This is the second chapter of "Burning Desires", but I forgot my password and can't upload it to that account.

Emma and Mary's first meeting after the curse breaks.

INCEST so do not read it if it offends you in ANY WAY. Please.

But if you do, please review.

AFTER THE STORM

They stare at each other. Without blinking, they just hold each others gaze, Emma at the table in the kitchen, Mary at the door, still grabbing the handle, unable to move and close it.

"What the-"

"I know."

"Holy shit. Sweet mother of-"

"I know.".

"You're my-… And we… We," Emma raises her eyebrows with her eyes wide open.

"I know."

Mary keeps repeating those two words. She looks distant, like she's looking at the blonde, but sees something else entirely. She closes her eyes and places one of her hands on her stomach, with the other one she swings the door closed. "I'm feeling sick."

"Fuck. Of fuck. How the hell did we end up like this?"

They know now that they're mother and daughter, but somehow the memories of the events long before they learned that, make it impossible for them to enjoy the moment, to fully grasp the meaning of all that. Both of them feel shocked and overwhelmed. And they can't move past it.

They have been avoiding each other eyes, but suddenly their eyes lock in each other and a strange expression covers Mary's face.

"What?" Emma breaths, and the other woman looks away.

"I'm not supposed to see what I see when I look at you. It's not normal. It's sick. I think I'm gonna vomit…"

"Why, what do you see?" Emma asks, pretending, or better said, not wanting to know what the brunette means.

"I see your your face when you were pleasured in ways that… and you were so close to me... and that's definitely NOT what a mother should see when she looks at her daughter. This is wrong on SO many levels…"

"I know, I… see the same things. Kinda. It was a mistake. It was wrong, oh HELL, it was SO wrong. Fuck this. Fuck everything. How could we do that?! It was wrong and bad and-"

"No it wasn't." Emma's head snaps up as she hears this, horror and confusion in her eyes. Mary shocks her head and continues, "I mean, it wasn't bad. It was good, really good. And it is now wrong, it wasn't wrong back then."

Emma narrows her eyes, still confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that… when we did what we did… well, back then it wasn't considered a mistake. It is now, that we know what we know. But when we didn't know it, back then, it wasn't a mistake. It wasn't bad. Because I loved you, even back then. Just… differently. Or I couldn't quite place the love I felt for you. I misplaced it... I DON'T KNOW!" Mary grunts with frustration, trying to makes sense of her thoughts, though it's not easy. They're chasing each other in her head, making it almost impossible to make order.

"So you call what we did, misplaced love?" Emma snorts.

"I don't know what to call it. No one would ever, I guess."

"Well, that's not a problem, since nobody else knows… or do they?" The blonde looks back at the brunette, whose face is bright red now. There's something in her look that makes Emma's blood pressure jump sky-high.

"You told DAVID?!" Emma almost shouts. She wouldn't have a problem with David knowing about all this, under normal circumstances. But given the present circumstances, given that he is supposed to be her father... This is definitely not normal.

"NO, good lord, no!" Mary looks so frustrated it almost makes her throw things. She's twiddling with her ring, unable to control her emotions. "That's the last thing we need. He cannot know! It would be too much for him, he couldn't bear the thought of-" she cuts off, trying to find the right word, "us."

"Right, because we handle it so well." Emma mutters.

"Emma, he CANNOT know!"

"But if it wasn't him, who did you tell, then?!" Emma goes back to the original question.

Mary Margaret waits for a few seconds, as if she knows Emma will not like what she's about to say. "Red. I told Red."

Emma waits a second, shakes her head, silently telling her that it doesn't clarify anything. So Mary corrects herself. "Ruby. She's Red Riding Hood here-"

"YOU TOLD RUBY ABOUT US?!"

"Don't shout! Someone might hear us!"

"How could you?!" Emma growls as quietly as she could.

"I was freaked out okay?! After the curse broke and I found Charming, I felt an enormous amount of guilt that was eating me alive. I needed to talk to someone! And he went to talk to Granny and Red was there and… I needed to tell someone or I was going to explode!" She breaths. She feels like she's close to faint any second now.

Emma inhales and exhales a couple of times, trying to calm herself as much as possible. "And..." she urges the other woman to continue.

Mary doesn't hear it, she's so occupied with her own thoughts, so Emma repeats, this time yelling, again. "AND?"

The sound makes Mary jump a little, but she continues, "She freaked out. What else would you expect?"

"But did she say anything? Any useful advice? ANYTHING?"

"Emma! Keep you voice down!"

"Hey, don't 'Emma' me!" The blonde bites her lips as she realizes that the way the brunette said was so very much motherly. It sends shivers down her spine, because when she closes her eyes, she sees the beautiful smile the brunette gave her after their first time. Eyes closed, facing the ceiling, so at peace it made Emma smile. That was a perfect moment.

A perfect moment that's now ruined. She feels herself feeling sick as well when she opens her eyes again and realizes that the woman –the same woman- before her is her mother. Fortunately, Mary keeps talking which at least distracts Emma enough to get that scene out of her head.

"She said that we have to talk about it. Try to move past it. Get over it…" She says, but the uncertainty in her voice only makes Emma angrier. They both know that the possibility of that is pretty much zero.

"That's it? That's all we can do? Because I don't see that happening anytime soon. I simply can't get over this, I'm sorry, but I can't. Oh FUCK!" She yells out of desperation again, and drops herself on one of the chairs and slams a bottle of whiskey on the table. "I'm gonna finish this thing. At least this is gonna help…"

Mary doesn't say anything to the 'finish' part, because the bottle isn't even open yet. She simply goes to the far side of the table and pulls out a chair too. "Can I join?"

Emma throws her a look, but pours two big glasses of the liquor.

They sit in silence and drink three glasses before any of them speaks again. It's not an awkward silence; a rather tired and hopeless feeling lingers in the air. It's Mary Margaret who finally breaks the silence. "We gotta tell him."

Emma turns sheepishly to face her, serving another drink for herself, then for the brunette. "Who?"

"David."

"I know."

"He won't take it easily."

"I know."

"I don't think you do, Emma. This will break him."

"But we gotta tell him…?" Her sentence has a slight edge of question.

"Yes. We can't keep it from him. He'd figure out sooner rather than later. He'll sense that something is up."

"But he won't look at us the same way again. He won't look at you the same way." Emma points out, and it warms Mary's soul that even in this situation it's her who Emma thinks of first.

"I know… But I think that ship has already sailed. We can't look at each other the same way. I guess we all have to deal with that."

"I guess, yeah." Emma drinks up the whole, almost gull glass. "This is so fucked up."

"I know."

Another silence falls and it stays longer this time. The bottle is almost empty and they both feel light-headed, when Mary speaks again.

"Can we stay best friends for a while?"

Emma looks at her with narrowed eyes.

"Let's just leave the whole mother-daughter thing alone for a while. Don't think about it. Don't think about us that way. Because every time I do… Well, I have a strong urge to vomit and it can't stay like this. So. Can we just stick with the 'two best friends had an adventure' thing and when we'll be more comfortable around each other, we can deal with the whole other thing…?"

Emma nods slowly. "I do feel comfortable around you though. And that is my problem." The alcohol in her mouth tastes heady and intoxicating and she hears herself saying the things she swore she'd never ever say out loud. "It feels too goddamn good when I'm around you. That's why it wasn't just one night. That's why I kept coming back, why I moved in with you, why we spent so much night together... I think I-"

"No!" Mary cuts her off, her voice shaking, but strong. "Don't say it."

"But it's how I feel and you cannot know the self-loathing I feel for it right now…"

"I don't wanna hear it.."

"But-"

"I can't hear it! No..."

"Trust me, you can't hate me more than I already hate myself for this, but-"

"Emma, please don't say it!" Mary begs, but she already knows it's in vain.

"I fell in love with you!" Emma almost shouts it then, tears streaming down her face and her red eyes burn, but it's nothing compared to the feeling that can only be described as a stab in the heart. Saying this hurts her just as much as it hurts the brunette, and she sees the same pain mirrored in Mary's eyes.

There are three things that keep them from seeing something rather obvious and dangerous right now. First, they're drunk, or very close to it in Mary's case. Second, both of them feel the same thing and it breaks both of their hearts into tiny pieces. Third, seeing the other so broken makes them sink in their despair even deeper.

It all distracts them from seeing a person standing in the door. The door opening wasn't the least bit quiet, but the two women were so deep in the conversation that they didn't notice.

"Snow?" A weak male voice breaks the silence and the two women's heads snap at the door's direction.

There, Charming stands with a dread expression on his face, and he looks like he was struck by lightning.