This fic was part of the Secret Santa competition, for theunihopper.
(I should just put a quick disclaimer on the 'calmness inside a restlessness' line below – comes from/inspired by a quote from Dodie Smith.) Huge thanks to the wonderful Destroyyourhappiness for the beta-ing this fic, remaining mistakes are all mine.
This is set 'just after' Emma and Snow's return from the Fairytale Land. And I am still not sure what to make of this... pfft.
Secret Santa
There's a knock at the door, just after midnight, and Regina sets her no-longer-bubbly champagne glass down on the closest cabinet as she stands. The house bears the brunt of the soft slaps of bare feet – the heels having been kicked off over an hour ago, after the mayor finally lost a glaring contest with the clock – and she reaches the door before after paying particular care to school her expression. Her shoulders even out to give her the appearance of composure, but inside her heart weighs down on her chest like thick slab of tar.
When the door opens, Regina is no more surprised by the figure that stands before her than she is the cheap, service station-bought flowers that are thrust under her nose. The light streaking out from the foyer behind her brings a wilted sheen to the daffodils, and she subtly raises her chin further into the air as she meets the eyes of her guest.
"You're late," she says, and her voice is a calmness inside a restlessness inside a deep, coiling betrayal that she can't quite seem to communicate with words. For her part, Emma manages to look sheepish, right down to the wide-puppy-dog eyes and the way she shifts her balance from foot to foot as though testing the weight of the guilt that's been preying on her shoulders for the entire ride over there.
"Yeah," she says, because apology has never come so easy, and disagreeing is out of the question. "I got – caught up."
The stilting way she says it makes Regina's anger boil, until that thick lump of tar in her chest is a swelter pool in her stomach, then a moat around her tongue. Her words are slick with its venom when she says, "A phone call would have been appreciated; a text, email, note-by-carrier-pigeon." Her lips snarl around the popped 'p' and Emma cringes at the reminder of where she's spent the last few weeks.
"We had a – a thing, a family thing," she tries to explain, and her eyes wrinkle wearily, as though it wasn't the journey that had taken it out of her, but the arrival back, the celebration of returning home. "I got away as soon as I could." Her tone is lacking apology, but Regina doesn't particularly care for one, and so Emma gives the daffodils a shake and asks, with a lift of her eyebrows, "Do you want these, or not?"
Regina's eyes fall back to the flowers, distaste evident on her features that doesn't fully remain through her question of, "Henry is…?"
"Sleeping like a baby," Emma answers, and they both cringe at that; the memory and the lack thereof.
The Sheriff sighs and runs her free hand through her hair. The arm holding the flowers up begins to ache, and her elbow dips in to relieve the burn, the daffodils raggedly falling. "I'll just…" She tips her head to the side and drags the flowers down. Her muscles, at least, sing with relief, but when her fingers ready to open around their stems, Regina quickly objects.
"Ms. Swan, I do hope you're not trying to dump those flowers on my garden."
Emma turns a lean, green stare on her, and Regina's hand flexes with movement, fingers suddenly offered out and a look on her face that implies she's merely helping the incompetent woman take out the trash. But Emma hands over the flowers regardless of where they might be deposited, only all too happy to finally be rid of their weight.
The sigh is a reminder of how cold it is, her breath snaking out from her mouth and billowing around Emma's features, and Regina's hand slips from its position on the door, fingers cracking around the edge a little further down. She takes a moment, while Emma shifts restlessly, to regard the woman standing before her. She looks tired, and that mental exhaustion is likely the only reason why the longing shines through the green of her eyes.
She wants in.
Her feet have passed the 'pain' stage of being pressed against cold tiles in an even colder season, and are beginning to numb. For her own sake, Regina reasons, she should get back to the warmth.
She tips the door further open and says, "You'd best come in." If anything else, she doesn't want any curious neighbours witnessing The Saviour turning up on her doorstep with flowers.
The daffodils might have screamed under Regina's hold, fingers near-blanching around their stems. When she turns around and heads towards the kitchen, she can hear the sure sounds of a closing door and Emma Swan's shuffling, beaten boots on the tile of her foyer floor, and she reasons that it's best her fingers are strangling the flowers rather than the given alternative. The thought both alleviates the tension thickening through her shoulders, and adds a further chill to her bones, replacing the loss of the outdoor air.
Emma follows behind her wordlessly, and Regina's feet begin to regain feeling as she places the flowers in an empty, pre-waiting vase on the breakfast bar. For her part, Emma manages not to look surprised.
"What now?" Regina asks as she moves around the kitchen, ignoring the way the daffodil stems droop over the edge of the vase. She picks up a wine bottle – because what was left of the champagne was fed to her gardenias almost an hour before – and unscrews the cap. "You thought you'd come around here to – what? Satiate your appetite after months of detoxification?"
The way she says it brings a hot flush – anger, embarrassment – to Emma's neck, because she's not entirely wrong. But she's here, she's made it, and after fighting giants and ogres and fucking pirates, she doesn't think she has the energy to go another round with Regina. "I just – I thought we could have a nice meal, catch up, maybe ev–"
"Dinner went cold almost…" Regina makes an obvious move to check the time of the kitchen clock, though she already knows how long it's been, roughly down to the minute, "…four hours ago, Sheriff."
There is a bitterness to her voice, one she didn't quite wish to show, but she had slaved away in the kitchen to make everything perfect – just having somebody to cook for was enough motivation to get her near-excitable all afternoon – and now Emma has ruined it, like she ruined the curse and Regina's control over the little hamlet of Storybrooke. The mayor can't help but wonder what else the blonde will ruin under the guise of saving her people.
Her fingers tighten around the neck of the wine bottle as Regina reaches for just one glass. Green eyes take in the absence of another, and Emma shifts her hands into her back pockets with a sigh.
Emma, at least, has the rightness of mind to look guilty, and her stomach clenches around what's left of her digesting Christmas dinner. She was sure the mince pies were going to make a reappearance some time earlier that night, but her gut has never failed her yet, and she's feeling just about ready to finish off everything Regina has made her – right down to licking the bowl of cranberry sauce clean – if it means being scribbled out of Regina's bad books.
"I tried to get away sooner…" she tries, but the scathing look Regina holds her with kills the excuse before its time.
Another sigh, and she looks down to the ill-looking daffodils drooping, out of place, on Regina's breakfast table. She would have been reluctant to admit to the woman standing before her that she could have done better – when it comes to their relationship, neither are quite so forthcoming with heartfelt, honest confessions – but now, all she wants is a warm bed and a warmer body pressed against hers.
She ignores the voice that tells her that there are plenty of people in Storybrooke; there isn't a bed she'd sooner share than Regina Mills', but that prospect is looking slimmer by the second.
Regina leans a hip against a kitchen counter and inspects her nail beds. She's let her appearance slip – only slightly, but enough for her to tell. While picking at a nail, grown slightly longer than she usually keeps them, she mutters, "It really doesn't matter why you didn't come, Ms. Swan." She meets Emma's gaze, and all the nonchalance fails her with that steely look to her eyes. "I was ready to retire to bed. I think you should do the same." She studies the barely-present droop to Emma's shoulders and further comments, "You don't want mommy and daddy finding their little princess out of bed so late at night, unattended."
Those words are enough to return a streak of frustration to Emma, and she straightens her posture. "Are you seriously doing this now?" she asks, because of all the times Regina could have withheld her access to her bed, now is really the most unfortunate.
She takes a step, then thinks better of approaching her; hugs are never usually well-received, and Emma's back still stings with the memory of what those nails can do when they're about half the length of what they currently are.
"Look, I'm sorry I'm late." The rushed way she says it is the only way she can get the words out without them chafing, like buttering up a finger before attempting to yank off a too-tight ring. "But I'm here now. You try sneaking away under the eyes of your over-attentive parents to see your lover for a romantic Christmas meal."
Regina's eyes narrow and a soft thud of breath caught in the back of her throat fills the space between them. "Lover?" she asks, lip curling, and then catches on the more absurd word in that sentence, as though it wasn't bad enough already. "Romantic?"
Emma fights her way through a blush – because this is what she wants, and she knows how to get it, if Regina will just let herself return the acceptance. "Yes," she persists, voice only a little strained around the syllable. "I know we're not the next Erik and Christine, but we – there's something here, Regina." Her voice loses its momentum and she sighs, licking her lips as though to heal them from the burn of that last statement.
Thankfully, Regina looks suitably confused by what she's just said – and only a little horrified that they're actually broaching this subject – and so lets her speak, uninterrupted. "We can't keep pretending that this isn't happening," she says, even though she's tried harder than anyone to convince herself just the opposite. "We're…doing this, and… it's not going to make things any better by ignoring what's between us."
Regina's response is razor sharp, a clean cut, "And what is between us?"
Emma falters for only a second before disregarding the question; she knows she can't answer that one, not even if she wanted to – which, admittedly, she sometimes does. Instead, she bites back, "I want this. Whatever it is, whatever we're doing, I don't want to stop."
It's enough to make Regina reconsider the woman before her, and she pushes her hip away from the counter in a positively feline movement. Her arms cross over her chest, shielding that particular organ somewhere inside there that jolts and swells with the Sheriff's confession.
"We don't always get what we want, Ms. Swan," she says, but there's no edge to the words; it's as if she's merely passing on a friendly reminder, but Emma makes good work of downright ignoring it. She's lived for long enough without anything, she thinks now's as good a time as any to check in to the bank of karma.
Another step forward brings Emma closer toward the row of counters that line the wall of the mayoral manor's kitchen. She uses their edge to align herself with Regina, and her hands find her hips, as though grounding herself in place against the temptation to run.
"But we can have this." She says the words quietly, on a whispered breath, as though that might take away their strength. But she sees the contortion of Regina's face and knows her voice didn't soften them any.
The glass is returned to the counter slowly, as though the mayor is fighting to restrain herself against launching it into a wall – or, better yet, the human-target standing a mere few paces before her.
"Can we?" Regina asks, her lips twisting with an unamused, ugly smirk. "You think we can play happy families now that you're home in Storybrooke and have defeated the big bad witch that stole all of the happy endings?" Her volume against the stark silence of the manor has Emma's ears ringing, but her fingers only dig further into her jeans.
"Regina–" she tries, but it's a half-hearted attempt at calming the woman down.
A laugh rings out – brittle, almost sore – and Regina throws her hands up in hysteria. They fall back to her thighs with a slap that even Emma feels the resonating sting of.
"Oh, this is precious," and her chuckling continues, but her eyes begin to fill with mounting tears. "Do you think you've saved me, Ms. Swan?" she asks, and when Emma doesn't answer and the smile begins to physically hurt her mouth, continues with a rushed, you-weren't-supposed-to-hear-that breath, "Have you saved me?"
Startled that the question left her lips, Regina barely registers Emma's movements, but then she's there, standing in front of her, and there are warm, familiar fingers gripping at the tops of her arms.
Emma's eyes are a shade of green that's always called to Regina, and she falls into them now helplessly, exhausted by this existence of composure. She's spent too long trying to not be herself, but thinks that this twisted creature she's created, instead, might actually be closer to the truth than she'd like to imagine.
As gently as she thinks herself capable, Emma's fingers tighten around Regina's arms. It's as close to an embrace as the mayor will let her get, and so she jumps on the opportunity to finally touch her – to finally feel the skin that has had her own itching with longing all those nights spent beneath unfamiliar constellations.
She doesn't answer the question – whether for Regina's own sake or because she's sure the mayor already knows the truth – but her thumbs strum a pattern along the goosebumps of Regina's upper-arms and she holds the other woman's desperate stare without flinching.
The seconds it takes for her to slide her hands down Regina's arms – fingers roaming down warm flesh, the bump of wrist-bones, and then the soft skin between knuckles, where they finally twine with the mayor's own – give Regina enough time to compose herself again. With her head slightly dipped, she focuses on unwinding the knot her tongue has made in her throat, but does not wrench her fingers away when Emma gives her own a gentle squeeze.
"I came," Emma says, as though it's the answer to all that's wrong with this entire situation. "I'm here."
A hand wriggles its way out of hers and Emma thinks, for a moment, that Regina's going to push her away – or sucker punch her in the face.
The hand is raised, and does make contact, but it's softer than Emma anticipated and, as cool fingers shiver against her cheek, she lets out a shuddering breath, as though recovering from a blow. Her eyelids fall, suddenly heavy, but she fights their weight to once again take in the mayor's face. There's an expression there that Emma might place somewhere between 'awe' and 'incredulity', and it isn't wholly unfamiliar. But it still warms her chest like the first time she ever caught a glimpse of it in Regina's dark eyes.
Regina takes this moment of quiet (a luxury between them, even if they aren't the best talkers) to study the face before her. Her hand drops back to her side, empty, but the other squeezes the other woman's as though to compensate for the loss of contact.
That world – no longer her own, she saw to that – it's marked Emma in places Regina can remember touching. Her lips remember, also, and tingle at being so close. Perhaps it's anticipation, she vaguely wonders, as her eyes drink in the new cuts and bruises that form Emma's face.
There's no real scarring there – at least, nothing new – and the bruises barely hold up, but the light in the mayoral manor is always at its starkest. She had never wanted shadows in Storybrooke, bar the one she cast herself.
Emma seems to allow the slow regard with a tooth-achingly hopeful expression, like a dog awaiting appraisal, or forgiveness for having stolen from its master's plate.
Regina thinks she'll forgive her. At least, this time, because what else can she really hold onto? The pain she carries with her is far from being pried away – it's a thick material, at this stage, a second skin – or a third. If it were visible, she'd look positively reptilian with it. It doesn't heal, but it's growing lighter, easier to carry, she notices. Not day by day, because the process really isn't that fast – oh, if only – but every few weeks. She can look back, now, and pinpoint times that are neither specific nor important, but she sees herself for who she was then, and the image doesn't quite coincide with who she is now.
She's different. Of course, change is inevitable, even in Storybrooke. Especially in Storybrooke, especially now. It's a good different, she thinks, as her eyes caress jawbone and cheekbone and brow-bone, and then repeat the same trail but on the other side of Emma's face. It's a healing different.
Her gaze shifts from the yellow of Emma's hair to the yellow of the daffodils, and a shadow of her earlier frown returns. They're almost weeping, the way they hang over the rim of the vase, and she exhales a short breath as her eyes lift to Emma's.
"I think, even with magic, dinner is beyond salvage," she finally says, trying to forget the smell of stale meat and veg and gravy all falling together with the almost-familiar odour of week-old garbage. It had felt almost liberating, scratching the patterns off her plates into an already overflowing trashcan, but now she's only reminded of the fact that no one will be turning up to clear the evidence of her little tantrum away in the morning.
Turns out, Snow White's former nobles have gotten the idea that they're above collecting other people's garbage. The town is suffering without her guiding hand, though she had practically prophesised that happening before the curse was even close to breaking.
Emma shrugs a little, her free hand sliding around to her back pocket – because leaving it just hanging there feels uncomfortably purposeless, and she's already grabbed Regina's hand once; if the mayor wanted it for herself, she'd take it.
"Have you eaten?" she asks lightly, her stomach bulging a little at the mere idea of having to watch the process of Regina cooking her a second Christmas dinner from scratch. The way Regina' eyes fall to the button on her jeans, however, has all thoughts of Christmas dinners swiftly fleeing her mind.
"Not yet," Regina answers, eyes rising with soft blink. If Emma didn't know any better, she'd think this was Regina's way of flirting, but she's at least had time to understand the speed at which Regina's mood can flip. And, really, vengeful-to-aroused isn't the worst combination she's experienced so far.
"Maybe we can veto dinner," she offers, her own eyes falling to the other woman's lips and lingering there for a moment.
She can't tell if that's a new shade of lipstick, or if going so long without this sight is making Regina's entire body shine like she has god-rays haloing out around her. Either way, she can't think of a damn reason for why this should be rushed, and allows her mind to get sucked through the tunnel vision that has everything slowing down to a fraction of normal time.
Vaguely, she catches Regina's nod, and then she's moving in – slowly; tunnel vision always has its disadvantages. She can see what's inevitably going to happen, but all the wishes in the world can't make the moment quicken.
Somewhere, right at the back of her mind, she's reminded of nights from her childhood spent tossing and turning, waiting to see the new foster family in the morning and hoping – praying – that this time she's not gonna get stuck with a couple of assholes looking for a few extra bucks.
The thought doesn't last long, because then Regina's lips really do make contact with her own, and her eyes close and her breath hitches in the way all the books told her they would. It's times like these that she wishes she could have been a romantic. Maybe she'd pop her leg up, or pull back and smile coyly at Regina from underneath her batting lashes – but then Regina probably would try to murder her, and it'd be a lot less I-baked-you-some-sugar-dusted-pastry and a lot more here-have-my-hand-through-your-chest. So, instead, she settles for putting the breakfast table to good use and backing Regina up into it.
Emma has had bets on whether or not Regina actually eats at this thing, ones she's neither won nor lost, but she has no qualms now in lifting Regina until she's sitting on top of it with her strong thighs anchoring Emma in place. She recalls the time Regina told her about her love of horses, how riding had always come naturally to her, and Emma likes to think she's a bit of a natural at it, too, though not of the four-legged variety.
Regina protests enough to get her mouth free, and when Emma thinks she's about to be scalded for making her breakfast bar look untidy, or almost knocking over the vase of dead daffodils, or whatever the fuck else she's done wrong since having arrived late, Regina is ripping the jacket from her as though Christmas came early – or just again, considering it's already past midnight. And, if that gives Emma the perfect position to watch Regina from as her cheeks glow with urgency and her breasts strain against that one button on her shirt with each panted breath, then damn, maybe Christmas can come for a second time so soon.
A hat and scarf was the last thing on her mind before leaving earlier that night, and now Emma can only be thankful for the urgency that had her fleeing home with only the over-sized jacket and her worn boots to protect her against a Maine winter. As far as outdoor wear goes, she could've done better (and likely would've been forced to have done, should Snow have seen her before she left; for even if her mother turned green or red upon finding out where she was sneaking off to – Emma wasn't sure if she wouldn't just faint, with a hand pressed to her forehead and a delicate little 'oh!' – she'd insist she carried out her tryst in a bobble-hat and mittens).
But when the jacket comes tumbling down, and she actually hears its heavy fall on the kitchen tiles, she's reminded again of her earlier sentiments. And she really doesn't want to rush this.
When Regina's needy fingers begin to tug the hem of her shirt from her jeans (she'd made an effort for dinner), she sighs and grasps at the manic digits. At first, Regina only frowns at their hands, as though seeing their mixed blends of skin tone for the first time.
But then she raises her eyes to Emma's and there's a fierce questioning to them, along with something else – something that Emma is only all too acquainted with, after nights of sharing a tent with her mother, a princess and her pining warrior – but, her mother, damnit. She's never contemplated slipping behind a tree for a quick burst of self-loving more in her entire life.
"Don't rush this," she says to that look of desperation on Regina's face, but the surprise that it's replaced with is almost just as hard to take. She quickly recovers – if nothing else, this is confirmation that they actually have time to just be with one another – and settles, instead, for running her hands up from the base of Emma's shirt, to her shoulders.
Her legs curl further around the hips she now has pinned to the breakfast bar, and she asks, quietly distracted, "Is this your way of letting me know I was missed?" while running one of her bare feet up the back of Emma's jean-clad knee. The limb jerks against her toes and Regina's smirk only further stretches with amusement.
"Uh-uh," Emma shakes her head. "That'll come later."
Regina's subsequent smile is something rare and altogether too soft for that hard-ass-bitch-mayor persona she likes to keep up. Her face cracks with it, arms draping almost languidly over shoulders, and Emma thinks she'd make a pretty good rock for Regina to drape herself over if she were a leopard. She leans into the warm body on the breakfast table and captures swollen lips, again, with her own.
The kiss is gentler than before, sickeningly tender, and Emma pulls back from it with a smirk, feeling sixteen years old all over again. But the very adult woman body in her arms is enough to keep her anchored in the present.
She wraps her arms more firmly around Regina, losing her hips to grip at the small of her back, and then slowly edges her forwards. With the movement, Regina's legs instantly clamp around the body holding her up, and Emma takes a step back until it's just her own arms keeping Regina from falling.
"Bedroom?" she asks, with enough confidence and lack thereof that Regina actually presses a hand to her cheek, feeling it instantly heat with a blush beneath her fingers.
She thinks the kiss she drops to Emma's lips is answer enough, and is proved right when Emma allows her to slowly slide back to her feet, but those familiar arms – now much stronger from her otherworldly journey – remain around her waist. Regina's already made a mental note to appreciate them properly once they make it upstairs.
But, for now, here is where they stand.
Neither really moves to pull free from the kiss, even if what awaits them upstairs has a lot more to offer. It's only when tongues are confused with teeth and lips begin to sting that Regina drops her mouth to the pulse point by Emma's jaw. A keening noise leaves her lips and she cranes her neck to allow the mayor better access to her jugular.
With one hand fisting through thick, dark locks, and the other holding Regina to her, Emma manages to get out a rasping, quiet, "I did, you know?"
Regina pulls back enough to breathe against flushed flesh, "Did what, Ms. Swan?" And then her lips are on the hollow between her collarbones, and her hands are sliding up the back of Emma's shirt, where warm muscles roll into her touch.
"Miss you," Emma answers, now just a whisper, with her head thrown back and her eyes closed.
A huff of air is blown straight down Emma's neck, and she has to fight a shiver from where the breath cools against the wet traces of Regina's kisses. With her head thrown back like this, and her eyes closed, she thinks she might feel Regina nuzzling her throat, but can't be sure.
And then kisses are being trailed up her neck, and she clamps her eyelids together tighter, her breathing suddenly laborious as she waits for Regina to return her words or shoot them down again.
Regina knows she's only fighting for time as she kisses back up Emma's neck, but the blonde is no giraffe and she knows she'll reach her ear soon. When she finally reaches the spot, her lips are burning and unable to press another distraction to Emma's soft skin. Her mouth merely hovers there, brushing against the shell of an ear, and she stares – wide eyed – at the back of the kitchen wall.
She had been waiting for this moment since that first night without Emma's touch, when it really dawned on her just how often the woman had frequented her bed, and just how wide the mattress was – yet so unmerciful it never once attempted to swallow her whole to end those restless hours of tossing and turning. But now that it's here, Regina has to ask herself if she's ready.
The answer, to both, she supposes, comes in a barely audible whisper that tickles Emma's ear. "I missed you, too."
Emma's head falls forward, tilting towards Regina's as she messily finds her forehead, banging noses and cheekbones. With her eyes still closed – now not so much of a 'clamp' – her lips reach out for Regina's, puckering against the air between them, then perhaps a cheek, the corner of a mouth, and then–
As the lips press against her mouth, Regina accepts them heartily. The kisses are neither neat nor synced, but that's all they can manage while the haze fills their minds.
It's a thick smog, similar to the purple clouds of magic that once swept through Storybrooke's streets and wreaked havoc over the little town. But this haze is not harmful, only… blinding. It carries them from the kitchen and strips them of their clothes, until both bodies are deliciously bare. It wraps them together in sheets and limbs, until it's sure they might be mistaken for a single entity.
And when it leaves, it's with a tasteless after-scent of a husky groan lingering behind; in the air, on the sheets, and coated over bodies that lie, still sleeping, oblivious to the blanket of snow outside that their combined magic has teased from the sky.