, how composed Regina is even in such a state.
Birthdays have rubbed at the raw place in her heart ever since Henry showed up at her door, ever since she got her wish, and she doesn’t mean to take them so seriously, but maybe there is more to it than she’d always thought when she was younger. Because birthdays are just another day when you belong to no one.
But that’s not the case anymore, not for her and certainly not for Regina. There had been no shortage of people prepared to make the day as magical as possible. The best part, Emma thinks selfishly, is that she is the one with whom Regina is ending the day. She’d been by Regina’s side throughout all the celebration, all the confetti and cake and candles.
Snow had insisted on an Enchanted Forest backdrop for the party, with an immaculately decorated castle and servants to handle whatever business may impede a celebration. But Regina had wanted something casual after a year of attempting to return to normalcy. It had started at Granny’s and ended at Aesop’s, and Emma had been delighted to see Regina’s recent bartending experience in action as she’d taken over behind the counter. Because anything for the Queen. Even when she demands to make her own drinks.
And Regina is so changed, so evolved, Emma thinks she pales in comparison to whatever Regina has managed to conquer in over a decade, whatever demons she’s exorcised. All Emma conquered was a divorce and a bedroom in her parents’ farmhouse. Her farmhouse now, because the Enchanted Forest is what Snow and David live and breathe, settled back into their old castle. As far as they know, the farmhouse is where she’s staying, but most of her things—including herself—are stored in Regina’s spare bedroom.
Emma has been trying for months and months to reconcile this Regina with the one who left her years ago. This Regina, who has more denim and band t-shirts in her wardrobe than Emma has ever seen, courtesy of a Roni that Emma had never gotten to meet. This Regina, who makes her own drinks at bars on her birthday. This Regina, who rules over all the realms with a smile on her face and love in her heart.
She wonders if there will ever be a version of Regina that she doesn’t fall in love with.
They step out of their shoes once they make it inside, Emma’s boots beside Regina’s heels, and as Emma’s shrugging out of her jacket, Regina wanders into the kitchen.
She hangs her jacket over the banister at the stairs, an act that Regina hates almost as much she hates that old pair of Emma’s checkered pajama pants, because jackets go in the closet, Emma.
It makes her grin, the echo of Regina’s words in her head, and she thinks there are still some things that will never change, despite the rest of the world around her.
She joins Regina in the dimly lit kitchen, sees her sitting at a barstool at the island with the lid popped open on her to-go box of leftover birthday cake. She has a fork in one hand, and there is a fork on the counter next to her, waiting for Emma.
When Emma sits next to her at the island bar and picks up her fork, Regina moves the container of cake closer to Emma so that it is between them.
“Red velvet was a good choice,” Regina tells her, and she looks so small, still wearing Emma’s Storybrooke Sheriff’s Department issued windbreaker. Because she hadn’t brought a jacket to stave off the frigid, Maine winter, and it was all Emma had in her backseat.
“Um, it was a great choice,” Emma says around a bite of cake.
Emma had picked it out, a regal, three-tiered thing that had been a bitch to haul in the passenger seat of the Bug. She’d almost ruined it three times by pumping the brakes too hard, then nearly dropped it on the way into Granny’s just because she’d been so nervous to carry such a thing.
“I know I’ve said it plenty,” Regina says, “but thank you. Today was really special.”
“You’re just saying that because you’re drunk,” Emma ribs, and she doesn’t know why she can’t just take the compliment, doesn’t know why it’s pressing so hard on her chest.
Regina’s other “thank you”s of the day had been brushed off with an “it’s nothing,” and Emma figures it must be her not enough mindset flaring up. Because Regina deserves the world, and all Emma has done is give her one good birthday.
But Regina goes along with it.
“Probably,” Regina agrees, and something warm tugs at Emma’s heart when Regina smiles at her.
The first morning Emma had made breakfast, Regina had been surprised. As if Emma never learned to cook for herself. She very much did, and she’s actually halfway decent at it.
(Or, maybe it had just been the initial surprise at finding Emma in her kitchen, moving around like she owns it.)
She remembers the way Regina had compared cooking to chemistry and potion making, remembers calling Regina a nerd and her gee, I wonder where Henry gets it from had earned her a glare. Because apparently not even Emma is allowed to say anything against Henry.
She’s in the middle of a rendition of “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” singing along as she flips Regina’s omelet in its skillet, and if Regina can make cooking into a science, then Emma can make it into a performance. It’s half-assed and off-beat—she’s more so focusing on not letting the food burn—but it’s fine because she’s alone in the kitchen. She’s waiting for Regina to wake up with a hangover so she can cure it with eggs and coffee.
She lets the omelet simmer for another minute, then slides it onto a plate, still moving in time to the song.
It’s a preference, really, cooking. She likes not having to rely on herself for a meal. Maybe because when she was younger, her time was spent worrying about how and when she was going to eat. She’d fallen into the takeout habit, and it’s not a great one, and it definitely pisses Regina off. Or, not so much anymore, Emma guesses. She’s shown up with pizza for dinner a handful of times and Regina hasn’t protested.
And she likes bringing Regina lunch, likes the idea of them sharing a meal that came from someone else. She thinks the reason she enjoys it so much is because it’s such a rarity now. She doesn’t get to see Regina during the day when Regina is in the Enchanted Forest. Emma is stuck at the station filing away civil disputes while Regina mends relationships between broken lands and provides guidance for people in another realm.
(Another realm that is now only a measly fifteen-minute drive away, but still.)
So, on the occasional day that Regina is actually in town, Emma takes advantage of it.
Last week, she’d brought Regina a salad and a lemonade from Granny’s because Regina had been available, here in Storybrooke giving a group of second graders a tour of Town Hall.
Emma remembers it fondly because of how warm and maternal Regina becomes around children. She’s beautiful like that, beautiful in any capacity, but especially like that.
And she is beautiful this morning as she walks into the kitchen, finds Emma moving and humming along to Frankie Valli. She’s wearing a pencil skirt and a nice button-up, which communicates well enough that she’ll be working in town today, and Emma delights in that knowledge.
She can’t help it, the way she rounds the counter and takes Regina’s hand. Emma spins her once, twice, in time with the song, and Regina exhales a soft laugh, drops Emma’s hand.
“You’re going to make me sick,” Regina tells her.
“My dancing’s that bad?”
“Hopefully your food isn’t.”
Emma grins, watches Regina settle onto a barstool and slides the plate across the counter for her, along with a still-too-hot mug of coffee.
She sits idle in her car in front of Regina’s house, angles her rearview mirror down to survey the damage. The streetlights catch on the swollen patch of skin already beginning to bruise on her cheekbone, and it would be different if she’d gotten this from doing something heroic instead of having accidentally taken a rogue fist to the face trying to break up a fight between two drunken lumberjacks. A fist that hadn’t even been intended for her, and it’s all she can do to hope that Regina doesn’t laugh at her for being an idiot.
Emma considers rescheduling, telling Regina that she’s not feeling well or something to that effect. But she’s already here, and she’s been looking forward to this all day. Regina needs a break. They both do.
She finally takes her keys out of the ignition and gets out of her car, internally reciting what she’s going to say.
I was fighting an evil hoard of trolls.
I was fighting an evil hoard of goblins.
I was fighting a bear.
All perfectly valid and believable. She rings the doorbell and waits, hopes that when Regina answers, Emma can rush her out the door and to her car. Maybe they can make it all the way to the restaurant before Regina sees.
She’s monumentally unlucky in that as soon as Regina opens the door, her face falls almost immediately, pinches into a concerned frown.
“What happened to you?”
“Nothing,” Emma says with a shrug. “You look nice. Are you ready to go?”
“Emma,” Regina says softly, and it knocks down a few of Emma’s defenses, that gentle tone.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” she says stubbornly.
Regina opens the door wider, invitingly, and Emma heaves a deep sigh.
“Will you at least come inside?”
She’s never been good at saying no to Regina, so she trudges through the threshold and kicks off her boots, shoulders slumped in disappointment. She’s ruined their one night out and she’s never been more annoyed with herself because Regina looks so perfect in her elegant, red dress. It cinches at her waist and falls just below her knees, and Emma thinks it’s too beautiful to be wasted on staying in.
Regina leads her to the island bar in the kitchen, advises her to sit on one of the barstools, and Emma watches her walk over to the freezer and produce a bag of frozen peas. She decides to stop wondering if this situation could be any more humiliating, because apparently the answer is yes, always.
“I meant it,” Emma says as Regina approaches her. “You do look nice.”
Regina smiles only slightly, like she’s trying to fight Emma’s flattery.
“We’re not going out,” she tells Emma definitively, and Emma tosses her head back and groans. Regina uses this moment to place the bag of chilled peas over Emma’s cheekbone, and Emma recoils a bit at the sting of it. “Who did this?”
“It’s not like that,” Emma assures her, sensing the hint of fire laced around Regina’s words, and while Emma is grateful for—and more than a little endeared by—Regina’s protective nature, it’s not like anyone had actively started a fist fight with her. “It was an accident. I got called to break up a bar fight.”
“Between…?” Regina presses, and Emma feels the corners of her lips quirk into a grin.
“I’m not telling you that,” she says. “You’ll cast a curse on them or something.”
“Well, now that you’ve given me the idea.”
“Seriously, it’s fine. Not the first time I’ve had one of these.”
Emma gestures to her eye that’s being covered by the bag of frozen peas, and Regina’s eyes light up with mirth. Like she’s somehow amused.
“Because you’re such a badass,” she quips, which is maybe one of the most offensive things Regina has ever said to her.
“You don’t think so?” Emma watches Regina raise an eyebrow, but she says nothing, so Emma lightly nudges her side with her elbow. “Fine, fight me, then. Give me your best shot.”
Being this near to her, having Regina’s face so close to her own, Emma can see Regina’s lashes flutter as she rolls her eyes, and Emma’s maybe still a little dizzy from getting punched in the face, but her heart floods with warmth at Regina’s beauty all the same. Regina takes one of Emma’s hands and brings it up to the bag of peas, allowing Emma to apply her own pressure as Regina steps away.
“I think you’re already at a bit of a disadvantage,” she tells Emma, but she’s still smiling as she turns to walk down the hallway. Emma watches her disappear into the bathroom, hears the medicine cabinet open and shut.
With Regina out of her space, Emma can no longer smell her perfume, and she finds that she misses it, misses the closeness. She has the urge to tell Regina that she thinks she must have hurt her hand, too, because it’s hard to hold the bag of peas to her eye. Just so Regina will come back and stand next to her. Just so she can steal glances of her out of her peripheral.
When Regina reappears and makes her way back to Emma, she extends two ibuprofen out to Emma, who takes them and doesn’t think about how their fingers brush as Regina goes to fetch her a glass of water.
“I’m ordering a pizza,” Regina tells her as she passes Emma the glass.
“Regina, really, we can still go. I’m fine,” she argues, popping the pills into her mouth and washing them down with water. She watches Regina pick up her cell phone and dial a number before she puts it up to her ear, blatantly ignoring her.
“Is pepperoni okay?”
Emma sighs.
She’s still shaking off the early morning chill that runs through her spine, stepping into the house and letting the immediate warmth rush over her. She’s fresh off the night shift, and all she wants is a bed and a couple hours of sleep.
She steps out of her boots, makes it halfway through the house before she realizes that Regina is in the kitchen, already with a mug of coffee. She is perched on a stool, flipping through photographs, and Emma doesn’t think she will ever pass up an opportunity to spend time with her, so she makes her way into the kitchen, comes to stand beside where Regina is sitting.
“What are you doing?”
She catches the ghost of a smile at Regina’s lips, wonders how long she’s been sitting here, and when she reaches out to touch Regina’s coffee mug, she finds that it’s gone cold.
“Do you remember when I was cleaning out my vault?”
“Yeah,” Emma says. “You gave me that book.”
“Well, I also found these, but I’m only just now getting around to looking at them,” Regina says, and Emma peers over Regina’s shoulder at the picture she has in her hand. It’s Henry on his first birthday, sitting in a highchair with a tiny, little cake on his tray.
“He was so…small,” Emma says. “I have memories of this, but they’re fake. Or, they’re yours? I don’t know. Whatever you gave me before we went to New York.”
“Some of them were real,” Regina tells her. “Most of them. I gave you some of mine, but I also gave you new ones.”
Emma’s heart swells at that, at the thought of them sharing memories of Henry. As if they’d raised him together. And they did, sort of. It’s just that Emma had been a little late to the party. But as Regina flips through the pictures, year after year of Henry starting school, of Henry finger painting in Kindergarten or doing homework at the kitchen table or playing the recorder in fourth grade, Emma vaguely recalls each memory, thinks she’s never been given a greater gift, even after all this time.
It makes her wish he were here, makes her wish she would have been there for him. She wishes she could have seen his wedding. Lucy’s birthday. Everything that meant the world to him. Because he means the world to her, and she’s sorry for not acting like it.
“You’re crying,” Regina says softly, reaches out and catches a tear on Emma’s cheek with her thumb.
Emma blinks, wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand, and tries to laugh, but it’s shaky, and she still feels the phantom touch of Regina’s thumb against her face.
“I’m sleep deprived,” she says, but Regina doesn’t take the out, just lets it lie between them as she watches Emma with sympathy in her eyes.
“You know there’s no one else I would ever want to raise a child with,” Regina tells her, and Emma has to swallow the lump in her throat.
“Yeah, me, too.”
It’s not enough, Emma thinks. There should be more here. It feels like every moment they’ve ever had where they’re supposed to be saying something that they’re not. It reminds Emma of a miserable trip back from New York, where Regina had ripped out half of herself on a rooftop, refused to engage in little more than light conversation the whole drive back. Emma remembers the guilt she’d felt from encouraging Regina to do something like that, remembers being too scared to reach out and offer Regina her hand, so she’d gripped the steering wheel tighter.
It feels like they’re still in that uneasy place, but also like they are somewhere else entirely. Like there’s an emptiness between them that Emma doesn’t know if they’ll be able to fill.
“Here,” Regina says, splitting one stack of pictures into two, handing one to Emma, “you can keep these.”
And it does make Emma smile, the way Regina tries for her. The way Regina never seems to blame her.
They stay like this for hours, looking through pictures with Emma listening to Regina recount each memory that Emma doesn’t have. Some are good, like when Henry won the science fair in third grade. Some are bad, like the day after when he broke his arm playing kickball at recess.
Regina finding these in her vault makes Emma think of the book that she’d found, the one Regina hates her reading, and she pictures clearly the Lovers card in her head. Regina’s future that she’s been using as a bookmark. She thinks she’ll keep it just like she’ll keep these pictures of Henry. Having it makes her feel like she is somehow a part of Regina’s future, and after not being able to control the past, it’s something she doesn’t entirely mind.
The guest bed isn’t cutting it anymore, Emma thinks. Not now that she knows what it feels like to lie in Regina’s bed. She’d slept there after the whole blackened eye incident because Regina had wanted to make sure she was okay. A mistake, probably, because now it’s all Emma wants.
She feels safe here, always. It’s so unlike the farmhouse. She’s collected too many things from her previous house, too many knick-knacks that she doesn’t want, has no idea where they belong. All in the name of good housekeeping. The perfect appearance of a home. She wants to throw them all out, wants to have a bed and a fridge and maybe a sofa. Anything more seems too heavy. Too much.
Regina has knick-knacks. The mansion is filled with keepsakes and portraits and decorations. Except, it never feels performative. Emma walks through Regina’s home and feels welcome, feels content, so unlike any house she’s ever lived in before. Not like the floorboards are going to give way if she says the wrong thing. Not like the wallpaper is going to start peeling if she spends too much time with the wrong person. Any person, really.
But she hates the wall art in here. A watercolor still life of a vase of flowers, daisies and carnations and ones that Emma has never even seen before. She turns over on her side so she won’t have to look at it, spots the book of laws on her bedside table.
Emma sits up and pulls the book into her lap, takes out the little card poking out from the top. The stark yellow sun and the baby cupid in the red dress aiming an arrow at the couple below, and it’s so familiar to her by now, she thinks she could create a perfect rendering by memory.
She wonders how much this card means to Regina, wonders if it’s important to her. Emma thinks if it were, she wouldn’t still have it. Or, maybe she would. Maybe it’s safe with her.
It’s not going to leave her alone. Not until she finds out how much stock Regina actually puts into these things.
She throws the covers off and gets out of bed, opens the door and walks down the hallway to Regina’s bedroom. She knocks, and as soon as she does, it occurs to her that this might be ridiculous. It’s a card. It’s a piece of paper with a picture on it, and why can’t she get it out of her head? Why is it following her like—
The door opens slowly, and Regina stands on the other side of the doorway, an eyebrow raised, but she’s not blinking off sleep, must have been lying awake in bed like Emma, so Emma thinks she hasn’t completely ruined the night, not yet.
All she does is hold up the card, and no words come to her, nothing that would communicate what she’s doing here and what the card means, but Regina seems to understand regardless.
“I was married once before,” Regina says, leaning against the doorframe, and it crashes into Emma all at once, flames of embarrassment licking at her skin.
Regina has been married before for reasons purely transactional. Not that that’s what this would be, and Emma hasn’t asked again all week, hasn’t brought it up. But apparently, it’s been on Regina’s mind.
Emma thinks the card she’s still holding must have something to do with that.
“If it makes you feel any better,” she says, “so was I.”
“That’s different,” Regina tells her. “You thought you wanted it. I knew I didn’t.”
Emma glances down at the tarot card, bends it against her hand, and she gets fidgety when they get this close to something. Every time. She shouldn’t, not anymore. She’s allowed to feel the things she used to feel again. She’s allowed to feel the things she has always felt.
“I have an idea,” Emma says instead of anything remotely sentimental. “About the decree.”
Regina hums, lets Emma keep going.
“We offer amnesty to anyone who doesn’t already have a criminal record.”
“That could work.”
And Emma’s not sure if Regina’s just entertaining her at this point or if she genuinely likes the idea. This version of Regina listens to her with everything she has, rarely takes a stab at Emma’s dignity. This Regina is softer, and Emma finds that she sort of misses the Regina who used to poke holes in all of her thoughts.
“It was just an idea,” Emma dismisses with a shrug.
“It’s a good one.”
Emma’s quiet for a moment, flips the card around between her fingers.
“I wasn’t trying to trap you in another loveless marriage,” she finally tells Regina. “I mean, not that it would be loveless. It wouldn’t be, because…it just wouldn’t.”
“Are you trying to tell me that you love me?” Regina asks, and she’s smiling in a way that twists at Emma’s heart like a knife.
And if ever there were a perfect moment, Emma thinks it would be now.
Regina’s smile fades into something softer, something real as Emma reaches out and moves her fingers through Regina’s hair, down to the ends, then traces her fingertips over her cheek, just as Regina gets close enough for Emma to feel her breath against her face.
They’d had too much cider after dinner, probably, but the soft press of Regina’s lips against her own is its own kind of intoxicating. She tilts her head, revels in the feeling of Regina’s hand sliding down to her neck, and it’s good. It’s good, and why did they wait years, decades, for this—
It’s over too quickly, and Regina pulls away first, and Emma lets her, reaches up to grab Regina’s hand where it rests at her neck.
“Yeah,” Emma says quietly, an overdue answer to the question, and Regina doesn’t say anything, just leans back in and kisses her, kisses her.
There is more fire here, more purpose, and Emma can feel her heart thumping, thudding. Emma uses both hands to cradle Regina’s head and draw her closer, closer still, lets the Lovers card fall from her hand and flutter to the ground as Regina pulls her into her bedroom.