A/N – I'm back! To everyone asking, I had a lovely time and now have a lovely tan, which is always nice. It was also so nice to come back to all your lovely reviews and messages! Once again, huge love to all of you, you are absolutely incredible.

However, I am running out of time at the library so I won't be able to post on AO3 until tomorrow. I will do it tomorrow though, promise!

(I'm also posting my entries for Swan Queen Week next Monday if anyone's interested!)

11. Honesty

"Mom, why don't you ever go on dates?"

Regina very nearly choked on her water. "Excuse me? Where is this coming from?"

Henry looked up at her across the dinner table, smiling unaffectedly. He was swinging his legs under the table and toying with the vegetables left on his plate, completely unfazed. "Well, Aunt Kathryn's always talking about when she and Frederick go on dates. And you've been divorced from Dad for months!"

"Yes, I have." Regina agreed. This was probably not a healthy response for a child to have to his parents divorcing. All the articles she'd read online said that children of divorce often acted as a go-between, or wanted their parents to get back together. Absolutely nowhere had she read that they would pressure them into dating other people. "But Kathryn and I are different people."

"Yeah," Henry agreed enthusiastically, cutting up his vegetables. "You're prettier than she is."

"Henry!" Regina, for the second time, nearly spat out her water. She took a moment to compose herself before looking her son firmly in the eye. "Firstly, we don't compare women's looks like that. And secondly, that's not got anything to do with it. Dating is complicated." She paused. "So don't you ever grow up and do it."

"Okay," Henry picked at his plate dejectedly for all of a second before lifting his head back to look at his mother again. He was still swinging his legs under the table, but now his small face was screwed up in dissatisfied confusion. "But why is it complicated?"

Regina sighed. "Henry."

Henry sighed. "Mom." He was using her exact tone of voice.

For all his nine-year-old dignity, Regina managed to suppress her laugh. She breathed in. Once more, she composed herself. "It's complicated because I was with your father for a very long time." She explained. "And when you're with one person for that long, you get so used to them that being with other people takes time to adjust to." She breathed out, turning her gaze back down to her fork. "Not to mention there's nobody that likes me way."

"But why?" Henry asked again, a hint of a whine creeping into his voice.

"Because," Regina told him firmly, trying not laugh at herself, sitting eating dinner in a small town in Maine and discussing her relationship prospects with her nine-year-old son. "There's just not, okay? And I can see you hiding your peas under that piece of lettuce."

It wasn't until later, as she was closing Henry's bedroom door behind her after his nightly story, that she remembered that flicker of something that had crossed Emma's face just before she snapped the other night, the way she had looked almost afraid before she had pulled back and started shouting.

Regina pulled her silk robe tighter around herself as she crossed the landing, pushing into her own bedroom thinking about walls and defences and green eyes meeting hers over a cold slice of pie. There's just not, okay?

She felt a frown appear between her eyebrows as she sat down on her bed and began to wonder if that was still true.

-0-

As one of Storybrooke's infamous heavy winter rainfalls pounded against the walls and windows of her annex, Emma sat and finally plugged herself into one of the audiobooks her mom had bought her after the accident.

She'd been meaning to for a while, if only to make Mary Margaret happy, and reading on a rainy day seemed enough like something normal to make Regina happy. Look at me making an effort for them, Emma thought, while the overly-enthusiastic voice reader rambled on in her ears. It's like I'm growing. She closed her eyes and tried to lose herself in the story like she would have before.

It had been a good day. It had been a good week, if she was being totally honest – ever since their trip to the museum, when Henry had grinned and rambled and pushed her out to the car like it was the most normal thing in the world, things hadn't been... So bad, as they were before. It was weird.

She and Regina had had a brief conversation when she first came in this morning, but there was a lot for the brunette to do, so they'd quickly slipped into their usual companionable co-existence. Regina seemed distracted today anyway – like she'd fallen more inside herself than usual. Which was fair enough. The world didn't give her enough credit, Emma thought, for what she was dealing with.

It wasn't until later, when the sky outside the rain-streaked window had turned the colour of lilacs and Emma had finished the latest chapter of whatever terrible spy drama she was listening to, that they really talked.

"So what are you listening to?" Regina asked absently, from across the room, where she was standing organising Emma's medication. Alphabetically, apparently. This woman, honestly.

"Some crappy Bourne knockoff," Emma admitted. "My mom got me a bunch of these things last year." She paused, squinting in the light from the window. "It's, like, really bad."

Emma was sitting against the wall on her bed, and though she could only see the back of Regina's head across the room, she swore she was smiling. Maybe that was stupid. Whatever. Regina turned around to dispose of an empty pillbox. "How bad?"

"So bad even the weird breathy old lady voice reading it can't make it funny." Emma told her. "She's even worse than the guy who thought he was auditioning for a Shakespeare play reading the last one."

"You want me to read?" Regina asked, eyebrows raised. She was leaning back against the cabinet now, head cocked. Apparently she'd finished sifting through the pills.

"Oh, no, you don't have to do that." Emma hastily assured her.

"Really, Swan." She flashed a smile. "It's my job."

Emma was going to say thank you, but that kind of seemed redundant after her last statement, so she just glanced down at her lap and said, "Okay." She paused, watching Regina look back at her. "The actual paper books are with the rest of the tapes in the box."

"Right," Regina moved over to the Amazon box the set was still sitting in, frowning into it. "Which one were you listening to?"

Embarrassment flooded through her. "It's Shafter Legacy Reborn."

Her eyes were glued to Regina as the brunette rummaged through the box, peering at titles with her hair falling around her face in the pale evening sunlight, until she held up the paperback she was looking for. "Found it." Regina smoothed down her hair, going to pull up a chair by the window.

"You don't have to sit halfway across the room," Emma told her suddenly. She motioned with her head to the spot next to her. "Come on. Sit. I'd be patting this side of the bed if I could."

"Okay," Regina allowed warily. "If you're sure." Emma glanced up as the brunette carefully sat down beside her on the covers, feeling the mattress shift with the new weight. She watched Regina shift, sitting back against the wall and opening the book. "What chapter are we on?"

"Um, twelve."

"Right," Regina's eyes scanned the book as her manicured fingers flipped fastidiously through the pages. "Got it. Top of the page?"

"Top of the page," Emma confirmed.

"Agent Shafter looked up from his newspaper at the sound of the hotel door opening. Though he knew who was seeking him, his instincts still told him to reach for his gun..." Regina began.

Emma couldn't help watching her as she read. Her brown eyes moved over the page quickly while she spoke, and her low voice was clear and precise, the kind of voice that belonged in an old movie. In the sunlight, her dark hair shone over her shoulders.

Every time the author used a particularly fifth-grade metaphor or wasted another scene on Shafter's man pain, Regina would break her monologue to make an unimpressed noise in the back of her throat, or some comment under her breath. Reading with Regina occasionally muttering that's original or I think someone needs to brush up on their equality was a hell of a lot better than regular reading.

She was sitting close enough that Emma could look over and see the words on the page as she read them, and it was almost like she was reading like a normal person, which was nice.

It was nice until the love scene started, at least.

"Shafter stared into her eyes." Regina read. Her voice was steady and clear but Emma could hear the hint of derision in her voice. "He couldn't remember feeling such a strong pull to anyone before. There was something about her; the way her dark eyes looked at him through the hot Mexican night, the way her body moved." Regina broke off suddenly, narrowing her eyes at the book. "As a Latina woman I'm not entirely sure I'm happy with how I'm being represented here."

Emma snorted.

"Maria kept on looking at him. He wished he knew what she was thinking. He'd studied a dozen languages, seduced a dozen woman – why am I not surprised – but this was different and they both knew it. They lunged together at the same time, the spy and his informant. Her nails dug into the back of his neck while they kissed, all open mouths and sweat. Shafter decided, just as Maria's tongue passed his lips, he didn't care whose side she was on. Tonight, there would be no sides. And he was glad –"

"Jesus." Emma muttered under her breath.

"What's wrong?" Regina dropped her reading voice, tone going back to normal as she turned to her, actual concern in her eyes despite the cocked eyebrow. "Not a fan of drippy love scenes?"

Emma shook her head, wincing slightly as if she had a headache. Sighing, she raised her eyebrows. "I think all that stuff just gets to me sometimes."

"Why's that?" Regina asked, voice soft and inquisitive but not prying, or making fun. Emma glanced sideways at her, looking at her tilted head, the book resting in her slender hands.

"Because," Emma shook her head. "It's like a weird reminder that stuff exits for some people. Hell, it used to exist for me. I was a drippy teenager once, writing crappy poetry about some girl I liked and now it's like..." She paused. "I don't know. It's like that's a part of a whole different world."

"Emma," Regina said her name like it was the start of a laugh. And then there was a gentle hand resting lightly on her forearm and her heart was racing and she would have given anything to be able to touch her back. Emma swallowed. She could feel Regina trying to catch her gaze. "You know your disability doesn't inhibit your romantic life, right?"

Emma did actually laugh then. "Yeah right."

"Emma," Regina said incredulously. "You can't honestly mean that."

Emma shrugged her shoulders self-consciously and pointedly avoided the brunette's stare, focusing on the empty black screen of the TV on the opposite wall. Her mouth was suddenly very dry. "'Course I do." She said. "I don't have baggage, I am baggage." She paused. "Nobody looks at a wheelchair and wants to sit opposite it on a date."

It was true. And she didn't really feel bad about it, not anymore. It was just another fact of life. Something she'd had to grow up and accept because frankly, life hadn't exactly given her another option.

"That's not true." Regina told her. Emma breathed in slowly and summoned the courage to turn her head and look at her. The brunette had closed the book now; she was almost smiling but her eyes were sincere. "Fine, you can't walk or make your own toast in the morning. You might not be able to do a push up or hold a baby. But nothing and none of that limits your ability to love and be loved."

Emma's stare dropped to her lips for a moment. She could feel tears building behind her eyes, for some reason. "I just don't..." She frowned, shrugging again. "The circumstances aren't right."

"When are they ever?" Regina laughed incredulously, softly. Emma wanted to bottle the sound and save it for a rainy day. "Emma. Love is never simple. It's never easy. That wouldn't do anyone any good."

"What would you know?" Emma asked, almost smiling, not quite. "Miss Classy Shiny-Haired Able-Bodied Adult?"

"More than you'd think." Regina told her. "I'm a divorced thirtysomething mother, I don't exactly have people lining up around the block."

"Okay, but you have to see why I have trouble believing that," Emma muttered, but it was good-naturedly.

Regina's stare didn't waver. "And why would that be?"

"Because you're beautiful."

Regina stared at her. Her brown eyes were wide and shining, her lips were parted. She looked taken aback. She looked a little bit happy. Emma honestly couldn't fathom how she didn't see it. Regina blinked, and breathed in. "Regardless, I don't think –"

"Come on, Regina. You can't seriously have relationship trouble." Emma's gaze met hers. Her voice was soft and gentle. "Look at you."

Regina raised an eyebrow slightly, smiling mirthlessly. "Miss Swan –"

"I'm not just talking about the way you look." Emma said suddenly, quickly. She was scared if she didn't say all this now she never would. "I mean, you are gorgeous, and I'm sure you get that a lot but – you're smart, and you've got this awesome dry kind of humour, you're a great mother, you are kind, don't say you're not, and I just –" She faded of, lips curved into a small bittersweet smile, green eyes honest. "Who wouldn't want you?"

"I –" Regina faltered. For the first time since they'd met, she looked genuinely unsure. "You're very kind."

Emma's gaze sought hers, holding it gently. "I think we both know that's not true."

Regina stared. She stared deeper, searching Emma's unyielding green eyes for some kind of confirmation or denial. Could she – is she – Regina closed her mouth, swallowed. Heat was flushing delicately over her cheeks.

Heart thumping, she blinked and tried to shake away the feeling that was gripping her from inside out. Emma held her gaze, too afraid to look away.

"Regardless." Regina made herself say, voice forced and polite. "You're not alone."

She left not long after, questions from the previous night all but confirmed in her beating heart.