Truth of the Matter
Summary: A few weeks after Emma brings Marian back from the past, the Hood family appear to have gone missing. Snow and David take it upon themselves to find out if Regina had anything to do with it despite Emma insisting they back off. Mix in a truth serum and you get a seriously pissed off Regina. What else will be revealed?
A/N: This was originally for SQWeek and its only, er, almost exactly a year late. My bad. Enjoy!
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"Oh!" Snow opened the door, seemingly shocked despite the fact that Regina had come over the past two weekends on Sunday to get Henry at this exact same time.
"Good morning," Regina said with a nod.
"Hello. Come in, come in," Snow said hastily.
David echoed his wife's greeting, coming over from the living room where the baby was in a playpen, and Regina nodded a greeting to him as well. She glanced around for the two members of the Charming family she could palate, but neither Henry nor Emma seemed to be downstairs.
As Regina elegantly sat down on one of the stools at the island, Snow asked, "How about some tea?"
Regina eyed the younger woman skeptically, but was evidently too polite to refuse. "Of course."
As she waited, she wondered where Henry and Emma were. Things had improved within their small family after Regina had broken her frigid silence to tell Emma, on top of Marian's return, she also felt angry and betrayed due to Emma's plan to take Henry back to New York even after he had regained his memories. Emma had blanched at that, knowing that wasn't something she could justify to herself as the 'right' thing and she had backed down immediately—ashamed of herself.
Regina seemed to sense that and they'd set up a permanent schedule for Henry, both between themselves and then with his input. Henry had moved back in with Regina full time after Zelena's defeat, staying at the apartment on the weekends only. However, whenever she showed up, Emma made sure to come down too and make some sort of gesture to show that she was still trying to get back into Regina's good graces.
The women were now thawed to an amicable co-parenting state, although both knew this state couldn't last forever. Something was going to have to give—mild and polite were just two things their relationship could never be.
Regina was startled when a cup of tea was placed in front of her, steam rising lightly from it. "Thank you," Regina said automatically. She blew on it lightly and mentally insulted Snow's inability to provide her with sugar or the tea bag so she could steep it herself—and she'd probably made the tea too weak. She is Henry's grandmother, Regina reminded herself, play nice. "What are your plans for the day?" she asked despite knowing the small talk sounded forced, she wasn't going to play that nice.
Snow seemed particularly nervous, hands fluttering anxiously, "Oh, you know. I think David and I are going to take Neal for a walk around the park. It's just such a nice day out. "
Regina nodded along, barely paying attention. She took a cautious sip of the tea, wishing Henry would come down quickly. She would need to go over his homework to make sure it had gotten completed. Although her time with him in New York did seem to mean Emma no longer left her as the sole disciplinarian, Regina was still far stricter and Emma was more likely to let things slide.
She took a long drink of the tea, trying to stop the distaste from showing up on her face. She disliked fruit tea and she'd been right, it was far too weak with some sort of strange aftertaste…
Regina stood up abruptly, glaring into the cup as she began to feel magic running through her. Rage filled her as she slowly looked up, her furious gaze meeting Snow's fearful and guilty one.
"What. Did you put. In my tea?" Regina asked through gritted teeth.
"Nothing bad," Snow tried to reassure her, although she did have the good sense to begin to regret her decision. "Just a truth potion."
"What." Regina's voice was positively deadly.
"Look, we just want to make sure that you had nothing to do with Robin, Marian, and Roland's recent disappearance," David tried to explain as he moved to his wife.
"So you drugged me!" Regina snapped, unable to contain her anger and wondering why she was trying to. "You ignorant, thoughtless, invasive brat!"
Emma rushed down as soon as she heard the raised voices. She came down to the sight of Snow, backed by David across from an obviously enraged Regina who looked about ready to set them both on fire. "Whoa!" All three turned to look at her. "What did you guys say to her?"
It was hard pressed to say who was most surprised when the blonde turned to glare accusingly at her parents instead of Regina, but it shouldn't have been. Emma had made her feelings about whether or not Regina had anything to do with what happened to Robin and his family quite clear last night when she told them to back off and let her do her job instead of baselessly accusing Regina. It was obvious that they hadn't listened to her at all.
Emma had promised herself that she would earn back from Regina every speck of the trust she'd lost and more, making sure she was on Regina's side—no matter what. In this case, she barely even needed to think about it to know Regina was completely innocent. She folded her arms over her chest and gave her parents a look that clearly said 'I'm waiting'.
Once Regina saw that they weren't going to confess, she spat, "They, quite illegally, drugged me."
"What?" Emma rose a number of octaves. Now she looked furious too, "Please tell me this is a misunderstanding and you didn't roofie the mother of my child!"
"Nothing like that!" Snow protested. "It's just so that she can't lie. A truth serum."
"It's harmless," David added earnestly. "Now we can find out for sure if she had anything to do with Marian's disappearance."
"God," Emma said as she made her way over to them. "They really are naïve idiots."
Regina tried to push the warmth she felt at hearing Emma call her "the mother of my child" as well as someone actually defending her for once in her life to the side so she could focus. "Yes, they really are. Where did you even get truth serum?"
"Blue gave it to me," Snow supplied readily.
Regina's eyes narrowed, "I should have known. That blue bitch is always trying to screw me over."
Everyone in the room blinked at that uncharacteristic phrasing.
"How terrible, she's included babbling concentrate and something to suppress filtering." She closed her eyes as if trying analyze the effect of the magic moving through her. "An inhibition lowerer, the feather of a lovebird for weightlessness." Her eyes opened and she glared at Snow again, "Not only do I have to tell the truth, but I'll be unable to remember why I shouldn't for who knows how long and I'll be strongly compelled to answer any direct question asked of me. You don't betray people's trust halfway, do you?"
Snow attempted to sputter out a response to that, but Regina merely raised her hand, "Save it. I have no interest in hearing your petty excuses."
Emma rubbed her forehead, beyond frustrated with her interfering parents—she really needed to find her own apartment. "I already told you guys to back off with the Hood situation. We don't even know they're missing, just that they haven't been to town these past few days."
"But Leroy—!"
"That drunk dwarf doesn't know anything!" Emma replied, fed up with Snow's favoritism.
"Emma! He is a very close friend—"
"I don't care if he's friends with the Pope. And even if something did happen to them, Regina wouldn't do anything like that. Especially not anything that would hurt Roland."
"You know what," Regina spoke up. "Why don't you two imbeciles just ask your questions so you can stop worrying and I can prove exactly how wrong you are?"
"Do you have anything to do with Robin, Marian, and Roland disappearances?" Snow asked formally.
"Well," Regina began, the potion forcing her to be truthful and accurate, "I can't really know what their motivations were, but no. I did not knowing perform any direct or indirect action that in any way led to their being missing."
"So you didn't try to hurt any of them?" David wanted to clarify.
"Of course not," Regina scoffed. "I have no reason to."
"Well, I wouldn't say no reason," Snow said with a frown and pitying eyes. "After all, aren't you upset with Robin for choosing Marian over you? Or Marian for coming back to take him from you?"
"I was upset, but that had to do with the nature of the situation, not Robin or Marian themselves. Of course Robin would chose his wife and his child's mother over the woman he's only been dating a few days."
"But if you're not angry, then why…?"
Regina was having trouble remembering that she didn't want to tell them anything else personal. The truth ended up spilling out, "I was hurting. You can know no one is at fault and still be in pain because of their actions. I thought he was my only chance at a romantic relationship ever again, my 'soulmate'. Obviously, I would mourn that."
"You make it sound like that's not actually true."
"It's not and he's not and that's the main reason I'm not as angry or upset as I was originally."
"He's not? How do you know?"
"A few weeks ago, I researched the spell Tink performed when she located him and discovered it had a number of flaws in it. I used my own magic to check."
"Well, that's wonderful!" Snow beamed, clasping her hands together. "Now you can find your real true love!"
"Oh, do stop with that. We don't all get true loves, you silly little girl. I wasn't wrong when I thought he was my only chance at a romantic relationship, after all, who else is going to love me that way?"
"Oh, don't say that Regina. I know there's someone out there for you. Someone you can love and who will love you. I just know it." How Snow could go from sure enough that Regina had done something 'evil' to drug her, back to positive she deserved her happy ending because she was just so good was ridiculous.
"Well, you're half right." Some aspects of the potion were wearing off, Regina's own magic fighting the potion off as well as it could. She was already beginning to regain the part of her mind that highly prized her privacy. Wanting to change the topic, she glanced at her watch. "Where is Henry?"
"He was too tired last night from our hike so he's taking a shower now," David said.
"You let him go to bed still filthy?" Regina was overdoing the scorn a bit, she just desperately wanted them to change the subject. "Isn't that just like a shepherd? This is why I am the only legitimate parent in this room. Honestly."
Emma rolled her eyes, but let it go while David just shrugged, "It's not like we rolled down muddy hills."
"You at least checked him over for ticks before you sent him to bed, yes?"
"Of course we did," Emma reassured her.
"You said I was half-right, right?" Snow said slowly.
"Yes," escaped from Regina's mouth despite her attempts to keep it shut. Of course Snow would have picked up on her phrasing.
"So that means…." Her eyes narrowed and then widened before she looked back at her former step-mother. "That you love someone else? Who!?"
"Obviously,—" Regina's hand clamped over her mouth, her eyes widening in horror. She took a few deep breathes, lifted her hand slightly, before clamping it back down. She gave Snow the harshest glare Emma had ever seen, she hadn't even looked so angry after Emma had taken a chainsaw to her tree. Uh-oh.
Then her eyes brightened and she pulled her hand away, a vicious smirk on her face and she began, slowly at first, to yell in … Spanish?
Emma knew some Spanish, but mostly just "have you seen this man" and curse words—so she did actually get some of what Regina was saying. Most of it she didn't though, especially not at the speed Regina was speaking. She caught Snow's name and a few random words, but nothing to really piece together what she was saying, not that Emma tried very hard. It was actually a really ingenious way to get around the truth serum since she was, most likely, still telling the truth, just in a way that no one could understand.
Regina was clearly enjoying her ability to yell at Snow without being understood when she was cut off by a new voice.
"Mom!?"
Regina spun faster than Emma did and the blonde had no idea how she hadn't given herself whiplash. The brunette had gone unnaturally pale under her tan skin and looked as if there was a firing squad on the bottom step instead of their son. "Henry! I'm sorry, dear. How long have you been standing there?"
"Uh…" was all the shocked boy could get out.
"Henry…" Regina's voice was half dread, half warning.
"What's going on?" Henry's mouth closed and his brow furrowed. "Why were you speaking Spanish? And why were you saying that you—?" That's when Emma made the connection—Henry had understood at least some of what Regina had been saying.
"Henry, please!" Regina looked desperate as she spoke quickly. "Your grandmother dosed me with a truth potion. She was trying to get me to admit something I didn't want to share so I spoke in Spanish to avoid telling her. Please, don't repeat what you heard until we're alone."
"Why…" He scrunched up his face as he tried to catch up to what was going on. "Why would you do that?" he asked, turning to his grandmother.
"We were concerned she had something to do with Robin and his family going missing," Snow admitted. "So I gave her a truth potion."
"So you were telling the truth, you really like…" Henry began before trailing off.
"Henry…." Regina's voice was pleading and that made Emma feel extremely uncomfortable, how could Snow have put Regina in this position again?
"But… I don't understand," Henry continued. "How—? You always… And there was…"
Regina wrung her hands together, "Henry, things like this are complicated. They aren't always straight forward."
"For how long?"
"On and off for a while now," Regina admitted, wincing slightly as the words left her lips. Emma felt like a voyeur and was glad when Regina asked, "Please don't ask me any more questions now. I'll tell you whatever you want to know, but in private. If we leave now I won't even wait until the spell wears off, but not here in front of…" she trailed off but gestured around the room.
Henry seemed to suddenly remember who else was in the room. His eyes landed on Emma and she expected he wanted her advice, "But you should—"
"Henry, I think you should keep whatever you heard to yourself until you can talk to your mom in private," Emma said firmly.
"But—" Henry began.
"No 'but's. Your grandmother completely violated your mom's privacy." Emma gave Snow an angry look that made the other woman shrink slightly before she turned back to her son. "Anything you've learned from this is like getting something by cheating. It doesn't count."
Regina nodded, "We can talk in the hallway right now, dear, alright?"
Henry looked from one mother to the other before acquiescing with a slow nod, "Alright."
After mother and son left, the door shutting behind them, Emma rounded on the couple with her hands on her hips feeling as though she was the parent instead of them.
"We just wanted to be sure…" Snow began to defend before trailing off at Emma's glare.
Emma crossed her arms, "Yeah, well, you don't get to go around drugging people for your personal peace of mind. Do you even remember the last time you were so sure of Regina's guilt and I wasn't? How I knew it didn't add up and you kept pushing until I thought she did—when it turned out I had been right along?" The couple seemed to shrink with each rhetorical question. "Well it's not happening again, god. And I think I'm stubborn."
Emma began pacing in her frustration, "And how could you ask her to tell something she obviously didn't want anyone to know when she had no control over herself?"
"It just came out! It's not like it could really hurt anyone," Snow pouted.
"Yes, because it worked out so well the last time a kid found out who she was secretly in love with," Emma said, giving Snow a significant look.
Snow flinched at that. "I didn't think—"
"Clearly. Regina is right, what is with us? How is it every time she starts getting her life together, doing the right thing—her life almost gets ruined or it actually does get ruined?" Emma shook her head at the unfairness of the universe. "Whatever, the point is, you need to butt out of her personal life. We all do, unless she asks. You know how private she is, in what universe did you think making her spill her secrets could possibly end well?"
Emma held up her hand when it looked like the other woman was actually going to try to answer her, "I don't even want to know, you just go take care of your baby—both of you—while I give her Henry's bag and try to fix your mess. Go."
The pair quietly shuffled out of the room. Emma went over to the foot of the stairs to grab the bag Henry had dropped. She sighed, how did things always end up so wrong?
After giving it a few minutes, Emma knocked on their front door. There was a pause before a faint "Yes?" came from the other side.
Emma opened the door into the hallway, "Sorry, I just didn't want to interrupt and overhear something you didn't want me to hear."
Regina visibly relaxed, "It's alright, thank you for your consideration."
"Got Henry's bag," Emma held it up for her.
"I sent him along to the car to wait. I'm afraid he's rather confused right now. Doesn't understand why I—" She shook her head.
There was a pause.
"So you speak Spanish?" Emma said, not knowing what to say after the disaster of what had just happened, but wanting to get back to a more neutral topic.
"Yes. I had a lot of time during the curse. I already look as though I would be Latina so I thought I would learn. Not that I use it often," she shrugged, rather too embarrassed to admit she mostly used it to watch telenovelas. "I speak French too, not that I've had much actual practice with that either. I'm sure my accent is atrocious. Spanish simply came to my mind quicker and I've known it longer. I can say a few stock phrases in several other languages as well. I used to tell myself that I would actually explore this world one day."
"And you taught Henry Spanish?" Emma asked as she filed that travel information away to think about another day.
"Some," Regina replied. "It was a game we played when he was younger. He's had it in school since kindergarten."
Emma nodded, "In New York too. Explains why he did so well at it since my memories didn't tell me that he had had it when he was younger."
A mildly awkward silence descended as they ran out of small talk, which had never really been their forte.
Regina was the one who broke it, "I wanted to thank you for not prying and for everything you said in there. It meant a lot to me." She winced a little at the end, as if she hadn't meant to say quite that much or at least with such sincerity.
Emma smiled, "You're welcome, although I really shouldn't get brownie points for not being a jerk."
"I suppose." Regina managed to keep to herself that in her life, simply not being a jerk, certainly did seem like it deserved special mention given that it had happened so rarely.
"Why is Henry confused?" Emma blurted out, unable to keep the question to herself.
Regina didn't look offended, simply relieved Emma hadn't asked anything more revealing. "He'd really only gotten part of what I said, but it was enough for him to realize that I had feelings for someone and just who that someone is. He doesn't understand how I act and how I feel seem so contradictory, as I've tried hard to keep my feelings to myself. He also thinks I should tell them and doesn't understand why I won't."
"Ahh. Kid still sees things a little simply, right?" Emma replied with a nod.
"Precisely. And it's not as though I haven't considered it, I've just thought better of it in the light of day—and after I've sobered up.
Emma laughed, "I definitely know that feeling. I broke up with Hook for a bunch of reasons—"
"Such as the fact that he is an unconscionable douchebag?" Regina couldn't keep that truth in if she had tried, which she hadn't.
Emma laughed again, "That was part of it. But also because I realized I didn't just not have feelings for him, but also because I realized I had feelings for someone else."
"Oh," Regina blinked, clearly not having expected that. "I hadn't realized that you were dating someone new."
"Oh, I'm not," Emma held her hands out. "Remember? Thinking better of confessing unrequited feelings and all that?"
Regina nodded automatically, "Right, of course." She frowned and allowed some of the truth through without trying to stop it, "I suppose it often feels as the though the whole town loves you so that wouldn't be as big of a concern for you."
Emma laughed, "Yes, well, saving people from curses does give you pretty good PR." She rubbed the back of her neck, an almost sheepish expression on her face, "But they don't really know me, most people don't. I wouldn't want to be with anyone who thought of me as "the savior" or any of that crap."
Regina nodded empathically, "I understand perfectly. I do not wish to be with anyone who sees me as the Evil Queen, or at least, not only as the Evil Queen."
"Regina, you're not the Evil Queen anymore. Anyone who can't get that through their head wouldn't be worth your time," Emma said firmly, needing the other woman to know just how much Emma knew she deserved her happy ending.
Regina smiled softly at her, "I know, that's one of the reasons I love you." Both women's eyes went wide at the words that just left Regina's mouth. Had she really just said that? How could she have let that slip? Emma just made it so easy, it was a miracle Regina had lasted as long as she had with the way Emma and her green eyes normally got her saying things she hadn't meant to.
Regina looked so completely horrified that Emma immediately began to apologize. That Regina had confessed her feelings had registered, but the who had not, "I'm so sorry! I swear I wasn't trying to make you tell—wait a minute. Did you just say you love me? Like, love me, love me?"
"I…" Regina sighed, it was no use. The secret was out there. "Yes. I did."
"I'm sorry, but you're in love with me?" Emma repeated as if she still couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
Now Regina frowned, "I already said that. I apologize, but it is not as if I planned this."
"No, crap, wait," Emma was finally catching up with the situation and realized Regina was probably angry or hurt or both. "I didn't mean, I just mean I didn't expect, I—"
"I can see that." Regina's walls were slamming up faster than ever, potion be damned. "I think it's time I take my lea—"
No!" Emma grabbed Regina's shoulder, putting enough pressure into the action to turn Regina back to face her before letting go. "I'm doing this all wrong, I'm trying to say I love you too!"
Regina blinked, convinced she was hearing things. Was that a side effect of the potion? "What?"
"I should have started with that, right? I'm sorry, I suck at this." Emma ran her fingers through her hair, a light flush on her cheeks, "Here's the thing, I just didn't expect you to ever return my feelings cuz you're you and I'm me and…"
"You love me?" Regina said, not realizing how much her own reaction mirrored Emma's.
"Yeah," Emma shoved her hands in her pockets and stood in front of Regina looking adorably sheepish.
"Oh." Then Regina was crowding Emma back against the wall, her eyes darkening as they darted between Emma's eyes, as if still gauging her sincerity, and her lips, as if unable to help herself. Emma stared equally entranced, her breath shallowing, as Regina unconsciously licked her lips.
"I really want to kiss you right now," Regina said, her voice an octave lower than normal. Emma's nod was stopped by the pressure of full red lips on her own.
Emma's hand cupped Regina's cheek while the other wound around her waist, pulling her even closer and relishing in the warmth of the other woman's body against her own. Regina's hands buried into Emma's luxurious blonde curls, something she's been wanting to do for longer than she would ever admit, even under the lingering effects of the truth serum.
They pulled away, panting, but still close enough that their lips brushed every few seconds, enjoying the closeness too much to venture further than the scant space needed to breathe. "As much as I would like to continue this," Regina began, her voice husky. "Henry is waiting in the car and your parents are on the other side of that door."
Emma knocked her head back against the wall with a slight groan. "Yeah, I know. I don't want to go back in there though." I want to stay with you, was unsaid but still heard.
Regina's eyes softened, "Then don't. Come home with myself and Henry. We can have lunch."
Emma gave her a small smile. "Yeah?"
"Yes. I'm fairly certain if I let you out of my sight, I'll start thinking I imagined this."
Emma smiled, "That good, huh?"
Regina lightly smacked Emma on the arm. "Don't start."
"Fine." As she moved from her position crowding Emma against the wall with a last short kiss, Emma's stomach growled lightly causing the blonde to blush. "You said something about food?"
Regina rolled her eyes as she ran a hand through her hair and checked her lipstick. "You and Henry are ruled by your stomachs, honestly."
"Good thing you're such a good cook then," Emma shot back as she followed the other woman down the stairs.
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A/N: I haven't forgotten about S&W at all, in fact its constantly at the back of my mind guilting me, but I just have the most masive writers block for it. So right now I'm focusing on my SQBB and once that first draft is done, I promise S&W will get written-no matter what.I do have a few other one-shots I might polish off (and as always I have like 20 other stories ideas in various stages of completion and length). I'm really working hard these next few months to get a lot of writing done though. Wish me luck!
I hope you enjoyed this story, all reviews, favorites, and follows are very appreciated!