Emma trudged up the mayor's stairs and rang the doorbell. It was early in the evening, barely six, but the sun was long set and the night was cold. Her breath fogged in her face, and she could feel the moisture in her nose already freezing. Finally, the door opened and Henry's face broke into a smile.
"Emma! You're here!"
Emma blinked, a bit confused at Henry's enthusiasm. "Uh, yeah. Just dropping off your mom's pan, kid." He had just spent three days at the new apartment with her and was supposed to take the dish back home with him yesterday, but Emma had returned from dropping him off to see it still sitting on the counter.
"But you're just in time for game night," Henry said, grabbing her hand and tugging her into the house.
Emma allowed him to pull her in out of the cold, but didn't move away from the closed door. Game night? They used to have game night together every Wednesday in New York. It was a tradition that had started when… of course. When Henry was a child. It must have been one of the memories Regina had given them with the new curse. During the last few months, she had almost forgotten how much she missed living with him full time and she smiled at the memory of their game nights in New York. She shrugged though, as if letting the memories go, and let out a soft sigh.
"Sorry kid, I can't. I'm on duty tonight." The fact remained that he didn't live with her anymore. Not full time, anyway, and barely part time. She wasn't about to intrude on Regina's time with him either. She owed the mayor that, at least.
"Oh, come on!" Henry whined. "Like that has ever stopped you before!"
Emma put her free hand on her hip and gave her son a mock glare. "I'll let you know, I take my job very seriously! Besides, your mother is my boss in case you've forgotten. I'm sure she- "
"Already knows you half work on a good day, Sheriff," interrupted Regina. She stood in the doorway to the den, an amused smirk on her face. She was wearing yoga pants and a long blue-checkered flannel shirt, and with her hair pulled back and her face clean of makeup, she was looking so not Mayor Mills that it threw Emma off and completely shut down her brain.
"Hello? Earth to mom?" Henry snapped his fingers in front of her face.
Emma blushed and tore her eyes away from Regina to glare at her son. "You know what? Never mind. I think I'll just take this dirt home and eat it all by mys- "
"You made dirt?" Henry literally squealed and ripped the lasagna pan from her hands. He lifted the foil covering and grinned ear to ear. "Awesome! Mom can I eat some now please?"
Regina's eyes were ping-ponging between the two of them in confusion. "I'm sorry… what do you think you're feeding my son?"
"It's called dirt. It's chocolate pudding and crushed Oreos." Emma shrugged, a bit embarrassed at not being the health-conscious mom she probably should be. Henry hadn't actually bothered to wait for permission, either. From the sound of it, he was already digging out a portion from the pan in the kitchen, and she suddenly found the tile pattern of the foyer floor extremely interesting. She explained softly, "It was his favorite in New York."
Before Regina could reply, Henry appeared from the kitchen carrying three bowls full of the dessert, a neon-colored gummy worm sticking out of each one. "Okay, now we're officially ready for game night!" he said, walking right past both of them and into the den.
Emma and Regina stared at each other, a moment of uncertainty passing between them.
It was Regina who broke the silence, shrugging her shoulders in feigned indifference and pointing to Emma's boots. "Those don't take another step further. I'll not have you melting snow all over my clean floors."
And Emma rolled her eyes, but was hanging up her jacket and unlacing her boots before the mayor even disappeared into the other room. She followed in behind the brunette, noticing Henry had situated himself on the floor, a board game set up on the coffee table. She took one look at the board and raised an eyebrow. The kid was rather heavy on the irony. She moved the Sorry! box off the end of the couch and took a seat, setting up her four yellow pawns.
"How original," Regina commented of the color, taking a seat on the opposite end of the couch and setting up her own blue pieces. Emma noticed she had also set down two glasses of cider for them.
"I told you, I like yellow," she muttered, shuffling the deck of cards and placing them in the middle. "All right kid, start us off."
It was a fun game, and admittedly one of her favorites to play in the group homes growing up. Though, it was quickly becoming a rather most unpleasant experience, as pawn after pawn was sent back to start. At first she played along, laughing each time she got kicked off a space. Eventually, though, she realized an entirely different game was being played.
One that was ruthless, and that her majesty was having way too much fun playing.
"Four, five… six. Oh, Sorry!" Regina grinned, and it was nothing short of evil. She tipped over Emma's yellow pawn as she gleefully replaced it with her blue… for the ninth time (never mind she had two other options to take down one of Henry's pawns).
Emma cracked her fingers and took a long sip of her cider. Game on, bitch. Game on.
Henry prudently kept his comments to himself, as he watched his mothers take turns picking up a 2, and conveniently following it up with the exact number needed to send the other home. There was no reason to accuse either one of them of cheating, or point out that the deck wasn't decreasing, and they had seen way more 1s and 2s than actually come in the deck. Nope, it was all to his advantage, because while his mothers were busy conquering each other, he managed to slide all four of his pawns into Home in record time.
They moved on to KerPlunk after that, Henry assuming there were limited ways his magical parents could really cheat. Of course they proved him wrong. It was soon rather obvious that one (or both) of his mothers was magically keeping all of the marbles up top. Regina inevitably came out the victor when Emma pulled out a stick (not even touching any of the marbles), and every last one of the glass orbs fell to the bottom.
"How… unfortunate," Regina grinned, clearly proud of herself. Not a single marble lay in her tray.
Emma took the chiding like a champ, downing the rest of her cider with a shrug. "It was fun getting to know just how much you hate losing." She grinned and stood up, gathering up the empty dessert bowls. "I really should be getting back to work though. And Henry, I know it's way past your bedtime for a school night."
Henry huffed and rolled his eyes. "It's not even a school night. We're on winter break, remember? I didn't even have school today! It's Christmas Eve tomorrow."
Emma paused on her way to the kitchen. "Really? Already? Huh…" She walked out of the room then, leaving her son and his other mother in silent confusion
Regina walked into the kitchen as Emma was rinsing the bowls out in the sink. She quietly appreciated that Emma thought to do that much. She'd never tell her that though. "Miss Swan…"
"Seriously?" Emma said, pausing for a moment in her cleaning without looking behind her.
Regina rolled her eyes, unseen. "Emma," she corrected. "What time should I have Henry ready tomorrow?"
Emma shrugged and dried her hands on her pants, ignoring the dishtowel clearly sitting right next to the sink. "Probably around three. Are you still sure you don't want to come? I'm sure my mom would be delighted to have you there."
Regina grimaced. "The fact that you used the word 'delighted' is exactly why I'm not going to Snow White's house on Christmas Eve. No thank you."
"Suit yourself," Emma shrugged. "We're going to have a delightful time listening to the Chipmunk's Christmas album and decorating ginger bread men." She grinned when she saw Regina actually shudder at the thought.
"As unbelievably charming as that all sounds… Over my dead body."
"Fine," Emma drawled, walking past her and into the foyer. She stepped into her boots before tugging on her coat. "I'll have Henry home by seven. I better hit the road. I don't want those kids trying to steal the baby Jesus from the church manger again this year."
"You know," Regina said, opening the door for the blonde to step out on the porch. "It would take minimal effort on your part to just put a simple protection spell on it."
"I suppose I could," Emma said. She jogged down the few steps to turn and walk backwards down the sidewalk. "But the mayor did that for me two weeks ago. I felt her magic the first time I walked by."
"Maybe the fairy nuns did it themselves?"
"Nope," Emma shook her head. "It's definitely the mayor's magic. I'd know it anywhere."
Regina felt her cheeks start to burn, but told herself it was the cold outside air. "Well, why the need to babysit a doll then?"
Emma stopped a few feet from the porch and shifted her gaze to the darkness of Mifflin street. "The choir," she answered softly, shoving her hands self-consciously into her coat pockets. "They've been practicing at night for midnight mass. I like to hear the Christmas music." She shrugged as if it was no big deal, and turned to meet the brunette's inquisitive gaze with a hesitant smile. "Thanks for letting me join game night. I'll see you tomorrow."
Regina didn't respond. She watched as Emma climbed into the cruiser and drove off before closing the front door with a soft click of the lock. She stood leaning with her back against the door for several long moments, before taking a deep breath and walking back to the den. It was best not to overthink everything Emma Swan said.
"Henry, it's time for bed."
Henry looked up from the tree ornament he was holding. "We didn't have this last year. Mom, I mean Emma, said we must have lost it in the move. But I remembered it."
Regina took the blue bulb from his hand, smiling at the old style baby carriage that read Baby's 1st Christmas. She let her memories wander to years past for a long moment, before replacing it on the tree. "I didn't have a lot of time to pick and choose memories. I gave you what you had. Just… altered them a bit."
"I wish you had been there," he admitted shyly. "Because of the curse, I have all these new memories… it's like, memories of the same moment, but they have both you and Emma there now. Except for last year. Last year was just Emma. Not that it was a bad Christmas, but I think deep down we both knew something was missing."
Regina wrapped her arm around his shoulders and kissed the side of his head, glad she could still reach without being on her tiptoes. "I think maybe you're just filling in the blanks with what you know now."
Henry shrugged. "I don't know. Looking back on it, there are some things that should have definitely been obvious. Like Emma's obsession with Disney Christmas ornaments."
Regina just raised an eyebrow, images of what could only be the tackiest looking tree in humanity popping into her head.
"I don't know why, and I don't know how… but I came home one Saturday from hanging out with some friends, and she was decorating this small, fake little Christmas tree." He held his arms out in what he guessed was about the right height. "We didn't have room for a big, real tree in the apartment. So she got us this artificial tree that sat on an end table in front of the window," he explained.
"Let me guess, it probably had multicolored lights," Regina said, her distaste for the flashing rainbow atrocities clear in her voice.
"Would Emma choose anything else?" Henry grinned.
That certainly made his mother chuckle. "No, absolutely not. So what about Disney ornaments?"
"Oh, yeah. She was so excited that she found this set of Disney character ornaments in some thrift store. I'm not sure why she was so fond of them, but as she hung each one, she had to go into an in depth analysis of why she loved each movie. Except… Snow White," He laughed, shaking his head. "She hated that movie. Thought it was stupid and didn't like the dumb music. She hid Snow and all the dwarves in the back of the tree. Except for Grumpy. She liked him."
Regina actually cackled as she led Henry towards the stairs. "The irony almost hurts."
"Technically," Henry drawled, "you gave her most of your memories. You probably gave her your… dislike… of Snow White, too." He opened his bedroom door and walked over to the bedside table to turn on the small lamp. Regina stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed and a sardonic smile.
"If that was my fault, I certainly didn't mean to. The curse was meant to take all of those memories away. Though, perhaps… some things can't be erased."
Henry shrugged as he pulled out a clean set of pajamas from the bottom drawer and laid them out over his bed. "You mean, like that feeling we had that something was missing?"
Regina's smile softened. "Perhaps. How do you feel now?"
Henry's gaze shifted to a small picture frame on his nightstand. It was a picture of him and Emma in New York, taken from his cell phone. It wasn't the best quality, having been printed on his mom's office printer, but it was his favorite.
"Like something's still missing."
SQSQSQSQSQSQSQSQ
Emma glanced at the nativity scene as she walked by. The baby Jesus was still in his makeshift cradle, safe from mischievous teens. She felt the wave of magic rolling off it like a soft breeze, and couldn't stop her lips from twitching into a smile. Regina's magic was warm and electric. It made her own magic tingle just under her skin in an almost comforting way. She could feel other's magic, of course. She knew the feel of the fairies' spells, and the dark variety belonging to Rumplestiltskin. But neither made her own magic hum like Regina's did. She assumed it was the way they had often used their magic together, running through each other to make them stronger. Why else would it react like that?
Shaking her head, she opened the heavy door of the church and stepped in out of the cold. The choir was practicing up in the loft above her, but she still felt the need to tip toe to the last pew. Taking a seat, and cringing at the sound of creaking wood that echoed through the church, she took her hat off and looked around at the dimly lit space. The images on the stained glass windows seemed to come to life in the dancing candlelight. The choir paused, and an older woman's voice was heard giving instructions. Moments later, they began a hauntingly slow version of Silent Night. It was one of her favorites, probably because she actually knew all the lyrics.
"Slow night, Sheriff?"
Emma's only response was a raised eyebrow as the church's Mother Superior took a seat beside her. This was not Emma's first evening visit, and she was well aware the nun knew that as well.
"There's something magical about Christmas time, all of its own," Blue muttered softly. "It's real, you can feel it. Perhaps it's the hope in the air of those true believers. Are you a true believer, Emma?"
"Of what?" the blonde asked. "Of Christmas?"
"Of Christ."
Emma glanced down at the small gold cross hanging from the chain around the woman's neck. "Are you, Blue?"
The former fairy's eyes tracked to the large crucifix hanging on the wall at the front of the church.
"If we've learned anything these past few years, it's that all stories have a seed of truth."
Emma barely stopped herself from snorting as she crossed her arms and slouched down in her seat. "I had a few foster families that forced me to go to church. Some even forced me to go to Sunday school. I can't say that I ever completely bought into all they were selling. I couldn't understand how an ever-loving God could allow so many innocent kids to suffer." She sighed, and her eyes tracked to a statue on a side altar of the Virgin Mary, face sad and looking out at the pews, palms down and facing out as if to embrace them.
"But at the same time," she continued, "it was sort of comforting to think that somewhere out there, someone actually did give a shit about me. Maybe. I don't know." She cleared her throat and shifted uncomfortably. "I know when I gave up Henry, I prayed harder than I ever had before that he would have the life I never had. The life I could never give him. Turns out, my prayers had been answered. Whether that was God, or wish-magic, or just some conniving imp writing my destiny into a curse, I suppose it doesn't really matter."
Blue nodded and studied the sullen figure beside her. It was obvious she was still feeling lost, but the fairy wasn't sure how far she could push the prickly guarded sheriff. Movement behind them caught her attention, and she focused her gaze on the shadows. Her eyes narrowed, but she stood up anyway.
"Perhaps we'll see you during an actual service, Emma." She gently touched the quiet woman's shoulder. "Merry Christmas."
A slightly surprised Emma watched as the woman retreated up the aisle to the front of the church, where she disappeared through a side door that led to the convent. A throat clearing behind her made her jump, and she slowly turned, her best "leave me the hell alone" glare plastered on her face.
A sheepish Regina stood at the end of the pew, worrying her bottom lip with her teeth in what Emma decided immediately was too adorable to be angry at. She relaxed her posture and looked questioningly up at the mayor.
"The polite thing to do, Miss Swan, would be to slide over so I could take a seat."
Emma rolled her eyes and did as she was told, not fazed by the haughty tone in the least. She watched as the former queen sat down beside her, and Emma noticed she was still dressed exactly as she was when she had left the mansion earlier, with the addition of the long wool pea coat that mostly hid the unusually casual attire. Except for the sneakers, which looked like they had never seen the outside world.
"Glad to see you working hard, as expected, Sheriff," the woman muttered, not quite looking at Emma, but still her eyes shined with amusement.
"Just making sure the church is safe. Wouldn't want anything to happen to all the new festive decorations."
"Definitely not," the Regina responded flatly.
"Surely that's why the mayor is paying a visit as well?"
"Of course. One has to make sure her yearly personal donation to an establishment is being well utilized."
They sat without speaking for several long minutes, the silence gratefully filled by the sisters' singing above. Emma wasn't normally a patient person, but she instinctively kept her mouth shut and did her best not to fidget until the brunette was ready to talk. She gazed at each of the stained glass windows, counted all of the lit candles, and contemplated an interesting crack in the ceiling's plaster. It only took the entirety of Little Drummer Boy. Twice.
"I'm not very good at being a friend, Emma."
Eyes on her feet playing with the kneeler in front of her, Emma shrugged. "Yeah, you said that in your note." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the darker woman's shoulders slump, and rushed to finish.
"But seems to me, you haven't had much of a chance to practice."
Taken off guard, Regina swallowed and defaulted to her usual self-hatred. "Well, that's certainly no one's fault but mine."
Emma pulled her hands out of her jacket pocket and tucked her hair behind her ears. She knew better than to argue back at this point. Better to derail Regina's train of self-loathing than deny what was, in all honesty, not that far from the truth anyway. "You know what else you're not very good at?"
Regina swallowed nervously. "What?"
"Losing. Seriously, Regina. That was really uncool what you did with the KerPlunk marbles."
"Oh, please, Miss Swan!" She turned in her seat to level the blonde with a glare. "I had to fight through your magic to even get them to fall!"
Emma turned her own body to face off with the mayor. "I felt you. I let them fall."
Regina scoffed. "You did not! You're a terrible liar. And even worse at basic spells."
Emma chuckled and relented. "You're right. I suck at magic. I was surprised I was even able to fight you off for that long."
"You don't suck," Regina admitted tiredly. "Well, not completely, anyway." She rested an elbow on the back of the pew and propped her head up with her hand. "You're surprisingly gifted. You just need to practice and hone your skills." She paused and leveled the blonde with another glare, the force of which was somewhat lost by the relaxed position she was in. "And if you ever tell anyone I said that, I'll kill you."
Emma mimicked the mayor's posture and held up her right hand as if swearing in court. "I promise. I only ever tell my mom secrets I want people to find out."
That earned her a loud, genuine laugh from the mayor. It echoed through the church, mingling with the sounds of O Come, O Come, Emmanuel floating through the air. It was a sound Emma decided she needed to hear much more often from the stoic woman. She wondered how many people had ever actually heard her laugh. Regina, not the Evil Queen. Certainly Henry. But was she open enough with anyone else? Emma doubted it, and somehow, that made her feel sad deep down to her bones.
She would make this woman laugh.
Regina calmed, and seemed to come to her senses. She straightened in her seat and cleared her throat, those barriers she kept around to protect herself quickly brought back up. "Anyway, I came here to say that, as a friend, if you would like to come over Christmas morning to watch Henry open his gifts, that would be acceptable. For Henry's sake."
Emma stared at her in open-mouthed shock. "Really? Are you serious?"
"Of course," Regina said, momentarily meeting the other woman's eyes before shyly looking down at her own folded hands. "I spent last Christmas without my son, and it broke my heart. You spent ten away from him. It wouldn't be fair of me to take any more away from you, too."
"I don't know what to say," Emma admitted, her voice sounding thicker than usual "Thank you. That really means a lot to me." She straightened in her seat and looked away, blinking the moisture from her eyes. Thankfully Regina was all too happy to give her the space she needed to collect herself.
"Well then, it's settled." The mayor stood up and made a show of dusting off her coat. "You should plan to arrive really early. Henry doesn't sleep late on Christmas." She could offer the sheriff a guest room, she supposed, but she thought that was probably pushing both of them past their current comfort levels.
"Don't I know it," Emma responded, her voice back to normal. "I'm on call tomorrow night, so I'll probably be able to come over as soon as I release all the inevitable drunken idiots. Gotta make sure all the paper work for each inmate is meticulously filled out and filed, too. Never know when the mayor might stop in for a random audit."
"Hmm, yes. I've heard of those. In fact," Regina said, tapping her chin. "I thought I heard something about her showing up two days ago, and setting fire to a trashcan full of paper snowflakes. Of course, that resulted in a hefty fine from the fire department, which I also heard, she immediately took out of the sheriff's paycheck."
Emma stared at her in horror. She had been off two days ago, but did in fact notice all of her paper clipped decorations were suspiciously missing. She couldn't decipher if the evil look on the brunette's face was evil-evil, or "ha-ha she's so gullible and obviously a Charming" evil.
"Well now, Sheriff." Regina gently reached out and, with a single finger under her chin, closed Emma's gaping mouth. "Be safe driving these icy roads tonight."
Later, as she crawled into bed and checked that her alarm was set on her phone, Regina would find a text message that, in no polite terms, would inform her that she was an asshole.
Emma would return home at six in the morning to find a fresh cup of hot chocolate sitting on her nightstand, resting on a paper snowflake coaster. Touched by the gesture, she would smile, take a sip of the perfectly spiced-with-cinnamon cocoa, and pull back the covers on her bed… where she would, of course, discover the rest of the paper snowflakes.
A/N: So... yeah. Sorry this took so long. Didn't mean for it to at all. Time seems to just fly by once the school year starts (I'm a teacher) and suddenly it's been months and months. It also just took a lot more time than expected to flush out what I really wanted. And even still I'm not sure I'm completely happy with this. But what I have for the next chapter, I think, is a lot better if you care to join me again (soon... that one is actually almost done as well). PS. sorry about any spelling/grammar mistakes I'm sure not to catch until I've posted this. C'est la vie.
