Date #6

"Hi Mom." Henry opened the door and took in his brunette mother's outfit.

"Are you really taking Emma camping?"

Regina smiled and nodded, "I am. Does she think otherwise?"

Emma came down in her skinny jeans and converse with no bag packed, "She did until just now…" She pursed her lips to the side of her mouth, "Uhh… I'll be right back…"

Regina smirked, "I had a feeling this would happen." She mumbled before she waved her hand to the stairs Emma was currently barreling up, "No need, darling, come on."

Henry looked at his brunette mother then to his blonde mother then to his brunette mother again. He didn't know what to think.

Emma looked down after feeling extra weight on her back and hearing Regina's voice, "I didn't purchase any of this…" she turned around and gave the brunette a teasing look because their talk of poofing things they don't own resonated in her head after that night.

"I know. I did assuming you'd have taken hiking and camping for a joke." Regina smirked at the blonde's surprised 'Oh!' face.

"Well alright then." She looked to Henry, "Okay kid. You're on your own until dinner. Grandma and Grandpa will be coming to pick you up, got it?"

"Yeah." Henry nodded and hugged both his mothers. Though he watched his brunette mother with suspicious eyes as they walked out to the beetle.

~0~0~0~0~0~

They'd hiked through trails most of the afternoon and once the sun was beginning to set, they found a good camping area. Regina took to setting the fire while Emma laid out the many comforters, sleeping bags and blankets Regina flashed from her home in the tent. That was the nice thing about magic: she could flash things back and forth and didn't have to carry them with her.

Emma walked outside after she was done finding Regina about to light the fire.

"How do you do that?" Emma asked as she walked over to the brunette.

"Do what?"

"Do what?" Emma looked at her like she should know, "How do you make fire come out of your hand!"

Regina looked at the fireball, "Magic is all about emotion. Passion. Love. Hatred. The all-consuming." She threw the fireball at the teepee of wood, paper and gas she'd created now that the sun had set entirely and they needed to see, "When Rumple was first teaching me dark magic, when he was first twisting me around in his web, manipulating me to be the perfect plaything…" She took a breath and sighed it out, "I was desperate for it; I needed magic. My mother had tied me up and thrown me in the air letting me hang there, like she was prone to, and I had just… I finally had enough. She let me down and let me go on my way so long as I knew that I'd never truly get away, and I ran as deep into the woods as I could without tripping her magic barrier. I was so angry and so…trapped. I needed to get out. I don't know how it first happened, but I looked down and found fire coming from both my hands." Regina shrugged and looked at her, "After that, my hot hands became rather natural. Anytime I needed a light of some kind, I just needed to flick my wrist."

Emma took her ladylove's face, "I'm sorry I made you talk about her. I know you don't like to."

"It's alright."

"It's not alright. She never tried. Not once in your entire life did she try to put her heart back in for you. And in that entire time, if she had tried feeling again—just once, she would have realized what she learned right before she died. She should have known your entire life that you weren't just enough, but you were so overwhelmingly more than enough… Because you are. You are so much enough that you are damn perfect. And you should have been told that your entire life." Emma kissed her girlfriend solidly to back up her statement as best she could.

Regina broke the kiss and burrowed into the blonde's neck, "I love you."

"I love you too." Emma smiled wide when she felt lips against her neck.

Regina pulled from Emma and started wiping her lips, "You taste of bug spray."

"Well… we're in nature, there are bugs. I don't want to get bitten…" She thought about it as she walked after the woman who began walking closer to the fire, "Correction, I only want one thing biting me." She wrapped her arms around Regina's waist and hugged her tight.

Regina smirked, "Then I suggest you take that bug spray off…"

"But… Can't you just like… magic it into tasting good?" Emma waggled her brows suggestively.

Regina gave her a pointed look, "I… could do that, yes." She turned back to the fire and waved her hand producing a couple chairs and a large cooler with drinks, hot dogs, buns, condiments, Emma's alleged top five favorite chips, s'more necessities, and a couple other snacks she knew the blonde would enjoy.

Emma grinned wickedly at the brunette as she walked passed her and opened the cooler, "OH! Gushers and fruit roll ups!" She looked at the woman settling in the seat next to the cooler and kissed her, "Dank you, baby." She resumed going through their food deciding on what to have first.

"You're welcome, my love."

The blonde stopped and looked back at the brunette. After a fraction of a second of debate, the sheriff leaned back into the mayor and planted sloppy, happy kisses all over her face finally connecting with her lips, "I like that one better than 'darling'."

"My love?"

Emma nodded.

"Noted, my love. Noted." Regina smiled during another kiss before tapping the cooler telling the blonde to get to it.

Emma made sure that they pigged out on all the food Regina flashed for them. She also made sure that they took full advantage of the quasi-bed she'd made them. Full advantage.

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Date #7

Emma let herself into the mansion. She knew Regina was expecting her, so she decided not to bother with the formality of ringing the bell and waiting when Regina could finish whatever it was she was working on.

"Oh, you're just reading."

The brunette looked up from her book, "And you are in my house."

Emma tilted her head and grinned, "Do you not want me in your house?"

"I do…" Regina stood after putting a bookmark in her page and walked over to the blonde. She wrapped her arms around Emma's neck and greeted her with a kiss, "How was your day?"

"It was good. Nothing really happened." Emma shrugged, holding onto the brunette's lower back, "You?"

"Same boring job, same small town that hates me." Regina shrugged, "What are we doing tonight?"

"Being little kids."

"Little kids?"

"Yeah!" Emma nodded with a wide, closed-mouth smile. She then pursed her lips waiting for another kiss before continuing, "I decided since your childhood was messed up beyond repair and mine, well sucked, but probably not worse than yours that we could be little kids today in this land together. We're going to the park!"

"The park?" Regina had a wide grin, "The park that when I was building you accused me of stealing $50,000?"

"Yeah!" Emma's voice was as excited as the brunette's had been, "Wait…" She knit her brows and pouted, "Well, let's not talk about that ever again. Emma-and-Regina-year-one was filled with hot, sexy eye sex and a lot of invalid accusations… let's only talk about eye sex when we talk about Emma-and-Regina-year-one." She took the mayor's hand and walked with her to the front door.

"Agreed. I'm sorry, I just couldn't resist that last one…" Regina gave the blonde her own closed mouth smile.

"It's okay." Emma pecked her lips, "To the park!"

~0~0~0~0~0~

The couple played on all the toys. They climbed the jungle gym, they did the swings, they did the monkey bars, the zip cord, the slide. They crawled through tunnels, walked over bridges, played tic-tac-toe on the spinning blocks. They slid down poles, climbed the tiny rock-climbing wall, and spun each other on the merry-go-round. Finally, after all the other kids—or all the actual children left for dinner, Emma dragged Regina over to the seesaw.

They gazed at one another happily as they lazily went up and down.

"This is fun, babe. When we move in together, we should get one."

Regina laughed, "No."

"When we have kids?"

"They can be just like all the other kids and come here to seesaw."

"You think about us having kids?" Emma grinned having thought she tricked Regina into providing information.

Regina only gave the blonde a pointed look as she stopped their swaying motion and stood, causing the blonde to fall on her ass then back thanks to that lovely angle she was left for dead at, "You don't?" Regina's tone was accusing.

Emma rolled over and popped up, brushing herself off, "Of course I do, Babe. I brought the whole kids thing up…"

"Oh, of course."

"Good to know where'd I'd be at if I didn't want more children though. And glad I'm not there." Emma grinned before kissing Regina's cheek.

"And just where would you be?"

"Anywhere but your bed."

"That's right." Regina smirked before giving the blonde a thousand watt smile. She hugged her girlfriend tight, "But your not there."

"No, I'm not."

"It's also far too soon for us to technically even think of children."

"You're absolutely right. We've just decided that we are indeed going to have more kids once we've made that commitment to each other. Keeping the lines of communication open and all that. Opening the floor for discussion."

"Even though we both agree." Regina nodded, "It's wise, really, how we communicate."

"Talk about things but never do them?"

"Yes. But I think we will in fact have more children… just after everything settles…"

Emma's stomach took this opportunity to growl loudly.

"Like your stomach for instance, come my love, let's get you food."

"Mmm, food." The blonde smiled before taking Regina's hand and walking her to the diner.

~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~

Date #8

"Darling do we have to do this?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because exploring abandoned places is considered scary and fun in this world."

"It's considered death in the other world."

Emma turned, her foot on the first step of the dilapidated porch steps that led to a big hole in the floor showing the basement from the kitchen. "What does that even mean? Is there like a… like a monster or something that pretends to be a house and people go in and the monster eats them?"

"Yes… after it digs into their psyches to find their worst fears and puts them through them and once they are completely tortured and gone from their mind, then it eats them…"

Emma looked at the house and back to Regina, "Seriously?"

"YES!"

"Well… too bad I didn't know that before I came in here last week with Henry…"

"You came in here with Henry?"

"Yeah, kids at school were talking about it and I wanted to see what all the creepy fuss was about, make sure it wasn't too dangerous and just enough to be fun… That's also why we took the cruiser, so if kids were here or are headed this way, they will leave and we can have the place to ourselves."

Regina only listened to the first part of Emma's statement. "Oh so this is where he scraped his arm against a nail in the wall and had to go to the hospital for stitches and a tetanus shot."

Emma gave her girlfriend an innocent smile, "I luh you."

"I don't want to go in."

"You scared?"

"Yes."

"Wow! She willingly admits her fear. Babe, we have made progress." Emma put her hands on her hips and puffed out her chest as if boasting.

"Yes, and I don't want to go in."

"Oh come on!" Emma wrapped her arms around the brunette's waist, "If you're still only scared and not at all fascinated with the first floor, then we can go…"

Regina looked down at the ring necklace her girlfriend always wore. She fingered it, "You'll keep me safe?"

"Well, you're the one with controllable magic, but I will stay close or hold your hand or be touching you in some place the entire time."

Regina nodded, "Okay. We can go in."

Emma took Regina's hand and helped her up the steps and around the hole in the entry way/kitchen.

"Emma!" Regina pointed to the wall at dark, dried, smeared handprints

Emma looked and laughed, "That's new… That was not here last week. Obviously, this place is becoming popular. I smell Halloween pranks gone wrong…"

Regina gave her girlfriend an unpleasant look.

"Just come on. The living room isn't even the cool part. The cool rooms are the room with the piano, the attic, which is more like a puzzle—you know depending on if you don't want to fall through the floor, and the basement."

Regina sighed as Emma walked through the next doorway. She stopped and stared at the worn, weathered (literally due to the lack of actual windows), presumably rotting piano. She walked over to it and traced the now yellow-brown and black keys, even the ones that no longer stayed up to be pressed.

Emma crossed her arms and leaned against the doorway, observing.

Regina mimed playing a song and hummed the tune.

"What song is that?"

"Hmhmm" Regina smiled through a closed mouth, soft laugh, "It's the main titles of The Notebook."

Emma grinned as she walked over to the brunette and wrapped her arms around her, watching her mime the chords, "I told you it wasn't scary." She whispered.

"Not that scary when you're not alone." Regina agreed as she interlocked their fingers.

"Come on. Let's go look at the attic…"

They didn't spend too long in the house. It was more a tour type place; not a place you spend all your time at, just a place you graze through.

Emma kept to her promise of sticking close or always touching, despite wanting to sneak away while Regina was looking at something and popping out when the brunette went in search. Regina seemed to know the first time she thought about doing it because she received the 'don't you dare' glare immediately after she finished looking around for the perfect spot to hide.

They went back to town, back to the mansion for dinner and a movie. Both decided The Notebook was an appropriate movie to end their day with.

AN: Thoughts and Feels?