Disclaimer: I do not own OUAT in any way, shape or form.
In the back of her mind Regina could hear her mother's voice scolding her for fidgeting so frequently, and very nearly felt the sting of magic at fingertips that wouldn't keep away from the ends of her sleeves.
"Don't worry, Regina, she'll love it", Snow spoke from beside the woman, an arm lifting to give her shoulders a side squeeze in what Regina supposed was the woman's idea of comfort. "I'm not nervous", retorted the former Queen defensively, forcing her hands back down to her sides, denying what Snow had not said. This brought a smile to the matriarch's face as she dropped her arm and returned to the counter in Granny's to talk decorations with Ruby.
The whole surprise party had been Regina's idea, and she had brought it up to Ruby first, the girl seemed to function as a middle ground for the majority of the party planning. Naturally when Snow found out through her friend, she was ready to jump into the planning head first, a fact that dismayed Regina only slightly. Side-eyeing the eager woman, Regina couldn't help but note that she didn't feel that burning hatred she once had, the kind that tore her apart for so many years. A vague sense of lightness had replaced what used to be a heavy weight, and she didn't even mind.
Perhaps Emma had something to do with that healing. Thoughts returning to the sometimes inept blonde woman, Regina's hands started up with their fidgeting all over again. She felt like a teenager, excited to bring to Daniel the new riding breeches she had managed to have commissioned under her mother's nose for his birthday. Startled enough to stop fidgeting entirely as she realized that she had just compared Emma to Daniel in her mind, the ring of the bell over Granny's door almost didn't catch the former Queen's attention.
Emma pushed open the diner door with a dejected frown and a heavy step, ready to collapse into a booth and order at least a dozen hot chocolates in which to drown her sorrows. She hadn't expected much really, maybe just an idle acknowledgement of her birthday in passing from her mother and Henry, or even a note from Regina on her desk from the Mayor to the Sheriff.
It wasn't as if she had been in town for years or anything.
That morning, as she had awoken with a happy feeling and the pleasant thought that she wouldn't be alone on her birthday for another great year, everyone had already been gone from the house. It wasn't completely unusual for Henry and Snow to be gone by the time she woke up, and especially not David as he filled the shift directly before Emma. And yet, she couldn't help but let that happy feeling get just a little crushed by a perceived rejection.
Geez, I really must have some issues I need to look into. Maybe I should talk to Archie later, I bet he'd remember my birthday.
On top of the lack of morning greeting, or even a text from the people she loved, by the time she arrived at the station for her shift, David was already gone and there was a veritable tower of paperwork waiting on her desk.
Really, Regina?
Setting her coat aside and beginning on the tower, Emma noted that she likely wouldn't even have time for a lunch break if she had had food with her, much less for her customary diner lunch. After several hours of the same, form after form, the woman let her head drop to her desk with a thump.
"I give up" she muttered dejectedly. Resigned to the fact that she likely would not get it all finished even without taking a lunch, Emma stood with the intent to have her diner lunch even if it meant working late on her birthday. After all, it wasn't as if anyone had remembered and was planning to celebrate later.
With that depressing thought tucked away and her jacket slung back around her shoulders, Emma had left the station for the diner.
The audible gasp in the silence as Emma entered Granny's was not Emma's or Regina's, but instead Snow, who held her hands over her mouth. The expression on Regina's face was torn between panic and disappointment. Emma, for her part, was doing remarkably well, despite mouth having fallen open as her eyes scanned the decorations in various states of hanged-upness and the treats Granny was baking between orders slowly filling the long counter.
As her slow scan brought her gaze to Regina's, her mouth was contorting, unable to decide how to shape itself with the sudden input to her confused brain.
"It was supposed to be a surprise", said Regina almost resentfully, shoulders dropping for a second before stiffening in anticipation of.. she didn't really know. Avoiding Emma's eyes as she let out a sigh, the former Queen shook her head, "You probably don't even like surprise parties.."
Emma stepped further into the diner, all eyes on her as she approached the center of the room and began to laugh. Regina was taken aback and then indignant, crossing her arms and fixing Emma with her very best glare. Realizing quickly how her reaction was causing the other woman's mood to go further south, Emma crossed the last couple of steps to her and threw her arms around the woman in a tight hug, incapable of expressing her feelings in mere words.
"You know.. I have a really bad memory sometimes", Emma said as she squeezed the confused former Queen before pulling back to grin at Ruby behind the counter, unshed tears making her eyes shine. "Maybe..you know.. if I just get a sandwich and go... who knows? I'll probably forget what the diner even looks like in a few minutes. I am a childish idiot, aren't I?"
Plucking a sandwich from the pile already made with a grin of her own, Ruby picked up on Emma's hidden meaning seconds before Regina's eyes began to glimmer with understanding at the woman still clinging to her. Without releasing Regina, Emma turned her head and planted a tentative kiss on the former Queen's cheek. As quickly as it had begun, it ended, and Emma was stepping back and accepting the sandwich from Ruby and throwing a wave to her shocked mother.
As Emma practically hopped out of the door with a smile and a bounce in her step, Regina was stock-still where she stood, but for a hand coming to touch the faintly tingling point on her cheek where Emma's lips had made contact. Noticing eyes on her, Regina dropped her hand and barked, "Well, go on and continue! I can't decorate this all myself!"
Knowing expressions hid themselves as those helping her returned to their work at party planning, leaving Regina free to let out a little smile of her own as she sent her magic to cut the Sheriff's paperwork 'distraction' in half and leave a root beer on the desk with a note.
Happy Birthday.