I know it's not Halloween, but I HAD to write this. The story wouldn't leave me alone. WAY established SQ going on here.
Characters aren't mine. They belong to ABC, Disney, and other assorted entities of importance. I gain nothing from writing these stories but the fun of doing it. Please don't sue me.
Regina bustled about the house making sure the finishing touches were just so for the arrival of Henry and his family. It was the first holiday of the season, and this holiday happened to be her favorite, which was a surprise to no one in town.
She ran through the living room, kitchen, and her office to make certain decorations, activities, and food were exactly as they should be and then made a beeline for the backdoor to check on how the backyard's decorations and activates were coming along. She had very reluctantly left the outdoors to Emma, who had insisted she could handle it despite the disaster that had happened last year, and, though Regina's internal voice of reason screamed at her not to allow Emma to take over again, she ignored it because, she reasoned, she simply didn't have the time to take care of both the inside and outside of the house.
Halloween, after all, was her holiday, and the grandchildren had come to expect Grandma and Granny to put on a big, fun filled event for both them and the rest of the town. Regina absolutely refused to disappoint her grandchildren. Making the town happy and providing them with the first of many parties of the season was only a side note, and it just happened to keep the mayor and sheriff in the good graces of the town.
Frankly, Regina could care less what the town thought of her and Emma, though, in truth, the public opinion polls showed the general public of Storybrooke mostly had neutral to positive things to say about her and her marriage to the sheriff these days, not that she cared. It had been over 20 years since she first held Henry as an infant, and, after all of the events that led to her eventual reinstatement as mayor, her marriage, and, now, her grandchildren, the least of her concerns was public opinion polls. She was completely positive she kept being reelected at this point in her life because no one else wanted the job of keeping the outside world out while keeping their sleepy little town under control, and they all recognized she and Emma had it all down to a fine art.
She stopped just outside the backdoor to watch Emma struggle to finish stringing the lights over the branches of the apple tree. She smirked, taking a moment to appreciate that, after all this time, the sheriff was still the blonde she'd been since the first day she'd stepped into the town. Regina would never admit it aloud, but she was constantly thankful Emma had decided to keep up her coloring once she'd started to go gray. It was shallow, Regina could admit to herself, but she had a thing for blondes and hers in particular.
She smirked, running a hand through her dark brown hair that now had a stately line of grey running through one side of it. Emma had said she looked a little like Rogue from the X-Men, called it cool looking, and had forbidden her from dying it to match the rest of her hair. She'd allowed the demand more out of laziness than compliance, and, honestly, she liked the streak of gray. It was nice to see some evidence of the passage of time.
Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she started down toward the tree arriving just as her wife finished wresting with the lights. She waited quietly for the sheriff to climb down out of the tree and then reached forward to pull the other woman in closer for a kiss.
"The backyard looks lovely, dear. I would say you've more than made up for the disaster from last year." She glanced around again with an approving eye to the detailed attention Emma had clearly given the space.
The blonde's smiled beamed. "Thanks. I told you last year was just a fluke. How was I supposed to know Blue had an allergy to blueberries? If she hadn't eaten that muffin, then my decorations wouldn't have blown up like that."
"You put too much fairy dust in the lighting mechanism. Blue's sneezing had nothing to do with that, and you know it." Regina rolled her eyes, pushing a few strands of hair out of her face. "But, let's not revisit that, shall we? Henry, Grace, and the children will be here any minute, and the rest of the guests will be here within the hour. We need to change into our costumes before they arrive. Are you ready?"
"Yeah, I got this," Emma replied smugly as she looped an arm about the brunette's waist and led them back toward the house. "I laid out our costumes on the bed before I came out here to finish up. You're a really sexy, generic vampire, and I'm a really sexy, generic nurse." She waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "I even have a bag of fake blood to carry around."
"Really?" Regina sighed. She should have known better than to leave the costumes up to her wife. "A 'generic sexy' whatever isn't something I'd consider family friendly, Emma." She scowled, a thought occurring to her. "And why would you be a nurse carrying around a bag of blood?"
The sheriff's eyes sparkled with mischief. "Because I'm the blood bank nurse." She smirked. "Get it? You're a vampire, and I'm the… you know what?" She rolled her eyes at her wife's incredulous expression. "Never mind. Other people will think it's funny, and, besides, the grandkids are young enough no to be scarred if their grandmothers dress up as something a little on the sexy side, and," Emma opened the door with an extra flourished movement, "we should dress up in sexy stuff while we can still get away with it before everything starts sagging and wrinkling."
"Charming," Regina deadpanned as she walked through the door.
"I think you have me confused with my father," Emma shot back before rushing to follow the other woman inside the house.
She heard Henry's car pull up into the driveway and her smile beamed. If there was one thing Regina adored, it was having all of her family in her home. Grant it, at first she hadn't been very welcoming of Grace, considering the history there, but the young woman had proven to be the perfect match for Henry, and Regina had eventually accepted Grace.
It had taken the two of them a couple of years to warm up to each other, but, when Grace gave birth to the first of two grandchildren, all was forgiven and forgotten. Regina and Emma absolutely cherished their grandchildren, Daniel and Eva. Daniel, who was seven, looked the very spitting image of his father at that age, and Eva, who was five, was every bit the spitfire of both her grandmothers, much to her mother's continual frustration.
One of the highlights of Regina's days was taking the grandchildren for the day and then giving them back to Grace after making certain they'd had at least one sugary concoction because, after all, that's what grandparents were for.
Regina promised to be civil to Grace and, for the most part, she did like her daughter-in-law, but old habits do tend to die hard.
Taking in a deep breath, she and Emma walked to the door and opened it to greet Henry, who stood with a look that, a few years earlier, would have screamed he'd done something wrong. "Mom," he looked directly at Regina, "please don't freak out."
Grace, who stood slightly behind him and was, conveniently, blocking the children from view, had an almost gleeful look in her eyes as she silently watched Regina, who suddenly felt like she was about to be very unhappy about something.
"When you start a sentence like that, kid," Emma said in a cautious voice, "it normally ends with us having to save the world or destroy some giant evil. I'm getting too old for that."
Henry smirked. "No, it's nothing like that. It's just… well… Eva, she's discovered Disney and…"
Regina groaned, a look somewhere between a grimace and a scowl falling across her features as she recognized the look on Grace's face.
Grace was having a moment of gleeful evil directed straight at Regina.
Henry winced and gave a little nod. "Yeah," he sighed, stepping inside, past his mothers, and revealing his children to them. Regina took in a quick, sharp breath, and Emma tried to hold her giggles at bay. "I'm sorry, Mom," he pleaded from behind them. "We…" Grace narrowed her eyes, and he quickly corrected, "I tried to talk her into Belle or something else," he let out a little exasperated sigh, "anything else, but…" He groaned. "I'm really sorry."
Regina squatted down to be eye level with her granddaughter and gave her a tightlipped smile. "Hello, little one, I see you're all dressed up today." Though it was clear in her body language she was far from pleased, her voice didn't betray her.
Little Eva smiled brightly. "I'm a princess just like you call me, Grandma!" She twirled around to show off her perfectly replicated Snow White costume. Giggling, she asked in a happy voice, "Am I pretty?"
Regina looked down to the ground for a moment to collect herself and then back up, a less tightened smile on her face. "You, my little princess, are the fairest in all the land." She reached forward to pull the little girl in for a hug. "Even prettier than Snow White," she spat the name out despite herself, "or the Queen herself."
"She wasn't very pretty," Eva said with a curious look on her face. Regina tried not to scowl or say something she'd regret later even as Grace laughed somewhere in the near vicinity.
"Well, years of using antiquated potions as your only form of magic will do that to a person," Regina muttered, face twitching a bit.
"Grandma?" Eva looked at Regina with concern. "Are you mad?"
"No, little one, I'm just…" She huffed. How to answer this question? "Snow White wasn't my favorite princess."
"Oh." Her granddaughter's face fell a touch. "Who was?" She asked after a moment's thought.
"I'm afraid there aren't any Disney movies about my favorite princess," Regina carefully answered, glancing up to Emma, who was watching with a cautious eye.
The little girl quirked her head. "No story?"
"There's a story," Regina gently replied, her eyes softening from her initial irritation, "but Disney doesn't know it. I do, however, and I can tell it to you tonight before we tuck you in. Would you like that?"
"What's her name?" Eva asked, now completely fixated on the idea of a princess she hadn't heard of yet.
"Princess Emma," her grandmother answered with warmth.
"Like Granny!" Eva practically did a happy dance as she glanced to her other grandmother. "Granny, do you know the story, too?"
"I… think I know the gist of it," Emma answered as a blush crept up her face. "You know, it's getting late. Maybe we should get ready for everyone else to get here?"
"Yeah!" Daniel nodded, drawing his sword from his scabbard and making a motion to charge. "To the candy!"
"Whoa, hey, easy there, ninja boy," Henry said, picking his son up, "real food first."
"Oh, come on, Dad! There's Twix in there with my name on it!" He pouted, looking over to Emma for help. "Right, Granny?"
"Yup, in fact, we have special treats for both of you." She offered Regina a hand up, and smiled as she watched Regina bend down to pick up their granddaughter before taking the offered hand.
"Yes, I made apple turnovers just for the family," the brunette said as she walked into the house, giving Grace a hard look as she passed by.
"Of course you did," Grace muttered with a sigh. "At least they're staying with you two for the next couple of days."
"And we'll cherish every sugar filled moment of it until we get to send them back home to you," Emma said with a smirk as she followed up the rear to close the door.
Regina gave one more hard look at her granddaughter's costume and sighed, cursing the universe for its jokes while thanking it for giving her a family whom it could use to play such jokes on her. She also made a mental note to give the children extra sugar and some toys that made lots of loud sounds before dropping them off at home.
Two could continue to play this game.
Thank you for reading. As always, reviews are appreciated.