A/N: Yo - been a bit. Anyway, a wee post-ep for 6x15 where-in I helpfully remind us all that the best part of Regina and Emma is how honest they are with each other even when it blows up their worlds. And then, um, maybe there are some lines which get crossed. Yeah. Obviously, Emma didn't get the shell-call.
Because she wasn't home. Oops. :D
But look, I should warn you in advance: Hook and Robin are mentioned and in the canonical emotional context of the show. This is complicated and messy, and it's within a few days of both women having suffered major emotional shocks so...remember that while it would be wonderful to jump right past the parts of the story which are either over (Robin) or terrible (Hook), that's just not how it works. Some roads to happiness require a bit more traveling down...first. :)
Enjoy and tell me what you think.
"You know," Regina says softly, her head turning, "You didn't need to walk me home tonight." There's just the slightest hint of bemusement in her tone, but it cracks at the edges, made rougher by just how terribly inebriated Regina is. Which is what happens after you end up going shot for shot with a furry Viking named Sven. Of course, had Regina conceded and not boldly insisted that she could drink Sven under the table…
But she had insisted and, and eventually, a very surprised Sven had ended up on the ground (with his jeering mates standing above him, clapping Regina on the back), and well, that's neither here nor there now.
All that really matters right in this moment is that they're walking home together in the darkness of the brisk midnight air because they're both drunk, and Regina's in bare feet thanks to having turned her ankle as she'd been celebrating her victory over a passed out Sven. With something of a small smile lighting her pale lips, Emma thinks that she'll probably never forget that particular moment. Truthfully, it'd been a bit surreal to see Regina sporting such a large grin on her face as she'd held up her arms in victory.
Which is simply to say that Emma finds that she's still getting used to this new Regina. She's not entirely different from the old Regina, of course, but she does seem to be able to find her way to a smile a little bit easier than the previous model had been. Is that real, Emma wonders, or is that allowing for hope? Deep questions for later, perhaps.
For now, there's just this.
Thankfully, only Regina's left heel had broken and not the actual bone, but the chaos of the moment (and the gratitude which Emma had felt towards Regina for her buoying efforts throughout the night) had been enough for Emma to insist that Regina probably shouldn't make her way back to her house alone.
Regina had protested, but given in after a small stumble. A giggling Snow, for her part, had offered to let them all crash at the loft, but they'd quickly dismissed that as a bad idea once Snow had moved on to the part of the night where she'd started to get disturbingly melancholy, just a notch or two from breaking out into song and Emma thinks that there are things which she really just doesn't need to see. Such as her mother singing a sad lullaby (however well earned the emotion is) about loneliness and isn't there too much of that, anyway? She most certainly feels it, and though Regina has managed an unsettling smile, Emma figures (knows, and that knowledge and understanding hurts, too) that there's still entirely too much pain lurking within her, too.
Pain from too much loss and too much heartache, and too many times hearing "no".
It seems like none of them can ever really catch a break, and they don't need music or any further tears to point that out to them. A slumber party with her mother as she most likely would have jumped from hopeful to morose is exactly the kind of thing that Emma had known would be guaranteed to go upside down in the very worst of ways.
So they'd texted Henry to update him (and let him know that Emma might not be back until morning; the quickly cobbled together on-the-fly plan is to get to Regina's and see how she feels, and if necessary crash in one of the spare bedrooms for the night) and then they'd walked Snow the three blocks to her loft, looked in on David, and then left her with the promise that they'd both check in on her in the morning. Snow had laughed and then crawled into bed with David – that'd been the last thing either one of them had seen before Regina had closed the door, a strange haunted look in her dark eyes.
Emma had said quietly, "It's not your fault, you know that, right?"
Regina had simply smiled thinly, and said nothing at all.
That had been twenty minutes ago. Twenty minutes through this cold night, and though it's sobered them both up enough to walk straight, they can each still feel the pull of the alcohol in their blood, and Regina's steps in particular are more diagonal than straight.
Still, when she tells Emma that she hadn't needed to walk her home, the words are clear enough, and Emma thinks that the emotion she hears is as honest as it can get. So she stops suddenly and turns to Regina and nods her head and says only, "Yeah, I did."
"Emma –"
"Your feet okay?"
"What?"
"We've walked almost a mile with you barefoot." Emma shakes her head. "I didn't even think about it –" she laughs, too loud and too sharply, and for a moment, the world wobbles out of focus. "We should have gotten you some new shoes at the loft."
"Oh," Regina says. "Yes, probably." She looks down at her feet, her head tilting, and for a moment, it's so incredibly difficult to imagine that this woman was ever the Queen – evil or otherwise. But she was, and when she looks up again, her eye arches and her lip quirks and the old sardonic edge, which Emma has grown so much affection for is there.
"What?" Emma prompts, a somewhat goofy smile on her lips. In the back of her mind, a voice whispers, "But what about Killian?" and she thinks that she should pay the voice some attention because it's probably wrong to be showing any kind of mirth or, for that matter, doing anything which doesn't allow for the heartbreak which she is feeling. But she's sick and tired already of the weight of the hurt he'd created inside of her, and the the moon is shining down on them and it almost seems to halo Regina, which is equal parts amazing and hilarious, and so all Emma can do is grin back at her like a giant fool.
"I have great arches," Regina announces, her own smile large and absurd. And then she tilts her body like she's inspecting said arches to ensure their status. She scowls almost playfully at her bare feet, flexing her calf muscles as she does so. It's an attractive look, Emma thinks, and then roughly shakes herself away from the decidedly odd thought.
Not that she's incapable of being appreciative of women (wrapping paper has never mattered much to her) but since her first days in this town, she hasn't really considered Regina in such a way (and then, it'd been something else entirely, and that's a secret which she'd very much like to keep to herself). She chooses to blame the thoughts now on the fact they're both still at least a little bit drunk, and so she laughs and Regina laughs and it's good and wonderful (and God, Regina really is beautiful like this), and for a few seconds, they can both forget the ugly reason they'd been out drinking at all.
But then there's the voice again, and this time it's louder than her smile.
Killian, it reminds her, almost a hiss. Don't forget about him. Your love.
Yeah, except he had abandoned her; he'd left her behind as everyone always does.
Everyone but -
Emma stops laughing abruptly, and looks at Regina.
"You," she says, suddenly nearly breathless, her green eyes wide.
"Me?" Regina asks, her own humor flickering away, her eyes narrowing in what's supposed to be irritation, but is far too uncoordinated to be anything but squinting.
"You." She steps towards Regina, swaying just a bit and then she's throwing her arms around the older woman, startling both of them just a little. "You followed after me. You took a chance on me, and didn't give up on me, and you're always here. Always."
It's a tad weepy and melodramatic especially for her and them, and it's certainly well beneath both of them, but Emma thinks that maybe there's more than a hint of honesty in this moment – it's the truth rubbed raw by the burn of alcohol and heartbreak.
"I…what are you talking about?" Regina queries again, and then rubs at her temple like she's trying to tell Emma that she's far too out of it for this particular conversation. She looks down at the arms circling her, and then back up at Emma and her head cocks to the side like she's trying to figure out something, but whatever it is, it just won't come.
Maybe they're both too drunk and not nearly drunk enough for this conversation.
Frowning, Emma chooses to let it go – to pretend that she hadn't said the words that she had - and she steps away from her, trying not to feel the sudden loss of contact as much as she does (because that's absurd considering how seldom they have hugged and how infrequent any kind of physicality has always been between them, and she thinks maybe that's the problem and the answer). She points down the street. "You house."
"My house," Regina repeats slowly, and then her eyes light up. "My house!" She takes one large step towards it, and then both her barefoot nature and her inebriation hit her at the same time and she stumbles forward several steps, bending almost entirely over.
It's instinct, Emma supposes, but she's lurching forward and catching Regina before the older woman's knees give out and then they're both crashing down into a heap on the cold cement, and thank the gods that it's very late and no one else is out and about because this has to be presenting the most bizarre image ever: two former enemies sprawled atop each other on the sidewalk, their limbs tangled up as they both laugh.
Laugh until they cry, and it's strangely Regina who starts to.
Regina, who has been so strong and so tough and so able to keep moving forward no matter how many times this obscene life of theirs seems to try to break her down. Regina, who always seems to be able to find just a little more fight within her.
She says in a whisper, which cracks and then becomes synonymous with her shuddering breath, "I failed. Emma, I failed," and then she's sobbing, and it all makes no sense at all because from Emma's point of view, she sees a woman who had taken on the worst of herself and found a way to come out on the other side of it. Sure, Emma wonders about the choices made, but she wonders about her own choices so who is she to judge?
"Hey, no, no, you didn't," Emma insists.
"I did. I failed at…everything. I just wanted…I just want to be good enough…"Her hands go to her face and her short hair curls around her cheeks as her chin wobbles. The sounds she's making are soft, but unmistakably pained gasps, and though Emma is just as drunk as Regina is, and her brain is just as slow, her heart still works, and she hurts.
For her best friend, who can never seem to win without somehow also losing.
For herself, and the heavy doors which always seem to close in her face.
For both of them, and the many ways life like to invent to screw them over.
"You are good enough," Emma insists, and thinks about the many conversations they have all had about self-love and acceptance. Easy words to say, and maybe even believe, but doubts don't go away just because you can finally look around and see others there. She knows that Regina finally accepts that she's not alone, but that doesn't mean she doesn't still have rogue voices in her head telling her that maybe she still should be.
Acceptance is a wonderful thing, and half the battle, but it's not the end of the battle.
That's something she's had to learn over time; it's something this Regina is still learning.
Emma vows to herself that she won't let Regina think that she's alone on this journey.
Her motions too large, she reaches over, threads her hands with Regina's, and pulls her close. "We need to get inside," Emma murmurs as she lifts them up from the ground.
Because she won't allow anyone to see Regina like this.
And because they have both given this town entirely too much of themselves already.
She feels Regina's fingers clutching at her shirt, the tips hard enough to bruise. "Hey," she says softly, and it's not really an opening to a conversation so much as a reminder to Regina that's not alone right now. Regina's head drops to her shoulder, and for a long moment, all Emma does is hold her there. Yes, they're still standing in the middle of the street, and for all of her determination, anyone who wanted to could observe them, but for the moment, she just doesn't care. Because this is real and honest, and she's been having a hell of a time figuring out exactly what is or isn't those things as of late.
Love? Commitment? The promise of forever?
Is it only the never-ending fight which is real?
She just doesn't know.
But she knows that this is real, and so her eyes close, and she just holds Regina.
Until Regina sniffles, and says as she rubs a hand past her damp eyes, "Sorry."
Emma laughs.
Which causes Regina to try to pull away, but Emma holds on tighter. "No," she says.
"But –"
"I wasn't laughing at you." And finally, she pulls back so she can look at Regina. "I was laughing at how insane tonight has been. How batshit insane our lives constantly are."
"Indeed," Regina concurs. "And yet you're still here, aren't you?"
"Of course, I am. Which is kind of what I was saying about you earlier…only badly and…what? What's…wrong?" Emma asks as she trails off. She thinks it must be her foggy brain, which is making this conversation so hard to follow, but it's more than just that, she knows; there's also this curious softness, which is suddenly on Regina's face.
Softness, which she thinks is being directed towards her.
"Oh, Emma," Regina sighs, and then her right hand is lifting up her elegant fingers reaching out to trace along the hard line of Emma's jaw. "How could he be so stupid?"
"He? Ho…Hook?" Emma croaks in response, her throat suddenly very dry as she feels the coolness of Regina's touch (it's a magic thing, and she doesn't entirely understand it because her own hands are still warm, but Regina's never have been). "I don't…I…"
It's the touch of Regina's fingers on her lips which silences her, her brain shorting out as their eyes meet and she finds herself staring in stunned wonder at the older woman.
Suddenly remembering the first time she'd met Regina and how her breath had caught as she'd taken in the form of one of the most beautiful women she'd even met. That physical appreciation – built initially on the unexpressed lust of open aggression and antagonism - had muted itself over time, especially once a true friendship had formed, but now, in this moment, it's all back again, and she's wondering how it had ever gone.
Regina licks her lips, and leans slightly forward; Emma's heart thuds as she waits.
The voice in the back of her whispers at her, but she ignores it.
It speaks of lines; her lips part in anticipation, Regina's fingers still atop them.
A phone rings.
Deafeningly loud in the silence of the quiet neighborhood.
The moment broken, Emma's own hand lifts up to cover Regina's and then…does nothing. Inexplicably, for a moment which seems to stretch on interminably, she just holds Regina's fingers against her lips, gazing back at the other woman, thinking and –
The phone – Regina's, they both realize once it becomes clear that it's just a ring and not a song - rings again, and Emma drops both of their hands away from her lips; Regina, her face suddenly shading pink, abruptly turns, stumbling and again wiping roughly at her eyes as she snatches for her cell phone. It falls from her fingers and hits the cement.
"Hey, let me –"
"No," Regina says sharply, waving her hand awkwardly behind her as if to suggest that Emma should stay over there. She curses, then, and moves to scoop it up, and it's like nothing is working, and the woman who has always been unflappable is now flustered.
Terribly, horribly flustered.
And embarrassed, her head lowered in a way, which feels utterly wrong for Regina. But then, as much as Emma believes that she still knows and understands this woman, even she has to admit that some things have changed and maybe everything isn't as it was.
Including, perhaps, them.
"Regina –"
Regina holds up her hand to silence Emma, grabs the phone, and grinds out, "What?"
There's a pause and then her shoulders are falling.
"Regina?"
"I understand," Regina says, and suddenly sounds so tired and broken, and it makes Emma want to reach for her, but something tells her that such a move wouldn't be welcomed. "Thank you for making me aware. No, you don't need to let the Sheriff know this evening. I'll file a report with her in the morning, and then have it towed from your parking lot once Michael's shop is open. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Yes, thank you. Bye." She sighs and hangs up the phone, purposefully ignoring Emma's intense gaze.
"Who was that?" Emma asks, scowling at the slight droop to her words. The night and the intensity of it have sobered her significantly, but not completely, and she can still feel the alcohol, which continues to run like liquid fire through her bloodstream.
"The bartender," Regina murmurs. "It would seem that leaving my car there overnight wasn't the best option after all." She chuckles in seething self-depreciation. "Someone shattered the windows of it and spray-painted –" she stops talking, shaking her head as she fights not to break down again. "Just a friendly little reminder of what the people in this town truly still think of me. Turns out, no matter what I do, it doesn't matter."
"Yeah, fuck that and fuck them," Emma growls. "We'll find out who did this and –"
"I don't care," Regina interrupts, and Emma doesn't even need her secret power to know the lie apparent there. "And I'd prefer not to know because then it makes it real, and…I was right, no matter what, I won't ever be good enough." And then, abruptly, she turns away from Emma and starts the walk up the long path towards her front porch, her strides longer and more determined than someone in her inebriated and upset condition should be attempting. But she's angry and hurt, and there's no stopping her.
So, Emma just follows after her, and tries not to think about how many times she has.
Tries not to think about how many times they have.
All the while realizing that ignoring things isn't going to get either of them anywhere.
"Regina," she says once they're inside, and the door is closed behind them, and they're safe from prying eyes. Regina's back is still to her, though so she murmurs, "Please."
"Please, what?" Regina snaps back at her, a heavy sigh shaking her small weary frame.
"Talk to me. Please, talk to me. Tell me what's going on in that…head of yours."
She thinks she means the word "heart" instead of "head", but maybe that's too close.
"I'm sorry," Regina says instead, and it occurs to Emma that this is the second time in the last five minutes in which Regina has apologized. Regina turns back towards her, then, wiping at her dark eyes before lifting her head and looking straight at Emma. When she speaks, her words are careful, her tone soft like she's trying for docile and even something like submissive. "I stepped over a line that I shouldn't have and –"
"No, you didn't."
"I did, and I keep…I keep bringing you into this stupid drama of mine, and all of my whining. I'm better now, Emma, I am. I don't…some days, I even believe that I really do like myself enough to one day really…love…properly. But some days, I think it's wrong for me to do that because even if the Queen is gone, I'm still just as guilty as she was –"
"I'm going to kiss you," Emma blurts out, the words tumbling over themselves as she tries to say something – anything – to make Regina stop speaking to her like this. She can handle so many things, but Regina with her shoulders hunched isn't one of them.
Regina's eyes blow almost comically wide with surprise as she gasps out, "What?"
She steps closer to Regina. "You might struggle to like yourself enough, but I don't."
"Emma, don't."
Emma's brows furrows. "Don't what? Be your friend? Because it's too late for that."
"Friend," Regina repeats. Then, she looks up and forces a smile. "You're a good friend."
"I haven't always been. I wasn't there for you like I should have been when Robin died, and I wasn't there for you when the mess with the Queen went down." She stops speaking, frowning as she considers. "I talked you into bringing the fake Robin back."
"I don't blame you for any of those things…and I don't blame you for giving me hope."
"Is that what I did?" Emma queries, her head slightly cocked.
"You believed that despite everything, I could find happiness."
"I still do. I'm probably an idiot considering everything that's happened with Robin and Hook and you know, the whole Gideon trying to gut me thing, but I still think – I still have to believe - both of us can be happy. Crazy, right?" She laughs at her own words.
Regina doesn't match the laugh, though, and perhaps that's the biggest surprise of all; Emma had expected Regina to give a short small chuckle and just go with the hopeful sentiment expressed, but instead, she's staring at Emma, her expression unreadable.
"Crazy," Emma says again, her voice thin and weak and almost desperate.
Regina's lips on hers – soft and wet and tasting like just a hint of cinnamon gloss – are the only answer she gets. Her mind – the part of which has been hissing Killian's name at her for hours now – protests and tells her this is wrong, but the rest of her doesn't.
The rest of her moves in, and her arms wrap around Regina and brings her closer, the kiss deepening into something neither one of them is going to be able to explain away.
It's the sound of Regina's back meeting the wall with a heavy thud, which brings them out of the stupor that the unexpected kiss had produced. Still clutching each other, gasping, eyes wide and suddenly entirely too aware, they stare at each other in shock.
And then Regina's hand lifts again, moving to Emma's lips once more, tips tracing and then slightly dipping in to accept an open-mouthed kiss against the pad of one of the fingers – so soft and tentative, yet bold and daring in its own way – when it's offered.
"We're drunk," Regina states, her fingers moving to trace against Emma's cheekbone.
"We are," Emma agrees, and thinks that they're not nearly as drunk as they should be.
Not nearly as inebriated as they're both insisting that they are.
Because long walks, awful phone calls and hot tears in the street had done a lot to sober them up, and she thinks that there's no chance that she'll forget any part of tonight.
"We should go to bed," Regina says. Then adds in a slightly sardonic tone, "Alone. By ourselves. Individually." Her eyebrow lifts and its equal parts suggestive and not at all.
Emma chuckles. "Yes."
"Okay. Okay." Regina drops her hand from Emma's face and then steps around her.
"I really do believe you can be happy. I do."
"I know. But I also know that what I told the Queen was right – my happy ending can't be another person, Emma. It has to be myself and…I'm not as there as I thought I was. I think maybe I'm closer than I've ever been, but I'm still…I have a long way to go yet."
Emma nods her understanding of the truth of Regina's words. She's about to step back, to let Regina pass, and let this night pass, but Regina is still looking at her with so much emotion and she can still taste cinnamon on her lips and sometimes you can't un-ring a rung bell. So she takes a breath and asks, "How long have you wanted to kiss me?"
"Don't make me answer that."
"Oh."
Regina's eyes close for a moment before opening again, the sheen of un-shed tears there unmistakable. "He was a good man, and I loved him, Emma. I loved him so much."
"I…I don't understand."
"I would have been…ridiculously happy with him. No, that wouldn't have solved the problem with myself – only I can solve that – but he would have made me as happy as another person can, I think." Her voice is soft, barely audible. She looks away for a drawn out moment, her hands fidgeting before coming together against her belly.
Emma frowns, desperately trying to follow the conversation change. "Robin Hood?"
"The real Robin Hood," Regina nods. "He loved me, and I loved him, and if that's the way the story had gone, I would have been happy with him as my…as my partner."
"Your partner," Emma repeats, wondering why hearing her say it like that unsettles her.
Maybe it's because she has always considered she and Regina to be partners…
In magic, in the protection of this town and, of course, in Henry.
And God, maybe in so much more than those things.
Before she can fully go down this path, though, or even think how to put her thoughts into words, Regina is speaking again and her words change everything, "But I think that maybe I have loved you, Emma Swan, since the day you first showed up on my porch. I didn't know it, then – I wasn't capable of knowing it – but I know it now. I…I know."
"Oh," Emma repeats, and wonders if it's possible for a heart to explode from too much.
Too much emotion, too much conflict and too much of everything all at once.
"I'm not asking for anything from you, I hope you know that. I know...I know you don't feel the same way."
Emma just looks up at her, her mouth slightly open, not quite able to answer.
Regina offers her a watery smile. "I expect you'll be wanting to leave now."
Emma nods like her head is being held up (and dropped) by a string. "I…I guess I should, right?"
"Of course. I'm…I'm sorry," she offers up. "I meant this evening to be a way for you to forget some of your worries. To not think about the things hurting you. I wanted to be a good friend to you, Emma – as you've been to me – but…I'm sorry. I really am sorry."
"For what?" Emma challenges, and then her hand is going out and she's catching Regina's and lacing their fingers together. She watches as Regina looks down at their joined hands before looking up at her, bewildered. "You didn't do anything wrong."
"I –I'm sorry for making everything so much harder. You have so much going on and –"
"You can't help who you…have feelings for, right?"
"Perhaps not, but I don't think you're supposed to fall for your best friend," Regina replies, and then winces at her own words and how childish and yet somehow insignificant they sound to her own ears. These are the moments when she misses the Queen the most – the ones where she misses the Queen's ability to front and create protective armor to hide behind. Yes, it'd caused her tremendous heartache on more than one occasion, but she's come to understand that it had also protected her from other kinds of pain.
This kind.
Instead, she's this woman now – someone who knows where she's been, and still feels the edges of her past, but who can now look at Emma and wonder why it can't be her.
Before, she'd known why, and even accepted it.
Before, she'd accepted herself for the monster everyone else had seen her as.
But now…
No, now she still knows.
The broken windows and spray-paint on her car is there to remind her that -
"I kissed you back," Emma says suddenly, interrupting her thoughts. "I know you want to think it was all you, and maybe that would be convenient for both of us, but it would be a lie, and I think maybe I'm kind of getting sick of lies no matter how good…or self-saving the intentions behind them are. I kissed you back, and…I'm not sorry that I did." She steps forward. "Maybe I didn't mind and...wouldn't necessarily...mind doing it...again."
"Emma, no. Don't –"
"Don't what?"
"Get me thinking things I shouldn't. Go home. Go to sleep, and tomorrow, we will both pretend this never happened. I need you to let me pretend, okay?"
"Why?"
"Because I won't lose you over something like this. Something so...absurd," Regina tells her, fiery vehemence peppering her tone. She steps forward again and then she's pressing their joined hands against Emma's chest, over her heart. "I have lost so much in my life. I have lost even my other half. I'm…I'm okay, and I'm finding my own way, and I think there will come a morning when I don't think about her more than I think about me, but that day hasn't come yet. But having all of you – Henry, Snow and you – that keeps me strong. I can't lose that." A tear makes its way down her cheek. "Tell me I didn't."
"Never," Emma replies, just as vehemently. "You're stuck with me, Regina. Hell or high-water. Though, considering we've actually been to hell, I'd prefer we didn't go back."
"Hook," Regina says suddenly, the memory of the Underworld reminding her of him.
"Made his choice. And I'm making mine." And then she's leaning in, and with their hands still tangled together and resting just over her heart; she presses her lips back to Regina's. Yeah, maybe this is a big mistake considering the turmoil inside of her own heart and the hurt which she's feeling over Hook's betrayal, but when she looks at Regina, what she feels for the older woman is warm and real.
And then there's the desire – suddenly awake and rushing, hot and coiling within her.
Oh, maybe they do have too much alcohol in them to be making these kind of explosive choices – the kind that will most certainly change everything about their relationship, but in this moment, and with Regina looking at her the way that she is, Emma finds herself not as surprised as she should be to realize that she really does want to do this.
Still, Emma says her thumb rubbing at the soft skin just under Regina's left eye, "You mean too much to me…I don't want to hurt you. So total honesty, okay? You know that I'm a mess right now. You are, too, I guess, but in a different way. You know what you want and what makes you happy…I'm not sure that I do, anymore. I don't…everything in my head is so jumbled up. The truth is that I'm not as resolved about Hook as I wish that I were. As pissed off at him and as hurt as I am and as much I would love to say that I have, there's still a part of me which hasn't completely given up on Hook."
"I know, and I would never ask you to." She shakes her head. "I know you think I'm asking you to return...I'm not. You don't have to feel what I do. I -"
She starts to turn away, but get stopped by Emma's grip. "Hey, wait. Don't turn away from me. Please?" She waits until Regina is looking at her again. "I know you're not asking me to do that. I know. And what I'm saying is, I know what I'm doing here, Regina. This isn't me making a choice I don't understand. I understand it, and I promise you that no matter what happens tonight, this won't come between us. I won't let it. I won't let anything come between us." There's a fierce determination in her words, and she knows that it would be easy to call her naive, but in her heart, even though it's troubled and bruised, she knows that what she's saying right now is true. She smiles slightly, thinking about just how unromantic it sounds to be talking about consequences in the same sentence as you're talking about –
What, she wonders.
Sex?
No…not just sex.
Between them, it's more.
So much more.
She swallows and looks back at Regina, their eyes meeting.
"So I've made my choice. Your turn. What do you want, Regina?"
Regina looks at her for a long moment, like she's trying to figure out if this is real, like she's trying to understand what it means and what it could mean for them despite Emma's assurances that she's considered everything. "Tonight," she finally replies. "Just tonight." She smiles slightly, then, because she's not a young girl, and she knows that sometimes all you have is one night. She's a woman who has been through entirely too much, and she knows that sometimes you wrap your arms around a moment and you hold it as close as you can, and you choose to make it meaningful and wonderful.
She, more than most, knows that their lives come with expiration dates and grinding misery, and she doesn't dare to hope for that which seems to flee her grasp like smoke from a chimney, but she does reach out for this – for just a moment of something good.
She reaches out her free hand, and hopes to hell that Emma understands; Emma does.
Her eyes suddenly ferociously bright and determined, Emma captures her hand and turns it over, revealing Regina's wrist; she kisses the tender skin there first, listening for the soft gasp and then she's turning Regina's wrist over and pressing her lips to the older woman's knuckles. Her eyes lifting, she catches Regina's and then smirks at her.
"Swan," Regina warns.
"Your Majesty," Emma replies with a growing grin.
And then she's moving forward, her knee out as she backs Regina into the wall, pining Regina against, their bodies flush, warm and cool meeting. One more careful cautious look passes between them – one more moment of ensuring that this is something that they both want - and and then she kisses Regina like both of their lives depend on this.
As melodramatic as it sounds even to her, Emma thinks that maybe they do.
After that, there's just the sound of clothing being shed and then unceremoniously flung away. There are small giggles and murmurs as they touch and feel, and allow the raw emotion of everything to wash over them. It's cleansing in the same way that fire is, and they both know that this is going to burn them alive, but they don't dare to stop now.
Couldn't even if they wanted to, and neither one of them want to.
The couch is as far as they can get, and then there's just the draping of limber bodies, and the soft panting of exertion and effort, and the whimpering of satisfaction gained.
There's, "Emma, Emma, fuck, Emma…"
Also, "Oh, I think I like it when you say my name like that."
Perhaps even, "You're feeling very proud of yourself right now, aren't you, Miss Swan?"
And, "Playing dirty, I see. Well, then yeah, I guess I am."
Followed up by, "Let's see if I can't dent your obnoxious smugness; it's my turn."
Nails dug deep into the couch, a blanket practically torn as knuckles bend and whiten
A gasping ragged plea and a shout of shuddering release.
Softly shared almost lazy kisses in the darkness.
Then, quiet.
Just breathing.
Soft and rhythmic.
Like a steady heartbeat.
Skin damp and flushed, Emma turns them back towards the room, her leg wrapping around Regina's, her face buried into the older woman's shoulder. She feels Regina's hand clutch at hers, winding it around to the front of her and settling it over her heart.
Just as theirs had previously been settled over hers.
"You okay?" Emma finally asks, her words muffled against Regina's collarbone. Feeling a slight shiver from the woman resting in her arms, she reaches down to the floor and grabs for the blanket she finds there, chuckling slightly at the rips she sees in it.
"I'm okay," Regina tells her as she feels the blanket get drawn up over the two of them.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah." There's a pause, and then, like she's realizing that she's supposed to ask the same question back to Emma (and Emma is again reminded that for all the balance which Regina seems to have found in the aftermath of the Queen, there's so much of it that she's still looking for), "And…are…you?"
Emma chuckles. "I'm okay," she echoes. "Actually, I feel pretty damned good."
Regina permits a small bemused snort at that, and then a nod of agreement as she stretches her leg just a little and feels the easy looseness of her satisfaction of the moment falls away quickly enough, though, as the worry she feels - the doubts she'd had - surfaces. "Tomorrow –"
Emma shakes her head. "Is tomorrow. We'll deal with it then."
"Hook –"
"Isn't here. We are. This is our slumber party, not his."
Regina arches an eyebrow at that, and it almost works.
But she knows Hook, and she still hasn't forgiven him for surviving when Robin could not.
"He'll come back," Regina says quietly, and there's an unsettling certainty in her voice.
"Maybe," Emma allows, a small frown on her lips. "But I don't want to think about him tonight. Tomorrow, I'll remember that he lied to me yet again and I'll remember that he ran away like a chickenshit, and I'll be back to wondering if I should cry or throw something. But right now…right now, this is ours."
"Until we get up."
Emma turns her body, forcing them face-to-face. "When did you stop believing me?"
"I believe you," Regina tells her, her brow furrowed. "It's just…I understand regrets. And I know that -"
"If you're about to say not good enough, I'm going to be forced to show off the bite-marks you left on my hip."
Regina rolls her eyes at that, a small smile flickering across her lips and then the tiniest shrug of smug satisfaction.
"Exactly. As for regrets, trust me, I understand them. But here's the thing…I don't have any. Not about this, anyway."
"This changes everything, Emma - we can't pretend that it doesn't."
"No, I guess we can't." She shrugs. "Okay, so things change, but that doesn't mean we change. Wherever we go or don't go from here - whatever happens or doesn't happen between me and Hook - I don't regret that we did this, Regina. I won't regret it or any moment I've spent with you. I don't know what my feelings are...I don't have a clue, but I know that you're my best friend and…you're my partner." She smiles slightly as she takes back the term for them – no offense to the fallen archer, but she believes it theirs – "And I meant what I said before: you're never going to lose me. And I'm not losing you."
"Okay," Regina says, and it sounds like she wants to say more, but doesn't dare to.
It's not the time for it, anyway.
There's too much unresolved, too much that still has to be confronted and dealt with.
Dark twisted prophecies, evil grown up sons, dead lovers, and missing former fiancées.
The kinds of desperate stories, which need their last pages written.
But truly, those are headaches and heartbreaks for tomorrow.
Doubts for when the sun comes up, and both of them have to face the morning light.
Voices in both of their heads which will challenge the certainty Emma is promising.
For tonight, there's just the cool damp body against hers, and the thundering heartbeat she feels; there's just their joined hands and skin against skin and gentle breathing.
So Emma agrees with a soft smile and lets her eyes close as she murmurs, "Okay."
She nuzzles deeper and presses a soft kiss to Regina's shoulder (smiling at the murmur of pleasure she receives), and then succumbs to the swirling exhaustion of the night.
-Fin