She rolls over, the warmth of the silk sheets and the whispered touch of familiar lips on hers leaving a tingling on her skin and a slight buzzing in her stomach. There's a lazy smile on her lips even before she opens her eyes and her hand reaches out, instinctively, to wrap around the warmth she is so accustomed to waking up to every morning.
And her eyes snap open and that smiles slides off her face the second her hand bunches around the cool satin of her comforter, the second she realizes that her wife, her Emma hasn't woken up next to her in almost nine months. Nine months and thirteen days to be exact.
She's been counting.
If she thought hard enough about it she could probably tell you how many minutes as well.
But she doesn't think that hard. She doesn't want to. She can't. Because then it's just too much to handle, too real. Too close to where it hurts the most.
So she does what she does every morning and pushes the thoughts of how she hasn't touched her wife in almost a year away. She pushes the thoughts of how she could be dead in the middle of some god forsaken desert away.
Especially that thought.
That thought makes her body break out into a cold sweat. That singular thought had the power last month – when she had been weak and Henry, her lifeline, had been at a friend's house for the night – to bring her to her knees in the middle of washing a plate. A plate that had shattered next to her and had cut her palm while she had attempted to pick up the pieces, her hands shaking violently and her tears blurring her vision.
She rubbed at her palm unconsciously, remembering the night. The cut had long since healed and hadn't been deep enough to leave a scar, but she ran her thumb across where it had been nonetheless.
And oh, she was slipping again, wasn't she?
She shook her head lightly, as if her brain was an etch-a-sketch and she could shake those awful thoughts away.
She hears the soft clang of what she assumes is a cereal bowl from the kitchen and smiles softly, a memory, a happy one, tugging at her subconscious.
A groan to her left has her chuckling.
"That kid could wake up half of China…he does realize it's…"
A mess of blonde curls lifts and emerald, groggy eyes squint at the clock. Another groan. This one more akin to a whine.
And there's another chuckle. Deep and raspy.
Those mess of blonde curls plop back down on the pillow, face entirely hidden underneath them followed by a muffled voice.
"Oh my god, it's six in the morning…on a weekend."
A hand reaches out to weave through deliciously unkempt curls and the owner of them turns her head, emerald eyes, this time a bit more lucid, once again making an appearance.
The hand tucks some of the curls behind an ear and then fingers come down to trace over the pout of lips.
"Well, he is your son, dear, his stomach has no time frame and it absolutely waits for no one. Especially his mothers."
Lips kiss the fingertips still tracing their outline and the pout is replaced by a smirk and a scoff breaks against olive-toned skin.
"Before noon he is your son. So your son needs to learn not to wake up his peacefully sleeping mothers until at least nine o'clock!"
The last bit is yelled loudly enough that Henry hears and the shuffling of plastic (of his beloved frosted flakes) stops suddenly and there's a softly called "err..sorry!" before the shuffling resumes and there's a clinging of cereal hitting porcelain.
The brunette rolls her eyes and chuckles again, sitting up and bending down to kiss the blonde before swatting playfully at her hip and moving to get up.
"Some of us are already awake at this hour. It is you who always sleeps until ungodly hours of the morning."
The blonde rolls her eyes. Leave it to her wife to think any hour past her usual waking five-thirty is ungodly.
"Hey, I enjoy my sleep. Sue me."
There's an arch of a perfectly waxed eyebrow and a playful smirk on bare lips, the scar just above them so prominent in that moment the blonde's eyes are focused solely on it.
"You know, dear, as mayor I could do just that."
And emerald eyes flicker back up to meet dark chocolate and her lips quirk.
"Pretty sure you can't, but nice try Madame Mayor."
And Regina rolls her eyes once more before turning to head downstairs.
The blonde looks down at her completely, utterly comfortable body, ensconced in completely, utterly comfortable and oh so warm, silky sheets and pouts.
She had been really, really comfy.
And then her stomach growls, the betraying bastard it is, and she lifts her tank top and glares at it.
"Seriously?"
And she sighs dramatically before joining her wife, who is already in the kitchen, straightening after having just given Henry a kiss on the forehead.
When she makes her way to where he's sitting at the island, he has a mouthful and is chewing away way too happily for Emma and he attempts to give a sheepish smile when he sees her narrowing her eyes at him.
"Sorry, I was hungry."
Regina huffs from across the kitchen and reaches up to retrieve two cups from the cabinet, closing the wooden doors quietly.
"Henry, don't talk with your mouth full."
And her back is still to him and so he rolls his eyes and then smiles when he sees Emma do the same but concedes.
"Sorry, Mom."
And just as he's getting ready to take another bite, Emma bends down and steals it from him, bringing the back of her hand up to wipe away the wayward milk that hadn't made it into her mouth.
She giggles and scurries away to stand next to Regina when he "Hey!" 's at her and tries to swat at her arm. And when she's done chewing, mindful of the admonishment Henry had just received, she shrugs her shoulders and bumps hips with her wife, taking the proffered cup.
"Hey, kid. It's three hours before my brain is even thinking about waking up. A bite of your frosted flakes is the least you can do."
Regina rolls her eyes - a record three times already…and the sun's not even up yet – looking a lot like Henry had seconds before, and turns to pour the coffee, now done and fresh and heavenly and when Regina pours her half and she takes a sip she actually moans and closes her eyes. Damn if she doesn't have the best coffee-making-wife in all the lands.
When she opens her eyes it's to find two sets staring back at her, curious and amused.
"That good, dear?"
And she takes another sip and sighs, savoring the flavor.
"God, yes."
And Henry chuckles and returns to his cereal and Regina shakes her head affectionately, taking a sip of her own, tilting her head and closing her own eyes. Most definitely yes.
And ever since then Henry had been trying to be quieter in the mornings…and he had succeeded…but only slightly.
She dons her robe, her smile growing ever stronger and makes her way down the stairs and into the kitchen. And Henry sitting at the island, munching on his cereal, the frosted flakes box opened and off to the side makes her heart almost implode with the warm memory she had been so entrenched in just seconds before.
She bends down to kiss his forehead, brushing away the hair falling into his eyes, thinking it might be time for a haircut.
"Good morning, dear."
He beams up at her and swallows before speaking.
"Morning, Mom, how'd you sleep?"
And she's reaching for one of the coffee cups when her face falls before she tenses and replaces it with a look of neutrality.
She moves to where the coffeemaker is and shrugs her shoulder in what she hopes is a casual manner.
"Perfectly fine, and you?"
He mirrors her shrug.
"I had a dream about her last night."
And Regina exhales softly, her eyes closing and a smile gracing her features as she sits her coffee cup next to the coffee maker. She turns toward her son, a whispered confession escaping past her lips.
"So did I."
He pushes his cereal bowl away and cradles his head in his hands, his eyes down-casting to the counter, a frown marring his usually joyful face. He crinkles his eyebrows and she knows exactly what he's thinking.
I miss her too.
He looks every bit the young boy he truly is in that moment and Regina's heart clenches at the thought of her little boy turning sixteen in a couple of weeks and hopefully Emma –
And she stops that thought dead in its tracks. Because hope like that only causes more pain. Pain that she can't handle.
And she moves to sit on the bar stool beside him, wrapping her arms around his waist and pulling him toward her. And just as she's about to tell him all the things she religiously tells herself there's the sound of the front door opening and closing quietly.
They both look at each other wearing matching expressions of confusion and he's out of her arms and turning the corner before she can even ask a question. The sounds of his sock-clad feet padding down the hallway stopping abruptly has her shooting out of the stool in seconds, thoughts of someone breaking in and harming her son whirling furiously around in her mind and she's calling out his name and is rounding the corner to the foyer when she quite literally runs into the back of him.
"Henry – oof – what – ?"
And she bends to see why he had stopped in the middle of the hallway and sees him staring straight ahead with…were those tears? in his eyes. And her eyes flicker up then and she gasps loudly, the sound bouncing off the walls of the large hallway and reverberating up the stairwell, and she stops breathing.
And Henry is surging forward and emerald eyes, which had been boring into her own with so much god damn raw emotion glance down and suddenly she has an armful of an almost sixteen-year-old boy and she closes her eyes and hugs him just as fiercely as he's hugging her. And he's sobbing and mumbling into her chest and she can't make out any of what he is saying and that pains her because she hasn't heard his voice in almost ten months and so she pulls him away from her, her hands coming to rest on his shoulders. His eyes are red and he's still crying and she knows she is too and he brings his hands up to wrap around her wrists and smiles, watery and big.
"I missed you so much, Mom."
And his voice is scratchy and cracking and she thinks it's the most magical sound in the world because this is her son and god she missed him so much and she mirrors his smile before cradling his face in her hands and kissing his forehead right where his other mother had kissed him moments before.
His mother who was standing stock still. His mother whose eyes were wide with tears threatening to spill over, one hand covering her mouth and the other clutching her chest. The silk fabric of her robe bunching beneath her fist.
Emma brushes the hair away from her son's eyes, an action she picked up from Regina, and smiles at him, feeling as though her heart may actually burst out of her chest.
"I missed you even more than you can imagine, Henry."
And Henry squeezes at her wrists before letting them fall to his side and he brings the back of his hand up to wipe at his cheek before sniffling and stepping to the side, glancing up at his mother doing an incredibly impressive imitation of a statue. If his brain wasn't a muddled puddle of mush right now he probably would have laughed.
And emerald eyes are once again boring into velvet chocolate ones.
Emma's in her uniform and when she takes a small, tentative step forward, her boot thumps loudly against the hardwood floor.
And it's as if there is nothing in this world except for this woman standing in front of her.
Her wife.
Her Emma.
Her everything.
And when Emma takes that one last step toward her and her arms come to caress down the brunette's forearms, those tears spill over and down her cheeks and a choked sob is ripped from her lips.
And she's surging forward just as Henry had and clutching to her wife's back and clinging and burying her face in her neck and trembling. And Emma's strong hold on her is the only thing keeping her upright in that moment. Her knees aren't capable of keeping her standing.
She hears soft cooing in her ear and 'I'm here' and nearly loses it all over again at those two words.
She is here. She's here. She's alive.
And when she feels hands weave through her hair she pulls back and sees fresh tears falling down sun-tanned cheeks.
Emma is smiling so brightly at her she can actually feel her heart coming back together again and she explodes forward, wrapping her arms around her wife's neck and kissing her with everything she has.
And it's returned just as fervently and when she feels a laugh against her lips she leans away and mirrors it.
"What?" Her head tilts and Emma's thumbs move to wipe at the tears still flowing freely.
And Emma leans down – the boots making her at least a couple inches taller than she usually is – to kiss her again.
"God, I missed you so much, Regina."
And Regina lets out a sound, a laugh and a sob meshed together into a singular wordless sound and pulls her wife into a hug, kissing just below her ear before whispering.
"I missed you too, Emma."
And Regina glances over to see her son wiping at his own freshly fallen tears and smiles at him, watching as his face turns into the once again joyful and happy one she's missed so much.
She nuzzles into Emma's neck once more before she feels a chuckle vibrating against her chest.
She pulls away and tilts her head in question.
And there's that infamous Emma Swan smirk that she didn't even realize she had missed and she feels her eyes crinkling with her smile.
"You know what I really really missed?"
And there's an arch of a perfectly sculpted eyebrow.
"Some of my wife's amazing, moan-inducing coffee."
And the sound of laughter, pure and melodic and unadulterated, fills the now not so empty house and it's then that Emma decides that that is the most magical sound in the world.