Emma Swan doesn't sleep.
Correction, Emma Swan doesn't sleep well alone. Of course, the people that know her well don't know this fact. They think she's grown up rough, independent. She can take care of herself. They think she's the kind of girl that does fine sleeping in her little banged up Bug.
But they're wrong. Emma Swan doesn't sleep well alone at all.
After getting out of the foster system, when she met Neal, she finally slept well for the first time in what felt like her entire life. The comfort it brought her was unprecedented. But after he split and she went to jail, her restless nights became the norm. On nights when it became unbearable, she started running.
A little after midnight, Emma strode out of Mary Margaret's building and meandered down the street, taking in the cold night air that kicked the drowsiness from her head. Summer is right around the corner, but the nights are playing tricks on the day and Emma's thin sweat pants and white tank top don't do much for chill. But she just lets it roll off her back with the wind and keeps walking. It's a walk she's done many times since coming to Storybrooke. After rounding the corner into the main square, she roughly runs her fingers through her ratty blonde locks and piles them on top of her head, securing them with the hair band that's always around her wrist.
She takes a deep breath and begins her run.
Emma strides out, her long legs taking leaps on the pavement that continuously moves below her trainers. She sprints down the street towards the edge of town, counting the pounding of her footsteps.
Regina Mills doesn't sleep, either.
As in, she doesn't sleep at all. Since Emma Swan came into her life, Regina Mills has been a full fledged insomniac. She used to be a woman who prided herself on being able to sleep in any situation. The second her head hit her pillow, she'd be fast asleep. But now, now all she sees when she closes her eyes is Emma's flickering green eyes and the bright smile that is constantly mocking her. She's tried everything from booze to sleeping pills, to no avail.
So instead of sleeping, Regina Mills reads until she can see the sun coming up over the trees from her perch on her front stoop.
After putting Henry to bed, she went about her usual routine, cleaning up after the boy and changing into something that she would never, ever be seen wearing in public.
Regina tip-toes past her son's room and into her own, unbuttoning her still crispy white blouse in the process. Running a lazy hand through her hair, she makes a note to herself that she likes it at a longer length. It makes her think of her youthful days of braids and ribbons. An innocence lost.
After ridding herself of the impossible heels and skintight skirt and the black lacey bra that itched in all the wrong places, Regina slips into most comfortable yoga pants and a thin red tank top in the shade of her favorite lipstick.
In the bathroom, she smears the layers of makeup off her face, revealing a flawless complexion and youthful bright eyes. She even goes to the extreme of sweeping her hair off her neck into a little ponytail, even though little pieces fell from it down into her face. Regina smiles at her reflection, strangely content for the moment.
She knits her eyebrows together and then arches them high, ending the act by sticking her tongue out at herself. Boy, does she look like a piece of work. But she takes comfort in the fact that no one would be strolling around Storybrooke at midnight on a Tuesday. With one finger she flicks the medicine cabinet open and picks her spare reading glasses out of their case and slides them up her nose.. She stares at herself with the black rims on and realizes that she almost looks unrecognizable. Deep down inside, she feels herself relax into this new role of sorts.
Her insomnia was giving her an alter ego.
Grabbing a few pillows from the love seat in the family room and a throw, she heads out the front door with an old ratty copy of Madame Bovary with her hidden packs of cigarrettes under her arm, closing the door quietly as she goes.