Emma

She had thought – god, for just a moment she had thought that the way they had made love meant things would be better now.

...Maybe it even would have made things better, but she had fucked it up!

Regina was right. It did always come back to her Craft in Emma's mind.

How could it not? They had been down this road before. Not to this degree, but Emma had almost lost her before because of it. She was like a spouse at an Al-Anon meeting. She was jumpy and twitchy and nervous. It was the first thing that came to her mind now. It had been since the moment Regina had created her favorite dinner for her.

Only now...

Only now…

She had made love to that woman – she had fucked her - banged her – had her - and every other type of sex phrase that was out there, Emma had done it with Regina over the years.

...It had never been like that.

Now Emma knew. That accusing look she had seen in Henry's eye when Regina and Mal slunk out of the front door together or snuck out back for Mal to smoke. He had been right.

She could see that now. She had just experienced it.

Regina was having an affair.

It was clear. She had thought so before; the small voice in her head had been insisting constantly but she had let Regina's weak protests sway her, making her doubt herself. She had been able feel it on her. Maybe not in the way that Regina would have been able to if Emma had ever done something that terrible, but it was almost as if she could sense another woman's lips on her wife's body.

That trick with their strap-on... it had been a confession. Where the hell had she learned that? Who had shown her? They used to talk about how great it would be to create an appendage for an hour and it seemed as though Regina had learned how... but from who?

Emma had locked herself in the bathroom for hours after their bedroom love making, fight and then... whatever the hell that had been. She hadn't cried though, because she had already known it, hadn't she?

Yes. She had already known.

And why was she acting as though she didn't know who? There was only one 'who'.

She had considered throwing Mal out right then in the middle of the night and there but instead she waited. She had gone downstairs and nursed cups of coffee until morning, her eyes bleary, her stomach sick.

Regina came down first, as she always did these days. Emma noted that Regina looked like she had been violently ill, green and clammy.

"Good morning." Regina said in a soft, sick voice.

She came to her side and Emma couldn't look at her. Instead she stared blankly into her cup of coffee, seeing little.

"Emma, I'm sorry about last night. I lost my head. I shouldn't have done it. I shouldn't have changed you. I shouldn't have made you think I need that because I don't. You've always been beautiful and sexy and -"

"Oh shit." Emma sighed, speaking over her. Last week she had lived for the moments when Regina sounded like her old self, now it just made her stomach roll. "It's later than I thought." She hopped off the stool and took the stairs two at a time to wake Ollie, leaving Regina in the kitchen below.

When she came back down, Regina was gone.

She spent the next two days watching Regina and Mal and not liking what she saw. Casual touches. Mal looking at Regina as though she owned her. The teasing blankness to Mal's eyes when those silver stones turned on Emma.

She spent those two days in a haze of confusion. She knew it had to be true, yet her mind couldn't process it. It was like trying to wrap your head around the number of miles to the stars. You could hear it, comprehend the number but never conceptualize just how far that was or it's truth. Her mind would grasp on to the idea that Regina was probably cheating on her and then she would grow so completely and totally confused that the idea would drift just out of reach again.

It was unfathomable.

She didn't want to believe it. Maybe that was the problem. She didn't want to believe it at all so her mind kept coming up with other things. Regina can't be cheating on me for this reason - or that one.

No matter how hard she tried to insist though, she would find herself thinking things like well, of course she's sleeping with Mal, look at how beautiful Mal is. Or - of course she's having an affair I have said so many things that I should never have said and then she would list each one she could remember, beating herself with those nasty words.

But - in the back of her mind she was also relieved. She had an answer now. She understood that much. She had an answer and now she just had to figure out what to do with it.

The third morning after her evening with Regina things were forced into action.

It was a rare quiet late afternoon. She had taken the boys to school hours ago and finally Bonnie seemed to be growing out of her attachment phase so she was playing quietly in her playpen chewing on a toy.

Emma spent a while cleaning and straightening up, battling with herself as she did every day; the only thing in her head these days the same fight. Was she right? Was her wife fucking Mal? She had to be. She wouldn't have thought this before for no reason. But what if Mal was just the red herring and Regina was sleeping with someone else?

She was just settling onto the couch, playing a rousing game of peek-a-boo when the front door slammed open.

It closed just as quickly and heavy feet pounded up the stairs, too heavy to be anyone but Henry.

"Wha - Henry?"

She put Bonnie in her playpen and raced upstairs after her son, alarmed.

"Henry?" She tripped her way into his room, stumbling on the clothing that was always everywhere.

He was sitting on his bed, his surprisingly large shoulders slumped and shaking as he ...cried!

"Henry? Whoa, kid! What happened?" She couldn't remember the last time she had seen him cry. It hadn't been for a long time, she was sure of that. He had hit the I'm-too-grown-to-cry phase early.

He brusquely shoved his palms over his eyes, wiping the tears across is face more than removing them. "Nothing. Just leave me alone, Mom."

"Henry." She sat on the bed next to him, pleased when he didn't just turn away from her. "What happened?" She pushed back the want to pull him into her arms or to brush back his hair and settled for sitting and waiting.

"I got suspended, okay!" He suddenly shouted.

"What? How?" Her first thought that had floated through had been about how angry Regina was going to be. It was a habit to think of her wife that way, like she was the other half of her team. Would she care? She didn't know.

"I got suspended because I kissed Penny."

Pride and horror filled Emma all at once. He was too young to get kicked out of school for making out! Right? Shit. No. He wasn't. She had been suspended twice by his age. "You're going to have to take me back, kid. I'm not sure I understand."

He sighed and his cheeks grew hot. "I uh, I didn't know how to - you know - make Penny my - uh, my girlfriend."

"Okay," she said with a nod, trying to keep her face neutral. His girlfriend! Her little boy had a girlfriend!

"So I asked... Mal."

"Oh."

He must have heard the dejection in her voice because he sprinted forward. "She said that women like to be told how they feel so I should just take Penny. So I did. I walked up and I just kissed her in the middle of the quad and then I got in trouble." It all came out in one huff of breath.

"She told you that women like to be told how they feel?"

"Yeah." His shoulders rose and fell.

Emma nodded stiffly, trying hard to swallow back her anger. How dare she say that to her son! "So... you got suspended because you kissed her - in the quad? Is there a rule or -"

Henry's face went purple and he looked resolutely back into his lap. "Mal also told me that I should - I should – kinda... grab her butt when I did it."

"Henry James Mills, you did not grab Penny Clark's butt!" The words just burst from her sounding more like Regina than herself.

He got up and stormed around the room, kicking things and ranting in an incoherent jumble.

"Hey!" she finally cried when his feet tangled in the bed sheet that was mostly on the floor and he nearly fell. "Come sit. I can't talk to you when you're like this."

He glared for a moment and then flopped onto his back on the bed, looking sheepish, his chest rising and falling in little hitches. "I should have known it was bad advice."

"Why?"

"Because of what she said to Ollie."

She had to squint to keep her face blank as she asked, "Uh, what did she say to Ollie?"

He looked at her as though she were crazy. "Haven't you noticed he's been wearing his boy clothes lately?"

Actually, she had. She had been thinking it was probably some type of reaction to the fact that Regina was refusing to spend time with him. He had always been so much closer to Regina. "Yeah."

"Mal told him he needed to. She said that he could be whoever he wanted to be on the inside, but on the outside he needed to look like anyone else. She told him that he needed to 'man up'."

Mal had no idea what was waiting for her when she arrived back at the huge house later that afternoon.

She let herself in with the key that Emma was still pissed Regina had given her and then jumped to find Emma standing in the hallway, her feet spread as she would when approaching anyone in her detective days.

"Christ, Emma." Mal growled, slamming the keys back into her purse and shutting the door a lot harder than was needed. "You scared me. What the hell is wrong with you?" She tried to step around Emma, but she stepped to the side blocking Mal's path.

Her arms crossed over her chest and while the Working that Regina had done on her was slowly fading, she knew there was still enough in her that her arms bulged in just the way she had always liked when she was a cop. She had purposely worn a tank top to make her point. She saw Mal's eyes dip to them and then squint, confrontationally.

Emma took a deep breath and a scent hit her. Was that Regina's perfume? "You know Mal, I've tried for a really long time to like you."

Mal rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips, clearly wanting to just get by Emma. "Okay."

"I've tried and you know what? I can't. You suck. You're a shitty person and I'm done."

"That's nice, dear." She tried to push past her, but Emma was not as weak as Mal thought she was, mentally or physically. She stood her ground.

Emma's head tilted, noticing something. "It's kinda interesting that you don't even blink when I call you a shitty person. Not the first time you've heard it, huh?"

Mal's eyebrow slowly rose.

"Henry got suspended from school today."

"And?" Mal put an unlit cigarette to her lips, but Emma grabbed it and broke it. She was fucking tired of that too.

"Three days. He's suspended for three days. Would you like to guess why?"

"Hmmm, did he go rogue in the chess club meet?"

"Yeah, you're fucking hilarious. No. He grabbed Penny Clark's ass."

"Who?" Slow comprehension filled Mal's face. She stared at her for a moment before she burst into laughter. "You're kidding! He did it? I thought he would be too much of a pussy." Mal sized her up in a slow once over. "Just like his mother."

The insult just glanced off her skin. She didn't really care. Henry was upstairs blasting angry music so he wouldn't hear her words and Oliver was not home yet.

"You don't know me, Mal."

"I think I've gotten a pretty good idea of who you are, cupcake."

"Penny Clark is a good girl. Though maybe saying that won't help us much since I'm sure you don't know what that means. You clearly never were one."

"It's true. I wasn't." Mal's eyes glowed maliciously. "Regina always liked me that way."

Emma nodded, biting her lip in thought. "Hmmm, yeah. My wife is a very smart woman. Clearly she is because she married me, after all. You're the perfect example, though, of the fact that she didn't always have such good taste." Mal's face remained impassive. "Ah well, she's only human. Anyway. After he told me about Penny, he also told me about what you said to Ollie."

Mal's face ripped into a snarl, instantly aggressive. "I was helping that boy. He is a sweet boy and he's going to get his ass kicked every day of high school if he doesn't change his ways."

"That is not your decision to make. That is mine and that is Regina's! We are his parents."

Mal studied her for a moment, long and hard and though it unnerved Emma just a bit, she just ground her jaw and waited.

"There is something I find quite interesting." Mal finally said.

Emma's lips pursed, sure she wouldn't find whatever it was interesting at all.

"I never wanted children. I just, well, they are needy little things, aren't they? But if I had – do you really think there would have been any room for you in Regina's life?"

"You go ahead and keep telling yourself that."

Mal went to speak, but Emma cut her off. This battle of wits, battle of wills was pointless. "Look, the point of all of this is that I'm done with you. I'm done with the strange influence you're trying to have on my family."

Mal smirked and put another cigarette to her lips. Again Emma took it and broke it. "Also, I'm done with the stink you bring. You stink, Mal. Did you know that?"

"Whatever you say, Sheriff. Oh, wait, former sheriff. My mistake. May I go now? I could use a shower." Mal's eyebrow rose slowly insinuating and Emma had to swallow back a growl. "Wash off that – stink."

"I bet you do. And no, you can't."

"Oh?"

"Nope. You won't be taking one more step into my home. Pack your bags and get out."

Mal laughed, seeming honestly amused. "You can't kick me out. Regina would never stand for it."

"Watch me."

Mal laughed again but Emma's face didn't change. Slowly Mal's eyes narrowed, taking her in.

Emma could tell her face left no room for argument.

"Regina will not be happy."

"Regina can talk to me about it herself, thunder-cunt."

"And if I won't go? What if I was just to disappear in front of your eyes and reappear nice and cozy in my room?"

Emma chuckled, her crossed arms tightening, flexing. "Mal, you don't want me to show you how I will force you out if you do that, but keep in mind that the guest room is on the second floor."

Mal studied her face again, her own expression blank but Emma didn't really believe it. "Um-hum. And how, if you don't mind me asking, am I supposed to pack my things if you will not allow me upstairs?"

Emma didn't budge. She knew full well that Mal could just swish her hand and the task would be done. "I have faith in you."

God, this felt good. Why hadn't she done this weeks ago?

Mal studied her for a long time, debating with herself. She could see her weighing the consequences, debating if she was still up for a fight – if Mal was ever someone who would actually fight.

Emma just held firm, waiting, getting more and more annoyed by the moment. In truth, she didn't want Regina to come home while this was happening. She didn't want to fight with her too.

Finally Mal let out a groan and closed her eyes. Emma heard a lot of banging upstairs. A minute later the bag Mal had appeared in their life with was packed and by her side.

"Great." Emma clapped. "Easy. Okay. Bye, bye now."

"You know that kicking me out won't get me out of town, right?" Mal whispered in a falsely confidential voice. "It's actually been our little secret but, Regina built a house for me here, out in the woods."

Panic hit Emma's bloodstream and she knew her face had betrayed her. Oh god, she hoped that wasn't true. If that was true then she was fucked. What did that mean? Regina had built it? Was she planning on moving into it with Mal? Fuck, this woman was like a barnacle.

Mal smirked, obviously pleased. "Well. That look might be the best I've seen all day. I'll see you later... sheriff."

Emma glared, her eyes burning with angry tears as Mal disappeared. She had done so well. She had done so well, she had felt so good fighting for what was hers. And in the last second... defeated.

"I kicked Mal out but she's not leaving." Emma hadn't knocked as much as barged through Mary-Margaret's door, scaring her best friend and her toddler.

"What?" Mary-Margaret jumped up and closed the door behind her, frowning.

"I kicked Maleficent out of the house but she says that Regina built her a cabin somewhere. Somewhere here! She's not leaving town, M.M., she's not leaving." She tried to take a deep breath and relax but failed miserably.

"Okay... okay, Emma, well..." Mary-Margaret shifted a little in place. Her eyes were pinched and worried even though she was clearly trying to not look that way at all. She was pulling off casual about as well as Emma was and seeing that didn't help her stress. "Do you believe her?"

"Probably."

"Why?"

Emma ran her hands through her hair and then dropped them down into her back pockets. "I dunno. She was too damn smug to be lying."

Mary-Margaret's head tilted to the side. "What made you finally kick her out?"

"She and Regina are sleeping together."

"What?" Mary-Margaret cried in disbelief. "Nooooo. No way!"

Emma waved her hand. "This isn't one of those moments where I want you to convince me otherwise. I'm sure."

Mary-Margaret was speechless. She sank onto the couch looking ill. "Mal has quite an appetite, doesn't she?"

"Whaddya mean?"

"The other day I walked into the station to find her all but in David's lap. The poor idiot looked so confused I couldn't even be mad at him." She breathed, her face a little pale.

"She's a viper all right."

"Are you sure, Emma? Are you really sure? Regina loves you! She would never cheat on you."

"I haven't seen them together if that's what you mean. I guess I'll, I dunno, do you think I should try to?"

"No!" Mary-Margaret shouted, her whole body spasming at the thought. "No, you don't need to see that."

Only thing - she was pretty sure that she did...