Where she moved, he followed. She thrust, he parried. She was the light, he was the dark. They orbited one another, halves of a whole, compatible yet opposite in so many ways.
It never ceased to amuse him how his Swan slept. The only time her guard was down, she filled space with arms and legs flung every which way, her golden tresses spilled not only across her own pillow but his as well.
She looked almost apologetic when she woke to see him so far away from her, but words were not his dear one's strong point in the morning. He learned the hard way (she actually growled at him that first morning!) that she was to be treated lightly, with small words, and gently coddled into her coffee and a shower before decent conversation was an option.
He loved to watch her prepare for her day, wandering around the little apartment from one task to another, mug in hand, most of them begun and left unfinished before moving to something else and eventually circling back. She would shower, and leave her hair wrapped in a towel, absently dressing herself in one or two items of clothing for modesty's sake before remembering her toast and leaving him with the view of her shapely bare ass as she left; luck had so far been on their side where the lad was concerned, as he appeared to have inherited her slow mornings and couldn't be awake to comment. While she left her cosmetics for the end, when her wits had mostly come back from their night's hibernation, she hardly remembered to do anything with her hair: barely using the "hair dryer" and mostly then just to finish the job quickly so she could leave.
Some mornings, she let him run the brush through her hair for her. It wasn't often in the last three centuries that he'd missed the use of his left hand, but for the chance to run her silken locks through his fingers as he worked he would have traded his ship three times over. (though to be honest, he missed his hand anywhere his dearest was concerned; the noises he could elicit from her with one hand were delectable, and the thought of what he could do with two was… well, to say the least it was extremely distracting) She would lean into his touch when he was finished with the brush, dragging his fingers through her hair gently, her eyes half-closed and dangerously close to falling asleep again. He often teased her, saying that his Swan had been replaced by a Cat in the night. (Incidentally, this was also how he discovered her liking for her hair to be pulled and played with during sex—that was also a morning they'd forgotten that Henry was not at Regina's)
Watching her with her cosmetics was also fascinating, for how deftly and swiftly the job was done. One morning he even counted to make sure he wasn't just getting lost in a daze as she did it and no, he wasn't—it really did only take three minutes. She would give him that knowing smirk when he complimented her on it—"Eyeliner, bit of shadow, mascara, gloss, not that hard."
Their quiet mornings had one other routine item that he loved—as they were leaving the apartment, she would stop him in the door, and they'd share their 'good morning' kiss. Oh, there were other kisses in the morning, (the first kiss of the morning when she was more or less conscious, little ones when he finished with her hair or as she wandered the apartment on one of her little tasks, long and lazy ones if they put their morning to a more pleasurable use), but this was their 'good morning', their good luck talisman against the day, their promise, their need and reassurance for one another. Out the door, they were the sheriff and her investigator, and business needed attending to. He needed her like the air he breathed, and their 'good morning' kiss was his last breath of oxygen before letting her go for the day. He loved the slight dazed look about her when they parted, the secret smile just for him, before she would clear her throat and they would go to face the day.
The thing he loved most about their 'good morning' kiss was the promise of 'good evening' when they returned home.