It was 3am and Emma returned to the single bed she had just left 5 minutes previously. In her hand she clutched a glass of water for her wife, currently lying in the bed on her left side and facing the wall it was pushed up against, nursing their 3 week old son. As things in Storybrooke had become more dangerous with the queens of darkness lurking, Emma feared for her family's safety once Regina gave birth, and so under the cover of darkness that night, Emma bundled her precious brood into her father's truck and said goodbye to her parents. With Henry in the backseat holding his mother and their newest addition swaddled between them, she drove them to Boston and called in a favour with an old friend to use a small apartment until it was safe for her family to return.
Emma softly slid under the covers behind her wife, putting her right arm around her protectively, sheltering her from the rest of the room and the outside world as she had done every night since their arrival. She barely sleept as she lay every night with a sleeping Regina in her arms whilst keeping one eye on the crib at the bottom of their bed and listening for Henry's soft snores in the small adjoining room./p
She adjusted her hand softly on Regina's waist as she looked down to watch their baby suckling gently on her left breast. Though their situation was less than ideal, Emma swore that she had never seen Regina so content as now when her baby lay in her arms. There was something so raw and amazingly beautiful about the depths of this most maternal and tender part of Regina. Watching her nurse their child was the most amazing thing Emma had ever seen and she still struggled to keep tears from forming in her eyes every time she witnessed it. She pulled a few strands of hair behind Regina's ear and whispered softly as she brought the glass of water round for Regina to have a sip, "Hey, beautiful." and God, did she mean it.
Regina smiled as she turned and very carefully raised herself and baby Jacob up gently so as not to disturb him, to have a sip of water. She stared adoringly at Emma before giving her a soft, tender kiss. And that is really what those moment were for them, she thought. Soft, tender. She never thought she would find someone who she could trust enough to allow herself be this way in front of, except for Henry. She always thought it would make her feel vulnerable, but with Emma, she doesn't. She just feels peaceful, happy, and if she's honest, it makes her feel like a woman-letting her most primal, maternal instincts show and loving how it brings them closer. When she lies here on these nights with Emma's weight at her back, she can feel the other woman protecting her with everything she can muster, with every fibre of her being, every part of her soul. Sometimes she wonders if that love alone, the sheer amount that Emma has for them, isn't an invisible forcefield all around them. That's what it feels like. She feels an intense relief at it, just letting herself relax and trusting Emma to protect her, their family. She doesn't have to be on edge, defensive. Although Lord knows that if anyone was to walk into that room and so much as lay a finger on Emma, she would tear them apart like a protective lioness.
Regina felt Jacob starting to get restless and could tell before he could that he was done on that side. She sat upright and placed her little finger at Jacob's lips to release his hold on her as Emma tenderly placed an arm around her back and helped her in the process to readjust their son to her other breast. Emma gingerly unbuttoned and removed the nightshirt Regina had been wearing which was previously just open by a few buttons and pushed to one side. She took the weight of Jacob in her arms as Regina lay down on her right side now facing her, looking up at the blonde with a loving smile on her face and a sparkle in her eye as if Emma was the only person the world was turning for.
Before Emma could lay Jacob down again, Regina, still gazing at her, sat up again slightly to raise Emma's shirt and remove her arms from it one by one whilst the blonde still safely held their tiny baby. Once she had pulled the white tank-top up and over her head, Regina lay back down and watched the tears gather in Emma's eyes, clearly overcome with emotion once again as she stared down at the baby in her arms, now held warm and safe against her bare skin. Emma looked down at Regina again, tears falling delicately down her cheeks as she laid Jacob down carefully beside her wife, helping to position him and guide his little mouth to the peak of Regina's right breast. Regina melted at the gesture, the intimacy of the moment tangible as Emma laid down opposite her so Jacob was between them, both of his mothers bare from the waist up on either side of him. Emma carefully placed her hand on Regina's left breast, applying some ointment that they had been keeping in their small bedside table. She had read every pregnancy book that she could get her hands on before Regina gave birth, and she knew this would be important to keep Regina pain-free whilst she breastfed their baby. Regina let out a soft sigh as her eyes moved down Emma's beautiful, toned form, noticing the woman's own breasts in stiff peaks. She furrowed her brows slightly and broke the silence with a question she had thought about before but hadn't been sure if she should ask.
"Emma?"
"Mmhmm?" The blondes eyes were transfixed on the beautiful boy between them as he nursed.
"Do you.. Do you ever wish that you could.. nurse him?"
Emma's eyes flashed up to meet hers, a blush forming on her face and Regina could tell that she was almost embarrassed.. though she was hoping that her fears were not to be confirmed. She worried that maybe Emma felt that she was less of Jacob's mother because she was not the one to breastfeed him, that maybe she was embarrassed or felt like she was being forced to take on a more paternal role.. Regina didn't want that. She needed Emma to know that she was Jacob's mother too, that Regina's heart leapt every time she saw them together, that she could see the maternal love pouring from every part of Emma's being every time she interacted with their tiny baby boy.
"I.." Emma started, unable to meet Regina's eyes until the brunette placed a hand on her cheek. "I wish we were both able to.." She whispered gently, a break almost forming in her voice and Regina's heart clenched as she drew a sharp breath.
"Oh honey.." Regina had to take a shuddering breath to calm herself from the heartbreak she felt from the blonde's admission. "I really wish that too.. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that you can't feel this, this exact sensation.. but.. Tonight, like this, with your skin on his, on mine, I feel like you're as much a part of this as I am", she broke into a teary smile and Emma soon followed.
"I just.. I love him so much, and you're always so good with him. You're the one who carried him, you're the one who's name they knew straight away to put on his birth certificate before they even had to ask.." The blonde had to bite on her own lip to stop it from trembling, Regina immediately cupped her cheek once more. "But tonight, as soon as you took my shirt off and I felt him against me, his little bare cheek touching my skin, I felt.. Regina, I really felt like I was his mother.." Emma grinned as tears fell down her cheeks and Regina felt both her heart breaking and falling back together all at once and she had to steady herself before she spoke because what she needed to say next was so important and utterly heartfelt.
"Emma, baby.. You ARE his mother. You're his mama, and he knows that!" They were both sniffling now, Regina's thumb caressing Emma's cheek and Emma's palm placed on Jacob's little back. "I see it every day in the way you hold him, in the way he calms at your voice, you soothe him. He knows you. He knows you like he knows me, Emma, because we are BOTH his mothers."
Regina relaxed as Emma smiled back at her and nodded. "I'm so in love with you." The blonde managed to get through trembling lips as she stared into the eyes of her love, Regina knew for certain that she could not safely muster a coherent reply in that moment and could do nothing but press her lips against Emma's in a way that said more than she could have with words.
A few moments later, Jacob decided that he was finished and started to fuss. Regina shushed him gently as Emma picked him up and moved to sit up against the headboard with Jacob over her left shoulder, closest to Regina, as she rubbed his back. Regina moved up and cuddled into Emma's side, pulling up the sheets to cover their bare chests from the cool night air and laying her head on the edge of Emma's shoulder so she was almost nose to nose with Jacob. They sat like that for a while until Emma felt that he was starting to drift off on her shoulder. She moved slowly off the edge of the small bed and placed Jacob safely on his back in the moses basket a few feet away.
Sharing a single bed might have been problematic for some couples, but Emma and Regina found that they didn't much care for any space between them anyway, and as Emma shuffled back into bed, her wife was quick to readjust so that they were facing each other, bodies together from head to waist, legs intertwined. Emma sighed and looked deep into Regina's eyes which were reflecting the little light that was cracking through the curtain.
"I know I said I wish we could both nurse him, but if we could have decided which one of us was going to do it after he was born, I would always choose you.." Emma gently uttered no louder than a breath to the woman who's forehead was almost touching hers.
For some reason, that meant so much to Regina, in a million different ways that she couldn't begin to process individually in that moment. Emma's arm tightened around her slightly as she asked the only thing she could think of. "Wh- why?" her question was genuine, her head shaking slightly, voice cracked.
"Because it's the most beautiful thing I've seen in the whole wide world.." Emma's eyes stayed lost in Regina's as her hand loosely combed through dark, silky hair.
"I keep thinking that, you know, in all these moments with you. I always think I've seen the most beautiful thing that I ever will, and it's always you, but I have been wrong every time until now because you just keep getting better and better. I thought it the night I met you, when you ran out towards Henry with that look in your eye in that grey dress. I thought it that day at the mines when you looked into my eyes and asked me to go get our son back. I thought it in Neverland when you scrunched up your nose as my parents made out in front of the entire camp!" Emma smiled and regina started to giggle, her teary eyes never leaving the blonde's.
"I thought it on the hardest day of my life when I had to walk away from you and drive Henry to New York, and I thought it again the second I saw you when I got back to town. It was like I was seeing you for the first time.." Her eyes fluttered as if she was playing the scene back in her head, watching it like a movie as she spoke.
"I thought it on our wedding day, God I REALLY thought it then, like, everyone is supposed to look their best on their wedding day. I took a million pictures with you that day, because I REALLY thought that was the one!" Regina just lay there and beamed at her. Emma was clearly not quite done, and she could listen to this story for hours.
"But then, then you got pregnant. And that shattered everything before that to pieces." Regina tilted her head inquisitively, frowning slightly. Emma sighed and her voice lowered to an almost whisper as she continued.
"I know you felt insecure about how your body was changing. But the more you started to show, the more you put your hands on your belly, singing to Jacob, the more you hummed as you walked around the house.. humming to him and sighing, as if you were perfectly content. God that was beautiful. I felt like I was never going to be able to let you out of my sight ever again." Regina was fully crying by this stage, lip quivering and eyes streaming, but ever the captive audience as Emma held on to her and rubbed her back soothingly.
"Then, 3 weeks ago a nurse handed me a beautiful tiny little baby, and my whole world stopped." Emma bit her own shaking lip then and glanced away briefly, trying to compose herself so as to continue. "Once you got settled and the nurse held him against you.. I swear I have never seen a more perfect thing as you holding him in your arms as she showed you how to nurse him. I could see it there in your eyes, how much you love him. It just looked.. right. Like he was always meant to be there, always had been. The two of you just fit together like a perfect puzzle. It was all so natural, just so indescribably.. beautiful. I would not change that, or tonight for the entire world. Everything about then, tonght, now, is perfect just the way it is.. and I am a part of it. I'm not just an onlooker, I see that now because of you.. Thank you" Emma took a breath as she looked at her sobbing yet smiling wife and realised she had been babbling for quite a while. She shook her head slightly as if to bring herself back to earth whilst Regina caressed her cheek. A few moments passed in silence as Emma thought and Regina soothed her clearly worried wife.
"I had to get us out of there Regina.." Her voice now serious and barely audible.
"I knew that this most beautiful thing in the whole world- you, us, our family.. I knew I couldn't take any risks. I know everyone wants me to be the saviour, to be the hero, to stay.. But in that exact second, the risk just became too much. I.." Regina cut her off then with a single finger pressed to Emma's lips before she was able to spiral out of control. She kept her voice level as she spoke for the first time in what seemed like forever.
"Emma, baby, you did the right thing, bringing us here. And you, saying all of these things right now, being this person.. loving me, loving us, saving us.. is the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen."
Emma closed the distance between them instantly and they fell into a passionate kiss, one that sealed every feeling from that evening and conveyed so much love that both of them had tears streaming down their faces as their eyes squeezed shut. It was only when they ran out of air that they relented and Regina cupped Emma's face in her hands gently to ease them down from what had been an emotional night for both of them.
"And Emma.." She whispered before the inevitable sleepy daze took both of them, "You are wrong about the perfect puzzle." An exhausted Emma crinkled her brow with her face still in Regina's hands.
"When you loaded up that truck and tucked me into the back beside Henry, with Jacob in my arms.. When you drove 20 under the speed limit the whole way to Boston and looked back at us every 5 minutes to make sure we were all okay, that's when I realised that everything I needed was in that car. That we all fit together like a perfect puzzle- all four of us."
Emma smiled as she kissed Regina's forehead and tucked the brunette closer underneath her chin.
"I'm going to get us home, Regina." She shifted around slightly until her wife was comfortably nestled against her and she heard her sigh contentedly.
"I know you are, baby. I know."
As they drifted to sleep that night, closer than ever with their sons sleeping peacefully under the same roof, both women thought to themselves that this, maybe this has been the most beautiful moment of all.