Happy Swan Queen week everybody! This is my first swan queen fic and I hope it's not too bad. Written for day one: Blind Date. Set after the winter finale.
Disclaimer: No matter how much I wish I did, I do not own Once Upon a Time or any of it's characters.
Regina Mills never in her life thought that she would be sitting in an upscale Italian restaurant in New York waiting for the daughter of Snow White to show up for their "blind date", but it had to be done. It took her almost a year to find a way back to the world she had spent almost three decades of her life in, and just around four months to get Emma to agree to meet her via a dating website. It was Snow's idea actually, which was just exceptionally surprising in and of itself. The princess had noticed how withdrawn Regina had become in the Enchanted Forest and realized that she was not only upset about losing her son but also about losing Emma, and mentioned that perhaps what the two women had was true love and she, the Evil Queen, could bring back the Savior's memories.
They spent a month planning how Regina could get Emma to kiss her without freaking the young woman out too much, both knowing how unwilling to believe Emma could be, and one day Snow had just turned to her and said, "Regina, the internet. You can use the internet in that world." while Regina just looked at her with a confused expression wondering how that could be at all helpful until Snow had said "online dating, Regina. You can get her to go on a date with you through online dating!" And that was that, when she returned to this world she found a dating website that Emma was using and made a profile, immediately sending Emma a message. That continued on for four months until Emma suggested that they should meet, which is also how she figured out the woman was in New York, and now here she is. Sitting at a table, waiting for Emma, who as always, was late. She smiled wistfully as she thought about how even though the woman had been stripped of the memories from most of her life and filled with Regina's own, Miss Swan was still the same, late to just about everything. Just as she was thinking that she saw a head of blonde enter the restaurant, she smiled fully then, she had truly missed this woman, who, true to her character, was wearing her red leather jacket and dress up jeans.
"Uh, hey are you um Regina?" Miss Swan, eloquent as ever, said upon approaching the table.
The queen smiled again at how she was still just so simply Emma even after all this time, "Yes, dear and you must be Emma." she said moving her hand in a gesture for the other woman to sit.
The blonde sat down across from the older woman, she felt an odd feeling of familiarity with the woman like she had known her before but shook it off, "Sorry about being late, my son was trying to tell me that he was old enough to stay by himself and didn't need a babysitter."
"That's quite alright, dear. I understand. I hope you don't mind but I took the liberty of ordering for us, the food should be here shortly."
"That's fine, I eat almost anything anyway." She paused, this woman, her face, her voice, the way she held herself, everything about her was so familiar yet she was sure she would have remembered her beautiful face had she seen her before. "I hope this isn't weird but I feel like I've known you before, like you look very familiar. Sorry, that's probably weird."
Regina smiled inwardly, she had been worried about how Emma would react to seeing her again, obviously she would have no memories of her but Regina had hope that there would be some sliver of recognition, "Perhaps I just have one of those faces." It was a lie, which of course Emma and her "superpower" noticed, she say anything, but Regina noticed the little twitch of her eyebrow. "So Miss Swan, your profile says that you are in law enforcement, what exactly do you do?"
As Emma opened her mouth to answer their food was placed in front of them, Emma's a gourmet grilled cheese, she gaped at the food in front of her. "How did you know that I liked grilled cheese?"
"Lucky guess, I suppose." Another lie, this was becoming more difficult than she thought.
Emma looked at her incredulously, she could tell that the woman was lying but she could also see that she wasn't doing it with some kind of evil ulterior motive. It was very confusing, she's been with people who lie before but these lies were weird, lying about why she was so familiar to her and why she knew that Emma liked grilled cheese, it was all just very weird. "Right…" she said trailing off, "um I'm an officer with the N.Y.P.D. I work petty crimes. What about you, former mayor of a town in Maine, what are you doing in the city?"
"Not much of anything yet, I've only been in New York for a short time, haven't really started anything yet."
The night continued on, Regina having to lie about certain aspects of her life and Emma wondering why this gorgeous woman needed to lie about anything, they lightly flirted, and bickered playfully about trivial matters. Regina was just glad to be in the same room as the blonde Savior, she knew she missed the woman but she didn't know just how much until they bickered over whether or not it was acceptable for a grown woman to eat sugary cereal for breakfast, she had missed arguing with the Savior but very much enjoyed this type of arguing over the kind they once had done over Henry.
They left the restaurant about two hours after Emma's arrival and they began walking towards Regina's hotel because it was closer than Emma and Henry's apartment. "I know that it may be strange that I ask but I know you said you have a son and I was just wondering how old he is?" Regina asked, hoping that Emma would take that and start talking about their son, if she couldn't bring back their memories then perhaps she could have this.
"He's 13, growing like a weed, he's almost taller than me. His name is Henry."
"Must be difficult on your own. Having a teenager I mean." She was really fishing here and she wished that Emma would just take the bait and talk about Henry.
"Yeah it's a bit difficult, but he's a good kid which helps a lot. He never gets into trouble, and does really good in school so it's not as hard as it could be."
Regina didn't say anything else, she didn't want to seem like she was obsessed with finding out about her son, that would certainly tip Emma off that something weird was up. They walked in mostly silence the rest of the way. When they reached the upscale hotel that Regina was staying at Emma walked her up to her room saying something about how she, "wanted to make sure she got to her room safe because you never know with these New York hotels." Regina had just rolled her eyes and got onto the elevator with the blonde.
"This is my room." Said the brunette after stopping in front of her hotel room door.
Emma nervously rubbed at the back of her neck, although she knows that Regina had lied often throughout the majority of their date, she can't help but feel like she has known the brunette before and that she can trust her. She also can't help but want to kiss her. "I had a very good time with you Regina."
"And I with you, Emma."
The blonde feels something strange stir within her when the older woman says her name, it feels familiar but not quite, like it was something important, but she didn't know why. She felt herself taking a step toward the brunette, Regina stepped towards her as well. They both leaned in slowly, pausing centimeters away from each other, and green met brown just as they closed the gap. Just as their lips touched they felt something build in them and pulse out from their lips. Emma pulled back with a gasp just in time to see the white light pulsate through the hotel hallway.
"Holy shit." she said breathlessly.
Regina placed a hand on the blondes shoulder and looked into Emma's green eyes with tears building up in her brown ones, "Please Emma, please tell me you remember."
Emma lifted her hand to the brunettes face and wiped away a lone tear that trailed down Regina's cheek and chuckled lightly, "Never thought I would see the day that the Evil Queen would cry." Regina let out a watery, relieved chuckle and let it all out burying her face in Emma's neck as the Savior pulled her in tightly and let the Evil Queen cry.
"Tell me." the blonde heard Regina whimper into her neck. She understood what the brunette wanted and spoke into her ear, "I am Emma Swan, the Savior, or whatever and Storybrooke sheriff. You are Regina Mills, the Evil Queen who isn't really evil and the mayor. I had Henry when I was 18 and gave him up for adoption, you adopted him, you are his mom. When he was 10 he found me and brought me to you. I broke the curse, and then you saved everyone from the curse after the whole Pan thing but I lost my memories, I lost you. God, I forgot you and I never got to tell you that I loved you." Emma gently pulled Regina's head out of her neck and up to eye level and looked right into those deep brown eyes she didn't know she missed, "I love you."
"I love you too."
They kissed briefly until Emma pulled back at the sound of her phone blaring the Harry Potter theme song, "It's Henry." She said before answering the phone. "Hey kid."
"Ma, please tell me you remember your Snow White and Prince Charming's daughter because I don't think I can convince you of it again."
Emma smiled thanking whatever higher power there was that their son had also regained his memory. "Yeah kid, I know and I have a surprise for you."
Before the teen could answer Emma passed her phone over to Regina who immediately brought it to her ear. "Henry." She breathed, her eyes starting to water again.
"Mom?" He said, his voice significantly deeper since she had last heard it.
"It's me Henry. Oh how I've missed you my little prince." She was full on crying now, her blonde companion placing a supportive arm around her shoulders.
Henry, also crying, simply said "I've missed you too mom."
Emma realizing how distraught the other woman was gently took the phone out of her hand, causing the brunette to burrow in her shoulder again, and brought the phone up to her own ear, "Hey kid, it's me again your moms a bit emotional right now. We're at her hotel but we're gonna leave and come to the apartment okay? We'll see you soon." And hung up after getting a small okay from their son.
"Regina?" She whispered into the other woman's hair, "Let's go home to our son, and you can tell me all about how you got here, and how we can all get back."
"Are you sure, I don't want to intrude in your home and I surely don't want to make you leave your home and go to the Enchanted Forest." She said tearfully, lifting her head back up.
Emma's sparkling green eyes zeroed in on teary brown, "You would never be intruding because it was never home without you, and of course I would go to the Enchanted Forest with you. Don't you know home is where the heart is? My home is wherever you are. And let's face it you are much better suited for fairytale land than you are the city. Maybe one day we can come back to civilization but right now the Enchanted Forest seems like where we need to be."
The Evil Queen was almost speechless at Emma's admittance. "I love you, Emma Swan." Was all she could think to say.
"And I love you, Regina Mills. You are the queen of my heart." She said cheekily, to which Regina giggled softly. "Now what do you say we get moving and go see our son. On the way you can tell me all about what's happening in the Enchanted Forest."
And with that they began walking back out of the hotel hand in hand as Regina filled her Savior in on the latest Enchanted Forest news. "Mulan and Aurora have married this past summer, they have a lovely daughter who was just born. Oh and Belle and Red, or Ruby as she prefers, have just started dating. Your insufferable mother has..."
Yes, well I hope that wasn't too horrible, do tell me what you think. I'll be posting day two later today I hope. Have a lovely Swan Queen week everyone.