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Hook is easy.
Hook is the choice that makes itself. He wants her, and when you’ve lived a life fraught with rejection, sometimes that’s the only thing that you can see. It’s the only thing you can ask for.
Sometimes it’s the only thing you bother searching for.
“Luv?” he asks, placing a cold hand on her shoulder. She flinches, but her eyes don’t leave the window she stands frozen in front of. “Are you coming to bed?”
She wants to say no (She always wants). But that isn’t what a loving girlfriend would say.
That isn’t what a good girlfriend would do. And how can she be a good person, a good savior, a good anything, if she isn’t even a good girlfriend?
“I will. Just give me a minute,” she replies.
Outside, the stars twinkle. There’s no twinkle in this shadow-filled house.
He lets out a grunt, but doesn’t try to argue. “Alright.” His hand drops back to his side. “Don’t be too long, yeah? It’s late, Swan.”
She hums. She’s always preferred the late night to early morning. Everything comes to a standstill at night. Everything else is asleep.
Everyone is asleep.
There are no watchful eyes, no expectations, nothing left to do. The world can disappear for a long moment. But never long enough, because morning will always come in like the tide returning home.
Hook marches up the stairs to his room (Their room. But it's never been hers. Not really. Not in the way that matters), and her shoulders droop.
Bad. She’s so bad at this. She’s bad at everything he wants her to be. She’s never been girlfriend material, has she?
No, Emma is partner material. She’s reliable. She’s a savior. She can protect people, and she can give until her veins are empty. But she can't bare herself to the bone like he wants or restructure her organs until they've become knots.
She can’t be this.
Whatever this even means.
It isn’t supposed to be like this. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong .
Like a star falling to earth instead of shooting across the sky. Earth is no place for a star to call home. They don’t belong there. They belong within the skies arms.
Their light belongs beside the midnight moon’s careful grace. They aren’t supposed to fall into the endless dark waters of the raging sea.
But falling is easy. Falling from the sky, falling into place. All it takes to fall is to let go.
Sometimes that’s all you can do.
Because holding on can be scary. Much scarier than letting go.
Holding on means reaching out. Reaching out for what you need could mean reaching for the rose tangled in a thorn bush. Reaching out could mean being too weak to climb to the mountain you find yourself stuck on.
But crashing down is easy. Even when you have nothing to cushion your fall.
Robin is fate.
When he kisses her, it's like the bars above the execution square. Or the walls of Leopold’s castle. The ones that locked her to the castle grounds because of Mother’s magic.
When she tried to fight fate, she became everything she never wanted to be. Her mother. Rumple. A monster.
She became the kingdom that burnt the world to ashes. She became what destroyed her first home. War, fire, an omen of darkness.
Regina isn’t evil anymore. She isn’t someone who feels nothing, she’s someone who feels a weight too strong to bear most days.
Robin doesn’t deserve that. Nobody deserves the baggage someone as damaged as her holds in shaking palms.
Her soul is more bitter than the cider in her glass. And more lethal than any turnover. She’s the death curse she once absorbed.
It took time to see that. But she does now.
And she’s trapped. Completely, and utterly trapped.
Between what is good, what is deserved, what is right, what makes a hero, what can be redeemed, and every question one can possibly ask themself.
It’s on late nights like this where, for the briefest moment, she wants to wish away being good. As the Evil Queen, reality barely felt real. It was a chessboard she played with. Rumple and Mother taught it to her like a game.
But it is real, and she was too good at the game she played.
She sighs, taking another burning sip of cider. With enough, maybe she could sink into the chair she finds herself glued to. Maybe she could be one of the books on her study’s shelves. Maybe she could be anything but the thing she is.
Escape. Freedom.
Isn’t that the one thing she’s always wanted? It was all she wanted for most of her life.
And now she has a soulmate who wants her like no other. Who she needs to want like no other. And she’s the same monster she’s always been because she can’t give him that.
The only thing fate asks of her. Maybe that was always fate's angle. Another way to tear at her skin. Tell her how she’s undeserving of any more chances. She crossed too many lines in her games.
“Fuck this. Fuck fate,” she mutters to herself, voice low and hoarse. Because fate is always this world's cruelest mistress.
Fighting monsters is safe.
Not in the literal sense, Emma supposes. But in the way it matters. The way she desperately needs.
With a villain, physical strength is what she needs. Her innate magic. Regina’s magic. There’s a formula for it. It’s easy.
Unlike so many things in life. Like family. Like friends. Like bonds.
“You’re sure?” teases her mother, bumping her shoulder against Emma’s. The two of them walk side by side down mainstreet, simply enjoying the peaceful town. “He seems pretty smitten to me. And you’ve been together a while already.”
Emma smiles, but it feels like a grimace. A warning. “Yeah, I doubt he’s going to pop the question anytime soon, Mom. And we haven’t been together that long. It’s been a few months. Not years.”
But Emma knows herself in ways she wishes she didn’t. Years won't change what she already knows, what her heart feels.
Or doesn't feel.
Snow dismisses it easily with a wave of her hand. “In our world, a few months is a long time. The faster your courtship is, the quicker you can be happy together.”
If only it could be that easy. “Well, here it takes a bit longer. I don’t think me or Hook are ready for that kind of commitment.” She shrugs, eyes drifting to the other side of the street.
Regina and Henry sit at one of the Granny’s outside tables, chatting away with each other as they enjoy lunch. They have a good mother-child relationship these days. One that’s a lot more stable than anything Emma has with her mother.
It’s the bond she always wanted for him when she was pregnant all those years ago. Her only want was for him to have the life she couldn’t, to have a mother like Regina. Someone who cherishes him like the moon loves the sun.
Then Robin exits from Granny’s front door, and takes the open seat by them, and Emma’s chest is hollow for a reason she can’t explain.
Suddenly, she’s an intruder looking in on them. Not their family. Only a stranger.
This isn’t a moment meant for her.
Her eyes drift away, back to her mother who hasn’t even noticed her disconnect from the conversation. And maybe she’ll never notice.
It’s easier if she never notices.
Loneliness is simple.
It’s an ache you understand. It’s easy to fix. It’s better than being hurt.
The weakness in her heart when Hook wraps an arm around Emma is nothing close to simple. Or understandable. Let alone easy to fix.
They all sit at Emma’s house, the one she shares with him, for a family night, and all she can do is scold herself for expecting anything other than this. This is their house, after all.
It’s only normal for a happy couple to share small touches, and share looks, and to sit beside each other. If Robin were here, he’d be doing the same with her, wouldn’t he?
Sometimes the heartache is addicting. A pain she willingly puts on herself because it’s Emma . A pain she chases because the Evil Queen deserves to feel trapped like this, torn between herself.
She’s caused worse pain than a frozen heart that shatters so very easily, pressing salt into open wounds. She causes worse pain to Robin when she can barely hold his hand on days where her heart is especially torn.
Then Hook is telling another one of his stupid, stupid pirate jokes and everyone laughs like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard. But all Regina feels are claws, thick, icy claws digging under her skin and thorny roses blooming from the bleeding cuts.
Emma’s laugh always stands out from everyone else's. It’s soft, it’s beautiful, and it’s everything. She’s grinning through her laughter with her nose so cutely wrinkled.
Emma is the sun in her warmth. The universe rewoven in a greater majesty than anything ever known.
Selfishly, Regina wants. She longs, she desires, she needs. But she doesn’t deserve .
Fate has given her the hand she must choose, and it isn’t the one soft yet rough from a life of strife. The one that curls around hers like the only river amongst the sand dunes. It isn’t the hand that finds her in dreams.
The hand she must choose is the one that’s obscuring around hers, too large to feel like home. But who is she to argue with fate?
Who is she to choose?
Happiness is difficult.
Rejection after rejection makes it feel like a pipe dream while betrayal after betrayal makes it feel like a mistake. Emma should be happy these days.
She should want to lean into Hook’s touch, and feel warm when Hook pulls her in close.
But she doesn’t feel anything. Maybe once she did, but now it’s emptiness wrapping her tight in a meaningless, smothering embrace. There’s no warmth to it, no longing. There isn’t even frost or despair like she’s felt with other wrong lovers.
There’s nothing at all.
It’s all her fault. Hook gives her everything, and she can’t even give him this. They moved in together, they have a future together. But the only thing inside Emma is air.
She lays on the couch in Archie’s office, staring at the familiar ceiling. There’s nothing inside of her beside mistakes, betrayal, and deception. She isn’t the perfect daughter David or Snow want. She isn’t the perfect girlfriend Hook wants. She isn’t the mother Henry deserves.
She isn’t anything.
“Emma?” Archie says, but it’s so distant. She’s drifting in the air, drifting in a thousand directions. “Emma,” he says again, pulling her back in place.
“What?” she returns.
“I asked you if this is how you’ve always felt.”
“Like a disappointment? Well, I mean, yeah. I’ve told you that before.”
He shakes his head. “No, I mean with Hook. Have you always felt this… detached from your relationship with him?”
She shrugs. “I dunno. It’s hard to tell. Probably not. I mean, why would I have even gotten with him if I didn’t care at some point.”
Because it’s easy. Because he’s what she’s supposed to want. She’s what girls wanted in every book she read as a child. The rugged bad boy who could be redeemed by the good girl. The guy every girl was supposed to swoon for.
He’s the guy her parents want for her. They’re happy that he’s their future son-in-law. He’s the happy ending they want for her. She’s supposed to be his happy ending.
But Emma doesn’t say that. She can’t say that. Saviors aren’t allowed to.
Good daughters aren’t allowed to.
“Emma, I am going to say something, and I don’t want you to answer immediately. Not to me, and not to yourself. Alright?” His voice is gentle, as it always is, but it’s firmer in a way she isn’t used to.
She shifts uncomfortably in place with nerves tickling her guts. “Yeah. Lay it on me, doc.”
“When you imagine your happiest life, how much of your current life do you see?”
“Well, I mean, I definitely see my parents—”
“Emma,” he cuts her off with a kind look. “Remember what I said? Think about it. Really think about it. Keep thinking about it until our session next week. Don’t stop once you think you’ve figured it all out.”
Choice is an illusion.
Once upon a time, she had the choice to be good. She had the choice not to fall into Rumple’s scaly hands. But then she found out how her mother and Rumple traded her life back and forth like a game of theirs.
How they both wanted her to be their monster. She gained no freedom by being a monster, she only played into the fate they’d built for her. There is never a choice for her.
Only what fate allows for her. And she’s so, so, tired of fighting for anything different. She fought fate once when she walked away from the man at the tavern, but all she did was ruin both their lives.
According to Tink, that is.
“Do you ever think that pixie dust might be… wrong, perhaps?” Regina asks, sitting across from her at Tink’s dining room table. As murky as their past together is, Tink is a good friend.
It was only fair for her to finally accept Tink’s invasion to have dinner at her new home. And it isn’t the hobble she was expecting. No, it’s rather nice looking. If not a little overly personalized.
“Wrong?” She shakes her head easily. “No, never wrong. It doesn’t lie, remember?”
Regina lets out a breath. “Oh. Right. I know that.”
Is it so wrong to want a lie?
Tink’s face falls into a frown as she takes in Regina. “Are you having doubts about Robin being your soulmate again?”
“No. It’s not that. It’s fine. We’re fine,” she tries, but the words feel so heavy. So wrong. And Tink isn’t so easily fooled. “It’s nothing that time won’t fix, I suppose. We probably need more time to connect. I’m just trying to sabotage my love life, aren’t I?”
She laughs lightly, trying to lighten the heaviness engulfing them, but Tink doesn’t join in. She merely studies Regina. It’s thick, and piercing. Like Tink can see every crack in her armor.
Like she’s being stripped naked of any armor.
“You should tell me about it. Maybe I can help.”
“And have you judge me again for being against my own happiness? I don’t think so,” she mutters, shaking her head. When Tink only responds with a hurt look, Regina sighs, giving an apologetic look. “That was harsh. I apologize.”
“No, it’s okay. I get it. But I don’t want to judge you, Regina. Fairy Godmother thing aside, I'm still your friend. I want to help you.” Her eyes are open, inviting Regina to say more.
And she's so very tired of holding it back. There's no dam left in her, only twigs being washed away.
“I… I don’t even know where to start.” She rubs her temple. “I suppose the easiest way to say it is: I don’t think soulmates are supposed to feel this way. I don’t… My feelings for him aren’t like what True Love is meant to feel like. It’s not like Daniel.”
Or Emma .
Tink is silent for a long, long moment. She reaches her hand across the table, taking Regina’s freehand, and gives it a comforting squeeze. “What is True Love meant to feel like?”
“Light. Like a shining star.” Her eyes drift closed with memories drifting through her mind. “Their smile feels like the sun. There’s a glow in your chest. Their embrace is home. They’re never far from your thoughts, especially when you’re apart. They’re… everything . Flowers start to bloom when looking at Emma.”
“I think I understand,” says Tink, smirk visible in her voice.
Regina softly blinks her eyes open to give her a confused look. “Understand what? And what’s with that look?”
“You know, when I came to this world and started helping the fairies again, I did more research into pixie dust. And soulmates. You inspired me to look for more answers.”
Regina tilts her head, brows furrowing. “Oh? What do you mean?"
Hope is dangerous. Her heart is traitorous in her chest.
“For the longest time, I assumed soulmate meant something very specific. Us fairies are taught it means someone you love deeply.”
“Yes, that is what you’ve told me, Tinkerbell.”
“But I didn’t realize that the way you love them wasn’t that simple.” Regina’s eyes widen slightly. “True Love isn’t always romantic. It’s a bond. Soulmates are similar.”
“But fate… And you always said…”
“Maybe the reason you’re feeling this way is… I was wrong. You can love a friend just as deeply as a lover. There isn’t… nothing I’ve found states a soulmate can’t mean a friend, a support, or even a brother.”
“But you said that I…” All she can do is stare. Fate has always been a path. Fate is not... this.
“I’ve been wrong about a lot of things in my life. And I’m sorry I didn’t realize earlier. But it’s not too late.” Tink smiles. “You deserve happiness, Regina. Everyone does. And I think you know who that is. Don’t take this chance from yourself because of what I said in the past. What makes you happy?"
Regina is hard.
When you imagine your happiest life, how much of your current life do you see?
Emma sees a lot. She sees her parents, she sees her son, and she sees Regina .
Regina who isn’t an easy choice, Regina who isn’t even a choice. In her happiest life, Emma sees so much of Regina. So much of her walking beside Regina as their son walks ahead, talking about superheroes.
So much of nights at home where Emma is held in an embrace that is brimming with everything and all consuming in a way that leaves her chest utterly full.
So much of family dinners where it doesn’t feel like there’s one too many chairs and plates. Where it’s only her family, the people she loves more than the stars.
And she sees nights where she’s happy to fall asleep. Nights where she doesn’t need the sky because the moon sleeps beside her.
But her happiest life isn’t one she can live. It isn’t the life she’s destined for.
Her parents sit across her smiling with thoughts of Hook potentially proposing. Regina is more complicated. Regina isn’t the boy she read about growing up.
Regina is a woman with a past woven within her own in a way that may never be fully worked through. She’s someone who’s earned her place as family to all of them, but Emma has no idea where that line ends.
She doesn’t even know if Regina wants in the same way she does. If Regina would scoff if she mentioned it as a passing thought.
Hook chases, and he chases. It’s simple to read him. There’s nothing she fears losing with a misstep or two.
But with Regina she could lose everything. Her best friend, her biggest support, and her heart . For as much reward as she brings, there is risk that threatens to topple Emma if she dare tries to reach for it.
She isn’t brave enough to take risks like that. She isn’t strong enough to be the person she wants. The only thing she’s good for is being the perfect daughter.
The savior. The giver of happy endings.
There’s a trip wire around every corner if she strays from the path she’s put herself on, the path she’s destined to be on. Her parents are happy with how things are. Hook is happy with how things are.
She’s given them this. She can keep giving them this.
She has to.
Because what else is the savior good for?
Silence isn’t easy.
Not when there are a thousand words on her tongue, begging for a chance to escape. Not when all she wants to do is turn this time with Regina into eternity.
“I don’t see how he can’t simply use magic to escape this room. Was it not established that he can teleport?” Regina mutters, glaring at the TV. “If he has the magic to sense a trap, why can’t he use magic to teleport?”
Emma shrugs from the other end of the couch. “Shows are dumb like that sometimes. They forget their own rules.” In truth, Emma hasn’t been paying attention to the show for a long, long time.
It isn’t often that she gets time like this with Regina anymore. Sure, they have lunch, but there’s a time limit for lunch. An hour isn’t enough time to spend with her.
Without any threats to Storybrooke, they have less and less reasons to spend time together. And all Emma aches for is these soft moments. These nights where Henry is at a sleepover and they’re alone.
No boyfriends. No parents.
Just Emma. And Regina.
Regina who pays attention to every little detail and scrunches her nose whenever a character she dislikes comes on screen. Regina who’s hand drifts closer and closer to hers with each passing moment. Regina who she longs to curl closer to.
Because in these moments, there is fullness. Air doesn’t blow through her hollow ribs. Red salvia petals overflow from her heart and heliotropes fill her lungs.
A thousand words consume her, a thousand ways to say I miss you, I want you, I need you, I love you .
But none that she’ll ever manage to gasp out.
Even as the moon drifts peacefully to sleep on her lap later in the night.
Melancholy isn’t foreign.
It’s an old friend during these quiet nights. These nights where thoughts are all consuming, and suffocating. When hopelessness seems like an inevitability.
Emma doesn’t react to the door sliding open behind her.
“Emma?” asks Regina, stepping onto her patio.
“Your yard is beautiful. You have a real green thumb.” Regina’s always been fond of her flowers. Probably the reason she and Belle managed to become friends even with their history.
“What are you doing out here? I thought you’d be at home sleeping by now.” She takes a seat in the chair opposite to Emma. Her eyes are soft, curious without any need to prod.
“I didn’t quite feel like heading home yet. And I didn’t want to accidentally wake you.” She shrugs. “I thought I’d just hang out here for a while.”
Regina nods, and Emma feels the strings of understanding tie them closer once again. Regina has always had a way to understand like no other. She understands in a way that’s special.
“Do you like the mums? They were one of my newer additions, but they’re doing well.”
Emma frowns. “The what?”
Regina gestures to the spot in her yard. “The ones your eyes are on. The yellow ones.”
“Oh, yes. They’re beautiful.” Like the woman who planted them. But it would be wrong if she said that. Good girlfriends don’t burn with the urge to compliment their friend’s beauty until their tongue is numb.
Good daughters don’t long to kiss each beautiful edge.
“They’re like you,” Regina says softly. Emma whips her head around, but Regina’s expression is unreadable. Her eyes aren’t, though.
Her eyes are soft, saying all the words her face won’t.
“Regina…” Emma says in an exhale. She wants to protest, she wants it to bounce off her, she wants to ignore it. She doesn’t want it to hit her like a lover's embrace.
She doesn’t want to tear herself in circles trying to be good . She doesn’t want her heart to burn with warmth while rusty nails poison her. None of it is supposed to be like this.
Everything she should want is back at home. It’s back with the story she’s built for herself. Why does her happiest life have to include everything she can’t have?
Why?
Air suffocates her as much as it flees from her lungs. Good. She’s not a good daughter. She’s not a good girlfriend. She’s not good at anything she’s meant to be.
Disappointment and betrayal and regret is all she can be. She’s trying, and she’s longing, and every corner is crushing her deeper into this despair that follows her. This despair that shadows her closer than the skin on her withering bones.
“ Emma? ” she hears, somewhere distant. Somewhere soft, warm. Somewhere that’s anywhere but the cold that digs itself inside her.
A hand cups her cheek, and it feels so distant like this body isn’t even hers anymore. It’s the savior’s, it’s the good daughter’s, and Emma is nothing when compared to them.
Nothing at all.
“ Emma, breathe for me. It’s okay. I’ve got you. ”
She can’t. Can’t, can’t, can’t. She has no lungs left to breathe through. There’s nothing at all left in her.
“ I’ve got you. I won’t let go. I’ve got you. Just breathe. I’m here. ” Repeats endlessly through her mind. She can’t even be sure if they’re really there or not. All she can do is feel the arms around her.
The arms pulling her back in, anchoring her down.
“It’ll be okay, darling. Keep breathing. In. Out. You’re doing great.”
“I’m so tired,” she rasps out, voice weak, letting herself fall into Regina. She lifts her numb arms up, clinging to Regina with what little strength she has left. “I’m tired, Regina.”
“And that’s okay. I’m here. I’ll always be here.”
A sob breaks free, and she roughly buries her face into the wool of Regina’s sweater. Regina’s hand slides up and down Emma’s back, soft and gentle.
“I’m here. Always.”
And for what feels like an eternity, that’s all Emma can do. Sob, and cry, and heave against her support until everything has flown out of her.
“I can’t be the savior. I can’t be the daughter they want. I can’t be anything anyone wants.” Her voice is scratchy and weak, but for once, the words come easily from her tongue.
“And what do you want, Emma?”
“I want them to be happy.”
“Forget about everyone else, Emma. What is your happiness? What do you need?”
“I don’t even know anymore. I don’t— I can’t be everything they want. I’m just so tired. I can’t do this. It doesn’t even matter.”
Regina pulls away slightly to look at Emma. Really, and fully look at her. And Emma sees a fire reflected in those eyes. “It does matter, Emma. You matter. You deserve happiness as much as anyone else.”
“But I’m the savior—”
“You’re Emma. And you, Emma Swan, deserve to be happy.”
Happiness is work.
It’s something to be fought for. It’s something you need to convince yourself you deserve. It’s never a guarantee.
Happiness is putting yourself first. It’s allowing yourself to have needs. To have boundaries. And none of that is easy to do. Especially after years of devoting your life to other people’s happiness.
It takes weeks of Archie’s encouragement to build herself strong enough to put herself first for once.
“You aren’t my happiness, Hook.” Saying it is like a blow to the chest.
But it’s also breathing for the first time in years. It’s freedom. It’s everything.
“What? But I thought— we were happy together, weren’t we? What changed?”
“I wasn’t happy. I’m not happy.” She sighs. “And it’s not fair to either of us for me to keep pretending I am.”
“I love you, though. I am happy.”
“I don’t feel the same. I… I thought I could, but… This isn’t right for me. You deserve someone who feels the same, and I deserve to be happy.” It's a realization as foreign as the stars to earth, but it's true. She wants to believe it's true.
He frowns, taking a step closer. “With someone else? You’ve found another?”
Emma shakes her head. “No, I'm not leaving you for anyone. I’m ending this for me . You’re… You’re a good friend, but when I imagine my happiness, that’s all I see us as. Friends. Never... Never anything else. I'm sorry."
“Really? Are you sure, Swan? We’ve made a good team over these years, don’t you think? We can still be happy. Don't you think?"
Faltering would be so easy. It would be so easy to give in.
But she can't.
“I’ve tried. I don’t… I need to put myself first. I deserve a chance to put myself first, Hook. And right now, putting myself first means ending a relationship that isn’t right for me.”
“I see.” He purses his lips. “I can’t say I’m happy about this, but I can’t stop you. I hope your relationship with her does work out. Better than ours did.”
“I told you, I’m not leaving you for—”
“I know you aren’t, Swan. But I think we both know that’s where you’ll end up. She’s… Well, you’ve always been more invested in her life than mine. It’s a safe bet.”
“And you’re… okay with that?”
“I don’t think okay would be the right word. I’m still in love with you, Swan. But, I’m not going to fight for someone who doesn’t feel anything for me. If you’re going to leave me for your happiness, you may as well have every piece of that happiness.”
“Thank you. Really. Thank you, Hook. You’re a good friend. I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t be your happy ending.”
“It’s alright. Just make sure we didn’t part for nothing. Go." He nods towards the door. "Be happy.”
Change is possible.
It takes her some preparation, but she talks to Robin. She talks about soulmates, and friendship, and he understands .
Maybe it was clear her heart has always wanted something else. He wasn’t taken aback like she thought he would. He accepted it, and he accepted friendship.
And it’s freeing.
She doesn’t have to force herself into a fate she doesn’t want. Neither of them have to force anything. There’s always another way.
She smiles to herself as she weeds her garden. That’s something Emma would say. There’s always a third way.
It’s the hero in her. Savior or not, Emma’s heart is kind to a fault. Regina loves that part of her.
“Mom?” asks Henry, poking his head out from the patio.
She turns to him, and practically melts. He’s getting so big. Her little prince. “Yes, sweetheart?”
“Can you suggest Star Wars to Ma for tonight’s movie marathon?” He flashes an innocent smile.
She can only shake her head. Forever her sweet, plotting boy. “And why can’t you do that?”
“Because if I do it, she’ll say no because we rewatched it last month. But if you do it... well, we both know what Ma’s like.”
Regina quirks an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Mom, come on.” He gives her a look. “You know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I don’t, dear.” She hopes. She wants. But she doesn’t know .
Henry groans, rolling his eyes dramatically. “She’s totally stupid on you. Always has been.”
Immediately, she perks up. “Really?”
“And now I know why it took you two this long…” he mutters to himself. “So, what do you say?”
“I’ll think about it.”
Henry grins. “I’ll get out the good popcorn buckets,” he says before running back inside.
Regina sighs, a happy smile finding its way on her face. Maybe it’s okay to have hope.
Happiness is difficult. Happiness is work. But happiness is possible.
With every talk with Archie, every step towards putting herself first, she can feel weights lift from on top of her. She can breathe.
Because being a good daughter isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being the daughter she is. Nothing has to be proven.
All she has to be is Emma. Emma who is the savior, but is also human with family and friends and desires.
And speaking of desires.
She raps her knuckles on Regina’s front door, shifting her weight from foot to foot. It doesn’t take long for Regina to open.
Her lips curl into a smile when she notices who it is. “Emma,” she greets, opening the door wider. “What are you doing here? I don’t remember us making any plans.”
Emma audibly gulps. “Well, that’s because we, uh, didn’t. I came here to, well...” She pulls the small bouquet from behind her back, handing it to Regina.
Her eyes widen immediately. “Red salvias, ambrosia, camellias, forget-me-nots?” She delicately takes it, gazing with soft eyes. “Emma…?”
She smiles nervously. “I’m assuming you get what I’m saying. Being a gardening nerd and all?”
And all Regina does for a long moment is stare.
“Remember all those weeks ago? When you said I deserve happiness? Well, I’ve found a lot of it, but I don’t think it would be complete without… you . So… if you’ll have me…”
And still, all Regina does is stare.
Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe she let all of this change get to her head. She shouldn’t have—
Regina wraps herself around Emma, burying her face into Emma’s neck. “I love you too. So much, Emma Swan.”
Emma smiles, returning the embrace wholeheartedly.
Love is easy. Love is warm. Love is full.
Loving Regina is, at least.