The red fitted dress or just pants with a blouse? Regina was staring indecisively at the two outfits she had laid out on her bed. She was perfectly aware of how the dress accentuated her body in all the right places, but wouldn't it seem rather over the top to wear something like that to casual dinner with her son and his mother? On the other hand, Emma's reaction to her look might just give her some indication of her friend's feelings towards her; a simple outfit wouldn't evoke any such thing. Her chain of thought was broken by the sound of the bell, and she immediately knew who was paying her a visit. When she opened the door her eyes were met by her own; the evil queen was standing in front of her, wearing an elaborate blue dress and a sassy long ponytail.
"You. I was wondering when you'd stop by. Why the hell did you do that to Emma?"
The queen flashed a dashing smile and walked into the hallway, shoving Regina aside. "Ah, has she told you already? What a shame. I was hoping I could be the one to break the news to you. I would've loved to see your face – been practicing it in the mirror, even, but -"
"Drop it, queenie. What's your plan?"
The queen's smile made way for a mocking pout. "Now, now, there's no need for such a hostile tone. You see, you and I both know that we're interested in Emma, and have been for years. In fact, you're the one who started this crush, you already had a thing for her when I was still raging at her for ruining our happiness. Anyway, even so, you never did anything about it, because you're obviously a pussy." Regina gave the queen a hostile look, but her other half just shrugged. "I decided to show you what I can do for you. To make you see that you need me to be happy, because I am the one that goes after our heart's desires, while you're just stuck here being afraid of everything."
Regina didn't know what to say. She was still trying to get used to the fact that her inner battles now had to be fought not just in her consciousness, but face to face with her physical other half. "So… you want to prove you're better than me, is that all?"
The queen scoffed. "Not quite. Have you been listening? I simply want to prove I am not, as you seem to think, the worst part of you."
"And then what?"
The queen hopped onto Regina's kitchen table and crossed her legs. "And then you'll accept me, and we can be a team."
Regina raised her eyebrows. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't see how you assaulting Emma would benefit me in any way."
"Is that what she said? That I'd assaulted her?"
"You grabbed her and put your tongue in her mouth! What would you call that except assault?"
The queen rolled her eyes theatrically. "How about an act of love?! If any of the good guys had done something like this, they'd be praised for 'fighting for their love', blah blah. Emma didn't pull away, Regina. She was into it, I could tell. No surprise there, of course, since I do happen to be the embodiment of all your flair." She twisted her long ponytail seductively in her hand.
"Once again, save it. If you really cared about Emma, you'd know not to play with her feelings. But then what do you know about love anyway?" said Regina with a sneer.
"What do I know? I know you've just admitted that you have hope that I might have stirred something up in Emma, by 'playing with her feelings'." The queen elegantly hopped off the table. "Do both of us a favour and take this chance, alright?" she said earnestly, before she disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Regina sighed and walked back to her bedroom.
"Henry! Can I get some help here?" Emma was hysterically trying to cut up three carrots at once while also setting the oven.
"I told you mom, I can't pause the game right now. Making soup is a one man's job anyway."
"I'm nearly done with the soup already, but you could at least work on the steak?"
Henry slowly moved from the couch he had been laying on for the past 4 hours, playing on his Playstation. "Steak? I thought we were having soup"
"Soup's the starter, I'm not serving your mom some soup as a main course."
"It's not like the que… Well, technically it is like the queen's coming to visit, but she's also just my mom. Why are you making such an effort?"
Emma continued chopping carrots like a maniac. "Well, this is the first time she's having dinner here, and the woman has mad cooking skills I'm trying to compete with." This explanation seemed to satisfy Henry, and he finally started working on the steak without asking any further questions. When the doorbell rang, they had just finished their work, much to Emma's relief. She shrieked "I'll answer it!" quite in vain, since Henry had already found his way back to his Playstation.
Regina was wearing her red dress, and Emma's gaze was immediately drawn to her cleavage - why must she always wear outfits that drew attention to that part of her body? She tried to keep her eyes focused on the woman's face. "Come in, madam mayor."
"Why thank you, sheriff Swan," replied Regina with a smug smile as she slid past her friend into the hallway. For a moment there, Emma had definitely let her eyes wander over her body, but that didn't have to mean anything, of course. Regina shook her head. Was she trying too hard to see things?
Emma stopped her friend in the hallway. "Hey, are you sure telling Henry all of this is a good idea?"
"Well, neither of us have figured out why the queen did what she did, right?" Regina paused, but she got no response. "Right. Henry might have a different perspective. And, well, you know how much he hates not being included."
They made their way into the living room, where they found Henry on the couch. Regina gave him a kiss. "Hi, Henry. The food smells great."
Emma frowned. "Don't tell your son that, tell me! He was too busy playing his videogames to lift a finger."
Regina gave Henry a stern look. "Emma said you two were going to cook something together tonight. Why didn't you help your mother?"
"Whatever, mom, I was in the middle of a game and I couldn't save at that point. And I did help eventually."
"Hey, don't 'whatever' your mom, kid," said Emma, who was now carrying a large pan of soup. "Now help your other mom set the table to make up for your laziness." She saw Regina shake her head. "I know what you're thinking: I'm not hard enough on him, but someone's gotta be the fun parent."
"Hey!"
Emma sighed. "I didn't mean it like that. Now, have a seat, your majesty." While she said it she pulled back a chair for the other woman, who was clearly as taken by surprise by this courteous act as Emma herself was.
"Since when do you have such manners, Swan?" Emma shrugged and quickly walked towards the kitchen again to hide the fact that she was blushing. What on earth was she doing? She was supposed to be casual, not Casanova.
"So, Henry," Regina began when they had all sat down at the dinner table, "the evil queen has struck again. This time in a rather odd way. Emma, I guess you'd better tell the story."
Emma swallowed the large piece of bread she'd tried to casually stuff her mouth with in an attempt to hide her nerves. "Right. She, um, she kissed me."
"Really?" Henry said, but his face looked amused rather than shocked.
"Yeah. We don't know why, but we thought you might have an idea, since you're always one to offer new perspectives– why are you smiling like that?"
"Because… It's kind of like I'm having a deja vuz. I used to imagine you two would kiss. "
"Excuse me?" Regina and Emma uttered simultaneously.
Henry shrugged. "Right before Emma broke the first curse I had actually started to think that maybe a kiss between you two would break it. Hey, don't judge me, I was 10! All a kid from a broken family at that age wants is for their parents to stop fighting and fall back in love… or fall in love for the first time, in your case. I didn't know who my dad really was, but I did have two moms, and I knew you, Regina, had already been with a few girls, so it wouldn't be too strange."
Emma gave Regina, who was smiling at Henry in a loving way, a look of confusion. "You've been with girls?"
Regina obviously didn't think this was as big of a deal as Emma made it seem. "Does that really surprise you? Of course I've been with girls. Haven't you?"
Emma glanced at Henry. " I can't say that I have. Until the queen made her move, that is."
Regina raised an eyebrow. "Really? I've always assumed that you had some experience. Anyway, that's not what matters now." She regretted those words the moment they left her lips. Of course it mattered. Emma had never even been with a girl? This crushed the little hope she had been building up over the past couple of hours.
As the evening progressed, the topic of the evil queen quickly faded from their minds, as Henry's love life offered a welcome distraction. When his mothers were clearly getting more and more tipsy, and were even starting to make some quite inappropriate jokes, Henry decided he was just going to read in bed, leaving the two women alone. They eventually moved from the dinner table to Emma's large balcony, where they shared a few more drinks under the stars.
Taking another sip of her wine, Emma finally built up enough courage to ask the thing that had been on her mind for the past few hours. "So, you being with girls… I thought the only love you'd known until Robin was Daniel, so I assume those weren't relationships of.. mutual consent? Why would you tell Henry about your bedroom adventures?"
The look on Regina's face seemed to darken, which often happened when someone brought up her past deeds. She took a deep breath before she answered "I didn't rape any girls, if that's what you think. There were quite a few one-night stands, which were, in fact, conducted in mutual consent – you'd be surprised by the amount of women who actually find an evil queen intriguing" said Regina with a shy smile.
"I'm not surprised" mumbled Emma. When her friend raised her eyebrows, she quickly added: "Well as far as I know you were always striding around with your cleavage half out, so it's not surprising you'd attract some admirers."
"God, Emma, it's not like you're not blunt enough without alcohol"
"Sorry. But you, too, seem so much more willing to share after a few drinks. I am surprised that you would let these girls in, even if for one night only."
"Yeah, well. It might've turned into something more, had I been open to the possibility of finding real love, but at the time it was mostly a series of desperate attempts to relieve my heartache for a little while. Anyway, Henry has read about one of them in his book, so that's how he knows about that. However, even before he found that book, when he was at the age when children start having their first crushes, I told him that my first crush was on a girl. I wanted him to know that it's okay, you know, since it seems to be such a big deal in this world. I wanted him to be openminded, and I must admit I thought he might be gay, but it seems that I was wrong about that."
Emma tilted her head in an exaggerated and clearly tipsy manner. "So, you're… a lesbian?"
Regina rolled her eyes. "If I were a lesbian, why would Robin Hood be my soulmate? If I had to use one of this world's labels, I guess it would be bisexual." As soon as she saw her friend's embarrassed face, she dropped her harsh tone. "It's okay, it's a common misconception."
"Why were you surprised I've never been with girls?"
"Oh. It's just this vibe you have, you know? Besides, you had such troubled teenage years, I would've expected you'd experimented with some of your fellow female underage drinkers."
Emma stared into her glass of wine. Suddenly she realized that if there was ever a perfect moment to kiss Regina, it would be right now. She could always blame it on the alcohol later. But what about Hook?
"Emma? What is it?"
Looking up into Regina's kind, brown eyes, she made a decision. She had to know. She had to figure out what she felt for this woman. She leaned in, gently brushed some of Regina's hair out of the way, let her hand wander off to her jawline and then her neck, and then pressed her lips onto Regina's. Regina froze for a second, but just when Emma wanted to pull away, she wrapped her hands around her waist, pulling her even closer. A sense of ecstasy rushed through Emma's body when she felt the other woman's tongue slip into her mouth. For a few moments they dwelled in each other's sweet touch, until Regina pulled away, giving a shy smile again. "I… I didn't mean to give you the feeling that you should experiment with tipsy friends."
"Well, you made it sound so good," Emma mumbled.
Suddenly a voice made both women jump. "Um… Should I pretend I didn't see that?" Henry was standing in the doorway, wearing his pyjamas and once again that amused expression on his face.
