Chapter Ten.
After a difficult nights sleep, Emma was shook awake by her son, who had decided to climb on top of the bed she shared with Regina to wake his mothers at the ungodly hour of 6am. Emma glanced over to find Regina still fast asleep and curled into a little ball by the side of her. The smile on Henry's face was something Emma couldn't overlook. In all the time she had known him, she had never seen him look so excited as she had done over the past few days.
"Wake her, Ma." Henry whispered as he hauled his overflowing stocking onto the bed. "Wake her!"
Emma sighed and wrapped her arms around Regina, making the woman flinch at the unexpected contact. "Good morning," Emma whispered as Regina's eyes fluttered open. "Merry Christmas, beautiful."
"Merry Christmas to you, too." Regina smiled and leaned towards Emma to give her a morning kiss, but was advised not to when she head her son clear his throat. "Good morning, Henry! Merry Christmas, sweetheart."
Emma hoisted herself up into a sitting position and held her arm out for Regina to snuggle up to her side to watch their son tear apart his neatly wrapped stocking. Regina had truly outdone herself with Henry's stocking fillers. She had bought him a new watch, some CDs, a couple of books and far too much candy, which Regina knew that Emma would end up eating anyway.
"Can we go downstairs now?" Henry asked as he finished unwrapping all of his little gifts. "Pretty please? If Santa Clause could make a stocking as cool as this one, then I can only imagine what's under the tree!"
"Of course, Henry, but I have to use the bathroom first," Regina said as she rubbed her eyes and pushed herself off the bed. "But i need you to pick up all of this wrapping paper first."
Henry nodded and waited for the bathroom door to close before pouncing on his birth mother. "Do it now!" He whispered, almost pushing Emma out of bed. "Operation Partridge in a Pear Tree is a go!"
She knew that this was the right time. Before Henry had mentioned it, she had been considering it, so Regina's quick bathroom break was the perfect excuse for her to dig out the box and prepare herself. Going over the top was never something Emma did, so having the simplicity of the three of them in their pyjamas and looking as though they hadn't slept a wink all night was something that would add another quirk to their relationship.
Romance and attempting to woo was never one of Emma's strong suits to begin with, so after watching several cheesy wedding proposals on the Internet, she decided to check out a few overly planned proposals and much preferred the cheesy, unexpected and completely unplanned way of doing things. If she was going to do it, then she was going to wing it.
Emma quickly pulled the box out from her secret hiding spot under the bed, pulled a brush through her golden waves and took a deep breath. Regina was taking her own sweet time in the bathroom and Emma's nerves began to rise. Her palms began to sweat, her heart began to race and she quickly began to feel dizzy from the butterflies in her stomach.
As Regina opened the bathroom door, Emma cleared her throat and began descending into a kneeling position, attempting to forget about all of the whirring feelings throughout her being. Regina slowly approached the kneeling blonde and lost the ability to control her dropping jaw. Neither of them spoke until Regina was stood directly in front of Emma.
"I didn't really know how to do this," Emma began, "but it just felt right when I had the idea, and I know how much you love Christmas clichés,"
"Emma..." Regina tried to interrupt when she realised what Emma was trying to do, even if the fact hadn't properly registered yet.
"There are so many ways in which I could have done this, but with all of the complications we've been through in our relationship, I thought that simplicity would be the only way to do this." Emma took another deep breath before looking up at the woman standing before her. "Regina Mills, you are the love of my life and the mother of my son, so I am down on one knee to ask you the biggest question I will ever ask in my whole entire life," She said as she opened the box to reveal the ring, "Will you marry me?"
Regina's jaw dropped even further in utter shock. She had hoped for her and Emma to get married one day, but never did she expect Emma to get down on one knee and actually propose without any suggestive hints. She didn't even expect that the blonde would be able to keep such a secret from her, but she had, and Regina was completely gobsmacked.
"Emma..." Regina stuttered and let her tears fill her eyes. Her mouth refused to form the 'yes', even though she wanted to scream it at the top of her lungs. Instead, rather than attempting to actually say the word, Regina covered her mouth and nodded as fast as she could, causing the tears to stream down her face.
The tears building in Emma's own eyes were now streaming down her face as she grinned at the woman who had just agreed to marry her. Before she could even register the fact that she had to put the ring on Regina's finger, she stood up, wrapped her arms around her fiancé's waist and pulled her into a deep, passionate kiss, completely forgetting that Henry was still in the room.
"Woohoo!" Henry shouted at the top of his lungs and began jumping for joy in his mothers' bed. The sound of their son in celebration made the couple laugh and pull away, leaving their foreheads touching and their eyes closed. "Ma, you've actually got to put the ring on her finger to make it official."
"That I do," Emma said as she opened her eyes to look into Regina's. Both brown and green eyes were still filled with tears of joy. "I love you, Regina, and I want you to know that you will always have my heart."
She pulled the ring out of the box and took Regina's left hand in her own to slide the ring onto her finger. The fit was perfect and obviously so was the ring because Regina burst into tears once again and threw her arms around Emma's neck to pull her into another kiss.
Regina's first engagement had been to Daniel, the man she had believed for so long to be her true love, but after his death and reappearance in Storybrooke, she realised that she was never truly in love with him, but she was really in love with the idea of having someone to love her. That was the moment where she actually began to realise that she was in love with Emma. It had taken her far too long to actually realise it, but when she had, it felt as though she had always been with Emma and always would be.
"Emma, it's perfect." She said as she marvelled in the ring on her finger, "I love you so much." Emma smiled at the brunette in her arms in relief. "Is this why you've been acting so weird lately? You were worried that I was going to say no, weren't you?"
"Maybe a little," Emma admitted and blushed at the thought.
"Emma Swan," Regina said in a demanding tone, "Do you really think that I would turn you down? Oh my gods, there were hints everywhere, weren't there? How could I have been so blind?"
"It'll be Swan-Mills soon, and yes, I was a little worried that you would say no." She cupped Regina's face in her hands and smiled. "I'm glad you were blind in all of this because otherwise it would have ruined Christmas."
"Swan-Mills?" Regina questioned with a raised eyebrow, "I agreed to marry you dear, not take your surname."
"Ah, but you never said that you didn't like it." Emma teased and pulled Regina closer.
"Yes dear, but I never said that I liked it either." Regina gave a sinister smile and quickly gave Emma a light kiss on her lips.
"This is really cute and everything, you guys, but seriously, I want to get down stairs now." Henry said as she jumped off the bed and hugged his mothers to hide the fact that he was attempting to push them out of the room.
"Henry Swan-Mills, you are just as impatient as your grandmother." Regina muttered with a raised eyebrow before turning to face Emma. "I could definitely get used to a double-barrelled surname."
Emma couldn't help but laugh at how fast Regina had caved at the idea of both keeping her surname and taking fiancé's too. By now, Emma had completely forgotten about the nerves and butterflies that she had been facing almost moments ago, but instead began to feel whole for the first time in her life. With her new fiancé gripping onto her waist as tight as possible and their son jumping around the room as happy as could be made Emma grin like an idiot. Not only had she been welcomed into her son's life, but she had also found the love of her life in under two years.