Rating: T
Word Count: ~4,000
(I'll try to remember to do this for stories here on out)
symistic asked you: regina and emma post curse regina teaches emma how to fight and about magic and they start to develop feelings for each other. thanks
AN: This is very AU. Post curse, FTL… Snow's a straight up bitch in this one… I love Snow and I love Ginny, but man I had fun writing and prissy, bitchy, arrogant, 'superior' Snow. Also, I'm not exactly sure why or how the Gilligan's Island references became so useful, but they did, so… yeah…
I hope you enjoy!
Oh, PS, the parts are separated with these: ~0~0~0~0~0~. The one's that aren't obviously the next scene in the day take place over a period of time…
"Woah! Shit!" Emma's eyes widened. She knew she didn't have time to get out of the way, and she couldn't think of anything in the moment that could stop the fireball from coming at her. She did her best, the fire only grazing her side, but it burned like a bitch! "Mother fuuhh-ow!" She fell to the ground, "No more! Please! Give me a minute!" She tried to investigate the mark. "Fuck! It's like a 20 degree burn!"
Regina walked over to her, "And by that you mean second…"
"Regina it fucking hurts! Please!" Emma's eyes were as pleading as her voice and if Snow wasn't staring at them through some peephole, Regina would have knelt down and fixed it.
"Emma you can fix it yourself."
"No I can't please!"
"Emma." Regina's tone was soothing as she sat down on the ground in front of her, "Think of what needs to happen."
"I need the pain to stop."
"And how do you do that?"
"I heal it." The blonde grit though her teeth.
"And how do you do that?"
Emma glared at the brunette then back at the burn on her side. "I visualize the burn healing." She said as she put her hand mere millimeters from the burn and watched the yellow-orange glow spurt from her hand to her torso.
"Good. Very nice." Regina nodded with a smile.
"Nice would have been not getting burnt in the first place…" She said after the wound was healed. She pulled her feet in and wrapped her arms around her knees, "I still say you don't have to help me…"
"Obviously I do." The formerly evil witch quipped.
"There are plenty of people that can help. Good ol' Momsie and Popsicle are just doing this for further punishment."
"Momsie and Popsicle?" She let out a small laugh—which was a lot coming from her. Part of it might have been the fact that she finally felt the stare of the blonde's mother fade.
"I got it from Glinda when she and Elphaba came to the last 'our daughter's a princess and a hero and we want to marry her off now' ball…"
"Aw, yes, Glinda. Formerly Gah-linda."
"Oh yikes." Emma smiled. Neither woman spoke for a couple minutes though both wanting to. Emma finally found the beginning words of what could be a fun, frank conversation, "Say, how come we couldn't talk like this before? Back in Storybrooke?"
Regina tossed the question around in her head, "Well, you were out for everything I held dear; you were my sworn enemy; you were and are the savior. I am the evil queen that cursed almost all of Fairytale Land to a not-so-fairytale world… You wanted my son and my man…"
"I didn't want your man." Emma admitted.
Regina knit her brows, "Then what did I kill him for?"
Emma turned away, "I don't like it when you talk about that so flippantly."
"I'm sorry…" After a moment, she leaned forward and patted Emma's boot, "You're not getting out of my question…"
"You killed him for nothing."
"No, I was a crazy jealous, possessive bitch witch, and I thought I had killed him—as I threatened to do by the way, he knew the consequences—because he had tried to run away from me."
"I…" Emma shook her head, "I can't explain it…" She tried to form the right words, "I mean… I saw him coming out of the mansion. I saw him creep out of your window…" She swallowed, "I saw red, thinking it was a burglar or something, but then it was him. And then he told me that Henry didn't know, and that only meant that he was there for a screw and something just… twisted inside me… I just wanted to get him away from you."
"Because you were protective of him."
The blonde shook her head and stared directly into the brown eyes she'd come to very, very secretly adore, "I don't think so." Was all she got out.
"Okay, Emma!" Snow walked into the training room and clapped her hands, "That's quite enough for today."
Emma turned, "MmmmSnow," She had started to say 'mom' but decided on her name as a way of sticking it to her for interrupting her training—the only time of the day she liked, "We hardly got started."
"Yes, and you've already been hit with a fireball." Snow glared to the witch.
Regina's eyes widened, and she opened her mouth to defend herself, "She—"
"I have to learn how to defend myself. If her fireballs aren't actual fireballs and they turn to, I don't know—butterflies! or something when they hit me, then I'll never know the true consequences. Besides, when I get hurt, I can practice my healing…" Emma said, a grin forming on her face.
"You're done for the day, dear." Snow said in her 'this is final' tone.
Emma stood up and brushed her butt off, "Fine." Her nostrils were flaring as she turned to the witch, "Let's go to the stables." She held her hand out to help the brunette up as well.
"Actually!" Snow held her hand up, "Regina needs to go back to her room."
"Regina needs fresh air and sunlight. She's been trapped in this hell hole since we got back."
"This castle is hardly a hell hole, Emma." Snow refrained from raising her voice despite the urge to throw her daughter across the room.
"There's no TV, no internet, no music, no computers, no showers, no phones, no lights, no motor cars, not a single luxury." She rolled her eyes, "It's like Robinson Crusoe. It's primitive."
"As can be." Regina whispered from behind, causing Emma to smirk.
Snow did not get the joke. "Emma if you're so concerned about all of that, we'll figure out a way to get it for you… But you are not going to be a spoiled princess."
"Yes because the first 28 years were just a walk in the park." Emma deadpanned.
"And whose fault is that?"
"I don't know, Mom. I really, really don't." The use of the newest name was meant to hurt, just like the use of her fairytale name before.
"She's standing next to you, dear."
"Is she? Or is she just the easiest person to point the finger of blame at?"
"Oh you think it was my fault?"
"No." Emma could tell she had overstepped, "I'm going to the stables and I don't know how to ride a horse, so it'd be super great if someone who saved you from your first horse fiasco could teach me." She put her hand to the small of Regina's back and led her out of the room.
Charming walked in after the witch and the savior began leaving. After they were gone completely he looked at his wife, "You ever think that they'd be a good couple?"
"Bite your tongue! How dare you even think such a thing."
"Darling, Regina gets her. That's why Emma's learning so fast." And, when his wife gave him a look he continued, "Do you really want to pretend that we were getting places in the first six months we were here? She could barely create a spark with her hand! Now, three months after bringing Regina out of seclusion, she's blocking fireballs and riding horses; healing herself…"
"They are not good for each other."
"We might not think so, but fate might very well have put them together. They are meant for each other. I'm almost positive." He kissed his wife's cheek, "After all… She got the Gilligan's Island reference, not you."
"Is that what she was doing? I thought I had heard the words before…"
"Come on darling, I was in a coma for 28 years and even I knew it."
~0~0~0~0~0~
After getting out to the stables and saddling up—and Emma insisting that Regina come with her that time, Regina found herself urging her horse to keep up with Emma's, a genuine smile on her face.
"Come on, there's this place I wanted to show you." Emma kicked her horse into a gallop, "Yah! Yah!"
Emma was a natural horseback rider. This was the first time Regina had gone out with the blonde since she taught Emma how to ride and she picked it up seamlessly. Every time 'they' went riding, Emma let Regina stay in the stables or go off on her own so she could be alone as well, but this time, Emma wanted her to come along. Which was why that genuine smile was gracing her face.
They came to a glade. It held a beautiful clear water pond with a dock that extended to nearly the center. There were wild flowers all around of every variety.
Emma leapt from her steed over to Regina. The look of awe was something she wanted to see over and over.
"Oh my goodness…" Regina slid off her horse with Emma's help. As she came out of her stupor to ask Emma how she came across this place, she realized just how close they were.
Emma grinned and squeezed the woman's sides without realizing the intimacy of the gesture. She pulled away with childlike excitement on her face, "The pond's got coy fish!" She went back to her horse to grab food she was going to feed them with.
"You have a…thing for coy fish?" Regina didn't quite understand why she was so excited.
"I just think it feels and funny when they suck to get food. It's fun." She then realized what she said and looked at the woman before her, "Yeah… the highlight of my days are feeding coy fish because they make sucking sounds. There are so many things that are so much better that I could use the word 'sucking' positively for, but I can't do any of that because I am the god damn savior." She shrugged before she walked out on the dock to the very end.
"Emma?" Regina walked out and sat next to the blonde who chose to lie on her stomach to reach into the water and feed the fish.
"Yes, Regina?" She wasn't paying attention; already the coy fish started jumping for her, "OH! Look! See that big red one?"
"Yes."
"I named that one Reba." She laughed, "And that big yellow one that's always following her? I named it Barbara Jean." She rested her chin on the dock, "Man, I really miss TV."
"I'm sorry…." She paused a moment, "Emma?"
"Huh?" The blonde resumed feeding the fish once more.
"Why did you bring me here?"
Emma shrugged, "I thought you would like it… Do you hate it? If you do, please don't say so. Just politely decline to ever come again because this is my favorite place now…"
"No! No, I love this place. It's beautiful." She threw her head back and rested on her hands to soak up the sun.
"Sure is." Emma said staring at the brunette, not realizing that the sucking of the coy had commenced and she was missing it.
Regina saw her out of the corner of her eye and started blushing. She was trying to have a serious conversation with her, "Why do you let me go wherever while you ride your horse?"
"Because you need freedom… and so do I."
"If your parents found out that you let me…"
"What they'd send you back to the dungeon and get another tutor for me? I'll just forget everything before they lock you up and they'll have no choice but to bring you back out."
Regina swallowed a lump as she stared at the savior, "Why?"
Emma threw the last of her fish food out to the pond and sat up on her knees, wiping her hands on her pants, "Because I'm the savior. I save people. It's what I was born for. It's my fate."
"So it's just your job?" Regina sat forward as she looked to the other woman.
"No." The blonde looked down and started picking at her fingers.
"Care to elaborate?"
"No." the blonde shook her head.
~0~0~0~0~0~
"Emma?" Snow interrupted the coolest thing Regina was going to teach her thus far: The Poof.
"WHAAAAAAT?" She whined and turned around with a couple of stomps—a true toddler at heart.
"It's time for tea."
"I don't drink tea." Emma turned back to Regina.
"Emma? Now." Snow brought the 'this is final' voice back—more like her only tone as of now.
"She's gonna teach me how to poof! Which would you rather do? Dress up in some frilly, pepto-pink or lemon custard yellow dress, drink some nasty, hot, flavored water and eat shortbread cookies, or learn how to fricken poof from place to place?"
"Emma Louise Swan-White."
Emma's face fell and she kicked the ground, "The one time I'm actually learning something useful."
"You can be escorted back to your room." Snow looked at the witch with superiority, turned and walked out of the room.
After getting to the tearoom in the lovely frills her mother laid out for her—she had opted for the pepto-pink over the custard—she noticed that there was more than just her mother. She immediately straightened into perfect posture and Sandra Bullock-glided her way into the room. This was not going to end well.
~0~0~0~0~0~
"Why are you forcing me into these stupid dates?" Emma ripped off the pink dress and shoved her legs back in her pants.
"Emma, you need to find someone to love." Snow's voice was quiet, but serious.
"Who says? It's not like I'm ever gonna have to rule this place… we're the same age! You need to be getting Henry to start doing all this stuff. He loves it and he's going to take the thrown after you…"
"That's not necessarily true…"
"Yes, necessarily, it is." Emma gave her a serious look, "Someone who is good at this stuff and who wants to do it needs to do it. Henry wants to do it. He loves his history, geography, magic, and leadership lessons. I just want to learn how to poof. WHICH! I was going to do today until you made me go to tea and tried to marry me off!"
"Emma, this land is different. Most of us find our love early on and if we don't then we suffer. I don't want you to suffer."
"Yeah, well in my eyes, it's fifty-fifty either way. You and Pops keep having to 'find' each other; that's not the greatest relationship either—always getting separated because people want you both dead."
"It's not fifty-fifty…" Snow's eyes were sad, "When you truly love someone… it's not fifty-fifty, even if you do have to fight for them and have to keep finding them."
Emma sank as she nodded, "Yeah, I know." She looked at the ground and shuffled her feet, eyes suddenly extra wet.
Snow watched the myriad of emotions cross her daughter's face. "…Emma?"
"I forgot that I have to… do something far away.." She walked out of the room.
~0~0~0~0~0~
She knew that Regina wasn't supposed to have any visitors, but she figured if she told the guards at the doors of Regina's quarters that her mother, the Queen sent her that they would let her on in.
She took a huff of air and approached with a straight back.
The main guard looked at her, "Princess?"
"Yeah, my mom sent me to talk with her… More lessons and crap." She put her hands on her hips and looked around.
"Why didn't she tell us then?"
Emma gave the knight an obvious look, "Dude, she's busy. She's got the land and stuff to run… Forgive her for this one time not telling you specifically that I need to finish my lessons."
"My apologies, Princess." The guard bowed.
"Don't, please… You don't need to do that." She stopped him from completing his bow and walked passed him to Regina's door. She gave a small smile as she opened it and slipped into the quarters.
They were much smaller than Emma's, but still bigger and more luxurious than anything she'd ever lived in including the awesome loft apartment of Storybrooke, USA.
She walked into each of the rooms trying to figure out where she was only to find her in the bedroom. It was the kind of bedroom she always pictured Regina in. The walls surrounding the bed were a light chocolate whip, the wooden posts and head and foot boards a rich dark reddish brown. There was a small table and two chairs as well as a tall fancy dresser that matched the bed. The carpeting was an off white cream and accented the unmatched white vanity on the side of the room opposite the bed. That wall was a burgundy. It was everything she'd imagined Regina would use.
When her eyes fell on the vanity they fell on the woman she was looking for, and she didn't know what to look at first. The woman was in a royal purple lace, pleated baby doll. The woman looked like she walked out of a Victoria's Secret catalog. She had a leg up on the edge of the vanity so she could spread her lotion over it and—God was that apples Emma smelled?
She shook from the trance the woman set her in and made a noise, startling the other woman. Before Regina could look up, she covered her eyes with her hands, "I didn't see anything!" She said immediately before slumping forward and mumbling, "That's a lie; I saw everything."
She heard the brunette shuffle a moment and put on what Emma would dub the luckiest God damn bathrobe in all the realms, "You can take your hands off your face, Emma. It's not like you don't see the same thing everyday when you look in the mirror."
Emma's hands fell to reveal a shocked face, "I don't! When I look in the mirror, I'm in my jammies. My jammies are not like your…" she gestured to the woman, "panty-jammies."
"Panty-jammies?"
"Okay fine, sexy-jammies." She crossed her arms, "My jammies consist of a pair of sweats which I thank the gods everyday for letting me keep and a big ol' shirt. Not… all of that with the boobs and the legs and the stomach and the God-damn-sexy."
Regina pursed her lips before she gave a closed mouth smile, "God-damn-sexy?"
"You could give someone a heart attack."
This made the brunette chuckle, "I'm going to take that as a compliment…" They stared at one another before Regina asked one of the two questions she had running in her mind, "How was tea?"
Emma rolled her eyes and walked across the room to one of the chairs at the breakfast nook and plopped down, "It sucked." She sighed, "They want me to 'find my true love' and go on an adventure and prepare to rule, but I mean… I don't want to rule. Besides, I'm never going to have to—thanks for that by the way." She said seriously, "Now that I'm their age, I can become an old cat lady and Henry can follow their footsteps."
"He does enjoy everything there is to learn about this place. And he likes to sit in on the meetings."
Emma smiled, "He comes to visit you?"
The brunette's smile was wide as Emma had ever seen, "Yes." She changed the subject back to the blonde, "Why are you fighting them so hard on this? They just want you to find that one person that could ever completely understand you and completely compliment you…"
"Because I already found it myself."
"Emma Louise Swan-White?" Emma rolled her eyes as the brunette chuckled through her mimic of the queen, "Are you in love?"
"I don't know." Emma turned away from the brunette and looked out of window, "Could be."
"With who? The only people you spend your days with are Henry, your parents, the guards, Red and myself…" Emma shrugged, "Can you at least give me a gender so I can eliminate people?"
Emma gave her a look, "If you have to ask that question, then you know what I'm into."
The formerly evil witch gave a wicked smirk, "It's Red, isn't it? I always thought you and she had this undeniable chemistry."
Emma tilted her head and looked at the woman curiously, "Really? I mean, we're really good friends… But I never thought of her like that."
Regina's playful smile turned serious as she took in the words, "It's not Red." She wasn't sure if it came out a question or not.
Emma confirmed nevertheless. She shook her head, "It's not Red."
"It's not your mother."
"Ew, no!" Emma shook with disgust before she read the emotions in Regina's eyes. She sat forward with her elbows on her knees as she watched intently.
"And it's a woman."
"She is a woman." She nodded.
"And you don't know any of the lady guards."
"I do not." The blonde stood and walked over to the brunette, kneeling before her, "And if I did, it wouldn't be any of them." She placed a hand on the woman's crossed knee.
"It's me." Regina took ragged breaths as she looked down at the hand a moment. After the tension was all too thick, she put her fingertips over Emma's and traced her digits' length until her hand covered the blonde's.
"It's you." Emma nodded, "I wouldn't take just anyone to my spot…" She smiled, hoping to lessen the tension.
"Why?"
Emma shook her head and shrugged, "I think it's always been you… I think I was born 28 years too late, and that's why you cursed the land. You had to curse the land so I could catch up to you…" Regina's eyes held tears as she gasped a surprised sound out, "Unless, you know, you don't feel the same way in, which… I take it all back."
"Don't take it back." The brunette insisted with a squeeze of the hand that was still in hers.
"Also, I wasn't trying to protect Graham from you… I was trying to keep him away from you…" She admitted and rubbed the back of her neck.
Regina moved her hands to the blonde's face, "You were?"
"Yeah."
The brunette smiled and leaned in, "I'm going to kiss you now, okay?"
"That'd be nice." Emma leaned up to claim the witch's lips before Regina had a chance to move.
~0~0~0~0~0~
"Woah! Shit!" Emma's eyes widened. She knew she didn't have time to get out of the way, and she couldn't think of anything in the moment that could stop the fireball from coming at her.
Then, she remembered to poof.
She ended up on the other side of the training room, Regina was in the middle throwing the fireballs and controlling the things she was fighting. It took the brunette a moment to find her, but once she did she grinned evilly and threw more fire.
"You're doing nothing but wearing yourself out, Emma. My power is vast and I've already honed my skill all this is, is just mere flicks of my wrists. Yours is new and you're still a novice. What are you going to do to stop me?"
The blonde batted the fireball away. It would have given Dottie Hinson a run for her money—God she missed movies and TV.
She thought about Regina's words and gave the brunette a smirk, "This!" She said as she poofed out of another fireball's way. She poofed so she was in front of Regina only inches and stepped into the witch, dipped the woman down as if in a dance and kissed her for everything she had.
Regina's eyes rolled from the back of her head when the blonde pulled her back up to a standing position and pulled away. When she saw the sneaky grin on the blonde's face, she shook her head, and with a morose tone, "You shouldn't have done that."
Emma's smile faded, "Why?"
"Your mother watches your lessons."
"She—What?!"
"She said that I watch your lessons, which I do. What I don't know is how you knew, Regina?" Snow crossed her arms after entering the room.
Regina turned to face the queen, "I can feel your eyes, my queen."
Snow only nodded before her face turned inquisitive and accusing, "What spell have you cast over her?"
Emma watched Regina's brown eyes close with sadness as she spoke, "I cast no spell."
"Of course you did."
"Why?" The princess interjected with that protective tone, "Because it would take a spell for someone to find her attractive? For someone to want to kiss her? For someone to love her? It would take some sort of all powerful magic?"
"Emma…" Snow reached both hands out as if trying to calm a lioness.
"No. No 'Emma, calm down.' No 'Emma take a breath.' No 'Emma think about what you are doing.'" She looked at her mother, "Look at me. Look at me when I'm with her. Look at me when you send her away, back to her quarters where no one is allowed. Look at what you are doing to me." She took in a ragged breath, "Mother, I love her…" The blonde turned from Snow to Regina and took her hand.
"For how long?" Came the queen's quiet reply.
"Since she ran down the steps and hugged Henry then turned and asked if I was his birth mom." Emma caressed Regina's cheek with her spare hand.
Snow was both horrified and in awe at just how much affection was floating between the two. She could literally see them hovering a couple inches off the ground, and they both glowed a little bit.
"Snow?" Charming's voice cut through the training room, and immediately grounded the savior and the evil queen. "I've been looking everywhere for you." He smiled as he walked in. She saw his daughter's hands holding the witch's and grinned that charming grin as he took his wife's arm, "I told you, my love." He said as he kissed her cheek and walked her out of the room, "They are meant for each other."
~0~0~0~0~0~
Telling Henry that his mommies loved each other was a lot harder than it sounded. But he wasn't surprised 'because they had been spending an awful lot of time together… And they always asked how the other was.' It only took three more months before Snow relented Emma from having to learn to become a queen, and decide she was princess enough to get through life.
Emma also convinced the King and Queen to let them magic a house in the field of her spot. Henry had a room there, but he preferred his own quarters. He had everything he ever wanted in his quarters including a dragon the size of a mastiff. That, and his moms were always up in each other's business—No thanks, he'd wait until all of that simmered. Though he wasn't sure it ever would.
Emma and Regina lived in their house with their coy fish and flowers. They planted an apple tree outback, and Regina helped it grow large so they could have a tire swing… And, oh yeah, this one is really important; Regina was able to poof things from the other realm there. Emma got her TV, internet, music, computer, showers (i.e. running water), phone, lights, and motor car—not that she used it a lot, it was just nice to have the beetle back. She got every luxury she'd ever wanted, including an extensive DVD collection that ranged from Gilligan's Island to Designing Women to Pitch Perfect to Armageddon.
The blonde sat next to her one true love as they got cozy on their couch. She grabbed the remote as Regina reached into the popcorn bowl on the blonde's lap.
"Ready?" Emma asked.
"Ready."
The blonde hit play.
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale. A tale of a fateful trip…