Double Trouble 38

A/N: It's still my birthday in some parts of the world so I thought I'd give you guys a present. Thanks to everyone who is reading, following, and reviewing :). Enjoy!

Chapter 38 'Busy'

Sheriff's station

Hiding in her office wasn't a fabulous solution to her problems but it would do for now.

Emma dropped the keys to the Sheriff's cruiser on her desk and plopped down into her chair with a sigh of relief. She sipped her takeaway coffee, grateful for the warmth spreading through her but it didn't do much for calming her. Already that morning she'd been called out to Kidspace to sort out a fight between a pair of youths and then she'd had to provide security to the courthouse at Town Hall for a hearing, which of course was where she'd run into "the Mayor" and that hadn't gone well.

She was now in the proverbial doghouse indefinitely.

Emma let her forehead rest on her fists, elbows on her desk forming an inverted V. Why was Regina annoyed at her all of a sudden? Actually to be fair, it'd been building up over a few days. Ever since Gold turned up with his threat of eviction during their first date. He always knew how to wreck things that were going well.

The morning after their first date, Emma and Regina got up early in order to get Henry off to school before they went over to the apartment to collect the girls. Emma called her mother the night before to give her the head's up but Mary Margaret and David already knew about Gold's eviction notice and were surprisingly calm about it.

Mary Margaret's voice was soothing over the phone. "Emma honey, it'll be ok. It's not a disaster. You and Henry and the girls can stay with Regina until we sort this out. The kids are okay with it, they're packing their things now. In fact, Em's response to this whole problem was 'Duh, it's obvious. Regina has a mansion' and now Ri thinks they're going to go live in a castle. Tell Regina thanks for the offer, it was getting too crowded here anyway."

Emma shot a look at the woman next to her in bed. "You knew?" she mouthed.

"I messaged your mother while you were driving," said Regina.

Emma resumed her phone conversation. "But what about you, Mary Margaret? I don't care if I am the Sheriff, I'm not going to serve you eviction papers and force you out of your home. Gold's gonna turn up tomorrow with his thugs and throw all your stuff out into the street!"

Mary Margaret chuckled over the phone and her response was blase. "No no, I don't think it'll come to that."

The schoolteacher was right. It hadn't. Nothing had happened in fact. Gold and whatever thugs he had in his employ hadn't even turned up despite all his threats and blustering the night before. Apparently he'd changed his mind about enforcing the terms of the lease now that his prospective tenant had left town and the strict 'no children' policy was no longer being violated.

So what the hell was the point of the eviction threat?! Emma could hardly believe that Gold had a reason for playing matchmaker between her and Regina.

Henry was fine with moving back home since Emma and the girls were coming too. At first, Em had grumbled at having to move but she'd packed her few shirts, spare jeans, PJs, and aviator sunnies into a plastic garbage bag in the space of about five minutes and was the first one ready at the door to leave like she'd been doing this all her life - which she had. The teen cheered up at the prospect of having her own room for the first time in her life though. Her enthusiasm for having her own bed caused Ri to fret until Em whispered to her and explained what a 'sleep over' was and then she was fine with it too.

Emma was the only one still struggling to fit in it seemed. She and Regina had been living in each other's pockets for weeks, they were having sex at every opportunity, they were sleeping in the same bed and spending a lot of time together both alone and with Henry… but it wasn't the same as actually living together. Emma tried - she really tried - to be on her best behaviour and stay out of Regina's way and not make a mess or be an annoying house guest in any way… but every single thing she did and said just seemed to annoy Regina more.

This was exactly what she'd been afraid of. Living together was a strain on any relationship, especially a new one between two people who'd rarely shared their lives with anyone. It was usually a mistake to move in together too early. Ruby had been the first one to make a U-Haul joke (which only Emma got) but it was irritatingly accurate. They hadn't even made it to their second date yet and they were already fighting over dumb stuff.

A knock on the office door jerked the Sheriff out of her misery. It was her deputy.

"Hey, David. What's up?"

"Leroy called to report about the border."

Oh shit. I forgot about that.

"The dwarves have been keeping an eye on it. It's still moving but not fast. Doesn't look like anyone's gone near it either."

"Good," said Emma with a sigh of relief, but at the same time she knew that she couldn't keep putting off dealing with this border crisis forever. Everyone was waiting on her to figure something out or come up with a plan… but all she'd done so far was put it in the 'too hard' basket with everything else.

"It's a bit slow here today," said David. "I was thinking I could help you with moving your stuff over to Regina's later?"

"Can't it just stay where it is?" Emma snapped. "What difference does it make."

"Er okay. Emma, is something wrong?"

"Look, I already had this argument with Regina. Why does everyone suddenly care where I keep my stuff? It's not hurting anyone where it is so why do I have to move it? I can fit the whole lot in my car if taking up too much space is such a big deal."

David came in closer by Emma's side. He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and shook her gently so that she'd look up at him. "Hey, your mother and I love having you with us. You're welcome at home as long as you want. No one's forcing you to move."

Emma sighed impatiently and stuffed her fists into her eyes. "Yes. They are. It makes sense for me to move in with Regina. I'm over there all the time anyway. It's good for Henry. I can't live with my parents forever. What's wrong with me? It's supposed to feel good when you move in together isn't it? I don't know what I'm doing. I'm screwing this up already."

"I think you're being too hard on yourself. Give it some time. Since when has anything between you and Regina ever been easy?" David said, trying to get a smile out of her.

"I think I picked a fight with her. I wasn't trying to, I swear."

"What happened?"

Emma rolled her eyes and fiddled with her coffee cup. "She moved my keys! I couldn't find them." She rushed on to explain, hearing how lame it sounded out loud. "She put them with hers on the sidetable at the front door. But I was keeping them on the nightstand with my phone and my badge so I knew where they were in case I had to leave at a moment's notice. So we argued about that. Then she asked me when I was going to bring the rest of my stuff over and I said I wasn't going to. She actually seemed pissed that I wasn't leaving my things around. Then I ran into her at Town Hall this morning and I asked her what time she'd be home tonight and she said:

(Emma imitated a bitchy version of Regina's voice) I wasn't aware that I had to inform you of my schedule every minute of the day. I'll be home late, will you be there by any chance?

"And she called me 'Sheriff Swan' as if we're strangers, like I haven't seen every inch of her naked body."

David cleared his throat. "Do you think maybe you're overreacting a little? It takes a while for a new place to really feel like home. I know you moved around a lot when you were a kid-"

"Don't say it like that." Emma frowned crossly. "I didn't choose to move around, I got kicked out and shuttled around by other people because I was the brat nobody could deal with. I hate having to move, but nowhere feels like home to me so I guess it doesn't really matter where I am, I always feel homeless. The thing is, when you live in other people's homes stuff gets lost or 'goes missing', which is code for 'the other kids stole it'. They used to break my glasses all the time. Do you have any idea how long it takes for a kid in the foster system to be provided with new prescription glasses? I started sucking at school and eventually I just stopped going. Nobody cared."

"Emma, I-," David shook his head.

Emma softened her tone. "I'm not saying this to get you to apologise or to make you feel guilty. I just want you to know who I am, what my life was like. One of the foster moms took my baby blanket away and threatened to burn it, the only thing I've ever had that was special and mine. I got it back though. I tracked that bitch down after I got out of juvie and threatened to burn down her garden shed."

David smiled, trying to hide his amusement. It was easy to imagine Em doing something like that.

"It's not supposed to be a funny story," Emma said stubbornly. "I did some bad stuff. I'm not some pretty little well-behaved orphan just waiting for a good home."

"I know." David said simply. "But I also think that part of the reason why you tell me these things is because you're testing me for my reaction. Do you think that if you show me the worst parts of yourself that I'll stop loving you? Because there's nothing that you could possibly tell me for that to happen. I get that suddenly having a family in your life isn't easy for you to deal with. Do you think maybe you could be taking it out on Regina as well?"

Emma sighed. "I don't know. Probably."

"If you don't want to move in with her yet you need to tell her. If you go along with it it's only going to cause problems between you. Regina's a big girl, I'm sure she'll understand."

"Regina never gets over anything. She's the champion of the universe at holding a grudge. She's still pissed about that time the postman put her mail in next door's mailbox by mistake. She tried to get the guy fired. Or killed. I forget which."

David chastised her with a stern look.

"Alright alright. Don't give me the Dad look. Hey, did you get the memo from-" Emma cut herself off abruptly and all the colour drained out of her face when she saw her.

Regina was standing in the doorway with a large pile of files in her arms and an arctic glare on her face.

Oh god, how long had she been standing there?

Emma croaked. "Regina. I'm-"

"Save it. I need you to go through and correct these reports, Sheriff. They're not good enough."

"All of them?" shrieked Emma.

"Yes, and you will have them done by tomorrow."

Regina dropped the files onto Emma's desk from shoulder height. A loud thud reverberated in the office as the weight crashed down. The whole pile of manila folders slid off the desk and crashed to the floor, scattering their loose contents everywhere.

Emma stared morosely at the mess as she listened to the sound of Regina leaving, heels clicking severely down the hall until she was gone.

Shit shit shit. Tomorrow? her brain whined at her. Emma dropped her forehead to the desk with a thud. Dammit Regina, what the hell do you want from me!

I'm trying.

Town Hall

Regina pressed 'refuse call' on her phone for the third time and then set it to Silent mode. After the trip to the Sheriff's station she'd returned to her office where a huge backlog of work awaited and she was impatient to get started. For lack of a better way to occupy the teenagers during the day she'd brought them to work with her under the guise of being her "interns" even though she didn't really have the time to supervise them doing busywork.

"I like how you've decorated your throne room, Regina," said Ri. "It's beautiful. This is exactly what I would've chosen for myself."

"What an amazing coincidence," said Em, smiling fondly at the other girl as she looked around the Mayor's office.

"Oh and I do love that horse statue. It reminds me of Rocinante."

Regina sat the girls at the conference table and assigned them a stack of paperwork each, instructing them to sort them by topic and how urgent they were. Predictably, Ri took to her task with pleasure and a serious work ethic. Today she'd even asked to borrow one of Regina's skirt suits so that she could look the part as well. As usual Em was keen enough on anything that made Ri happy.

The Mayor went back to her laptop to finish drafting letters to the Small Business Owners of Storybrooke. Every piece of correspondence she'd answered lately had started off with an apology for lack of action on the issue because of the recent high turnover rate of Acting Mayors. To admit such incompetence was aggravating to someone who took pride in running a tight ship.

The town was slipping out of her control.

When the hell was she supposed to find time to organise an election and campaign on top of all this? Doing the job was becoming a real threat to her chance of winning it back. Campaigning was going to be a farce. As if her plans for improving Storybrooke were going to matter when stacked up against the fact that everyone now knew she was the Evil Queen.

Work had been stressful all week. Not to mention her home life had taken a sudden turn for the worse, which cast a layer of anxiety over everything else. First it was Henry and now Emma was acting up...

"Maybe, Madam Mayor, you should take a good hard look in the mirror and ask yourself why that is. Why is everyone running away from you?" She remembered Emma saying it once last year, accusing her of being such a bitch that it drove everyone in her life away from her. Was that still true? She was good at bringing others misery. She was woefully out of practice at being happy or making anyone else happy. Maybe she'd forgotten how.

Maybe it is my fault. Maybe she doesn't want what I want. No, I do know she loves me. I have to trust that. But is it enough if she can't stand to live around me? Why is Emma being so-

Regina's attention was pulled away when she noticed Em hovering in front of her desk.

"Em, you don't have to do the papers if you're bored. I think Henry left his handheld game system here if you want to play?"

"No, it's ok. I want to help you but uh, I don't know how to do this. You know I'm not smart, I dropped out of school." Em blushed bright red. "Sorry. I bet you're really busy huh."

Regina smiled at the teen and gestured her to bring around the guest chair next to hers. "Why don't we do the first few together and I'll show you?"

After a few tries at explaining it, Regina could see Em getting frustrated. It reminded her of Henry when she'd first attempted to teach him fractions when he was six. Assigning the first-grade teaching job to Mother Goose hadn't been one of her better decisions when casting the curse but at the time she hadn't known that she'd end up having to put a child through school.

"I don't get it," moaned Em. "I'm doing it wrong. It'll be faster if Ri does them all."

"You're doing fine. Try this: go through these documents and find any with the words 'education' 'school' or 'curriculum reform' and then find the most recent dates for me."

"Ok, finding stuff is something I can do." Em brightened up. "Although you could sweeten this deal by paying me a dollar per word?"

"Consider this a down payment." Regina placed a chaste kiss on Em's cheek causing the teen smile with embarrassment again.

"Anything for you, my Queen! For you I would scour the countryside and search every nook and cranny, I'd cross rivers, climb really tall things, and swordfight dragons and um… yeah, basically I'd do dangerous stuff to impress you."

"There'll be no need of that. Get to work."

The two of them worked in comfortable silence for a few minutes.

"Is Emma still acting cranky?" asked Em quietly. "I heard you guys arguing this morning."

Regina looked up from her work but didn't answer.

"That's a yes then," Em sighed. "Please don't be too upset. Are you? It's not you. She's just shitty about having to move again. It reminds her of getting kicked out all the time. But it's not just that. You're you and she's kind of a loser in comparison. You've got a mansion to bring to the deal and Emma's got a cardboard box. You know?"

"I really don't care about that. I've had riches long enough to know that my life has been impoverished of what's truly important. I care about Emma's happiness. I don't want to force her to do anything she doesn't want. If that's even possible."

Em grinned. "Yeah, it's not. She does want to be with you, she just doesn't want to piss you off so much that you won't want her there anymore. She's only afraid because she wants it so badly. Otherwise she wouldn't care, she'd just leave when it got too hard. It's still always going to be your house and for a while it's going to feel like you could kick her out anytime. She's waiting to see if you'll do it."

"What can I do to convince her I want her to stay?" asked Regina, with some vulnerability.

"Get mad at her."

Regina gave the teen a skeptical look.

"No, really! She's trying too hard to not be herself and trust me, that won't work for long. If you let her see that you can still get angry over all the same shit without kicking her out, then she'll know it's ok and nothing's really changed between you two."

"Let me see if I understand. Your solution to our fighting is for us to fight more?"

"Totally. You're kinda fighting a cold war at the moment, you need to fight a hot war instead. Get mad and yell at each other. At least you'll get makeup sex."

"What would you know about that." Regina narrowed her eyes sternly.

Em winked. "Nothing unfortunately, but a girl can dream."

"We've been busy the last day or so."

"Ha. Too busy to get busy? Or is it that you've got too many kids in the house now? Sorry about that, I'll run some interference for you. Henry sleeps like he's dead to the world but Ri heard you guys the first night. I told her it was a ghost moaning in the attic and she bought it… for about five minutes. She's a smart cookie that girl. It sounded like you guys were having fun."

Regina couldn't help but smile despite her mood. The extremely vivid memory of what she'd done to Emma that first night at home to make her moan so loudly brought a colour to her cheeks. She hadn't really known what she was doing either, other than to go by Emma's reactions and feedback - but Emma must've enjoyed it because her response was very vocal obviously. Now that she was a live-in parent she was going to have to learn to keep the volume down, Regina thought wryly.

Em always had a way of charming her, but the sexual innuendo reminded her more of the adult version right now than the teenager. It made her realise how much she'd missed Emma being Emma recently. The way Regina was feeling right now, if Emma showed even a hint that things were ok between them when she got home tonight she'd likely pounce on her.

Em leaned in closer and whispered. "Hey Regina. Emma satisfies you doesn't she? You know, in bed? Can you tell me what you like so I know for when me and Ri get there…?"

"You're not planning to-"

"I just wanna know," Em implored. "Please, I want to know how to make it really good for you."

"Em," Regina laughed and shook her head. She lowered her voice. "I think you've gotten the idea that I'm some kind of-"

"Sex goddess."

"Something like that." Regina said wryly, and then gave Em a quick overview of her actual sexual history, leaving out the more sordid details. "... but it's different with Emma and I. She takes such care with me."

Em nodded knowingly and then resumed her pestering. "Ok, now can you give me a hint? Are you a top or a bottom? Or maybe you have a thing like 'I fuck you, you don't fuck me'? Is that really true that it's one or the other or do you guys like to switch it up …and hey, do you think it's better with a girl than with a guy? I've kissed both. But I love the way that girls are so soft and I just want to run my hands all over her curves and oh Ri has the most gorgeous eyes. Every time she gives me that look my stomach does a flip-flop and when she touches me I feel it everywhere. Please, come on, tell me something you like. Anything. Position, technique, whatever…?"

Suspecting that putting the insistent teen off her line of questioning would get her nowhere, Regina decided to give in with a little hint. She wrapped her hand around Em's long blonde ponytail, twirling it around, and leant in close to whisper something in the young girl's ear.

"Well, hey, Madam Mayor," drawled a familiar sarcastic voice. "How're you doing. Busy?"