Chapter summary: Month 7. Emma and Regina have developed quick and easy familiarity, which includes Regina chastising Emma for missing dinner, talking about baby names, and working out sore spots, both in Emma's body, and their history, with care and attention.
Chapter 7: Familiarity
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Emma stood, pressing her hands, fingers laced together, outward toward the ceiling. Bringing them down after feeling several vertebrae shift, she rolled her knuckles into the tight pain-filled muscles at the small of her back. She interrupted her groan of relief with a surprised gasp when she felt other hands push aside her own, delivering an intense massage to the tight muscles.
"Better?" Regina watched Emma's face closely while she let her thumbs and knuckles push through to the deeper muscle layers to relieve the blonde's tension.
She smiled when Emma's gasp became a happy sigh. Over the last few weeks she was beginning to feel quite accomplished in the way she had begun to accurately interpret the various sounds. Who knew her attention to detail could be quite so useful?
"Why are you still here?" she asked, looking around the empty sheriff's station. Outside the sun was quickly heading for the horizon.
"There were just a few more reports."
Emma's lower lip rolled between her teeth; Regina knew then that she could let up on her massage. The blonde leaned forward, away from her touch, resting her forehead on her forearms against the wall.
"I fed Henry." Regina pointed to a small container she had put down by the doorway when she had seen Emma's distress. "Brought you a wrap."
Emma looked at the food. Her throat moved spasmodically and her eyes squeezed tightly shut. She shook her head.
"You waited too long to eat," Regina realized. "All right. I'll get some water." She left the office before Emma could protest. When she returned with a paper cup from the office filtered water dispenser, Regina saw Emma had lowered herself into an armless deputy's chair. She was reflexively swallowing down an urge to throw up while rubbing her temples.
"Here." Regina crouched at Emma's knee, looking up and watching closely as the blonde sipped at the water.
"Not gonna be sick," Emma protested.
"Certainly looked like it to me," Regina said. "You know you have to eat something every couple of hours."
"I know. I know." Emma closed her eyes and took a longer sip from the paper cup, finally crumpling it in her fist. She rested her hands with the cup, atop her very pregnant belly.
Regina looked at the pale green top then blinked and refocused. The wrinkles rippled. As though magnetically drawn to it, Regina's hand settled on the right side abdominal muscles where she had seen the ripple.
She felt it happen again.
The muscle under her fingertips was suddenly steel-hard. Emma's face scrunched and her hand joined Regina's.
"Has this happened before?" Regina asked.
"A couple times earlier today," Emma admitted. She winced following her words and Regina saw the motion happen again.
Though this time both of them felt the muscle jolt at the end of the squeezing.
"Oh, god, kidlet, please no rib-kicking," Emma pleaded. Her head rolled back on her neck and both hands began rubbing at the spot while Regina couldn't decide which was more important to watch, Emma's face or her stomach.
"Perhaps," Regina suggested, to take Emma's mind off the discomfort. "Your child is overtired and hungry like her mother."
"Her?" Both Emma and Regina jumped as the singular word was met with a decidedly strong kick. Though, Regina was uncertain; it might have been a hand and not a foot.
"Perhaps she is objecting to your nickname choice?" Regina suggested.
"I don't know if it's a he or a she," Emma protested. "That's why I use it."
Both their fingers rubbed at the same spot. Regina rolled her fingers outward, searching for the edge of the muscle fibers, as she had learned, to ease Emma's pain.
"My mom dropped off a baby names book today," Emma said quietly after a minute of their intensive work to lower her pain.
"And you have been stressing over the names she circled - or did she list them inside the front cover?" Regina continued to focus on slowly circling on the muscles with her fingers while Emma inhaled and exhaled with carefully regulated breaths.
Emma nodded to confirm Regina's guess and rolled the heels of her palms into her eyes.
"Headache?" Regina asked. When Emma nodded again, starting to push to her feet, Regina added, "I'll get you home."
"It's a class night," Emma reminded tiredly.
"We will practice at home," Regina said firmly.
"I think I'm supposed to attend all the classes, or I won't graduate."
"Now you're worried about graduating something?" Regina said with exasperation. "We will have Chester reschedule with us in the morning. You are in need of rest and food."
Emma lowered her hands from her temples. "Man, are you testy when I'm hungry."
Blinking in surprise, Regina thought back over her words. "I… am used to making decisions quickly."
"Relax, Regina. You sold me. Chester will be happy to reschedule. You're probably the best student he's ever had."
"He has only had a dozen since the curse was broken," Regina said. But she could not deny the praise made her feel good.
Emma laughed. "True." She met Regina at the doorway and took the food container. "I'll eat while you drive."
"Where?"
"Home. I need sleep."
"And food." Regina held the door, watching the blonde's feet - Emma could no longer see them herself - as they navigated the hallway and then shifted her weight to lower herself off the curb and into the passenger seat of the Benz.
Regina answered her cell phone as she was moving around to the driver side. She smiled, seeing Henry's name. "Hello, sweetheart."
"You got Ma?"
"Yes, I just put her in the car. We're on our way home."
"Don't you have that labor class?"
"We'll reschedule. Emma forgot to eat," she said, adding a reproving look toward Emma as she started the car's engine. "She needs to sleep as well."
"OK. Anything you need me to do?"
Pulling away from the curb, Regina said, "Finish your homework. We'll be there shortly."
"'Kay. I love you."
"I love you too, Henry." She set the phone down in the center console in order to concentrate on driving.
"Henry?" Emma asked.
"Of course." At the stop sign, Regina looked over to see Emma looking down at her belly, rubbing the very round surface with a distracted smile. A flutter of pleasure erupted in Regina's stomach at the sight. Dare she call it pride?
Emma rolled over slowly, moving her thighs away from each other, groaning as she felt the wetness between them. She exhaled and inhaled slow and deep to slow her heart rate. She frowned as she smelled the sex in the air and pushed the large pillow out from between her breasts. She bit her lip, looking around the darkness, for a moment not sure where she was.
Seeing the familiar plain trappings of her apartment bedroom, she marginally relaxed. A glance toward the door found the lights in the hallway beyond were out. She pressed her lips together and tried to listen for sounds in the rest of the apartment. When she heard nothing, she felt a shiver go through her body in complete relief and pushed herself out of the bed, crawling backward off the mattress until her belly stopped being supported. The ache from the evening before was a mere twinge. Regina's magic hands, Emma thought with no little irony. The woman had not used one single finger twitch of actual magic. She was simply a gifted masseuse.
It always started a little awkward for Emma, stripped to a t-shirt and boy shorts. She was usually curled to one side these days, her belly being an impediment, and she wondered how Regina was ever going to find that knot, the one that would ping and ping like some submarine sonar in Emma's low back. But then Emma would become so relaxed as Regina worked and talked Emma through breathing practice, sleep invariably became inevitable.
She noticed Henry's bedroom door still closed and turned toward the kitchen. Rounding the corner she reached for the light, but drew up before touching the switch.
Just beyond the kitchen counter Emma could see into the living room to the sofa in front of the television. Regina slept with her head on one end pillow and her bare feet tucked up at the other end. The woman's eyes were closed, chest expanding and contracting peacefully, barely restrained by the same plain white blouse she'd worn the night before under a vest, which had been discarded to the sofa arm. Dark hair hid much of Regina's hands tucked under her head.
Thinking of Regina's hands brought the throbbing back to Emma's center. She backed slowly out of the kitchen, hesitating in the doorway, not sure whether to return to her room or approach Regina in the living room.
A quick glance back into the kitchen found the dishes washed, food put away, and counters spotless. She shook her head. Regina took care of everything.
So easily; so effortlessly. Emma sighed, aware that her dreams were only the latest symptom. I am falling in love with Regina Mills.
"Emma?" Turning around, she saw Regina had pushed herself up and now sat in the middle of the sofa, running her fingers through tousled hair as she sorted herself mentally.
"Hey."
"Did you need something?"
Emma quickly shook her head. "What are you doing here?"
"It's a school day. I thought I'd drive Henry then we could go for the makeup class. I called Chester last night, after you went to bed."
"Oh." Emma nodded.
Regina stood. Emma took a step back. "Is something the matter, dear?"
"Just slow waking up," Emma fibbed.
"You definitely needed the rest," Regina agreed. "Why don't you bathe while I get Henry ready? We'll all have breakfast before we go."
Regina flipped on the light to the kitchen. Her body was a breath away from Emma, who found she could only stare at Regina, her blood rushing in her ears.
"Thanks," Emma murmured.
Regina's smile set off a flurry of butterflies in Emma's chest. Feeling her cheeks heat, she backed up quickly, running to the bathroom to hide.
"Now, hopefully, you've been practicing your breathing," Chester said.
The Lamaze instructor was looking down at Regina and Emma from over the back of a chair he had straddled. There was no need for him to walk around today. After all, they were his only students in the room.
"This woman's a taskmaster, I tell you."
Regina turned her head to see Emma smiling crookedly at her. She looked away from the light green eyes down to the bare shoulder almost tucked into her own chest. She sat - they both did - on the floor pads, her left knee against Emma's back. After coming to her first class in heels and pantsuit and discovering the impracticality of it as they spent their time on the floor, Regina always made sure to wear more flexible attire. Like Emma, she now wore a tank top and sweat pants.
"I simply determined that the more you practice, the more prepared you'll be."
"You'll both be," Chester emphasized. "It has to be second nature. For both of you. Emma's going to be so caught up in what her body is screaming, she'll forget -"
"Like she forgot to eat yesterday?" Regina let her reproving comment become softened by a higher lift at the end of the question.
As she had wanted to happen, instead of being offended or angry, Emma just dropped her head against Regina's collarbone and groaned. "You don't have to blab to everybody."
"Chester is not everybody, dear. He's the instructor. You should always be honest with the teacher when you haven't done your homework."
"But we did, last night, after I ate."
"And almost threw up from the strain," Regina reminded her.
"That is the reason you're not supposed to eat much the day you deliver," Chester pointed out. "So, you guys ready?" he asked.
Regina heard Emma's murmur of assent and saw her roll her shoulder. Reaching for the muscle, Regina laid her palm against it and rubbed in small circles. The murmur shifted to a hum of happiness.
Regina looked up from Emma to see Chester watching them. "What are we doing today?"
"Holding her back from pushing," he said.
"I thought pushing was the point?" Emma blurted.
"Sometimes it isn't the right moment to push. You don't want to be doing it when the doctor's listening for distress or if something's wrong and he needs to adjust the baby's position. The urge will be there, but it's not a good time."
"So how the hell do I stop it?" Emma asked. Regina heard a flutter of panic and felt it as well in the shaking of Emma's shoulder against her chest.
"You," he answered and pointed at Regina, "have to make her think of something else. So you talk."
"What should I say?"
Chester smiled and reached out, placing his hand on Emma's leg. "Tighten this muscle for me," he told her.
Regina watched as he nodded to Emma to begin. "Hold it," he said finally though he didn't remove his hand. "Now you. Regina, the doctor's said she's not dilated fully. She has to stop pushing, loosen the muscles."
"So I tell her."
Chester shook his head. "Emma's covered in sweat. She's had a backache all day. She hasn't eaten since last night. She's tired. And she's crying."
Regina tried to think. She'd so seldom seen Emma cry. What...? She started to think about Neverland. Chester's voice interrupted her thoughts. "Keep it tight, Emma. Focus. Regina's got this." After a moment he added, "Better."
"I have my job and you have yours," she said almost without thinking about it. "Just like we are with Henry."
Emma stared at her. "We share everything about Henry," she said earnestly.
"You are still the more lenient parent while I am strict."
"If this is about me letting him have -"
"It's not. I am not admonishing -"
"Sure sounds like it," Emma groused, dropping her head.
"Brilliant." Chester interrupted Regina's brushing of Emma's fallen hair from her face as she prepared to say something.
"What?" Regina looked at Emma after they both had blurted the same thing, with the same indignation.
"You distracted her."
"She argued with me," Emma pointed out.
"Regina never raised her voice. And you never tensed further." Regina watched Chester pat Emma's leg. She had an irrational thought of making him remove his hand. Mine. She blinked. My job, she had meant to think 'my job'. Right?
"So she's supposed to start a fight with me to distract me from labor? How is that calming?"
"No, she's going to talk to you. Give you other things to think about, to focus on, when you need to make your body rest."
Chester looked at Regina.
"You know her pretty well. What topics do you talk about?"
"Henry. Our son."
"So you guys already have another child. This should be easy."
"I was not present when Emma gave birth to Henry."
Chester looked at Emma. "She wasn't? Why not?"
"I was in jail. I -"
Regina rubbed Emma's shoulder, heading off the memories she could see entering Emma's face. "We didn't know of each other then. I adopted Henry."
Emma yelped. Regina glared at Chester when she identified that he had squeezed Emma's leg sharply. "Let her go." He shook his head, but he was smiling.
"Keep going." Chester spoke to Regina. "Look at her. Why didn't you know her then?"
"Likely she would have been Emma Mills instead of Emma Swan," Regina said without thinking.
"Regina?"
"Had my soldiers found you, you would have remained in Storybrooke."
"What about the savior thing? Wouldn't they have…" Emma winced. "…wouldn't you have just…" She grasped Regina's thigh, digging in with her fingernails. "...killed me?"
Regina wrapped her hand around Emma's and loosened the grip, soothing the muscles. "Perhaps. I was determined to have my victory. But…" She looked at Emma's face, seeing a little sweat had broken out on her forehead. She brushed it away. "Perhaps I would have taken you with me. You would have been my daughter, instead of Snow's."
"What the fuck?" Emma yelped. "Damn it, that hurt!"
Regina blinked. "What?"
"He jammed something into my hip."
"I've been poking you pretty steadily." He lifted a capped ballpoint pen. "You ladies got this thing in the bag. You don't need to get so deep though. Keep it light. Talk about who will go to the kid's ball practices, or who left the last dirty dishes in the sink. Have you decided on names yet?"
"My mother left me a name book. She circled 'Adeline' if you can believe that," Emma said, looking up at Regina.
"I'm surprised she didn't suggest Eva."
"You know you're having a girl?"
"No, I don't know the sex yet. So… You angling to have the kid named after you, Chester?" Emma raised an eyebrow at their instructor.
"How'd you choose Henry?" he asked.
"It's my father's name," Regina said.
"How about naming this one after your father," he directed to Emma.
"Would that be James, David...or Charming?" Emma laughed.
Regina smirked. "Or one of the dwarfs?"
"Thank god for Storybrooke names," Emma said. Regina grinned, feeling like Emma was offering her a compliment. The smile the blonde showed her seemed to suggest as much.
"Well, you guys keep practicing. Emma, you work your way through the muscle tensioning exercises we covered that first class. Regina, keep your hands on each muscle and talk her out of each."
Regina felt a squeeze on her hand and looked down to see Emma's hand wrapped around her fingers.
"I think we can do that," Emma said. "C'mon. I'm hungry."
Standing quickly, Regina pulled Emma carefully to her feet, making sure she didn't pull unevenly as Emma settled her own balance with the guidance.
"See you Thursday night, ladies."
Regina guided Emma through the door with a hand on her low back. "Thursday night," she confirmed, looking back to see the instructor smiling. She smiled in return, only noticing when she passed a mirror on the wall. She tried to pull a more neutral expression only to feel it failing. Am I actually happy?
"I'm gonna need something major," Emma groused. Regina looked at Emma only to see the back of her head. Her gaze drifted down the soft curls until she noticed a tangle. With a light touch, a couple of twists, she worked out the knot and stroked her fingers through the soft ends.
"We can take a basket to the lake. We ought to walk a bit after all that sitting."
Emma stopped at the door leading from the hospital. "Are you serious?"
"Yes. I'll even allow it to be takeout from Granny's." Regina pushed open the door and held it for Emma to pass through.
She felt a need to get to the lake quickly. She could already imagine watching the sun touching Emma's hair and making it even more golden.
Her gaze drifted to her fingers then. She had reached for Emma's shoulder, but her fingers were sifting again through the ends of Emma's hair. The words burst out of her. "I wouldn't have wanted you to be my daughter."
"What would you have wanted me to be?"
Regina's brow furrowed. "You." Emma Swan. She thought of all the different things that name had come to mean. Her own memory potion broken by the discovery that the woman standing before her so awkwardly was Henry's birth-mother. The Savior. Emma… who saved Regina from a mob, from a wraith, from a portal back to the Enchanted Forest. Emma… her cohort in saving Henry. The woman who was frustratingly afraid of her own beautiful magic. The woman who wanted Regina to have a relationship with Henry even when he had no idea who she was. The woman who now shared the memories of raising their son. Emma, the woman I… Regina's blood rushed in her ears.
She found Emma staring at her oddly. "You okay?" the blonde asked.
"I? Yes, yes, I'm fine."
"Good, because there is no way I'm getting behind the wheel of your car in this condition."
"As if I would let you."
Emma chuckled.
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