Ellie was at the station alone. After that wolf's week, she tried to go back to the life she led before Ruby, and working at the station was her life before Ruby. She inhaled deeply when she heard the door to the station open and shut and smiled. She stood and leaned against the deputy's desk she'd been working at as her girlfriend walked in.
Ruby tilted her head and pursed her lips as she had been caught bringing lunch for her girlfriend and her girlfriend's mother.
Ellie grinned, "The bad thing about wolf senses? I can smell you coming." She waited for Ruby to walk over and took the food from her, setting it on the desk, "But that's the good thing about wolf senses too." She smiled wide as she kissed Ruby's neck, nipping and making Ruby hum.
"Oh, Puppy, I love it when you do that." Ruby held Ellie in place as she melted into her.
"Babe?" Ellie pulled from the older woman and looked at her.
"Yes, Puppy?"
"We need to come up with a plan to tell my parents that we're together. I mean, everyone's going to know sooner or later. Granny knows—"
"That woman holds everyone's secrets and keeps them all close. She won't tell anyone."
"Yeah, well, yesterday at breakfast, my grandmother was looking at me like she had an inkling as to what was going on between us, and Daisy knows. She's not going to tell unless I give her the 'okay' but she's only one person. She won't resist someone guessing it out of her, or playing charades so someone else will know sooner or later…"
"Okay, okay!" Ruby stayed in her girlfriend's arms before freaking out, "You're mom's not here, is she?" She stood and shook her head, "Oh, wait… I watched her leave."
Ellie looked at the other woman and spoke deadpan, "And you shouldn't have to do that… You shouldn't have to freak out and worry if my parents are here or not…"
Ruby pushed Ellie's choppy bangs from her eyes and held her face in her hands. Ellie's hands came up to her wrists and held her hands to her face lovingly. "Oh, Puppy…" Ruby smiled as she leaned in then pressed their lips together.
As they inhaled to deepen the kiss a foreign scent filled their nostrils and they leapt apart as soon as they smelt the other person. That didn't stop the other person from seeing them though.
"Ruby…" Regina was shocked to see such a display of affection between her daughter and anyone, let alone Ruby Lucas.
"Regina!" Ruby put her hands out as if trying to keep a wild animal tame.
"Mom!"
Regina glanced to her daughter and back to her and her wife's best friend, "I don't know what to say…"
"Regina, listen. We didn't want you to find out like this. We just… We didn't know how to tell you and Emma that… Well that we…"
"That we're together." Ellie gave Ruby the words she needed.
Regina looked between her and her wife's daughter and her and her wife's best friend, "You're in love?"
Ruby swallowed a hard lump in her throat and nodded as her eyes became moist.
"With my baby girl?"
No one in the room was sure if Regina's tone was threatening or inquisitive. But just in case something was about to happen, Ellie stepped in front of Ruby and unconsciously began showing teeth and snarling.
Regina was taken aback at the sight of fangs. She grabbed the air in front of her and pulled, magically causing Ellie to be pulled to her, "Are those fangs?" She began inspecting her daughter's mouth and watched the fangs fade to normal canines. She looked over to the werewolf, "You really do love her… She wouldn't have fangs if you didn't."
"Yeah…"
"Your first wolf's week was this past week?" Regina looked up at her daughter.
"Yeah, Mom."
"And the reason you've been gone is not because of chippies that liked you in high school and now do bad things and not because of something sinister and not because of volunteering at the pound, but because of trying to get to know each other in a different light?"
"Yeah… Who said I was doing something sinister?"
"Your mother has a very imaginative mind… And she's a worrywart when it comes to you kids. She knew that she and I were both good people until we weren't and her imagination ran."
"And there was a tiny part that thought it might be true?" Ellie asked in disbelief.
"Ellie…" Regina looked into her daughter's eyes, "You're a closed book. You're the only one that we have to pry information from. You're very private, and that's not a bad thing. I was once very private, but being private and not sharing and making everything a battle… It makes the imagination wander and get to many different paths."
"A 'yes' would have sufficed, Mom." Ellie pulled from her and turned around to walk away from her.
"Ellie!" Regina tried.
Ellie just shook her head and started for the door, but Ruby's voice came through, "Ellie. Babe, come here."
Ellie sighed and walked back over to her. Ruby took Ellie's face in her hands and Ellie held onto Ruby's wrists, a common, comforting way they stood when they tried to get points across. They whispered in hushed tones as Ruby convinced her that her mothers still loved her and that the overactive imagination just means that they care. And that she is a private person and lots of people think oddly of her, which she already knows and brushes them off like crumbs. And that maybe they knew that she was hiding something and that's why they thought she might be doing something bad.
Ellie stood straight after the last point was made and looked to her mother, "Did you know I was hiding something?"
"Well, Ellie darling, you weren't exactly subtle." Regina responded.
"Sorry… I just… You're right. We were just trying to get to know each other differently."
Regina nodded and walked over to her daughter, hugging her, "I'm happy that you are finally happy…"
"Yeah…"
"Your mother is going to be…" Regina trailed off as she realized that Emma probably wasn't so much going to be thrilled as she was going to be angry and confused. "Oh Emma, my love…" Regina pulled from her daughter and started pacing in order to think about what they were going to do about Emma. Poor magically impaired, confused about everything because of the woman she loves, Emma.
"She reverts to this world's politics when she doesn't know how to handle things…" Ruby said.
"Yeah, and your best friend getting with your daughter isn't exactly something that this world smiles at…" Ellie looked at her mother, "What do we do, Mom?"
Regina inhaled, "First. We tell her that you are going to bring your new girlfriend that gives you the hickies to dinner." She looked pointedly to Ruby to tell her that she didn't want to see a hickie on her darling daughter's neck again before continuing, "We will send Daisy, Logan, Hunter and Billie to Henry and Brendon's or your grandparents for the night, or split them up between the two households." She pointed to her daughter, "You, little miss will stay with your mother and at the house the rest of the week. No sneaking off to be with your girlfriend, but more coddling your Momma." She gave a pointed look to Ellie then Ruby, "You will come to dinner on Friday." She turned back to her daughter, "And even though I know you are your mother's daughter and will want to pick her up, you will not let your mother out of your site and you will not let her get any gun, knife, sword, axe, crossbow, arrow, chain, hook, or weapon of any kind. When Ruby comes, I will sit with her the few seconds it will take to answer the door to make sure she doesn't have anything hidden and will try to pull anything out. Then… We'll see what happens."
"But what if she's really mad?" Ruby asked.
"Well, I will be sure to wear her favorite dress on me that night and show extra affection her throughout the day, and we will definitely be having sex before we change for the evening."
Ellie's face contorted with disgust, but before she could comment, Ruby took her mother's hand, "Good! That's good! Sex-filled Emma is a happy Emma."
Ellie looked wide-eyed at her girlfriend, "Why do you know that?"
"Well, darling, before she was your girlfriend, she helped your mother and I realize our feelings for each other and fought for us to be together. Really, you should thank her for that because without your girlfriend, you wouldn't be born." Regina smirked, "I'm gonna like saying things like that." She looked to Ruby, "Look how red I can make my daughter."
Ruby was blushing too.
"Oh and you!" Regina laughed, "Well…" She looked around, "I assume that your mother is out?"
"Yeah, she was making a call about a disturbance in a neighborhood. I think Pongo's puppies found something in Mrs. Shoemaker's rose bushes."
"No she's not." Ruby's ear was perked.
Ellie heard it too, "No she's not anymore…"
Regina shook her head, knowing she had a couple minutes, "You two poof out of here, and take your lunch. I will… start the celebration so to speak…"
"Ew!" Ellie took Ruby's hand and grabbed her lunch before poofing out of the station.
Regina took off her coat and snapped her fingers to change into her former mayoral, power pencil skirt, heels that made her ass and legs look delicious and a white shirt that would show her red bra at a single glance. When Emma opened and closed the main office door, Regina sauntered to the inner office doorway and leaned against it, waiting on her wife to notice her.
Emma looked up from the Kuerig as she waited for the water to heat. She looked her wife up and down and smiled, "Hey, hey, good lookin'." She walked over to her and wrapped her arms around her waist, "Why are you all dressed up?" She leaned down and started nipping at her wife's neck.
"Oh, I just wasn't feeling sexy, so I thought I'd dress in clothes I wore over twenty years ago, you know… When you were on me like a leech." Emma pulled from her neck and looked at Regina who only smirked, "And look at that. It took all of two seconds for you to notice me and start the foreplay."
"Well that's not fair. You know I would always be happy to start the foreplay, I just need to know when you want me to." The blonde once again suctioned herself to her wife's neck.
Regina grinned when Emma's hands slid to her ass, "Oh Darling, you know I love it when you do that. With the hands and the biting."
"I do know." Something snapped inside Emma and she pulled up and whipped around. "Where's Ellie?"
"She went to her secret girlfriend's. I told her to."
"What? Secret… Why? Why when she was finally around again did you do that?" Emma asked in an almost accusatory way. "Secret girlfriend? The hickie giver?"
"Because she told me that she wanted us to meet her girlfriend." Regina wrapped her arms around her wife's neck and held in the smirk that came when Emma's hands automatically went to her ass.
Emma saw the smirk despite Regina's best efforts to hide it, "You know I can't live without your ass…" She gave a firm squeeze to emphasize her point.
"I know." Regina pecked the blonde's lips, "I told her to go spend time with her today and time with us the rest of the week, maybe tell us a little about her and all of that because we have missed her. She gave her usual grunt of acknowledgment not unlike her mother, gave me a kiss on the cheek and poofed out of here. Then I looked out the window to see you pull up, and decided that I would dress up for you and maybe we could have a little afternoon delight."
Emma gave her wife a happy closed-mouth smile, "I love afternoon delight."
"Yes, I know." Regina said with a matching grin.
~0~0~0~0~0~
"Ellie?" Emma looked at her daughter that Friday afternoon as they sat at the kitchen table and colored in their respective geometric coloring books.
"Yeah, Momma?"
Emma stared at her a moment, "You know that you're perfect, right?"
Ellie looked up, but refused to look at her mother.
"You are." Emma looked around checking to make sure that no one was around, which they weren't because Regina took Logan, Daisy, Hunter and Billie to the grandparents for a bit before she was going to send Logan and Daisy to Henry and Brendon's and Hunter and Billie to stay with said grandparents'. She looked back to her daughter, "I know that I'm not supposed to have a favorite kid, but I do."
Ellie whipped her head to her mother, "Momma!"
"What?!" Emma scrunched her face like she was offended at Ellie's scolding, "Henry has more than made up for it by now, but once tried to keep your mother and me apart, Daisy is far too self-absorbed, Hunter… Okay, I just don't understand half the things he says anymore and he's always drumming or strumming the air which is weird but cute, and Billie is still an annoying preteen that thinks she's got it all figured out, but doesn't."
Ellie hid her smirk, "Momma, you're an annoying preteen that thinks she's got it all figured out but doesn't."
"Shut up!" Emma pushed her daughter lightly in the chair. She then turned to her and sobered completely. "Seriously, Ellie." Emma smiled, "You have no idea how amazing you are because your mother and me failed to acknowledge it. You do nothing for yourself, and when you finally start, I freak out and think it's something bad and then convince your mother of the same." She paused to swallow, "You're my favorite because you are so unique and so kind and so helpful and so amazing. And I'm sorry you didn't know it growing up."
Ellie bit her lip and inhaled raggedly through her nose, "It's okay, Momma."
"It's not. But thank you for forgiving me." Emma leaned in and hugged her daughter. Then after a few moments, she spoke again, "Your mom told me you want to be a surgeon and that's why you're getting that double major." Ellie nodded in her mother's hold, "You should drop Criminal Justice." Emma murmured before kissing her daughter's hair, "It's too much strain on you and you don't have to do it for me. Another person will eventually fill my shoes. It doesn't have to be my own flesh and blood. Though your grandfather certainly wouldn't mind seeing as he comes from a land of kings and queens and rightful thrones and still thinks a single family should stay in charge…" They chuckled together, "But you should do what you want to do. Okay?"
Ellie nodded, "Okay." She whispered.
Regina made her presence known, "What's going on in here?" She asked when she saw her wife and her daughter sitting, hugging in what had to be an awkwardly uncomfortable position.
"NOTHING, REGINA! GOD!" Emma glared to her wife as she and her daughter separated, "It's bonding time for Emma and Ellie. That's what you said; that's what we're doing."
Regina raised a single brow in response.
"I love you." Emma jumped up, knowing she was in trouble, "I'm sorry!"
Regina began walking away.
"No! Baby-honey! I'm sorry! I love you!" The blonde chased after her wife, leaving her daughter to their coloring pages.
Regina turned swiftly and pushed her wife into the wall once safely in the hall, "You prepared to make it up to me?" She whispered huskily into the blonde's ear.
Emma both melted in want and stiffened in suspicion. "What's your game, woman? Why are you letting me get by with snapping at you? And giving me sex?"
"Darling…" Regina smirked, "I have needs and desires too."
Emma took about a half second to think it over before she pushed her wife off of her and moved to the doorway in the kitchen, "Hey, Ellie, Sweet Pea…?"
Ellie turned around to give her mother her attention.
"You're mom and I are going to go… uh, talk… for a little while, 'kay?" Emma smiled innocently though everyone knew she was anything but.
"Yeah… Okay." She moved to the kitchen doorway to look at her brunette mother, "I'm gonna go out then, for a bit." She made a disgusted face as she poofed out of the house.
~0~0~0~0~0~
Ruby was pacing in the back of the diner. She was nervous. Super nervous. She saw Snow, Charming, Hunter and Billie coming and that made her even more nervous than she was. So, she ran to the back. Ellie smirked as she appeared and grinned when Ruby ran into her.
"Puppy!" Ruby hugged her close, "What are you doing here? I thought you were with your Momma?"
Ellie scrunched her face a little in disgust, "Yeah, Mom's got Momma uh…. Indisposed."
Ruby smirked, "Is she—?"
"Yes. And don't finish the sentence."
Ruby laughed, "So you came to visit me?"
"I did. Why are you in the back pacing?"
"I saw your grandparents and sister and brother coming for lunch…"
Ellie grinned, "Did you get nervous?"
"Yes!" Ruby hissed as if ashamed.
"You don't need to be nervous. Ruby… Everyone loves you."
Ruby looked up at her, "But do they love me with you?"
Ellie pursed her lips and waited for Ruby's eyes to lock with hers, "They will. And if they don't, I love you with me. And my Mom loves you with me. She told me. And she will convince the rest of them to love you with me."
Ruby gave her a shy grin and leaned up for a kiss. "What do I do about your family now?"
"Um… serve them food because this is a place of food and you are a waitress?" Ellie asked like it should be obvious. But when she received an unimpressed look, she quickly tried to change her tune, "I mean… I love you?"
"Just like your mother…" Ruby leaned into her and kissed her cheek.
"Hey, I learn from the best." Ellie tilted Ruby's chin and captured her lips in a gentle kiss, "You'll do fine. You're the only one working right now, so go out there before Granny comes back here and beats us up."
"Okay." Ruby pouted before trudging up to the front of the diner.
"Hey!" Ellie whispered and Ruby quickly turned and moved back to her girlfriend, "I love you."
"I love you too, Puppy." Ruby leaned in and pecked her three times before sighing and making her way to the front for real.
Ellie grinned before poofing back to her house in vain hope that her mothers would be done… talking.
~0~0~0~0~0~
Ruby walked out just as Granny was walking in to find her, "There you are, girl. Where have you been?"
"I was sorting in the back." The brunette provided easily.
Granny leaned in and sniffed smelling the other wolf on her, "I'm sure." She grunted before going to the kitchen.
Ruby shook her head and walked over, "Hello everyone… This is a random collection of family…"
Billie nodded, "Yeah, Mom and Momma are meeting Ellie's girlfriend." She gave her a face like it was the biggest news since Regina and Emma found out they were pregnant with her.
Ruby gave a shocked face, "Wow, really? I didn't know she was dating someone… Go Ellie…" She smiled.
Billie looked disappointed, "You're not even kind of jealous?"
Ruby knit her brows, like she would have two months before at the question, "What?"
Hunter hit his sister's arm and Billie realized what she said, "Nothing! Never mind."
Ruby slowly nodded before taking everyone's drink order and walking away.
It was as the foursome was on dessert that Snow got up from her place and walked over to the diner counter where Ruby was leaning. She smiled to the werewolf and offered her hand.
Ruby looked at it confused but took it nevertheless, "Snow?... Everything alright?"
"Yeah, great!" Snow nodded, "What about you? How are you doing? You nervous?"
"Nervous?" Ruby was so nervous. "What do I have to be nervous about?"
"Well, it's not everyday that you meet your girlfriend's parents… as your girlfriend's girlfriend." She paused and let it sink in Ruby's head before smiling, "And it's not everyday your-best-friend-slash-your-daughter's-best-friend -slash-your-former-arch-nemesis'-best-friend comes out to your daughter about dating your granddaughter…"
"Snow!" Ruby pulled from her.
Snow put her hands out to calm the longhaired girl, "Calm down." She said with a friendly smile.
"Calm down?" Ruby leaned back into the counter, "How did you know!"
Snow smirked, "I know my best friend. And I know my best friend when she's in love. And I had never seen my granddaughter act like she had when she was around you for that family breakfast last week, or the two months before…" She grinned, "I think it's great. I think Ellie as grown up to be the perfect match for you…" She grabbed Ruby's hand and squeezed it lovingly, "Don't be nervous about tonight. I mean, be nervous, but not because of the specific situation, just the meeting-the-parents situation in general." She winked before walking back to her table.
Ruby sighed before turning to the kitchen, "Gran?"
"What, girl?"
"I'm going home."
Granny gave her a knowing look, "Alright."
AN: Thoughts and feels?
