A/N: Another chapter!


Regina felt torn, she really did want to be able to provide a roof over Emma's head, but she also had Henry to worry about. Plus, there was still a twenty five percent chance that her first suspicions had been right that Emma was an axe swinging, blood thirsy-

"I'm not some crazy psycho I promise…" Emma held up both hands defensively. Regina twisted her face, seriously wondering if Emma could read minds.

"You're clutching that bat like you're ready to hit me over the head with it."

Regina loked down at her hand and realized her fist was wrapped around the bat so tightly that her knuckles were white. She instantly released it and laughed nervously.

She'd come out to the porch after putting Henry to bed so that she could clean up the toys that Henry had completely scattered in a matter of minutes. Placing the bat against the house she noticed that Emma lie down on the swing.

"I'm gonna sleep out here. I know with Henry and everything I'm still kind of a risk" Emma adjusted the pillow so that it was more comfortable under her head.

"It's not a-" Regina began, cursing her mouth for running when she hadn't given it permission. It totally was a risk. What was she thinking?

"Maybe one day you'll learn," Emma said sleepily before yawning widely. Regina stared at the blonde who had closed her eyes. Emma opened one eye with a scrunched face, feeling Regina staring at her. "Whatever you got going on here, where you tell everyone one thing, but actually feel another, you don't have to pull that with me. You can tell me the truth, or not. Just don't lie."

As soon as Emma finished talking, Regina's stupid, stupid mouth with a mind of it's own re-opened.

"I think you're gorgeous. But I don't want to sleep with you."

Regina clamped her mouth shut so hard that Emma could hear it her teeth click together. The brunette had lived in her orderly and unsurprising life for so long that she had no idea what to do when this woman could see right through her.

Emma raised her eyebrows, a smirk settling over her face while Regina desperately tried to make up for what she had just word-vomited out.

"I mean not that I don't want to sleep with you, but you have a black eye and-"

"You don't want to sleep with me because I have a black eye?" Emma was just messing with Regina now. She couldn't help it, the seemingly conservative woman was so flustered that she wondered if she was going to sprint off into the dark in order to end this conversation.

"No, of course not. I just mean I haven't slept with anyone in three years and. Oh my god." Regina forced herself to stop, seriously considering walking out on the beach and drowning herself into the ocean.

"I got an idea. You go back into the house and I'll pretend this whole conversation never happened," Emma responded to the brunette that was getting herself so worked up Emma began to feel bad for her. Regina took the free pass that Emma was giving her and rushed in through the door, not even bothering to say goodbye.

She jogged up the stairs and into her bedroom, feeling like a child that was racing out of the basement to avoid a monster on their heels. She spent the night staring at her ceiling, wondering when she'd gone from being so completely in control to not even being able to shut her mouth.


The next morning, when Regina saw that Henry's room empty, she panicked slightly less than the morning before. Sure, her heart pumped a little faster, but that was pretty usual when Henry did anything that caught her off guard.

Her long legs flexed as walked down the stairs on pointed toes. She heard voices on the porch and somehow knew that was where Henry was. It was concerning to her that she already trusted the woman enough to be around Henry without her presence. It was more than concerning, it was just confusing.

Regina didn't know what was going on inside of her, but she felt way too comfortable with the blonde. Even though she spent half the time sputtering and acting like a fool, that was already showing more of herself than the controlled, zombie like persona she usually exhibited.

Everything was confusing, she thought to herself as she listened to the coffee stream out. She felt like she was living a life that wasn't hers, one that only required for her to go through the motions. Yet, she didn't do anything to change it. She didn't even know what she could do, or how she would go about it.

Her identity was as much of a mystery to Regina as it was to everyone else. In both the figurative and literal sense.

The timer beeped, interrupting her thinking and she poured the coffee into two mugs on the counter. She walked smoothly taking care not to spill the coffee. Her tank top rid up slightly, but she didn't have a free hand to pull it down. She twisted the front door knob open skillfully with her elbows and kicked the door open with her foot. All in all, only a drop of coffee had dropped onto the dark wooden floors of the house. Success.

Emma and Henry who were sitting next to each other on the porch swing talking, ceased, and looked up at Regina in the doorway. Regina handed Emma a cup, her tank top now fell just below her belly button, her tanned, lean stomach exposed. Emma took the mug while looking Regina up and down with a smirk.

"Three years, huh?" Emma's smirk was positively mischievous. Regina's faced turned a light shade of pink as she shot Emma a look.

She remained standing and finally pulling her tank down purposefully and sipped her steaming coffee.

"I have work today, sweetie." She said towards Henry who was playing with two toy dinosaurs on his lap. He looked up, stilling the dinosaurs in his hands.

"Going to see grandma?"

"Yeah, you'll go stay with grandma today." He nodded his head and resumed playing with his dinosaurs, making quiet mock scream sound effects every once and a while when he clashed them together.

"I'm not sure if you want to go back in town for the day or…" Regina directed to Emma who had a pile of toy dinosaurs sitting on her own lap. Henry seemed to have decided she was the dinosaur keeper, because he traded a dinosaur from her lap for one in his hand every few seconds.

"I'll figure something out." Emma replied with another sip of her coffee.

The rest of the morning was spent with Regina chasing Henry around the house to get dressed and ready while trying to get herself ready at the same time.

Emma stood in the kitchen, watching the amazing amount of chaos and noise that only the two people caused. She felt completely useless, but didn't want to push any boundaries that Regina had set when it came to her son. When Henry was finally ready, and Regina was most definitely not, Emma finally spoke up.

"I can take him outside and distract him if you want." Emma offered as Henry opened up his eyes and nodded first looking at Emma and then at Regina.

"Sure, go ahead Henry," She prayed that Henry would be able to keep his clothes clean. She always felt guilty bringing him to her mother's house already dirty and sandy.

"Thank you" She said to Emma who was now being dragged out the front door by her hand.

Regina finally made her way to her room where she jumped in the shower and dressed in her red shorts and white polo waitressing outfit. She ran a brush through her hair and looked at her appearance. She hated how average looking she looked in the shorts and shirt combo she wore almost every day. And she hadn't even put on the hideous waitressing apron yet.

She pulled her hair back into her half up hairdo that she seemed to sport almost every day and jogged back down the stairs. When she grabbed her purse and Henry's bag she exited out the front door.

"Are you going into town, Emma?" Emma lookd up from her place on the porch steps, an uneven pile of race cars now in her lap. Henry was zooming one car over her bare shoulder and another one drove over her head.

"Vroooooom. Vrooooom Pfffffff!" The sound effects were loud and sudden as Henry crashed the cars together. Something that seemed to be a theme for him.

"Yeah."

"Come on, I'm going there too so I'll give you a ride." They all piled in the white SUV and drove on the back roads until they pulled up to a large white house.

Regina got out with Henry and walked him to the door where Emma struggled to make out the woman standing in the doorway. She couldn't really see much since Regina was standing in the way though and gave up.

The drive from the house to town was quiet, but not tense. Emma spent most of the time looking out the window.

"This place looks familiar," Emma said quietly as she continued to look into the forest that began sparse, but thickened as they drove more into the mainland before veering back out to the ocean side.

"Have you been here before?" Regina asked while keeping her eyes forward. Driving made her nervous, so she spent most of the time clutching the steering wheel as if her life depended on it.

"I don't think so. Maybe. My family spent a lot of time on this coast."

"Vacationing?" Regina itched to look over the blonde next to her, whose voice had become soft and sullen.

"Fishing. My parents were fisherman. I guess I was too." Her voice had dipped into a whisper, and she kept her head turned toward the window so Regina couldn't see the pain in her eyes.

"Oh." Regina noted Emma's use of 'were' rather than 'are' and hoped that they had just retired, or something.

"They died," Emma stated bluntly. Her voice held no emotion, but when Regina looked over, she realized the reason was because it was all stored up in Emma's face. The woman looked like had just seen a ghost. And she had.

The flashbacks flickered behind Emma's eyes once again.

'Emma. We're sorry. Save your mother.' her father screamed as he struggled to steady the giant steering wheel of the boat. Emma barely heard him over the deafening sound of the rain pouring onto the boat and the waves slapping against the side, spilling over onto the deck.

Regina watched Emma wring her hands together and knew she had descended back into the place she had gone at the docks.

Emma turned to look for her mother on the deck, but couldn't find her. She glanced back to the front of the boat to see the steering wheel spinning emptily. Her father was nowhere on the deck.

Regina struggled to say anything she could to snap Emma out of it. She opted for just continuing the conversation.

"When did they die?" She asked after clearing her throat. Emma's emerald eyes swirled from the dark green they had been in remembrance to a ligher shade of emerald.

"Four days ago."


I know, I know, you're probably itching for more information. Don't worry. We'll get there :)