Regina was busy, as usual, but this time it was because she had to play head chef as Grant had been out sick with the flu for three days now. Normally it wouldn't be a big deal except another chef had called in sick and she had another on vacation, leaving her as the only one with the skills to lead the kitchen. It's not that she didn't find the rest of her staff fully capable, but the others had either shown no desire to move up the ranks as they were happy in their current roles or they weren't quite there yet in their development.

So for the past three days she had been in the kitchen and on top of having the health inspector there for their regularly scheduled inspection earlier, she was already tired.

She had spoken to Grant earlier that day and while he was sounding better she didn't figure he would be in for another couple of days.

She was not even supposed to be working nights this week as the 17-year-old girl who lived two floors down from them and who she paid to hang out at her place with Henry (she didn't dare call it babysitting) was out all week on some school trip. Katherine was out of town and her other back up was not available so she wrestled with what to do with Henry. She could have brought him to work with her but ever since the night that man had come into the kitchen and held her knifepoint – the night she met Emma – she had been hesitant to bring him here.

In the end she let Henry convince her to let him stay at home without an overseer. That isn't to say she wasn't checking in on him – as was Sydney who agreed to pop upstairs every hour or so and look in on him.

She still didn't like leaving him alone like that but her options were limited.

Thinking of the circumstances that made her wary about bringing him to her work, she had of course thought about Emma. Funny enough, she thought that if she and Emma were still friends she had no doubt Emma would have watched Henry if needed. Yet she hadn't heard from the other woman since she had tried to explain to her why she had reacted the way she had that night. It had been nearly a month since that had taken place and she hadn't heard from Emma and expected she would not be hearing from her.

She knew she was in the wrong with what happened and she could only hope that one day Emma could look back and not feel ill will toward her.

That is why she had gone to see Danielle – she had to face the woman and gain some closure of that part of her life. She had finally gotten an apology from her, although Danielle admitted she still struggled with the idea that someone could be attracted to men and women. There had been times over the years, Danielle said, that she had thought about reaching out to Regina to try and mend fences. When Regina asked her why she hadn't, Danielle said she just assumed it might be best to leave the past in the past and not bring up past hurts. After all they had both moved on.

The whole encounter felt odd to Regina only because she had thought in seeing Danielle again there might be some stirring of her old feelings, but there wasn't any. It was much like how she felt about Stephen – someone she used to love but no longer felt that affinity for.

She had tried not to think of Emma, but had failed constantly. When she first accepted Emma's dinner invitation that first time she truly had thought they could be friends. Yes, Emma would be unlike her other friends – she didn't come from the social circle as Regina, nor would she be friend from the business but that didn't matter to Regina. She could still picture Emma the first time she had seen her – the fierce determination in the other woman's eyes as she stared down the man who held a knife to her throat. The way she made sure Henry was safely out of the way.

Regina had honestly thought a friendship could work.

Then she found herself smiling every time she got a text from Emma or saw Emma and Henry interacting and she had tampered down those extra feelings she had begun to feel. No good could come from it, she had told herself.

In the end she hadn't been wrong exactly – except in the end it was she who was in the wrong.

Forcing thoughts of Emma from her head she began to get lost in her job.

By the end of the night Regina was exhausted and she knew that she would have at least one more night of this with Grant being sick. There was a reason why owners of restaurants weren't also the head chefs at their own places.

She had gotten a text from Henry to say he was going to bed about an hour earlier but she had a couple of things she needed to finish up before heading home. She escaped to her office as soon as she could and stopped immediately as she saw the vase of flowers on her desk. She hurried over and grabbed the card off of them, tearing into the envelope. When she saw it was merely flowers from her mother – a day early in honor of the anniversary of her opening her restaurant.

Regina had been so busy she had forgotten about it. Looking at the flowers now she realized she should have known they were from her mother – they were the kind of style her mom would choose (or at least one her secretary would have chosen). Definitely not what Emma would have picked out.

She scolded herself for being silly enough to believe the flowers would have been from Emma in the first place.

Looking at the card again she sighed, her mother apparently was coming to visit or so the 'See you soon' that was written there must indicate that she was. She loved her mother, but her mother had a way of making her feel not quite up to standards. And right now she wasn't sure it would be a good idea to have her mother visiting. She knew she would have to call her mother tomorrow and thank her for the flowers and get the details of how soon they would be seeing each other.

Her mom had essentially been living apart from her father for the past eight months – working on a major case on the West Coast. She had rented an apartment out there given the time investment she would be making. In those eight months, Regina had seen her mother just once. But she knew the case had ended a few weeks ago so it was only natural that her mother would be moving back. It wasn't as if she hadn't spoken to her mother in all that time either – sometimes Regina found it hard to get the woman off the phone when she would call.

She respected the work both of her parents did and she understood its importance, but neither was an avenue that Regina had ever wanted to go on. She always felt like that had hurt her mom more than it did her dad.

She settled down behind her desk to finish off her work although all she really wanted to do was go home, kiss Henry on the forehead and go to sleep.

….

Emma was on a roll. There was no other way to explain it. The past month had been really good for her business and her finances. While she was well-respected in her business circles for her sometimes uncanny ability to track people down, the last four weeks had been downright miraculous. She had returned more bounties in one month than the previous two combined – including one guy who had been on the run from the feds and the state.

She wasn't so foolish as to not contribute some of her good luck to the fact she had been putting in more hours as well. All she seemed to do was work and sleep lately. It was why she let Ruby drag her out on this random Thursday night for dinner. She was running a little behind, so Ruby was already waiting for her outside of the Chinese restaurant that Ruby had chosen. They went inside and got seated and ordered.

"You look tired," Ruby said.

"Thanks, you look great too," Emma replied.

"Are you sleeping at all?"

"Yeah," she said. "Just odd hours you know. Some days I'm sleeping regular at night, some days I go to bed at 3 a.m., sometimes 3 p.m. It's just catching up to me a bit."

"Please tell me you plan on going home after dinner to sleep and not out catching the bad guys?"

"No bad guys tonight unless I get a tip about something."

"Good. You need your beauty rest."

"Yes because I'm going on so many dates lately."

"Well you could always stop pining over Regina and go out with someone else as I'm positive you have options. You always have options. Or you could finally call Regina which is what I know you really want to do."

Emma had told Ruby about Regina a couple of days after Regina had made her tearful confession. At the time Ruby had asked her what she planned to do and she had responded she hadn't planned on doing anything. She was going to get on with her life and Regina could get on with hers. Moving on with life meant burying herself in work.

"I'm not going to call her," Emma said. It sounded hollow even in her own ears and from the doubtful expression she was getting from Ruby, her friend also didn't believe her. "There is no reason for me to call her," she added and then took a sip of her drink, hoping that Ruby would drop the subject.

"I am not saying you shouldn't still be upset with her," Ruby said. "But you really liked her. I mean you really, really liked her."

"I know," she said dejectedly. If she hadn't really like Regina she knew this wouldn't be hurting as bad as it was. She had a better understanding of why Regina had said what she said but it didn't mean she was happy about her saying it all. The problem was she was pretty sure she could get past that incident.

What she wasn't sure she could get past was her feelings for the other woman.

She would never have crossed that line – of that she was sure. She would never have hit on Regina as long as Regina had made it known she wasn't interested. Yet now Regina had admitted that there were some feelings there and Emma didn't know what to about that. She figured staying away was her best option.

When she allowed herself to think about the situation she wondered what would happen if she called Regina up.

"Earth to Emma," Ruby said.

Emma snapped out of it and saw the waiter had brought their food and she was effectively blocking him from putting the plate down in front of her. She apologized and made room for the plate, thanking him as she placed it down. At least now she could concentrate on eating, she thought as she grabbed her fork.

"So are you going to call her?"

Emma gave her an annoyed look.

"Sorry," Ruby said. "I will shut up and eat."

Emma took one bite and put her fork down.

"Is something wrong with the food?" Ruby asked.

"No," Emma shook her head. "It's fine. Look, it's not that I don't want to call her, I want to call her. I can admit that. It's been constantly in my thoughts. Here is the problem thought, let's say I call her up – what am I calling her up for?"

"What do you mean?"

"She and I were just friends before, so am I calling her to rebuild our friendship. Or since she has finally said out loud that she is bi, and that she has some feelings for me; am I calling her up not as a friend, but you know as like a date type person?"

"What do you want to call her up as?"

"It's not up to me," Emma replied. "She is clearly the one who has to set boundaries."

"Well that's bullshit," Ruby said. "If you want to ask her on a date ask her on a date. Since when did you shy away from stuff like that? If she rejects your date invite then decide if you want to say fuck it all and move on or if you think you can be friends with her."

Emma grabbed her fork once more and began eating. Maybe if she sustained the eating Ruby would drop the subject. Ruby too began to eat and then the conversation slowly turned to other things, much to Emma's relief. She needed to stop thinking about Regina she decided.

….

Regina walked into her building feeling insanely tired. Sydney was there to greet her.

"Good evening."

"Good night Sydney," she said, preparing to walk right by him.

"Um Regina …"

The way he said it made her stop.

"Is Henry ok?"

"Oh yes, he is fine. It's just that he isn't alone up there. Your mother is here, and of course she is on your list to be allowed up so Todd who was on duty earlier let her go up. I was dealing with another matter at the time and when I went to check on Henry there she was."

Great, Regina thought, she sends me flowers and then drops in for a surprise visit on a night where I left Henry home alone and am just now walking in smelling like I've been sweating over a stove all night.

"Thank you Sydney," she said and she made her way to the elevator. Even as she pushed the button to go up she wondered what lecture she would be getting.

Making it to her floor, she paused briefly outside of her own door trying to gather up the will to go in. Finally, she unlocked the door and entered and her mother was right there almost immediately.

"Goodness Regina you look positively ragged," Cora said.

"Hi mom," she said giving her smile that was all lip and no teeth. "I had to work in the kitchen today; I'm sure Henry told you all about it."

"Yes, yes he did," Cora said. "It's a good thing I decided to stop in with Henry here all by himself."

"I didn't have much choice," Regina said. "Besides Henry is getting to that age where he can be trusted to handle some things by himself. It wasn't as if I wasn't calling here every hour and didn't have Sydney checking up on him."

Cora didn't respond but Regina noticed she was continuously eyeing her like she wanted to say something.

"Well I put my stuff away in your guest room. I might as well stay for a couple of days or perhaps through the weekend. We have a lot to catch up on and I would like the chance to spend time with my daughter and grandson."

"That sounds great," Regina said. "I'm really tired as you can imagine so do you think we could postpone catching up until tomorrow."

"Of course, of course, you should definitely go straight to bed; you need your beauty rest. I will handle turning off all the lights and locking up."

"Thanks," she said giving her a hug and then going to her room. She sat on the edge of her bed to just have a few minutes of doing nothing before getting ready for bed. At least she wouldn't have to worry about leaving Henry home alone tomorrow night as her mother would watch him. Her parents doted on their only grandson every time they got the chance to see him and Henry loved his grandparents very much.

Her phone started to ring and she had to get it out of her purse to answer it – hoping her mother didn't hear it ringing or she was sure there would be some comment about it in the morning. She paused when she saw Emma's name come up.

She took a deep breath and answered. "Hello."

"Hi," Emma said. "Um, did I wake you?"

"No, I actually got home only a little while ago. We've had some people call in sick this week so I've been working in the kitchen the last couple of nights."

"So I called at a bad time then."

"No," Regina said quickly. "I'm glad you called."

"Yeah, I wasn't sure I was going to," Emma admitted.

"Well I'm glad you did."

Emma didn't say anything in response, and while Regina was sure their connection hadn't been dropped, she found she didn't know what to say to the other woman.

"Look, I don't know that we can just start up and be friends again," Emma said finally.

Pause.

"I … I understand," Regina said. She wondered why Emma was even bothering to call to tell her this.

"It's just that …" Emma trailed off and went silent again.

"You don't have to explain," Regina said. "I do understand. What I did, what I said … I was completely in the wrong and you have every right …"

"Willyougoonadatewithme?" Emma blurted out.

"What?" Regina said, not sure she understood the super-speed question.

"I asked you if you wanted to go on a date with me."

"Oh."

Regina was not expecting the question, especially after the way the conversation started.

"I know, it's a stupid idea," Emma said backing off. "I was just thinking that … well you know I am attracted to you and while I swear I would never have done anything about that while we were friends, things have changed now. And I thought maybe we could try going on a date."

"Ok," Regina.

"Ok, as in you want to go on a date?"

"Yes," Regina replied. "It's a date."

"Good," Emma said and Regina could hear the change in tone – Emma's voice no longer sounding as tense as it had. "Do you want to go out Saturday night?"

"Can I get back to you about that tomorrow? I don't know if I will have enough staff to man the kitchen."

"Of course. Just send me a text or call."

"I will."

"I should let you go so you can get some sleep. Good night."

"Good night Emma."

She hung up the phone and exhaled. A date. With Emma. She hadn't been on a date with a woman since Danielle. And Saturday was only two days away. And her mother was in town. Suddenly she felt too on edge to sleep.