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“Kid,” Emma says when Henry answers the door, somewhat surprised. Last she knew, he’d been staying with a friend. She can’t remember which, on account of fact he has so many of them these days.
“Ma,” he replies in the same drawl, though without the surprise. He steps back, swinging the door wide for her and waiting until she takes the hint to come in before he closes it behind her.
“Where’s your mother?” She questions, taking off her jacket and hanging it up. Usually, she’d leave it on simply to irritate Regina, but during winter the house has always been too warm for her and it isn’t worth the bother.
“She knew you were coming,” he answers dryly, “so she’s probably hiding.”
Emma frowns. She doesn’t deserve his snark. Not to her knowledge, at least. “Not funny.”
“It kinda is,” he counters, grinning as he hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “She’s in the kitchen. Been staring at her tree like she does when you’ve done something wrong.”
Shoulders slumping, Emma’s first thought is uh oh. She is all too familiar with the look he means and, yeah, she did do something. “I,” she starts to explain but he holds up his hands and shakes his head.
“I know when I was younger I would’ve badgered you until you told me all about it but…” He shakes his head again and laughs. “I really don’t want to know, ma. Just fix it.”
Just fix it. Yeah. She nods. She can do that. Maybe. It isn’t as if she turned down Regina’s invitation to dinner yesterday out of spite. She had to work late and didn’t think she’d make it. She’d thought by the time she was done, dinner would be over. It was more courtesy than anything. Unlike some people, she isn’t the type to make promises she can’t keep, especially not where Regina is concerned.
“Will do,” she says, sounding far more sure of herself than she feels.
He nods, expression lacking anything even remotely resembling doubt in her, and she smiles wistfully. How nice it would be to have the heart of the truest believer, she thinks. Maybe then she’d be able to convince herself to stop staring at him and wondering if maybe she should just turn around and run before Regina figures out why, exactly, she stopped trying to kill her all those years ago.
Their friendship—
Friendship. Regina hates the term and it’s always baffled her. She tries not to think about it, but then she thinks about it and… can’t stop. She’s asked, even lost count of how many times. Regina’s response has only ever been a sneer, one part disgust, all parts murderous. It is extremely weird, and extremely… not… off putting.
Like. At all.
“Ma?”
“Huh?” She blinks, thoughts scattering to the far reaches of the void where they likely belong more than they do in her head, conscious or otherwise. “Yeah, what?”
Henry rolls his eyes. “Mom. Kitchen. Go. Fix,” he says each word slowly, like he thinks the reason she’s just staring at him and not moving is because maybe every single one of her brain cells has died for some reason unbeknown to him and she’s forgotten where she is, or how to move, or think, or— “Mom!”
“I’m going!” He shoves her when she doesn’t actually move like the words imply she might, and she stumbles before righting herself. “Geez. Kid, give me a second, would you?”
His eyes roll a second time before he turns and walks to the stairs leading up to the second floor, mumbling something she thinks might be offensive if she could hear it, but she can’t, so she shrugs it off. She probably deserves it, whatever it was, and she continues passed him into the kitchen where Regina stands, staring out into her backyard as though searching for answers that, by the pissed off look on her face, have yet to come.
“Hey,” she offers the greeting softly enough, but Regina still startles as though someone just threw something at her and Emma takes a quick step back.
Regina often forgets her own strength and Emma is all too relieved to avoid the slap directed at her shoulder. She tries not to smile at the furious glare she receives for daring to move, and fails just a little bit. “Sorry,” she says, half-hearted in her contrition.
Sniffing, Regina turns back to the window, arms crossing over her stomach in the way that lets Emma know she’s feeling vulnerable. Emma erases the step quickly and snakes an arm around her waist, hoping Regina won’t push her away, and breathing a quiet sigh of contentment when she doesn’t.
Regina doesn’t even stiffen, which Emma thinks is weird but definitely won’t be drawing attention to any time soon. In her experience, Regina doesn’t like to be touched unnecessarily and since she’s still alive, it isn’t a stretch to assume the half ass embrace is something Regina considers necessary in the moment, which would also explain the lack of stiffness and fireballs to the head.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, this time with all the genuine feeling she can muster. “If I’m the one you’re… you know, mad at, or whatever this is.”
She doesn’t know what this is. Regina might be angry, but there is always a chance that it’s something else entirely and the anger is simply a mask. Without being able to look into her eyes, Emma is as lost as she imagines Henry had been, as she has little doubt he’d tried to make his mother feel better and most likely failed if his irritation with her at the door is any indication.
“Even if I’m not,” she continues. Regina deserves to be happy, and it breaks her heart when she isn’t. “We’re friends and—”
Regina’s derisive snort has the words failing her, dying on the tip of her tongue as Emma stares at the side of her head. She can see the familiar sneer beginning to form and she hates it. She has this fear that Regina will one day voice the thoughts so plainly written across her face, that she will turn to her and state, vehemently, that they aren’t friends. That they never were and she has zero desire to change such a thing, so could she please just stop.
“Tell me, Miss Swan,” Regina says and the formality forces lead to her stomach. “How many of your friends do you stand this close to— your arm around them, offering comfort when you have absolutely no idea what it is that ails them? How many of their hips have you squeezed as you spoke? How often do your fingers slip beneath their clothes, warming their skin while you caress and spout your ridiculous babble to them?”
It is with her words that Emma realizes she is doing everything Regina just said and her breath hitches as her whole body freezes up in preparation to snatch her arm back.
She doesn’t though because…
Because she doesn’t want to. She likes touching Regina because she’s the only one whose ever dared that’s been allowed. She might go so far as to she loves that Regina lets her do it and— oh.
“Oh,” she breathes, biting back a smile. She could be wrong, so just in case she is, she asks, “Does it make you uncomfortable?”
Regina frowns as she faces her, the expression she wears being the one Emma has come to know as the you’re an idiot, Emma Swan one. It is both insulting and endearing, the way Regina looks at her. “Why would—” you ask such a thing?
“I have a… theory,” she interrupts the question, knowing it’s coming the second Regina’s lips part. “I thought you were mad at me for turning down your invitation to dinner but...”
Regina raises a brow, prompting her with a silent but of her own and she says, “But you’ve kind of been annoyed with me for longer than that, yeah?” The small, barely noticeable unless you’re looking for it, tilt of Regina’s head tells her she’s on the right track. “It wasn’t a normal dinner invitation, was it?”
There had been an inkling at the time. The way Regina asked had screamed something different. It was soft— hesitant even, as if she thought Emma might decline after months in which she never once had. But she had to this time and she knew, as soon as the sorry, I have to work tonight was out of her mouth that she would find out, sooner rather than later, that turning Regina down had been a mistake.
One she wants to atone for, if Regina will let her.
A lower lip disappears between teeth and Regina glances back to the window before she sighs, one shoulder lifting as if to shrug. Emma smiles then, beyond pleased with herself for figuring it out. She hasn’t so much missed the cues Regina has been sending her, as she has thinking she’d simply misinterpreted them and brushed them off.
They’ve been friends for a while now and, yeah, Emma is starting to hate the word too. There has always been more between them and no label she can think of has ever come close to describing it. She thought friends was safe, hopeful in its own way but not to the point it might have seemed delusional should anyone have asked what they are to one another.
They aren’t intimate in the way that lovers would be, but they are close and even lovers feels too inadequate a word. She would go so far as to call them soul mates if it didn’t mean giving credence to the idea of fate. She is more comfortable with free will— of chance and less than perfect timing that, as it happens, turns out to be perfect timing after all. If Henry had waited another five years to come and find her, who knows what their relationship would look like now?
“I am sorry,” she says after a few, silent minutes. “For making this seem like it means less,” she adds upon receiving a look that demands explanation. “I’m sorry for choosing work over you— that I chose to be oblivious instead of risking the disappointment I might have faced had I believed what has been in front of me for… so fucking long.”
She gets a puff of laughter in response, and can’t help but grin. It is a happy sound that makes her feel warm all over, eager to hear it over and over, to cause it— to bask in it for the rest of her life. Small as it is, it is deep and rich, and wonderful beyond all reason.
“It was amusing for a while,” Regina admits eventually and Emma’s grin softens until it is no more than one half of a smile.
“Until it wasn’t?”
“Until it wasn’t,” Regina agrees with a nod. “After everything, I thought we were on the same page but you kept using that word. For crying out loud, you broke up with Hook after I told you you were too good for him. I thought…”
She trails off with a sigh that Emma echoes because she did do that and despite the reasons she’d given him, or anyone else, it was ultimately Regina and the importance of her opinion that finally made her see sense. With Killian, she was no more than a husk of who she could be— who she should be. He wanted her because she was good and pretty to look at. She was his arm candy and a ticket to becoming a hero, or at least appearing as a hero instead of the villain he’d proven he was time and again.
She’d thought she owed him because he gave up his ship, because she’d made him the Dark One and ignored his plea to let him go. She did everything she could to prove she loved him as much as he claimed to love her but nothing she did was ever good enough for him.
When she was lost and struggling to remember who she was, it wasn’t Killian who reminded her. A few words from him and she was questioning everything, from who she was to whether or not she was good enough for anyone. She had trusted him with her weaknesses, and he’d used them the first chance he had to tear her down.
And then a man she didn’t know, who didn’t even know her or them, claimed she wasn’t good enough for his brother. She’d gone to the Underworld to save Killian from a death of his own damn making, and he had the audacity to turn around and imply that maybe he agreed with Liam.
A few words from Regina, however, and it was suddenly fuck Liam, and doubly fuck Killian. After all she went through to be where she is— to be who she is, she deserves better and it’s because of Regina she was finally able to see that.
“Thank you for that, by the way,” she says, perfectly aware this time as her fingers curl more firmly around the hip she has yet to release. “I don’t think I ever did.”
“You did,” Regina assures her, lips quirking upward into something resembling a smirk. “You were drunk at the time so I assumed you wouldn’t remember, but you did.”
Flushing lightly, she ducks her head. “Right. Well. Thanks.”
“Three times,” Regina drawls, finally deigning to look at her once more as she virtually rolls along her arm, letting it wind around her waist and bring them together. “Best be careful, dear. I may get used to you being grateful.”
“I— I am,” she stutters, struck by their sudden proximity and the way Regina is looking at her. “I really am.” For a hell of a lot more than has been put into words.
Smiling slowly, Regina raises both brows. “Evidently,” she purrs, appearing ever so delighted by the little shiver Emma’s body gives of its own accord. Their noses brush as she presses forward a little more, breath warm on Emma’s lips as she questions, “Are we on the same page now?”
“There’s a book analogy somewhere in there,” Emma murmurs, the space between them so small that she’s almost cross-eyed from trying to stare at her lips. “It’s escaping me at the moment for some reason.”
Regina chuckles throatily before she brings a hand up, palming her cheek as she says, “Well, don’t hurt yourself trying to get it out.”
Emma hums, words no longer important nor easy to conjure at this point. She gives up on Regina’s mouth, visually speaking, and gazes into her eyes instead, neither able nor willing to stifle the smile that grows on her lips and lights up her face.
“I do believe I’ve covered considerably more than halfway, dear.”
Blinking once in confusion, and then again in comprehension, Emma erases the last quarter of an inch (less, so much less) between them, and kisses her.