Work Text:
“Your mother is allergic,” Regina tells Henry, sending Emma a pointed look. And it’s true, Emma can already feel the itching in the back of her throat and the corners of her eyes, sneezed six times in the Bug on the way home with Henry and the kitten in the back seat. But…
“It’s not so bad,” she tries, “Especially not when they’re this little.” She can tell by the way Regina raises her eyebrows that her voice is already a little stuffed. “I’ll go back on the spray.”
Regina sighs, and rubs at the bridge of her nose. “We can’t keep it, Henry, I’m sorry.”
“Come on,” he pleads. Actually clasps his hands together, and Emma wants to warn him to try not to overdo it, kid. “Just until we find a home for it? Please? I’ll tell people at school, and Ma can put up signs, and…”
“If it’s just temporary, you know the shelter is better equipped than we are.”
“But we can give it more attention here, Mom. More socialization. And that’s an important part of finding a forever home, because it makes them more friendly, and that’s what people want in a pet…”
Henry’s still talking, but Emma has to look away at “forever home,” swallows hard and focuses on the kitten mewling in the box on the floor. She can feel Regina’s gaze on her, and when Emma finally looks up, Regina’s eyes have gone soft, soft.
“Well,” Regina says. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to try. Just for a few days. Then we can reevaluate.”
“Thanks Mom!” Henry throws his arms around Regina’s waist, and Regina no longer goes breathless when Henry hugs her the way she used to, but she does still get that gently curved smile, that light shining out of her eyes.
“You have to take care of it, though,” Regina cautions, cupping Henry’s cheek with one hand. “Understand?”
Henry nods, practically bouncing on his toes in excitement, and Regina snorts. “All right. I’ll pick up some food on my grocery store run. In the meantime why don’t you put the box in the laundry room. It should have a small enclosed space until it feels safe.”
*
“I suppose it’s not an awful way to teach him responsibility,” Regina concedes later that night, when they’re up in their room and getting ready for bed. She steps closer to Emma so Emma can unzip her dress, and Emma runs her fingers down the smooth expanse of Regina’s bare back, rests her hands on Regina’s waist and kisses her between the shoulder blades.
“Pretty good one, I’d say,” Emma murmurs. Starts trailing kisses down Regina’s spine, and Regina shivers, makes this little noise in the back of her throat as Emma slides her hands forward, across Regina’s stomach and then lower, lower.
They don’t talk about the cat for the rest of the night.
*
They keep the kitten—Stormborn, Henry names it—for just over three weeks, during which time he gains 15 ounces and an extra glossy coat. Rubs up against their legs for food every chance he gets, and one afternoon when Grace comes over to work on a homework assignment with Henry she falls absolutely in love. Grace pleads with Jefferson for fifteen minutes when he comes to pick her up, but Emma can tell it’s basically just a formality, knows Jefferson is going to give in from the first time Grace opens her eyes extra wide and says, “Please, Papa?”
Stormborn goes home with Grace, and Henry’s clearly going to miss him, but also seems pretty proud of himself for making it all happen, and yeah, kid did a pretty good job at taking responsibility.
(Emma’s allergies definitely don’t miss the little goober. But the rest of her kind of does.)
Anyways. That’s the first time.
*
For someone who pretends to be down on the whole process, Regina’s surprisingly knowledgable about how to care for all the little interlopers Emma and Henry start bringing home. Knows which ones are young enough to need bottle feeding and which ones can handle solids, how to coax food down the most reluctant of throats and what the best options are for settling an upset stomach, and seriously, Regina, it’s actually kind of weird, like were you Dr. Doolittle in a past life, because regular people don’t just randomly know all this shit.
And Regina gets this smile that’s tight around the edges of her mouth and in the corners of her eyes. “I was…fond of animals, as a young girl. Took in strays of my own, when I could. Mother didn’t…didn’t approve.”
“Did you get in trouble?” Henry asks, and it never ceases to amaze Emma how he can be so grown up in some ways and so naive in others.
“There were…consequences,” Regina says. Her eyes have gone distant, fingers restless, twining together and then curling into loose fists as she tries to still them, and Emma kisses her on the cheek instead of pushing for more.
“You big softie,” Emma whispers into Regina’s ear, just the right amount of air, and Regina comes back to her with a laugh, shaking her head like she’s brushing away the past.
Or maybe Emma’s whispering just tickled. Regina’s smiling, so. Whatever.
*
Emma thinks they’re maybe testing their limits when she and Henry show up with an entire litter of kittens. Scrawny and malnourished and much too young to be on their own, and Regina takes a minute to shake her head with two fingers against her temple, and then she’s getting out the bottles and old blankets. Emma’s pretty sure she distinctly hears Regina mutter, “Honestly, six?” but she’s assembling the usual set up in the laundry room without further commentary, so she can’t be that miffed. Right?
Three weeks into this batch Emma wakes up in the middle of the night to find Regina’s side of the bed empty and cold. She throws on a robe (Regina’s, but who the fuck pays attention to these things at three in the morning), and shuffles into a pair of slippers. Wanders downstairs and pokes her head into a few different rooms before finally tracking Regina down in the laundry room, just covered in a pile of kittens. And Emma’s totally about to call her on it when she realizes Regina is silently crying, shoulders shaking and tears streaming down her face into the fur of the kitten she has cradled against her chest.
Emma wants to go to her, but makes herself tiptoe away instead. Heads back upstairs and crawls into bed alone, because she knows that if Regina had wanted Emma to find her, she would have gone to her study (maybe the kitchen or the den if she trusted Henry to stay asleep). Definitely not the floor of the laundry room, dark other than the dim nightlight on the back wall.
Regina doesn’t come back to bed for another hour, and when she does she smells strongly enough of cat that Emma can feel her nose plug up on the spot. She lets Regina roll into her arms anyway, tucks her chin over the top of Regina’s head.
The next day they don't talk about it, and it takes Emma over a week to realize it had been the anniversary of Cora’s death.
*
The animal shelter is hosting a fair two weeks later, and Emma’s supposed to bring all of the kittens, but she maybe accidentally leaves the one Regina had held the closest behind, and Regina maybe pretends not to notice. For a while Regina still talks about “when we find a home for her,” but it doesn’t take long for that to trail off. For Regina to stop only letting the kitten on her lap when she thinks Emma and Henry aren’t around (which, yeah, Regina, real subtle).
“Do you think your mom knows she has a cat?” Emma mutters to Henry, looking at Regina curled up on the couch with a glass of red wine and her book, glasses on the edge of her nose and kitten sprawled against her, purring and kneading Regina’s thigh while Regina absent-mindedly scratches its cheek.
“Don’t tell her,” Henry says. “She’ll start pretending she’s going to give it away again.”
And that’s how they get Stelmaria.
*
Ludo comes later. Regina’s actually been talking about getting Henry a puppy for a couple of years now, but somehow the timing’s never been quite right—town constantly in peril, lives periodically at risk, too much mayoring and PTA meetings and evening soccer practices, and I believe you have great intentions, sweetheart, but you sleep like the dead, and I just know I would be the one getting up to let it out early in the morning.
But then David calls Emma about this dog. “Total sweetie,” he tells her, “But he’s just not doing well in the shelter. I think you guys would be really great for him, even just for a couple of weeks, to get his strength and confidence up.”
Emma comes by to look—just look!—after her shift. Some kind of reddish shepherd mix, maybe around six months old, with mismatched eyes and a cower that says he’s been hit more than a couple of times, and Emma looks at his dirty matted fur and probable fleas and knows that Regina will kill her—kill her—if she brings him home.
Of course she brings him home anyway. Gives him a bath in the guest bathroom, fully intending to have him all cleaned up and prettified by the time Regina gets off work, but of course Regina picks today to skip out early, comes home to a wet, soapy, and still not exactly clean dog just tearing through the house (in retrospect Emma maybe needed a partner for the whole bath thing, and also shutting the bathroom door would probably have been smart), to muddy paw prints on the carpet stairs and Stella hissing on top of the refrigerator.
And the dog comes barreling up to Regina, like seriously Emma’s pretty sure he’s going to bowl her over in his attempt to get Out Of This House, but when he’s about a foot away Regina just kind of raises her finger and says “No,” in this really calm way, which, NOT GOING TO DO JACK SHIT, REGINA.
The dog stops. Skids a little, but succeeds in not colliding with her.
“Sit,” Regina says.
He sits. Whines almost imperceptibly, thwacks his tail frantically against the floor, little traitor, because which one of us do you think is actually on your side right now?
Emma’s still hovering on the stairs—kind of dripping herself (if she’s being honest basically as wet as the dog)—and Regina looks up at her, and oh man, Emma is definitely, definitely, fucked.
“Explain.”
Emma tries. Babbles a little about how the shelter is over-crowded and the dog was scared, about how it’s just temporary, just like usual, and yeah okay a dog is a little bigger than a kitten, but hey at least she won’t be sneezing in Regina’s face all the time, and won’t it maybe be kind of fun to get some extra exercise by taking him out for runs?
Regina’s clearly having none of it. Face getting less and less impressed, eyebrows raised and lips pursed.
“He was abused, Regina,” Emma finishes quietly. “We think by a man, because he won’t let David anywhere near him, but he’s okay with me, and I wasn’t going to say yes, but then I saw him, and—and nothing should have to live that scared. Not even a dog. And he really is better behaved than he seems right now, he just…doesn’t like baths.”
“Clearly,” Regina says dryly. But the frown lines on her face have eased away, and she bends down so she’s on his level. “Are you going to be good?” she asks him.
He wags his tail.
“You have to finish your bath.”
Whining. But he gets up when Regina gestures, heads up the stairs with a drooped head and tail when she points.
Regina sighs. “Let me get changed out of my work clothes. Then I’ll help you finish this…project.”
Emma smiles at her. Tries to hide the way her throat is tightening and eyes watering, but from the way Regina squeezes her arm and kisses her on the head as she passes Emma on the stairs, Regina clearly sees it.
“You’re cleaning up the house, though,” Regina calls back over her shoulder. “And I don’t want to see a speck of mud anywhere on these stairs when you’re done.”
Emma’s not entirely sure this is fair, because she’s pretty positive that if Regina really wanted to, she could magic the whole place spotless. But if this is her only penance she’ll totally take it.
When Henry gets home he whoops. Hugs both of them together and exclaims something about “best moms ever!” so yeah. Emma’s pretty sure the dog is staying.
Stella’s a harder sell, whacking Ludo on the nose when he wanders over to say hi, and for three days their house is a holy terror, Ludo slinking around with his tail between his legs and Stella pouncing whenever he gets even remotely close to her or something she considers her territory, and oh crap, Emma thinks, maybe this isn’t going to work out after all.
But then one morning they all come downstairs to find Ludo and Stella both lying on Ludo’s bed. Stella has Ludo’s head between her front paws and is diligently grooming one of his ears, and Emma feels a smile just bloom across her face. Slips an arm around Regina’s waist and tugs her closer.
“Shut up, Emma,” Regina says. But Emma can tell by the tone of her voice that she’s smiling too.
Emma laughs.