SQW day 6 - Envy
It's not that Emma isn't grateful for the party, because she is. It's just that she wants to be at home, in her bed, preferably unconscious but she will take what she can get. She stares around the diner and her eyes settle on Robin. She thought she would have gotten over hating him so much by now. Initially she thought that she was just jealous that he took Regina's time away from Henry (ok, from her too). As The Dark One, she thought she hated him so much more because all of her feelings, especially the negative ones, were on overdrive. Once it was all over and the darkness had mostly left her, she thought she still hated him because Hook was gone, and when Regina was busy with Robin she could no longer console herself with him. But recently, confronted with nothing but the time she wishes she could sleep in, in the quiet before dawn and in the sadness of a newly starting day, she has stopped lying to herself. What's the point?
She watches him telling stories. Boring ass, beige fucking stories about the being in the woods and having a good time with the boys. She hopes he has a Brokeback story but she doubts it. That might make him a shred more interesting, and interesting just isn't his thing. Comfort is his thing. Safety is his thing. Apparently washing clothes is not his thing because he literally always smells like forest and why the fuck is he incapable of a clean shave? Does it hurt Regina's skin like Hook's stubble used to hurt hers?
She's staring. She realises it when Regina looks at her and she tries to pretend she wasn't. She looks away but not soon enough. She failed to hide it so she looks back. Regina's not listening to Robin, she's watching Emma. She's watching her watch everyone else. She knows she's not having fun. She probably knows she's wondering if the party is really for her and if it was, why the fuck was Robin invited? (Probably because Mary Margaret thinks everyone should just be friends.) God, she wants to be unconscious.
He's a constant reminder of what she lost, what she had been too scared to do, what she had taken for granted. If someone as indecisive, ineloquent and indistinguishable as Robin of Locksley could be with Regina, then why the fuck hadn't she tried? But she knows why. She had been intimidated, self conscious, overwhelmed by the prospect of Regina. There was Henry to think of if it didn't work out too and she had made the terrible mistake of thinking they had time. Does she know anyone as resilient or hard working? Anyone with a capacity for love and caring and the natural ability she has? She is a BAMF and Emma feels like a lamb next to her. A lamb with a fucking gun, right? But still. If she is a lamb, Robin is something way less cool. Something small and boring and green. He is a frog. Actually, she thinks, frogs are pretty cool. He's moss.
She's definitely drunk. What the fuck is she even thinking about? She rolls her eyes at herself. Regina is still watching her. She wonders if she accidentally said something out loud. She doesn't think she did. God, this party sucks.
Henry and Violet loiter by the jukebox being young and awkward. Snow is putting the world to rights with Archie. David is talking to Granny. Even Ruby is busy making eyes at Mulan across the room. Mulan actually blushes and tries to hide it like everyone doesn't know they're dating. Everyone is doing something (or someone) she almost snorts a little laugh at her own joke.
Regina turns away from her and she's in the dark again. A familiar tune begins as an unfamiliar one ends. It's electric. The beginning drips into a full song and she realises-
"Looking from a window above, it's like a story of love, Can you hear me? Came back only yesterday, I'm moving farther away, want you near me. All I needed was the love you gave, all I needed for another day, and all I ever knew. Only you"
Her heart throbs and in a split second she is thrown back to Camelot. Henry had leant her his ipod thinking it would help. It did. She found this song and wanted to share it with someone, to share a part of her life that had become a piece of her heart. And Regina was there in her red dress, hair tumbling to one side and she just listened to what this meant to her. It wasn't the most eloquent she'd ever been but it was raw. She talked about Neal and how it broke her heart for Henry to lose him so soon (and maybe she didn't say that it hurt for her to lose him again too when they had been figuring things out, but maybe Regina already knew that part).
They had stood by a window, one earphone each. Emma watched her smile bloom in the light. The scar on her lip was defined, her eyes were autumn leaves in the sun. Regina caught her staring and she didn't do anything. She stared back. Something happened. She didn't know what it was but she felt it. Regina touched her hand, she felt it too. And then the song had ended. And shortly after that, everything had ended. Regina and Henry fought so hard for her. Snow and David, too. Shit, even Zelena had in the end. And Hook was gone. Her thing with Hook was just easy and good until it wasn't easy or good, but it was all she had and she held onto it so tightly and still lost it.
And now they are in Granny's diner like everything is over and it is all ok. It isn't fucking ok. And fucking Robin…
Only seconds have passed and she's still thinking about the moment by the window when everything had seemed so clear. She looks up and Regina turns to her quickly when she recognises the song. She stares back, sharing the same thought for a moment. Regina moves towards her. No. She can't do this right now. She gets up and she's out of the door and storming down the street before anything can happen.
"Emma" Regina's voice breaks through her haze of thoughts.
"No" a sob breaks out of her as she disappears in a cloud of smoke.
Regina tries the door handle and it opens for her this time. Emma's barren house opens up. She takes a deep breath and goes inside. The music is loud, tumbling through the floors of the house from Emma's attic bedroom. She still doesn't know how to fill a house with her life. She can manage a room so that's what she has.
Regina knocks on the door because it's polite, but no one hears it. It's open anyway and she goes inside.
Emma is standing in the middle of the room with one hand on her hip, one covering her eyes. Regina's instinct is to protect her, to crush whatever is doing this to her, but she knows it's something internal. It can't be guarded against. It can only be fought by helping Emma, and she will. She always will.
"Henry didn't realise" she says over the music
Emma looks up. "It's not about Henry" she says after a moment, but Regina already knows that. She waits for more. "You shouldn't have left the party, I'm fine.'
"I think I'll be forgiven for leaving"
"I'm glad he's so easygoing" Emma drawls with resentment.
She had actually been thinking about Snow. "He-" Regina doesn't even get a whole word out before Emma snaps.
"He's such a fucking wet blanket!"
Regina pauses. Emma has never actually said the thing that broadcasts across her face every time Robin speaks. It's kind of refreshing. She almost smiles, but that would be unkind. He's just not a hero like they are.
"It's not his fault he's-
"-a complete fucking asshole?" Emma offers
Regina fixes her with a disapproving look "not cut out for this life"
"We should have left him in New York" Emma mumbles
"With Zelena?" Emma shrugs and avoids her eyes. "What's really going on?"
"What do you mean?"
"You left suddenly, but you had already checked out"
"I just didn't want to be there, with all those people and-
"Your friends" Regina corrects "People who love you"
"People" Emma continued regardless "who look at me like I'm some injured animal, like they don't know me anymore"
"Well, it used to be you following me out of Granny's" Regina smiles but Emma looks sad. Her heart hurts a little bit more. "Will you come back?"
"Who's there?"
"Everyone"
"I don't think so"
"It's supposed to be your party"
"I don't need all those people for a party"
"Who do you need? Your friend Jim Beam and Kindness on full blast?"
Emma's eyes glint with unshed tears as she turns to hide them. "Thanks for checking on me, Regina. You can go back though. I'm fine"
Dismissal. Doesn't she even get credit for recognising a Kindness song? She can almost hear Henry in her head saying 'cool points'. She looks around the room instead. It is lit with multicoloured fairy lights that make it feel warm, not heat-warm, but in-your-heart-warm. The bed is covered with one of Snow's less garish quilts. There are books everywhere, on the bookshelf, piles on the floor and some crammed onto the windowsill behind photos frames. The pictures are of Emma and Henry, Snow and David, an old one of Neal and one of the two of them. Regina picks it up.
"I've never seen this picture" she reaches back in her memory for the place and time, but she can't find it. They look happy. She's actually smiling, not her mayor smile, her real smile. She hasn't seen it very often but that it is. And it's accompanied by an open mouthed, crinkled nose, sparkly eyed Emma Swan laugh.
Emma turns to look. "That's because you refuse to get facebook"
"Yes I do. When is it from?"
"Before all that shit with Maleficent and my parents. We were...things were good"
She remembered "Things were good"
Things between them had been better than ever. Henry was happy and things in his life were stable. Robin had done the right thing and gone with Marian and she was living with it. If Hook hadn't been lingering like a bad hangover, things might have been perfect.
"Shouldn't you be going back to Robin?" Emma asks as if she had heard her thoughts about the pirate. Ouch. Regina puts the frame down hard like it cut her. "I'm sorry. Forget I said anything"
"No" she turns, veering a little close to mom-voice territory "you're obviously not done yet, spit it out"
For a moment Emma looks like a naughty child. Her eyes are wide and her chin dips as she loses confidence in herself, just like Henry's does when he is in trouble. The urge to protect her surfaces again.
"I just...he's not good enough, Regina. Maybe once he would have been, but all that soulmate stuff was a lifetime ago. Literally. He drags you down"
That was a slice of honesty she hadn't been expecting. She expected the usual stuff, the 'things are hard' stuff, the 'I don't wanna talk about it' stuff, not this stuff that feels like a dull ache you try to ignore even if it never goes away.
"Emma..."
"Can't you see it? He's-"
"He's not the most important thing in my life!" She cuts her off "He's just good. He's just…" She justifies, again and again. She explains to Henry (who doesn't get it) and herself and sometimes even Robin. It's all worn so thin but it did make sense once.
"He's easy and he doesn't appreciate you"
Well fuck, Emma Swan. Her patience will only stretch so far, and this from the woman who chose a fleabitten pirate?
"Who would you choose for me instead, Emma? Since you want to be in charge of the people in my life."
"I don't"
"No, please, don't be shy now, we've gotten to so many truths this evening. Give me a list of people who meet your approval and I'll see what I can do"
Fuck this. She goes for the door. Drinking too much at Granny's seems pretty good right now.
"I'm sorry" Emma says behind her. She pauses just before she leaves.
"Maybe you can provide a list of suggest activities too" she loiters at the threshold of Emma's bedroom. It's cooler outside, in the dark.
"Regina" Emma's following but she's too annoyed to think about it.
"And how you'd like us to dress" she adds. Emma's white gown from Camelot comes to mind but she ignores it.
"I like the way you dress"
It's too much. She's incredulous. She turns back, Emma is dark against the lights of her room and she can't see her sad blue eyes. "So I should keep it the same? Do I have permission? What gives you the right?"
"Nothing, nothing does" Emma says quietly
It's the right answer but god, she's still so annoyed. Something has sparked a fire in her chest that won't go out.
"Then why are you-"
Her words are cut off by Emma's lips. In the semi dark, with electro blaring out the only lived-in room in her house, Emma Swan kisses Regina Mills. She allows herself to be pulled back into the room. She hears the door close and nothing else but Emma's breathing, maybe her heartbeat, maybe the music, maybe it's the same thing.
For a moment she lets herself feel it, lets herself have it. Just a second, she tells herself, just a minute, just...She feels Emma's palm on her cheek, tilting her face up and her fingers slide into her hair. Her scalp tingles where she touches her and it spreads all over her body. Emma's other hand finds hers and their fingers weave together. Emma slides their hands around her waist, into the dip of Regina's back and pulls them closer together. It's right. It's easy, easier than it ever has been with anyone. Emma's nose brushes the side of hers. Her silly little freckled nose. Their tongues meet and Regina can't ignore it anymore. Emma tastes like whiskey.
She pulls back slowly, disentangling. She realises her free hand is under Emma's shirt, gripping her waist, touching her hot skin.
"Emma stop" she whispers and she does. She stops reaching and pushing and holding. Her hand slides slowly from Emma's and she looks down.
"Regina?"
She turns away, her eyes filling with tears. "I have to go"
"What?" She reaches for the door. "Regina please. Regina wait"
But she doesn't. She slips into the darkness that is the rest of Emma's house. She doesn't look back, she doesn't reply. She wipes the tears falling down her face, which are immediately replaced by new ones.
Emma walks into the diner for the second time that night. Snow, David and Henry have gone. The dwarves are there and drunk as ever. She sees Robin at the dartboard and turns to the bar.
"Hey" Ruby says "drink?"
"No thanks Ruby, is Regina here?"
"No, she never came back after she followed you. I kinda thought, y'know…"
Emma stares at her "No?"
"Oh come on, Em" she lowers her voice "your heart beats quicker when you see her"
"What?!"
"Wolf ears" Ruby smiles apologetically
"Right" Emma sighs
"Hers does too, you know"
"Please don't, Ruby" Emma closes her eyes. She should probably drink some water. Or a lot more whiskey.
"I'm just saying. I had my fingers crossed for you" she squeezes her arm
"Thanks"
Robin cheers from the other side of the diner and she rolls her eyes. "God I hate him. He's just so fucking average. She deserves so much better"
Ruby leans over the bar "I know, honey" she rubs her arm
"Uh, look at me" Emma wipes under her eyes "what a mess"
"Woah" Ruby's eyes widen and search hers
"What?"
Ruby leans right into her space and sniffs. Her eyebrow quirks.
"What? Do I smell?" Emma turns into her shoulder and sniffs.
"I can smell her on you" Ruby says with a pointed smile
Emma stares back "Excuse me?"
"Her perfume, I can smell it on you. You don't get that from a hug. And" she sniffs her face "...lipstick?"
"How the fuck can you smell lipstick if I washed it off?"
"Oh my god! Emma!" Ruby slaps her arm in what she assumes is supposed to be a supportive gesture, but it mostly just stings. She rubs it and frowns. "Better question, why are you here and not trying to find her?"
"She told me to stop" Emma says quietly, glancing over her shoulder
"Stop what? Stop everything? Forever?"
"I don't know"
"Well go and get some fucking clarity, Jesus Christ Emma."
"Yeah. Yeah maybe I should" She stands up straight
"Drink sheriff?" Robin asks from her side
"Nope" she replies and leaves him at the bar.
"That was rude" she hears him say as she opens the door, as if she fucking owes him anything.
"No, this is rude" she replies and flips him off. Ruby covers her smile with a hand.
She's walking quickly but it's not quick enough. She poofs to Regina's porch and knocks. There's no answer. None of the lights are on. Maybe she's not in. She tries the handle and the door opens.
A breeze rushes her. The back door is open. Has she been robbed? She walks through the house, instinctively reaching for the weapon she no longer carries. At the back door she sees Regina leaning against the frame, looking out at the garden. It's a clear night and the moon is bright. She's silhouetted against the light it casts. She holds a glass of wine in her lowered hand.
"Hey" Emma says softly so she doesn't surprise her. Regina doesn't respond. She walks around to her side. "I'm sorry that I upset you" Still nothing "I'm not sorry that I kissed you. If I hadn't kissed you, I wouldn't know how you feel" her heart beats so hard in her chest it almost vibrates "but I think I do"
Regina's eyes close and for a moment she says nothing. "Why couldn't you just let me be?"
"What?"
"Why couldn't you let me have something simple and good?"
"Because you deserve better than him, Regina! He chose Marion!"
Her eyes snap open "And you chose Hook!"
Emma's response catches painfully in her throat. Spiky and hard, it comes out in a croak "Are you serious? How can you say that? How can you stand here and tell me it's the same thing?" Tears pour into her eyes as she remembers the darkness ripping her from her life. She remembers it blotting out everything and Regina's face as she said "no!" She remembers sleepless nights with only her thoughts and fears for company and how little comfort the rising sun brought when her family didn't recognise her anymore. "I gave up everything for you. I ruined my life, I ruined myself to keep you safe"
Regina's eyes drop to the ground. "I never wanted you to"
"Well it's a bit fucking late for that! Maybe if I'd known you just wanted to spend your life with the human embodiment of beige...no, fuck it, I would have done the same thing. And if it happens again, I'll do it again because you deserve it, Regina. If I have to ruin my life for you again, I will."
Regina's expression is pained but unreadable "Why does it have to be like this?"
"I can do that domestic, bringing roses home shit too, you know." Regina's expression doesn't change "Does he even bring you roses? He doesn't does he? That fucking prick"
"It's not about that" Regina waves the topic away
"What is it about? Safety? Is it because I'm a magnet for chaos and we just happen to live in the Sunnydale of Maine?"
"No"
"Then what is it? Please, Regina, I know this isn't just me, I felt it." They're face to face now and Emma's feels them on the edge of things they don't talk about, a dangerous place but she's come too far to turn back. "No one, not even you can lie like that. Your kisses, your hands, the noises you made -god the noises you made-" her stomach flips as her hums and sighs fill her mind again "it's real and you feel it too so there has to be a reason you're saying no. Please tell me what it is so I can stop feeling like this"
How many times has she seen Regina cry? Not many. The tears that shine in her eyes are not the tears of remembering Daniel. They are the tears of Henry lying in a hospital bed, that's the look she sees in her face, raw and terrified.
"I would too" Regina says
"Would what?"
"I would ruin my life for you too. I don't mean like baiting chernabogs and absorbing death curses. I mean a trigger in a mine shaft, I mean sending you and Henry away with happy memories. That was the hardest thing I have ever done" her voice cracks a little "and I would do it again. I would break my heart over and over again"
Emma leans back on her side of the doorframe. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the only tiny part that isn't thrumming with Regina's words, she thinks she might be having a heart attack.
"I never wanted this. I wanted simple. I wanted a home and love and a family." Regina says
"You have all of those things"
"But they're not enough. Without you they're not enough." She drops her eyes to the ground as if she's ashamed of what she is saying "I never wanted the kind of love that I would give it all away for, but here you are, promising to save me from darkness even when I tell you not to, and what can I do?"
"You can have it Regina, we can have this." Her hand is over her heart and she has never meant anything so much in her life "Doesn't part of you think it was always meant to be this way? Our son brought us together, it's been years and we've gone from fighting each other to fighting for each other. We've become better versions of ourselves, together. The only version of myself that I want to be is the one that's good enough for you"
Regina watches her for a moment. Her eyes are dark, so are her lips against her skin that looks like porcelain in the moonlight. She seems to remember the glass in her hand. She drinks the rest of her wine in one and puts it down on the nearest surface. She takes her hand and weaves fingers through Emma's.
"Henry comes first, before me, before you" Regina says
"Always"
"We have to be honest"
"We will be"
"If you change your mind…"
"I'm never going to. Regina…" She says her name just because she can. Now she can always say her name. She pushes gently off the door frame. Regina stays still as Emma sinks into her space. Regina's breath is short. She looks up at her and Emma has never seen anything as beautiful as the look in her eyes. She looks like she has finally found home.
"I'm never going to want anything else" Emma whispers
Regina kisses her in the moonlight on her porch. Her fingertips dance across her cheek and slide into her hair. Regina sighs as she lets go piece by piece the control and restraint she has held onto for years. She kisses with more urgency, giving more away. Eventually her arms wrap completely around Emma. The feeling she wanted to protect her from earlier shrinks in her own chest until she can feel nothing but the love Emma pours into it.