Note: Consider this Emma and Regina being a part of SWEN and feeling the loss of such great potential like we did, except Swan Queen actually does happen.
This doesn't have a lot of build up or detail. I don't really get into the specifics of the show or how long it's been going on and you'll notice very clear episode plots and dialogue mixed in here. It's probably rough and I apologize in advance if it's hard to follow given Emma and Regina are basically playing themselves with different names. And that probably sounded more confusing than the story, so let's get on with it. :D
She cries, yells, pounds her fists into Emma's shoulders and then there's a kiss. It's messy and tastes like salt and two kinds of coffee, but her hands tangle in blonde hair and she sighs when Emma presses into her. Tears stain her cheeks while their teeth gnash and Emma backs her up against the closed metal cabinet on the sound stage transformed into a fake medical supply closet. She sighs into the kiss and gives in to whatever it is they're doing, because she doubts the writers or executives had this course of action in mind for the scene. When Emma's tongue swipes across her bottom lip, Regina decides this version is better.
Regina grants Emma the access her co-star seems to want and isn't disappointed when Emma claims her with a more thorough kiss. She drops a hand from Emma's hair and claws at the other woman's shirt before biting Emma's bottom lip. Someone moans and she's not sure who until it happens again seconds later when Emma squeezes her hips and the woman's hands accidentally slide under Regina's painstakingly chosen wardrobe for the episode. Despite how good the kiss feels, she's reminded of the fact that she's not wearing her own clothes and she and Emma are kissing in front of a room packed with their usual crew.
She snaps back into the scene and thinks about her character's son Andy on his possible death bed, how she's helpless as his mother to wake him from the coma he fell into just before she'd rushed him to the emergency room, how Emma's character had shown up despite not being wanted nor needed at his bedside just because she's his birthmother and how Regina—Elena—had broke down about that just before the kiss. The kiss Regina stops with a careful shove that strains her more than it hurts Emma while still looking realistically intense for the cameras.
Emma stumbles back with a shocked expression, mouth agape and eyes wide, before she runs a hand through tousled hair. The younger woman's chest rises and falls as rapidly as Regina's heart tries to beat its way out of her chest and then Regina's looking down at the tiled floor, confused and a little ashamed.
Regina touches a hand to her kiss-swollen lips and heavily exhales. Her shoulders sag like she hopes to rid herself of the weight that's been on them for a while, but she's tense and overwhelmed and thinks my son. Thinks he's sick and he's mine and what am I doing when she hears, "Cut!"
She jumps at the sudden shout from Emma before the crew shuffles around and resets.
"Play that back for me, guys," Emma says on her way over to one of the camera operators.
While Emma stares at the monitor with critical eyes, Regina subtly clears her throat and licks her lips as she finally lowers her hand back to her side. She moves slowly, still in a haze from the unexpected actions during their latest take of the climactic scene. Her head knows what happened is just one interpretation of the scene and that there will likely be at least one or two more ways to play it that Emma will have them explore, but her heart wonders why Emma even chose to play it this way. Why did Emma initiate a kiss?
"Whoa!" Henry leaps off Emma's newly gifted 'Director' chair she'd generously let him borrow to watch them film. He looks happy and hopeful when he goes on to ask, "Did you plan that? Are Elena, Dani and Andy gonna be a family now?"
He knocks the air out of her lungs like a punch to the gut with that question. Regina moves her hand from her side to her stomach, a nervous habit she can't seem to break, and smiles at him as she tries to let him down gently.
"I don't know, Henry," she answers honestly. "Remember how I told you there are a lot of do-overs with my job?"
He nods, and his smile turns into a more contemplative expression as he tries to really listen.
"This is just one way we decided to act this part out. We might do it again the same way and we might not."
"But…if you do it the same way then that means they'll be a family, right?" His eyes light up with hope again while he leans forward on his toes like, at any second, he'll bounce or dance for joy if she says the right thing.
"Well, no. Even if we do it again, just like that, it doesn't mean the characters will be a family."
"Why not?" Henry sulks and he juts out his bottom lip in a cute but bitter, way less naïve than when he was younger, pout.
"I don't know if this is going to make any sense to you, but Elena and Dani kissing might not be the best outcome for the episode. Maybe it's better if the kiss happens later. Or not at all."
"It looked great!" Regina's mouth flaps like a dying fish floundering on land, but recovers once Henry finishes with, "Why wouldn't it the best? Especially if it means Andy gets to have two parents."
"Two…? Henry, why—"
"Wow. Great first take," Emma announces before she looks at Regina with a pleased smile and then heads back over to the stage. "You up for doing that again? Was that…okay? F-for you, I mean."
"Yeah! Do it again," Henry, of course, encourages.
Emma laughs, mostly genuine but a small part of it nervous, and pushes back his hair before she ruffles it. "Glad to have you on my side, Kid. I should make you my assistant director."
"You should," Henry easily agrees. "But I'm not cheap. Pay me in ice cream and all the quarters I want at an arcade and then we'll talk."
Emma laughs again and there isn't a hint of nervousness that time. "How about we start with the ice cream and negotiate the rest of your terms?"
"Hmmm. I think I can work with that. My favorite's cookie dough, but you should bring Chunky Monkey. That's Mom's favorite." He winks at Emma and then smiles at Regina like he's only her sweet little prince, not the devil wearing an angel's stolen halo.
"You got it," Emma replies. "Think I can borrow her a little while longer? We've still got a lot of work to do."
"Yeah." He turns around to head back to his borrowed chair but turns around after only a couple steps. "Oh, but if you're gonna kiss again, you should try it with Dani pinned to the cabinet instead of Elena. Just a thought."
Regina's eyebrows shoot toward her hairline while she presses her hand against her stomach like she's about to throw up. She doesn't and she's not even close to physically ill, but it's the second time Henry catches her off guard. And he's smug and strutting back to reclaim Emma's seat like a ten-year-old boy who feigns innocence as a manipulation technique, because he is.
"Wow. So much swagger," Emma comments before she turns back to Regina. "That is definitely your kid."
She takes a breath to say something like "thank you" or "I don't know where he gets that from" when Emma's words truly sink in. She furrows her brow and asks, "You think I have swagger?"
Emma freezes and, with her fair skin, it's hard to miss the blush that appears on her cheeks. "Time is money and this episode falls on my shoulders pretty heavily, so we should probably finish this up."
Regina smirks. Having the upper hand, even for just a moment, eliminates Regina's uncertainty and pushes her confusion to the far recesses of her mind. Teasing Emma comes naturally to her. It's familiar and grounding and she uses that to collect herself. The smirk disappears before she takes another breath and then nods. She wipes under her eyes to clear away some of the presumably smudged makeup and asks, "From the top?"
"Yeah. Uh, but I think…" Emma trails off as she looks around and then yells, "Can we get makeup over here?" The blonde steps closer and gently rubs at the corners of Regina's lips. "Continuity. You didn't look this disheveled when we started."
Regina stares at Emma as she allows the woman to tame equally smudged lipstick. She holds her breath for a long, intimate moment before their respective makeup artists rush in and ruin it.
Emma looks away as her stylist reins in her post-makeout hair and commands the crew, "Back to one!"
They shuffle into place again while a makeup artist reapplies Regina's eyeliner and lipstick, hears the shouts of "quiet on set" and rustling scripts, feels the added body heat of the makeup artist in her face on top of the studio lights. It's easy to let in distractions, especially when she's aware of Henry's presence, but she relies on him to help her return to her character. She remembers every fever and sharp cry of his that had worried her to frantic behavior and tears over the course of Henry's life, pictures her fictional son Andy as though it's Henry unconscious and hooked up to various hospital machines because she'd trusted someone for the first time in a long time. She'd trusted them, and they'd turned their back for one second. One second and her son had run off, explored an unstable and neglected coal mine that collapsed not long after he'd ventured inside it.
Regina feels a breeze and then the makeup specialists are gone. It's just her and Emma alone on the set with a room full of people waiting for their next move, and every single one after that. No one speaks or scuffs their shoes on the floor. She can't hear anyone's breathing except Emma's and her own, which draws her attention back to the blonde. She sees a silent question in the woman's eyes and confirms she's ready.
The boom operator calls out, "Speed."
The second assistant camera operator holds out the slate in front of Emma and Regina's faces. The younger woman, Belle, with her Australian accent and her hair tied up in a hurried bun shouts out the episode, scene and take numbers and then claps the slate one time for every camera rolling. She runs back behind the main camera where Emma had reviewed their previous take and then another moment of silence passes.
Emma yells, "Action" and then she and Regina are shouting and wrestling in the fake supply closet before there are more tears and salty kisses and Emma pinned to the metal cabinet instead of Regina. She doesn't mean to act out Henry's suggestion, but they somehow end up that way. At some point, Regina had clamped a hand around Emma's wrist to hold her against the cabinet while the other grips a toned bicep.
Emma's clawing at Regina's, or rather Elena's, blazer with her free hand and everything's fast and desperate and still so messy. Their teeth clash even more that time around and Regina can't entirely breathe between crying and kissing, so she breathes loudly and heavily against Emma with so many thoughts running wild in her head. None of them are her own, at least not any more than in the way that life imitates art.
Regina, as Elena, pushes off from the cabinet and distances herself from Emma—Dani—with the same confusion and regret from the first take. She touches her lips like the first time, too, but feels more breathless and lost in that moment. She lets herself feel it, moves slowly if she dares to move at all, looks into Dani's eyes and then avoids them when it feels like the mine had collapsed on her, too. It's too much. Andy's hurt and Dani's at fault and Elena wants to run from the blonde and never let her go at the same time.
Then, she looks up and stares directly into expressive blue-green eyes. Shock is prevalent, but there's something else in Dani's eyes, too. Dani looks scared. Scared to hope for more than what the kiss might really mean to Elena, and Elena immediately recalls Dani's words from when she'd first heard what happened to Andy.
"He's my son, too." Spoken softly and carefully and with a slightly pained, unsteady expression. Dani had never sounded surer of anything in all the time they'd known each other.
Andy in the hospital, the two of them in the closet. It's all Dani's fault and yet Elena… She thinks she's… She feels like she's falling in—
"Cut!"
Regina blinks and sees Dani. No, Emma. She knows it's Emma because Emma's righting her wrinkled and tugged askew shirt before looking over at the person responsible for breaking the moment.
Henry stands next to the camera operator looking like a very young professional, but also a little in awe.
Emma clears her throat and flashes him a smile. "Thanks, Kid. I got a little wrapped up in the scene. Good call."
"I'll take a quart of cookie dough ice cream no later than tomorrow night," he instructs.
The crew, Emma included, laughs and Henry beams like he had when he'd lost his first tooth.
Regina shakes her head but smiles as well. "Would you also like your own chair that says, 'Assistant Director'?"
"No, I'll just take Emma's."
"No way, Kid. Never gonna happen. I earned that chair."
"You're not even using it," Henry argues.
"Because I'm working."
"If you were working, you would have said cut. Only directors say that."
Emma squints at him. "Yeah, so maybe you don't deserve that ice cream since, you know, you so rudely stole my job?"
"You wouldn't."
"Try me." Emma grins.
Henry looks at her skeptically for a minute until he suddenly seems convinced Emma would deny him just to prove him wrong. "What? Really?" Then he whines, "Come on!"
Emma chuckles and gives him a shrug.
Henry scoffs and throws his head back.
"So dramatic," Emma says as she turns to Regina. "Another Mills trait passed down."
Emma smiles and it doesn't quite reach her eyes. Regina finally sees exhaustion taking hold. The last take has been, by far, the most intense. The first two had been bad either for sound or camera, but there had been four all-out runs of the scene from start to finish with fighting and crying in various positions and either less or more yelling than the previous take. Then they'd added kissing to the mess of emotions.
"I feel good about this," Emma says then, as though she can read Regina's thoughts. Either that or Regina's more transparent than she thinks.
Regina returns Emma's tired and only half-comforting smile with one of her own. "Me too."
It's not until she's sitting in her trailer on her one night off the following week that she realizes she'd been tricked into a false sense of hope about the future of her character, positive and more inclusive representation on TV and the possibility that life really could imitate art. Any hope she had after filming is dashed when she has an early screening of the episode before having to contractually livetweet it when it airs.
Thankfully she's by herself because she's fuming, and she knows Henry will be devastated by the unmemorable and lackluster editing choices. She's satisfied that at least most of the Elena and Andy scenes before the accident are just as real and gut-wrenching as she remembers them when filming, but the episode and subsequent season finale won't be nearly as powerful as it could have been had Emma been as bold in post-production as she'd been with her acting choices.
Regina grabs her phone off the coffee table after the hard to miss and unexpected scene change and hesitates for a moment only to decide whether she'll text or call with her complaint. Always happy to give her frustrating co-star an earful, she clicks the contact info for the infuriating blonde and hits dial.
Four rings later, which feel like an eternity, Emma answers with a peppy, "Hey."
Not at all in the mood for pleasantries or even basic manners, Regina blurts out, "What the hell, Emma? You cut the scene?"
"I knew picking up would be a bad idea," the other woman grumbles and then speaks up when she asks, "You saw the episode?"
"Haven't finished it yet. I stopped paying attention once I noticed the huge chunk of hard work and emotion you chopped out of it. Not only did I give the full scene my all, but I did it again and again for lighting and sound and, more than any department or other person, for you!"
Emma sighs. "I know."
"That scene was extremely hard for me," Regina adds while she starts to pace her quaint living room.
"I know," Emma repeats, just as quietly and defeated as the first time.
"After everything I went through with Henry and my ever-depressing love life, or lack thereof, it felt like I was right back in the middle of it."
"I know."
"Do you? Do you really know? You're not me. You can't possibly know what it was like for me. Not in real life and certainly not during filming. If you had, you would've kept every snot-filled frame and close ups of every tear."
"Regina—"
"And then there's the kiss."
"Regina, please let me—"
"What was the big rush, Emma? Hmm? What was so important about your final version of the episode you just ran off to approve this- this biological favoritism and cowardice."
"I didn't—"
"This is what you wanted. You wanted to direct. You tried to get involved in that short film two hiatuses ago and the plans fell through, but it worked out well since you secured this episode as your directorial debut during contract negotiations last season. But where does that leave me?"
"Ranting to me like it's going to change what goes to air?"
Regina runs a hand through her hair, tangles her fingers in silky tresses and pulls as a wild and strangled sound escapes her.
"It should change. You should change it. It's in your power to do that, or do I know the details of your new contract better than you do?"
"That's probably true no matter what I say."
There's a knock on the trailer door and Regina furrows her brow when she turns to stare at it. She wonders whether it's worth answering the door while Emma's unusually quiet on the line and then takes two reluctant steps toward it. "How is it they gave you this episode to direct out of the entire season?"
"You're a diva and this episode is all about your character, so no one else volunteered?"
"Cute," Regina dryly responds.
"Don't believe that? How about 'luck of the draw'? All the people slated to direct this season put their names in a bowl."
"Stop it."
"My favorite number is twenty-one and it's the twenty first episode of the season."
"Emma!"
"You're right. My favorite number is eleven. You know me so well."
"Emma, so help me…"
"Then open the damn door and let me explain!"
Regina frowns and looks at the door again. Sure enough, she'd heard an echo when Emma had made her demand. She closes the distance to her door and pulls the closed blinds away from the narrow window, looks out of it like a peephole and sees Emma curled inward with tense shoulders and several bags hanging from both arms.
Emma makes a face, one of her awkward and endearing looks with a sheepish smile and raised eyebrows, and Regina sighs. She hangs up while looking right at the blonde and moves away from the window to let the woman in.
As soon as the door swings open, Emma hustles inside and sets the box down on the kitchen counter. Emma then turns to face Regina and shakes herself out while Regina rolls her eyes and shuts the door behind them.
"Okay," Emma exhales. She rubs her glove-less hands together and sniffles before she says, "I specifically requested an episode about Elena and her son. Not to direct, but in the season. I was fine if they wanted to give it to someone else to direct. I just knew that part of her story, your story, needed to be told."
"Then why—"
"I'm not finished," Emma says in a way that sounds as gentle as possible while cutting her off. "Not long after agreeing to let me direct, Killian and Robin gave me this episode. I didn't ask for it specifically, but I definitely wasn't going to turn it down. Unfortunately for both of us, the men we work for don't like to rock the boat by starting an adoption versus biology conversation the world needs. And they definitely weren't interested in the way we both interpreted that hospital scene."
"Both?"
Emma nods and slowly steps toward her. "When I first got the script I thought, 'finally. This is the kind of happily ever after so many people not only want to see, but to have for themselves. And we get to make that happen.' I knew it was just one kiss and that it didn't mean they'd ride off into the sunset right away, but it was supposed to be the beginning of something beautiful and epic and maybe even inspiring. That's why I asked you to do the scene way more times than we needed. It needed to be as raw and honest as possible."
"Which I was," Regina grumbles with a quick eyeroll.
"Which you were," Emma agrees. "Your performance… It's everything I expected, everything I wanted from you, everything I knew this kind of episode would be."
"But?" She petulantly crosses her arms and can't seem to stand still anymore. She starts to make her leg jump as she rhythmically taps her heel against the ground like a human metronome.
"But…Jones and Hood joined me in the editing room. They pulled some other guy from higher up the food chain, some executive or something from the studio. Between their fragile male egos and the super conservative assholes controlling the purse strings, they robbed us of the ending we deserved."
"So, you…didn't…"
"God, no. Regina, you know me better than anyone. I would never get rid of such a powerful message about found families and unexpected but crazy, beautiful love, especially not to give the pretty boy more face time because teen girls scream obsessively for more."
Regina sighs with noticeable relief. "It's still not great, but—"
"But at least I didn't betray you." Emma's much closer than she'd been a minute ago and Regina nearly gasps. "We've known each other how long and you still think I'd do something like that to you?"
Regina gulps. "Well, it's not like you gave me a heads up. How hard is it to send a text and say, 'Things aren't going as planned in edit. I'll explain later'?"
Emma smiles like it's funny and Regina's about to lose her temper again, but then Emma reaches out and gently grips Regina's biceps. Regina's breathless when Emma says, "You deserve more from this show. Honestly, you deserve the world."
Regina's mouth falls open. She tries to speak, moves her lips, but nothing comes out. Not a sound.
"I really wish I'd negotiated for more of a say in the episode than just how the shots look," Emma adds. "I wish this show was on a different network. I wish I owned a network that we could put this show on because it would never be about Elena's fight to prove herself to her son and his birthmother. It would be about Dani fighting like hell to prove she wants and should have a part in Andy's life, whatever part Elena will allow."
"Emma—"
"Maybe this show won't give us, or so many others, the happy ending that it should. Maybe they'll queerbait a good portion of the fans and we'll lose some of our audience. Maybe we'll get cancelled before then or maybe we'll get cancelled after the Two Idiots fuck this up too many times to salvage what they could have had. But I damn sure am not going to ruin our chance at a happy ending."
Regina's eyes soften instantly and it's like she just melts. She feels vulnerable and scared and excited because what Emma's saying- "Are you- Is this…really happening right now?"
Emma smirks like she's pleased to have knowledge of something Regina's only now understanding. There's a flash of desire in her darkening eyes as the blonde takes a step forward and grazes Regina's hip with a light touch of her fingertips. "I'm in," Emma promises.
"Y-you are?"
Emma nods. "I want it, this, all of it. You, Henry, me. Everything. If you'll have me, I want to be your happy ending, Regina Mills."
Regina stares in shock and shakes her head before she furrows her brow, takes a step back. "You can't mean that."
Emma surprisingly doesn't frown and, instead, remains committed to the idea. "I'm gonna stick by you. Always. The choice is yours whether I do that as a friend or as something more. What do you say?"
Emma offers her open palm as if they're about to dance in the pale moonlight instead of standing in Regina's dimly lit trailer with cooling takeout abandoned on the small kitchen table behind them.
Regina accepts her hand and Emma immediately pulls her close, as close as they can be, and starts to sway as she wraps an arm around Regina's waist. There's no music and the only sound aside from their breathing comes from the floorboards when they move over worn spots in the wood. The swaying lasts less than two minutes before Emma stops them and seems to wait for an answer with an expectant expression.
Then Emma takes her breath away when she says, "I love you, Regina."
Regina stands completely still for a moment and just stares, wide-eyed, at Emma. Her gaze slides down to Emma's lips and then hers suddenly feel too dry, so she licks them and looks back up into Emma's eyes. "When?"
That's when Emma frowns. "When what?"
"When did you-? How long have you-?"
Emma's confusion is replaced by amusement before she chuckles and replies, "Last year. Mid-season. The first time you brought Henry to the set. That's when I knew I'm in love with you. But if you're asking how soon I started falling…since the pilot. I gotta admit, the hardass, single mom ignoring personal space while growling out, 'You may have given birth to him, but he is my son' was the hottest and most incredible thing I'd ever seen."
"I was in character."
"Yeah, and you were incredible. You are incredible. You gave me chills, Regina."
"The fierce lioness really works for you, huh?" Regina glides her fingers down Emma's arm from her shoulder, where she'd rested her hand during their little dance, to her wrist.
"Mhmm, and that was before I even knew you had your own kid."
"Mm. So, your feelings escalated when you realized I had more in common with Elena than being a stuck-up bitch upon first impression?" She gently grips Emma's wrist and guides it from her hip to the back pocket of her jeans.
She watches Emma's throat bob when the other woman noticeably gulps just as Regina allows Emma's fingers to tease the top of the pocket, their joined hands on the swell of her cheek.
Emma dumbly nods, seemingly speechless, and Regina grins before she bites her bottom lip. In seconds, she watches Emma's eyes drop to her mouth as the blonde's chest heaves.
"Emma…" she purrs and leaves the sentence unfinished until she knows Emma's truly listening again.
As soon as their eyes meet, Regina's about to instruct Emma on what she can and should do, but Emma preemptively cuts her off to ask, "Where's Henry?"
"My pretend nemesis and her beau took him out for burgers while I watched the episode."
She's about to ask why when Emma surges forward as her answer to the unspoken question. Their lips crash together in a hungry, heated kiss just as passionate as it had been during the cut version of the scene in the supply closet last week. It's not soft or slow. It's frenzied with a different kind of desperation, and neither of them are crying. The moment isn't about a fictional shared son or even Henry, who glommed on to Emma long before this moment. It's only about them.
Emma pushes her hand into Regina's pocket at the same time her tongue pushes past Regina's parted lips. The blonde squeezes the cheek beneath her hand while pulling Regina as close as physically possible and then flicks the tip of her tongue over the length of Regina's before nipping Regina's bottom lip.
Regina moans and cups the back of Emma's neck, holds her close and demands a harder kiss that eventually leads them to the couch. Regina walks backwards to get to it, but she's leading while Emma loyally follows.
And then they're falling onto the couch with Emma in Regina's lap and Regina stroking Emma's thighs and sides. When they break apart for a breather, Regina redirects her attention to Emma's neck to kiss and lick and suck until she's confident there'll be a hickey in need of covering before Emma can shoot her next scene. She revels in Emma's heavy breathing and various sounds of encouragement and even moans whenever she feels the vibrations of Emma's excitement against her lips. It only seems to spur Emma on until Regina's hair is a tangled mess and Emma's fingers caress Regina's torso beneath her partly rucked up T-shirt.
A loud knock on the door when Regina's mid-moan makes them spring apart just in time for Mary Margaret to walk into the trailer uninvited the second Emma jumps off the couch and onto her feet. Regina's yanking down her shirt with one hand and fussing with her unruly hair with the other, attempting to look more presentable, while Mary Margaret looks back and forth between them.
Henry pops in behind her a few seconds later and then rushes past her with a rambunctious, "Emma!" He barrels into the blonde and hugs her, his cheek pressed against Emma's stomach and his hands tightly wrapped around her waist like they hadn't seen each other in months when, in fact, it'd only been a matter of days.
David Nolan walks in last and smiles at the sight of Henry hugging Emma before he notices his girlfriend's stunned expression. Mary Margaret's speechless, though she's trying to say something the way she's sputtering out nonsense, until her shock turns into a blush and she turns into David. "We should go," she announces as she tries to shove him out of the trailer with her hands on his chest.
"What? But we just got here. What's going on?" David scrunches his face and looks to Emma and Regina for an explanation.
Henry pulls away from the hug and Emma looks nervously down at him before she looks up at David sheepishly, probably just a little less embarrassed than the reserved, cardigan-loving Mary Margaret about being caught.
"Your girl Chastity interrupted what was becoming a very pleasant evening," Regina says as she finally stands up. She smiles at Henry and he looks up at her with a knit brow like he's trying to decipher what she means by that statement. When she looks up at Emma, her smile morphs into something not quite as innocent and she watches the younger woman's skin flush until she's almost as red as a tomato.
"Uh, right," David says a little too loudly before he clears his throat. "Sorry about that. Hopefully you still have a good evening, even if it's not…that other thing. Bye."
The couple rushes out of the trailer as if they thought they were seconds away from witnessing Emma and Regina pounce on each other, even though Henry's with them now and stares at the closed door with confusion and slight judgment before he shares his opinion about the hasty exit. "Weird." He turns to Emma and Regina again and beams before he asks, "Is Emma staying tonight or are you just here to drop something off?"
Emma clears her throat and looks at Regina for the correct answer, which she's happy to supply. "Henry, would it be okay if Emma spent more time with us more often?"
"Of course! But…she already hangs out in the trailer a lot. And then she came to the house a couple times in the summer. How much more time can she spend without moving in?"
Emma freezes and stammers a few times before Regina takes pity on her and chuckles as she answers, "How about we start with a few dinners first and some sleepovers after that before we start talking about asking Emma to live with us?"
Henry looks between the two of them suspiciously before he aims his next question directly at Regina. "Wait a minute. Isn't that… That means…" He lights up a moment later and blurts out, "You and Emma are gonna be like Elena and Dani? Are we gonna be a family?"
Regina grimaces at the reminder that she'll have to break the news to him about Elena's and Dani's unlikely future together on the show, but then Emma crouches down in a catcher's stance in front of him and carefully says, "I don't know about Elena and Dani. It might be too soon to tell with them, but your mom and I want to try what our characters might not."
"So, we will be a family?" His eyes shine with even more hope than before and she presses a closed fist against her chest to keep her from stepping over Emma's nicely worded explanation.
"I can't say I'll ever move in with you and your mom. We have to work up to that. But I can promise you that no matter what happens, I want to be in both your lives. Is that okay?"
"Like…friends?"
"Yeah. Best friends. Forever. Whether or not I come to stay with you and your mom in the future. Does that…make sense? Is that good enough for you?"
Henry scrunches up his face in thought and then smiles and says, "Yeah."
Emma smiles, too, and Regina relaxes with a sigh of relief and a fond smile of her own.
"If Emma's not leaving yet, can we watch a movie?"
"I, um, have something else to finish watching first," Regina replies, and avoids mentioning the episode, "but after that I don't see why not. It's not a school night."
"And we have plenty of snacks to go with the dinner I brought," Emma adds.
"Cool! Emma, can we use your Hulu account? They don't have the movie I want to watch on Netflix anymore and the DVD is at the house."
"Sure, Kid. As long as your mom doesn't mind me borrowing her laptop."
Regina motions to the coffee table where her MacBook sits closed underneath her copy of the next episode's script. Emma plops down on the couch, pulls it into her lap and starts it up when she asks, "What movie?"
"The Parent Trap."
Emma and Regina quickly turn their attention to him, their movements almost synchronized, and see Henry's smug expression before he dashes over to the kitchen table and starts picking through the bags Emma brought.
"Where did you say the snacks were?" He asks the question so casually while Emma and Regina stare at each other in disbelief a little while longer.
"Sneaky little shit," Emma mutters before a grin spreads. "Definitely your kid."
Regina narrows her eyes at Emma, but her own smirk starts to form as she says, "As if he didn't pick up any of his bad habits from hanging out with you."
"Maybe, but you're his mom."
"And you're his ally. His friend and confidant. And a very bad influence."
"You weren't complaining about my influence a few minutes ago."
Regina mock-gasps and glances at Henry before she shakes her head at Emma.
Emma just shrugs, still grinning but not as suggestively. It's more endearing. Adorable, even. It gets a little smug again the longer Regina stares at her and then Emma sings just loud enough for Regina to hear, "L is for the way you look at me. O is for the only one I see."
"What am I going to do with the two of you?" Regina asks herself.
"I'm sure you'll think of something," Emma answers for her and winks.
Regina rolls her eyes and then moves toward the kitchen. "Can I get you a drink? Apple juice, Henry? Wine for the adults?"
She looks over her shoulder when she opens the refrigerator and Emma makes a familiar, purposely nervous expression when she replies, "Got anything stronger?"