The thing is, Emma hates her at first.
And, yeah, maybe Emma shouldn't have shown up an hour and a half late on the day she was supposed to move in with her new roommate. But, she rationalizes, Regina also didn't have to be such a raging bitch and go out for the night without leaving Emma her set of keys, either.
Of course, that's how Emma ends up spending the night in jail after her new neighbor calls the cops on her as she squeezes through the jimmied-open kitchen window.
But it's also how, after seven cold, uncomfortable hours, Emma is released from her holding cell and thrust into the starkly fluorescent waiting room to see Regina waiting there, holding out an oversized Stanford sweatshirt for Emma to pull on over her too-thin tank top.
They go out for 2am cheeseburgers at Denny's, and Regina laughs as Emma gestures wildly with a fry as she explains her theory that Denny's is a portal to alternate dimensions, but only at 3am on weeknights. Regina doesn't order any of her own food, but she does steal at least a third of the fries on Emma's plate in what Emma can only assume she thinks is a sneaky fashion.
Oddly enough, Emma doesn't even mind.
There are a few rough patches in the beginning (Emma saves one particular text message after it almost makes her choke on her granola bar on the bus to work: Emma, I swear to God, it says, complete with punctuation, because of course Regina is grammatically correct when she texts, If you don't clean out the fridge when you get home tonight, I will leave your rancid leftovers in your bed and let the dumpster raccoon crawl through your window tonight and eat your face.), but overall, it seems to be working out okay.
They fall into a routine easily - Emma, who works the breakfast rush at the campus diner, gets up at the ass-crack of dawn during the week, dragging herself out of bed and flicking on Regina's ridiculously fancy coffee maker as she yawns her way into the shower. Sometimes the smell of the coffee itself is enough to get Regina out of bed, but usually Emma wraps herself up in a towel and delivers a cup of it to Regina's nightstand, flicking water off the ends of her hair and onto Regina's face until she wakes up.
As Emma pulls on her uniform, Regina makes breakfast for them both, smothering yawns with the back of her hand as she stirs omelette ingredients in the pan. Emma perches herself on the countertop as she pulls her hair back into a ponytail, laughing whenever Regina drops something on her pajama top.
It's nice, Emma thinks. They don't see each other much during the day, since Emma works two jobs and Regina is two semesters deep in her grad program on biochemistry, but sometimes the thought of their morning routine is the only thing that gets Emma out of bed on bad days.
On the weekends, when Regina doesn't have to go home to visit her battle-axe of a mother, Emma sometimes manages to convince her to go out to a bar with her so she can make fun of the faces Regina makes when she tries Emma's beer. But mostly, they stay home (home, Emma thinks) and watch Netflix, Regina nudging Emma's leg with her toes when Emma refuses to watch season 3 of Cutthroat Kitchen with her again.
Regina's the best roommate Emma's had, possibly ever, and for once her life, she starts to think that maybe, just maybe, she could relax and settle in for a while.
She should really know better than to jinx herself like that by now.
The period of her life that Emma now calls "Slow Torture" (and Regina calls "Your Idiot Phase") begins with a phone call.
Emma's laying on the couch, still in her Good Burger polo and smelling faintly of grease, when Regina blows through the front door.
"How was cla-" Emma says, but Regina waves her off impatiently, phone pressed to her ear.
"No, Mother, of course I'm not trying to kill Daddy," Regina sighs, flopping down on the couch as Emma swiftly scrambles her legs back out of the way, "but I honestly don't think he'll die of a broken heart if I'm not married by the time I graduate."
Emma hears a tinny diatribe start up from the phone, and leans over without a word to rummage through the drawer in the side table. Unearthing a Twix bar, she unwraps it and hands it over without a word. Regina grabs it and violently snaps off a piece, crunching into it as her mother rants in her ear.
Swallowing thickly as the rant tapers off, Regina pinches in fingers together in front of her face and takes a deep breath, releasing it slowly. "Fine," she says, "but just one," and hangs up the phone before her mother can reply.
"You know she's gonna make you regret that, right?" Emma says.
Regina growls and grabs the remote. "I know, but she just drives me crazy. Chopped okay with you?" she asks, and Emma shrugs. Regina jabs the button and settles in as the dweeby host starts introducing the cheesy contestants, elbowing Emma when she rolls her eyes.
"Besides," Regina says, fluffing a pillow and jamming it behind her back, "she's going to have to get used to me hanging up on her if she wants me to go out on a date with her stupid board member's stupid son."
Emma's just glad the chaos of someone's steak catching fire drowns out the sound of her anxiety kicking into overdrive.
At first, it doesn't seem too bad.
Regina comes home from her first date with the 'stupid son' in a rare state - Emma first realizes she's home when she hears the cast iron pan being dragged down from atop the fridge, and she knows the date must have gone badly if Regina's willing to admit she's too short and pull out the stepstool to get it down.
Emma sits across the counter from Regina's workspace, chin resting on her folded hands on the countertop and hair pooling around her head, grunting in acknowledgement as Regina chops and rants, tenderizes and shouts, dices and gestures wildly.
"Worst of all," Regina says, smoothing out a last layer of cheese, "he wasn't even interesting. The whole time he was such an asshole, but I wasn't even angry! I was just bored." She scoffs and then looks down at the dish in front of her, perplexed. "What did I make this time?" she asks.
Emma shrugs. "I'unno. Looks like some sort of beef casserole. I'm pretty sure you made onion rings to put in it at one point, though, but I wasn't going to stop you." She thumps off her stool and takes the dish gingerly by the edges, sliding it into the oven and setting the timer. "We'll see if it's edible in an hour, but until then, tell me more about this horrible, boring dude. You know I love making fun of dudes."
Regina laughs. "Gay," she says, nudging Emma with her shoulder.
"Hey!" Emma says, shoving her back, then dodging around her to steal the best sofa pillow, "You're bi and you still love it. It's the universal pastime!" Her laughter is muffled as Regina grabs the second-best pillow and attempts to smother her with it. They end up sprawled on the couch in disarray, giggling helplessly, disastrous date almost forgotten.
The casserole, as it turns out, ends up tasting like feet.
Regina goes on another date the next week.
"At least it's a different guy this time," she says, and rolls her eyes. "Anything to get mother off my back, I suppose."
Emma shoots her a left-handed thumbs-up without looking from where she's sprawled out in front of the secondhand N64 she'd picked up at the thrift store, mashing buttons with her right hand. "Have fun," she grunts, "don't do anything rash, like murder him."
"I'll try," Regina sighs, and she's gone.
She comes home barely an hour and a half later with tales of a lecherous, handsy older man, and rage-bakes brownies that Emma helpfully offers to taste-test.
And so it goes for a few weeks. Regina's mother will set her up with another 'suitor' - usually the son of one of her board members, or an investor, or some other high-ranking business acquaintance of hers. Regina makes the minimum amount of effort and escapes as quickly as possible, coming back to the apartment to cook or bake away the anger.
It's not too bad, really. Their fridge fills with interesting, if not always palatable, leftovers, and Emma gets a kick out of hearing about what stupid shit men are doing these days on dates with goddesses like Regina. And, mostly, she tries to keep the sappy grin off her face when Regina leans into her shoulder while ranting as they watch Iron Chef.
That is, at least, until Robin.
At first, Robin doesn't seem too different from the rest. Regina comes home from her date and groans about how obnoxious he was, and she bakes up a tray of cookies using Emma's leftover Reese's Pieces and a half a jar of Nutella she finds in the cabinet.
But then she goes on another date with him.
"He's not as bad as the rest of them were, you know," Regina tells her over the phone as Emma's waiting for her bus home.
Emma clicks her tongue, shifting from foot to foot, and says, "Yeah, but isn't that setting your standards really low? Why do you want to hang out with this guy if he's just 'not as bad'?"
"Be serious, Emma," Regina says. "It's not as though I'm going to marry Robin. This is just to keep my mother from hounding me about dating. She's going to get impatient if I keep dumping them all after a single date."
"Yeah," Emma says, "I guess." Regina hangs up so she can get ready for her date, and Emma watches the breath curl from her mouth in the late-March chill. She feels like she used to when the foster home would take on another kid, like it's the beginning of the end, like she's about to be replaced.
The bus crunches to a halt in front of her in the snow and she climbs aboard, shaking her head. It's just a couple more dates, she thinks. Besides, what does it matter to me?
Emma's good at convincing herself she doesn't care. It's good to know your strengths.
It gets worse.
Pretty soon, Regina's going out with him once a week, and when she gets home, she just pulls out a pile of tests to grade for the class she's TAing, or works on her dissertation.
"You don't want to cook something weird?" Emma asks the first time she does it. "I found a recipe for ham-and-banana Jell-O on the internet." She waves the remote. "I'll even let you control our Netflix choice this time."
Regina waves her off. "No, thank you Emma. I feel fine. You should watch what you want - I have to finish grading these quizzes, anyway. I didn't have enough time to do them earlier."
Emma frowns and pulls up an episode of Parks and Rec she hasn't seen in a while, but she can't focus on it long enough to even laugh at Jerry.
After a while, Regina stops coming home as early from her dates. "Robin's introducing me to his friends," she tells Emma. "I rather like Marian, actually. She's hosting a dinner party next week for all of us."
Emma grunts noncommittally, and Regina cocks her head. "Are you okay?" she asks, waving at the TV. "Did you want to watch something else? I've already seen this episode before, we can switch it."
"Nah," Emma says, and leverages herself up off the couch. "I'm not feeling too good, actually. I think I'm gonna head to bed."
"Oh," Regina says. "Okay. I hope you feel better…?"
Emma says, "Yeah," and waves weakly at her over her shoulder as she stomps down the hall to her room.
The next week, Emma doesn't even come out of her room when Regina comes home at almost midnight.
I'm not her mother, after all, she rationalizes. Why should I wait up to hear about her boyfriend's amazing friends and the amazing night they had together?
She hears Regina pause outside her door, but she continues on to the bathroom without knocking, and Emma rolls over and bunches her pillow up under her head again.
Regina lets it slide for three weeks before she confronts her.
"Why are you avoiding me," she says the moment Emma opens her bedroom door at 5:45am.
Emma jumps, then squints at her, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. "Wha'?"
Regina folds her arms in front of her, not budging. "Why," she repeats, "are you avoiding me?"
"'M not avoiding you," Emma says, brushing past her. "Just busy."
"Bullshit," Regina says, and grabs her arm. Emma doesn't turn around. "I feel like I haven't seen you in weeks." Her voice gets smaller. "Did I do something wrong?"
Emma's shoulders slump and she turns around, but she keeps her eyes on the ground. "No, of course not," she says. "It's my fault."
"What do you mean?"
Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, Emma says, "I dunno."
"Emma."
Emma looks up, sighs. "Look," she says. "I just don't like that you're spending this much time with Robin, okay?"
Regina looks startled. "What? Why?"
"I don't like him."
"Don't like him?" Regina voice is getting louder, now. "You haven't even met him!"
"I just don't, okay?" Emma says. "Drop it!"
"No! Tell me why you don't like him!"
"Because he's not good enough for you!" Emma yells.
Regina's eyes are fiery, but she's grinning that fierce grin Emma has missed from her manic cooking sessions. "Yeah? And why does that matter to you?" she says, stepping right up into Emma's personal space.
"Because you deserve someone better!" Emma's leaning forward now, trying to use her inch and change of height to make Regina back off, but it's not working.
Regina leans in. "Oh, yeah? Like who, exactly?"
Emma breaks. "Like me!" she says, and then closes her mouth again so quickly she hears her teeth click.
They're so close now that they're breathing each other's air, and there's a beat or two of silence. Emma sucks in a breath to say, "I'm sor—," but it's swallowed as Regina surges forward and presses their lips together and- oh.
It's electric.
Tingles race through her body as her limbs suddenly turn heavy and her head spins. She rests her wrists on Regina's collarbone and strokes her thumbs idly behind her ears, and Regina moans and tilts her head into the kiss, sliding her mouth up to take Emma's upper lip between her teeth and tug.
Emma groans and pulls away abruptly, although she leaves her arms in place. "Regina?" she says quietly, afraid to break whatever dream she seems to be caught up in, "What- are we doing, right now?"
"Well, we were kissing," Regina says with a smirk, leaning forward again.
Emma forces herself to lean back. "No, I mean - you're dating Robin," she says irritably, then gestures between the two of them, "so what are we doing?"
Regina raises a hand from Emma's waist and trails it up her face, tucking a wisp of hair behind her ear. "Emma," she says gently. "You're an idiot."
Emma frowns, "Hey, that's not-"
Regina strokes her cheek and Emma's brain short-circuits. "I broke up with Robin after the third date," she says, and laughs. "Turns out neither one of us wanted to date the other, but it was a useful way to get our parents off our backs, so we kept it up for a while longer."
"Oh," Emma says. "I- oh."
"Yes," Regina laughs. "I didn't know you cared, or I would have told you weeks ago."
"I am an idiot," Emma says, pulling Regina closer again and kissing her, though her smile makes it hard.
They stand in the hallway for a while, content in each other's arms, until Emma's phone suddenly beeps. "Oh!" she says, pulling away from Regina. "I have to go to work!"
"Are you sure you have to go?" Regina says, biting her lip and grinning, and Emma groans and leans forward to kiss her again.
She pulls away with difficulty. "Ugh, yes," she says. "If I'm late again, they'll fire me, and then how will I keep my hardass roommate from throwing me out on the street?"
"You haven't even seen my hard ass yet," Regina says, and winks - or tries to, since both of her eyes close - and it's the single most adorable thing Emma has ever seen, and yet hot enough to make her brain melt.
"I love you," she breathes, and Regina laughs as she scrambles for the fastest shower of her life.
Emma smiles all the way to work.
At their wedding (You are invited to attend the nuptials of Dr. Regina Mills and Ms. Emma Swan, the invitations read), both brides are luminous with joy.
Regina's father, seated in the front row, dabs away tears from his eyes as he beams from ear to ear, and his wife sits next to him, stony-faced.
They cut the cake - baked by a professional, thankfully - and Emma feints towards Regina like she's going to smash her slice into her face, but diverts at the last moment at Regina's glare and gently serves it to her instead.
Regina dumps her slice on Emma's head.
The picture of that moment gets blown up and hung on the wall in their house. And, one day, many years later, they tell their son the story of how his moms moved in together and fell in love.
And they live happily ever after (even if, sometimes, they have to order Chinese food when Regina gets a little too upset at work and bakes a pineapple and cheese cake for dinner).