Author's Notes: I'm late. I'm always late, but just because I'm late to the party doesn't mean I'm not going to try to bring my A game…
Emma sighed loudly as she tapped her booted foot against the hardwood floor and stared down at her wide-eyed three-year-old son Henry. They were already running behind schedule and she always had him at pre-school just before eight in the morning, giving her an extra ten minutes to fight her way through the morning rush hour so she wouldn't be late for work.
"Now, Henry," she said sternly and she grabbed his blue jacket, one that was a little heavy for the early fall weather, but it was all she had that still fit his ever growing little body. "We're going to be late."
"Late!" Henry giggled and he started to run off down the hallway in their small two-bedroom apartment. "Late, late, late! We're gonna be late!"
"Henry!" Emma yelled and threw her hands up in defeat. "I am going to start counting and if I make it to five, you're in big trouble, kid!"
Emma continued tapping her booted foot against the floor and upon the sound of Henry's giggles coming from his bedroom, she knew he was pushing her limits to the max that morning. She pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed loudly.
"One," she called out as she started walking down the short, narrow hallway. "Two," she said a little louder, her voice echoing off the walls slightly, "Three—god damn it, Henry!"
"Mommy say bad word," Henry said as he jumped in front of the open doorway. "Mommy has go time out now."
"Mommy will have a time out later, but can you please put your jacket on, Henry?" Emma asked, her voice straining, already emotionally exhausted as it was with him and he'd only been awake for just under an hour. "Come on, kid, work with me here. It's Wednesday and don't you have painting this morning? You don't want to miss out on that, do you?"
"No," he frowned and lifted his arms up so Emma could slip his jacket on. "Like to paint."
"You're not going to eat it this time are you?"
"No."
"And you're not going to get your teacher either, are you?"
"Nope," he said, a sly devilish little grin slipping over his lips. "No painting teacher. It bad."
"Yes, it's very bad."
"Henry bad?"
Emma sighed and knelt down in front of him and shook her head no. "No, of course you're not bad, Henry."
"Okay."
Emma scooped him up and covered his face with kisses as she rushed towards the door. She fished out her keys from the bowl on the small table and slipped out the door with a giggling three-year-old in her arms.
Normally, when it was nice enough outside, they'd walk the three blocks to the daycare center where Henry attended preschool, but they were running late and Emma really couldn't afford to be late for work that morning either. Half day or not, she still was expected to show up on time, five minutes before nine.
Like it had been with getting his jacket on, it was a struggle to get him into the car seat strapped into the back of her beloved yellow Bug and after scolding him sternly and threatening to take away pizza night, Henry stopped squirming and fighting her and allowed to be strapped into the car seat securely.
Like most mornings—or at any time of the day really—the streets of New York City were busy and she was lucky to be able to drive faster than a slow crawl. Her irritation level was rising and she gripped on to the steering wheel until her knuckles went white and her eyes drifted to the review mirror to look back at her son as he babbled to himself quietly.
Half an hour and three city blocks later, Emma pulled into the small, tight parking lot behind the daycare center, her eyes scanning around for a spot to park. She spotted one in the second aisle and furthest from the main entrance and she made the tight turn left and then a quick right. A horn honking caused her to slam on the breaks and it was then that she realized another car was halfway in her spot.
"God damn it," Emma muttered quietly under her breath, glancing in the review mirror to make sure that Henry hadn't heard her. She shifted the gear into park and fought with her seatbelt before she got out of the car and slammed the door shut hard. "Hey, I was parking here!" She yelled at the driver of the old Mercedes as she stormed around to the driver's side, in no mood to deal with incompetence that morning. "Hey!"
Emma stumbled back a few steps when the door opened and a startled brunette woman got out of the Mercedes. The way the morning sunlight that peaked over the buildings shone over her made her look as if she were glowing, her shoulder-length brown hair billowing in the sudden hard gust of wind that blew past them.
"I'm so sorry," the woman said as she shut the door. "I did not see you until the very last moment. I'm afraid I'm so very late and it's so very uncharacteristic of me to be late on the very first day of the job."
"Huh?"
"I'm Regina Mills and it's not really a job, per se. I'm one of the new volunteers here and it's my first day," she said quickly and despite being a bit shaken up, her voice was steady and composed. "Do you work here?"
"Uh no," Emma muttered, feeling a bit taken back at the sight of the woman just a few feet in front of her. "I'm dropping off my son. We're running behind this morning. Bit of an incident with a jacket and the fact that he did not want to wear it today."
"How unfortunate," Regina said with a warm smile. "Now, since one of us is here for the entire day and the other here for a few mere moments, if you would kindly back your car up so I can park mine—"
"Excuse me?"
"You'll be here for five minutes, will you not?"
Emma scoffed at the demeaning tone the brunette took with her. "With my kid? More like ten. And I'm already going to be late for work, so I kind of need this spot."
"And I am late as well," Regina snapped, stepping a foot closer towards Emma and causing her to inhale sharply at the sudden intrusion of her personal space. "Couldn't you just park in front of the entrance? I am sure if you spoke with your child, you'll be in and out, whereas I cannot afford to wait around for a spot when I am expected—"
"Listen, lady, do you see that?" Emma said as she pointed to the Bug clearly halfway into the spot and mere inches from having been in a collision with the Mercedes that likely cost more than her entire yearly salary for the NYPD. "I'm practically in there already."
"By an inch."
Emma rolled her eyes. "I'll be a few minutes. You're a volunteer. They're not going to care if you're late or not."
"Maybe not, but I care, dear."
"So, if you'll just move your car—"
"Why don't you just park in front of the entrance to drop your child off? I already told you—"
"Hey, lady, I saw this spot first," Emma relented. "Not my fault you're late for your precious volunteering. I pay good money for my son to come here and every minute we stand here is every minute I'm going to be late for work. An actual job that pays actual money."
Emma turned on her heels and yanked open the door to her Bug and slipped inside. With a sneer, she put the Bug into drive and slid the last few feet into the parking spot. She climbed back out of the driver's seat and pulled the seat forward to unbuckle Henry from his car seat.
Surprisingly enough, Henry didn't put up much of a fuss as he had earlier and he allowed being taken out of the car seat and swept up into his mother's arms without any protest or whining or tears. Emma kicked the door shut, smirking to herself as she watched the brunette women sink into her car and back out in defeat.
It didn't take her the ten minutes she'd thought it would to get him inside, signed in and settled into the classroom he was assigned to. After kissing him goodbye, she all but ran out of the building and back to her car and she got in with a small sense of relief that the woman in the Mercedes was no longer anywhere to be seen.
Relief paired with an underlying sense of disappointment.
It wasn't until three hours later that she realized in the middle of reviewing a homicide case that she'd forgotten to grab her son's backpack on the way out of the door, complete with his lunch and extra set of clothes in case he had an accident. It was just by luck she had a half day that day and she ducked out a few minutes early to make the dash back to the apartment and then back to the daycare center just in time for their planned lunch break.
On her trek through the parking lot, she spotted the old Mercedes parked in the spot she'd taken earlier that morning and she rolled her eyes, finding the only empty spot in the lot was directly next to it. She pulled into the spot and reached around to the back where Henry's Spiderman backpack sat on the backseat next to the car seat.
With less than five minutes before lunch, Emma made a mad dash into the building and down the winding hallway to his classroom. She breathed a sigh of relief as the teacher clapped in a staccato that got all the children to stop, look and listen and she announced that they were taking a washroom break and would wash their hands before settling down to eat lunch.
The first and only thing Emma noticed as she stood in the doorway was the very same woman she'd ran into earlier that morning, bickering over a parking spot because they were both late. She chewed her bottom lip when she saw the bright red paint streaked over her black dress pants and part of her once crisp white blouse and immediately she felt a sense of remorse because of all the children in the same class as her son, she knew who was solely responsible for ruining her otherwise pristine outfit.
"We were just about to call about Henry not having his lunch."
Emma nodded, the teacher's voice sounding distant as she watched Regina Mills kneel in front of her son and gently tell him that it was time to stop playing and time to wash up before lunch. She watched the way her son laughed and looked at the brunette and the smile the two shared had her heart soaring with emotion.
"Ms. Swan?"
"Hmm?" Emma answered dejectedly as she had to force her eyes away from the attractive woman currently interacting with her son. It took her a moment to register what the pre-school teacher was implying before she shook her head. "It was a rough start this morning. Completely my own fault for forgetting his bag and his lunch."
"You've made it just in time, he'll never know."
Emma forced a smile and walked into the classroom, making a quick detour to where the children kept their things in the cubby. She placed her son's Spiderman backpack on his hook and spun around to face the attractive brunette who hadn't left her thoughts all morning.
"Ms. Swan, is it? I believe we've not been properly introduced."
"Emma, actually, or if you'd rather stick to the formal route, Detective Swan."
"Regina," she said softly as she extended a hand, a hand that Emma took gently and gave her a subtle, firm handshake. Just another formality. "Your son had a slightly small panic attack when he realized he'd forgotten his lunch. I did manage to distract him for the past hour, as you can see the very source of that distraction," Regina said as she pointed to the obvious red paint on her clothes and she chuckled softly. "He's something else, isn't he?"
"Is that your subtle way of saying he's a brat?"
"Not at all!"
"You don't have to do that."
"Do what, exactly?"
"Pretend he's anything other than what he is," Emma replied. "He's no angel."
"What child is at three years of age?"
Emma found herself laughing in spite of the awkward situation between her and the attractive brunette woman. As the bell rang, the children rushed into the cubby area, each of them grabbing their lunches out of their bags before being gently reminded by the teacher to wash up before eating. During the entire rush, Emma found herself staring long and hard at Regina Mills, unable to stop herself from doing just that.
Nobody had ever affected her the way that this woman did. Regina Mills infuriated her and intimidated her at the very same time. There was just something about her that Emma couldn't put her finger on and she had that very strong feeling that she'd figure it out and soon.
"What are you doing right now?" Regina asked her as just over a dozen three and four year olds rushed past them. "For lunch, I mean?"
"I was going to grab something on the way home."
"Home? Didn't you specifically say earlier that you have an actual job, a paying job?"
"I have a half day," Emma shrugged. "Granny's Diner just around the corner and she has the best cheeseburgers in the entire city."
"I cannot leave, I'm on playground duty."
"Unless you want to share a lunch made for a toddler under a tree then—"
"I have chicken caesar salad," Regina said in a rush. "Far too much for myself to eat alone, I mean. If you'd like to join me, I was planning on eating it under the tree by the playground outside. A bit cliché I know, but I'd love for you to join me."
Tongue in cheek, Emma smiled and nodded her head, unsure of what compelled her to give in to the offer given to her.
What compelled her was the beautiful brunette woman that flashed a smile at her that made the butterflies deep in her abdomen take flight. What compelled her was the strong feelings and emotions that woman stirred deep within her. What compelled her was the undeniable attraction of exploring what she knew was an instant connection, an instant attraction, and seeing just where that would lead them.
What compelled her was the woman herself and the way her brown eyes had sparkled and shone in the warm morning sunlight the very first moment that they had met and the heated words they'd had in that very moment itself.
What compelled her was the way Regina just simply smiled at her before leading the way outside, and it was a smile that reverberated through her very soul.
It wasn't just about sharing a lunch. It wasn't just about her feeling bad about what had transpired between them that morning over that parking spot.
It was now about everything else. And everything that would be…