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“Hey,” Emma says one day. “Let’s go to the beach.” She’s looking at Henry, but she’s talking to Regina and they both know it.
“What, the docks?” Regina bends down to put their breakfast dishes away just as Emma’s turning to look at her, and Emma coughs and swivels her head back toward Henry so fast she’s surprised she doesn’t pull a muscle.
“No, like--a real beach. We could drive somewhere, bring lunch. Have a day together.”
Regina straightens, that hint of a smile pulling at her lips. “Sound good to you, mijo?”
Henry’s a real teenager, now, and every time Regina asks him something Emma can hear it, the uncertainty, the agonized anticipation of a time when he won’t want to spend days with them or watch terrible procedurals with them or have lazy Saturday morning breakfasts with them, eggs and sunshine filling the house. When he won’t tell them what’s on his mind anymore, what’s happening in his life. When he’ll start slipping away from them, just a little.
But it’s Henry (their boy, their boy), and he grins loose-easy-open and says, “yeah. That sounds good,” and Emma breathes through the reminder of how different his time as a teenager will be from their own.
-
There’s a real beach forty minutes away, and Emma drives the Bug there loaded with chairs and towels and Henry’s summer reading books. Regina smirks at her five minutes into the trip and puts on classical with the aux cord; Henry plugs his earphones in and Emma’s envious for a second before Regina leans back in her seat and shuts her eyes and Emma forgets what envy even is.
“Eyes on the road,” Regina murmurs like she knows . Emma flushes and becomes very interested in the scenery for the rest of the drive.
The beach is crowded but not overly so. Emma thinks about what they look like, her and Regina and Henry walking in together, and then decides she doesn’t care before she can think about it too long. Stretches out a chair and rolls up her shorts and leans back in it, lets her hair (princess hair, Regina says when she’s had too much wine and keeps twisting it between her fingers) fall in sheets over the back. It’s hot and she’s forgotten sunglasses but the sun is good against her eyelids. She leans over and Henry’s spread out on a towel, Regina eyeing him until he grabs the sunscreen, and that’s good too, their family happy and safe and together.
After a while the heat is getting to be too much, and she nudges Henry with a foot. “Want to go in, kid?”
He huffs at the nickname--he’s been asking her to stop using it, lately, when they’re not at home--but there’s no one here they know and he relents, glancing at her sideways, that slanting set of his jaw that lets her know he’s up to something. “Race you there,” he says, jumping up, and she chuckles and pulls off her shorts and sprints after him and god, he’s still theirs , laughing as he dives in and flicks water at her ankles. She dunks him once (careful, careful) and he twists out from underneath her, breathless for all the right reasons.
“This is when I really hate that you’re not ticklish,” he informs her.
Emma sticks out her tongue, just a little.
“Very mature,” comes Regina’s voice from the sand. She’s put her book to the side and is watching them, body angled slightly forward like she can’t help herself. Emma looks at Henry, but he’s already ahead of her.
“Come in, Mom! It’s so nice.”
“I was going to warm up more--”
“ Please ,” and he drags it out until it’s ridiculous, scrunching up his face like he’s eleven doing his math homework or thirteen watching them make magic together, and Regina’s soft, soft.
“Fine,” she says. She pulls off her cover-up and walks toward them and Emma is suddenly very aware that Regina is in a bikini (which, oh god) and walking toward her and--and just skin , skin everywhere. Regina glides into the water and comes up face first, hair sleek and plastered to her neck as she runs a hand through it, and Emma is gone, basically.
“I’m gonna...swim,” she says weakly, flipping onto her back. Henry turns to watch her go and Regina seizes the opportunity to poke him in the sides from behind, and he’s doubled over and they’re both so happy . And Emma’s happy, too.
She wonders how long it took for Regina to take Henry down to the water back in Storybrooke. Wonders when he learned to swim, if Regina had to stop herself from jumping in to hold him as he struggled to stay afloat for the first time. Pictures him, tiny arms encased in those floaties Snow and David have already bought for Neal, beaming as he treaded water in the community pool.
She has some vague childhood memories of the beach. The early years--excitement and the squish of sand beneath her toes, handstands under the water ( look at me, look what I can do! ), and once in the later years, oversized t-shirt and sunglasses and curling up into herself as much as possible. A few high school parties, acrid smoke and cheap beer.
Today there’s only salt crusting around her chin and sun on the tip of her nose and she’s buoyant, gulping air in and holding it in her lungs as long as she can. When her ears are underwater she can hear the murmur of Henry talking to Regina, and she closes her eyes and lets the sound filter through the water around her.
There’s a brush of skin at her hip a few minutes later. Emma jerks, sputtering water, and Regina pulls back her hand, looking vaguely amused.
“This was a good idea,” she says.
“Yeah?” Emma asks.
“Yeah.” Regina looks like she’s about to say something else, and then her gaze drops to Emma’s chest and Emma is still, still, hoping--
“I think you’re burning,” says Regina, and she presses lightly into the skin next to the strap of Emma’s bathing suit. Emma drops her chin to look, and there’s an awkward moment when Regina’s finger gets stuck along her jawline and she sucks in a breath and Regina’s eyes are still on her chest.
“Moms!” Henry shouts, and Emma spins away, grateful and not at the same time. “Come play Kadima!”
-
There’s another moment, during lunch. Henry’s throwing goldfish into the air and catching them in his mouth and Regina’s halfheartedly talking about choking hazards while Emma waves at him to lob one over. He sends it flying in a gentle arc and just as Emma’s about to bite down Regina nudges her and it hits her right in the ear and falls to the sand. Emma looks at Regina, all fake-shocked, and Regina does something that might, in different circumstances, be called a wink. It’s small and simple and ridiculously domestic.
It’s one of those times when Emma thinks about possibilities. If she’s honest with herself, there are a lot of those times.
-
On the drive home, Regina and Henry fall asleep, sunsoaked and warm. Regina’s left her hand next to the stick shift and Emma drags her pinky along it when they come to red lights. There’s a small jar of seaglass they’d collected together next to Henry in the backseat, and it clinks softly, the browns and greens reflecting the waning afternoon light.
Emma leaves the classical playlist on.
-
Henry wakes up when they arrive, but Regina’s still dozing against the window. Emma’s seen her like this a couple times before, but there’s still something meaningful about--the vulnerability, maybe, the trust. She opens the door and rubs Regina’s shoulder until her eyelids flutter into awareness, purposely doesn’t think about how she might have had to carry Regina if it hadn’t worked.
Regina groans lightly, limbs still at the edge of conscious movement. She mumbles something that Emma doesn’t catch, swings her legs out onto the ground.
“We’re home,” says Emma.
(And they are, aren’t they, after everything? Isn't this what Henry had brought her back for, days like this? And she still has a house on the other side of town but how many times has she slept there, this past month? How long has it been since she's truly been alone?)
They carry the bags into the house and Henry goes to shower and Emma starts unpacking, pulling out the towels and lifting the cooler up onto the counter.
“Emma, querida,” Regina says from behind her, and then there’s heat pressed up against her back and Regina’s chin is digging into the muscle of her shoulder. “Let me.”
“It’s fine,” Emma says, “I can--” but Regina grabs her hands and interlaces their fingers, pulls them away, gentle, tender. And then--she’s pressing a kiss to the back of Emma’s neck, and Emma’s tense and then not anymore, and Regina is all around, beach-smell in her wet hair and sand under both their fingernails.
“Okay?” Regina asks softly.
Emma nods, not trusting herself to speak just yet. Instead, she rotates so she’s still tucked into the crook of Regina’s elbow but she can look at her, see those dark, dark eyes. Regina smiles and it’s everything, it’s enough, and it’s a good day and they have a thousand more good days stretching out in front of them, one after another, and Henry is growing but so are they. They’re all growing together, and it’s a good day.
“Your hands are sandy,” Emma says, and Regina’s laugh is so clear her heart aches with it.