Emma Swan does not do routines.
She has always been about rolling with punches and taking every hit as it comes. Her life has never been anything that could be remotely called stable. Routine requires stability, and waking up in a beaten down bug in a new city every day was the only part of her life ever assured.
And she did not dislike it. There was something thrilling about never being chained to the 9-to-5 grind. Something satisfying about waking up unattached and able to do as she pleased, whenever she pleased. Her life was in her control, completely, and there was no other way she'd rather have it.
It was always the nighttime really, that the emptiness would find its way to her shivering body, curled close to the worn, stained leather of the backseat of her bug, holding her jacket tight around her shoulders.
Loneliness has a knack of working its way through even the smallest cracks in armor and gnawing you down from the inside out. And no matter how much leather armor Emma buried herself in, the emptiness always found the ways in.
Now she wakes up breathing the smell of sweet leather off his bare shoulder and curling tighter to a warm body that holds her close and presses kisses into her hair and utters beautiful words gently into her ears. She kisses him back and holds him captive until he insists they've got to bloody get on with it or never leave bed again.
(He sneaks out before her parents wake even though they crossed the point of secrecy long ago).
And she hums as she dresses to face the day, choosing cozy bright sweaters that combat the icy chill of Storybrooke far better than her leather ever did. She washes her face and she grabs a banana and passes up the coffee her mother offers her with a grin, thinking of bright eyes and smiles warmer than the cup he presents her with ever is.
And he is waiting for her, of course, right on schedule, coffee in hand.
It is their routine.
She has never liked being stuck in a loop.
But every time he lowers his lips to her and captures her sweetly against him it is like she is falling in love with his ridiculous innuendo and waving brows all over again and she never wants to let him go.
It's the nighttime really, when he holds her close on the couch— those are the part of the routine that she likes best. Her parents laugh in the kitchen with her son and bright, warm light floods the darkness and keeps it held at bay in the shadows and out the windows.
"Coffee tomorrow morning?" She asks sleepily, head pressed against his shoulder, breathing in strong, steady leather with every gentle lift of her chest.
"Aye."
