Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time or any of its characters, unfortunately.
A/N: This was written in between shifts at work on my iPhone, so all mistakes are my own. Also, SwanQueen is always endgame.
Swirling the amber liquid around her glass, Emma Swan waited. She knew that she probably shouldn't have snuck into the mayor's residence, using lock picking techniques that would put most criminals to shame. It came with such ease, after knowing what stood on the other side of the door.
Today, of course, there was nothing. Henry was staying with his grandparents. Regina was god knows where.
"The next time you decide to break and enter my property, you might want to lock the door behind you, Miss Swan."
Speak of the devil.
Instead of taking offense, the former bailsbond woman grinned as she peered over the glass. "The door was open. It's almost like you were expecting me." Emma was willing to bet that the other woman wouldn't catch her bluff. When madame mayor said nothing, her suspicions were confirmed.
"Where were you?"
Neither of them had the right to ask that, but the sheriff felt confident enough to go there. Confident and stupid. What the hell was in that liquor? Did Regina stock it with a dash of poison predisposed? Or was she expecting company to die for?
"I was sorting out a little problem."
The way that the dark-haired woman's eyes darkened told the savior everything that she needed to know, but she took it a step forward and pulled out something from her inner coat pocket. Emma stared in mild bewilderment as the small muscle beat in her palm, manicured nails curling inwards and piercing it slightly. It was beating in time with her own, which had leapt into her throat.
"Whose is that?"
The answer didn't come from the person that she expected it to.
"It's mine. But listen - "
Emma's eyes desperately flickered around the room for the source, but she couldn't find it. The voice was distinctly male, a slight gruffness to it that reminded her of how violently he'd been ripped from her life. "Graham?"
Regina Mills, to her credit, said nothing. She continued to dig manicured nails into the small vessel, blatantly ignoring the fact that Emma's eyes were wide with shock and something akin to hatred. "You're killing him!"
Waking up in cold sweat, Emma panted as she subconsciously distanced herself from the occupant on the other side of her bed. Not just physically, but emotionally. It was then that she felt the sheets shift, finally understanding the appeal of Egyptian cotton. But as empowering as the revelation was - because of what it represented, more than any materialistic tendencies - she had always been the type of person that responded readily to sight over touch. Always.
Maybe it was part of the fact that she was a non-believer.
"Well, are you just going to lie there, or are we getting breakfast?" Even with the chill that ran down her spine, the warmth that engulfed her entire being at the familiarity was overwhelming for Emma. When a pair of lips ghosted against the spot where her neck met her collarbone, she was done for.
"If you give me a minute, I'll get us some coffee..."
"Oh, that won't be necessary. I've found something far more addicting. Besides, you know that I'm prone to headaches if I don't have mug pressed to my lips as soon as I awaken, so perhaps you could provide me with a cure."
Sometimes it was far too easy to forget how things had once been. The hostility, the power struggle, the misunderstandings. Sometimes it was hard to remember a life before the arrangement that they found themselves in now, even if no one else knew.
"You seem to forget that I was a sheriff, not a doctor."
Regina curved a brow at the corrective tone, before her lips evened out into a grin. "So what are you going to do? Punish me?" It was a simple statement, but it catapulted the blonde into a reminiscing daze, glazing over those beautiful hazel eyes. It bid her worry. "Emma?"
The domesticity of her first name was a tug back into the present, provoking a few hard blinks from the savior. "Sorry, I..." Had a bad dream? No that sounded ridiculous. When they first started this - whatever 'this' was - the other woman had not signed up to spend her late nights with a toddler. It wasn't something that she could go to the Charmings about either, because Snow had said it herself: she was an adult, now.
"It's nothing."
Clearly it was more than nothing, but Regina was willing to let it pass. "Okay, dear. Now, about that breakfast?" The look that followed had Emma gulping, powerless to refuse her queen anything. If there was a picture in the dictionary of the word whipped, it would be her face. Or maybe her tongue.
With an affectionate roll of her eyes, she disappeared under the fancy sheets and proceeded to save the day.
"Did he really have to be Romeo? Mercutio is a highly unappreciated role and much more dynamic than all that woe is me. Are you listening to me?" Dark brown eyes narrowed dangerously at the mere idea of being ignored. "Emma!"
The blonde didn't snap her head off because of a higher power, her neck muscles straining to keep up with her brute response rate. "Jesus! Yes, I'm listening... to the play, anyway. I don't remember this from high school."
Regina snorted rather gracelessly, but being near the high definition speakers of the auditorium drowned it out with the sound of prepubescent teenagers reciting lines from Shakespeare. "Of course you don't. It's only the most misquoted and glorified story of young suicidal love in history." Her eye roll spoke volumes, even if she didn't really mind the fact that Emma was not as cultured as she considered herself to be.
"Not everyone sits around thinking of ways to pretend to be dead."
"No, but a lot of people have considered running away to be with the person that they - " Cutting herself off, Regina ignored the sympathy looks and the discreet hand squeeze, which promised that they would address this later. Privately, of course.
"I'd run away with you, if you asked me to."
Regina's eyes fluttered closed in acknowledgment. "Well, I haven't. Don't hold your breath, Miss Swan. Because I probably never will."
"That probably sounds very promising, Juliet."
Curse the saying like mother, like son.
After a short-lived tickle attack from both mommies, Henry was read a bedtime story and tucked into bed. This allowed the two women a moment of reprieve, after an evening of perfecting the art of friendly tolerance. Regina was slipping off her heels by the body length mirror as she read through a small pamphlet that was given by the doors of the auditorium.
"You're unusually quiet," Emma observed without looking up from her reading material. "Afraid I'm going to ask you to continue what you started out there?"
Regina's upper lip curled in disdain. "You know that I'm not afraid of anything." Her nostrils flared slightly at the mere implication. She was not weak. "Daniel and I were going to run away. We thought we could escape fate. We were fools."
"Maybe you just weren't running in the right direction," Emma wondered aloud, finally lowering the document to focus her gaze squarely on her once adversary. "We both were."
"If you're trying to get me to say it, I'm going to tell you right now that it's not happening."
"Regina," the blonde sighed, reaching up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "If I really needed you to say anything, I wouldn't be here. I know better than to expect more. We're two warm bodies sharing a bed. That's all." There was more, Regina could see it in the way she inhaled sharply, bracing herself.
"... But what I know and what I feel are two separate things."
The intensity in her gaze was too much and they were both forced to look away.
"I'll be by in the morning, to take Henry to school," Emma finally continued, a dejected look on her face when her confession was met with silence. A cold, hard silence. As she collected her jacket, the savior expected her bedmate to stop her. To possibly berate and anger her, in the process of pulling her back into the bedroom. To tell her to stay without saying a word.
As she looked over her shoulder, Emma only saw Regina's back as she perched herself on the foot of the bed. Her head was bowed slightly, while her breaths came and went in short puffs of air. As soon as she felt that she was being watched, however, Regina straightened up and squared her shoulders.
It was like watching someone prepare for battle and Emma didn't have it in her to do the same, so she left.