AN: I am simply incapable of following a schedule and post when promised, I am very very sorry.

I hope you enjoy and please review/favorite/follow because that makes me want to write more. Any writing mistakes are mine so, I'm sorry if anything bothers you, you're completely welcome to blame me. Once again thanks for reading! I know nothing about the US schooling system or about the US college applications, I tried researching but it didn't really take me anywhere that explained me well, so I am sorry I made it all up, I'm mexican and it works different in here even from what I wrote in this chapter.

Chapter 12: Love

Christmas break had been awesome. Regina had spent most of her time out of the mansion, and when in the mansion accompanied by her friends, her girlfriend and her girlfriend's friends. Regina Mills had a girlfriend, just how crazy was that? Not a single person outside of that small circle of people knew, but that didn't really matter. Regina Mills was so happy.

The one thing she hadn't been able to escape of had been the very boring New Year's dinner party at the Collins Mansion, which in the end hadn't been that bad as she received texts, pictures and videos of her friends' own party all night long.

As much as Regina had enjoyed Christmas break, she really missed school and she was glad she was going back. What didn't sound so fun was that it was college application time and that only reminded her that she was most likely going to be separated from the three people she loved the most.

Unlike first day of school, she wasn't nervous at all on what to wear or what to take to school, it didn't really matter, through the course of the year she had realized there was really no point on getting dolled up if she was only taking classes all morning long; her fancy clothes were being placed more in the back of her closet and the simple (yet stylish) things were becoming her day-to-day outfits. She didn't even bother to wear makeup anymore unless it was a date night with Emma.

Regina grabbed her cornered backpack, untouched for a month, and threw in it keys, wallet and cellphone. She walked out of her room, down the stairs and out of the house to try to get breakfast at Granny's on time before she had to rush to class, Cora was out of town for some meeting.

At Granny's, she got a black coffee and a pastry, which she ate on her walk to school. She sat on the outside steps of the school as she had done on her first day of the school year and she got out of her back pack the book Emma had given her as a Christmas present. She was just going to start it as during Christmas break she had decided to read other things. She opened the book and read the very first line out loud: "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself"

"For Lucy had her work cut out for her" she heard a familiar voice reply, with a bad British accent.

She looked up from the book and found her girlfriend smiling at her. "Hey" she said.

"Hey" Emma answered, sitting next to her and gently kissing her cheek. "Do you like it?" she asked, pointing at the book.

"I've just read the first line!" Regina answered amused.

"It's a fucking masterpiece, that first line. Do you like it?" Emma asked again.

"I guess so" she said and read the short phrase once more. "Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself", she closed the book. "It's an unexpected beginning, not like you expect anything when you start a book, but it's an odd phrase to start a book with, don't you think?"

"That's the beauty of it!"

Before Regina or Emma could say anything else, two people sat next to them: on one side Rose and on the other Graham.

"So... have you all decided which will be your top thre for early application?" Rose asked immediately.

"I don't want to talk about it" Regina answered quickly, putting her book inside her back pack and zipping it closed.

"Come on Gina!" Rose complained pouting, the two other friends simply watched amused.

"After I put the definitive desition on paper maybe. We can all talk about it at lunch, sounds good?"

"Okay then, are you nervous?"

"Yes and no, I just... I'm not ready to leave Storybrooke yet! I'm ready to leave my mother, yes, but I'm not ready to leave you guys, we're probably all going to different parts of the country and I don't know what I'm going to do without you, you are my family!" Regina said.

"Well then don't rush the sadness and enjoy the good times!" Graham said, just as the bell rang. "See you at luch?"

"Yes" she answered with a smile.

The four friends stood up and by pairs split up to go to class, Emma and Regina walked silently together to their classroom, where they saw Emma's other friends, Regina was so happy that the three girls were way more civil to her now. She smiled at them and went to the back of the classroom where she sat next to her table partner: Kathryn.

"Hey" the blonde said. "How was Christmas break?"

"Good, yourse?"

"Good"

It was like that with Kathryn: They acknowledged eachother, they respected eachother and sometimes they worked together, but there was never much conversation. Regina often wondered what went inside Kathryn's very blonde head, maybe she was always thinking about a boy or maybe about math equations, maybe no one really knew, Regina didn't see Kathryn hang out with much people outside class.

Regina's nerve-wrecked mind was elsewhere for the next 15 minutes in which all her classmates caught up with their friends about their life in Christmas break. Regina had her eyes opened, looking at nothing and her hand abentmindedly pushing a pen's upper button in a loop. She was only brought back to reality when she heard everyone go silent and chairs being pulled, indicating Proffesor Gold's arrival to the crowded classroom. She still played with the pen some more, until she was stopped by an anxious Kathryn, that took the pen away from her.

"Good morning, class" said Proffesor Gold, who had entered the classroom with two young women.

"Good morning" the group of teenagers replied in unison.

"As you know, this year our school is kindly helping all of it's senior students with their early college application process. These two lovely ladies will be handing each of you one questionnaire in which you will have to fill in your personal information as well as the answers to the questions regarding colleges. Remember you can apply both to american and canadian colleges, but only those two options, in case you wish to apply to a college outside these two countries you will have to do it all on your own. Now it is very important that you fill in your personal information correctly as that is what will be used to file your student record as well as your up to date curriculum from the school archives: All of these will be sent in to the three colleges you will enlist today together with the new standarized test that you will be taking a week from today. Any questions?"

The man waited a few seconds and when he saw no one was speaking out, he nodded at the two state workers who started giving out the forms to all the students. One of them spoke out as she did her job: "Please know you can only fill the forms in with a black ink pen and that you must try to use your best handwriting, otherwise the document will not be counted as valid. Take your time and when you finish, read again your answers to make sure you filled everything right. You may start whenever you like"

As soon as Regina received her black lettered, white sheet of paper, she took her pen back from her table partner and read all the information already given to her by her teacher and the state worker quickly to make sure she understood everything. She then proceeded to fill in her name, her school, her parent's names, her home adress, her student ID number and all the personal information asked for in the document with her neat handwriting. After having finished doing that she took a deep breath and continued to the actual college AP questions. It took her about half an hour to fill everything in and make sure she was happy with all her amswers, by the time she left the classroom only about five other people were left still sitting on their chairs, one of them being Emma Swan.

Regina waited about three more minutes for her girlfriend to finish filling her own form and when she was out of the classroom, they walked in comfortable silence to the cafeteria to join Rose and Graham to talk about their college early AP choices, as promised. The two teenagers were brave enough to walk the short way through the large hall holding hands.

In the cafeteria Rose and Graham were already waiting for them, the good thing about being seniors in that particular time of the year was that they had about a month almost free of classes, in that month they were supposed to go to school for studying groups, form filling, college standarized tests and maybe some special classes if they needed any help. On that monday the four friends had cleared their schedule to get about two free hours after the questionnaire of college-picking.

"All set then?" Graham asked when the young couple was seated in front of him, the two teenagers nodded with a smile. "So who starts? Rosie?"

"Ok, I can if you want me to" the petite blonde said.

Her friends look at her expectantly, they had all promised not to tell eachother of their college choices until it was official, so that day was a big reveal kind of day.

"I applied as wanting a photography major, not necessarily asking for a photography programme. I can deal with an arts programme and simply take photography courses. So.." she took a deep breath and her friends waited at the edge of their seats. "My first option is Georgian College up in Canada, not far, don't worry; second is NYU, which I know is weird but trust me on this and third is UCLA, which I know is far but it's a good option"

Regina felt her muscles release some of their tension, UCLA was far but it was Rose's last option and she was pretty certain that her very talented friend would get accepted into her first option. This was the first time she was actually putting in perspective how terrible or not terrible going away for college was going to be, up to that moment it didn't seem that terrible.

"Thoughts?" Rose asked her friends. "I didn't say I have cancer, it's just colleges" she said, making everyone laugh and release some more tension.

"I think the three options are brilliant and I am so glad you are taking photo and I think you'll get into Georgian, thank God it's close to home" Graham said, the other girls just nodded in agreement. "I think I'll go next" he said.

"My father obviously wants me to follow his steps and become this town's hardworking sheriff, he of course know that isn't going to happen" he said with a smile. "But I'm actually interested in laws, as you may know. So I applied for a major in laws and my first option is Harvard because I'm crazy enough to believe I can get in there and win a scholarship and eventually pay for all my college expenses; second is Columbia, which is a little less crazy; third is NYU"

"Shut up!" Rose said with a playful smile. "Of course you can get into Harvard, they'dbe lucky to have you"

Graham gave her a thankful look and smiled back. "Maybe if I get in I can share some core classes with Gina, right?" he winked at the brunette.

Regina opened her eyes wide and opened her mouth to speak, first no sound came out so she cleared her throat and tried again. "I uh... I'm not applying Harvard"

"What?" her two best friends asked at the same time in disbelief.

"She must go to Harvard?" Emma asked back, confused.

"Well it's not like she isn't the Storybrooke High student with the most chance to get into Harvard of all times, or like her mother isn't an honorary degree in politics from Harvard" Graham said sarcastically.

"That's my mother's dream, not mine" Regina said honestly. "I'm not applying Harvard. I want an economy major and I asked for Columbia, Yale and Princeton. Columbia being first"

"Wow" Rose said impressed. "Yale and Princeton after Columbia. You must be the first"

Regina looked at her with stabbing eyes. "Columbia has a great programme, and it's near home. We've always wanted to live in New York, us three. We might end up doing it"

"I love it" Graham said.

"Me too" Emma intervened, smiling at her girlfriend and squeezing her hans in reassurance.

"Thank you" Regina answered.

Rose smiled at them. "I love it too, Regina. It's just unexpected. What about you, Emma?"

"It was a complicated desition, but I went for an english literature major, which I know has not much to do with the classes I'm taking, but what ever. No Harvard for Regina, no science for me. I asked for Columbia, Princeton and UCLA" she looked up and found her friends and girlfriend smiling at her. "And now I really hope I get into Columbia like, double want to get into Columbia" she admitted looking at Regina.

Graham, Regina and Emma were taken by surprise at what happened next: Rose, as tiny as she was, managed to stretch her arms long enough to hug her three best friends and give a little squeal of happiness. "We're not going that far from eachother!"

The rest of the day at school was amazing: Regina had been so nervous all morning long and in the end of Christmast break, but she then realized she had had nothing to be scared of, the three people she loved most in the whole world were not going to be that far away from her once they all went off to college. In fact, there was a high chance she would be going to the same college as her girlfriend, how amazing was that? Not many people got that chance with their teenage partners.

After all of their free hours the four friends had spent talking to each other they had to take the last two hours of class, that was actually a really big information talk for all seniors in the school auditorium. Once they were out of there Rose, Graham, Mary Margaret, David, Emilie, Ruby, Ruby's new boyfriend, Emma and Regina went all together to eat at Granny's and celebrate their succesful first day back at school. Being able to finally get to know Emma's friends properly was one of the most amazing things Christmas break had brought for Regina, they were amazing people.

With Cora out of town, Emma and Regina decided to spend the biggest amount of time possible together, so with the excuse of having to study for the standsrized college test, they were both staying in the mansion together all week long with permission from the Blanchards. When they announced the good news to their friends over lunch, all of them had looked at the young couple as if they were planning on doing something else other than spending time with eacother and actually studying for the standarized college test, they simply rolled their eyes back as an answer and promised to have anyone else who wanted to over for sleepovers during the week.

They arrived at the mansion at about 7 pm, lunch had delayed and then they had stayed at the diner longer talking and arraging study groups for the following days. They left their belongings in Regina's room, changed into their pijamas and decided to leave college application and school a rest for the afternoon by watching a movie together.

They cuddled in front of the only television in the mansion: on a couch in the living room with a blanket to cover them from the January cold and watched some silly, yet entertaining movie they found playing on the TV.

By 9 pm they were both already tired enough from the long end eventful day to go to bed, so they lit off the mansion and went up to Regina's bed where they again use eachother to dismiss the cold weather. Laying in bed, feeling the happiest she had felt in a long time, truly happy for the very first time in years, Regina decided to express Emma her infinite gratitude as best as she could.

Regina lifted her upper body a little with the help of her strong arms and placed a soft kiss on the beautiful blonde's lips, followed by the words "Thank you"

Emma smiled a genuine smile from her side of the bed and rolled to her side to see Regina better. "Where does this come from?" she asked softly.

Regina shrugged and took Emma's hand. "I am so greatful I met you Emma, and I am so greatful that we might be able to stay together through college. I love so much being with you, you're amazing" she answered.

Emma bit her bottom lip to try to hold her emotions as best as possible and kissed her girlfirend shortly. "I'm so very greatful for you too Regina, you are amazing".

Love was a strong word, that had to be said with care and knowingly to someone that deserved it, but what happened in that particular Monday night in January was their way of saying it without saying it, maybe a little too early in the game. This was Regina's first time feeling truly loved and feeling truly in love with someone in a more serious, conscious way, and she was so happy that this first time of her's could be shared with the amazing Emma Swan.