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“And that’s it for Storybrooke Today. I’m Regina Mills—”
“—and I’m Robin Hood! Good night.”
“And we’re done!” Marian, the producer of Storybrooke Today, yells. “Congratulations, folks.”
Regina Mills shifts closer to her co-host, lips forming a tight smile. If Robin had any sense he would be deathly afraid of her with that particular smile on her face, but, alas, Robin is an idiot. “Robin,” she says, still smiling. “If you pinch my ass ever again, on air or off, I will personally see to it that you never regain use of your hands.” Her smile doesn't change as she details exactly how she will make this happen, though Robin’s own Hollywood-wannabe grin falters.
That done, she strides off towards her office, Marian falling into step beside her. “Fire him,” Regina hisses.
“His contract is ironclad,” Marian says. “You know I would if I could.”
She sighs, sinking into her office chair. “I know. But, God, he’s an idiot. What did I do wrong in a past life to deserve idiots for co-anchors?”
“They haven’t all been idiots,” Marian says. She coils her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck and pins it with her biro.
“ All of them,” Regina says emphatically. For a moment a memory pushes its way into the forefront of her mind—”not bad, Mills, but you can be even more of a badass”—and she shakes her head, irritated.
“Well,” Marian says after a moment, and her smile is just a little bit too knowing. “Isn’t it good you’ve got such a talented, intelligent and good-looking producer?”
“Small mercies.” She smiles, grabbing her laptop. “See you tomorrow,” she says, and stands. “Robin’s staying late, apparently. Don’t let him choose tomorrow’s leading story.”
***
“And we at Storybrooke Today are so sorry about Mr Hood’s tragic and untimely passing,” Regina says, faking a deeper timbre in her voice. Marian holds up a sign reading ‘SMILE LESS’ but Regina ignores it. “A reminder for us all to get regular health check-ups. And with that, that’s all for Storybrooke Today. I’m Regina Mills. Good night!”
“Could you be any more delighted that Robin is dead?” Marian asks.
“Sorry,” Regina says, utterly unrepentant. “But why waste time pretending to mourn for that plank of wood? Anyway, for the first time in my life I’m the queen of this show!”
“Yes, well,” Marian says and looks down at the omnipresent clipboard.
“No,” Regina says. “Marian, no.”
“The network thinks you need a co-anchor. I tried—”
“They already have someone in mind,” Regina says. Then, when Marian still won’t meet her gaze, she realises. “Marian, darling, I love you but I will burn this place to the ground.”
“No you won’t,” Marian says and she still looks guilty, refusing to meet Regina’s eyes.
Desperate now, she does what she would never do for anyone but Marian. She begs. “Anyone but her. Please.”
“The network thinks you have chemistry,” Marian says, shrugging. Then, she looks across at Regina and smirks. “Now that’s the expression I needed for Robin’s obituary.”
Her drive home is quiet, the streets of Storybrooke virtually empty, and she drowns out her thoughts with radio news. Once home, she kicks off her heels at the door and takes a moment to breathe in blissful solitude before—“Mom!” Henry barrels into the hall. “I got another postcard!”
Of course . “Where is this one from? Bolivia? Lebanon? Cambodia?” With Henry still tucked into her side, she moves towards the kitchen and rifles through the fridge. Perhaps they’ll have the leftover pork in tacos for dinner. It doesn’t look appetizing, but right now nothing does.
“You’ll never guess!” he says. “Boston! Ma’s coming home.”
It takes all her willpower to retain the smooth, newscaster smile. She’s his mother as well , she thinks. He loves her. It doesn’t mean he loves me less. Though for a time, of course, it had. “I’m sure it will be nice for you to have her visit.”
Henry stares at her for a moment, his lips downturned and his brow furrowed. “But she’s coming back to live. She’s co-hosting the show with you!”
Regina sighs, placing the pork on the bench and turning to Henry. “Sweetheart, please don’t raise your hopes too high. You know Ms Swan doesn’t like to be tied to one place too long.”
Henry ignores her, standing by her shoulder and telling her all about what he and his biological mother are going to do when she gets into town. Mechanically, Regina chops tomato, onion and garlic, scraping them into the frying pan to simmer, and handing Henry a block of cheese and the grater. He grates cheese, though continues to talk. “We’ll have breakfast at Granny’s!” he says. “And she promised me we’d marathon any TV show I wanted, which is just perfect because the next season of ‘A Series of Unfortunate Events’ is coming out in, like, a month!”
Regina nods, refraining from mentioning the too-many broken promises, the times Henry has waited up for Skype calls that never connected, or birthday presents that came weeks late. No matter how she feels, she won’t be the one to destroy her son’s excitement.
Sleep eludes her that night. It has been two years, but she is still unused to sleeping there alone, her bed vast and cold and the only sound she can hear is the sound of her own breathing and her own heart beating.
Her mother would say she’s behaving like a lovesick fool and though Regina doesn’t like to listen to her mother, this time she thinks she might be right. Love is weakness and she thought she’d done everything in her power to starve the weakness out of her.
She doesn’t love her, not anymore. She refuses.
***
“So she’s back,” Ruby says, pouring her a takeaway coffee when Regina pops into the diner between dropping Henry at the busstop and going to work. It’s been one blissful week of being the sole host of Storybrooke Today but apparently that time is coming to an end.
“Apparently,” Regina says, curt. Then, she realises “Is she—“
“Yeah,” Ruby says, gesturing at the stairs. “Her old room, actually. Have a good day, Ms Mills,” and she hands her the coffee.
At work she finds an obnoxiously familiar yellow bug parked in her space. And so it begins .
One of the workers in the lobby is putting up fresh billboards. Regina—poised and polished in a suit and her much shorter haircut from two years ago—stands next to what, at this stage, is a pair of arms crossed, wearing a red leather jacket. She frowns, barely resisting the urge to tear the old publicity shot down. “At least you won’t be greeted by Robin’s smirk when you come in every morning,” Marian says from behind her.
“I am barely suppressing homicidal urges,” Regina informs her. “Don’t push it.”
Marian just laughs and links arms with her, dragging her into the newsroom. “Be nice,” she whispers.
She sees the hair first. It’s longer now, and straight, but still that same blonde princess hair Regina had enjoyed for a time, braiding and brushing and twisting it through her fingers. She’d woven her fingers through it the first time they’d—Regina shakes off Marian’s comforting arm irritably.
“Regina, hey!” The head turns and, God . It’s Emma Swan. She’s smiling in that hopeful way of hers of which Regina used to be fond, and which now makes her feel like she’s been punched in the stomach.
“Still wearing that hideous jacket, I see,” Regina says, and takes a sip of her coffee.
“It’s a new jacket actually,” Emma says. The shift in her tone would be imperceptible to anyone else, but, despite everything, Regina knows every cadence of Emma’s voice. She’s hurt and Regina certainly does not care.
“Bad taste is eternal.”
“And how is your mother?” Emma asks.
For a moment, Regina is silent. She can feel her cheeks flush, feel the anger rise and rage in her like a whirlpool. She stalks forward “In existence, which is more than I can say about yours. But then, that must be why you’ve forgotten how to be a mother to my son.”
Emma’s cheeks dapple a blotchy scarlet. Her mouth thins. Regina is so close she can see the green flecks in Emma’s eyes, the fine dusting of freckles across her nose, the thin lines that have formed over the past two years at the corners of her eyes. “So this is how it’s going to be?” she asks.
“You could always leave,” Regina says. “It’s what you excel at.”
Marian sighs. “This is going so well,” she mutters, following Regina to her room.
“You wanted chemistry,” Regina says. Her phone buzzes. She ignores it.
“I wanted two professional newscasters,” Marian says. “Not some bickering divorced couple. That was worse than when she first came to town.”
“When Henry dragged her into town,” Regina says. “Don’t whitewash what happened.” She still has the occasional nightmare where she comes home to discover Henry missing, like that awful day four years ago when he ran off to Boston to find his birth mother. Her phone buzzes again and she looks down at it. As the adrenaline of her anger wears off, she finds herself feeling an absurd sense of guilt. The mother thing had been a low blow perhaps, but that’s the thing about exes. You always know precisely what will hurt the most. “I should take this,” she says. “It’s Cora.”
Marian frowns. “Please just do your freaking job, Mills.”
“I will if she does,” Regina says and Marian laughs, though the sound is anything but mirthful, and leaves, closing her office door with a slam. Regina counts to five, breathing slow and deep, and then answers her phone.
“Regina, it’s your mother.” Regina can never help the shiver of fear that curls up her spine at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“Hello, Mother,” she says, endeavouring to keep her tone neutral because Cora has a gift for reading Regina’s moods and niggling .
“I’ve just heard this absurd rumour that Ms Swan is back,” Cora says. “Why was I not informed?”
“I didn’t think you would be interested,” Regina says.
Over the course of their relationship, Cora had only rarely shown an interest in Emma Swan, beyond being concerned about the impact the relationship would have on Regina’s career prospects. “Darling, you could be so much more than a regional news anchor,” she’d said more times than Regina can now recall. “Don’t let that woman limit you.”
“But you’re not—”
She sighs. “Of course not, Mother.” She’d like to think her mother would credit her with more backbone than to go crawling back to the woman who left her—and their son—without warning two years ago. “Is there another reason for you to be calling?”
“Yes,” Cora says. “I would like to reschedule Mayoral Minute filming to Friday. I have a meeting with the Assistant DA.”
“I’ll let Marian know,” Regina says, scribbling a note in her planner.
“Until Friday then,” Cora says. “And, darling, be careful. You could lose everything.” She knows Cora means her career, but Regina shivers when she hangs up the phone. Though the danger of losing Henry to his biological mother is long since over, it haunts her, waking her in the night and poisoning her brain in her darkest moments.
She works in her office until four, when Henry arrives in a hurricane of excitement, the like of which Regina hasn’t seen in years. “Ma!” he yells and Regina watches from the doorway as they run at each other, Emma pulling their son into a fierce hug and then performing some complicated handshake with him.
You could lose everything.
When Henry looks up, however, she smiles and waves and allows him to go to the diner with Emma for an afternoon snack. “Have her back by five,” she says, and Henry grins, the ten-year-old who hero-worshipped his biological mother shining through a much older, leaner face for the first time in who knows how long.
“Yeah, yeah,” Emma says, rolling her eyes. But then she smiles at Regina, properly, and it feels like an apology and she has to bite her lip, tasting the sharp metallic tang of blood to remind herself that it is no longer her job to forgive.
***
Of course, any sort of tentative peace doesn’t last more than a day.
“Seriously? A story about the kiddie dance studio going under?” Emma’s trawling through the papers on the desk in front of them.
“They need more of a profile. We can build it for them,” Regina says. “You know they support kids from low socio-economic backgrounds to go to dance classes? Their motto is ‘dance for everyone’.”
“It’s a bit,” and Emma pulls a face, “earnest.”
Everyone laughs. Even Marian hides a snicker behind her hand. Regina feels anger boil up in her, an all too familiar feeling since the return of Emma Swan. The thousand slights of the past week—we really still do Mayoral Minute? What do you mean a missing cow is breaking news? Why can’t we have a more global perspective?—build and brim to the surface. “I’ll leave you to it then,” she says, standing and storming out, ignoring Marian yelling after her, ignoring their weather girl, Ashley’s, comment of, “what crawled up her butt and died?”
She’s sitting in a booth at Granny’s, nursing a cocoa, when the doors swing open and Emma enters. “What the hell, Regina?” she asks, sliding into the seat in front of her and shrugging off her jacket.
“I know this isn’t CNN or the BBC or whatever fancy, world-changing organisation you aspire to work for. I know our issues must seem small and unimportant and our world must seem small and unimportant.” She can feel herself shake, rage boiling and bubbling.
“Hey, Regina,” Emma says, placating. “I don’t—”
“Don’t patronise me,” she snaps. “You think we’re ridiculous.”
“I don’t! Just—don’t you want more than this?” Emma asks, gesturing vaguely at the diner. “Shit, Regina, you could be huge, a journalistic phenomenon. You could be reporting on stuff that matters.”
“ This matters,” she says, left hand clenching into a fist. “I love this show and I love this town and I won’t let some interloper come in and make me feel small for that.”
Silence. “You think I’m an interloper?” Emma asks, voice small and laced with hurt.
“I think you sounded alarmingly like my mother just then,” Regina says.
“Right,” Emma says. “Well. I’ll leave you to your cocoa then.” She reaches out a hand, thumb stroking the back of Regina’s hand, clutched around the cocoa, for just a moment. A shudder runs through her at the soft touch.
Henry does his homework at the kitchen table that night and Regina scours the local paper. There was feature about Emma last week in the Storybrooke Mirror; Henry already cut it out and stuck it to the fridge and Regina has to resist tearing it up or drawing a moustache on it every time she walks past it. However, there is also the semi-regular op-ed from Cora—or rather Tamara, her much put-upon secretary.
Cora has pushed many beautification projects over her past term in office. The latest to receive an expensive remodel is the playground, the site of Henry’s first—and only—broken arm, aged ten.
(“Madame Mayor,” Regina had asked during last week’s Mayoral Minute. “Tell us about the plans for the children’s playground.”
“The city has funnelled sixty thousand into the playground,” Cora had said, legs crossed, lips red, hair curled over her shoulders. Picture-perfect politician. “We look to have it built within the next six months. You, of all people, know how dangerous that old castle is.”
Regina had pursed her lips and desperately not looked over at Emma.)
So why does the costing implied in Tamara’s op-ed only add up to forty thousand, no matter how she calculates it? “Something’s rotten in the state of Storybrooke,” she murmurs, and Henry lifts his head from his homework.
“What?”
“Nothing, sweetheart,” she says. The figures twist and turn in her head. She should investigate further. She should talk to Tamara or look at past expenditure. She’s out of the habit of investigating though, as much as she hates to admit it, and, well, she’s afraid. She folds the paper, checks her calendar. “Actually, I was thinking… How would you like to invite Ms Swan for family dinner tomorrow night?”
“Really?” Henry leaps up and wraps his arms around her shoulders. “Oh my God, Mom, are you guys getting back together?” He stands. “Doesn’t matter, your business! I’ll call her now!” He runs out of the room, pausing in the doorway. “Thanks for trying, Mom. I love you.”
She almost feels guilty at the subterfuge, but, well, Henry is just so happy and she can’t speak with Emma about this in the newsroom.
And she couldn’t forgive herself if she didn’t take this further.
***
Emma arrives promptly at six the next night, carrying a bottle of terrible red wine and tapping her foot nervously against the front stoop. “Please come in,” Regina says, stepping aside and ushering her in. Some small part of her takes vicious pleasure in Emma having to be invited into the home that was once, briefly, theirs. “Henry is upstairs, but should be down shortly.”
“Oh my God,” Emma says, kicking off her shoes. “Do I smell your dad’s pastelόn? Is this heaven?”
Regina nods. She’s trying not to think too much about why she’s cooking Emma’s favourite meal, except that when Henry saw her frying the plantains he’d hugged her. “Drink?”
“Please,” Emma says fervently and hands her the bottle of wine. Passing by the trash can in the kitchen, Regina throws it in there, ignoring Emma’s outraged gasp. “Henry,” she yells. “Your mother just threw out the gift I brought.”
Henry thunders down the stairs, wrapping his arms around Emma. He has been especially affectionate since her return, with both of them. “That wine is never a gift, dear,” she says.
Henry laughs. “Ma, come and check out my room.”
“Do you need—” Emma asks, looking across at Regina, but she waves her away.
“I can’t recall you being particularly talented in the kitchen,” she says and Emma shrugs, allowing herself to be dragged away by Henry.
Once Emma is out of the way, she opens a bottle of decent merlot and pours herself a very large glass, downing most of it in one gulp. She thought she’d be okay; Emma is in her space every day, after all. But this is different. She remembers the early days, Emma invading her personal space, arguments about “my son” and “responsibility” and “appropriate behaviour on air” all held in the hall and kitchen, bodies close and crackling with tension. She remembers kissing Emma in the kitchen too, that first time, pressing her up against the refrigerator, wrestling for control. She remembers sleepy, coffee-filled mornings, Emma stealing grated cheese as she made dinner, bickering over laundry...
It’s too much. She can feel herself trembling, her hand shaking as she tops up her wine.
“Mom?” They’re back, Emma hanging back at the doorway, hands shoved in her pockets.
“I’m fine, sweetheart,” she says, placing a hand on Henry’s arm to steady herself. “Perhaps you could pour Ms Swan a drink?”
Dinner is, well, dinner. Henry fills the silence with chatter, almost too bright and cheerful to be real. Emma eats to avoid speaking and Regina keeps a Stepford smile plastered on her face. However, finally, Henry decides to go to bed early (“I’ll give you two time to talk,” he says and then winks), leaving Emma and Regina alone.
“I still keep the cider in my study,” Regina says and, without waiting, makes her way there.
Emma follows. “Can we talk?” she asks, perching on the edge of the couch. “About us?”
“That’s not what this is about,” Regina says, sitting down behind her desk, and Emma laughs bitterly.
“Of course it’s not,” she murmurs.
“You wanted important journalism, something that means something?” she asks. “I think the mayor is corrupt.”
“You mean your—”
“I am aware of who the mayor is, yes,” Regina snaps. “Much as I hate to admit it, I need help. Are you in?”
Emma’s eyes sparkle, and she grins. “Definitely.”
***
“This was really not what I had in mind,” Regina says. It’s Sunday evening and she’s crammed in the front seat of Emma’s bug, parked outside town hall. She’d bumped into Tamara that morning at the diner, had casually inquired as to Cora’s work schedule (“It’s so hard to find quality time to spend with one’s parents, don’t you think?” she’d said and ignored Tamara’s eyeroll) and found out Cora would be working late that night. Alone.
“We agreed this was my area of expertise, right?” Emma says and at Regina’s reluctant nod, adds, “so shut up and drink your coffee.”
“I can’t believe you got me medium roast,” she grumbles.
“I am never going on a stakeout with you again,” Emma replies.
Silence. The sky is darkening to a velvety purple and Regina watches the trees fade into the twilight. Town Hall stands out in white, shining in the gloom. She shivers, takes a sip of coffee. “Thank you,” she says. “For not asking questions. For listening.”
Emma grimaces. “I may have been a shit girlfriend but I remember Cora. I hate Cora.”
“You weren’t,” Regina says before her brain catches up with her mouth. “That’s what made it so—that’s probably why I’m so angry.”
Emma’s laugh echoes in the confines of the car. “You don’t have to butter me up. I’m here already.”
“I’m not.” The light is still on in her mother’s office and she desperately wants Cora to leave or for someone to arrive, anything to keep her thoughts away from this conversation. “Why did you leave?”
For a moment, she thinks Emma isn’t going to answer. “I thought you’d be better off,” she says. “You and Henry both.” Her hand rests on the gearstick and Regina reaches out, quite without intending to, and brushes her hand against Emma’s, feeling the electricity between them.
“We weren’t,” she says, and Emma turns to face her and she finds herself leaning forward, staring at Emma’s lips. “Henry, he’s missed you so much.”
“ Just Henry?” Emma asks. There’s barely an inch of space between them and Regina’s hand still rests against Emma’s. And she doesn’t know what to answer, the truth (“so much I can hardly breathe with you around me now”) or the more comfortable lie (“it’s always just Henry”)?
Emma’s tongue darts out to lick her lips. They’re going to kiss, Regina realises, mind whirring with panic. It’s the worst idea in the world, terrible, appalling. She doesn’t even like Emma, the woman who abandoned her two years ago for no conceivable good reason Regina can think of, and finds herself sick at the thought, even as she shuffles closer, feels her eyelids flutter shut, takes in Emma’s scent; coffee and fruity shampoo.
They’re going to kiss and, God , Regina has never wanted anything more in her life.
“The light’s out,” Emma says, snapping away, and Regina jolts forward. “She’s leaving earlier than we expected.”
“Tail her,” Regina says and so, as Cora drives past, Emma pulls out, following at a discreet distance. “Where the hell is she going?” she murmurs, because she is going nowhere near Cora’s mansion on Mifflin Street, and then they pull into a one-way street off Main Street and she realises. “Gold.”
“Ugh,” Emma says. “I hate that guy.”
“What could a public official possibly be doing with the guy who owns half of Storybrooke?” Regina asks, raising her eyebrows.
The car slides into a parking space a few buildings back from Gold’s offices and Regina leaps out. She is stayed by Emma grabbing her wrist. “Quiet,” she hisses. They sneak to the window. It’s dim, but she can make out a briefcase, papers...money? “Of course your mom would want to get the aesthetics of a dodgy backroom deal right,” Emma murmurs, her breath warm on Regina’s ear.
And then Cora is taking her briefcase and walking towards the door and Regina finds herself paralysed. If her mother finds her, well, that’s the end of everything.
“Do you trust me?” Emma asks.
Regina’s about to snort out a ‘no’, but in this moment, it feels like a lie. So she nods and Emma backs Regina up against the grimy wall of the building, places her hands on Regina’s cheeks, shielding her face. “What the hell are—” Regina hisses, but then the door opens. Out of the corner of her eye, Regina sees Cora step out of the building and that sick, sinking fear is back, twisting her insides.
And then she can’t breathe, let alone think or see, because Emma’s breath is warm against her neck and her hair veils their faces like they’re the only two people in the universe and her body presses against Regina’s and she hasn’t felt like this in so long, on fire and shivering and yearning and Emma isn’t even kissing her.
“Pretend like we’re totally making out,” Emma whispers, and Regina finds she doesn’t have to fake the strangled groan that falls from her lips as Emma shifts, her body pressing against Regina’s breasts.
“Ugh,” Cora says but then her footsteps disappear and a car starts up.
“Well,” Emma says, pushing away from her. “I think that was effective.” Her chest rises and falls a little bit too quickly though and her cheeks are flushed.
Regina tries to move and falls forward.
Later, lying in bed, she is unable to sleep for quite a different reason from the usual.
***
“So,” Marian asks the table. “Any good scoops?”
“Curling season’s coming up,” Mulan says, a legal pad with notes in front of her. “Thought I’d interview last year’s town champions.”
“Who were last year’s champs?” Emma asks and adds, “what?” in response to the general look of confusion from the table.
“Mary Margaret Blanchard and David Nolan,” Regina says. “As it always is.”
“Oh, hey, I liked her!” Emma says. “I think I still have that birdhouse Henry made me tucked away somewhere.” Then, she darts a glance at Regina, cheeks flushing pink. “Sorry.”
“I have a potential lead on something interesting,” Regina says. “Emma and I were going to work on it together.”
“Oh. Oh!” Marian says and then mutters, “thank fucking God.”
Secreted in Regina’s office, Emma fidgets with the blazers hanging up on the back of the door. “Now you’ve got the newsroom rumour mill working in overtime.” She picks at a thread on a black blazer.
“Oh, sit down,” Regina snaps, and hands her a pile of papers. “I’ve taken out the financial records from Cora’s past term in office. Her secretary stuck post-its on the relevant sections. Start reading.” Emma stares. “What?”
“Just,” Emma says, taking the file. “You’re pretty much astonishing.”
“Like I said,” Regina says, “I care about Storybrooke. I will protect it with everything I have.”
“And what if there’s something to this?”
She’s silent for a moment. The idea of fighting against Mother is a terrifying one, but she can’t sit by. It’s been a long time since she was the idealistic college student, studying journalism, planning to change the world. She’d had big dreams then.
Her goals are smaller now but, honestly, she doesn’t think they’re any less worthy.
She looks across at Emma, head bent over the papers, twisted up in Regina’s spare office chair with her booted feet tucked under her bottom. She’s clutching a highlighter and there is a smear of fluorescent pink across her cheek. Regina smiles. “Stop ogling, Mills,” Emma says, not looking up.
Regina keeps reading. “She’s funnelling funds somewhere,” she says. “Some of these costs…”
“But where?” Emma asks. “Gold’s not going to talk. Tamara will lose her job. Who else knows?”
A memory flashes, fleeting and ethereal. Mr Gold’s frequent visits to the house when Regina was a teen, when Cora had still hoped she would go into politics herself. “It’s not enough to be principled, dear,” she had said, while Regina sat in the corner of her office, struggling not to slump down in the chair. “Cunning always wins the day.”
“I think I do,” she murmurs. “Or at least, how to find out.”
***
Cora has rescheduled the filming of Mayoral Minute three times already. It is so easy on the fourth call to suggest it is filmed live. “We just won’t have time to edit,” she tells Cora. “It would be such a pity to miss a week. Our viewers love the segment.” And, of course, Cora doesn’t question this.
She can’t stop shaking in her office, fingers fumbling with the buttons of the scarlet blazer she has chosen for today. There’s a knock at the door and then Emma enters. “You okay?” she asks.
“Of course,” Regina snaps, fixing her eyes somewhere above Emma’s left shoulder.
Emma steps forward, gently moves Regina’s hands away and buttons the first button of her blazer. “Don’t know why I asked,” she says. “You’re always fine.”
“Am I?” Regina asks, and is horrified to find tears forming in her eyes.
“Hey, no!” Emma says, and grabs a kleenex from Regina’s desk, dabbing at her eyes. “You’ll ruin your eye makeup.”
She sniffs, tilts her head back, bites the inside of her lip. The threatening tears cease. “It’s been two years to the day since you left us,” she says, moving to the mirror and unscrewing a tube of lipstick. “Did you know?”
“I’m back now,” Emma says.
“But for how long?” she asks.
Emma doesn’t answer for a long time. “I don’t know,” she says finally. “I want to—”
Marian sticks her head around the door. “Let’s get going, ladies.”
Emma’s smile is shaky and false. “Let’s do this, Mills,” she says.
Settled on the couch in front of the cameras, Regina smooths her skirt, crosses her legs. Emma sits closer than she normally would and Regina is comforted by her proximity.
Cora stands to the side of the cameras, watching the filming of the opening stories and it makes Regina feel out of sync, stumbling over her words on more than one occasion. Emma places a steadying hand on her knee and when Regina shoots a glance at her mother, she sees her smile thin.
“I can’t do this,” she murmurs to Emma while her recorded story about Storybrooke High School raising funds for the food bank airs. “Please. Can you do Mayoral Minute for me?”
She stands, but Emma stays her with a touch on her arm. “You’re stronger than her,” Emma says. “And me.”
“I’m not—”
“Your mother wants you to be weak,” Emma says. “She wants to control you.”
The gears shift in Regina’s mind. She sits, turns to Emma. “Who recommended you for that job?” Her mother had never liked Emma, had never liked that Regina was in a relationship with Henry’s biological mother. She doesn’t know why she’s never asked before.
(“She will take your son from you,” she’d said. As though Cora hadn’t told Regina she was making a mistake for adopting Henry.
“She doesn’t care about you,” she’d said. As though Cora cared.
“She’s a con artist, out for all she can get,” she’d said. As if Cora had taken the time to get to know Emma beyond her rap sheet.)
Emma’s smile tightens. “Cora Mills is terrified of what you could do,” she says. “Make her tremble.”
And so Regina does, starting with the prescribed questions—about the miner’s day festival and the sheriff’s visit to Storybrooke Elementary—but then she shifts, crossing and uncrossing her legs. “Madame Mayor, let’s talk finances.”
“I beg your pardon?” Cora says, eyes flashing, although her politician smile doesn’t falter. If Regina didn’t know her so well, she would be worried they’d misinterpreted their findings. But she does know her well; she’s thrown, not expecting the shift in conversation. Regina pinches her own thigh beneath the table, focusing on the pain, and looks over at Emma, who nods encouragingly.
“What is your relationship with Mr Gold? His company seems to have been getting all the construction business in town since your reelection.”
“I will not sit here and be accused—” Cora starts, but Regina interrupts.
“I don’t believe I made an accusation yet, Madame Mayor. Perhaps you could explain the exorbitant cost of the new playground when Enchanted Forest Construction quoted a more reasonable price,” she suggests, and she shoots her mother’s own smile back at her.
(“You don’t look like her,” Emma had said once. “Except when you’re ready to destroy someone.”
“Oh?” Regina had asked, raising an eyebrow.
“It’s kind of a turn-on,” Emma had said, laughing when Regina had broken the smile to let out a disgusted ‘blech’.)
“You have no proof of anything,” Cora hisses and the facade has disappeared. She’s backed into a corner and Regina feels the power swell in her at this realisation.
“We don’t?” Regina asks and then shrugs. “Perhaps not enough to prosecute but I’m sure state officials will uncover more soon enough.”
Cora stands. “I will not sit here and be insulted like this,” she says, and she storms out. The door slams sharply.
Regina looks towards camera one. “It appears that’s all we have time for from Mayoral Minute,” she says. “Tune in next week to Storybrooke Today when we continue our investigations into Mayor Mills’ expenditures. I’m Regina Mills—”
“—and I’m Emma Swan,” Emma says, camera panning across to her. “Good night!” The closing music sounds. Regina stands, her whole body shaking, and looks across at Emma who is beaming.
And in that moment, she doesn’t think. She just moves forward, pulling Emma to her and kissing her fiercely, hands tangling in Emma’s hair, yanking it loose of its clip. “Ow,” Emma murmurs, wincing, but the sound is swallowed by their kisses. Everything feels right; it’s Emma and their kissing and she could happily live in this embrace.
Distantly, she hears Marian wolf whistle and she comes back to herself. It’s Emma. Emma the runner. Emma, the woman who abandoned their son. Emma, who terrifies her. “God,” she murmurs. “I’m sorry. I can’t—”
“Regina,” Emma says, but she runs to her office, locks the door behind her, and doesn’t leave until the building is empty, lights dimmed by the custodial staff.
It’s better this way, she thinks, though she tastes salt from her tears when she finally drives home.
***
From:[email protected]
Subject: Top 10 Small Town Government Scandals: You’ll never guess what these corrupt government officials did!! CHECK OUT NUMBER 9, MILLS!!!
Regina smiles at the subject line of the email from Marian. She is curled up on the chair on the back porch, basking in the early Fall sunlight. Henry is swinging on a hammock and reading a comic (“it’s a graphic novel, Mom,” he’d said the other day, “and it’s for school.”). It has been quiet in Storybrooke this week, the first peaceful week in what feels like a long time.
It’s been a month since the last Mayoral Minute. Cora had resigned when it became clear that Regina’s accusations weren’t just going to fade away, but instead had brought in investigators. The interim mayor is relatively ineffectual but Regina’s been trying to convince Tamara Drake to run in the upcoming elections. “You’ve got all the knowledge, enough experience,” she’d said, “and you know you’re the saviour of Storybrooke’s public funds.”
Tamara had just laughed at that, but she’d had an email just days later asking if Regina would be interested in being her media manager (if I run, she’d written. If.).
“Is Ma coming by?” Henry asks, flopping out of the hammock, and then coming over.
“You’d know better than me, sweetheart,” Regina says.
“Would I?” Henry asks, waggling his eyebrows.
“Whatever happened to my sweet, innocent little boy?” she asks, sighing dramatically.
“I’m just saying,” Henry says. “I don’t think she’s going to run away this time, if you’re scared or whatever.”
“I’m worried for you,” Regina says.
“I’m strong,” Henry says. “And besides, I’ve got you.”
“Precious boy,” Regina says, feeling tears threaten. She pulls him down into a hug and he accepts it for a moment before drawing back, embarrassed.
“Ugh, okay,” he says. “I’m heading to Nick’s. I’ll be back for dinner.” The back door slams behind him and she closes her eyes, breathes in the crisp air, wraps her cardigan more tightly around herself.
She hears footsteps and opens her eyes to find Emma standing above her. “Just bumped into Henry,” she says. “When did the kid get so tall?”
Regina scoots over, leaving just enough space for Emma. “While you were gone,” she says, switching her phone to silent and placing it on the ground.
Emma sits. “I’m sorry,” she says, staring at her hands. “I was weak.”
She’s had a lot of time to think about this, to turn over their relationship in her mind—more time than was really healthy, truthfully. But she’s come to a couple of conclusions, one of which is that holding onto her hurt and anger isn’t going to help anything. The other is something she wants Emma to know. “So was I,” she says and takes Emma’s hand, laces her fingers through Emma’s. “I should have told you to stay.”
“I should have known you wanted me to,” Emma argues.
Regina brings Emma’s hand to her mouth, presses a kiss to the knuckles. Her heart pounds. “I want you to stay,” she says.
Emma grins. “Probably a good time to tell you I got an apartment,” she says. “It’s got a bedroom for Henry, just, if he ever wants to stay, lots of closet space, a really good kitchen if someone ever wanted me to eat more vegetables…”
And there, curled up together, beneath the shade of the porch, Regina kisses her.
It feels good. It feels right. It feels like home.