This is my first fic in, well, forever, so bear with me. I've been shipping Swan Queen like crazy recently and just had to write something.
Takes place right after episode 2x12.
The gentle sunlight that streamed in through the window woke Emma gradually and incrementally. She became aware of her surroundings little by little as her thick drowsiness began to ebb. Her body was warm, not, as she slowly realized, from the sunlight, but from a solid figure tucked underneath her arm and pressed against her body. It radiated heat and an alluring aroma that evoked feelings of safety, contentment, and happiness in Emma. She snuggled closer and breathed in the scent deeply, causing soft hairs to tickle her nose. Emma nuzzled her head deeper into that soft hair...
And suddenly, she snapped out of her drowsiness and woke with a start, discovering, to her horror, that the figure she embraced like a lover was Regina!
Regina lay awake, with a crippling uncertainty clawing at her mind that kept her from sleep. An uncertainty that stemmed from the sleeping form in the guest room down the hallway—her mother.
Had she been wrong to trust her mother, to accept her back into her life, after what she had done to get herself there? She'd left her broken. Not to mention everything, all the things her mother had done to her in the span of her life. Why should this time be any different? Why should she be deserving of her trust now, why should she deserve to have her daughter back? Yet at the same time, despite the alarms going off in her mind, Regina wanted so desperately to believe that her mother, just like her, was trying to redeem herself. And she wanted someone she could call family again. She wanted it so desperately, but her past and her childhood memories, held her back. They shattered this illusion of her mother—loving and reformed—every time she revisited them.
But Cora had promised to get Henry back.
And all Regina really wanted anymore was her son.
That was what made it so difficult to give in to her mother's untrustworthy past—to turn her in right then and there and reclaim her innocence. Though she was manipulative and cruel, her mother was powerful and if it was in anyone's power to regain her son, it was Cora. But would he love me then? Could Cora truly recapture her son's love, or merely his presence?
If Henry knew that she was innocent of the terrible crime her mother had committed in her guise, would that make him trust her again? Emma would have no excuse to keep her son from her then, and Henry could come back. Henry could see how hard she was trying to change, to be good for him.
I'm considering trading my mother for my son, Regina realized. What kind of person was she, to barter with her family? There was not even a guarantee that turning in her mother would bring things back to the way they used to be with Henry, before Emma came to Storybrooke. Sure, turning in her mother would surely win some of the town's trust and her innocence would force the Charmings to let her have her son back. But to side with her—they would be unstoppable. And she had promised Henry. A guarantee.
That was, of course, if her mother wasn't playing some cruel game with her. The consequences of teaming up with Cora and her plan to get Henry back failing, or turning out to be a trap, would be devastating. Whether she proved her innocence or not, the Charmings would take it as a sign that she was turning back into who she had been before and they would never let her have her son back. Did she trust her mother enough to risk that? She remembered that night again, where her mother had taken Daniel from her, and how she'd tricked her into thinking she'd cared about what made her happy for once. Could a woman such as that ever change? Regina wasn't even completely sure that she herself could.
Regina was feeling, and far from the first time, completely and wholly alone. What was different this time was that she felt so uncertain. Before, she surely would have begun concocting another marvelous scheme to enact her revenge, but now she was beginning to understand that her previous plots for revenge and plans to regain her admiration, would never allow her to attain what she had truly lost—love.
The recent presence of her mother had done nothing to ease the crippling solitude she felt. Without the presence of Henry, her house felt suffocatingly empty. She didn't want to stay here a second longer, not with the reminders of what she had lost everywhere. I could leave. I could leave right now and tell everyone that it was Cora and I could try to fix things…again, a rash voice sounded in her head. But how could I do that? How could I betray the only family I have left?
The battle taking place in Regina's mind made her want to scream. Why couldn't she just do something? Why couldn't she just get her son back?
She continued to ponder for what felt like hours, considering the possibilities laid out before her, yet no matter how hard she tried she couldn't shake off the memory of her mother killing Daniel, of her ripping out her true love's heart. She would take the chance over the guarantee, she realized, rather risk a recurrence of that moment. Love is weakness, Regina. She couldn't trust her mother and her mother couldn't love her. Regina was a fool to think she could. She refused to let herself feel the same vulnerability wither that she had had in the car with her again.
She refused to let Cora break her.
And so, Regina slipped quietly out of her empty house, leaving to find the Sheriff and start to fix her problems by giving up the mother that had never truly cared for her. She half expected to have her mother catch her sneaking out, just as she had done with Daniel all those years ago, but she was not stopped.
Going to see the Sheriff, she realized, meant the possibility that she would have to deal with the "two idiots", as she had oh so charmingly nicknamed David and Mary Margaret. After all, the whole Charming family lived under the same roof now. Yet she smugly relished the possibility of waking them rudely from their sleep this late at night. And Emma, being the Sheriff, she'd have to deal with, but she supposed that she'd just have to handle the golden-tressed honorary idiot that Henry had taken to so strongly.
The knock on the Charming's door was so timid that at first Emma didn't hear it, despite being the only member of the household well awake at this hour, being kept from sleep worrying about this favor she owed Rumple and what it might entail. It was only Regina's last knock, right as she was about to leave, that finally caught her attention.
She opened the door to find Regina's uncharacteristically nervous form standing in her doorway—the last person she would have expected to find.
"Regina?" she asked incredulously "…What are you doing here?"
"I have some evidence. Evidence to prove I didn't commit that crime. It—" the woman paused, her mouth seemingly uncertain of what words to form, "I just need a few days to get it together."
"Regina, wait! We know it was Cora! We found Archie, he told us everything. I…I knew you didn't do it. I believed you." Emma had been so relieved to find out the truth and know that her intuitions hadn't been wrong. Especially, she'd been pleased to know that Regina hadn't given up on trying to change. Emma smiled gently and Regina couldn't help but smile back, but it didn't last long before it was replaced with an expression of irritation and resentment.
"Archie's alive!? But…why wasn't I told sooner?" She responded harshly.
"There was an emergency at the hospital and we couldn't leave!" Emma's smile fell slightly as Regina acknowledged the excuse with narrowed eyes.
"I want to see Henry." She demanded. "He knows that I'm innocent now, I assume. I want to see my son."
"I'm not waking Henry up at…2:00 in the morning so you two can "catch up". He needs his sleep." Emma retorted.
"I want to see my son."
"And you can see him when he wakes up. Until then…" Emma opened the door wide, jokingly beckoning Regina in, "You can make yourself at home."
Ignoring Emma's falsely warm invitation, Regina entered the apartment, her arms crossed over her chest, making it clear that she had no intention of leaving.
"And… you took me up on that offer." Emma mumbled, "That was kind of a joke, you know."
"You offered, I accepted. I'm not leaving here until I can talk with Henry. And if I have to wait here until he wakes up, I'll do that."
"Alright, fine!" Emma snapped, Regina's insistence starting to get on her nerves. "I'm going to bed. And there's nowhere for you to sleep unless you want the other side of my bed."
Emma regretted that offer the moment it escaped her lips, knowing for sure that the other woman would accept again, just to get under her skin.
"I'll take it." Regina replied with a sly smile.
Of course.
"Fine! Make yourself at home!"
Though she thought she had done a good job of passing it off as such, Regina hadn't really just asked for the bed space in order get under Emma's skin. In truth, what she wanted more than anything right then was the escape from her world of uncertainty, confusion, and dilemmas that sleep would provide, even if only momentary. Provided, of course, that she could manage to fall asleep, curled up at the edge of this stranger's cold bed. They know that it was Cora… She'd made the snap decision to protect her mother in the end, which she was still not sure why she'd done, but it hardly mattered now. They may not know where Cora was now—Regina would have to get her out of her house somehow, she realized—but they'd find her soon enough. And as terrible as that was, it filled Regina with a sense of relief. At least the decision wasn't hers anymore. She wouldn't have to choose between mother or child or the possibility of both because her child was being chosen for her. Before she wouldn't have appreciated having her choosing ability taken away from her, but now she was grateful for anything to take the edge off her uncertainty.
A sudden rustling of the covers came from the other side of the bed, distracting Regina from her thought. Apparently Emma was a restless sleeper, she noted as she watched the other woman fidget and roll over, obviously fast asleep. Her rolling over brought her closer and closer to Regina's side of the bed and each time she advanced, Regina's annoyance with her grew. On top of everything, she's a bedhog too. Lovely. Doing her best to ignore her, Regina laid her head back down on the pillow. Yet suddenly, rolling over one last time, Emma ended up shockingly close to her, with her warm body pressed up against Regina's back. Regina froze, shocked by the other woman's immediate presence, unsure of what she should do. Turning her head again, Regina observed that Emma was still deep in sleep and probably had no idea of her actions. Definitely had no idea, if their long-standing rivalry said anything.
She did say that she had believed me, though.
Regina tried to nudge Emma away with her shoulder, but the sleeping woman refused to budge, pressing her warmth even closer to Regina. Of all the annoying things! And yet it felt strangely comforting, Regina admitted warily. It had been so long since Regina had enjoyed close companionship such as this, even if one of the members wasn't consciously partaking. Emma's warmth made the unfamiliar bed feel less unwelcoming.
Another gentle nudge did nothing to remove her unexpected company, but it didn't bother Regina as much this time. There was something about Emma's close presence that helped ease her loneliness, and even made her feel, somehow, loved. Stop being ridiculous. The restless sleeper had no love for her—the woman who had caused so much death, destruction, and misery and whom she didn't even consider a fit mother for her own son. Not even what she was asleep.
She believed me, though.
Nevertheless, Regina closed her eyes, allowing the escape from loneliness that Emma's warm presence somehow managed to provide envelop her. She couldn't protest when Emma unconsciously draped her arm over Regina's body, her presence surrounding her even more now, feeling strangely like home, yet coming from the most unexpected source. Regina found herself finally able to surrender to sleep.
The gentle sunlight that streamed in through the window woke Emma gradually and incrementally. She became aware of her surroundings little by little as her thick drowsiness began to ebb. Her body was warm, not, as she slowly realized, from the sunlight, but from a solid figure tucked underneath her arm and pressed against her body. It radiated heat and an alluring aroma that evoked feelings of safety, contentment, and happiness in Emma. She snuggled closer and breathed in the scent deeply, causing soft hairs to tickle her nose. Emma nuzzled her head deeper into that soft hair...
And suddenly, she snapped out of her drowsiness and woke with a start, discovering, to her horror, that the figure she embraced like a lover was Regina! She froze, her mind racing to understand this situation—how she had ended up like this—with Regina—in her bed. Logically, she assured herself that she had just rolled over in her sleep and responded to the warmth on the other side of the bed, but that rational conclusion solved no problems. She was struggling to silence that part of her mind reminding her of the state of bliss she had found herself in snuggled next to Regina.
How ridiculous! Emma didn't even know if this woman was trustworthy. She had seen how much she was trying to change, but could that erase all of the terrors she had caused in her past? A woman whose rage had been so profound that she had cursed the inhabitants of this town with a terrible fate. The two tolerated each other, for Henry, and that was it, she tried to tell herself. And yet Regina's scent still lingered in her nose, her warmth in her bones, and her blissful proximity in her mind.
She slowly and gently untangled herself from Regina's still-sleeping form, so as not to wake her and enlighten her to the situation. She rolled back over to her side of the bed, back to the lonely edge where she had fallen asleep last night. She stared numbly at the other woman's back, which unhurriedly expanded and contracted with breath. Her mind told her to shut her eyes and just forget about this, so that maybe she could pass it off as an odd dream, but she remained fixated on the gentle curve of Regina's body and her dark, sleep tousled hair that her head had rested in only moments before.
What is happening to me?
Just as Emma was about to turn over and force herself to fall back asleep, a sudden movement from the other side of the bed startled her. She shut her eyes, doing her best to make herself appear fast asleep, despite the tension in her muscles, as she heard the rustle of the covers. The noise soon ceased, however, and after a long period of silence punctuated only by deep and steady breaths, Emma opened her eyes to find that Regina had only turned over to lay on her other side. In sleep, the regal, terrifying woman's face was shockingly peaceful and innocent. It was her mouth, Emma decided, that no longer took the form of a scowl or a wicked grin, but was relaxed, rounded, and opened slightly. It wasn't angry, sad, smiling, or frowning, but simply peaceful, despite even the scar on her upper lip, which Emma had considered another testament to her wickedness.
Emma felt almost dazed, stunned by these newfound feelings she felt for the woman lying beside her. They're nothing, perhaps only the remnants of some odd dream you can't remember, her mind told her, still trying to rationalize it away, but her body, which still remembered the feeling of Regina's form against it, whispered otherwise.