[Disclaimer] I don't own anything OUAT

[A/N] Thanks to those of you who reviewed. I love getting your feedback. Big hugs.

Please check out my new Swanqueen one-shot Magic Apple when you enjoy reading smut and fluff.

Happy Birthday, Schatzi!

Chapter 10

Emma put the key back into the ignition again to drive off. What was she thinking to come here? It was a stupid idea.

Her plan hadn't seemed stupid to Emma at all during the thirty minute drive out to the suburb where Regina lived.

It was a posh area with big mansions standing next to each other. Emma had never seen so many expensive European cars parked in a single street.

Finally, after making the engine of the car roar to life again and killing it abruptly she stepped out of the beetle.

She would get in trouble for this and she knew it. Emma touched her bare wrist. She had stuffed the bracelet with the microphone into her locker at school. Now, these morons from the FBI wouldn't notice that she had sneaked away. She just had to make sure to get back home on time so they wouldn't suspect anything. Emma didn't want to risk ending up with Nolan driving her to school again.

Emma's heart started beating faster with every step she made towards the door of Regina's hands were sweaty. She wiped them at the sides of her jeans and pressed the doorbell.

"Miss Swan, what are you doing here?"

Regina had opened the door dressed with a top and the only pair of khaki colored yoga pants she owned. She was covered in sweat after a long run on her treadmill. Running usually helped her to release physical and mental tensions.

"Can I talk to you please? It's important."

Emma tried not to stare at the glistening naked skin above the rim of Regina's tight shirt. Her chest was heaving as if she was short of breath. Damn it. Was Regina not wearing a bra underneath? Emma noticed the outlines of a nipple against the fabric of the top.

Fuck.

"Miss Swan, what are you doing here? You are supposed to be at school!"

Regina wiped her forehead on the towel around her shoulders. She looked like crap. This was not how she normally let anyone see her. Without being dressed appropriately she felt naked somehow.

"Please. It's important."

Emma forced herself to look at Regina's face, not her chest. It was making her too nervous. Deep down lower in her belly she was tingling. The feeling was familiar to Emma, yet she hadn't experienced it in such a long time that it felt strangely odd to her.

"Come inside. I don't need the neighbors seeing you here."

Regina guided Emma inside her living room. Her mouth was dry so she gulped down the content of two glasses of water before taking the time to ask Emma if she wanted a drink for herself as well.

"No, thanks." Emma whispered.

She felt out of place. Regina's house didn't look as if someone was living here. It was exquisite like a fancy hotel. The furniture was polished, the decorations expensive looking but there was no personal warmth added. Emma noticed that there wasn't a single picture on the walls.

"You shouldn't be here, Miss Swan. Do you know that?"

Emma nodded.

"It's important. I had to talk to you about something before you come back to school tomorrow."

Regina leaned back against the leather of her couch. It was so strange having Emma here. None of her students had ever been inside her house before. She shouldn't have made an exception for Emma either.

"You could have waited until tomorrow and talked to me at school instead of ditching classes."

Regina straightened her back and sighed.

"Behavior like this will have consequences. You can prepare yourself for having detention until the end of the week."

Emma shrugged her shoulders. After all what was detention? It only meant spending a couple of hours sitting around in Regina's office? Then, she realized that it would mean spending time alone with Regina. Suddenly the punishment seemed more like a reward to Emma.

She smiled.

Regina noticed it but didn't understand why the girl was smiling. Had the idiots in her class dared her to come to her house?

"What is it you needed to talk about?"

"I am here to ask you not to fire Anna's sister."

"Elsa? Why would the school fire her? You kids need to stop listening to gossip."

Regina clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth as she spoke. Was Emma having a crush on Elsa? She knew that several of the younger girls hung on every word that was coming out of Arendelle's mouth.

"So, you are not going to fire her? It's her first job you know. It would make her look like crap."

"Watch your language, Miss Swan. I can assure you, I don't plan on firing Ms. Arendelle. I have no reason to do so."

Regina remembered her mother's earlier visit and the odd comment that Cora had made about her going to need a new teacher to replace Elsa. What was going on here?

"Why do you think I would fire her?"

"Your sister threatened to have her being fired because she thinks that she's a bad influence. Why is she a bad influence? She looks like a little nerdy mouse to me."

Regina's mouth twitched. So Zelena was involved into this? Her sister should know that she had zero say in what teachers were being hired or fired. That responsibility was left to her, the headmistress alone. Well, her and the school board.

They liked to believe that their word was the last in anything concerning Storybrooke high school. Why would Zelena want to get Elsa fired anyway? The two of them barely spoke a word with each other during school conferences. Or was this about Elsa's ongoing relationship with Belle French?

Zelena didn't give a crap about who was screwing who, but she was always eager to please their homophobic mother. Gosh, if Cora knew that her younger daughter was having trouble to fight her feelings for the blonde girl in front of her. It would surely make Regina's mother die from shame the very moment.

"Why should I fire her? She is doing a really good job. Her class has the highest level in the whole school."

"See? She is a good teacher. I also think it will devastate Anna if you fire her sister."

"Are you and Anna Arendelle friends now? I have only seen you hang out with Wolfe between classes."

"Anna and I are not exactly friends. But I know how it is like…when you don't have parents to rely on. Her sister is all she has and Anna looks up to Elsa."

"My own sister and I have never been close. Not when we were kids and neither as adults. You are an only child, aren't you? Lucky you."

"I had 26 siblings while growing up. One of the many benefits of being raised in foster homes, you know?"

"What's with your birth parents?"

Emma crossed her arms in front of her chest. It had been very long since someone had asked her about the woman who had given birth to her.

"I don't care. Why would I waste time finding someone who left me in a fucking plastic bag behind a supermarket parking lot? I don't need any parents. Never have."

Regina cleared her throat.

"I am sorry to hear about this. It must have been hard for you to find that out."

"You are not going to say she must have had her reasons? Usually that's what people do."

"I don't think her reasons whatever they'd been matter. All that matters now is that you try making something better out of your life than she has. If you'll have a kid, don't abandon it behind Walmart like trash."

Emma sipped on her water and looked around in the room. Why would a single person need so much space? She hadn't even had a proper bed for several years now and spent her nights on a pull-out couch so that Henry would have his own room in their small apartment.

How was she supposed to make something better out of her life? The way things were now, was as good as it was going to get.

"Your house is nice."

"Thanks. It was part of my inheritance from my father."

"I am sorry for your loss. Were you close to him?"

Regina's upper lip trembled.

"I miss him every day. Heart attack, you know? That is what doctors get for working like horses."

"I am sorry he died. Your family must be very rich if he left you a house like this."

"Being rich can be a burden too."

"Yeah, must be a tough choice whether to cry in the limo or the Porsche."

Regina got up from the couch. She felt strangely odd. Nobody had made comments about her financial status in a way like this for so long. Yet, she could remember the way Danielle had called her a rich brat. She remembered how her mother had taught her no to be friends with people that were what Cora called below them.

Danielle hadn't been from a rich family. Unlike Regina she hadn't been sent to private schools and summer trips to Europe to learn fluent French and Italian. Still, Danielle had taught Regina more about life and love and what it meant than anyone else. Thinking about her lost first love hurt like an old scar that was still sensitive.

"You should go home now, Emma."

"Will you please consider not firing Elsa Arendelle?"

"Will you please consider taking your education more serious? No more ditching classes."

"I promise. I am sorry about the ditching."

"Well, you should be. School is important. Without a degree you end up scrubbing dried fat from the walls in some fast-food place or cleaning up dirt in worse places."

"I have worked there before. It is not that bad."

"Silly girl, working part-time to afford pricier clothes is not the same as actually supporting a family from jobs like that."

"Look, you have to say things like that because you're a teacher. But you don't know how life is really like."

Regina stepped closer to Emma. Without her heels on she was a bit shorter than the girl. Why was it that an eighteen year old kid could make her feel this way, so insecure deep down inside of the core of her very soul?

"You need to go now. Please, don't come back here. This is not appropriate. Please, don't ever do it again."

"Why? We're just talking."

"You're a student. I am your teacher. Teachers are not supposed to interact with students on a private occasion. It's inappriate."

"That sounds like you are using some weird old fashioned term for fucking each other. You and I are not doing it. I mean, it can't be forbidden to talk like adults."

"See, Emma. That's the problem You are not an adult. You are a high school girl with an old soul."

Regina felt like the muscles in her whole body were starting to spasm. This was wrong. She shouldn't let herself get so agitated over this.

"Good bye, Emma."

Emptiness washed over Regina when she closed the door behind Emma. She rushed to the window and watched the girl drive off in an ancient looking Volkswagen Beetle. The car hardly looked like a safe transportation vehicle.

"What are you doing to me, Emma?"

Regina pressed her face against the cold glass of the window. What was going on with her? She couldn't allow herself to get emotionally involved with a student. Things like this ended badly. They always did.

Regina took the empty glasses back to the kitchen. Her thumb touched the mark of lip balm at the rim of Emma's glass. How would it be like to have her mouth touch these pretty lips just one time? One time would never be enough.

You are one sick woman, Mills

Regina dropped the glass to the floor where it shattered in several pieces. She was mad. Why did she even let Emma inside the house? She should have told the girl to go away right in the doorway. Emma was trouble. One should know better than to let trouble get close to you.

Regina knew that she needed to get her fucked up emotions under control before something really bad was going to happen. She had no intention in ending up behind bars for making a move on a student.