Regina
"You have to be kidding me, Eugenia. Please, tell me you're kidding me."
"Nope. Out. Goodbye."
"I don't understand, I have been a good tenant to you, how can you do this? This is Storybrooke, there is nowhere else to go!"
Eugenia scoffed, "Well if that were true then I wouldn't bother. Go home, Regina."
Regina's teeth grated; she was trying not to fly off the handle. They had been going around and around in circles for well over an hour and she still couldn't believe it. "Eugenia, I beg your pardon, but that is not your decision to make."
"Sure it is!" Eugenia's round bosom bounced a bit as she laughed, like a female Santa Claus. It made Regina want to strike out at her. "It's absolutely my choice who stays at my inn."
"I just- I can't believe-" Regina stammered, pacing the small office. She was rubbing her forehead hard as though the pressure would help sink this idea in. "I have done nothing to offend you!"
"It isn't about that, Regina!"
"I just can't see how you can kick me out. What would you have me do?"
"Go home, girl, like I said."
"And like I said, that is not up - to - you." she snarled. "Nor to me!"
"You're right," Eugenia said, her hands coming down on the counter with finality, "I can't make you go home, but I can take away your key. I can, if you would like, invoke the town charter that you created when that biker came through saying no one with a criminal record can stay here."
"Eugenia! That was shared with you in the strictest of confidences!"
"Well, I would really prefer not to do that anyway. I'll have your key now, please."
"No! Absolutely not! I am paid up through the end of the month as you well know!" She had begun pacing again but stopped short at the sound of the register sliding open with a ding.
"There you go." Eugenia plopped a few bills on the counter and held out her hand expectantly.
"Eugenia-" Regina was pleading now. Her fingers were flexing with anxiety, cracking uncomfortably as her teeth ground against themselves. She couldn't do this. She literally would have nowhere to go. She had always paid on time, if not early, she had always been quiet and kept to herself - for the most part. How could she do this? "Please don't do this. I can't - I can't handle trying to find somewhere else to live."
Eugenia came around the desk and wrapped her in a warm but altogether unwanted hug. "Regina, a mother belongs with her family."
Regina pushed away as politely as she could, which wasn't much, "But that is NOT YOUR CHOICE!"
Eugenia's face set, "Key."
"Eugenia!"
"Key."
"GRANNY!"
"KEY!"
Regina stared at the woman, her eyes beginning to prickle with tears. What was she going to do? There was nowhere to go. She supposed she could stay at the vault, but there was no bathroom, no bed, no room for the children. She could stay at the cabin she made for Mal she supposed, but she would much rather stay in her vault. She could build herself something new but...no she couldn't, that was far too large of a risk. Had she known this was coming then she could have done a little bit every day until it was complete.
She could see it in Eugenia's face. There would be absolutely no moving the old woman on this.
"Of all the lowly, shitty things to do, Eugenia, this might be the worst." She pulled the key off of her key ring, flinging it furiously into her hand. "I counted you among my friends."
"Sweetheart, when this is all over I guarantee you will still count me among them."
Keyless, she followed Eugenia up the stairs in a panic. What should she do now? She understood that the vile woman was trying to force she and Emma back together, but didn't she understand that what she was really doing was ruining their chances? How dare she interfere like this.
Eugenia opened her door for her and without a word Regina strode in, standing in the middle of the room very much at a loss.
"You'll see, Regina. If there's anything I know, it's that a mother deserves to be with her family."
The door slammed in her face of its own accord.
She had stalled a little bit, packing manually even though she could have packed in one swoop.
She could ask Mary-Margaret if she could stay with her but that would effectively put an end to her weekends with the children. Honestly, no matter where she went it took her weekends away from her.
She supposed she could leave town and ask Emma to transport the children with Craft each weekend. That wasn't a terrible plan, only, she knew that neither woman would approve of the idea of using that much Craft on their kids.
So she packed.
She did, indeed find the pair of Tiffany & Co sunglasses, which didn't surprise her at all. Whatever. She would give them to Mary-Margaret. She knew the woman had a soft spot for Tiffany.
She didn't go out the front of the inn when she was done, she thought that if she ran into Eugenia again she might kill her. So she took the back stairs.
Of course, when she opened the back door she was met with a sheet of rain. Because losing her living space wasn't enough for the day, she had to get soaking wet as she did it.
Grumbling, she popped her trunk and threw her bags into it, getting completely drenched within seconds.
What the hell was she going to say to Emma when she arrived?
She had no idea.
Knocking on the door of 108 she knew something was wrong. She could hear many voices from inside screaming their heads off, slamming and banging.
Worried, she rang the doorbell, half considering simply barging in.
The door flew open and she was met with such a disdainful, furious look that she whimpered, her nerves already on edge.
Everything about Emma's face read stress.
She could hear Bonnie screaming bloody murder upstairs while Henry was stomping around in the background, yelling nearly as loud.
"Regina!" Emma cried and it too was such a snarl that Regina took a step back wondering what the hell she could have done.
"What's going on?" Regina asked, stepping inside and hiking her sodden bags up a little higher on her shoulders.
"Here." Emma pushed Regina forward aggressively, "You can deal with it since you had to give it to her. You. Go!"
"What the hell-"
"Your daughter" Emma let out a strained laugh, her hands on her hips, "Heh, your daughter is stubborn like her freaking mother!" Regina's eyebrows rose high, "It's nap time. Only she won't go down for a nap because somebody recently gave her back her damn binky and she fucking wants it!"
Guilt instantly flooded Regina as she understood the issue. It was true that she had been the one to hand the thermometer disguised as a binky to Bonnie when she was sick. Then they had both just kind of let her have it, unwilling to take it back from a sick child. "Wait, wait, wait, it was all we had!"
"And your son!" Emma continued as though she hadn't heard her, "Your freaking son has decided that he wants to drive."
Thunderous footsteps came down the stairs and Henry vaulted himself into the living room. Confused Regina turned on him, "What is this? We already have the agreement that you will wait until you're eighteen."
He flung his hands into the air in exasperation, "I'm going to be eighteen in a year! It doesn't matter! It's like like I'm ten!"
"It sure matters to our insurance company." Regina scoffed.
"This is so stupid! You were driving by sixteen!" He pointed accusingly to Regina "and you," he pointed at Emma, "you had a car at sixteen!"
"It was the 90's! Things were different!" Regina insisted.
At the same moment, Emma yelled, "That's because that was ALL I had, Henry! I had to learn to drive it so the cops wouldn't tow it from the parking lot!"
Bonnie gave a particularly hard wail and that apparently did it for Ollie. He threw his book across the room and his hands over his ears, screaming, "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"
"And god, can't you get her to stop freaking crying already? It's been like ten hours!" Henry bellowed over the cacophony, throwing himself up the stairs.
Emma let out a small, tense laugh, "I'm freaking WORKING ON IT!"
Regina watched Ollie run upstairs to his room, overwhelmed. It was usually Regina with the hot head who was able to get riled up by the children. She had only seen Emma actually yelling like this a few times. She looked murderous. "So Bonnie-"
Emma rounded on her, "She wants her binky! We had her broken of this but you had to go and give her that damned binky again! She acts like she is going to fucking die without it!"
"Wait, a minute, you didn't exactly take it from her either."
"OF COURSE, I WASN'T GOING TO TAKE IT FROM A SICK BABY!"
"Wait, that was awhile ago. Why is this still a problem? It can't take another month to fully break her of it."
"BECAUSE YOUR DAUGHTER HAS BEEN SUMMONING THE THERMOMETER FROM THE BATHROOM EVERY NIGHT AND USING IT AS A BINKY!"
"What?"
"I kept freaking finding it in her bed. I thought it was Ollie or Henry! I chewed them a new asshole more than once over it! But it turns out that she has been summoning it from the bathroom every night. I have no idea how but the boys were downstairs with me the entire time! It wasn't them! So last night I threw it in the outside trash and she doesn't seem to know how to get it. SO! THIS!"
Bonnie gave another choking scream.
"She screamed for HOURS last night and she's been screaming for the last two hours today! She's exhausted, but she won't go to sleep without it! We're all a little high strung. Because of YOU! Who gives a little girl her binky back after months of being broken of it?"
"Hey! I was just doing what I could! Who takes a week to notice their daughter is summoning her binky every night?"
Emma paused, finally noticing that Regina was dripping on the floor, "Why are you all wet?"
"It's fucking raining!"
"Gee. Why do you have bags?"
Regina frowned, "Granny kicked me out!"
Emma just stared at her for a while, "What?"
"Granny kicked me out! I have had a very trying morning, Emma."
"She can't do that."
"Well, apparently she can, because she has."
"What the hell were you supposed to do?"
"Come home, apparently. She kept saying that mother's should be with their families."
"Wha-whu-" Emma stumbled, but Bonnie at that moment gave another loud screech and Emma's face twitched.
"Look, why don't you go for a run. I'll take care of this."
Emma looked for a second like she wanted to argue and then she was suddenly in her running clothes in a poof of white. Sweating and muttering she was out the door.
Regina watched her go, her stomach churning. She understood why Emma was clearly upset, but she wished so much that she wasn't.
She took a deep breath.
Eugenia had to pick today. She had to pick right now.
She marched upstairs and into Henry's' room.
"MOM! You're supposed to KNOCK! What if I had been - doing - stuff? I need my privacy!"
Ew! Did her son just threaten her with his own masturbation? "Well then, it wouldn't be the first time that I have seen your penis."
Just as she knew he would and just as she had intended Henry recoiled, "UGH GROSS MOM!"
"You brought it up, not me." Regina cut him off, "On no uncertain terms will you be driving until you are eighteen years old."
"BUT-"
She cut him off again, "No. That is final."
"MOM!"
"FINAL! We will readdress this issue after your birthday, if you choose to continue on this way then we can wait to readdress the issue until after your nineteenth birthday. Do you understand?"
"Yes, ma'am."
She closed his door, all business and headed to the nursery.
Bonnie was not so easy.
She had been summoning her binky? Well, that - was interesting. Ollie had done things like that when he was young, but lots of children with Craft bearing parents do and then it simply fades from them. She tried rocking. She tried holding. She cried scolding. She cried comforting. Nothing worked. Eventually, Regina gave up. Bonnie would be cranky without a nap, but she supposed she would be here to help.
Emma didn't return for an hour, soaking wet and breathing hard.
Regina had laid out a towel for her beside the door and Emma was patting herself down when Regina reappeared in front of her; her nerves a little less rattled and the house a bit quieter.
"So she just kicked you out?"
Regina's lips pursed. It was bad enough being kicked out, but it was worse seeing just how much Emma didn't want her there. "Yes."
"What the hell did she think you were going to do?"
"Come back here."
Emma scoffed, "Because that's just her choice, huh?"
"I don't know, Emma!" Regina's arms folded over her chest.
Emma toweled off in silence, but Regina could feel her anger building. It made Regina wish for a nap. This was all too much. "You know," Emma finally burst, "That really pisses me the hell off! She gets to decide how our life goes?"
"I don't know, Emma." She was getting a headache.
"I mean, now what?"
"I'm not sure. Where would you have me go?" She had snapped and that wasn't going to help anything, she knew that.
"Okay, that's not fair!"
"It isn't about being fair, Emma. I mean that quite literally, where would you have me go?"
"Go to a friends house!"
"Oh, you know as well as I do that I have no friends in this town! I was mayor here for three terms!" she snapped, "Besides, where could I go where I could still have the children on the weekend?"
Emma's mouth opened and closed then opened and closed again.
"I didn't exactly choose this, Emma!"
She saw Emma's eyes narrow and she waited for the blow, knowing it was coming. Some form of 'well this is your fault' or 'but you did choose to cheat'.
She steeled herself and waited, but though Emma's mouth opened, she didn't say it. She looked very much like she wanted to, but she didn't say it.
This gave Regina a new kind of hope. "This doesn't have to be bad, Emma. I'll stay in the guest room. I can help. It doesn't have to mean - anything when it comes to us."
Emma shifted back and forth, looking a little bit like a trapped animal, "This should have been my choice."
"Well then make it now," Regina bit, "I can get a room out of town if you would like. I cannot think of another choice within Storybrooke."
Emma stared at her for a long time before her shoulders drooped, "No. No, I won't make you do that."
Thank god. Regina wanted to fall into the chair with a huff but instead just nodded.
"Stay in the guest room. We'll figure it out."
"Thank you, Em."
This time, it was Emma who awkwardly nodded, "I'm- I'm going to take a shower."
Regina watched her go unsure of whether they had taken a step forward or a step backward.
When she heard the water click on upstairs she gathered her bags and pulled them up the steps. She stopped outside of the first guest room, scowling. Not this room, not where Mal stayed.
"What are you doing?" Henry was leaning against the doorframe of his room, studying her bags.
Regina jumped, "Jesus, Henry!"
"Are you moving back in?"
"Eugenia kicked me out."
"Really? What did you do?"
"Nothing!"
His angry face began to transform into a grin, "So you're back."
"Henry." Regina pointed at him seriously, sensing he was about to do something, "You will not make this worse. You will not speak of this. Do not make this harder on - anyone."
His grin grew, "Okay Mom."
She couldn't help herself, she smiled back and headed for the secondary guest room.
She dropped her bags with a thump and looked around.
As strange as it was to be in this room. She was home. Maybe not as she would like to be, but she was here, within its walls. She couldn't exactly find it in herself to be grateful to Eugenia, but she was here.
She looked at her clothes and sighed; she would love a shower too. She would love a shower and to get into her pajamas early but - maybe not. Would that be hard for Emma? Perhaps she should act a bit more like a guest for a while. No pajamas in the living room. Respect her space. So she unpacked her bags into the spare dresser there and sat down on the edge of the bed, anxiously.
Dinner. She would cook a long and difficult dinner.
She knew that Emma was avoiding her when it took her another hour to come down from her shower. She couldn't blame her.
Regina wasn't sure what Henry had said to Ollie, but he had come strolling down the stairs a little while later and curled up on the couch, turned around to watch her in the kitchen with an entirely satisfied smile on his face.
"What are you up to, mister?"
He shrugged, "Whatcha makin' for dinner?"
She was deep in conversation with Ollie when Emma finally came down, pausing just inside the living room door, clearly surprised to see Regina in the kitchen.
"I thought I would make dinner," Regina said quietly. The strain was thick and sat cottony in her throat. She cleared it but it wouldn't budge. "If that's alright."
Emma shifted and then gave her a small smile. "Do you have enough space in the spare closet?"
"Mmm," Regina nodded, dipping her finger in and tasting the sauce she was making. She flushed when she saw Emma watching. "I suppose I could use the hall closet, if need be."
"Well, there is still plenty of space in - my - closet, our closet."
"I still have quite a bit in there as well, don't I?"
"Yeah." Emma laughed and Regina rolled her eyes. She had always had so much more in the way of clothes than Emma.
"I'll pull those out."
Emma shrugged, "Only if you want to. It's not like you have anywhere for them to go."
Things began to ease a little as the whole family sat down to dinner. It was easy to pretend as though at the end of the night Regina would be leaving and their life would just move on as it had been; as though nothing had changed.
Regina and Henry washed the dinner dishes while Emma and Bonnie fought bedtime together. She went down a little easier since she had missed her nap but it still wasn't pretty.
Finally, all three of the children were in bed and it was just Emma and Regina - and it was not comfortable at all.
Simply because she didn't know what else to do Regina cleaned, straightening the kitchen far more than necessary while Emma puttered around, readying everything for the next day.
"Emma. Perhaps we -"
"Should talk?"
Regina let out a small laugh, "Yes."
"I think so too but I'm not sure what there is to talk about."
"I'm sorry that you've had this pushed on you in this way. I'm sure Eugenia thinks that she is helping."
Emma scoffed.
"What does this mean?"
Emma paused, glancing cautiously in Regina's direction.
"Are we still dating?"
Emma pulled herself up onto the kitchen counter, frowning, "I don't know" she said in exasperation, lifting her hands just to let them flop again, "Are we? Being in the same house kind of makes that weird, doesn't it?"
"I suppose so. Perhaps we should just, um, put everything on hold for now."
Regina turned her back to her, wiping the clean counter again, scrubbing hard as though it would wipe away her disappointment. She didn't want to stop dating. She had only just been celebrating how well it was going. What now? Though, part of her knew that perhaps putting the dating off was wise. She couldn't deny the knot of attraction in her lower belly. She had always liked Emma in her pajama shorts and tank top; it had been one of her secret enjoyments of their relationship. Now, with her sitting at the perfect height and her long, toned legs dangling off the counter she had to admit that it would be complicated now. "Emma -"
"Hmm?"
"In the woods - in the circle we were both feeling - well," she asked the question before she could stop herself "And sex - Emma? Are we - ?"
Emma had been open with her desire for it in the circle, well, somewhat open, but now the woman looked startled, "Sex? What about sex?"
Regina turned, leaning against the counter and crossing her arms but looking anywhere but at the baffled woman, "I was under the impression in the woods that it was something you were considering. I - well - it's a habit we once had and -"
"Uhhh…"
"I suppose, I just need to know Emma. If we are going to be living in close quarters and in this limbo then it seems we should make a decision before it becomes an issue."
"Um, right. No. No sex. No-"
"Nothing physical at all."
"I mean, I dunno, Regina! Does that mean you think otherwise?"
"No!" Regina jumped and gave her a small smile, "I'm just reminding myself, I suppose."
Emma stared at her, eyes wide and mouth open.
Neither knew what to say in response so finally, just wanting an escape Regina sighed, "Well, I am going to take a shower and then head to bed."
Emma nodded rigidly.
It was a relief to step out of the kitchen and even more of a relief to wash the day off of her. She pulled on her pajamas and just to avoid any more of that strange mix of tension and upset that she had met downstairs, she listened closely before stepping into the hall.
She had just rested against the pillows, not even under the blankets yet with her current book when there was a small knock at the door.
Her mouth went dry and despite everything, a hopeful vision passed through her mind of what it was Emma could possibly want. She didn't know if they were ready for anything physical, she had meant what she said in the circle. She just wanted - some - part of her, whatever she could have.
"Come in," she rasped, and then quickly cleared her throat.
Emma's head peeked around the door and she gave her a small smile, "Here. I noticed you didn't get one." Emma dropped a second pillow onto Regina's bed. As a matter of fact, Regina had noticed the lack of a second pillow but she wasn't sure she could manage to leave the room again. It was too strange, too much. Her room was just down the hall, where her wife would soon be sleeping. Even when they fought she had never slept in this room; they had just never been that couple.
She pulled her feet back quickly when she saw Emma sitting on the edge of the bed, "You didn't take the other room."
"Mm, no. I can't help but to feel as though it is tainted."
"Maybe we should remodel it."
We?
"I like that idea. Perhaps a gym? Or - I'm not sure really."
They lapsed into silence for a moment, "Look Regina, I don't want you to be uncomfortable."
Regina chuckled, "Aren't you uncomfortable?"
"Yeah, I am. I don't think I was ready for this, not yet. But I don't want you to feel like you need to tiptoe around. If you're going to be here then just be here, okay?"
She nodded.
"Okay." Emma pat her foot and stood, "I don't know how this is going to go."
"No, nor do I. We were doing so well when we went out with one another. I suppose let's just try to figure it out as we go."
Emma nodded and gave her a weak smile.
