Clattering plates from downstairs wake her and Emma knows it's way to early to wake up on a day with the late shift even before she pries her eyes open.
The light from the window blinds her and she feel like she's been run over by a truck.
She can't imagine the headache she would have if she had joined Archie yesterday.
The blonde just wants to fall back into sleep but she knows the noises won't allow her, so she swings herself out of bed with a defeated sigh and drags herself downstairs.
"Morning," she mutters to a way too chipper Mary Margaret as she reaches the kitchen, still in a tank top and sweatpants.
"Morning, Emma. I'm sorry, did I wake you?" the teacher inquires, sorting the clean plates from the dishwasher into the cabinets.
" 'S alright. Do we have any Aspirin?" Emma mumbles, sinking onto a chair at the counter.
"Oh, yes. It's in the bathroom, second closet to the right. Should I get it for you?"
"No, thanks," the blonde waves off, not being able to bear any noise the chipper pre-school teacher will make.
"I'll get it later," she mutters, burying her head in her arms on the counter.
"Must've been one hell of a party yesterday, huh?"
"What?" the blonde snaps up.
"At the Rabbit Hole."
"The Rabbit Hole." Emma repeats and Mary Margaret chuckles.
"Gossip spreads like wildfire in this town, you know."
She declined the invitation from Archie.
"Just so you know, you can call me next time and I'll pick you up." Mary Margaret offers motherly but Emma pays her no mind.
She didn't go to the Rabbit Hole.
She drove Regina home.
The memories hit her with brute force.
The awkward truce.
The drinking.
The laughing.
The playful teasing.
The kiss.
The rejection.
"You okay, Emma?"
"Wha- yeah, no, I'm fine," the blonde lies not very believably.
"I didn't go to the Rabbit Hole. I just have a headache," she adds as if it would explain everything.
"Then why did you walk home?" the teachers asks confused.
"I forgot my jacket somewhere. With keys and phone and all."
God only knows where that relatively believable explanation came from.
"Good thing you're deputy now. No one would dare to steal your things." Mary Margaret states with an encouraging smile as she whirls around the apartment to collect her several books, notepads and a pencil case.
"Yeah." Emma says dryly, happy that her roommate wasn't able to see the dark look on her face.
"Maybe Graham already got a hold of it," the brunette calls as she grabs her jacket.
Emma's face darkens further.
"Maybe."
Or maybe Regina has this hideous jacket shredded to pieces and burned already just to make Emma's life a bit more miserable.
In the light of day it's so much easier to be angry and loathing towards Regina for the stunt last night than asking why no one wants her, why everyone lulls her in and pushes her way and why she lets them...
Or maybe the daylight doesn't help at all.
"I think I'll pick up some coffee at Granny's before school. Are you gonna be okay?"
"Yeah, sure. Go."
"Okay, see you later, Emma." Mary Margaret bids her a happy goodbye, closing the front door behind her, and the deputy wonders whether she doesn't notice her bad mood or if she doesn't want to. Or maybe she wants to get away from her.
Or maybe, sweet, caring Mary Margaret knows she can't do anything to help and just wants to give her some space.
...
Emma tries to keep herself busy for as long as possible; Coffee (and aspirin), a long shower with the radio on full volume, breakfast, unpacking the last things from her move, scrubbing the counter, watching the news – she even spends more time on her hair and make up than necessary.
But somewhere between nine and ten she just gives in and grabs her blue leather jacked, her badge and the spare key.
She knows she can't keep herself busy any longer to avoid thinking about certain things or she'll spend the rest of her day in a haze.
She locks the front door behind her and puts the spare key in place again before she starts walking down the main street to the sheriff station.
A few people greet her with polite – some even with genuine – smiles.
It's the distraction she asked for but somehow she sees scandal, disgust and pity in every curt nod, twitching mouth and hurried departure.
She's imagining things – she knows that – but still it raises fear that everyone knows as Mary Margaret's words echo in her mind.
"Hello, Emma. Lovely day, isn't it?" Archie approaches her, Pongo waving his tail.
"Yeah," she gives a short reply.
"Too bad you missed out yesterday. Will you bring Henry for his session today?"
Henry.
Emma wants nothing more than to see Henry and make sure he's okay, but she knows Regina will be hovering over him, even more than usually.
"Uh, no, I don't- I don't think so."
"I see," Archie says, way too knowing. "Have a good day, Emma."
"You too, Archie," the blonde says, not knowing what else to do.
She remembers wanting to talk to Archie because she wasn't okay with what he did to Henry yesterday.
Telling him that he shouldn't have given into Regina instead of doing what's best for Henry, but as soon as the brunette hits her thoughts she retreats.
Emma just can't have another conflict about Regina right now. Anything related to Regina really.
She isn't any better than Archie, she realizes.
Emma Swan has done quiet a few reckless things and has tabbed into taboos but never had she felt so stupid and worthless and ashamed of herself as having fallen for one of the mayor's games.
Except when Neal had set her up.
Even when she fell into an affair with a married man it didn't leave her feeling like this because she had known what she was in for.
She really has a terrible track record when it comes to picking a lover.
…
Reaching the station, Emma is stunned by a bright yellow car parked in front of the building.
Regina probably had Gus remove the blot in front of her perfectly trimmed hedge first thing in the morning and threatened to have him fired if he so much as breathes a word to anyone about the Beetle ever parking in Mifflin Street over night.
Emma hates the mayor for making her feel like even the slightest interaction with the blonde is a great shame and to be hidden at all cost.
She storms into the station, banning the memories of any connections between her beloved car and the brunette.
Fortunately, Graham isn't in (which she already guessed by the missing cruiser); she probably would've taken it all out on the poor guy.
Or maybe he could've talked some sense into her.
Emma cringes at the idea of discussing last night with him, with anyone.
She doesn't want anybody to know about it. Ever.
She still can't believe how easily she had fallen for the brunette's charm.
For a second she considers Henry's fairytale theory to be true but then she snorts humorlessly.
There wasn't any witchcraft to blame for her stupidity. This was her fault alone.
She had let herself been blinded by what she wanted to see and she had let herself be hurt by Regina showing her she could never get what she yearned for in the most cruel way.
Emma's glance falls onto the dart board on the wall next to her desk and she scans the room for the darts appertaining to it.
A small brown package catches her eye.
It has her name written on it in the most ridiculously neat and pretty handwriting she has ever seen, almost like calligraphy, and Emma knows - she just knows - it's Regina's handwriting and it makes her want to tear the fucking package to pieces.
Rejecting her, throwing her out, making her see just how worthless she is, is one thing.
The hate and disgust and haughtiness Emma knows, that much she can handle and fight.
She could even deal with it being a sick game of earning someone's trust and break them just for the sake of it.
But the pity of returning her belongings in person (more or less) that is written between the lines of 'I owe her as much for giving her false hope' makes her sick.
She might not be the white knight Henry dreams her to be, but she sure as hell doesn't need anyone's pity.
….
Almost two hours early for her shift , Graham finds his new deputy at her desk tearing a package apart, cursing about who the hell writes like that.
"Do I need to arrest you for assault on innocent packages?" he jokes and Emma flinches at his unexpected presence.
"Don't know about innocent," she grumbles, but finally stops her brutal ripping when she holds her red leather jacket in her hands, keys and phone still in the pockets.
"How did that get there?" he questions surprised, leaning against the desk opposite of the one Emma is sitting at.
"Must've forgotten it at the mines yesterday." the blonde explains without looking up.
"Good thing we have honest citizens here in Storybrook."
"Yeah, right," she growls, earning a weird look from her boss.
"Sorry, I just have a headache. I'm probably gonna be grumpy all day," she offers an explanation and apologizing smile for her bad mood.
"I've heard of the celebration at the Rabbit Hole," Graham chuckles.
"I wasn't there, I just have a headache," she says truthfully as she collects what's left of the package wrapping and crumbles it into a ball.
"I know," the sheriff comments, circling the desk he had been leaning against to sit behind it. He rarely ever used the separated sheriff's office behind the glass wall.
"Okay, seriously, you need to get that gossip under control," Emma exclaims, annoyed, but internally she's dreading just how much everyone already knows.
"Well, it is a small town."
"I noticed," she huffs and throws the ball of wrapping paper across the room into the waste bin. At least that's where it's supposed to land.
"Nice aim. Doughnut?" Graham offers, picking up a pastry box from one of the drawers.
"No, thanks," the blond declines, getting up with a defeated sigh to throw the paper ball properly away.
"Really? Because I thought I could bribe you with it into letting me leave an hour earlier." He gives her a sly grin, holding the open box out to his deputy.
"Well, since I'm here anyway, I might as well get something to eat out of it," she shrugs and picks up the only chocolate doughnut.
Fair's fair.
"Thank you."
Emma mutters something under her breath but Graham doesn't push it. The blonde didn't seem like she would tolerate any pushing today.
...
In fact, there would be no pushing for the next week as Emma's mood only gets worse.
It goes from snappy and irritated over quiet and jumpy back to annoyed and distant.
The first few days the blonde waits for the sound of distinctive heels, just so she could finally take her anger out on the right person but the longer she doesn't cross paths with the mayor the more she feels the fight slipping out of her.
Up until that point where Graham ask her to drop off some reports to the mayoral office and she's almost scared to come face to face with the brunette.
She does it anyway, too proud to let anyone believe she fears the mayor like everyone else, but god is she relieved when the secretary takes the folder out of her hands because Regina is in a meeting.
This happens twice more and Emma realize it's bullshit.
Regina is avoiding her.
The blonde feels herself falling into a hole when she thinks about how awful and disgusting it must be to kiss her if it sends a woman like Regina into hiding.
How much of a pity case she is if even the mayor doesn't dare to reject her face to face.
Emma had expected her to play offensive and taunt her and embarrass her and rub salt into wounds whenever she got a chance to but the possibility that the brunette passively deepens her insecurity and abandoned issues had never crossed her mind.
The deputy even starts avoiding Henry. He shouldn't see that something is troubling her and he sure as hell shouldn't find out what's troubling her. Or who.
(And where Henry is, the mayor isn't far. He just can't in the middle of... this.)
Both Mary Margaret and Graham ask her if she's okay when they notice her strange behavior but don't push her further, assuming she just feels a bit overwhelmed by the small town feeling and Emma lets them believe they've got her all figured out.
God, if they knew why she actually keeps her distance…
That thought pulls out the fight in her again.
She's been through several phases of self loathing and insecurity and she's never let it stop her, so if Regina thinks that she can overpower her with her mind games this easily and crush her with a bit of manipulation, she bet on the wrong horse.
The mayor won't get rid of her this easily.
So on a Wednesday morning with Henry and Mary Margaret at school and Graham on call for the morning shift, she takes her chance and drives directly to the mansion, parking her bug stubbornly in plain view. She even wears the red leather jacked just in spite.
She knows Regina is home. The office only opens at 1pm on Wednesdays.
"Regina. Regina, I know you're there!" the blonde hammers on the door and she doesn't give a damn if the neighbors can hear her.
"Come on, open up. I can do this all day," she shouts, pounding on the door some more until it gives away under her hand.
"Miss Swan - what on earth do you think you're doing?!" Regina protests when Emma walks right passed her.
"Get out of my house," the mayor orders, holding the door open.
"No." Emma just stands in the foyer, arms crossed, and shoots daggers at her.
"Miss Swan-" the brunette starts, her voice low and dangerous, as she lets the door fall close and steps up to the other woman.
"Miss Swan me all you want but you won't get rid of me until we've-"
"We won't do anything. You will leave. Or I will have you arrested!" the mayor exclaims, the vein in her forehead starting to show.
"No, you won't."
Regina looks like she's close to strangling the blonde but instead she crosses her arms and challenges her with an annoyed quirk of her eyebrow.
"Humor me, Miss Swan: why won't I?"
It's a dangerous dare to take but Emma is beyond caring.
"Because you're scared of me."
"I am no such thing."
"Yes, you are. You feel threatened by me. You feel your pretty little facade crumbling because there's finally someone who won't buy your bullshit. And you fear someone might find out that you like it." Emma has no idea where this sudden confidence came from but somehow she knows she hit home with her bluffing.
There's an unbelieving, sarcastic chuckle for stalling purposes.
"This is absurd, Miss Swan. I don't have to listen this. You come into my house and..."
God, it frustrates the hell out of Emma how Regina never listens and accepts. She always tries to worm her way out of certain subjects and Emma just wants her to shut up and for once admit she's wrong.
It takes a fragment of a second and Emma has grabbed the collar of an expensive blazer and stops the bullshit out of the brunette's mouth by pressing her lips against it.
Regina gasps in surprise, her eyes widening, and the deputy uses it to sneak her tongue past full lips.
Offense is the best defense.
But the mayor won't let her win. Never.
Regina grabs blonde tresses, but instead of pushing Emma off, she harshly shoves her backwards until the deputy's pressed against the wall behind her.
It forces a gasped moan out of the blonde and she smirks. Finally they're back to the familiar fighting game.
Before the mayor knows it, she is the one pressed against the wall. She pushes and pulls on every part of the other woman to gain back the upper hand but the only thing giving away under well-manicured hands is red leather.
And then a gray t-shirt.
Regina ranks her nails over a deliciously toned abdomen and receives a groan.
The distraction is enough to be in the lead again. She pulls the blonde away from the wall.
"Regina-"
She silences the protest short handed with a promising kiss – or maybe it was meant as a dare or threat – and pulls the blonde further into the house by her belt loops. Emma's lips eagerly search out hers again, hands roaming as they stumble their way to the couch in the living room...