When she closes her eyes, squeezes them shut real tight, and just pretends for a second, she can almost believe she actually loves him. Or that she could, at some point, anyway. He's not perfect, not by a long shot, but the truth is that, despite him trying to hurt her once (or maybe twice), his constant borderline misogynistic remarks, and his apparent inability to accept basic personal boundaries, he's not even the biggest asshole she's ever dated. He didn't knock her up and then left her to rot in jail for his bullshit, or turned into a flying monkey and proceeded to try to kill her. Instead, he traded his ship for her, she is his happy ending—he told her before he proposed (down on one knee, diamond ring and all)—and because she is the daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming, and the Savior, and the sheriff, she didn't say no when he asked her to marry him.
That was two months ago. Since then, her mother constantly bugged her with cakes, and flowers, and wedding locations (really, she seems to be more excited about this whole thing than Emma herself which—well, it's kind of true). Nevertheless, she chose some flowers of which Regina told her the name about a thousand times but she still couldn't remember (Regina liked them, though, so whatever), and a three layer chocolate cake for which Regina and her spent a whole day trying about seven thousand different kinds of cakes in this beautiful little store two towns over that Snow found during her extensive internet research. She even went to Boston with Regina and her mother to pick out a ridiculously expensive dress in which she looks like the picture perfect princess she is supposed to be (she hates it, obviously). But Regina, while Snow was busy gushing about how perfect her daughter is with the sales assistant, appeared behind Emma in the changing room and whispered into her ear how beautiful she thinks Emma looks, and Emma's stomach did this funny little flip thing it seems to do an awful lot when the brunette is particularly close nowadays.
And that's the thing, right there. Emma actually started to give a shit (a huge one, to be honest) about Regina's opinion and Regina in general at some point, so it was okay; being in a ridiculous white dress was okay when Regina's breath was on her neck and her fingers on her elbow. She realized too late why everything seems to be okay with Regina around, why, lately, everything is Regina, and Regina, and Regina (it's because she's in love with her).
But now Regina's not here, and everything is awful, and she really doesn't want to do this. She is wearing the dress again, someone spent several hours doing her hair and make up, and, outside, there's a carriage waiting for her—an actual, horse-drawn fairytale carriage—to bring her to the church in which she is supposed to get married today.
But Hook isn't her family, not like Henry and Regina are, anyway. So she doesn't need this, doesn't really want it. She doesn't want to marry some guy who is about four centuries older than her, and eventually start a family with him because that's what you do when you get married (he mentioned having a baby a few weeks back and Emma almost lost it; it took half a homemade apple pie, several glasses of scotch, and a stern pep talk from Regina to get her back into a state of mind in which she didn't feel like running for the hills—she still slept on Regina's couch instead of going home to the apartment she is more or less sharing with Hook, though) when she already has something that, although it might be unscripted and unconventional, feels so much like home and family that, sometimes, she wants to cry from joy when she looks at her son and his other mother during one of their many family dinners.
She feels stupid, so, so stupid, because how did she not realize that she is in love with Regina—has been for ages already, really—before? For the entire duration of her relationship with Hook, she always put Regina first, no matter what. She cancelled dinners, and date nights, and just left without batting an eye the very second the other woman only so much as implied that she needed her. Hell, she even planned her entire fucking wedding to someone else with the brunette, doing lots of awfully couple-y things and pretending that feeding the other mother of her son a bite of strawberry buttercream cake from her own fork is something perfectly normal. Emma justified all that with them being friends, and co-parents, and the dream team that constantly saves the whole town, failing to see the bigger picture: she prefers Regina's company to Hook's by a landslide, and, at this point, she would do literally everything for the other woman. Because she loves her, loves the family they created, with all her heart.
Because of this, Emma doesn't want to leave the apartment, doesn't want to go to that church and do something that she now realized is a major mistake (and generally something she was doing because she felt like she had to).
She wishes Regina was here to tell her that she isn't a completely horrible person for playing the runaway bride, that not getting married today is the right decision and it's not going to completely break her mother's heart.
But everything is just too much; Hook who wants to give her everything (she neither wants nor needs), Snow who loves her (just a little too hard), and Regina who she is almost desperately in love with (although she sometimes wishes she wasn't). All of this, all the expectations and feelings and fate are weighing down on her in a way that makes it impossible to breath.
It all seemed so far away, getting married to someone she loves (kind of) but she definitely isn't in love with but now it's here and it's big and it's real and she really can't do this.
When Regina enters the apartment (because they sent her to check up on Emma when she didn't turn up in time at the church in which basically the whole town is gathered right now), the blonde is on the floor, breathing hard, shaking, and sobbing like crazy. She has never seen Emma quite this broken, not in Neverland, not when faced with the supposedly unstoppable trigger diamond in the mines, not when Henry's father died, or that time she had a panic attack about having children with the pirate. It's the number one most unsettling thing she has ever witnessed.
"I can't—" the Savior cries over and over again like a terrible, terrible mantra, and, for a second, the mayor doesn't know what to do, doesn't know how to react to an Emma so broken and desperate, because this is not who they used to be to each other. This is new and unfamiliar and so utterly raw that she is completely baffled by it. They are friends now, maybe even best friends, sharing dinners, and lunches, and a son but not this, never this. Although they understand each other, they understand each other so damn well, something like this happens rarely or not at all because showing weakness in front of others is still hard for both of them even if it's the person you trust most on this world. When it happens, it's scary, and exhausting, and always ends with them touching—not in a sexual way, but in this inherently comfortable, familiar way that feels like calm, and home, and happy ending.
So the moment she touches Emma, reaches out to careful lay a hand on a bare shoulder, the blonde completely falls apart. Her desperate sobbing turns into a full-on primal cry of tremendous magnitude, there are dried tear tracks on her cheeks while new tears keep falling from her eyes, which keeps smudging her already ruined make up even further. And she looks beautiful through it all with her hair in a braided up do and a white mermaid dress (and Regina hates that all this is for someone else, for this sleazy pirate that left her to die at the hands of Greg Mendell and teamed up with her mother to precipitate them all into ruin).
"I can't breathe. Get me out of this, I can't breathe!" Emma is basically clawing at the dress now, trying to get it off of her body as fast as possible. There's no way she can actually reach the zipper, though, so Regina turns into her most proactive selfand runs her fingers over Emma's shoulders on her way to help. She tries to open the zipper but it won't move and her hands are shaking and there are no scissors around so, without a second thought, she slips her fingers into the top of the dress and rips the fabric apart.
Instantly, Emma takes one deep breath—it sounds a lot like liberation—before she grips Regina's hands resting on her hips and pulls them forward to come together in front of her chest. They're a messy lump of arms, and torsos, and ruined wedding dress on the wooden floor of Emma's apartment, and, for the first time today, the blonde feels like things might be okay at some point in the future.
Regina is crying too now, tear after tear falling onto Emma's bare back, while she nuzzles her nose into the base of Emma's neck (the blonde smells like vanilla and expensive perfume). Her heart is aching for Emma, wishing that she will be able to fix this, to make this okay again. Because she loves Emma, she loves her so much it hurts sometimes (for example when she sees her at the diner with Hook—though, judging by the situation they are currently in, that probably won't happen anytime soon) and she just wants her to be happy. So her arms are tightly wrapped around Emma, her chest pressing into the blonde's back, to somehow mend all the broken pieces back together.
It's a few hours, several ignored phone calls, text messages and voice mails from Snow, and some loud banging on the apartment door with Hook's demand to "open the bloody door, Swan" later, when Regina and Emma are curled up on the couch together. They didn't say a word since Regina made them pancakes while the sun was slowly setting outside earlier, just laid there in silence.
Emma is in between Regina's legs, head resting on her lower stomach, while the mayor absentmindedly combs her fingers through strands of long, blond hair. The whole situation is oddly soothing, and Regina is almost certain Emma has finally fallen asleep, exhausted as she is, when the younger woman opens her mouth.
"You ripped my dress. This thing cost five thousand dollars, Snow is going to be livid." Regina lets out a low chuckle, the picture of a heartbroken Snow White close to tears vivid in her head (although they all get along now, old habits still die hard, apparently). "I promise I'll pay for the next one," she replies without thinking, incredibly relieved that the other woman seems to be on the way back to okay, her fingers still caressing the blonde's skull. Emma moves then, turns her head to look at Regina with a confused expression on her face, before she sits up completely and faces the mayor.
"The next one? I don't think I'll be getting married anytime soon judging by how well today went," she says and shrugs, looking just—defeated. The mayor is quiet for a while, thinking of what to say in return, of how to say it, because she doesn't want to snub Emma. She sighs. "Maybe he was just the wrong person to marry. I know I shouldn't be the one to tell you that, after that whole Robin debacle and everything, but—Emma, you just had a mental breakdown on your wedding day. And Hook—well, I never liked that filthy pirate, anyway."
Emma laughs at that, loud and clear, and it warms the brunette's heart to see her face light up again. "No shit, Regina," she deadpans, the old teasing smile on her lips, before her face morphs back into a more serious expression and Regina instantly gets anxious again.
"He is there, you know? He adores me and he makes me feel, I don't know, wanted or something, like I'm someone's first choice, for once. I mean, I am kind of avoiding him sometimes, and I'm not sure if he even owns more clothes than the ones he's wearing every freaking day, and I definitely wouldn't want to have kids with him, and—" Regina's heart is at the verge of breaking because she understands, she understands all too well. Robin was for her what Hook seems to be for Emma; someone who, although he doesn't fit quite right, is a safe choice, an apparently guaranteed storybook happy ending (because someone else said it's supposed to be, which, for some reason, seemed to be a good enough justification for everything).
Regina reaches for her hand then, intertwines their fingers, and carefully runs her thumb over the other woman's knuckles. There is something incredibly soothing about this physical contact, about them being close and being alone together.
She wants to say something, tell Emma everything ("I love you," "I want us to be a real family," "please never marry anyone else.") but she's still a goddamn coward so she presses her lips together into a thin line instead and focuses her gaze on their connected hands.
That's when Emma takes one deep breath before she decides to just fucking go for it because this day is a complete disaster already, so how much worse can it get, really.
"He's not you but at least he's available." She shrugs and gives the other woman a lopsided smile without looking into her eyes because she said too much, revealed something she can't take back. But instead of rejecting her, instead of leaving—running for the hills and never coming back—Regina just smiles and smiles and smiles.
"Oh, Emma. Stupid, selfless, beautiful Emma," she says, eyes bright and on the brim of tears, before she leans forward and carefully presses her lips to the blonde's mouth.