A/N: I just felt like for a story with the word 'quarrel' in the title, there hasn't been too much quarrelling…
The morning came far too quickly for both women. While there was a mutual agreement that the little bubble in which they had been living, in which their relationship had been given a second chance, was a gift, the both knew it wouldn't last.
It was right for Emma to move back to her tiny apartment in the centre of town. It wasn't what either of them wanted, really, but it was the right decision. Both women knew that. Both women understood that for their future to be built on solid foundations, they had to put in the effort. And that meant giving one another time and space to work through their issues and come back together, stronger than ever.
That sentiment was all well and good but it was hard to remember through the fog of that early Saturday morning. The warm spring night had led to the covers being kicked down the bed in the dawn hours so by the time Emma found herself awake, she had wrapped herself around Regina, bare skin slightly sticky where it pressed against the naked woman. Despite this, she nuzzled herself closer.
"Are you awake?"
Emma pressed a kiss to the back of Regina's neck in response to the whispered question. A hand came up and stroked down the arm which was looped over the brunette's waist.
"I love waking up like this," Regina murmured into her pillow. She'd been awake for fifteen minutes already, unwilling to move in case she disturbed the woman behind her, enjoying the feeling and sound of the blonde's breath on the back of her neck. It was Emma's own movement which alerted her to the fact that the blonde was conscious once more.
"Me too," Emma said, more kisses peppering Regina's shoulder blades. "And when I move back in, I promise you won't wake up any other way until one of us dies."
Regina groaned. "Way to ruin the mood by referencing the fact that we're going to die, Emma."
"What? It's a fact. I tell you what, I'll do the honour of going last so you don't have to grieve me."
"So, I have to die first? No way! I don't want to die young."
"Hey! Neither of us is dying young. Not least because we're both almost forty. I mean, it's young but it's not twenty-seven, is it?"
"And neither of us are creative geniuses either but go on with your point."
"What I meant when I said you can go first is that at the age of one hundred and twenty, when we decide we've got bored of reruns of Friends or whatever old biddies of our generation will watch to remind us of the good old days, you can die first then I'll die like, two weeks later."
"God, what a horrible two weeks Henry is going to have at the age of ninety three," Regina said, turning around and hooking her leg over Emma's hip. "That sounds like a pretty traumatic time for him, losing both his mothers in quick succession. But how kind of you to spare me from the emotional torture of losing you."
Emma wrinkled her nose. "I didn't explain this well, did I?"
"Nope," Regina grinned, kissing Emma soundly on the mouth. "But I think I understand the sentiment. Basically, you're saying you'll never wear pjs again, right?"
Emma looked down at the non-existent gap between their bare bodies and then up at her wife, smiling widely. "Pretty much. Are you down with that?"
Instead of answering using words, Regina rolled Emma onto her back, knees straddling the woman's waist as they kissed once more. Emma allowed her hands to roam up and down the smooth expanse of skin available to her, fingertips mapping the body she knew so well and was very happily getting reacquainted with after a few months absence. And the body which, she hoped, she'd never have to be parted from for so long again.
A door slamming somewhere else in the house caused the two women to spring apart.
"Henry's up already?" Emma panted, before looking at the clock on Regina's bedside table. "Shit, it's almost nine."
"I guess we both needed the sleep after our exercise last night," Regina said, sitting up while still astride Emma and reaching up to run her fingers through her hair.
At the sight of the woman, stretching up so her entire body rippled before her, Emma shut her eyes and groaned. "Stop it. I have to get out of here. Henry can't find me in here and he sure as hell shouldn't be walking in on," her eyes opened to see Regina now holding the position, arms tangled together at her wrists, a glint of mischievousness in her grin, "that."
"The door's locked," Regina assured her after a moment, dropping her arms. "Our son has a habit of walking into this room as if it's his; you know that. It's one of the reasons we always wore pyjamas to sleep, remember?"
"Oh yeah, fair point. But when I move back in, and believe me, I'm going to do everything our therapist tells us is needed to make sure we do that at the right time, but when I do, can we just start locking the door because," Emma sat herself up, wrapping her arms around Regina who now straddled her lap, "sleeping naked with you is one of my favourite things in the world."
Their lips met in a fiery kiss which was broken almost instantly by Henry's holler of "Mom, where's Ma?"
"Fuck," Emma said, releasing Regina who climbed off her and allowed the blonde to get out of bed.
After calling back to Henry that Emma was using the shower in her ensuite, a lie which would at least buy them time, she lay back against the pillows and watched Emma scrambling to get dressed. Maybe there was something to the fantasy of lesbians wearing each other's underwear, Regina thought as Emma pulled a pair of her own satin panties up her legs. The mood was broken however when Emma caught her darkening gaze and scolded her, reminding her of why they were in a hurry and the fact that their son couldn't know that they were sleeping together.
"In fact, he should never know that. Parents are supposed to be celibate, right?"
"Right. No, you're right," Regina agreed, getting out of bed herself and beginning to put on some pyjamas so she could make her son breakfast. "But also, I just told Henry you're in the shower so maybe you should, you know, shower? Not least because of what I said but also, dear, you smell of sex."
Regina leaned into Emma's half-dressed form, placing a long, lingering kiss to the woman's pronounced collarbone. Letting out a little sigh of contentment, she reached for the robe hanging on the back of the ensuite door and shrugged it on, leaving Emma to make true the lie which would keep their son from knowing that, despite their problems, his mothers were still hopelessly in love with each other.
"Ma, you're not leaving today, are you?" Henry asked as soon as Emma entered the kitchen, damp tendrils of dark blonde still dripping down and leaving damp patches on one of Regina's old t-shirts which she'd borrowed.
"Yeah kid. I don't live here any more, remember?"
"Coulda fooled me," Henry said returning to his breakfast a scowl passing across his features.
Regina, who was pouring Emma a cup of coffee, raised an eyebrow. "And what do you mean by that, Henry?"
"Well, she's been here for days -"
"Because of the shelter in place as a result of a dangerous chemical leak." Regina reminded him, passing Emma the steaming mug.
"Yeah but that doesn't mean she has to use your bathroom and borrow your clothes, does it?"
The bite in Henry's tone took both women by surprise. They exchanged a glance, silently agreeing to tackle this head on.
"Um, kid, I have to borrow your mom's clothes. I don't have any spare clothes with me and my tank top was getting kinda ripe, you know?"
"Whatever you say," Henry sighed.
"Henry, I don't like this attitude," Regina said as she sat down with her refreshed coffee and gesturing for Emma to join them. "Can you tell us what's bothering you?"
"Why should I? It's obvious you've not been telling me what's going on."
"What do you mean, kid?" Emma asked, taking her seat too.
"I'm not a kid, Ma!" Henry exclaimed, getting to his feet so fast that his chair clattered backwards onto the kitchen flagstones. "Can you stop treating me like I'm stupid? I know you're together, ok? I heard you."
Both women turned scarlet. The master bedroom was at the other end of the corridor to where Henry's bedroom was. They had no idea that their son had ever had the misfortune to overhear their lovemaking.
"What?" Regina breathed out, not wanting to assume and make the situation worse. Maybe he just heard them talking about their therapy.
But no. "Last night," Henry grunted. "I got up to get a drink of water and I heard Ma talking when I passed your room. Then when I was coming back upstairs, I heard, well, stuff."
"Kid, we're sorry. We didn't -"
"Think I could handle it? Think I deserved to know? Yeah, sounds about right. I'm not a kid. I'm nearly twelve. I know what sex is, ok? And, God I don't even want to think about you two, you know, doing it. But what I don't get is why you told me less than a day ago that you weren't back together when you clearly are. Why did you lie to me?"
"We're not back together, Henry," Regina said without thinking.
The boy's face creased with confusion. "But, I heard you two in your bedroom. Why would you have sex if you weren't back together?"
To be fair to the boy, it was a justifiable question, one they'd had to ask each other over the past couple of days.
"It's complicated," Emma said eventually, knowing that it would not be enough for their clearly angry son. "You're right, Henry. I did sleep in your mom's bed last night and, um, well, yeah, I was there. But we didn't lie to you about the therapy. We are still talking, and I'm still going to leave this afternoon once the shelter in place order lifts. What happened last night was something that is private between your mom and me and I know you can't understand exactly why now and that's ok but one day, when you're older and you're in adult relationships of your own, I think you might begin to understand."
"So, you're not moving back in?" Henry asked, bending down to pick up his fallen chair and slumping dejectedly into it.
"Not yet," Emma said shaking her head. "Like we said, we still have some work to do. Just, maybe we did a couple of things out of order."
Regina nodded her agreement with that explanation. "We're working on your ma coming back here, Henry. And we're both sorry we lied to you. But I think we both thought it would be too confusing for you to be told about our physical relationship -" Henry made a mock gagging noise, "but also be told that we weren't back together. Ma's right. Adult relationships can get pretty messy and complicated. We thought we were protecting you."
"Yeah, well, you weren't," Henry said. "When I heard what I heard last night, I was super grossed out, obviously. I mean, you're my moms."
The boy pulled another face. Emma and Regina both smiled sheepishly at that, knowing how scarring it must have been for their son to overhear any part of their sex the night before.
"But I also started to get excited for our family to be back together. I went back to bed and started making plans for the three of us. I thought Ma wasn't going to leave today. I woke up thinking I had my family back. It's confusing, ok? I don't know what's going on between you and I get that it's adult and please never, ever talk to me about sex again, I'm begging you. But because I found out the way I did, I guess I had a few hours of thinking everything was right again. Now, I'm finding out that my family is still broken."
Simultaneously, both women reached for their son's hands. Each grasping his smaller fingers in their own, they grappled to find the right words. Emma got there first.
"Kid, your family isn't broken. Your family will never be broken. The three of us, we'll always be your family, no matter what. I'm your ma and Regina is your mom. That's forever. You'll always be our son, regardless of what me and your mom are to each other. When I moved out, it was because I made a mistake. I broke something but that had nothing to do with how we feel about you. The love we feel for you is unbreakable. Our marriage is going through a rough patch but neither me nor your mom ever stopped loving you and we never will. That's just a fact. That's what it means to be a parent."
A/N: Did you cry?