Hiya! This is a post 4x01-ish fic, but there's no Frozen stuff and Zelena didn't die in 3x20! (She's living at Regina's now and they're becoming Sisters and all that. The fic will start with her POV and then move on to Regina's and after that Emma's.)
Many thanks to my awesome beta, Tris (who came up with the title btw)!
tw: There's discussion on internalized homophobia(/heteronormativity) and Hook can't take no for an answer (he says gross things but nothing physical happens), and there's a vague allusion to Leopold and Regina's marriage not being consensual, so if that's triggering for you, you shouldn't read this one. Hook's only in the first chapter, and then he's gone.
"I honestly could not care less about who Emma Swan dates," Regina fumes as she chops an onion in half. "I simply think it's rather unthoughtful to bring that filthy pirate to a family dinner he wasn't invited to."
"Sure," Zelena says as she sneakily grabs and eats a slice of tomato when Regina's back is turned.
This is getting ridiculous. In all the time Zelena has been out of that jail cell at the Sheriff's station, her sister has not been able to simply shut up about the Savior. At first, it was rather amusing, but now that she's actually starting to bond with her sister and care about her well-being, it's getting rather exhausting. Zelena is no expert on love, but she knows her sister is in love with Emma Swan.
It's obvious, really. She doesn't understand how Regina can't see how transparent she's being with her jealousy - she's fairly certain even Snow White knows, as well as Regina's son (that she shares with Emma, by the way. It's ridiculous).
She keeps nodding as Regina keeps fuming about Captain Hook. Zelena has kind of stopped paying attention by now. Regina just keeps on repeating the same things over and over again: how she's happy for Emma but she doesn't want her to rub it in her face, how it's unthoughtful to bring your boyfriend to family dinner when he hasn't been invited and when you're only now mending your friendship, and how she doesn't understand how Emma could've settled for that loathsome pirate when she could have literally anyone in town.
Not transparent at all.
"And she told me she'd find me my happy ending, but what has she done, exactly? Brought back the wife of my soulmate," Regina mutters, and Zelena's afraid she'll soon cut her finger. "And started dating that pirate."
Zelena rolls her eyes. "Honestly, Regina. Can you seriously not see everything you have already? You have a son. Friends who love you despite the things you've done. You're the Mayor… Can't you just… realize that most of us don't even have that?" Regina has basically everything.
Her words seem to have an effect since Regina stops cutting the onion and focuses her attention on her.
"I'm… sorry," Regina says, which makes Zelena surprised. From what she can gather, her sister isn't that big on apologies. "You're right. I have Henry, and… all of you…" she adds the last bit hesitantly. "And that's all that matters."
"Thank you," Zelena responds. She's at a loss of words for a moment, but recovers quickly. "So do you and Emma always argue like this or am I just lucky to witness this rarity?"
Regina chuckles at that. There's a smile on her lips that's so endearing despite the fact that she's supposed to be mad at Emma. Zelena fights the urge to roll her eyes.
"When she first came to town, we fought a lot. I was afraid that she would take my son away from me, and at one point she said she would. But then she had my back against the town after the curse broke." Regina's expression is thoughtful as she pauses. "And then we fought again when mother was here."
Zelena knows that bit. Regina has told her a lot about their mother during these few weeks she's been living with her. She hates to admit it, but it's been a healing experience to both of them and she likes Regina more now because of it.
"And then we saved the town together… and then we fought… We got Henry back… And then we argued again, and he was really Pan… Then we said goodbye," Regina lists, and suddenly she looks like she's in pain. "Anyway, this is nothing unusual."
"I see," Zelena says as innocently as she possibly can. She can't comment more, because that's when Henry enters the kitchen.
Regina asks him about his homework and Henry explains something about a science project, but Zelena can't concentrate on that because she has an idea forming in her head.
She has spent a considerable part of her days in the mansion getting to know the popular culture of this realm. Sometimes she has even been allowed to surf the interwebs. It keeps her away from her vindictive thoughts, and it's more fascinating than she could have ever thought; there's music, television series, and movies! She recently watched a movie about a mother and a daughter switching bodies and making up, and she's fairly certain that kind of experience could be good for her sister and Emma.
If she went to Regina's vault, she could surely find some sort of spell similar to the one in the movie. There would be no fortune cookies this time, but simply a good old traditional body swap that could be broken by True Love's Kiss, or whatever kind of countercurse Regina could come up with if she were stupid enough not to kiss Emma.
Zelena nods to herself. Even if she's trying to be good and work on her redemption, that doesn't mean she can't have a evil genius scheme or two. These are for the common good, after all, so what could possibly go wrong?
Regina wakes up with an ache between her legs.
This is getting ridiculous. Not only does she keep on having inappropriate dreams that feature her, Emma, and the table at the Sheriff's station, but now she even… smells Emma's shampoo when she wakes up?
Her eyes shoot open as she sits up and looks down. Her line of sight is partly obscured by blond hair. Her skin looks pale, and these are definitely not her hands. Her torso is covered by white cotton, and she can make out hardened nipples of breasts that are bigger than hers.
Hell no.
"Morning, Swan," says an all-too-familiar accented voice from the other side of the room.
"What the hell have you done?" Regina asks Hook, who's leering at her (Emma, really, since she seems to be stuck in Emma's body somehow) from the arm chair across the room.
"Sorry, Swan. Your mother let me in. I thought I'd surprise you and pay you a visit." Hook winks at her, and Regina feels like she's going to vomit.
"Emma didn't even know you were here? How disturbing is that?" she says before she can stop herself.
"Do you always speak of yourself in the third person when you're upset?" He's still smirking like the imbecile he is, and Regina doesn't know how much more she can take. "I thought I'd watch you sleep."
"This isn't fucking Twilight. Get out."
"What's that?" Hook asks, genuinely confused.
"Something you shouldn't read. It would give you even worse ideas of what's desirable behavior," Regina mutters. Sometimes when you live in a town that's stuck in time, you just want to keep up with outer world's popular culture, no matter what the quality is.
"But wasn't this romantic, Emma?" Hook asks. Regina hates how Emma's name sounds on his lips.
Regina thinks of the countless times her late husband had come to their bedroom unannounced, much to Regina's dismay. This was anything but romantic.
"Get out," she grits.
"But what's the fun in that, love?" Hook says, waggling his eyebrows.
Regina groans and brings a hand on her temple. Why is this happening? Suddenly she's in Emma's body, and as if that isn't punishment enough, she's forced to talk with Captain Guyliner and accept his ridiculous and highly unbecoming flirting.
She knows she could easily come clean and tell the pirate she was Regina trapped in Emma's body, but frankly, she can't be bothered. Not only could she hear something that can be useful for her, she can also find out what's really going on and how on Earth the dim-witted joke of a man got Emma to fall for his cringeworthy flirting.
"I knew you wouldn't stay mad at me for too long, love," Hook leered. "I already won you over, didn't I?"
Regina fights her natural impulse to gag, and tries to concentrate on what Hook just implied. Emma has been mad at him?
"I don't know, Killian," she uses the name Emma has started using when referring to the pirate. "What did I say when we last talked? Think about that."
The pirate's dark brow scrunches in deep thought, and Regina fights the urge to roll her eyes. She wonders if he listens to Emma at all. He can't even tell he's not really talking with Emma even though Regina isn't trying to hide it very hard.
"You said it was a mistake for me to come to the dinner when Regina hadn't invited me, and you hadn't invited me either…"
"I hadn't invited you," Regina says. She tries very hard not to make her utterance sound like a question.
"Aye, but I thought I should be there. The little lad's future father figure and all," Hook asserts.
Regina counts to ten and suppresses her urge to throw a fireball at Hook. Henry will most definitely not have him as his father figure. Over her head body. How can Emma allow him to talk like this? Especially when Henry's actual father died not too long ago.
"I highly doubt that, considering that I don't even invite you to family dinners," she snaps out. It brings her odd satisfaction to hear Emma's voice say the dismissive words to Hook.
She gets out of bed, a bit disoriented due to being in a different slightly taller and differently built body, but she's sure her clumsiness just makes her seem more like Emma. She sees Hook frown at her comment before he goes back to his disgusting self, his eyes roaming over her - Emma's - body. It's only then Regina fully realizes she's wearing only red panties and a white tank top one can see easily through.
"You're looking good, Swan," Hook says with a waggle of his eyebrows as he stands up and starts walking towards her. "What do you say we take some time to ourselves and enjoy this beautiful morning for a while?"
Regina fights her urge to gag for the umpteenth time this morning.
"Can't," she says as casually as she can. "I have a lot to do today."
"Come on, Swan," Hook says and puts a hand on her waist. Regina can smell him now: he smells like fish and mold. Why on earth is Emma courting with this man? "You know you want to."
That's what does it for Regina. She flings Hook against Emma's bedroom wall with her magic. No one will touch Emma - or her, for that matter - if she's already said no.
"I said no," Regina spits out, still holding Hook in place with her magic. In fact, she thinks it might be Emma's magic now that she's in this body, because this magic doesn't feel like hers, but it feels familiar and safe, as if she's crossed paths with it before.
"Is this because of Regina?" Hook grits out when the hold of Regina's magic decreases.
"Regina?" she says. Has Hook figured something out? He possibly can't have. Not with the way he just posed his question. "Why would this have anything to do with Regina?"
"Oh, please, Swan," Hook says with so much contempt that Regina wants to magically shove him through the wall. "Don't pretend like that night didn't happen. It's always been Regina for you even before that. When will Regina have a happy ending? How can I make her feel better? Regina feels terrible and it's all my fault… It's getting old, Swan."
She tries not to act surprised, but her mouth gapes open anyway. She's been wondering if Emma's worry for her, the words she said through her office door, had been genuine anguish, but the fact that the woman talks about her enough to make the pirate this annoyed speaks for itself.
"She's all you think about. I swear sometimes you seem so obsessed with her that you might as well be in love with her," Hook spits out. "You need to concentrate on what truly matters."
"You know what?" Regina says. "I think you're right."
She flicks her fingers and transports Hook in the middle of the woods, unable to believe that she was able to tolerate his behavior this long in the first place.
She sits down on Emma's bed and brings her hand to her temple again. Hook's words - as absurd as they might be - won't leave her mind. Emma cares about her; enough to make the pirate jealous. She's actively thinking of ways to make her feel better, and she didn't invite the pirate to the family dinner that was meant to mend their relationship. Hook had invited himself.
She's been aware of her feelings towards Emma for quite a while. When Emma first came into Storybrooke, her inappropriate thoughts were merely sexual, but later when they actually started looking after one another and even care about each other, she knew there was more to it.
First, she had thought that maybe her attraction and feelings were reciprocated on some level. She still thinks that sometimes; maybe Emma is just so oblivious to the truth that she doesn't want to face her feelings, but that's really none of her business. She hopes so hard Hook has been just a distraction, and the fact that she doesn't know for sure is killing her.
She started thinking her feelings were one-sided when they were in Neverland and Emma made a move towards the pirate. She remembers feeling sick. After that, there had been their goodbyes at the town line. That's when she had truly realized she actually loved Emma, but it had been the time to let her go, and she never found out what Emma had been thinking when she drove away with their son.
When Zelena's curse had taken over Storybrooke, she had accepted fate. She had been happy that someone still offered her romantic love, even if that someone wasn't Emma but another blond thief with a tattoo. Her relationship with Robin hadn't ended too well either after Emma - the person who Regina actually trusted - had brought Robin's wife back from the dead.
Regina shakes her head. There's no point dwelling on that. Marian's actually nice, as much as Regina originally hated to admit it. They've talked a few times after her return, and they hit it off surprisingly well, considering everything that's happened. Sometimes Regina wonders if she could be on her way to making a new friend.
Speaking of friends… Emma Swan is most likely trapped in Regina's body. She must be confused since she's not as used to magical mishaps, and waking up in someone else's body isn't really something that happens every day. Regina sighs as she gets off the bed and makes her way towards Emma's drawer so she can pull on some clothes and get this day over with; she needs to get her body back, and she has Henry and Zelena to look after.
She goes through Emma's clothes for a minute before she settles on a pair of black jeans, a different tank top, and a bra. If she wants this to go as subtly and quietly as possible, she might as well dress like Emma.
For a moment, she feels like she ought to take a shower since she just woke up, but she decides against it because she feels like that would be a violation against Emma's privacy. Seeing and feeling the woman in that state without her consent would highly inappropriate, so she flicks her fingers, and suddenly she's dressed in Emma's clothes. She turns around and decides that her reflection in the old long mirror against the wall looks convincing enough. She only needs to tell Snow and David that she'll be back later, and she can transport herself straight to the mansion and start fixing this mess.
(This fic should be about three chapters long!)