Regina pads her way around the kitchen, stepping carefully to avoid making too much noise. Emma, like Henry, she had discovered, was a deep sleeper—but tomorrow was Emma's day, and she didn't want to ruin the surprise, anyway.
Not that it had really truly been a surprise since that first year together; achingly sweet as Emma (not used to being wanted, not used to being loved) discovered a simple sheet cake on the kitchen counter with Regina and Henry waiting for her to blow out the candles. No, now Emma was more secure about their regard, and slept in later than Regina normally allowed, and paraded downstairs after to a waiting family.
Regina's throat tightens at the thought, at how close she had been not having this. To losing not just Henry, but Emma too; dear, sweet, Emma, who had wormed her way into Regina's heart and never left. Emma, who had grown up with so little love and affection and still managed to grow up and give and give and give in a way that made Regina breathless to observe. Emma, who loved with her whole soul and forgave far too easily and looked at Henry and Regina like they were enough.
The oven timer breaks Regina out of her reverie as she pulls the cake from the oven. Plain vanilla, to be topped with cinnamon buttercream icing. Regina prods the cake twice then draws back her finger, satisfied. She covers it carefully and places it in the fridge—she'll frost it in the morning.
On her way back to bed, she pokes her head into Henry's room, just to check in. For old time's sake. The boy—no longer a boy, Regina reminds himself, but well into his teenage years—is fast asleep, hair covering his eyes, still clutching his neatly-wrapped present to his chest. Regina smiles. Henry had been working on Emma's present for weeks now, secreting away hours between dinner and bedtime, forgoing even his precious PlayStation in favor of completing the project in time. Even Regina had been forbidden from learning what it was, exactly, that he was working on, but she figured she'd find out soon enough.
Shutting the door quietly, she makes her way back to the sleeping figure in her bed. Emma turns, still asleep, and shifts an arm around her wife as Regina sinks back into the bed. Regina pauses, just revels in these moments—simple touches, easy glances—that remind her that she's home, home, home.
Morning comes and finds Regina back in the kitchen, putting the final touches on Emma's cake. Henry is seated at the table, downing cereal in quick gulps as he watches his mother decorate.
"You know we're having cake in just a few minutes, right?" Regina remarks.
"I know," Henry grins. Cheeky boy. "That's the main course. This is just the appetizer."
"Breakfast is a single meal, Henry," retorts Regina. "Breakfast does not have courses."
"Well, mine does. Deal with it," Henry replies, and sticks out his tongue in an entirely juvenile manner. Regina is about to comment that that is notthe appropriate way to win an argument when she sees Emma plodding down the steps, all sleepy eyes and disheveled hair.
"Morning, sunshine," says Regina, smiling at the sight. Emma smiles back. "Happy birthday." She shifts behind the counter to light the candles, and Henry stands up as Emma makes her way into the kitchen. Emma's eyes are bright as she takes in the sight in front of her; smile filled with adoration and fondness and unadulterated love.
"Hey, ma," Henry says. "Happy birthday!" and motions for her to blow out the candle as he and Regina sing for Emma. Regina watches Emma's hands—gentle hands, strong hands—make the first cut on the otherwise pristine cake surface and is suddenly confronted with an image. It's herself, thirty-five years ago, and she's holding the knife, not Emma, ready to sink the blade into any poor victim's skin as she runs through the castle to find Snow White's newborn daughter… and the image is wrong, wrong, wrong and Regina grips a hand tightly against the counter to maintain her balance.
"Mom?" Henry is looking at her, concerned, and even Emma is staring, and no, damn it, Regina will not burden Emma with this on Emma's own birthday.
"I'm fine," she lies smoothly, false smile on her face that threatens to become real when Henry scoops icing onto his fingers and smears it on Emma's face, both of them laughing.
Snow and David and baby Neal and other assorted friends and family gather at the house around midday to deliver Emma's presents, and she opens most of them with everyone around, watching. Emma may never admit it, but Regina knows that she secretly delights in the attention she gets on this day; attention that she never got as a child or even as an adult, hovering over a cupcake with a lone candle. My fault, my fault, all my fault, thinks Regina briefly, before she has to see off Snow and the others.
Regina runs upstairs to pick up one final present for Emma, and sees Henry exiting his room. He's carrying his last present for Emma, too. It's the one he had fallen asleep holding last night, notes Regina, as the two of them make their way to the living room. Emma is sitting on the floor, surrounded by a pile of opened gifts—a book of mother-daughter poems from Snow, a chainsaw from David (really? thinks Regina), an incredibly soft scarf from baby Neal—when she sees them. She looks unsurprised to see the additional presents—it's been their family ritual to exchange one last set of gifts, for their eyes only, since the very beginning.
"Mom, you go first," Henry says, and Regina acquiesces, handing Emma the tiny, wrapped box. Emma tears open the wrapping—slowly, comments Regina, as if Emma was a five-year-old on Christmas morning—and Emma only grins, opening the lid. She pulls out a necklace, silver, with a diamond-studded swan pendant hanging loosely off the chain. Regina follows as Emma's eyes meet her own.
"It's beautiful," whispers Emma, green eyes shimmering with tears, opening her mouth, but unable to say anything more. Regina gently takes the necklace from her wife's hands and loops it around Emma's neck, clasping it at the back. Her fingers briefly brush the soft skin of Emma's neck, tracing familiar curves before drawing back again. Emma leans into the touch before bringing up her hands to grasp at the pendant, smooth and sharp and shining all at once.
"It suits you," Regina says, looking up from the pendant to Emma's face. Emma has always looked beautiful to Regina, but at this particular moment, with her eyes glittering with hope and faith and love, she looks radiant. Bright. The sun could go out and Regina wouldn't notice; everything in this moment has been reduced to her and Emma and their love and their family. Regina shifts, placing a soft kiss on Emma's lips, with the promise of so much more. "Henry's turn."
Henry has managed to outdo everyone this year, Regina realizes, when Emma unwraps his present to find a hardcover book. Once Upon a Family, the cover reads, and the inscription simply says, The Story of Us. Emma opens the book and immediately covers her mouth, tears threatening to leak down her face as she flips though the page, image after image.
It takes Regina a moment to deduce exactly the content of these images, but once she does, she nearly mirrors Emma's actions, and reaches out to hold the book as well.
"You once said the memories we had together aren't real, Ma," Henry says. "The ones in New York," he clarifies, as both Emma and Regina glance up. "But I don't think that's true, Ma. They feel real to me. I know they feel real to you, too. So I wanted you to have a little piece of that reality."
And that's what he's done. That's what Regina's clever, sweet, beautiful baby boy has done. He's taken his childhood photos, and manipulated the images into showcasing "memories" from New York. Baby Henry in Emma's arms, in front of the Statue of Liberty on a crisp autumn day. Toddler Henry holding an ice-cream cone and beaming, Emma crouching by his side, ensuring the sticky food doesn't drip all over his shirt. An older Henry and Emma holding hands, ice-skating on Rockefeller Plaza. Regina's even in a few of them, especially as the photos flip towards present day.
Regina isn't sure how Henry managed to create these images, but a part of her heart she didn't know was empty fills up at the sight of Emma hugging their son tight, tight, tight. As if somehow this book can make up for Emma's lost years with Henry; or the moment thirty-five years ago when Regina inadvertently put Emma on the path that would lead to her giving Henry up. Regina's chest tightens at the thought, but she covers it up by pretending the burgeoning tears are about Henry's gift and not about the fact that this could have been Emma's life, had it not been for Regina. That these photographs wouldn't be manipulations, but real, and Regina can't shake feeling of guilt that has reopened an old wound in her heart, barely larger than the hole that was just filled.
Regina isn't sure why they picked this movie in the first place, but it had been Henry's turn to pick the movie last time and they had barely gotten through it, and Emma really wanted to know the ending anyway. So here they were, Emma, Henry, and Regina, crowded around the television watching Anastasia on Emma's birthday. Emma and Regina are splayed on the couch, Regina threading her fingers through golden curls as Henry sits cross-legged on the floor, leaning against Emma's leg. And it's at that moment that a song comes on—something about journeys and the past and fear?— that Regina jolts up and actually starts paying attention to the lyrics, the keywords from what she'd heard enough to have piqued her curiosity.
Somewhere down this road,
I know someone's waiting,
Years of dreams
Just can't be wrong.
Arms will open wide
I'll be safe and wanted
Finally home where I belong!
Regina thinks of Emma, of twenty-eight versions of this day when Emma hadn't been surrounded by warmth or safety or love, of twenty-eight years where Emma Swan had been lost and bitterly alone.
Home, love, family
There was once a time
I must have had them, too.
And suddenly being in the room for one moment longer is unbearable, the reminder of everything she had taken away from Emma (of twenty-eight years of wishes for things that should never have been taken away from her in the first place) just too much.
"Mom?" Henry frowns, as he watches her stumble off the couch and free her hands from Emma's hair. "Are you okay?" And it's a testament to how much Regina needs to get out before her family notices that she isn't who she claims to be, but rather the woman who took away their happy endings before their lives had even begun, that she leaves the room without a response. It also means that Regina doesn't notice Henry's confused, concerned expression, or Emma's murmured, "Don't worry about it. I'll take care of Mom," to their son.
Instead, Regina finds herself in the foyer, clutching the banister, attempting to breathe and completely unable to, when—
"Regina. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe." Emma's voice cuts through like a knife, setting off another chorus of you don't deserve her's and she's going to leave you's in Regina's head. Regina leans harder against the banister.
"Regina!" Emma's voice, louder this time. Closer? Emma's touch, on her arm, grounding her. Regina thinks she can breathe, but doesn't dare look up, not yet. Not when Emma is so close, and so close to realizing what Regina's done. Who Regina is. Because Regina's so sure that the combination of the day and that damn song mean that Emma finally has her figured out, and today is the day she's going to realize that maybe she would have been better off keeping Henry, and staying with the Charmings, and—
"Regina." Emma's arm has moved higher, on her shoulder now, shaking her. "Regina, sweetheart. Talk to me. What's wrong?"
"Why do you love me?" is out of Regina's mouth before she can stop herself, and she instantly regrets it, because Emma is now gaping at her and it was supposed to be Emma's day.
"What?" is all Emma manages, taken aback.
It's out there now. "Why—how can you love me?" Regina whirls around, dislodging Emma's hand off her shoulder. "After everything I've done to you? I took your family away the day you were born, Emma. I took away your chance at a happy ending. Without me..." Emma is staring at Regina, unmoving, eyes wide. Regina steels herself to continue.
"...without me, you wouldn't have grown up in the system. You wouldn't have gone to jail. You would have had a child at a more suitable time; you'd have kept the baby and your life would have been so much better than the fate I consigned you to." Regina has given up on holding back the tears at this point, and Emma still hasn't moved. "So why do you love me, Emma?" she chokes out. "After all of this, how am I deserving of your love?"
It's at that declaration that Emma seems to remember how to move again. Swiftly, her arms are around Regina, holding her close, and Regina's head moves to rest on Emma's shoulder as tears soak through her shirt.
"Don't ever..." Emma begins fiercely. "Don't ever question whether you deserve my love, because you do. I've decided that you do, and that's enough. That's all that matters." Emma reaches into a pocket, grabbing a tissue.
"I love you for many reasons, Regina Mills. I love you for the look you get in the morning when you haven't gotten quite enough sleep but know you have to get up, anyway. I love you for the way you'll argue with Henry about curfews and deadlines at night, but still wake up early the next morning to make him extra pancakes because he's got a presentation that day. I love you because you cancel your appointments and show up at my work with lunch on days that you know I've pulled a double shift, or when you can tell that something's wrong. I love you, Regina, because you only seem to know how to give love to others, and never take any for yourself, and it's impossible not to love you in return. With you, it's not about the grand gestures or the fine proclamations, but the everyday things that you revel in being able to share. And I couldn't ask for a better person to share that with." Emma pauses, and holds Regina at arms length, studying her face. Regina nearly drops her tissue.
"And yeah, you never considered the consequences of your curse. Of the effect if would have on the innocents that were no part of your blood feud with my mother. And trust me when I say I don't dismiss those things lightly." Emma raises her hand and brushes a stray tear off her wife's face.
"But I've realized that, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't really make sense to live in the past. You've changed since then, and I—I can't bring myself to miss a life I've never known." Regina is looking at Emma like she's found absolution, so Emma is careful to say, "It doesn't make what you did okay. But I know why you did it, and I choose to move on. I choose a life—I choose a future—that makes me happy. I choose you, Regina, and I would choose you a million times over, in every lifetime." Regina collapses against Emma, her feet no longer able to hold her upright, despite the fact that a burden she didn't know she could release in this lifetime has been lifted off her chest. Emma loves her, Emma loves her, Emma loves her, is all she can hear in Emma's steady heartbeat, and she can't bring herself to care about anything else right now.
Emma laughs, light and surprised, as she catches Regina and pulls her up for a needy kiss. Regina melts against her, throwing her arms around Emma's shoulder and pulling her as close as possible because Regina needs this, needs this like she needs air, and without Emma the world is dull, dull, dull—
"Mom? Ma?" Henry is at the entryway, looking every bit the young boy that Regina believed he'd grown out of being years ago. "Mom?" he says, coming up to her, touching her arm. "Are you okay?" And he's her sweet baby boy again, needing to know that his mom is okay, and Regina can't help but wonder what she's done to ever deserve two people so precious in her life.
"Yes, darling, I'm okay now." Regina's surprised to find that she means it, and that Emma's healed something within her that she'd believed was unfixable, and that maybe she isn't quite as broken as she thought she was. Because love isn't weakness, love is strength, and Regina understands that now. She'd begun to understand, but now she realizes that she had merely gathered all the pieces, and that tonight was the first time she'd finally put everything together.
She has a home. A family. People in the world who love her, unconditionally. Regina has been found.
Maybe Emma wasn't the one who grew up lost, after all?
A/N: Thanks for reading! This is my first fanfiction so any reviews, comments, or suggestions are welcomed and appreciated. Hope you enjoyed!