As a grumbling Henry pulled on his coat, Regina's eyes bored into Emma's. A warning? A plea? Gratitude that Emma had covered for her in some way? Probably not gratitude, Emma thought. Regina was almost out the door when Henry came running back, bringing the schoolyard smells of his backpack and fresh cut grass with him as he cuddled up to Emma and whispered in her ear:
"Emma! She's going to Mr. Gold's tonight after she drops me off at Archie's. AND she's been going out a lot at night recently. You have to follow her and find out what's up. It's big! Team Cobra, over and out."
Emma forced herself not to grimace. Playing along with Team Cobra, Archie said, was good for Henry, even if it made her feel like she was encouraging something very close to insanity. While she didn't feel like spying on Regina she wouldn't mind a few words with her off the clock about the way she'd just bullied Mary Margaret. Who did she think she was, paying hand over fist for champagne and lap dances and then threatening Mary Margaret's job with some morality clause BS?
"Guys, I think I have to leave lunch early- but I'll meet up with you back at the apartment and we can go through your haul." Emma winked at Mary Margaret, who looked like she was still lost in a fog of guilt and apprehension, and threw her share of the lunch bill on the table.
Emma waited at a careful distance until Regina came back down the stairs that led to Archie's office, her face a tense mask, looking pale in its shadowy frame of raven hair. In the daylight, Regina looked strangely girlish, but the momentary impression vanished as she tossed her hair and, with a wilting sneer, clipped down the sidewalk toward her black Benz. Emma stepped out from the cover of a bay window storefront a few feet from Regina's car, and Regina scowled.
"Loitering is not allowed anywhere in Storybrooke, Ms. Swan."
"Cut the crap for a second, Regina, I want to talk to you."
"Too bad, Ms. Swan." Regina was putting the key in her car door, averting her gaze.
"Regina, hello, your contract doesn't apply here. I need to talk to you about-"
Uh oh. Regina's eyes met hers and they were burning with an unbearable amount of rage. Her face contorted, her lips a red snarl, and she moved toward Emma with the speedy grace of a snake striking, her whisper a deep rasp that was terrible to hear.
"Contract? The contract doesn't apply at all anymore since you clearly violated its terms and told Ruby my identity. Big mistake, Ms. Swan. If I were you I'd get out of Storybrooke as fast as that pile of yellow scrap metal can go."
Emma, as was always her instinct, matched Regina's escalating temper with a blast of righteous rage, sidling closer to Regina, her eyes huge. "You are out of your mind if you think I've told Ruby anything. I haven't told anyone about us. She saw you at Underland the first two times you came to see us dance, or collect bribes or whatever the hell you were doing before we—you really think I'd-" you really think I'd betray you? She wanted to say, but it came out as, "-I'd risk this getting back to Henry?"
Regina paused a beat, the two women hovering so close to each other they could hear the other breathe. Emma saw one of her own long blonde curls float on a gust of wind and almost touch Regina's coat. She had chalked up a lot of the heat that filled her in Underland to the sexy, hormone-soaked atmosphere. Yet here, where it was just the two of them, standing in the pearly gray afternoon on the empty, perpetually gloomy Storybrooke street, Emma could feel her heart racing with an urgency to get into the head of the woman across from her, and an equal urgency to feel her under her hands, to smell her perfume.
Regina stepped back. "No. I guess you wouldn't... I'll grant that its possible Ruby saw me in Underland before our arrangement. Of course it's equally possible you're laughing with her behind my back every night while you pocket my money. That would be a clear violation of our contract, Ms. Swan."
"There's nothing funny about what we're doing." Emma muttered. "It might be the most stupid mistake I've ever made in my life but I'll keep making it as long as you let me."
"And what mistake, exactly, are you talking about?" Regina said irritably, gazing down the street as though they were discussing the weather, keeping a casual distance between them. "Taking your clothes off or taking my money?"
"Yeah, lets put it that way: taking your money." Emma snapped, embarrassed by what she had been about to say. "Speaking of which, its incredibly hypocritical for you to give me a small fortune to – to- shake my boobs in your face and then threaten to fire Mary Margaret just because she wants to dance. She's a fantastic teacher."
"So Mary Margaret DOES want to strip?" Regina's face suddenly glowed with a genuine smile, and Emma could feel her mood shift, cruel delight suddenly taking root. "I always knew that girl was a dirty little slut."
"WOW...Dirty little slut, huh?" Emma crossed her arms to keep from grabbing Regina's lapels and slammingher against the Benz and pressing into her until they both were bruised. "Wow. Like, wow. You are the most impossible, awful, hypocritical bitch I've ever come across-"
"Are you referring to when you came across my lap last night?" Regina's voice dropped a little lower and she leaned toward Emma then dipped back as Emma's cheeks turned bright red. "I thought so." Regina said triumphantly.
"Go to hell." Emma cried, clenching her fists as Regina disappeared into her car. Regina rolled down her window.
"See you there tonight." Regina said coolly. "And by the way, you might re-read your contract, because if you ever talk about anything we do at Underland during daylight hours again... Henry and everyone who reads the Storybrooke Mirror will know all about you and Mary Margaret's extracurricular activities."
Emma found herself parked outside of Mr. Gold's an hour later, still shaking. Regina was seriously misogynistic, weirdly hateful to Mary Margaret who she barely even knew, and capable of making Emma practically cream herself on the street just by whispering the word come. Emma leaned her forehead on the wheel of her bug and squeezed her eyes shut, listing off her options mentally while waiting for Regina:
Continue tonight as though nothing had happened, proving that she was as much of Regina's stooge as Graham.
Confront Regina again and risk pushing Regina into revealing everything to Henry.
Quit Underland and look once more for a real job until her savings ran out…and risk losing access to Henry and-let's be real- access to Regina.
The options were chasing each other in a weary circle in Emma's mind until she noticed Regina's car had pulled up to Mr. Gold's shop. She slunched down in the car seat and gripped the small cheap baby monitor she'd picked up at a drug store after her confrontation with Regina. She had gone into Mr. Gold's shop moments earlier and planted the other monitor amongst his trinkets while he ducked into the back room to look for a tea set, at her request. With the press of a button, she could turn on the small white monitor radio in her hot little hands, and dig a little deeper into Regina's dealings.
She really didn't want to use her bounty hunter tricks to eavesdrop on Regina. "But then again, all's fair in love and war." Emma said into the silence of her car, and flicked the on switch.