It Has to Be Her
By XV
A/N1: I noticed that I've been getting overly descriptive and rigid in my writing recently, kind of feel I'm falling down the rabbit hole. So I set myself a challenge to write a little fic that was largely dialogue. I hope it worked.
A/N 2: Some background for you, this is an alternate timeline from mid-season 3 but with no second curse and an alternate grisly and final demise for Rumple defeated by Emma and Regina working together to accomplish the dissipation of the Dark One's magic. Emma and Regina are in an established relationship and everyone is wondering loudly and often when they will finally make honest women of each other, though generally only in front of Emma not Regina.
Disclaimer: Nothing is mine; I make no money from my scribbles. Go on and sue me if you must, I'll enjoy reading femslash out loud in court just to show TPTB how it should be done.
Ruby approached the figure sitting hunched on the bench in front of her, the blonde locks whipping around in the wind confirming she had finally tracked her friend down.
"There you are Emma. I've been looking for you for over an hour."
"Leave me alone Ruby."
"No. I wanna know what the hell happened back at the diner. What's going on with you today?"
"Seriously Ruby just go away, go back to Granny's or the Rabbit Hole or anywhere you want, just be somewhere else."
The lanky brunette ignored the dismissal and sat down sideways on the next bench along.
"Like hell I will. I'm having a nice chat with one of my best friends, we're laughing and joking and shooting the breeze, giving each other a run down on life, work and love like we do most weeks and everything is great. I make a crack that I've made like a hundred times before and you fly off the handle and storm out like I've just accused you of… I don't know… embezzling from the Sheriff's office or taking drugs or pulling the wings off fairies or Gods I don't know what!"
Emma slumped forward resting her elbows on her thighs and cradling her head in her hands.
"Emma, please. I'm sorry if I said something to hurt you, or if I've done something I don't know I did, or if I didn't do something I was supposed to do. Can you please tell me what I can do to fix this?"
"It's not you Ruby, it's me. You didn't do anything wrong okay, so can we just drop it."
"I hate to see you so upset. Come on, talk to me Emma, it might help, and I'm pretty sure it can't hurt. I promise I'll never repeat a word you say to anyone, especially not to Snow."
The brunette was careful to keep any trace of humour or condescension from her voice when alluding to the mild animosity Emma still had toward her mother. She waited patiently knowing the woman in front of her well enough to let Emma take her time to process what if anything she would share with her friend.
The gulls cawed, the waves hit the shore and the wind whistled, these being the only sounds around the two women for more than 10 minutes. Finally the blonde sat back against the bench and fixed her gaze on the distant grey horizon.
"I'm impulsive so people have the impression that I'm not observant, that I don't take in details because I don't talk about them or mention them. They couldn't be more wrong. My main survival tool has been my ability to observe thousands of details and remember them all. I don't know if I have an eidetic memory or not, but it's pretty damn close."
"Okay, that's interesting, but what does it have to do with the diner?"
"In the past two months alone, 37 different people have asked or commented 121 times on when I'm going to ask Regina to marry me. Snow and David and Henry account for 69 of those times and today your comment was the 122nd. Only three of those questions were asked in front of Regina, all three times by Henry. As far as I know no one else has ever asked Regina that question. You're friends with her now too, have you ever asked her when she plans to marry me?"
"Uh, well, no I…no I never have."
"Why not?"
"Because you're the butch one?"
"That's wrong on so many levels there's only one reply to it, and it starts with 'F' and ends with 'off'."
Emma took her sights off the horizon long enough to glare daggers at her apparently ignorant friend.
"Okay, okay, you're right that was a stupid thing to say, I'm sorry. I don't know why I haven't ever asked Regina. I think I always thought it would be you that would do the asking, maybe because it would be showing Regina you really were with her, for her, not just for Henry and her. I mean like to let her know you wanted her for her, not because she was the one who adopted Henry."
"Of course I want her for her! All the rest is, well it's just an amazing bonus."
Emma continued in a sad voice.
"I used to think it would be me that asked too."
"Why?"
"No one ever wanted me or asked me to stay, so if I wanted her, wanted Regina for forever I would have to ask."
"But Emma, your paren…"
"Stop, just don't okay? I know Snow and David wanted me, I know Rumpelstiltskin manipulated them, I know they love me and they did it for all these important reasons, but they still chose not to keep me, not to want me to be with them, curse or no curse. And that dynamic has been the pattern for the rest of my life. No one asks me to stay. Not until Henry turned up looking for me."
"Okay so you thought it would be you to ask Regina. Don't get mad now, I know this is number 123, but why haven't you asked her then? You've been together for more than two years now."
Emma looked back out to the horizon and took some time to gather her thoughts. Ruby sat straighter as she caught a familiar scent on the wind, the distinct mixture she called 'apple magic', Regina's personal scent. She looked around the harbour and the park behind them but the Mayor was nowhere to be seen. She kept looking and used her wolf senses to listen for anything moving nearby but heard nothing out of the ordinary and she returned her attention to her friend when Emma started to speak again.
"It's not that I don't want to marry her Ruby. I do. More than anything in the world I want to be with Regina for the rest of our lives. I…I was ready to ask her back before the Final Battle."
"Seriously? That long ago? That's nearly three years ago!"
"Yeah, two years, ten months, three days ago." She reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and pulled out a little red satin pouch and handed it to Ruby. "That's the day I had this made."
"Oh Emma. It's beautiful!"
The brunette looked at the ring in her palm in wonder, noting the small ruby set in the shape of an apple moulded in soft white gold and cradled on either side by open hands and set below a small crown.
"I think I've seen something like it before in a film set in Ireland."
"Yeah it was modelled on the traditional Irish Claddagh style ring, I got Bashful to make it for me, you know how talented with metal he is, and he didn't disappoint. I just switched out the heart for the apple so I could have the ruby setting put in."
"Uhh yeah good idea about the heart…well I mean, considering who you want to give it to."
Ruby couldn't help the little snort she gave and was pleased that Emma joined in, if only half-heartedly. She handed the ring and pouch back to Emma, and silence descended again over the two women.
"So what happened to change your plans?"
"Rumpelstiltskin happened."
"I don't understand? Emma did he do something to you or Regina before you defeated him? If he did, maybe we can get Blue to help, or I'm sure between you and Regina…"
"No, he didn't curse either of us or cast a spell or well… I guess sometimes knowing the truth can be kind of a curse, it certainly has been for me."
"What truth is that?"
Emma heaved a great sigh before closing her eyes and tilting her head back.
"While I was holding Rumple off at the town line waiting for Regina to get back from depositing Henry in a safe place, he was giving me a lecture about both the rigidness and the fickleness of fate and how it appeared even the Dark One was doomed to be subject to its power. He ranted about the futility of all his machinations, the giggling bastard too so much glee in detailing all the ways he'd screwed Regina and me over and all for nothing because here he was about to battle his fated vanquishers."
"You and Regina? He knew you were gonna beat his evil ass?"
"Oh yeah, but he didn't just say our names like you just did."
"What did he say?"
"He said the Dark One could only be defeated by a combination of factors that had never happened before, his fate was to perish at the hands of the product of True Love united with their True Love who was also the bearer of light redeemed from the darkness. That was the trifecta, they'd all appeared separately at different points in the past, but never at the same time, or at least they'd never found each other in order to challenge the Dark One."
"Huh? What does that…. Ohhhh right, you're the product of true love and Regina's the… oh wow, Regina's magic is light now instead of dark because you and Henry redeemed her."
"Regina redeemed herself Ruby. She may gather inspiration from Henry and well me I guess, but she's the one that pulled herself out of the darkness into the light."
The wind changed direction, gusting from the town out into the harbour and Ruby once again caught Regina's scent in the crisp autumn air. This time her ears also perked to the almost silent sound of a soft tread moving slowly toward them over the grass.
"So, you and Regina, you're each other's True Love? Emma that's wonderful! I'm so happy for you both."
Emma slouched forward dejectedly hanging her head down near her knees once more, her body language confusing Ruby no end.
"Emma why does that bother you, if you and Regina are each other's True Loves and meant to be together, why won't you ask her to marry you?"
Emma rose half way up and looked at Ruby with eyes full of pain and despair.
"It has to be her! Don't you understand? All her life Regina has been controlled or manipulated by people, her mother, Rumple, by my own mother and Grandfather for God's sake. It… it has to be her."
Emma stood up, nervous energy rolling off her in waves as she looked down at Ruby and nearly shouted in her frustration.
"I love her more than life itself Ruby, and I know she loves me, and that's enough. I won't manipulate her decision with talk of fate, True Loves and meant to be. I won't take her autonomy from her, not now, not ever. It has to be her; her choice, her decision."
"Em, maybe Regina needs to know all of this if she's going to make an informed decision. Maybe she senses something is different or missing and doesn't want to make a wrong choice."
Ruby stood up looking not at the blonde who was now standing closer to the water looking out to sea and hugging her arms to her body as she struggled to get her emotions under control, but at the shorter brunette who had appeared from a silent wisp of purple smoke just a few feet away. The younger brunette knew that Regina had been present for almost all of Emma's confession and hoped that she would indeed use her new knowledge to set things to rights. She offered Regina an uncertain smile and silently pointed back toward the town to indicate she was going to leave and give them some privacy. Before she could take a single step, and possibly draw Emma's attention, Regina flicked her wrist and magically transported Ruby back to the diner.
Emma sensed someone moving up behind her but didn't turn around. She welcomed her friends' sudden silence and didn't want to start the brunette asking more questions or giving advice. All she really wanted, all she wished for was that people would stop interfering and just leave her and Regina and Henry to get on with their lives together in whatever way they saw fit. She repeated her internal mantra that just being with Regina was enough, she didn't need a wedding to make that fact any more true than it already was. But as it often did when her thoughts strayed in this direction, her hand slipped into her pocket and caressed the shape of the ring there giving the lie to her mantra.
"Emma"
The blonde whirled at the sound of her beloved's voice and gaped at the sudden presence of Regina and the absence of Ruby.
"Regina, I…"
"Shh, you don't have to say anything Love."
"But, how long have you…."
"Long enough but not soon enough it seems. Come, sit with me."
"I don't…"
"Please. Just sit, I need to tell you some things that I know and you need to know."
Emma tamped down on her rising feeling of insecurity and allowed Regina to take her hand and guide her back to where she'd been sitting before, letting the brunette sit first before joining her on the bench,
"Emma Love, we are a couple of noble fools."
"You're no fool Regina, me well yeah, but not you."
"Oh believe me I've been very foolish, but hopefully before too long we'll be able to fix our foolish mistakes together. Emma, I knew about the prophesy of how the Dark One would be destroyed, long before I ever cast the first curse."
"You knew all along? You knew we were the ones in the prophesy?"
"No, not all along. I knew of the prophesy yes, I'd read about it in one of mother's books, but I didn't know it was actually about us until we succeeded in destroying Rumple and the dagger."
"So, you've known for two years that you're my true love, and I'm yours? Why… why didn't you say anything? Didn't you believe it was true? Did you not want it to be true?"
A slight mist had appeared in Emma's sad green eyes and Regina pulled her into a comforting hug trying to soothe her sorrow and unease before pushing back so she could look the younger woman in the eye.
"That's where the mutual foolishness comes in my Dear. I kept silent for the exact same reason you did. I didn't want your choices constrained by any coercive, excess knowledge about fate and True Love. You were right about what you told Ruby I'd feel about the constrictions of being fated."
"You, you heard that? How long were you eavesdropping Regina."
"I arrived just before you showed Ruby the ring. I'm sorry I didn't reveal myself Emma, but, well you rather shocked me with that Darling, and I wanted to hear what else I didn't know you'd been hiding from me."
"Regina I'm so sorry, I should have told you what Rumple told me, I just I never thought that not telling you was manipulating you just as much as telling you might have been. I'd never thought of it that way until Ruby spelled out it out just now."
"I'm not sorry you kept it from me Emma, it means a lot to me that you wanted to make sure I got to choose my own future, my own happiness. But I am sorry for not telling you about the prophesy right after the Final Battle and I am more than sorry that you've been thinking all this time that I didn't want to marry you."
Regina flicked her wrist and a small green satin pouch appeared, a twin to the one in Emma's pocket. The brunette carefully tipped the pouch up over her opened palm and Emma saw a ring in bright yellow gold, very similarly shaped to the one in the pouch she had just pulled from her own pocket. She mimicked Regina's movements and poured the white gold ring onto her own hand.
"I had this one made right after we got back from Neverland, two years, eight months and one day ago. I think Bashful may have influenced both of us in his sweet little way."
Regina held up the gold ring, also in the Claddagh style but with unique differences. It retained the traditional form of the heart in the middle, set with the letters 'S' and 'R' both picked out in small emeralds, but the heart was flanked on either side by two swans, their necks rising and intertwining to their heads each of which met under a single crown at the top of the arrangement.
The two women looked at the rings held in each other's trembling palms and then up into each other's eyes. There connection surged through them causing both to gasp at almost the exact same instant.
"Give me your left hand Emma."
"Only if you'll give me yours."
Regina held her gold ring up in front of Emma's left hand clasped firmly in her own right hand, waiting for Emma to mirror her actions which she quickly did.
"Regina… I want… I mean… Ahem, Regina, it still has to be you."
"If that's what you want, then so it shall be. Emma Swan, will you marry me?"
"Yes, I will, with all my heart. Regina Mills, will you marry me?"
"Yes I will, with all my heart and soul."
Proposals made, both women slipped their rings onto the other's fingers before pulling each other into a fierce embrace. Emma smiled in unmitigated joy as she leant down and captured Regina's lips in a passionate kiss, strangely relieved when no whoosh of magic was released from the action. Their True Love was the same before and after their betrothal and whatever came their way now would be made by their mutual choice.
"From here on out, we make our own fate."
They both chuckled in pleased surprise as their mutual commitment was stated in unplanned but perfect synchronicity.