JET, I haven't a clue how she hadn't seen Xena!

Everyone else, Enjoy lovelies!

Songs: Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows, Rescue Me by Kerrie Roberts.


"Alright, okay… so, you get these hormone injection things, rag for a month and then get your eggs sucked out with a needle? Like little oysters." Emma squinted at the pamphlet in the package Eva gave them. Turns out the process of harvesting eggs involved a lot more than they anticipated.

"That is the crudest possible explanation, but yes," Regina answered for the third time and pulled Emma's blue leather jacket tighter around her torso. Apparently, the idea was much more appealing to Emma when she hadn't completely understood it.

"That month is going to suck," Emma whispered and froze in place in front of the door of Granny's diner. Regina rolled her eyes and snatched the papers from her lover's limp hand and shoved them into her purse. They weren't quite sharing this bit with everyone yet.

Regina took two steps towards Granny's, stopped and whirled on her fiancée. Emma's face was white, and she looked as though she might have puked if she thought about it. A person would have thought Emma was going through the procedure. Regina rolled her eyes again, reluctant grin spreading despite her irritation.

"Emma," she whispered. No response. She ducked her head and licked Emma's throat.

"What are you doing?" Emma snapped from her stupor, and Regina smirked against her neck.

"We must work on your deductive reasoning skills," Regina whispered saucily and sucked against Emma's bite mark she'd given her in Boston. Luckily, no one had commented on it yet, which means Ruby was really fucked up and distracted right now.

"Regina, public. Oh god, woman!" Emma tore away from Regina's hands and lips when she trailed a thumb nail down the zipper of her jeans, sending tendrils of delicious vibration into her sensitive flesh. She'd forgone her underwear earlier after their cloaked love-making in the cemetery and regretted it in that moment.

"What the hell has gotten into you?" Emma asked with a smug grin and allowed Regina to pull them together again with insistent hands on her waist.

Regina clasped her hands around Emma's hips and batted her eyes as if saying that she'd behave. Emma rewarded her with a chaste kiss for good behavior and wrapped her arms around her back. Regina tucked her head into the side of Emma's neck and sighed into the embrace.

"Maybe the idea of being yours excites me," Regina admitted quietly, and Emma's heart melted.

"Legal commitment turns you on?" Emma deadpanned, and Regina slapped her ass as she pulled back.

"I'm fairy tale character," Regina huffed defensively and crossed her arms, jostling Emma from the embrace abruptly. "Leave my quirks alone."

Emma's shoulders shook silently at first, and then giggled before laughing outright. Regina rolled her eyes and backed Emma towards the door of Granny's. She almost fell over twice as she fumbled with the stairs and giggled at the same time. Her back pressed against the door, and Regina reached for the knob. Emma stopped her with a kiss.

"Emma, Snow is expecting us in 10 minutes," Regina sobered enough to say the words, but Emma's laughter and flushed face infected her soul.

"Which means we have five to do this," Emma said seriously and wrapped her arms around Regina's neck, smashing their lips together and leaning their weight against the door. Regina pressed her forehead into Emma's and pulled her lips away. Emma pouted.

"I don't want you to go to Boston tomorrow," she admitted quietly. The muscles in Emma's jaw clenched. She hadn't even considered the fact that she had to leave her new fiancée the day after proposing, and the thought stung.

"I don't want to go without you, but this town is your baby, too. Figure out what is going on the Mendell and Ruby and then we can plan our wedding," Emma forced out, not wanting to be the hero anymore, not if it meant leaving Regina's side for even a night.

Regina nodded but withheld comment in lieu of kissing Emma again. She teased the blonde's bottom lip with teeth and tongue, and Emma hungrily accepted the hot muscle into her mouth. A deep moan vibrated in her throat, and Regina answered it by skimming her fingers under the hem of Emma's shirt.

She squawked indignantly when the support pulled away from her back. Regina caught herself on the door frame instinctively as she fell forward and covered her mouth with three fingertips as Emma landed in an adorable heap on the linoleum of Granny's. Emma grumbled and blew a strand of hair from her eyes to glare at the man who had unknowingly interrupted a very important and public make out session.

"Neal?" Her heart stopped for a second and then turned her stomach with its rapid pounding. Regina sobered at the anger and pain in Emma's eyes.

"Hello Emma," Neal smiled down at her lover in a way that made Regina uncomfortable. Why was his name familiar?

"What the hell are you doing here?" Emma growled and bounced to her feet.

Without waiting for an answer, she pulled back and decked the man in the mouth. Silence followed as everyone in the diner stared in shock. Emma Swan wasn't known for her subtly, but she rarely attacked without provocation, except Regina Mills, but those days had passed a while ago.

He winced, pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and then chuckled. His smug eyes compelled her to repeat the motion, and she grinned at the sickening crunch of nose cartilage beneath her knuckles. This time he grabbed his face and doubled over, tears burning his eyes. He suffered worst, but it still hurt like hell.

"Damn it, Emma! I'm here to see my dad!" He growled around his hands.

"Who?" She stopped abruptly in light of the information. "Your dad is here?"

"Rumpelstiltskin," he said.

"You knew the whole fucking time. Who I was. Where I was from," Emma's voice was calm and deep and murderous. Regina almost reached for her lover's arm but held back.

Emma kicked the back of his knee with a cry of frustrated betrayal and pushed on his shoulder at the same time. His back slammed into the floor with a pained grunt, and Emma stomped off towards the kitchen. She returned a moment later, fists clenched at her sides. Regina simply raised an eyebrow but held her tongue when Emma grabbed her hand and pulled her through the door. It slammed behind them, and the angry woman's chest heaved with her effort to control her emotions.

"That's the man I went to jail for," she said through clenched teeth. The pieces fell into place for Regina. Neal Cassidy. He was Baelfire, the long lost son of the Dark One?

"Emma," she started, but Emma waved her hand in dismissal.

"Don't." She stomped down the side walk and met Henry as he rounded the diner. That's why she'd gone to the kitchen.

Regina followed a few steps behind, pulling Emma's jacket around her more tightly. She told herself the sudden chill in her spine came from the crisp evening air, but even that sounded too fake in her mind. Whatever happened between Neal and Emma still affected her lover deeply, which meant she either hadn't dealt with the pain or she still cared for the man. Add either of those to the fact that he might have fathered their son, and Regina's skin crawled.

Emma disappeared into the bathroom when they reached Snow and David's. Henry slammed into his grandmother, unaware of the tension surrounding the three women. Snow and Regina locked gazes for a brief moment before the younger dropped a kiss on her grandson's head.

"Henry, will you do me a big favor and set the table? I've set everything out, but I need your mom's help in the kitchen," she pleaded convincingly with the boy who puffed up his chest and set about his task.

"What's happened?" Snow whispered and glanced over her shoulder, ensuring Henry stayed out of earshot.

"Baelfire, Gold's son. He's here under the name Neal Cassidy. He and Emma have met before," Regina answered quickly.

"Neal? The Neal?" Snow blurted, and Regina nodded but said nothing else.

The chopped salad vegetables in silence, shoulder to shoulder, and Snow smiled. She had first learned to accept Regina as a person and then as her daughter's true love. Now, an uncomfortable wiggle of affection swelled in her chest for the woman who might have been her friend in a different life. Was it possible that she and Regina might permanently bury the hatchet and love each other again? Snow jerked back to reality when Regina touched her hand, clearly irritated that she wasn't listening anymore.

"I'm sorry. What did you say?" She apologized, cheeks flushing in embarrassment.

"I asked where your idiot was hiding," Regina snipped and tossed her sliced cucumber into the bowl.

"Oh," Snow dropped her head and chopped unenthusiastically. "He's not coming. He and Captain are at the station. He's struggling, and I don't know how to help him. I just wish I had the ability to read minds," Snow babbled. Regina licked her lips in irritation.

"Snow, Dear?" She crossed her arms over her chest as she pulled her step-daughter back to reality. "Assuming I actually cared, what traumatic childhood brain damage led you to believe that I wish to discuss your Neanderthal's issues after his abhorrent treatment of my fiancée this morning? I tolerate him for her, not out of any sense of nobility or hope of redemption."

Regina snipped and turned on her heel, intending to check on Emma's wellbeing. She stopped, however, at Snow's soft voice.

"And me?" She sounded so very much like that little girl she rescued from the runaway horse. Her spine and shoulders straightened instinctively at the uncomfortable question.

"As I examine my past more closely, I have come to the realization that I may have unjustly accused you of Daniel's death," she strained, the words nearly killing her from the inside out.

"Mother already knew of our liaisons. He was destined to die at her hand the moment he fell in love with me," Regina continued. She adjusted her shoulders and cleared her throat.

"You saved Ruby's life that night in the cellar, and mine. In doing so, you protected the woman I love from something that would surely have haunted her for the rest of her life. Ruby survived that night because you shot her with arrows instead of bullets. Emma most likely would have killed her." She licked her lips and released a shaky breath.

"Despite your murderously irritating optimism, these actions have endeared you to me," Regina murmured with down turned eyes and then bolted towards the bathroom.

"Emma?" She called gently and then opened the door, knowing full well her partner did anything but the intended use for this room.

"What are you doing?" She closed the door quickly and leaned against it.

Emma stood at the sink and stared at the smeared blood on her knuckles. Several q-tips covered in the same liquid were displayed neatly atop a tissue on the cheap porcelain vanity. Emma's body shook with the tension of her tightened muscles.

"We need to know if he's Rumpelstiltskin's grandson," Emma whispered, her voice deep and calm and terrifying.

"Emma," Regina started but realized she had no clue what to say. She slid Emma's jacket from her shoulders as she stepped forward. It fell in a heap by the door.

"Emma," she said again and turned on the water. The savior offered no resistance when she wrapped her fingers around her wrist and lowered to the cold stream.

"Everything in my life has his fingerprints all over it," Emma whispered and scrubbed at her hand furiously.

"Darling, we don't know that," Regina said and tucked a strand of tangled hair behind her ear.

"I'm having a paternity test done when I get to Boston. Dr. Isles might be able to rush one for me in the crime lab," she turned off the water with shaking fingers and turned to Regina.

They stared at each other for a long moment. Emma gritted her teeth as the dark emotions pulled through her. Regina gasped when rough hands pulled their lips together and whirled her into the wall opposite the sink. The force knocked the breath from her lungs and dazed her momentarily. Emma kissed and nipped down her jaw as her hands hiked her skirt.

Calloused fingers cupped her and kneading the sensitive flesh roughly. There was a desperation in Emma's movements, and Regina almost told her to stop, briefly considering this might have been something that Emma regretted. All protests died when three fingers entered her painfully, taking her at a furious pace from the start.

She was sore from being fisted and their romp in the cemetery and not quite wet enough to find Emma's penetration pleasurable.

Even in her daze, Emma sensed her unease and dropped to her knees without removing her fingers. Her free hand pushed Regina's skirt to her hips. She wet her tongue and pressed the flat of it onto that hardened bundle of nerves at eye level, moving it up and slowly. She wanted to fuck Regina hard and wanted Regina to enjoy it to. Stimulating her with her tongue was merely a means to an end, the end being Regina producing enough fluid to endure another pounding.

"Emma, I don't know if…" Regina stopped mid-sentence when Emma wet her tongue and returned it to her clit.

"Do you want me to stop?" Emma asked, lips and warm air ghosting over her lover's sensitive flesh. Regina shivered and gave into her desire over her sensibility. This wasn't about her or making love or connecting with each other. Emma needed a release, and she intended to use dominating Regina as the outlet.

"No," Regina breathed and tangled her hands in blonde hair. Emma growled and dove back in.

Regina fisted her hair tightly and held Emma against her. Her knees wobbled when three finger moved inside of her again. Emma sucked on the nub and released it with a pop, apparently satisfied with the amount of wetness on her fingers. Demanding lips captured Regina's when Emma sprang up and pressed into her.

Emma slammed into her clenching center, and her head thumped against the wall, breaking the kiss. Lips moved to her throat, and she caught her moan a moment before it escaped her mouth. Emma pulled back when she wrapped both of her arms around her neck for balance. Emma braced her free hand against the wall and locked gazes with the panting woman beneath her.

Fingers slid in and out easily now, moving Regina bodily with each upward thrust. Sweat tickled at Emma's back, and she grinned into the burn of her forearm when the resistance of those addicting velvet walls finally increased. Regina pulled her in for a chaste kiss, lacking the air for anything heavier.

Emma loved this part. Regina's forehead furrowed. Her eyes became distant and unfocused even though they held hers. As her orgasm rocked her body, her mouth dropped open in a silent scream.

Emma grunted when her neck took the brunt of Regina's dead weight and immediately wrapped both arms around her waist. Disappointment clenched in her gut when she realized that she'd not be able to draw it out longer for Regina. It was followed almost immediately by guilt. What she'd done represented everything she despised in this world.

It wasn't about Regina's pleasure. It was about taking what she wanted, how she wanted, when she wanted. And Regina allowed her. A spontaneous sob erupted from Emma's throat and her head dropped to Regina's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," she whimpered around the tightness in her throat. "I'm so sorry, Baby. Regina, Baby, I'm sorry." Emma babbled almost incoherently.

Regina somehow found her balance on shaky legs and leaned into the wall, pulling Emma into her. She simply held the quivering blonde against her chest and recovered her wits. She had feared this would happen, and now the pieces belonged to her, became her responsibility to reassemble.

"Em, I'm okay. I love you," she whispered into Emma's hair. "I love you, Emma." She pushed Emma back and took her face in both hands, forcing green eyes to meet hers.

"I love you." She repeated, and Emma nodded, spilling more tears onto her cheeks.

"You're the only thing in my life that he hasn't touched, Emma. We were never supposed to happen. We were meant to be enemies, to hate each other. I know how dirty his touch feels. That's why this feels so clean and right and beautiful. Don't be sorry because you're the only thing he has never manipulated into my life. That's why he wouldn't heal you when you were shot, Emma. Our union terrifies him." Regina paused and let those words find Emma's heart. Green eyes widened with new understanding, and Regina smiled.

"As for what just occurred, I trust you. You'd never hurt me, Emma. I believe that with all of my heart, My Beautiful Darling. And if I hadn't wanted it, I'd have asked you to stop. I'm afraid my motives weren't entirely altruistic, however. I seem to be addicted to the feeling of you inside of me," she finished lightly, wicked smirk in place.

Emma's stomach grumbled, and both women dropped their eyes to the sound.

"Wonderful timing. I think I'll enjoy dinner with you mother much more if we christen her bathroom beforehand each time. Pleasant thoughts to ponder when she babbles incessantly and my brain shuts down." Regina said regally and sniffed, and Emma chuckled.

"Just another minute," Emma said and tucked her head into Regina's neck. Regina settled into the wall once more and accepted the weight of her lover.

"I love you, too, Regina. So much." Her words broke with the honesty behind them, and Regina dropped a kiss to her forehead.

"We've overcome every obstacle thrown at us. This, too, shall pass and see us strengthened on the other side. People know the depth and strength of my hatred and vengeance, but they fail to see that my love runs deeper and stronger. With everything that I am, I swear I will keep you and Henry and even your insipid mother and idiot father safe." Regina made her vow, and Emma chuckled at the description of her parents. They grew on Regina; she sensed it.

"And I'll be right there at your side, keeping the same promise," Emma whispered and pulled back enough to press a kiss to Regina's mouth.

Together, they shouldered the responsibility of savior, if not of their people then of each other, and Emma couldn't have loved the dark woman more if she tried.