Summary: This could be considered a prompt response. Inspired by a captioned image of Regina by sina dino (on FB). Emma has been turned into a rabbit by a magic-user disgruntled with the Sheriff-Savior's handling of a problem. Henry turns to Regina for help.

Author Note: Unbeta'd. But this plot bunny wouldn't leave me alone. I wrote it in a single hour about 3 hours ago in the middle of a night when I should've been sleeping. But I was happy to let my muse run a bit.

Rating: T for a bit of nudity and awakening Swan Queen angsty-ness.

Plot Bunny

by LZClotho

"Mom! Mom!"

Regina bolted upright from reclining on her chaise and reading her spell book in the afternoon sun streaming into her bedroom window. The front door downstairs slammed shut and her visitor shouted again.

"Mom, please!"

It was Henry! Regina's heart jumped to her throat as she recognized panic in the voice of the child who had filled her life for more than ten years.

But he hadn't called out for her in need in more than two years. She planted both hands on the balcony railing seeing him below her, his backpack still weighting him down as he stumbled around. "Henry, what's wrong?"

He turned and she caught sight of a pale gold, large and fluffy... "Henry, what is that?"

"It's a rabbit," he said. "But it was Emma!" His expression was beseeching.

Regina moved cautiously down the staircase while studying the flop-eared animal - the rabbit had ears long enough to trip over - squirming in Henry's hands. This was Emma Swan, reluctant Savior, and erstwhile Sheriff of Storybrooke? The rabbit was frantic and no doubt uncomfortable with Henry squeezing its stomach and letting the large flat feet continue to slap at empty air.

"I think you had better put it down, dear." She watched from a few feet away as Henry put the large rabbit, which had to be 20 pounds, on the shiny tiles of her entryway. She frowned.

"Now, would you kindly explain," she asked. The rabbit snuffled around the floor and to Regina's surprise sidled up to her own bare feet. Her lips twitched as the whiskers tickled. She took a quick step back. The rabbit followed. She sighed but returned her gaze to Henry.

"It's Emma! I found her outside Miss Potter's house."

"How do you know it's the Sheriff, Henry? Couldn't one of Miss Potter's rabbits have escaped her backyard hutch?"

Henry had thrown off his backpack and now he lifted the rabbit once again, this time outward, showing Regina the twitching face. "That's Emma's eyes," he said. "See?"

The eyes meeting hers certainly were the right color, Regina thought, a variant hazel-green. She had faced off with them often enough to claim a modicum of familiarity. However, the twitching pink nose certainly was incongruous. "What do you want me to do?"

"Change her back!"

"Why didn't you take this to the Fairies?" Regina had to know.

"Because Miss Potter's magic is black."

"Only the one who casts a spell can undo it, Henry."

"But you're powerful," he said earnestly. "Please?"

"The Blue Fairy - " Regina tried again, only to be cut off by her son.

"She doesn't like Emma since Emma told her to - "

"Yes, Henry," Regina interrupted him. She well remembered Miss Swan's surprising defense of her before the town mob. She also recalled the foul language the blonde had reserved for the Blue Fairy in the midst of that. She didn't need her son repeating it.

Regina didn't exactly like Emma either, but the woman had insisted that no one would touch Regina while she was Sheriff.

"Mom? Please?" Henry's plea interrupted Regina's thoughts. "Can you do something?"

She couldn't deny her son, not with that wide-eyed worry clouding his expression. "All right. Go see if Miss Potter will come here, Henry. Tell her I sent you." That would protect Henry should Trix get it in her head to be mad at him, too, for whatever Emma had done.

"And if she won't?"

Regina looked down at the rabbit now flopped out between her feet. She exhaled and brushed her fingers through her hair. Was she really agreeing to help Emma Swan? Henry's forlorn expression made the decision for her. "I'll see what I can do."

Henry raced out the door almost before the air had cleared of the sound of Regina speaking. As Regina bent to pick up the abandoned backpack, she caught the hazel-green gaze. "Your son, Miss Swan," she said bluntly. The pink bunny nose twitched at her. The eyes rounded in what Regina might fancifully call worry, but then they closed slowly.

Realizing the rabbit was not going to move on its own, Regina resigned herself to her fate and picked up the animal. It struggled and Regina adjusted to support its body more with a hand under its rump, the cotton tail against her palm. The tiny head bumped against Regina's chin and the floppy ears moved against the skin of her throat between the open collar of her blouse. The fur was surprisingly soft; Regina couldn't recall if she had ever held a rabbit before.

But she also felt the heart beating inside the little beast at what seemed several hundred beats per minute. An awkward thought that the rate was dangerously fast made Regina adjust her hold to free up one hand to cradle and stroke the animal's head and back. She stopped her hand in mid-stroke, fingertips partially obscured by the golden fur. "This has to be the most absurd thing I have ever done." She scolded, "It's been more than a month, Miss Swan. Surely even you can remember it's unwise to get on a magic-user's bad side." Her tone became wryly amused. "Though I do wonder what you did to set off that old biddy. Knowing you though, you probably rolled your eyes at one of her rabbit tales."

Under her hand, Regina felt the too-rapid pulse unmistakably slowing. She looked up from studying the golden-furred ears, having been debating whether the color matched Emma's long tresses or was a little darker. She had walked with Emma-the-rabbit back upstairs and now stood a bit lost in the middle of her own bedroom. Turning her gaze around the room, she spied the spell book abandoned on the chaise and remembered that had been her intention: to find a general reversal spell.

Not liking the idea of rabbit fur on her sheets, Regina started to put Emma on the floor but the kicking was frantic. "Fine," Regina muttered. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom and placed the rabbit on it in the middle of her bedspread. After circling and sniffing, Emma-the-rabbit finally settled, hazel-green eyes following Regina as she retrieved the book from the chaise and settled on the bed.

Regina had never had a pet growing up; her mother had been adamant that Regina focus on other things, things that would improve her station in life. She'd never given in to Henry's four-year-old begging for a dog, knowing she didn't have the time to walk it with all her other responsibilities.

So it was with some surprise that she found herself stroking and scratching between and behind rabbit ears as she searched through her spells. She found a number of transformation spells, but not usually in the habit of undoing them, she didn't find any likely candidates for a restoration spell.

She kept looking though because she feared Henry would accuse her of not even trying if she didn't make the effort clear. And she found she really wanted to do this, for Henry's sake.

Pulling her feet up onto the bed she leaned back into her pillows and continued turning page after page, until her eyes drifted shut from the monotony and exhaustion.

She startled awake at the slam of the front door. Her hand shot out to find the rabbit - only to land on the naked calf of one Emma Swan, who lay with her head at the end of Regina's bed and her feet in the pillows. The rest of the blonde was nude as well, her body currently turned away from Regina so that she was presented only with the sheriff's muscular back and tight buttocks normally hidden by the red leather jacket and skin-tight jeans.

Regina snapped her hand back from bare skin as she heard thumps coming up the steps. Her gaze shot to the open doorway of her bedroom. She threw a blanket over the sleeping blonde and hurried to her door.

Just in time, too. She met Henry in the hallway.

"She won't come!" He was frantic.

Regina smiled, pleased to be able to deliver good news. "It's all right. Miss Swan is, well, herself once again."

"You fixed her!" Henry's arms went around Regina's waist and the squeeze brought tears to her eyes.

God, how she wanted to claim credit, to be the hero just as Miss Swan was so often for him. But she had sworn no more lies when the curse broke. She needed Henry to love her honestly. "I didn't do anything," she replied quietly. "I looked for a spell. I did. But it just wore off on its own."

Henry pulled back. Regina braced herself. This was it. She watched, waiting for the resentment to return to his features. But his face changed slowly, to an expression she had thought long lost: adoration.

"Thanks, Mom!"

Regina's hands shook as she cupped her son's cheeks. She nodded, unable to speak around the lump in her throat.

"Did you send Emma home?" Henry asked.

"No. I'll get her," Regina said quickly. "You go downstairs and get yourself a snack." She turned back inside her room as Henry ran down the stairs. She was leaning heavily on the door, eyes closed, when she heard the master bathroom door open.

Emma emerged into her bedroom wearing Regina's robe. "I had to borrow it," Emma said, "the towel wasn't big enough." Regina couldn't find words as she watched Emma distractedly untuck blonde hair from beneath the robe's collar.

"That's... fine, Miss Swan," she finally managed. Henry is eager to see you."

She pushed off the doorway and met Emma in the middle of her room. Their gazes intersected.

"Thank you, Regina."

"As I told Henry, Miss Swan, I didn't do anything."

Emma shook her head. "But you have a nice soft touch when you want to." Their gazes locked; Regina felt her throat get warm. Damn, was she going to blush?

Breaking their gaze first, Emma started for the door to the hallway.

Regina called, "Miss Swan?" and she heard the quaver.

Turning with her hand on the knob, Emma said, "Yes?"

"You'll need... clothes. Let me get you something."

Emma dropped her hand and dipped her chin, taking a step back into the room as she turned around fully.

Regina disappeared into her walk-in closet and reemerged a moment later with a gray-blue silk blouse and a pair of knee-length black shorts.

Emma took the blouse first. "This?"

"You've worn it before, so I know it fits," Regina replied. She tried to keep her voice cool, but she kept hearing the quaver as their hands brushed in the exchange. "I'll step out so you can change," she added quickly, finally, after what seemed an endless silence in which they could only stare at one another, eyes darting across features, trying hard not to focus any one place.

Emma remained utterly still in the middle of Regina's bedroom after the brunette had taken her leave and closed the door behind her.

Her nose twitched, recapturing the scent lingering in the air. It was Regina's perfume as she'd passed. Emma blinked back the sudden flash of being tucked up under the woman's chin. Her heart raced again, this time in an all-too-human chest, with a mind and a heart that were both all-too-aware of the arousal pooling in her belly.

Of all the things Emma had expected to learn from her brief sojourn as a rabbit, discovering she was sexually attracted to Regina Mills had to be the very last item at the bottom of the list.

She clenched her hand in the silk shirt, aware of how strongly her fingers tingled. Sonofabitch, Emma thought.