Thought of this plot bunny when I should be updating my other swan queen fic! Oh well, here ya go :) Starts a little dark, but it gets fluffier :) Three shot :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time or their characters.
They don't speak of their one night together six weeks ago. The night of curses, emotional blows, scratching, moving limbs, and sweat. The night a heavy argument- more like Ms. Swan's shouting and Regina taking it all in with masked indifference- of Emma telling Regina she ruined her childhood, or lack of, trails into the blonde hiking the former Mayor to a nearby wall, eyes glowing with anger and shame as she crashes their lips together.
It's easier for Regina to take back another glass of cider and lose herself in her study. It seems to be her last treasure of familiarity after the curse has been lifted. She's lost everything-her son, her happiness, her tree. It was nice to have something to survive after the battle.
She hasn't seen Ms. Swan since that night. Not like she wants to, anyway. The woman has ruined everything from her; the last thing she needs is a reminder of her defeat.
So it is surprising to hear harsh knocking on her door, shaking her out of her reverie. After Henry demanding the town to her let her live- as if this is living, she snorts- there hasn't been any vandalism or threats coming her way. There hasn't been much of anything.
Heading for the door, she takes a moment to ruffle her hair and smooth creases out of her crisp white button-up. It's all out of vanity, a silly desperation for a poise exterior, but old habits die hard and she doesn't plan on looking bad just because she feels it.
Opening the door, however, her mask loosens at the unfamiliar image before her.
Emma, blonde hair wild and frazzled, is leaning over the threshold, panting like she's ran a marathon. Her eyes make Regina's brow lift to her hairline- wide and red-rimmed, surveying the brunette's face with desperation that makes Regina self-conscious.
It must be horrible.
But then she remembers it's Emma.
"What do you want?" She asks, returning to her mayoral mask.
Then the blonde says, voice hoarse and needy, low and uncertain, "I need your help."
Even though she wants to slam the door in the blonde's face, she remembers that she has Henry and that could be the reason for her distress, so she lets her inside and leads her to the study. The bottle of Bourbon, not as used as her cider but still well worn these days, is presented on the desk and she clenches her jaw. Emma didn't need to know of her vices, but watching, feeling, the shaking from her peripheral, Regina can pride to say that she's way better off than the savior right now.
"So are you going to tell me what's going on?"
"I thought I was just late," she rushes out, beginning to pace.
Regina narrows her eyes in confusion. "I beg your pardon?"
"I mean that's understandable, right? Stress can do that. I mean I just found out that my parents I've been looking for my whole life are fairytale characters, and I fought fucking ogres. Ogres!" She's pacing again, shaking her head, eyes dazed and delirious. Regina begins to intervene and ask what the hell the Sheriff is babbling about, but she stops before anything is heard. It seems that Emma has a lot of pent up...stress, and the only way to release it is in bits and pieces.
So Regina sits back, relaxing in her seat, watching the usual pain-in-the-ass blonde break before her. Oh pity, Ms. Swan. Yes, this is quite interesting.
"But two weeks passed, then three, and I just- fuck this is insane!"
Regina's amusement of Ms. Swan's distress is wearing thin, and impatience teeters in her voice. "Ms. Swan, what the hell are you rambling about?"
She snaps her head in the former Mayor's direction, wild hair flowing behind her back, eyes watering as she mumbles "I'm pregnant."
Her annoyance washes away as her mouth hangs and her brows rise, but that lasts for a moment, just a moment to let that news sink in before she recovers coolly, "I had no idea you were seeing anyone. Congratulations."
"I'm not seeing anyone, don't you get it!" She growls, fresh tears falling down her pink cheeks. "Between everyone fawning over me being a fucking savior, and Mary Marg— Snow, my-my Mom keeps smothering me. And everything makes me cry it's disgusting and I..." A sob interrupts her monologue, and then another, until she's hunched over with her face in her hands, shaking.
Her overt vulnerability perplexes Regina. Of course giving her body's...condition it's all inundating hormones, but what confuses Regina is why Emma asks for her. As she says, the town is fawning over the girl like some Queen— oh the irony, Regina inwardly groans— so why can't she ball her eyes to someone else? Why go to the one person in town she loathes?
I guess I'll find out soon.
Emma finally pulls herself together and wipes her eyes in vain. They are still bloated a deep red, and her body still shakes, but, like Regina, Emma wants to shrug off her stress and stand tall.
It's ironic how much the Savior and the Evil Queen have in common.
"It's b-been a year. I haven't fucked a guy in a year! I've only..." her eyes rake over Regina's body in a pointed way that makes the brunette shiver. She hates it, utterly hates the things Emma could do— have done to her body. But she bottles down that unwanted arousal when she watches the horror and sheer terror blossom in those green eyes. "No...no, that's impossible!"
Regina blinks, confused by the outburst that's even out of place for a pregnant woman, but remembers Emma's last words and puts two and two together. "Ms. Swan," she shakes her head in disbelief, appalled that she even has to say her thought out loud, "I am many things, but even someone with your level of schooling can grasp that I do not have the... means to produce your child. It's a biological absurdity."
"I went through twenty-eight years of my life being normal— as normal as an orphan dashed on a highway after being transported from a fucking portal from the Enchanted Forest, that is— and in a few months I find out that my mom is Snow White and my Dad is Prince fucking Charming, and the Evil fucking Queen adopted the son I had in prison, so excuse me if I don't know what makes sense anymore!"
Putting it that way it would seem quite strange, Regina muses with pursed lips. But still...there is logic and law and principles that cannot be broken even by the most whimsical things, and childbirth is one of them.
"Ms. Swan, I do not understand—"
"Fix this!" She hisses, charging to where Regina sat, dragging her up by the collar of her blouse.
Regina shrugs the hysterical woman off but remains standing, pompously fixing the creases of her shirt. "And what is it do you expect me to do?"
"I don't know," she throws her hand in the air. "You have magic, right? You can poof this way. Yeah, yeah, you can," she chuckles nervously, smiling with desperation and a hint of insanity that makes Regina take a step to the side. Emma's eyes follow her like a dependent puppy and the submission should have Regina chuckling, but it unravels her. If this is indeed...true, and this was indeed, somehow, her child, then Emma was asking her...
...well she couldn't be serious?
"Emma," she cautions, already shaking her head, "you are not asking me...if you even think that I would... do what you're asking me—"
"You have to get this thing out of me!"
Her anger gets the best of her and for once she doesn't care. "I am not killing a child!"
"Anything that's created from an angry fuck against a wall by two women is not a child! It's a monster and I want it out!" Regina winces at the cruelty, even more so of the menace that rips from Emma's dry throat, but Regina stands tall, shaking her head with dismissal. It makes Emma angry, angrier than she has been this whole night, and she grabs Regina by the collar and drags her up a nearby wall— much like the very night six weeks ago. It's funny how things repeat themselves; Regina groaning at the harsh thud, eyes fluttering as the blonde's body presses against her own.
"I did not ask for this! And you will not write out my life— not again!"
Regina blinks away from the frantic gaze, letting the words rip through. It's true; she did map Emma's life, ripped out the financial and emotional security from it. But she won't say sorry, not necessarily because she doesn't feel remorse, but it's simply not needed. Emma could never forgive her for a stolen childhood, and that doesn't seem to be a pressing issue on her mind. Evidently they both have quite a...dilemma.
"I won't do it," she says almost softly, just thinking of the potential strength of this being. A product of the product of true love, and a woman with magic. Oh, the wonders this child could be.
Apparently Emma didn't hold the same optimism.
"You're a cruel bitch," she growls, truly growls like a wild animal. "I guess this is some kind of victory for you; forcing the savior, daughter of your sworn enemy, to carry your spawn. Or was that your plan all along?"
"If I can remember correctly, Miss Swan, it was you who initiated that night."
"And you didn't stop me."
"Well," she chuckles, letting her bravado show for a moment, instantly regretting it when Emma's hold on her tightens.
"I'm glad you find this fucking funny!"
"I somehow managed to get a woman pregnant. The whole predicament is quite humorous if you allow it."
"You wouldn't say that if you were carrying this thing."
"Stop calling it that!" Regina admonishes, frowning. There is a life, ignorant of the vices and bleakness of the world, inside of Emma and she hates that the savior speaks of it with such disdain.
Emma takes a moment to scan the former Mayor's body with pure disgust before she backs away, running her fingers through her hair.
"I've done many things but I won't murder a child. I won't have her blood on my hands." The pronoun slips with ease, a familiarity and comfort that smites her when Emma's brow lifts to her hairline. Damn her weakness, the yearning to carry and have a little girl. A small being that depends on her and blesses her with the wholesome sacredness of mother and child. She thinks of Henry then, how that relationship cracked and failed, and the pain strikes her numbing heart. She looks away but Emma's eyes follow her, a questionable gaze smoothing over the anger.
"Her?"
The reminder of her stupidity makes her shiver. She wraps her arms around her torso, as if she wants to hold the fantasy, the delusion, that she's carrying this child. A child she wants to keep.
"Do whatever you want to do," Regina says, voice devoid of emotion. "But I won't be responsible for this." It's Regina's turn to take in the blonde's features with disdain, to actually be ashamed for this child, her child, to have to be carried by a coward they call 'the Savior'. Oh what she'd give to switch places.
"Regina," It's the first time Emma's actually whispers since this whole night. The first time she's calm and soft, even though her eyes remain wary and confused. "We don't know what this is. This thi—" She stops there when Regina shoots Emma a glare only the Evil Queen could make, "this baby could be a danger to everyone, and myself. We can end this right now, before anyone gets hurt."
"And this baby could also be a miracle," Regina truly frowns in audaciousness. She wonders how a woman who's carried a child before, who loves her child, could ever be so dissociative to another. It makes her ponder over the true essence of good, if those titles are all shields to hide the ugliness Regina's not afraid to hide. Perhaps everyone is "The Evil Queen"; it just depends on the predicament for their cracked interior to reveal itself. "You are the product of true love, and I have magic inside of me absorbed from the well. This child was created out of magic. The possibilities are endless, Emma, and you want me to destroy it?"
Her voice is almost a plea, a dying shred of hope for Emma to see the beauty of this wonderful opportunity and not destroy her last chance at happiness. "This child is absolutely spectacular, I can...I can almost feel it." She's smiling now, eying the blonde's stomach. And maybe it's psychological, but she could almost feel the majestic thud of a life growing there. It's the potent spirit that pulses through her veins when she elicits magic. Something truly indescribable yet vivid with clarity.
Emma can't null that.
"This...this is different," Emma mumbles, almost reluctantly as she rubs her non-existent stomach. "Henry, I felt him but this...this feels like a part of me. Like we share the same heartbeat, feel the same emotions. An unity that surpasses what a mother and child should feel. It's...terrifying. I just...I don't know."
Regina's eyes begin to water as she hears the but, the inevitable horrible news she can't bear to hear. She makes a beeline for the door, refusing to have Emma tear down the last shred of hope for...something. But Emma's voice stills her, makes her whip her head in her direction, when the blonde says "But maybe... You think this kid could like cure cancer, or something?"
The former Mayor laughs, tears sliding down her cheeks but she's too happy to wipe them away. Emma's small smile, nervous and uncertain yet kind and hopeful, gives her the impression that perhaps the blonde's changed her mind. That she, too, can see the wonders of those bundle of cells growing inside of her.
"The possibilities are endless."
Emma's smile falters, and then her mouth twitches with unease. "How do we take care of it? I mean when the town finds out how it's yours, ours—"
"I will guard this child with my life and if I even suspect that someone conspires with her safety, I will pierce their head with my heel." The growl truly surprises her, the rage that bubbles in her that seems so innate. She almost feels like the Evil Queen, marching up to the blonde with wild, determined eyes, hissing out threats that will become promises when needed be. But now the fear of her victim and power doesn't course through her; it's her maternal love for a child she's never seen. For something she didn't know she needs until a few moments ago.
It's spectacular what this child has her feeling.
"You called the baby her again," Emma grins almost shyly, blinking back a few tears.
Regina isn't ashamed or embarrassed this time. She merely shrugs, chin held high as she responds with distinction, "I can feel it, and no one will hurt her, Emma."
The blonde sways uneasily, hands never leaving her stomach as she looks everywhere but the brunette's eyes. She must look terrifying, Regina muses, but just the sheer thought of any threat to her unborn child brings a rage out of her that she can't simply simmer.
"Okay."
"Okay?" Regina echoes with pure hope and excitement, forgetting her moment of maternal protection.
"I...I think I want her, but...it's just a lot to take in."
"I understand," she nods, practically squirming on her toes.
"I'm...we're having a baby," Emma laughs with unease and maybe a little bit of relief as she rubs her stomach. That urges Regina to do the same, to feel— no she already feels, but to measure the power beneath the soon-to-be protruded skin and flesh— but she refrains with an inward sigh. There will be a time for that, to gush over this child with the euphoria bubbling in her. But not now, when the carrier is still hesitant and slightly unwelcome by her presence.
She'll have her time.
"Indeed. Pack up your things, Ms. Swan, because you're going to be living with me."
"Wha-" Emma chuckles, watching the brunette pad out of the study with her footsteps not far behind. "I know you knocked me up, Regina, and we slept together but don't you think we're moving a little too—"
"Oh please, this is not for us," Regina sniffs in disgust as she pivots on her heel, the blonde nearly slamming into her. "This is for the baby. I will not have her stay in that cottage you call an apartment, and knowing your flagrant disregard for the grease that meets your arteries, I want to make sure your diet is suitable for a child. You will stay in a guest room while I take care of all of the dietary and medical preparations."
"But I—"
"It's not a request, Ms. Swan."
She'd be damn if she lets her baby girl anywhere near those damn Charmings, even if the fetus is unable to respond to their hatred for her.
Her confidence returns in her stride to her bedroom and she can't help but smirk when she hears the Sheriff grumble "Bossy."
First of a three shot? So...should I continue? :D
