AN : I didn't think this would actually get...well anything. It isn't a very popular ship, and I assumed I'd get one...or two...or even *gasp* three. Thank you wonderful human unicorn beings.
DISCLAIMER : all rights to OUAT, I'm merely borrowing the characters to dance to my will.
How does one genuinely stay in love anyway? Shouldn't there be some sort of warning like a flag or a whistle? Something to yell, "You're not in love anymore!"
Marian sat in a booth in Granny's, waiting for her husband. Her hands folded and her fingers twisted with nervous tensions. It's been like this since her and Regina started...having coffee. Her and Regina would...have their coffee and then she'll meet Robin nervous and slightly frazzled. She quietly scanned the menu placed neatly in front of her by Ruby minutes prior to her thoughts on love and falling out of it. She started at one word in particular.
Coffee.
Her lips tilted downwards even more as her eyebrows squished together to glare at the bold, roman, capitalized word. She stared with such intensity as if this word was responsible for everything silently tumbling and breaking. As if staring would somehow out this word, and exclaim it wasn't her fault, it was the black brew of caffeine.
One day, she thought.
One day I was in love with a man with grand, but admittedly, questionable morals, and then suddenly, I'm in front of a queen with heels reaching as high as her knees, a smile that pierces through my chest with fear, and gigantic, two round brea-
"What can I get you?" Ruby's voice interrupted her thoughts like an extraneous number.
She looked up, her mind short circuited as she felt suddenly ashamed of what she was thinking, like Ruby could read her mind and came at this exact moment she thought of Regina's voluptuous brea-
"Still deciding? Or are you waiting on Robin?"
It's his name. His name always brings her back. Although, this time, it wasn't sweet or pleasant. More like a baleful leitmotif.
She shook herself from her stupor and tried smiling as casually as she could, "no. I'll have coffee and some..."
She looked down at the menu, "mac-o-ron-ee."
Ruby stifled a giggle behind the back of her hand, "it's pronounced macaroni. No, 'ee,' just 'e,' and it's 'rone,' not, 'ron.'"
Marian's cheeks colored slightly, "sorry, I'm still getting use to-"
"I know, I know," Ruby patted her shoulder, creating a bonhomie atmosphere.
"Thank you."
"Welcome."
Just at that moment, a flash of red and gold flew past Ruby and flopped onto the seat across from Marian, "and I'll have the usual Rubes."
Emma Swan sat there and glared at Marian as she said this.
"Oh, hey Emma! Sure I'll have that out for you both as quick as I can," she looked between Marian's suddenly enlarged eyes and Emma's intense glare, and extracted herself from the equation.
"You know, people in this world usually say hello or hi as a greeting." Emma held the sides of the cushion seats, telling herself to calm down.
Marian seemed to shake herself out of her stuporous surprise, "oh, hi hi..., hello Emma," she clasped her hands together once more, "what are you doing here?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?"
"That's...pretty much the reason I asked," she smiled softly, feeling waves of endangerment in this question.
"Well," Emma pretended to dust off invisible dirt on the table with her hand, looking casual, "I just wanted to return your forgotten jacket."
Then Emma threw Marian's black and grey jacket across the table and the maiden jumped slightly back.
"I figured you'd be cold without it."
Marian grabbed it, suddenly aware of how befuddled she probably looked, "I wasn't-didn't-no, um, thank you."
She put it to the side of the seat, cursing herself silently.
"Yeah, Regina seemed to be using it to cover her...'aerobic' curves when I found her after talking to you."
Marian's jaw dropped slightly as the wheels in her head twisted and turned, creaking and breaking with her sudden panic, "oh no."
"'Oh no,' wouldn't even cover how much trouble you're both in right now."
###
Earlier
"Her fault? HER FAULT? You can't even confess to this- this...ugh I don't even know what this is!" Emma threw up her hands and turned away from Regina.
"Emma wait," Regina stood, keeping Marian's jacket around her midriff.
"I'm not going anywhere, I mean...why would I!? I just found my sons other mother and Roland's mom...," she frowned, "I don't even want to think about it, and you can't even own up to it..." Emma faced Regina and leaned against the wall.
Any intension of her earlier plan seemed to fly out the window...along with her hopes. Her shoulder sagged as did her chest as she examined the former queens bare legs, arms, and the jacket that belongs to the woman she just pasted. Then she reminded herself, it wasn't a date, it was coffee.
That's all.
Nothing more.
She wanted to just be friends.
That's all she wanted, to get Regina out of her vault and...it was suppose to be nothing.
So why did it hurt?
"How?"
Regina looked up, eyes speaking waves of guilt, sparkling with unshed tears, her voice even cracked, and for that, Emma felt slightly patched, "what do you mean how?"
Emma sighed, "how did...how-?" She seemed to be confused by even her own words, "how did you and her...you know, get together?"
Regina tightened the hold of the jacket over her breasts, and it didn't cover all, as Emma stared at the curvature of her hips, slightly showing, "I don't-"
"How?" Emma's voice became stern.
Regina seemed to force the words out, "you asked me to talk," she stood straighter, making herself seem taller than she actually is, "and we talked."
"This doesn't look like talking."
"It was, for awhile. Then..."
"Then what?"
"Then you pushed us into a closet."
Emma sprung off the wall, "you're blaming this on me now?"
"Well it was, technically, you're fault Ms. Swan." And that's what she does, Regina Mills, she rivals herself with this woman in front of her, forever and always.
She battles a battle known to many throughout history. The battle between a savior and a villain.
"It was not!"
"Yes it was! You told me to talk to her and I did and that lead to other things. Then you pushed us in a closet! How am I suppose to react to her?"
Emma's face turned red from anger now, although how much of it is from anger and not from the fact that Regina's grip was loosening and more parts of her were being reveled, she didn't know, "I just wanted you to talk! Not fuck her and break up a family!"
Regina stepped closer, somehow seeming more menacing in just a small jacket barely covering her, than any mayoral suits or evil queen outfits has ever granted her, "she started it. She asked me and I obliged. If you want me to own up, then I will. She asked and as a former evil queen turned, 'good,'" it felt like she used invisible quotations with just her voice, "so I granted that wish."
Emma fought desperately not to look down, for Regina was now toe to toe with her.
She said nothing.
"So the savior has nothing to say now? How pathetic."
"No."
Regina raised an eyebrow, "no?"
"No, it was still your choice to say no, to not-"
"No, it wasn't."
Emma seemed to deflate more, "yes, yes it was."
"Not with her. It is not easy saying no to her," Regina voice seem to show softness just by mentioning Marian.
She didn't even say her name, Emma wanted to stomp then, she wanted to yell at her for being so inane and obstreperous, "then prove it."
Emma grabbed the jacket and yanked it off, eyes avoiding the newly exposed skin, she pushed Regina by her shoulders onto the floor and ran. She ran up the steps two at a time and slammed the door, using whatever magic her frazzled mind will grant her to magically lock Regina inside.
"You'll get out when you say the magic word!"
"EMMA!" Regina's voice sounded like a growl.
Emma ran across the field of grave stones embedded in grass, to her yellow bug, feeling colder outside than usual. Then she drove to Granny's where she saw Marian smiling at Ruby. Embitter bit and poked inside her stomach as she walked bristly past Ruby, feeling all the rage and hatred as she threw the jacket into the seat, and sat, "and I'll have my usual Rubes."
###
Regina almost ran after her. She almost got up and sprinted to her. But as she got onto her feet, she nearly slipped on her jeans.
She nearly forget she was naked.
Pink embroidered themselves onto her cheeks. She snapped her fingers and she was fully dressed. Then she heard the door slam with a resounding boom echoing down her stone walls. A veil of white fragrance wound around her head as she looked up.
Her eyes widen as she knew that scent of magic.
"You'll get out when you say the magic word!" Emma shouted.
Regina's magic flowed through her veins and highlighted her voice to match her pulsating anger, "EMMA!"
Regina ran up and pounded on the wooden door, feeling not wood, but the clear plastic feeling of an invisible shield. She growled low in her throat and shouted. She pounded on it and kicked the door, she let the magic flow off her in waves as she pounded, enlightening the barrier with each hit of lighted purple. She created ripples of purple as she pounded, like pebbles skipping on water.
Then she screamed one last time and sat. She stewed feeling absolutely livid.
"You'll get out when you say the magic word!"
Emma's words rang in her head. She bit the insides of her cheek and held her blue blazer tighter around her.
She sat like that for a good, maybe, twenty minutes, thinking of what Emma would use as a magical word key.
"Please."
Nothing.
She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling stupid for even thinking of this one, and said it flatly, "open sesame."
Nothing.
"Emma," she sighed and ran her hands through her hair, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't...'own' up to my mistake. She's just...dammit she's just addictive. I don't know. I just-...please open the door."
Nothing.
Regina stood up and kicked the door once more, "god dammit Emma Swan!"
The door sprung open.