Hii guys long time no see, you know how it is, life gets very bumpy and busy all the sudden and it drains my creativity to write since I am finishing up my degree right now and trying to already tackle the working world.

Here's a new chapter for you, we will know in here why Emma was with Lily and have these two ladies have a lovely moment together again. – Also tell me if there's anything you'd like to be more explored in this story since I've been writing it for so long, there's some things that might've escaped my mind and that I never properly wrote about it, so if there's something you are curious about, just let me know and I will write about it!

And remember stay at home! Coming from a country in Europe and in lock-down for a month and more to come.

Chapter 19: Jealousy & Fries – Part I

Granny's Diner

When Regina read Mal's text she felt her heart heavier, now things were making sense. Knowing Mal, she was probably very straightforward with her words and that probably came out a bit rude, so of course now Emma was asking her these kinds of things and probably having bunch of bad thoughts going through her mind. – She had to clear this out while they were having lunch.

But once she stepped inside the diner, she wasn't prepared to see Emma with Henry on her lap and they were both happily chatting with Lily and having lunch together. She quickly felt like that woman was stealing her place, it was like a big wave of jealousy and Regina knew those two women had a past together, so this didn't sit well in her at all, but she had to be the bigger woman and approach this situation like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Hello," Regina said as she walked up to their booth.

"Regina! Hi!" Emma said a bit too quickly and she felt like she got caught doing something she shouldn't.

"Hello, Mayor," Lily looked up at the other brunette and showed a polite smile, but also with a guilty look on her face.

Now Regina had one more thing to worry about.

…

Regina did her best to show a kind smile and not look so forced, but deep down acting nice and polite was the last thing she wanted to do, specially with Lily. "Are you guys having lunch?" She asked, still trying to keep that winning mayor smile.

"We-" Emma started talking but got interrupted quickly by Lily.

"Not quite, I just came here to have a quick chat with Emma about a few things, so I am already on my way now," Lily said as she gathered her things and stood up, while standing up, she winked at Emma and gave her a small smile, which Emma returned with a sheepish smile because she felt somehow relieved that Lily interrupted her talking, because she knew she'd just put her foot in her mouth.

And Regina didn't like one bit this kind of interaction, because in her eyes it looked very flirtatious. "Oh, that's a shame, thought you could have lunch with us," but still Regina had to pretend to be nice and a polite mayor, even if she never liked Lily because she could always see in Lily's eyes some sparkle every time she saw Emma.

"Thank you but I must go," Lily looked at a Regina with a forced smile and it was so obvious it was forced, she didn't even try to hide it. "See you next time, Emma," now she was back to her happy and kind self because those words were directed to the blonde woman.

"Bye Lily and thank you," Emma said sincerely as she smiled at her and grabbed Henry's tiny hand to wave, "say buh bye, Henry," she muttered and Henry giggled, "buh bye!" He exclaimed excitedly.

After all the farewells were done, Regina cleared her throat and finally sat down on the booth across Emma. She settled aside her purse and fixed her hair nervously while taking a deep sigh, trying to compose herself and not start a rain of questions over the soldier.

"Sooo…." Emma said as she looked around, still feeling slightly nervous because of what had just happened. "What do you want to eat?"

Regina didn't even respond to her and in a matter of second Ruby was by their table, already taking their orders. "It's the usual for me Ruby and for Henry the carrot soup," Regina said.

"Gotcha and what about you, blondie? Gonna share another hot chocolate?" She asked with a chuckle, and that question made Regina's eyes twitch.

"Ha, no, just the special burger and fries, please," Emma replied as she settled down on the booth between her and the window, since he was starting to wiggle a lot on her lap.

"Coming right away," Ruby said as she walked to the kitchen.

And there was an uncomfortable silence between the two women and Emma wasn't making much effort to stop that silence because well, it wasn't her strongest suit so she figured that she should just stay quiet and not say anything that could jeopardize her situation even more.

And Regina wasn't helping either because she was upset and she knew if she talked on this right instant, she'd say something way too rude and she wasn't going to add more problems to be talked about between her and the soldier.

It was all thanks to little Henry that the silence stopped. "Mommy, mommy," he called out for his brunette mother as he began to climb the table and crawl towards her.

"Henry you can't be on the table, that's where we eat," she gently scolded her son while picking him up and settling him on her lap and Henry just began to bang the table with his tiny hands and speaking gibberish because he was entertained in his own world.

That was the entire interaction going on between this family till the food arrived, fifteen minutes later which felt like thirty minutes later.

"Good lunch, ladies and little mister," Ruby said with a wink as she poked Henry's button nose which made him giggle and then he used his palm against his mouth to send her kisses. "You guys got literally the cutest son ever! You are so lucky!" Ruby said excitedly as she was now having a cute moment with the toddler.

"That's my boy," Emma said with a smile as she watched Henry interact Ruby, feeling slightly relieved that she was talking even though it wasn't directed to Regina.

"Oh yes, such a flirt like his mother," and Regina apparently still wasn't done being upset, but she didn't even think twice, so when it came out of her mouth, she instantly regretted it but she wasn't going to back down on it.

Emma opened her mouth to protest but then closed it because she was kind of shocked that Regina said that. Sure, both have had some arguments before, specially about Henry, but something about Regina's tone this time was very different for Emma, she had never heard this tone from the brunette before.

"Definitely…." Ruby mumbled as she turned around, already walking away, she knew Regina's tone and she wasn't going to stick around to see the kind of earful the soldier was about to get.

Now Regina was just keeping herself busy trying to feed Henry and eat her own food as well and she was a bit in a rush because she still had to go back to work and finish some paperwork.

"If you want, I can feed him," Emma offered as she slowly ate a chip and watched Regina fussing around with Henry.

"No, it's fine," she replied, assertively.

"No shoup, no shoup, no shoup," Henry complained while trying to get away from his mother grip and the spoon, the whole wiggling around got out of hand the very moment Henry smacked the spoon away, making the soup drop over Regina's shirt.

"Henry!" Regina gasped as she looked down at her dirty shirt. She sighed out and placed the spoon back in the bowl and grabbed the napkin to try wipe it off.

"Okay, let me try," Emma quickly said, knowing that Regina was very close to snap. She watched Regina these past weeks long enough to know when the brunette was about to snap at the toddler, because let's face it, sometimes toddlers get on your nerves and sometimes they just pick the wrong moments to act like they normally act. "Come here, champ," Emma stretched out her arms and picked up Henry from the other side of the booth and settled him by her side, letting him stand up since he didn't want to sit.

"No shoup," Henry began to do his fake sobbing, with no tears, preparing to throw a fit if necessary.

"Calm down, monkey. Let's make a deal," Emma said as she picked up a fry and showed it to Henry, "you take a bite of the fry and then eat a spoon of the soup and back to the fry and back to the soup and so on," she explained to him in an excited tone, trying to get him into it and he totally bought it because he was interested in the fry, so he leaned forward to take a small bite of it and Emma already prepared a spoon full of soup to feed it to him, which he later on took it well as long as he was getting another bite of the fry.

Regina was busy wiping her shirt clean and she didn't hear properly the deal Emma was making with their son, so when her brown eyes landed at what they were doing, it didn't help her mood at all. "You can't make deals with him, he needs to know how to obey without rewards and you can't give him fries," Regina pointed out as she frowned at the soldier.

"But he is fussy right now and this works, so why not?" Emma said, not daring herself to look at Regina because she knew she was going to see an angry face that would scare her.

"Because he isn't old enough to eat fries and he can't control us, and I sure hope so you didn't give Henry that hot chocolate you shared with Lily!" Now Regina even raised her voice a little bit which forced Emma to finally look at her.

"Okay, chill, it's just potatoes anyway," Emma frowned slightly at her, not understanding where this attitude was coming from. First, she thought it was just a bad day at work and Henry being fussy, but the soldier didn't like when somebody raised their voices at her without any reason and for her Regina was just being bitchy because she wanted to take out her frustration on someone.

But we all know how a woman hates to be told to calm down, and to chill? That's even worse. "Okay, you know what?" Regina stood up as she gathered her things.

"H-Hey, where are you going?" Now Emma was starting to freak out because she couldn't believe Regina was about to walk out on her in the middle of lunch and at Granny's. She knew everyone already had their eyes on them because of a fussy toddler, an angry mayor and a clueless soldier.

"I am going back to my office, I have work to do," Regina informed her while putting on her jacket, "I will be working till very late, don't let Henry have donuts for his dinner," and with that she was gone.

And Emma was left inside with a happy Henry eating fries because thanks to their argument, he could grab all the fries he wanted and eat it while his blonde mother just stared at the door still very confused and shocked of what had just happened.

"Do you want me to wrap up her lunch so you can go take it to her as an apology?" Ruby offered, showing up out of nowhere because obviously she eavesdropped everything, which wasn't a hard thing to do given the circumstances.

Ruby's voice startled the solider a little bit, "what? No," she quickly declined as she settled Henry on her lap, "I don't think it's a good idea to meet up with Regina right now."

"Yea…I guess you are right," Ruby said as she slowly picked up the mayor's plate, it was untouched but before she could walk away, Emma had stopped her by a gentle touch on the elbow.

"L-Look…what am I supposed to do?" She asked nervously.

"What do you mean?" Ruby perked up an eyebrow at that.

"You know…she is very mad for some reason and she snapped at me and I don't know what I am supposed to do after this," she honestly didn't know, she only knew that she should apologize, but she felt that some of Regina's attitude wasn't right, so she didn't want to apologize for the whole thing and swipe it under the rug. She wanted Regina to know that she also didn't like to be talked that way.

"You apologize," Ruby said.

"Yea, that part I know but like I can't just apologize and forget everything, right? Regina doesn't even work like that and I didn't understand why she was so upset over some stupid fries; she already saw me feeding Henry fries before and she didn't complain! At least not like this," she looked down at her son and noticed that he was just stuffing his mouth with the fries, so she began to remove them from his grip, even she knew when she should stop feeding him these kinds of things.

"Oh soldier, you still got a long way to go, you need to understand women better and you specially need to understand Regina better because that one is feisty," Ruby chuckled as she walked away.

"Tell me about it…" Emma mumbled as she just watched her son with a small pout. Now she looked like the child and Henry was still too entertained to try to get the fries to care about what was going on around him. "Let's eat the soup, kid," Emma sighed out and grabbed the spoon to feed her son the soup and Henry complained and moved, smacking the spoon away from him, leaving Emma's jeans dirty with soup…talk about karma, maybe. "Ugh, fu-…great," she complained, placing the spoon away and settling Henry besides her again.

"No shoup," Henry said as he pressed his palms against the window, looking outside.

TBC

It was a shorter episode, because I decided to split this one in half to keep you guys on edge! I hope you enjoyed it, a new chapter will be up next week.