Here is the new update!
Thanks hunnyfresh for being my Beta Reader. Thank you so much! For taking time to read and correct my mistakes, I really really appreciate it
I don't own the characters or the show or storyline.
Chapter 14:
It was a long day. At the office, every person Regina saw wanted to talk about Mrs. Porter. They were devastated. Her staff was devastated. By the time she got home, she was more done in than she'd been last night, and that was saying something. She'd called ahead. Henry was asleep. Maleficent was heading out as soon as she got home. She could have done whatever she wanted with the evening, but there was only one thing she wanted to do. Emma.
The lights in the guesthouse were blazing. Through the windows, she could see Emma sitting on the couch, but Emma wasn't alone. She was with Mary Margaret and Ruby, talking and laughing. In front of them on the coffee table was an opened file box, and papers were scattered across the entire table, bookended by an open laptop and an adding machine.
It was a visceral reminder that Emma had a whole other life outside of her. Emma had taken on two more clients, which she'd heard from Kathryn, who'd heard it from Lucille, who'd heard it from Jefferson Hatter at the hats store, since he was one of those clients. The other new client was the ice-cream shop on the pier and the two brothers who ran it. Lance and Tucker probably had no bookkeeping system at all, so Emma had her work cut out for her— not that it would be a problem.
She seemed to have a way of getting to it all, making everything all work out. Regina admired that. Emma was just a sweet, smart, hard-working woman doing her best to find herself. No complaining, no feeling sorry for herself, doing what she had to do to get by. She had her hair pulled up in a ponytail, but a few pale silk strands had escaped, framing her face, brushing her throat and shoulders. Just looking at her had Regina's body humming. And though Emma couldn't possibly see her standing in the dark night, she went still, then turned her head, and peered outside, unerringly looking right at Regina.
She said something to Mary Margaret and Ruby, then rose in one fluid motion and stepped outside, shutting the door behind her. They met in the shadows near the shallow end of the pool.
"Hey," she said, looking like a vision in a loose white top that fell off one shoulder and white shorts showing a mile or two of sexy leg.
"Hey yourself," Regina said. "How did your day go?"
"Well, I didn't kill Tank, Henry continues to master the English language, and Maleficent didn't run off today. Progress."
"Great, but I meant you. How are you?" Emma looked surprised, which Regina didn't like. "You think I don't want to hear about you too?" Regina asked.
Emma nibbled on her lower lip.
"Emma?"
"This thing between us… it's still just fun, right?"
Regina studied her a moment. "How does that translate into me not caring about you?"
Emma blew out a breath and looked away. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm not very good at this. I don't mix well with a woman like you."
"A woman like me," Regina said, trying to figure out what that meant.
"Look, it's all me, okay? I knew going into this thing that it couldn't possibly work, but I just kept…" Emma broke off and looked away. "I'm sorry."
"A woman like me," Regina repeated again. "Emma, I'm trying like hell to follow you but…"
Emma looked at her and blinked, as if she didn't understand how Regina wasn't catching the obvious.
"We're so different," Emma said. "You've got your life in gear, all planned out. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm trying to know but…" Emma trailed off and looked at Regina again, as if expecting Regina to nod in agreement. But Regina was still clueless.
"If you think my life is working on some plan that I've set out," Regina said, "you haven't been paying attention. Nothing is how I planned it. And as for mixing well, I think we mix pretty fucking well."
"Yes, but isn't that just sex?"
"Not yet," Regina said with grim amusement. "But not for lack of chemistry. And there's no 'just sex' about it."
Emma stared at Regina, apparently speechless. There weren't crickets out tonight, but if there had been, they'd be chirping Beethoven about now. That's when it came to Regina like a smack upside the back of the head.
"Who was the guy?" Regina asked.
"Guy?"
"The one who screwed you over, the one with some big, grand plan, I'm guessing. A plan that didn't work out in your favor. Was he a doctor?"
Emma drew an audible breath to speak and then shook her head. "That obvious?"
"No," Regina said. "Or I'd have caught on a lot sooner. And you'd think I would have since I was once burned by a big, grand plan too."
She sighed. "Neal Cassidy."
"Sounds like a dick already."
Emma choked out a laugh that spoke more of remembered misery than humor. "He's a friend of the family. His parents are well-known and respected biomedical engineers, on the pioneer front of cardiovascular research."
"Never heard of them."
"We always knew we'd end up together," Emma said. "It was sort of expected, actually."
"Expected? Didn't anyone realize it's the twenty-first century?"
"It wasn't like that," Emma said quietly.
"I liked Neal."
And then Regina really got it. Christ, she was slow on the uptake. "You loved him."
"Yes." Emma let out a shaky breath. "I did. I loved him until the day after our engagement, when he came home and told me to pack because we were moving to England for his job, which was a six-year study grant. It was a great opportunity, but…"
"You didn't like being told what your life would look like for the next six years," Regina guessed.
Emma shook her head. "And you know what the really sad thing was? If he'd so much as asked, or even gave a thought to me and my job, I'd have junked it all to go with him."
"So what happened?"
"He left the next day," she said. "And shortly after, my job vanished when the economy dived."
"You could have looked him up," Regina said. "Gone to him then."
"Thought about it," Emma admitted. "But by then I was seeing someone else."
"Another PhD?"
"Yes, but a bank woman this time," she said. "Kathy Cameron. She lost her job the same day I lost mine, only she'd invested in property instead of stocks. She had a house in Australia. She went there to go surf out the economy problems."
"She ask you to go with?"
"Nope." Emma shook her head. "This time, I wasn't in the plans at all."
Regina was starting to get the whole picture now, and she didn't like it much. "So your parents had big life plans for you. Neal had big life plans for you. Kathy just had big plans. And no one ever asked you your plans."
"No," Emma said softly. "And I realize I didn't actually have my own plans, but I'd have liked to be asked."
Regina nodded. She could understand that.
"So I'm just saying, you don't have to feel a responsibility to me just because we… sort of had sex." Emma let out a low laugh that was far more natural now.
"Twice. I'm still okay with this being…"
"Fun." Emma's gaze met Regina's, clear and utterly unfathomable.
"Yes."
"You think I'd feel a responsibility to you because of good sex," Regina said slowly.
"Well, it was better than good," Emma said.
"But yes. I think you're exactly the type to feel a responsibility for those who cross your path. You're a rescuer."
Okay, so now on top of assuming Regina only wanted Emma out of some sense of responsibility, Emma also lumped Regina into the same category with all the other mistakes she felt she'd made. And hell if that didn't piss Regina off. Emma didn't want Regina to care. Regina got that, loud and clear. Regina didn't want to care either. But she did.
"Look, Emma, no matter what you call this thing between us— fun, a pain in the ass, nothing at all— it doesn't matter. Just don't judge me by the assholes in your past. I deserve more than that, but more importantly, you deserve more than that."
Emma stared at her, then slowly nodded. "You're right. I'm sorry."
Emma turned back to the guesthouse, and Regina grimaced. "Emma—"
"Henry lost a tooth tonight," Emma said quietly over her shoulder. "He was excited and tried to wait up for the Tooth Fairy, but he didn't make it. She arrived the minute after he'd conked out."
Regina slid her hand into her pocket. "Thanks. How much—"
"You're paying me a thousand bucks a week." She faced Regina again. "I think I can cover it. I can cover a lot of stuff, actually. Except at the end of the day, I'm still just the babysitter. And he's still just an adorable five-year-old. Who also deserves better." With that last zinger, Emma let herself into the guesthouse and shut the door quietly.
Regina stood there for a moment, then nodded. Point for each, which meant it was a draw. Which didn't explain why Regina felt Emma would lanced him alive. Inside Regina found Henry deeply asleep, wrapped around both Tank and the Hulk. The Bernstein Bears book was there, too, with the mama bear front and prominent.
Regina ignored the pain in her chest, the one that said she was still failing the people in her life, and gently pulled the Hulk from Henry's slack grip. Next, she eyed the dog. Tank opened one eye and gave a look that said, Don't even try, lady. Regina gave up and covered them both. Tank licked her hand. Regina bent over Henry and kissed his temple. Her son smelled like peanut butter and soap, which she took as a good sign. So was the way the kid smiled in his sleep. A smile with a gaping hole in the front.
"Love you," Regina whispered, the words a heavy weight on her chest. Henry rolled away, pulling Tank under one arm and the Bernstein Bears book under the other, sighing softly in his sleep.
"Arf," he whispered.
The next morning, Emma climbed back onto the modeling pedestal in Lucille's gallery. Today she was artfully draped in a sheet, supposedly like a Grecian goddess, though she suspected she looked more like she was going to a toga party.
"I wouldn't mind being twenty years younger, like you, Emma," Mrs. Gregory said conversationally. "Back to when my boobs were as good as yours."
"You mean fifty years," Lucille murmured.
"It's just that I'm tired of hoisting my boobs into a bra every morning." Mrs. Gregory pointed to Emma's breasts. "You don't have to hoist anything. Those babies are standing up on their own."
"That's because it's cold in here," Emma said in her own defense. She was counting down the last twenty minutes of class as she held her pose. After this, she was picking up Maleficent from class, and then she had a few more calls to return to applying nannies. She was determined to find the best possible person for Henry. And Tank. And Maleficent, even though the twenty-one-year-old would deny needing anything from anyone. And Regina…
Emma could admit that she also wanted the best possible person to take care of Regina. Which was silly. Very silly. Obviously, the woman was more than capable of taking care of herself, not to mention everyone around her. She'd proven that managing more than the average human should ever have to between the practice, the town, Henry, Maleficent… the loss of her parents. Sure, she was very used to taking care of people, and it was an extremely appealing part of the woman. But maybe she just needed to know it was okay to be on the other side of the fence occasionally.
"Time," Lucille called out to her students, and Emma relaxed. She jumped down off the pedestal and dropped the sheet, revealing the tank top, jeans she wore beneath. Grabbing her cardigan and purse, she headed to the door.
"Gotta go."
"Hold on, dear," Lucille said, and handed her a check and a bottle of wine.
"Oh," Emma said. "Thank you, but I'm not much of a drinker—"
"Check out the label." It was a color pencil sketch of the Storybrooke pier at night, lit up with strings of white lights that glowed out over the water beneath a full moon. Emma had seen the original. The Chocoholics had celebrated Ruby's sale of the drawing to the winery a month ago. When she recognized it, pride filled her.
"It's beautiful," Emma said.
"Keep it," Lucille told her. "Maybe you'll have use for it on a date over a nice romantic dinner with the Mayor."
"We're not dating—" She broke off at Lucille's smile and shook her head. "Listen, I know you're like the gossip guru in town, but there's no gossip here."
Lucille smiled. "Are you sure?"
"Very," Emma said firmly, ignoring the little ping inside her. Maybe if she'd stop giving Regina reasons not to fall for her… "I'm just watching Henry and Tank. Helping Regina out, is all."
"Regina, is it now?"
"Yes, that's her name."
"Actually, honey," Lucille said, "We all call her Madame Mayor or Mayor Mills. Well, unless she's not within hearing distance, and then we call her Mayor Hottie. And none of us get to live with her."
"I'm just the babysitter," Emma said. "I stay there because of the crazy hours she keeps. It makes things easier on her. And I'm in the guesthouse, not the main house, and only until we find her a replacement. There's no dating going on."
Everyone's ears perked up at this.
"I could take on one more kid," Jenna Burnett said. "For Mayor Hottie, I'd take on quadruplets."
Jenna was a single mom in her mid-forties, running a day care out of her home. Her three children were teenagers and helped when they got home from school. Jenna was sweet and kind, and probably a viable option for Henry.
"Ask her," Jenna said, seeing that Emma was actually thinking about it.
"Tell her I'll give her a great deal." She smiled warmly, but damn, there was definitely something just a little bit hungry behind it.
"Hey, I want to throw my name into the hat too." This from Ashley. Ashley owned an upscale clothing shop in Portland that she paid someone else to manage.
Then she hightailed it out of there. She got to Maleficent's class just in time to see the girl roar off in Devon's truck, flashing a peace sign at Emma. Emma gritted her teeth and drove to the house, where she waited for the bus. When Henry hopped off it, he was bouncing up and down with excitement. It was Back-to-School night, and later Regina would get to see Henry receive the Student of the Week award.
Afterward, Regina had promised him an ice-cream sundae, and then Henry was having his first sleepover at a friend's. He was so excited he could hardly contain himself. He and Emma walked the half block home, where from hard-earned knowledge, Emma let Tank and Henry run wild laps around the yard until they expelled enough energy in tandem that Henry could sit and do his homework.
While he did that, Emma worked on Tank's so-called obedience. This was more an exercise in patience for Emma than anything else, but she was determined. They had mac and cheese and turkey hot dogs for an early dinner— no deviating from the planned menu— and then waited for Regina to show up to take Henry to Back to School night. Except Regina didn't show.
Emma called Regina but got no answer. She called Maleficent. No answer there either. Finally, she drove Henry to his elementary school herself, pretty much steamed at everyone with the last name of Mills except for Henry. Henry's teacher was thrilled to see him.
"Sadie had her kittens, Henry. Want to go look?" When Henry whooped and raced off, Emma looked at the teacher.
"How much time before the awards?"
"At least half an hour."
"Can I leave him here while I go get his mother?" Emma asked.
"Mayor Mills?"
"Yes. I'm sure she just got hung up at the office…" One of the moms sidled close. A tall, perfectly-put-together, gorgeous brunette.
"I'm sorry, but I couldn't help overhearing. Angela Harrison," she said, introducing herself.
"I'll be happy to keep an eye on Henry while you go get Mayor Mills." She smiled a sort of tiger smile. "And if you could let him know that I'm the one watching Henry for you, that'd be great. I'd like to apply for the position."
"The nanny position?" Emma asked.
"Any position."
Emma shook her head all the way to her car. Regina's office was in the City Hall. She tore into the lot, stomped up to her suite, and yanked open the door. Righteous anger was blooming within her, propelling her forward, ready to tear Regina a new one for missing something so important to Henry. And something else was blooming too. Worry. This was unlike Regina, very much so.
Regina never blew off anything that anyone needed, but especially Henry. Her son came first with him. Family always came first. So this bothered her. She hadn't expected to feel worry for the woman who appeared to have it all. Hell, she hadn't meant to feel anything for Regina at all, but she did.
Far too much. The waiting room was empty, the front office lit but also empty. And her worry amped up a notch.
"Regina?" she called, walking down the hallway. She came to a large office decorated in dark wood, the huge mahogany desk loaded with paperwork and files. The lamp was lit. There was a mug of something on the corner and an open laptop in the middle. Behind the desk was a large executive chair. In it was one Mayor Regina Mills, leaning back, feet up. Fast asleep.
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