Author's note: Written from a prompt on tumblr: Swan Queen, Emma Swan and her infinite supply of leather jackets I feel like this is maybe not what the prompted had in mind, but it's where my mind went, so hopefully it's still enjoyable. Title stolen from David Bowie.
"Where is it?" Regina demands as she pushes past Emma, into the apartment.
"What the hell?" Emma gasps, stumbling backwards and watching as Regina moves up the stairs like a lioness stalking her prey. "What are you doing?"
Regina doesn't answer. Instead, she makes her way to Emma's door - and later Emma will have to think about how it is that Regina, who to her knowledge has never even been inside Mary Margaret's apartment until now, knows which room is Emma's - and nearly rips it off the doorframe.
Emma stands dumbfounded for a few moments before she shuts the door and races up the stairs after the furious mayor, glad Mary Margaret isn't home for whatever confrontation is about to happen.
By the time she makes it into her bedroom, the place looks like it's been ransacked. Her mattress has been moved, her blankets and sheets torn off the bed, and the drawers are pulled out and being gone through by the mayor.
"What the fuck, Regina?" Emma hisses, watching as Regina tosses clothing over her shoulders.
Regina spins then, her eyes blazing. "Where is it? I know you have it. I know he gave it to you."
"What are you talking about?" Emma asks, her eyes taking in the destruction of the room.
"The god damn book. I know he hid it with you. Where is it?"
"I don't know. But I don't have it!" Emma sweeps her arms around the room. "Or can't you tell?"
Regina lets out a growl and turns, her eyes catching on the door to the small closet. She whips the door open and then stops in her tracks. The closet is sparse - Emma's jeans, tank tops and the few blouses she owns, as well as underwear and socks, are kept in the drawers that Regina has already gone through - filled only with a few sweaters that are housed on the top shelf and her leather jackets.
Regina makes quick work of the shelf, knocking the sweaters to the floor with ease, and then she stops again, still staring at the hangers full of jackets. It is, she thinks wildly, true then - the sheriff doesn't just have one jacket in each color of the rainbow, but multiple jackets in each color. She's suspected as much since she realized that on some days Emma's red leather jacket had a tiny tear near the left pocket that was fraying and on other days it didn't. Not that she was studying the other woman's clothing that closely of course.
Still feeling the rage swirling within her - even more now that she has realized that Emma truly doesn't have the book and that Henry must've hidden it away somewhere else - Regina turns back around, one of the jackets held away from her body as though it is rat or some other disgusting thing. Her voice is like venom. "Why in god's name do you have so damn many jackets? It can't be because you think they're fashionable. You probably picked them up while you were in jail. Even you aren't stupid enough to think they're anything but hideous. And yet you insist on wearing them all the time - on filling a whole closet with them. Why?"
Regina tosses the jacket to the floor carelessly and that's all it takes for Emma to finally snap. "I didn't need them in jail!" She sweeps the jacket up quickly, pulling it against her chest, practically cradling it to her body. "It was warm there!"
"What?" Regina's confusion slips into her voice just a bit.
"Have you ever been in Chicago in the winter? What about Pittsburgh, or Boston, or god, Minneapolis?" A shudder runs through Emma at just the word, Regina realizes. "Huh?" Emma demands, moving closer to Regina.
The mayor opens her mouth, but finds that she can't make any words come out, not when Emma is looking at her with such anger and pain. She's never been outside of Storybrooke.
"I didn't think so." Emma hisses, turning away for a second, blinking back angry tears. "Well, let me tell you something - it is cold. It is absolutely fuckingfreezing."
And the pieces begin to slowly slide together in Regina's mind at those words. But Emma's already ranting and she has no intention of stopping now.
"When the only thing between you and freezing to death is the canvas roof of a Jeep or the thin metal of a Beetle that's older than you are, or" and here, Emma stops for a minute, a tiny noise slipping from her lips that could be a sob, "a cardboard box," the words are so quiet that Regina actually leans in closer to catch them, "you learn real quick to keep warm in any way you can. But balled up newspaper only goes so far when it's two in the morning and the wind is cutting through the minimal protection your car offers."
She doesn't mention the box, Regina realizes, because it wouldn't afford any protection at all.
"So when I found something that actually kept me warm, yeah, I got a bunch of them. Spent every penny I could scrape together on them. Stole some of them." And Emma's eyes are defiant, daring Regina to make any kind of comment about the things she's done to stay alive all these years without anyone looking out for her or protecting her. "Because they saved my life. And I still have them now, still wear them now, because usually when something -" her eyes fly to Regina's then, "or someone- saves your life, you're thankful for it. In case you were wondering. And because that kind of cold doesn't go away."
Regina blinks at the words. She wants to say something about this sudden revelation, about the realization that Emma had lived in her car through hard winters in various cities with only her damnable jackets for warmth, but she can't come up with anything to say.
"You wanted to know what I enjoyed so much about Tallahassee?" Emma spits the words into Regina's face, a seeming non sequitur that confuses Regina even further. "I didn't have to worry about freezing to death there! Now," Emma's chest rises and falls angrily, "have I answered all your questions, Madam Mayor?"
"I -" Regina nods slowly, unable to say anything else.
"Good. Then get out, before I arrest you for trespassing and vandalism."
"Miss Swan -" She tries weakly.
"Get. Out." Emma seethes.
And looking at Emma, surrounded by the destruction she has wrought, still clinging to the red leather jacket like it was a lifeline, Regina carefully moves away, the apology dying on her lips. It wouldn't be enough anyway.
It isn't until she's back in her own warm car (with the heated seats that she's turned on against a chill that is only in her mind) that Regina thinks about the information Sidney had gathered for her on Emma. She remembers with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, that Emma had been arrested for breaking and entering, although in the police report it clearly stated that the young woman hadn't taken anything, but instead had been found wrapped in a blanket, sitting by a coal burning stove.
I didn't need them in jail! It was warm there!
Emma had gone to prison because she was trying to keep herself and her unborn child - Regina's son - from freezing to death. Regina swallows hard and turns the car in a different direction than originally planned, a new task in mind.
Emma stops short of her desk the next morning when she sees the large white box sitting on it. Frowning, she moves forward, eying it for any signs of who it is from, although in the back of her mind, she already knows.
She waits a good five minutes before she lifts the lid, satisfied that the box isn't moving or ticking and hasn't exploded yet. Her eyes catch on the note first, written in Regina's neat and elaborate script.
Being warm and being stylish do not need to be mutually exclusive. - RM
Emma lifts the note up and a small smile crosses her lips, unbidden. She can practically hear Regina saying the words as she reads them. And then she looks at the coat folded neatly in the box. She pulls it out and can't stop the small gasp that slips from her lips. It's leather too, although of a much higher quality than her own jackets, and it's lined with fur of some kind. It's a gorgeous jacket, Emma can't deny that.
She knows this is the mayor's form of an apology and even though she still feels residual anger and embarrassment from the day before, she also can't help but accept the jacket. Especially not when it's such a nice (and expensive) apology and when she knows that Regina doesn't give them easily.
So she shrugs out of her jacket and slips this one on in its place. It feels amazing - comfortable and warm. Plus, it fits like a glove and looks pretty great too. It certainly doesn't erase everything that's happened between them, but it's a step in the right direction. And as the warmth invades her body, chasing away the cold that still seems to linger in her bones all these years and miles later, Emma finds herself very thankful for it indeed.