Woohoo! It is finished.

This little sucker took me forever to get done. I don't know why, but it just did. And I'm not really sure how I feel about it. And this was a pain in the ass just to post, but I won't bore you with my ranting.

Anyways, thank you so much for the reviews, favorites and follows. They make me smile. Seriously, I get the emails on my phone and I get this creepy ass grin when a new one comes in. My best friend has become worried for my sanity (more so than she was before).

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Not gonna give anything away, I'll just let you all enjoy the show.

Chapter 4

Emma trudged her way across the expanse of grass that made up, with her bookbag slung over her shoulder and an old blanket under her arm. She'd been woken up, not long after noon, by her roommate and Ruby watching Netflix, quite loudly. The pair had been sharing a pair of earbuds, but they might as well have been listening on surround sound based on the volume of their constant laughing. Emma had launched a pair of shoes at them in retaliation and left the room after snatching the blanket and her bookbag.

Now, she was looking for a place to nap.

The quad seemed like a good enough option at the moment. She didn't feel like walking across campus to the library, where she would just be kicked out, and any lounge would be overflowing with students on a Saturday afternoon.

The quad it is, the blonde thought to herself as she spread her blanket out under a shady tree. It was warm with a light breeze teasing the upcoming autumn months. There were groups scattered all over the expanse of green, but they all seemed pretty mellow at the moment.

Emma was confident in the knowledge that she wouldn't be disturbed. But just to be sure she lowered her hater blockers (aviator sunglasses with reflective lenses) and stuck her iPod earbuds in her ears, with the music playing softly as background noise. She leaned her backback, whose contents was replaced with Mary Margaret's pillows (for her pain and suffering), and situated herself half laying down, half sitting up with her arms crossed across her chest.

The blonde shifted to find the most comfortable position. Once she was settled her eyes got heavy and eventually closed. It was officially nap time.

Regina held a hand over her mouth to keep the laughter that threatened to escape at bay. The blonde woman across the quad was cracking her up, with all her preparations just to take a nap and not look like she was taking a nap. She was failing miserably, in Regina's opinion. She'd spotted the blonde when she'd looked up from her drawing of the surrounding scenery she'd been drawing to clear her mind of the earlier Mel drama, and her conversation with Kathryn. The girl was being quite obvious in her actions, even with the earbuds and ridiculous sunglasses. It was clear the blonde was dead to the world.

Quickly looking back down at the sketchbook resting in her lap Regina started sketching the blonde into the panoramic view of the quad adjacent to where the brunette was sitting under a tree. She'd been leaving the scattered students out on purpose, but the woman, who was now clearly asleep with her mouth hanging open and little line of drool making it's way out of the corner of her mouth, added humanity and a little bit of humor to the drawing. It was something her art professor said was missing from her pieces and the sleeping beauty was intriguing.

Who came to probably the most public place on campus, besides the big cafe, to take a nap? Why not just sleep in the dorm they all paid an arm and a leg to live in? Maybe she was sexiled; that was a thing wasn't it? It had never happened to her personally, but she and Kathryn had taken in the sexiles from their floor on Valentine's Day their junior year. It had been fun and she'd even become study buddies with one of the girls, Taylor. Who would force their roommate to find somewhere else to sleep while they did the deed at three in the afternoon?

With all the questions running through her mind, Regina hadn't noticed that her pencil had wandered from where she'd been sketching the blonde's mane of curly amazingness and was filling in what she'd sketched of the tree before the other woman had stomped her way across the scenery. She erased her mistake and looked back over at the object of her artistic interest.

The woman's neck was now bent at, what Regina assumed, an painful angle and her sunglasses almost hanging off of the tip her nose. This was getting funnier by the minute and Regina set to work, capturing the moment before her subject moved again. The drawing of the sleeping woman was slowly coming together. She sketched her way down from the blonde locks, to the strong jaw and slender neck, to slim shoulders. She didn't allow her gaze to linger over the pale skin exposed above the neckline of the purple tank top, she was attached and that meant no wandering eye, no exceptions, not even the sleeping beauty mere meters from where she sat. The skilled olive hand guided the pencil through the skinny jean clad legs that were crossed at the ankle that lead to bare feet and the flip flops that rested not far away.

Regina look up from her drawing to her subject, making sure she had captured every detail of this woman napping in the public area. She thought it a shame that the pale tone if the woman's skin couldn't be translated in the grey scale drawing and made a mental note to add color later. For now though she started shading the shadows with her pencil.

As she shaded and rubbed the drawing with her fingers for added clarity, Regina couldn't help but envy the woman at how at ease she seemed knocked out in such a public setting. More students had flooded the campus quad, all enjoying the nice weather while it lasted, and even more were strolling on the surrounding sidewalks. The brunette knew she would never be able to do something like that.

Distracted, once again, by her inner musings, Regina hadn't noticed the figure moving across the grass, heading straight for her blonde subject, until she was a few feet from the sleeping woman. Confused, Regina watched the brunette woman slow her pace as she got closer to her other woman and creep slowly toward the blanket. Without warning the woman, who Regina felt a rising irritation toward, pounced forward and plant herself on the blonde's stomach.

What the hell? Regina thought to herself as she watched the scene in front of her unfold.

The blonde jolted forward at the force of another person colliding with her body, knocking her sunglasses completely from her face and ripping the earbuds out of her ears. Sleepy green eyes, that Regina found strangely familiar, but couldn't quite place, were almost comically wide in surprise. Regina watched as she sat up completely, causing the woman on her stomach fall back onto her thighs. Thin pink lips started moving rapidly at the pale brunette who had wrapped her arm around the blonde's shoulders. The feeling of irritation morphed into one of jealousy as she watched the pair smile at each other.

Jealous of what, Regina wasn't certain. It was by no means of the brunette perched in the blonde's lap. No, she had her own girlfriend, she reminded herself. Maybe it was the way the apparent couple interacted and seemed so willing to give in their affections. Something she never had with Mel.

She continued to watch their conversation picking up bits and pieces here and there, but none of it really made sense. Lip reading wasn't an exact science. If she could only see a part of the speaker's mouth and not the entire thing, made the task that much more difficult.

Finally, she saw the blonde frown and move the brunette's arms from around her shoulders. The sudden change in the demeanor of the blonde caught Regina of guard. She watched the brunette try to replace her arms where they had been, but the blonde shook her head and attempted to remove the woman from her lap. A satisfied smirk crossed Regina's features as the brunette stood up from the blonde's, before she quickly wiped it away. She just wanted her subject free of the woman so she could continue her drawing. That was it.

But the smirk returned as the brunette tried to reach out to the blonde, only to be denied by the blonde once more. She followed the brunette stomp away, far less enthusiastic than she had been when she jumped on the blonde.

The smirk wasn't going anywhere any time soon.

As the woman disappeared to where ever she had come from, Regina focused her eyes back onto the subject of her drawing and was met with those green orbs looking her dead in the eye.

Emma stared into the big brown eyes that had been on her mind since they left The Rabbit Hole with their stunning owner the night before. She couldn't make herself look away, and it seemed the brunette couldn't either.

After a few moments with brown locked on green, Emma saw a blush creep over olive toned cheeks and she looked down into her lap.

Emma found her own senses and picked her sunglasses and iPod up from the blanket from where they'd been discarded when she'd been so rudely awoken. Lacey had some nerve. But she wasn't going to reopen that can of worms right now. She replaced the glasses on her nose, but set the iPod in her lap. No one was sneaking up on her any more that day. She let her eyes wander around the expanse before they settled on the brunette sitting under the tree not fifty feet to her right.

She studied the dark haired woman. The brunette was purposefully keeping her eyes on the thick sketchbook sitting atop her criss cross applesauce legs. Emma could tell the woman was trying her best not to look up, by the way her gaze would stray from her drawing for a millisecond before snapping back, brown eyes never making it past the edge of the paper. That behavior only confirmed what she'd already suspected.

She was being watched.

Emma had felt eyes on her since she laid her blanket out on the ground, but she'd ignored it then. But she couldn't shake the sensation, even as she'd drifted to sleep. She'd escaped the prickly, though not unpleasant, feeling in her sleep, but the second she felt a body crash into her the feeling was back.

Now that she knew that it had been those captivating brown orbs studying her, she was curious as to why. Then she remembered the sketchbook in the brunette's lap. Had the other woman been drawing a picture of her?

Way be a narcissist there, Em, the blonde thought to herself.

Why would that gorgeous woman have any interest in drawing her? Emma knew she was attractive, but she was nothing special. The brunette was just sketching the landscape and she just happened to be smack dab in the middle of it. That made more sense.

But that didn't explain the eyes she felt on her person.

Deciding that her obsessive thoughts on whether or not the brunette could have possibly been drawing a picture of her would eventually drive her insane, she took matters into her own hands. She shifted her eyes quickly and covertly to the the olive skinned woman to make sure she wasn't looking in her direction. In one swift motion she had her bookbag over her shoulder and the blanket balled up under her arm. She shot another quick glance in the brunette's direction. Brown eyes were still glued to the paper in her lap.

Emma sprinted around the tree and disappeared along the path that lead around the outer edge of the quad.

Regina lifted her gaze from her nearly finished drawing. She had tried to ignore the overwhelming desire to get another look at the blonde, but eventually she could keep her eyes down no longer.

She was gone.

The spot where the pale beauty had been sleeping for the last few hours (had it really been that long?), was empty. Skinny jean clad legs no longer rested on an old yellow blanket, and long pale arms were missing from where they'd been crossed over a purple tank top clad torso, and the mess of blonde waves no longer framed a lovely face.

There was only grass and a tree.

A feeling of loss sprang up in Regina and she didn't know what to do with it. The blonde had been just an interesting and humorous subject to draw, she tried to convince herself. A distraction from the fucked up mess that had become her love life the second she'd been introduced to Melanie. She had her mother to thank for that one.

An escape. That's what the other woman had been and now that she was gone, the only thing Regina felt was lonely.

Great, she thought to herself. She'd been reduced to taking comfort in a perfect stranger, who hadn't exactly been aware of her presence for the most part. How pathetic.

Sighing, she went back to shading the tree the blonde had been leaning against. She could feel herself sinking back into the depressed mood she'd had when she left Kathryn in their dorm.

Emma walked around the entire quad and was making her way toward the tree the brunette was sitting under.

In the back of her mind she knew this was ridiculous. It really shouldn't matter this much if the other woman had drawn her or not. But for some reason Emma couldn't explain, it mattered. It mattered a lot. Like always, her curiosity got the best of her and here she was sneaking up on a woman she'd only seen once, hoping to get a look at the sketchbook.

She was standing right behind the tree, leaning around it to try and catch a glimpse of the picture she was scribbling away on. But all she could see was the bun of dark brown hair tilted slightly to the side, blocking the drawing from view.

It occurred to Emma that she probably looked like a huge creeper and decided it would be best to try a different approach.

She slid behind the tree completely and dropped her bag and blanket. She turned and walked a few meters, before spinning back around. The blonde the fell into a casual stride towards the brunette, making sure she was in her line of sight when she got close enough.

Confusion took over when brown eyes still hadn't looked up and she was getting dangerously close to the brunette's personal space.

She was only a foot from the tanned woman and she still hadn't noticed her presence. Emma decided to speak up.

"That's really good." She complimented the drawing as though she'd merely been passing by, not creeping around, coming up with master plans to get a look at it. It worked on most people but apparently the brunette wasn't easily baited. Emma was being ignored.

It was the truth though. The drawing was amazing. It was so detailed that Emma could have mistaken it for a black and white photograph. And the way the brunette had captured her sleeping form, made the blonde snort at how ridiculous she looked. Note to self, no more sleeping on the quad. Next time she'd just go crash in Ruby's room or better yet, make them take their little giggle fest to the tall brunette's room.

Suddenly the woman she was basically standing over jumped and snapped her head up and startled brown met equally startled green.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to sneak up on you." Emma hurriedly said, backing up a few paces, while the brunette brought a hand up to her heaving chest. "I was just looking at your drawing."

Regina just stared up into wide green orbs. She had no idea what the blonde just said, still recovering from being scared half to death. She was usually more observant and aware of her surroundings, but the depressing feelings resurfacing and the concentration she had on finishing the drawing, she hadn't even noticed her former subject.

Snapping out of it, Regina regained her composure and focused her attention back on the blonde. She watched the woman point to her sketchbook and continue talking, unaffected by the fact that Regina hadn't responded to her previous statements.

"That's a really good drawing. Is that me?" she asked with those thin, pink easy to read lips.

Regina nodded and shifted the paper so the blonde could get a better look. She took a leap of faith and patted the space next to her on the ground, inviting the lanky woman could sit with her. She mentally shrugged her shoulders at herself for her uncharacteristic behavior. Regina wasn't very fond of strangers, for obvious reasons, but for some reason she felt different with this woman.

Emma, taking the invitation, sat down next to the brunette and took the offered book. She studied the drawing, in awe of the other woman's ability. Emma couldn't draw worth shit, so this was amazing to her. She wanted to see more of this woman's artistic talent and based on how far into the pages this particular drawing was, she suspected the book was full of the brunette's work.

She looked back over to the other woman, "May I?" she fingered the pages asking for permission to flip through the book.

Regina surprised herself by nodding, giving her permission to the blonde. The only person she let see her sketchbook was Kathryn. It was her personal book of drawings and Regina protected it with a fierce determination, unlike the one she used for class. To her that book of drawings, paintings, and random doodles was like her diary. She poured her emotions into each and every piece of artwork in that thing. When someone looked at the works it was like reading her deepest thoughts and feelings. She usually felt exposed and vulnerable.

But not this time.

Something in her gut told her she could trust this woman. She wasn't usually one to listen to her intestines, but she was glad she had. She watched green eyes scan her work with nothing short of awe. It made a blush creep over her cheeks and she was glad the other woman was so captivated by the sketchbook.

Emma couldn't believe how talented this woman was. She flipped back to the picture of her under the tree, well the landscape with her invading the nature shot, and handed the book back to its owner.

"Those are amazing." She told the other woman honestly, watching the flush in her tanned cheeks brighten. The brunette didn't respond, she just smiled shyly and picked at her black leggings, before meeting her gaze again.

A thought struck her and her held her hand to the brunette.

"I'm Emma, by the way."

The brunette let the name sink in for and moment as she took the pale hand offered to her.

"Regina."

They have officially met, the ball is now rolling. SwanQueen here we come.

So I added Lacey and that little plot line will explained further as the story goes on. The next chapter will pick up right where this one left off.

Let me know what you think, reviews make my day! By the way, did anyone pick up on my Rizzoli and Isles Easter egg?

(P.S. Once again I am posting this at an ungodly hour, so if I have any major boo boos let me know and I'll fix it.)

(P.S.S. Who is excited for the Season 3b premiere, I know I am. But I have to work so I'll be catching it on the DVR after I get off.)