DISCLAIMER:: do not own ouat or any of its characters. just borrowing for purpose of creative expression. no profit obtained.

A/N:: thanks so much for the well wishes everyone! i have made it through surgery and the entire top half of my back is completely repaired! no more surgeries up there. i may have one more on the bottom half later this year, but for now i have reached a good spot in this surgical journey. so that means i can begin updating again. i have been writing a lot lately (though not all for the stories i already have posted, sorry bout that dear readers, i'm trying), so more updates are coming. thanks to all who've stuck around for this story or any of my others, glad i still got a cheering section out there :)

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Chapter 53: The Lucky And The Strong

Emma had never been in this particular building either. True, she had driven past it on countless patrols, several times deciding the place wasn't even occupied. But it turned out the place just kept unusually short hours, just enough money in payroll to support only one employee.

She opened one of the two angled front doors, surprised to find it unlocked, and stepped over the threshold and into the dimly lit, high ceilinged lobby. A counter to her right appeared to be unmanned, almost every free stretch of its surface covered with pamphlets and fliers she'd seen offered in other businesses around town, as well as some that were posted on the community events board outside City Hall. A cart with unshelved returns sat half full on the far side of the long desk.

Just ahead and on her left, the wall was dominated by a huge old fashioned lift, and just beyond, a set of wooden stairs leading only up, she assumed to the clock tower visible from the outside. Where the final wall of the lobby should be, there was no wall; the room simply opened up into row after row of shelves, disappearing back into darkness, giving her no idea of where the library's end actually was. There was something creepy to her about being alone in the dimness among all these books, some older than she herself was.

She leaned against the front counter and drummed her finger on one of the few blank spaces available on its surface between a neon orange flier announcing half off beer on tap at the Rabbit Hole on Fridays and a white poster with a picture of a lost pooch, $100 reward to anyone returning him. She couldn't see a bell to ring for service anywhere. Maybe she had missed the hours of operation after all. She glanced around. Should she call out?

She picked up one of the doggie wanted posters, examining it curiously, making her miss the small head that poked out from between the shelves. "Don't bother, it's dead."

Emma looked up, her brow furrowing at the words. 'Dead' wasn't generally included in any of the traditional greetings she knew of. "Excuse me?"

"The dog. It's dead. Died of old age over a year ago." The woman stepped out from between the shelves and into the center aisle. There were coloured streaks of blue in her wild medium brown hair, the dark eyeliner around her eyes was smudged and smokey. She wore a tight fitting corset, coloured to match her hair and a black miniskirt, appearing as if she'd feel more comfortable on the dance floor in some bar or club than in a library. Maybe she was just filling in for the normal librarian, as a favour, which fit her age, twenty, maybe twenty one, by Emma's estimation. She set a couple of books that she'd been holding on the counter. Coming closer, she extended a bangle covered arm.

Emma shook a hand with flaking black nail polish, setting the paper back down on the stack before gesturing to it with a tilt of her head. "Why the flier then?"

"Mrs. Harris has Alzheimer's. Can't remember who she is most days, let alone that her dog kicked the bucket." She shrugged and moved back over to the cart of books on the far side of the counter, sifting through the titles, occasionally pulling out a book and adding it to her stack on the counter. "Lacey, by the way."

"What?" For the second time in less than five minutes, Emma felt confused by the unpredictable turn in conversation.

"My name. It's Lacey. And you're Emma Swan."

"Is it that obvious? I thought the pungent odor of outsider would have dissipated by now."

Lacey smiled and shook her head. "Actually, Ruby told me about you."

Ruby. It made sense. They were of a similar age, had a similar sense of style. She could definitely see them being friends, even best friends. "Of course she did." She ran a hand through her blonde hair.

"I used to spend all my time, and money, at the Rabbit Hole. Then Mr. Gold reopened the library, offered me this job and a chance to get my life back together."

"Mr. Gold owns this building?"

Lacey snorted in amusement. "Along with half the businesses in town."

Emma pursed her lips sourly. "Why am I not surprised?"

Lacey smirked. "I'm grateful though. I mean... it's not like I'm anyone's first choice for a librarian." She gestured down her body. "But he offered me this job and a permanent room at the B & B behind the diner."

"Another one of his properties I take it?"

The younger woman nodded, the barest hint of a genuine smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

She likes him, Emma thought, though she could quite imagine what someone like Lacey, a young wild child, found interesting about a middle aged business owner with a suspicious disposition, except perhaps his wealth. But Lacey didn't seem like a golddigger and her like for the man seemed rather genuine.

"So what brings you here?" Lacey looked up from her sorting, her eyes traveling from Emma's head down to her toes in a serious inspection. "No offense, but you don't much seem the library type."

"Neither do you."

The right side of Lacey's mouth lifted in a smirk. "Touche."

"I was wondering if you had any medical journals or reference books where I could read up on leukaemia?"

Lacey sobered up instantly, her features, one joking, twisting into solemn realisation. She nodded, scooping up the stack of books she'd made to return to the shelves. She gestured to the shelves with the tilt of her head. "Follow me." She wandered off down the center aisle, Emma obediently falling in a few feet behind her.

The blonde stared at the notecards affixed to the end of each row of shelves, labeling and summarizing the content of each row. To her, the numbers meant nothing. "I've never understood the dewey decimal system."

"It's easy once you get the hang of it, kinda like learning a foreign language."

Emma blew out a breath, looking slightly frustrated. "Yea, I was never really good at that either."

Lacey turned down, what seemed to Emma, to be a random row, but the younger woman moved with the swiftness and certainty of someone who knew where they were going. She cut left at the next intersection of shelves, walked back three rows, and made a right, straight into a row that dead ended at a wall. Her eyes scanned the shelf, speed reading the titles, occasionally pulling out a title and holding it out for Emma to take before resuming her search. By the time she finished, Emma was balancing six heavy and dusty volumes with titles like A Journal of Modern Leukaemia In All Its Forms and Your Own Blood Cells Betray: A Story of One 7 Year Old's Determination to Live.

"There's more in the reference section I can get for you."

Emma, with a little effort, balanced the heavy books in one arm. "I'll start with these."

Lacey nodded, walking back past her. "Come on, I'll check those out gor you."

Emma followed closely behind, too afraid she might get lost among the rows of shelves without her guide.

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Regina felt exhausted. She knew that it was something that went far deeper than mere physical tiredness. Honestly the day had required no more physical activity than her job required of her on a day to day basis. No, this exhaustion was a physical weight on her, a complex heavy thing she felt deep in her bones. She hadn't felt this drained in a long time and she was just glad Henry was down for the night and that he'd actually managed to fall asleep.

Her stomach turned, reminding her that she hadn't managed to eat anything all day. But her appetite was close to non-existent and she turned off the kitchen light without even a second glance. She finished her cursory check of the ground floor, so much a routine now that it was merely second nature, before ascending the stairs toward the comforting promise of her bed.

She wasn't surprised to see the strip of light winking at her from underneath the door at the end of the hall. Neither she nor Emma had managed a good night's sleep since Henry's collapse. They had originally attributed it to the uncomfortable accommodations the hospital had provided them, but even after they'd brought Henry home the previous day and got him settled in, their own bed had done nothing to provide the relief they sought. So it surprised her little to know her young fiancee was still awake despite retiring to bed over an hour prior.

Emma had been putting on a brave face for them both, she knew. Despite her young age, she had experienced more of the hardships life could throw at a person than Regina ever would and the older woman was torn between being grateful to have someone else be the rock for once and being sad that life had trained Emma to believe she had to be always steadfast in the storm.

She opened the bedroom door and slipped in, closing it softly behind her. The glow she had seen beneath the door had looked bright in the darkness of the hallway, but in the room it was reduced to the shaded shine coming from Emma's bedside lamp.

The woman herself was sitting, propped back against the pillows, her legs straight out in front of her, looking smaller than usual on the queen sized mattress. A heavy-looking thick hardcover was perched unopened on her lap. Regina couldn't read the title from where she stood by the door, but she saw several other hardcovers with varying levels of thickness on her bedside table, directly beneath the illumination of the lamp, spotlighting the small stack. She hadn't considered Emma to be much of a reader, but she was aware there were still a great many things she didn't know about the blonde.

"I can't make myself open it. I've tried since I came in here, but... I just can't." Emma didn't glance up from where her eyes were still glued to the cover of the book on her lap.

Regina stepped away from the door, coming closer to the bed, trying to get a better look at the tome's title.

Emma tilted the book towards her to save her the trouble.

Regina read it with pursed lips. When she deduced the subject of the book's contents, and likely the content of the others as well, her look softened. "Emma..."

Emma set the book on the top of her small stack with a sigh. She rubbed her temples before glancing up at Regina with tired eyes.

Regina wished she could take away the pain, worry, and helplessness she saw there. But she knew she couldn't possibly heal in her the same thing that was broken within herself. She'd been searching for those same answers for the past three years, and she had made little progress away from square one.

"Do you ever wonder about the choices you've made? That maybe if you could go back, you could make it all better if you just went left one time instead of right?"

Regina sat down gently on her side of the bed, reaching over to grab one of the blonde's hands, squeezing it softly. "Don't Emma. Don't dwell on the past and don't regret. For every negative in my life, I can find a corresponding positive." She released the hand she held to start in on the top button of her shirt.

Emma watched her. Neither of them said a word as the mayor methodically removed her clothes and got ready for bed. Every few moments, their eyes would meet, shared emotions floating between them unvoiced.

Regina was grateful that she was no longer alone. When she had slipped into her navy satin pyjama pants and one of Emma's grey tight fitting v-necks, she slipped into her side of the bed.

Emma snuggled in beside her, face to face, so close that the tips of their noses nearly kissed.

Regina reached out, brushing a stray golden strand behind Emma's ear.

"Are you afraid?" Emma's eyes were a watery green, emotion-filled but piercing.

Regina had always hated admitting fear. She was a firm believer in facing one's fear head on, not letting it hold you back in life. Too often people were so preoccupied with fear that they forgot to live. But this was Emma and she already learned her lesson about keeping secrets and assuming what was best for the younger woman. She nodded. "Are you?"

Emma's face crinkled, almost on the precipice of crying as she too nodded. "He's dying, isn't he?"

The words were whispered so softly that she barely heard them. She leaned in, pressing a brief kiss to Emma's lips, hoping to reassure her, though the tears came anyway. She wiped a few away though they were numbered too many to stop. "Not yet Emma. The odds are against us but we're fighters, all of us, and we will give this disease on hell of a fight."

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Regina shouldered the two bags of groceries into one arm, jutting her hip out to brace their bottom like one would a child, and fumbled with her keys to find the one for the front door. She was anxious to get back to Henry. She hadn't been away from him since they'd returned from the hospital. But when she'd gone downstairs that morning to make Emma and herself some tea, she had found both the pantry and the fridge seriously barren. Emma had still been asleep and she knew it wouldn't have been fair to order her young lover awake and to the store, though she knew Emma wouldn't have objected. It had fallen on her to make a list of essentials and make a quick run into town. She had hoped to be as fast as possible, quick enough to get back before either Henry or Emma woke and took note of her absence.

But luck was not on her side. It seemed as if everyone she passed in the aisles felt it necessary to stop her, either to inquire about Henry's well being or to express their concern over the sudden departure of the new deputy from her position at the station. She didn't want to waste her time repeating the same responses over and over again, but they were still her constituents and the moment she had first stepped out of her house that morning, she had automatically resumed the role of mayor; so she'd managed to face it all with a forced smile and as much patience as she could muster, which, admittedly, hadn't been very much. She'd finally managed to make it to the till and get out, only to be stopped outside the door by the sheriff himself.

Graham had known her long enough that he kept his inquiry brief but it had still delayed her a few more minutes. More time wasted that could have been spent with her family.

No sooner had she closed the door than arms seemed to appear from nowhere, relieving her of the hefty load of grocery bags. She barely realised she'd been liberated of them before she glanced up to see a blonde ponytail disappearing into the kitchen hall. The edge of her mouth quirked up as she shouldered off her coat and hung it up before following.

Emma was peeking curiously into the paper sacks when Regina stepped into the kitchen. The older woman rolled her eyes and gently nudged her aside. The younger woman pouted but just hoisted herself up to sit on the counter beside the bags. She reached in and pulled out a banana and began to peel it.

Regina opened the refrigerator and stared once again at the measly arrangement of groceries in the empty interior. There was a head of lettuce that was more brown than green, left in the crisper. Three of Henry's juice boxes remained, two apples and one fruit punch. A litre of milk that, while surprisingly not yet expired, contained barely enough in the bottom to fill one bowl of cereal. Beyond that there was a shelf of condiments and not much else that wasn't either expired or looked too questionable for her to consider feeding to her family.

She turned back towards the bags, offering a playful scowl when she saw Emma had gotten into them.

Emma slid the end of the banana, two thirds peeled, into her mouth, wrapping her lips around it, her gaze never leaving Regina's.

Regina stepped forward, placing a hand on the counter on either side of Emma, leaning in and insinuating herself in between legs covered in purple flannel pyjama pants. "Don't give me any ideas Miss Swan."

The large bite of banana seemed to stick in place halfway down her throat and she was forced into a small brief coughing fit.

Regina stepped back, a triumphant smile on her face. She knew she had just won their little flirting game.

Emma coughed raggedly one final time before collected herself. She hit her breastbone with a side of a fist, clearing her throat. "You can't say things like that while I'm eating! You'll put me in an early grave."

Regina merely smirked and moved back over to the grocery bags. "Yes, dear."

Emma watched the methodical and practised way Regina moved between the bags and the various areas of the kitchen, as if she were on automatic pilot. She had been much the same since they'd returned from the hospital. Efficient, that was the word that came to Emma's mind.

Knowing there was going to be no easy way to broach the topic, she gripped the edge of the counter on either side of herself. She leant forward a little to stare down at the tiled floor, trying desperately to find where she'd dropped her courage. It must be down there somewhere, because it certainly wasn't in her possession anymore. "We need to talk about what our plan is."

Regina paused midway through putting the last grocery item, a bag of fresh spinach, into the cleared out crisper. She set it in, slowly sliding the drawer shut, then closed the refrigerator door. "Our plan? I'm not sure what you mean."

Emma bit her bottom lip, still unable to look up into confused and wary brown eyes. "About Henry."

This only added to the older woman's confusion, internal alarms starting to go quietly off.

"He has cancer Regina." Emma added the feeble explanation, stumbling just a little over the c word, after the palpable silence had stretched on uncomfortably long.

"Oh really? I hadn't noticed."

Emma couldn't help it, she flinched at the dry sarcasm. She knew she was speaking to the mayor now, the cold facade, not the open, caring, generous woman she loved. "Have you ever considered that he might..."

"No!" The word stabbed through the air, a killing blow to the direction of their conversation. Her fists gently clenched and unclenched in an effort to calm herself and also to remind her that Emma was not the enemy. "I will not allow that to happen."

The younger woman couldn't help but think, in the privacy of her mind though not out loud, that, when the time came, Regina would have very little say in the matter. It was all up to Henry and his body now. His cancer was a train, Regina standing on the tracks with her hand out, demanding it to stop; in the end, only the train itself could do the stopping. "I know. And neither will I. But... he's my son too."

Regina looked at the blonde, watching the thumb of her left hand twirling the diamond ring around her ring finger absentmindedly.

Again the silence unnerved Emma and she instantly sought to fill it. "I mean, I know I'm not exactly his mother and so it's not really my..." A hand on her knee stopped her before she could go further.

"Emma, look at me."

For a long moment, the young woman suppressed the urge to obey, a part deep inside her still fearful that this woman and all her promises of love and family were all just some cruel joke. Steeling her nerves, she finally forced her eyes up from the floor, traveling slowly up the length of the woman before her, before coming to rest on soft brown eyes.

"After things have settled down." Her eyes wandered first to the diamond ring on Emmma's finger, and then to her own ring. Her eyes returned to Emma's with new conviction in those dark depths. "After the wedding, I was thinking..." She paused to take a deep breath. "I want to have the paperwork drawn up for you to legally adopt Henry."

Emma's eyes opened comically wide as the other woman's words sunk in. She couldn't speak. Her first thought was that she hadn't heard correctly; her second that she had never woken up that morning and this was all a dream. This didn't happen, not to people like her, not outside of fairytales anyway.

Regina placed a gentle hand to each cheek. "Breathe Emma."

Emma hadn't even realised she had stopped. She focused for a moment only on taking in and expelling out air. As soon as she had calmed, she focused eyes, moist with impending tears, on the woman's face. "Why?"

Regina knew what she meant. It was the veritable 'why me?', born of a life spent on the losing side of life and every situation in it. Emma had lived a life where she'd had to fight the odds to earn everything she had, and the brunette knew it wasn't in her fiancee's nature to trust kindness and things given with nothing asked for in return. Her thumbs brushed across Emma's cheeks. "I told you, you're his mother too. That's already the truth in my mind. But, legally, I want you to be able to make decisions freely."

Emma leaned forward, her mouth meeting Regina's. Her hands grabbed greedily at the older woman's waist, pulling her closer.

Regina sunk forward into the kiss, her hands slipping from Emma's cheeks to her delicately fluttering throat and then down to her shoulders. She had almost forgotten just what it felt like to allow herself a moment to feel Emma, to be physically intimate with her. It had been near to the furthest thing in either of their minds since Henry had collapsed. But now she realised the craving had been there, suppressed at the back of her mind, this whole time. She pressed closer into the younger woman, relishing the moment, unsure when they'd have this opportunity again.

As if reading her mind, a small voice called out for them from upstairs.

Emma drew back enough to lean her forehead against Regina's. She offered her an apologetic smile. "That's my cue."

Regina nodded. "I'm going to finish up in here. I have a few business matters to attend to after. I'll be in my office if you need me."

Emma pressed one more quick kiss to the mayor's lips and then slipped off the counter and moved out of the room.

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Regina rubbed her eyes underneath the frames of her glasses and blinked several times in rapid succession, trying to chase away her exhaustion. She pulled her reading glasses off and massaged the bridge of her nose between thumb and index finger, releasing a tired sigh. She glanced at the clock, trying to stifle a groan when she noticed the short hand creeping dangerously close to the ten. Yet another late night.

She'd been attempting to play catch up with the unattended stack of paperwork that had accumulated while she had been in the hospital at Henry's bedside. Sometimes it still amazed her how many small town problems sprang up in the span of a few days away from the office. She was just fortunate and grateful that she had someone as practised and professional as John working for her. He'd been able to deal with some of the more trivial aspects of her job, fielding calls, typing up reports, placing calls to constituents and other businesses. He'd be getting a well deserved raise as soon as the proverbial dust settled and she was able to return to work. But there were things even John couldn't do here, parts of the job that required her attention, such as the forms stacked before her now. They required the mayor's signature.

She'd been at it for hours now, leaving her in-home office only to have meals and use the restroom. She'd heard Emma and Henry earlier, laughing and giggling together just down the hall. Her heart had yearned to leave the isolation of her office and join them, but she had never been one to push her professional responsibilities aside and she wasn't about to start now. She had to catch up on her work. But that was becoming increasingly hard as the hours flew by. And now that she'd finally allowed herself to look at the clock, she realised the day was gone. She'd missed an entire day, with Henry, with Emma. And for what? Paperwork?

She pushed the stack aside with a disgusted sigh. She knew that she was hiding behind work as an excuse. She really did need to finish all this, but no one could look down at her if her circumstances caused her to stretch the work over a few days. She was just using it as a shield for her fright. She was scared, more than she ever had been, more now even than when he was first diagnosed. She had been working so hard not to fall apart, for Henry's sake, and even for Emma's. Her young fiancee was taking things surprisingly well but she knew that the blonde was secretly overwhelmed. All she'd ever had to do, with the exception of the few short months she'd carried her baby, was take care of herself. She knew even being here, living in the presence of other people, had been a change for her. But this- not only being a mother, but a mother with a sick child- had to be testing the limits of her fears.

She opened her desk drawer. On top, glaring back out at her was the wrapped package August Booth had given her to give to Emma on her birthday. She felt a small surge of guilt. Emma deserved to have the present, it was hers after all, but a small part of her was afraid, scared that August had given her something that might remind her of her past, that might pull her farther away. She couldn't risk that. Setting her glasses in their case, she replaced it in the drawer and shut it.

She pushed her chair back and stood. Her legs protested, nearly dropping her, numb as they were from disuse, but she managed to stay upright and after a few uneasy moments, she made it to the door.

The hallway beyond was dark, as was the ground floor when she leaned over the railing to inspect it. She stopped at Henry's door, leaning inside to check in. He was curled up underneath his blanket, looking almost peaceful despite the war his body was fighting. Not wanting to disturb him, she blew a kiss to him from the doorway and closed it softly.

The light was still on in the bedroom she shared with Emma; she could see it winking out at her from the small strip of free space between the door and the floorboards. She fell into the door softly, turning the knob and stepping inside. When she caught sight of the younger woman on the bed, she smiled to herself and closed the door softly.

Emma was strewn across their bed, her bare feet resting up on her own pillow and her head at the foot of Regina's side, her golden hair fanned out around her head in a bright sunburst. A magazine, open, lay turned over on her stomach; she had obviously been flipping through it when she fell asleep. A stack of three more sat untouched beside her, stacked neatly on top of the duvet. Apparently she had tired of the stack of medical books, still arranged in a small mountain on her bedside table, some marked up with coloured taps to indicate an important page.

She moved curiously to the edge of the bed, tilting her head to get a better look and inspect the titles of the periodicals. They were all bridal magazines of one sort or another, each with a picture of a smiling model dressed all in white, happy and carefree. They were meant to send the reader a message that if she bought the wares listed within their pages, she too would be a grinning and happy bride-to-be. But they both knew that was an empty promise.

She grabbed the three magazines beside the blonde and set them atop the stack of books on the bedside before she reached out and grabbed the one still on Emma's stomach, glancing at the pages it was opened to. Belvedere Castle, the sun glowing down on the pond and the rolling green expanse of Central Park beyond the parapets. But the main focus of the photograph was another model, posing, framed on either side by a turret and bathed by that same golden sunlight, wearing a beautiful princess-style dress. She looked every bit the part of princess, her blonde curls twisted up into a bun with tendrils dropping down to frame her face, a tiara glittering atop her head.

The resemblances between the model and her fiancee were subtle, but not lost on her. The blue eyed woman on the castle shared a fair amount of physical characteristics with her girlfriend, and she knew Emma would look just as flawless in the dress. She dog-eared the page, closed the magazine, and set it atop the others.

She kept her gaze on Emma as she undid the zipper at the back of her dress. Once it was down the garment slipped to the floor. She picked it up, draping it across the vanity chair, subsequently stepping out of her heels.

A whimper from the bed caused her to glance over her shoulder at her sleeping lover. Emma had rolled onto her side, her body curling unconsciously in on itself.

She walked over to the bed, sitting down gently beside the blonde, rolling down her stockings, first the right, then the left. She didn't see green eyes flutter open at the sudden shift of the bed. There was a moment of bleary-eyed confusion on the younger woman's face before she noticed the lean expanse of back before her.

She leaned over, trailing kisses up Regina's spine until she reached the obstacle of her bra. She unclasped it with an easy flick of her wrist, letting her mouth continue across the skin that had been blocked only moments before.

Regina smiled to herself, tossing her stockings in the general direction of the vanity, not caring if they missed their mark. She turned, sliding her bra down her arms, she tossed that over her shoulder.

For a long moment, neither woman moved, just stared deeply into each other's eyes. Then Emma reached for Regina, gripping her hips and dragging her further toward her. She sat up, her lips going to the mayor's neck.

Regina shrugged her shoulder to dislodge her mouth, not wanting to push Emma into anything physical with all the emotions that had been running high lately, but that did nothing more than to encourage the blonde to seek her mouth. She couldn't find the will to pull away, especially not when one of Emma's palms grazed across the tops of her breasts. Her tongue slid into Emma's mouth and she crawled onto her lap, using her body to press her down into the bed.

Emma's hands wanted flesh, to touch and explore every inch of it, and all at once. Her fingers trailed over nipples, down across a minefield of quivering stomach muscles, between her legs (earning her a delicious gasp from the brunette), across her thighs, and around behind her knees. She tugged on them, urging her up her body.

Regina smirked. She moved off Emma long enough to slide her underwear off and then she was back over her once more, straddling her hips and biting her lip as she looked down at the blonde.

Emma's hands returned to their former position behind her knees, urging her up her body once more.

Regina needed no further prompting, scooting up until she was poised over Emma's face.

Emma looked up her tan body hungrily, her tongue subconsciously running over the edges of her teeth. She'd missed this. She gripped Regina's hips, digging her nails in and dragging the woman's core down to her mouth.

"Emma." She wanted to cry out her pleasure but, conscious of their son asleep in the next room, she barely whispered the name.

Emma licked at the velvety softness of her core. She smiled into her sex when the woman above her began to gently roll herself further into her mouth. She obliged, focusing her attention on her clit.

"Yes. Oh darling, yes." She grabbed her own breasts, squeezing the flesh so hard she was sure there'd be bruises left where her fingertips were digging into the soft flesh. She couldn't find it in herself to care.

There was something so erotic about watching Regina moving above her, about worshiping her body from this position, where she was in a position to best watch her unravel. She doubled her efforts, leaving no fold unexplored.

When Regina came, it was with a look of pure bliss, as if she'd just dosed herself with a drug after a long stint in rehab.

She fell down beside Emma. She draped the bank of her arm across her eyes, panting.

Emma curled into the body of the woman beside her, stretching languorously before settling in, her head resting on Regina's bare chest. She could hear the woman's heart beating rapidly beneath her flesh. A single finger tapped out the beat on the smooth plain of her stomach. "I missed your body. Your hands, your face, your mouth. I missed all of it."

Her arm lifted from where it was draped over her eyes to look down at the woman resting on her. She moved her hand to the back of Emma's tank running her fingers up and down the length of her spine through the fabric.

Emma glanced up into Regina's face. Their mouths came together seamlessly.

Regina couldn't tell how long they kissed, whether it was hours or mere seconds. But as they finally broke apart, she stared down into Emma's face, thoughtfully contemplating her dark green eyes, cloudy with a mixture of lust and sleepiness, her pink pout, her thin nose. She felt an overwhelming surge of love that seemed to appear out of nowhere, bubbling up from somewhere deep inside her. She leaned in and pressed another gentle kiss to those lips. "How did I get so lucky?"

Emma flushed, turning away in embarrassment, unable to find an adequate response. How could she when she asked herself that same question every time she looked at Regina? Despite her dreams and the confusion they left in her, she knew that when she met Regina... that was the lucky break she'd always hoped for. In that moment, she had become that one in every million who got exactly what they wanted in life. Dreams or not, she knew she'd do anything to keep this life, their son, and her.