"I don't know why, Red, I just don't believe in happily ever afters." Emma took a sip from her hot cocoa and wondered when this had become HER drink? Maybe because ever since Henry had found her it seemed as if her entire life needed a healthy dose of a comfort drink like hot cocoa. She pulled her thoughts form her beverage and looked up into the disbelieving eyes of her friend who was regarding her as if she had grown a third head. Emma had to stop herself from checking; in Storybrooke it wasn't entirely impossible that she had actually grown at least one other head.
"But- but your PARENTS are perfect examples of happily ever after!" Ruby gawked at her as she continued the conversation inadvertently started by a weird reference Belle had made to 'Wuthering Heights'. Emma snapped a retort before thinking.
"I admire my parents and what they have, but who lost their happily ever afters so that they could have theirs? The REAL Prince Charming? Snow's parents? The people whose king went bankrupt? The soldiers who fought and died for them and their families? Regina?" Emma added the last almost as an afterthought but before she could give the addition much thought she heard a loud gasp sound from behind her. She turned with a guilty start hoping it wasn't her parents. As much as she didn't believe in their story she didn't want to hurt them with a thoughtless snappy comment. Instead her eyes fell upon Regina's who quickly look away- but not before Emma could wonder at the array of emotions in the other woman's eyes. She turned back towards Ruby and nursed her drink.
"Wow, Emma, you have some serious issues to work through."
"Yeah, well, you're a werewolf." Ruby laughed and snapped the towel with which she was wiping the counter at Emma. Emma cracked a smile and swiped her to go cup from the counter. "See you later, Red."
Emma ran her hands through her hair with an irritable sigh. She didn't know that being the sheriff of a town as relatively quiet as Storybrooke would have so much frigging paperwork. She checked her watch suspiciously suspecting that the hands were ticking backwards for every two ticks forward. So intent was she on confirming her suspicions that she missed the tell tale click of the mayor's heels coming towards her.
"Ms. Swan, I do believe that the watch is innocent of whatever you suspect it." Emma clawed the air as a small meep passed her lips. Her eyes landed on Regina as she tried to calm her racing heart. Her eyes narrowed at the satisfied smirk on the other woman's lips.
"Madame Mayor, to what do I owe the... pleasure... of your visit?" Emma was satisfied as the mayor's smirk slid off her lips.
"Well I'm certainly not here to witness you shaking down your watch." She smiled as Emma pulled the sleeve of her red leather jacket down over the offensive article. "I'm here for the paperwork the dwarves dropped off concerning the prospective mining operation."
"Oh yeah, Leroy did drop off something now that you mentioned it." She shuffled through the piles of paperwork on her desk as she muttered to herself. Standing, she walked over to her file cabinet and pulled open a drawer only to have several files seem to leap into the air and fall out onto the floor.
"Really, Ms. Swan," Regina began irritably as the papers fell, "I would expect the town's only sheriff to be somewhat more organized. You were entrusted with a grave responsibility."
"Well I wouldn't have been entrusted with the responsibility of keeping up with paperwork intended for you if everyone didn't avoid you like the plague," Emma shot back. "Maybe you should set up a drop box or something for people to use."
"Nonsense. It isn't my concern if the citizens of this town don't have a drop of courage between them."
"Yeah, well you did torture, murder, and enslave them." She turned to see the surprised O of Regina's mouth. "I mean, I'm right, right?"
"Yes, you are CORRECT," Regina said with added emphasis on the word. Honestly, did no one speak proper grammar except her?
"I can't find them." Emma said with a sigh as she shuffled the piles on her desk for the ninth time. "They're here somewhere," she said gesturing to the spectacular mess on her desk. Regina sighed and pulled up a chair.
"Ms. Swan, sit down and let's sort through your paperwork. I really do have to have that file today or I would leave you to your own futile devices."
Emma bit off a snarky retort, acknowledging with her silence the need for assistance. She could hear Regina click her tongue as they sorted through the paperwork, sometimes outright expressing her disbelief at how long something had sat on Emma's desk. They also found the Milky Way that Emma had lost the previous week and she ate it with a happy hum as she continued shuffling paper around.
"For the love of... Ms. Swan, you are just moving paper from corner of your desk to the other. Why don't you take this opportunity to actually finish some of this paperwork and file it properly?"
"Well that would require a proper filing cabinet and uh... well, you see, it's a funny story really, but between breaking curses, saving your life, getting swept away to the Enchanted Forest, etc, I haven't had time to go about, you know, setting up a proper filing system." Regina regarded Emma with cool, dark eyes.
"Well, luckily for you, a lot of this paperwork is coming to me. I am going to hand you items for you to finish and we can work from there."
Emma was content to do as Regina said. It was actually nice to have someone come in and take charge of the mess in her life for once. She would never admit to that in a thousand years, but just today, with a belly full of Milky Way and a terrific view of Regina's legs, she would admit it to herself.
Speaking of which, the mayor's grey skirt was sliding up her leg to a level that allowed Emma to see well up to mid thigh. She silently reprimanded herself for perving on the mayor, but there it was. With her legs crossed the way they were, each time Regina leaned forward her skirt would slide up a bit more. Emma began deliberately moving the papers a little further out of reach. However, as Regina leaned forward to reach for the stack Emma had moved, Emma noticed how the buttons on the mayor's silk shirt flared open and the cleavage dipped. Black lace slipped in and out of view and Emma leaned forward as much as could without drawing attention to herself.
Emma's mind race as she imagined running her tongue down the valley between the mayor's breasts as her hands slipped each of her shirt's buttons free of it's confinement. She dropped her gaze to the mayor's exposed legs and wondered if they felt as silky as they looked. She unconsciously traced her lips with her tongue as she imagined nibbling and licking, a leg over each of her shoulders as she sought out the treasure at the center...
Unfortunately Emma underestimated how far she was now leaning forward in contrast to how much pressure she was placing behind her on her chair... a chair which had wheels. Once the chair remembered how to be a chair with wheels it flew out behind her and Emma dropped to the ground hitting her chin on her desk on the way down. She grabbed anything she could think of to stop her fall and ended up on the ground surrounded by falling papers. She lay stunned, tasting the blood in her mouth from her lip.
"I deserved that," she said softly and then realized Regina was standing and peering over at her a look of surprise lifting her eyebrows.
"Emma! Are you OK?" As Emma grabbed the desk and staggered to her feet with a muttered yes she was surprised as the mayor burst out laughing. "I'm so s-s-s-sorry. You should have seen it!" Regina's shrieks of laughter had the woman doubled over and Emma could only watch in open mouthed amazement. She never knew how delightful the sound of Regina's laughter could be. She found herself smiling in spite of the lump rising on her chin and her busted lip.
"I would have loved to have seen it but I was the one, unfortunately, living it. Glad that you are so concerned," Emma said wryly as Regina's laughter began to trail off into hiccups. Her comment had the woman practically rolling in her chair, feet kicking and all. Emma glared at Regina's chair resentfully as it sturdily maintained position and did it's chairly duty. Regina eyes shone into Emma's as they shared a smile.
"Come with me to the facilities, dear, and let's see if we can clean you up. Honestly, how on earth did you fall out of your chair like that?"
"I don't know," Emma responded as quickly as she could, her words tripping over themselves. "I'm sorry about the paperwork; I know you need that file."
"It's OK, I found it about twenty minutes ago. We were making so much progress and you looked so dedicated I didn't want to stop until we were finished." Regina wet a tissue and began to dab at Emma's chin. Regina was standing so close that Emma could smell what was uniquely her, a smell of jasmine and vanilla. Her breath hitched in her throat as Regina's eyes lifted to hers and, for the first time, Emma noticed the amber in the woman's dark eyes that caught the light. Emma's eyes dropped to Regina's full lips and wanted to dip lower but she stopped herself in time.
"Thanks, but I can handle it," Emma said huskily, taking the tissue from Regina. As she did their fingers brushed and Emma almost groaned at the sensory overload.
"I'm sure you can," Regina said, her own voice husky and colored with some other emotion that Emma decided she wasn't ready to decipher. Emma's hand stalled halfway to her lips at the double entendre but before she could say or do anything further – luckily for her because she was certain it would lead to further embarrassment- Regina grabbed her things and with a called out goodbye, left as quickly as she had arrived.
"Hi, Snow, David," Emma said as she kicked the door closed behind her. Her parents were laughing and talking quietly at the kitchen table engrossed in one another and hadn't heard the door open. Emma could only imagine what sort of conversation would entail so much attention that one wouldn't hear a door open and someone stagger into a room not ten feet away. Maybe the same sort of thing that would cause one to fall out of a chair...
"Emma, darling, we waited dinner for you," Snow said with a smile as she watched her daughter throw her jacket over the newel post. The smile was replaced with a concerned gasp as Emma turned and she saw her lip and chin. "What happened?"
"Regina and I were doing some paperwork-"
"Regina?!" Snow and David both said angrily and at once. "Can't be trusted" and "should have locked her away" soon followed as Emma tried to get their attention.
"Guys, GUYS! HEY!" They both quieted and looked at her. "She didn't do anything. I... fell out of a chair," she said, sitting down in her chair. "Wow, something smells delicious!"
"You, fell out of a chair...", David began and just shook his head as though clearing it.
"No one pushed you?" Snow continued, her hand rubbing soothing circles on Emma's arm. Emma wondered if this is what it would have been like as a child. For the first time she saw the potential her parents had to be helicopter parents and she almost felt lucky.
"No, mom, I promised. I leaned too far forward and the wheels flew backwards and I ended up on the floor. I've never heard Regina laugh like that," she added as an afterthought as Swan shared a look with Charming as though to say "she's YOUR daughter".
Emma's cell rang midway through dinner and Snow stared disapprovingly as Emma answered the call.
"Sheriff, just thought you should know, an out of towner just checked in. Staying in your old room as a matter of fact." Emma bit off the hello she was about to say and thanked Granny for the information.
"Have Red text me the information and I'll run them tomorrow. Call me if anything seems unusual or if they leave."
David and Snow regarded her as she hung up. As her dad and as her deputy David always wanted to know everything that was going on in the town. She supposed that he saw himself as the ruler of the people and wanted to be involved in the protection of them. Snow and David were content to let Regina remain the mayor of Storybrook as no one else had any idea of how she dealt with the outside world, but otherwise the town's decisions were usually made at the table at which they were eating dinner. As the text came in from Ruby Emma relayed the information to her parents.
"Late model red Lincoln, tag blah blah blah, driven by a female, long red hair, has a small terrier, checked in under an obvious pseudonym..."
"Which is?" David asked, trying to keep the impatience out of his voice. Not for the first time Emma could imagine him gathering the torches and pitchforks and hunting down... Regina. The thought made her feel uncomfortable and oddly protective of her role as sheriff and the protector of EVERYONE in town and not just those Prince Charming deemed worthy of protection. Emma sighed and shook her head. She knew that Charming was her father, but it was a lot harder garnering emotions of love for him, much more difficult that it had been with Snow. She supposed it was because she had lived with Snow as Mary Margaret and had grown to love and respect her as a friend. She had seen David as an adulterer who had bounced between two women hurting both. She had a hard time gathering even respect for him much less an emotion like love. Sometimes, though, when she had had a bad dream, she would remember the story Snow had told her of her father holding her carefully and protectively in his arms as he battled Regina's soldiers to send her to what they thought would be safety. David cleared his throat and Emma shook the dark thoughts.
"Dorothy Gale," Emma said.
