Disclaimer: Not mine
Will you still love me
The sun sept through half closed blinds and traveled up a pale arm that was circling an already awake brunette who smiled contently before turning her back towards the window. The rays warmed the back of her head as the sun continued to rise and her smile broadened when the blonde woman in front of her murmured something before nuzzling her skin with her nose for a second, still too deep in her sleep to register that the day had arrived.
The night had been long, full of nerves, of whispered promises and bubbled laughs that transformed into happy tears when they realized that they were just a step away from finally being a married couple. Regina chuckled as she recalled how Emma had admitted to her that she had been pinching herself from the past week, trying to be sure that everything was real instead of a dream.
But it wasn't a dream and Regina raised the arm that wasn't between the mattress and her own body, and touched Emma's soft cheeks and full pink lips that parted ever so slightly whenever the woman exhaled with the tips of her fingers. Emma was beautiful; so much that Regina felt an ache in her heart knowing that the woman in front of her loved her willingly, without any doubt.
"Maybe you aren't the savior" Regina recalled saying that to Emma when she had proposed "But you are the person who saved me"
The brunette swallowed, feeling a sob threatening to explode on the back of her throat as she kept staring at Emma, the pale cheeks slightly pink and puffy because of the amount of tears both of them had spilled last night between old stories and the promise of many new ones.
The sun kept rising and even if Regina knew that they needed to be up soon she kept staring Emma's brilliant hair and the way it shone when the sun rays caressed her mane, the laugh marks and early wrinkles that appeared under the impassible light made her face look more perfect to Regina's own eyes since those marks revealed how much Emma had lived before and after meeting her.
She kissed Emma's cheek feeling every year that she had passed without her and wondering how much she had truly changed- both externally and internally- until she had admitted the unavoidable true of how much she loved the woman in front of her. She also wondered how much they were both going to change as the future passed and teach them.
She looked at her hand and tried to imagine it wrinkled, older, wiser maybe. She tried to imagine that hand holding Emma's equally older hand and caressing it full of the same warmth she now felt under the sun rays in the morning of their wedding day. She thought if they were going to feel, to be, the same for the other as years, magic and possible threats tried to take them away from the path they had both created.
With anyone but Emma she would feel insecure, still unable to forgive herself fully of everything she had done and created but as the blonde woman started to move, eyelids fluttering open and a soft smile parting those pink lips Regina felt herself arriving to the home she had craved ever since she had been a child.
Touching the blonde's soft yet strong and warm naked body Regina smiled and kissed those lips, molding herself against Emma as a tear rolled down her cheek, feeling Emma's hands holding her tightly against her still sleepy self.
"Will you love me?" She heard herself said moving away from Emma's tempting mouth, green eyes shining and changing her shade under her own trembling pupils. "No matter what, will you?"
Emma nodded, still too tired to react with full words but her eyes open and tender making Regina tremble when the blonde woman took one of her hands and kissed where the engagement ring stood proudly, the one she had given to her after their shared proposal.
In the enchanted forest everything was about heroic deeds and true loves written by fate and yet, as Emma's piercing eyes touched hers Regina saw the image of them, many, many years in the future holding each other with wrinkled faces and stronger souls, with white hair and a life lived alongside the other making both of them happy while being just themselves, the girl who had become the evil queen and the girl who had been designated to be the savior.
Minutes passed by and the sun rose even more, birds chirping now at the other side of the window and Regina could see that even if her mother had taught her than the most important thing in a woman was her beauty Emma's own beauty wasn't because of her body but of what she had inside, the strength, the humanity she had, the one she had shown in every step of her journey.
"I love you" She muttered, her mind still racing with many mornings just the two of them, with many shared meals and awful jokes, with many, many banters and playful kisses, with tears once Henry leave their home, with magic lessons and some angry words that were going to be forgiven just as quickly as they would said them. With a life full of moments, so full that she couldn't imagine them all without feeling strange.
"Love you too" Emma replied, her lips still grazing her knuckles lovingly "Always"
Regina hugged the blonde, every limb of hers interlacing with Emma's until she covered the woman's body completely with all the words she felt unable to say but knew that they were true for them.
"Thank you" She whispered against the blonde's shoulder.
And they laid there for a few more minutes, listening to the other's heartbeat while the sun kept rising at the other side of the window.