A/N: Well, it only took me four years to come back and update this story, but here it is! I know the story people really want from me is One Magical Mess, but this is the one that's tickling my brain right now, so I hope you enjoy it. I also understand if you don't trust me to update again and decide not to read it right now, but life and the universe seem to be aligning for me to return to this obsession so the plan is to keep going! Please review so I don't have to wait four more years to update again lol
The school bell chimed and Regina breathed a sigh of relief. She hated the way waiting parents watched her from the corner of their eye, some with admiration, but most with trepidation– and none ever daring to approach her. Children poured from the building like tea from an upturned kettle and at last the curious glances turned away.
Like every other adult in the crowd, her eyes trained on the throng of children, waiting with anticipation to fall upon the face they sought. Soon the mass of tangled bodies began to thin, and as it slowed to only the sporadic burst of lollygagging little ones exiting the doors, Regina felt the first inklings of irritation beginning to grow.
Henry knew he was supposed to call if he was going to be staying late, and the last thing Regina wanted was to have to go into the school and confront his teacher. The present was plenty enough to deal with without having to face her sordid past with Ms Blanchard.
Unfortunately it rapidly became apparent that this would be unavoidable if she wished to make it home with her child in a timely manner. With a deep sigh like the growl of an aggravated panther, she stoned her face and prowled towards the school.
"Where is my son?" she barked harshly as she entered the classroom, finding only the teacher she was loath to encounter. The woman startled at the sound, giving Regina a sick sense of satisfaction. Mary Margaret's sweet little pixie cut and modest cardigans might disguise her to a lesser fool, but Regina knew in her heart of hearts the entitled brat that lay beneath.
"Regina!" Mary Margaret exclaimed, clutching the papers in her hand to her chest like some confounded damsel. "You scared the bejesus out of me," she finished with the audacity to chuckle.
"My son," Regina repeated without so much as a note of apology. "Where is he?"
"He left early," Mary Margaret replied, furrowing her brow. "He had a note, signed by you."
"Do you really think," Regina seethed, "that I would be here inquiring about my child's whereabouts had I signed a note for early dismissal?"
Mary Margaret dropped her gaze, but she was smiling as she shook her head.
"He really is a clever boy, isn't he?" she said.
Regina felt her blood pressure soar. Yes, Henry was indeed quite adept in many ways, but this was hardly the time to be admiring such attributes, especially so flippantly.
"You mean to tell me that you were outsmarted by an eight year old?" Regina spat with poison on her tongue.
"Regina–"
"Madam Mayor or Ms Mills, Miss Blanchard."
"Madam... Mills..." the woman sputtered, finally seeming to grasp the gravity of the situation. "You know I would never intentionally put Henry in danger. I mean, we're practically fam–"
"You are not his family!" Regina interrupted with a voice so cold it burned. "Just because we were once forced to share a roof when I was your father's child bride does not make us relatives. And your subsequent actions ensured that we will most certainly never be friends."
"Child bride?" Mary Margaret asked, her timid demeanor quickly shifting to incredulous.
"Yes, Miss Blanchard," Regina replied with a sickening grin. "I was eighteen years old. Your father was nearly fifty. Exalt him all you like, but the truth is he was a perverted old man. And you? You are the reason I ended up bound to him."
"You're really still holding a grudge against me for something that happened when I was thirteen?" Mary Margaret exclaimed with alarming indignation for her stature. "That's why you can't be cordial with me? I don't mean to be insensitive but, honestly, I was just a kid."
"That's not the only reason and you know it!" Regina snapped back, immediately regretting her loss of composure. At least Mary Margaret was taken back enough to remain silent. Regina took a slow, deep breath through her nose. "So, you do not know the whereabouts of my child, then?"
"N-no," Mary Margaret replied. "I don't."
"Then we are done here," Regina hissed with utter disgust. "Rest assured I will be speaking to the principal about this. Goodbye, Miss Blanchard."
She saw the woman's mouth open in protest, but was out the door before it could be uttered. Yes, she would likely mention it at the next PTA meeting, mostly out of spite. But the truth was Henry really was quite clever, and his teacher wasn't entirely at fault, despite Regina's disdain for the woman. Regina knew just exactly what her son was up to and where to find him.
Or so she thought.
"Miss Swan," Regina exclaimed curtly as she entered The Rabbit Hole, picking Emma out behind the bar. Emma flinched, but not the same way as Mary Margaret. It was much more guarded, more ready for a fight, and far less gratifying for some reason. She pretended not to see the pain in the girl's eyes as she strode resolutely forward.
Emma regained her composure by the time Regina made it to the bar, looking as defiant and pugilistic as ever.
"Where is he?" Regina seethed.
"Who?" Emma asked, all doe eyes and soft enough to make anyone melt. And then her entire body went stiff. "You mean Henry?"
The softness took Regina off guard, making her feel all foggy in a way she couldn't explain. She brushed it off.
"Yes, Miss Swan," she replied, the cool silk of her voice nauseatingly sweet. "I can't say I know how around you can get in a mere few days, but I'm fairly certain there is only one 'he' that connects us both."
She grinned menacingly as she watched Emma's hackles visibly rise, and Regina felt she had quite chagrined the woman with her retort.
"You can accuse me of 'getting around' with every Tom, Dick, and Harry all you want," Emma sneered, casually drying glass cups with a rag. "All you end up coming off sounding like is a jealous bitch. Does the thought of me fucking a man make you angry, Regina?" She slung the rag over her shoulder, leaning forward on the counter in challenge. "Honestly, I'd really like to know."
The insinuation made Regina's veins burn like cracks in the sediment guiding molten hot magma under her prickling skin. She knew for certain Emma Swan made her angry— and that jealousy had absolutely no part in it.
"Your self esteem is truly admirable," Regina replied. "Where did you learn that, dear? Prison?" She scoffed, "Well, sorry to inform you that here in the real world, people have slightly higher standards."
"How did you ever get elected mayor being such a bitch?" Emma exclaimed rather loudly and exasperated, once again catching Regina off guard.
Regina knew exactly how the people in this town saw her. She wasn't beloved for her warmth or charisma, but she knew damn well how to run a town. Emma hadn't the faintest clue what Regina had had to endure to get to where she was.
The silence that followed was too long, too telling. And when Emma smiled Regina knew the woman saw right through everything. But she wouldn't let her know that.
"Bitches," she sneered, "get shit done. Well–" she eyed Emma up and down in her Rabbit Hole issued black tank top and short shorts, "–most of us, anyway."
"Fuck you, Regina," Emma all but spat.
"Oh, Miss Swan," Regina jeered, lips spreading into a satisfied grin that bared her teeth like a snarling beast. "Not in your wildest dreams."
"Dear god," Emma rolled her eyes, hard. "Seriously, lady? Get over yourself."
Why tormenting Emma gave her such pleasure, Regina couldn't really say. She didn't really give it much thought, though if she pressed herself to be honest she would have had to admit that it wasn't so much about actually belittling the other woman as it was the thrill that came with eliciting a reaction. But she really wasn't going to press it.
That wasn't what she was here for anyway. She'd had her moment of fun, but there was a more imperative issue at hand.
"Much as I'd love to stay and continue this positively delightful discourse," she said with an acerbic tongue, "I need to find my child. So, if you have nothing to offer in that regard, I must bid you farewell, Miss Swan."
She turned on her heel and strode toward the door with practiced poignance, conscious to display her air of authority in everything she did in Emma's presence.
"Wait," the girl's voice rang out behind her, reluctant yet gentle. Regina paused but didn't turn around. "I'm off in ten. I'll help you look for him."
It was infuriating that Emma could so quickly shift from trading barbs to such soft sincerity. Regina's nettles were supposed to stick, yet for Emma they seemed to be but a minor annoyance before she plucked them off and moved on. Regina didn't understand how this woman operated at all, and couldn't bear the thought of being trapped in her company right now.
"Thank you, Miss Swan," Regina threw over her shoulder dismissively, "but that will be quite unnecessary. I know my son well enough to find him without the help of some stranger."
This time she knew quite well how her words would sting, but she didn't care. She could just as well picture Emma's sad puppy dog eyes at the remark as she could the girl's Labrador-like duty to follow. The latter was disconcerting enough to make her fully ignore the former.
Regina went to Granny's. Henry had been there, ordering two hot chocolates with cinnamon to-go. Yet he came and went in the time Regina spent arguing with Emma at The Rabbit Hole. Regina damned herself for letting the woman preoccupy her attention for so long. Henry didn't really hang out with any of the other kids from school, so there were no other parents to call. Neither Ashley nor Kathryn, who also minded him from time to time, had heard from him. Regina's nerves were really starting to take over at that point. Henry was defiant, but he had never run off like this.
After another hour of searching, she resolved to return home and call the sheriff, in the hope that he had been there all along and this would all be over.
Anger was the first thing she felt as she rounded the corner that led to the mansion's front walk, her eyes landing on a mess of blonde hair perched upon her front stoop. The nerve of this girl to be so very omnipresent where she was quite clearly unwelcome had become rage inducing. Another step, however, washed all that away as relief poured over her at the sight of her son seated sullenly beside Emma.
"Henry!" She gasped, rushing forward to kneel on the ground and wrap her arms around him, too elated at finding him home and unharmed to think of admonishments for either party. "Sweetheart, you scared me half to death." She cupped his face and lovingly stroked his hair, for a moment forgetting the woman beside her entirely. Emma stood, shifting nervously from foot to foot with microscopic movements barely visible to the untrained eye, but never unnoticed by Regina.
"I found him at that old castle thing," Emma tentatively pipped up from the sidelines. "The abandoned play place?"
"What on earth were you doing there?" Regina gasped, still ignoring the presence hovering over her and her son.
Henry looked up at Emma with the sweet, pleading expression he'd inherited directly from her, seeking her assistance. But the look was ineffective on his birth mother now.
"Uh-uh," Emma shook her head with a snort, "I'm not going to be the one getting my ass chewed out by your mom tonight. This one is on you, kid."
"Language, Miss Swan," Regina chastised without ever looking up at the woman. "Henry?"
He silently watched his feet shuffling against the ground, avoiding both of their gazes now. Even a gentle finger lifting his chin did not avert his stare.
"Henry," Regina said again, more sternly this time. He glanced at Emma once more, an encouraging nod of her head confirming she would be of little aid in his moment of destitution.
"I went to go see Emma," Henry started mumbling to his shoes. "I thought I remembered how to get to the place where we saw her before, but then I got lost. And then I kept getting more lost until I saw the playground and I remembered it so I just stayed there and waited until Emma found me."
"I wasn't sure where you were, and I don't have a phone yet," Emma chimed in now, seeming to feel Henry had done his due diligence. "So I figured waiting for you here was the best bet. He was pretty shaken up when I found him."
"I can imagine so," Regina nodded thoughtfully, turning back to her son. "Make no mistake that there will be consequences for this," she told him firmly, though the edges of her tone remained soft. "But I do think you've been through quite enough for tonight. Why don't you go get your pajamas on and teeth brushed, and I'll be up to tuck you in after a quick word with Emma."
Henry nodded, and after a moment's hesitation Regina turned to the other woman, offering a small olive branch.
"Miss Swan, if you'd care to say 'goodnight' to Henry," she waved her towards the boy as though impatient for them to get on with it, another well practiced facade. It was a very small olive branch, after all.
"Sure," Emma sputtered, surprised as Regina stepped back to give them some room and jumping on the proffered moment with a giddy grin. "Thank you."
Though she'd offered them the illusion of privacy as they bid their farewells, Regina wasn't nearly so trusting and remained well within earshot of their conversation. It was bad enough they'd been allotted the alone time they had before she made her way home. She wasn't about to bestow them with more opportunities to plot their ride off into the magical sunset together.
Emma turned her back to Regina, bending forward with her hands on her knees to meet Henry at eye level. Regina very nearly missed their conversation entirely as the short shorts rode up immodestly higher, and she felt a deep blush creeping up her neck. How appallingly indecent, she thought to herself as she hastily cast her eyes away.
"Remember what we talked about," she heard Emma murmur, pushing the images that lingered behind her eyes out of her mind. "We're buds, right? And we want to keep it that way. So, no more funny business. Deal?"
"Okay, Emma," Henry easily aqueised with a grin, throwing his arms around the woman's middle and finally forcing her to straighten her posture again. Emma hugged him back carefully, no doubt feeling the heavy gaze on her back. Regina took this as her queue to saunter back into their space.
"Alright, in you go," she shooed the boy playfully. "I'll just be a moment, dear."
Henry complied, obediently this time, and with a last lingering look of adoration towards Emma, he disappeared inside the house.
Silence fell over the two women left outside, filled only by the sound of crickets and night wind in the leaves. Painfully awkward though it was, Regina let it drag out quite purposefully, maintaining her air of poise as she watched the girl squirm.
"So," Emma said with a little shrug, clearly uncertain how to conduct herself in the solitude they now found themselves in. It was understandable— the two of them alone had yet to yield what anyone might call a positive result. That didn't mean it couldn't, so long as it was conducted with care.
"I wanted to thank you," Regina said, surprised by her own earnestness. "For bringing him home."
"Oh, yeah," Emma replied, her voice too high as she waved her hand in a poor attempt at nonchalance. "Of course. It's no problem."
Regina smiled to herself, enjoying the girl's nervousness, though not quite so callously as before. Emma shivered despite the red jacket, the cool evening breeze nipping at her legs that were bared quite nearly all the way to the top, as Regina was all too aware.
"Perhaps you'd care to come in for a drink, to warm up before you're on your way," Regina offered, immediately chastising herself for pleasantries once again. Emma wasn't some legislator she needed to find common ground to work with. She was just a problem to solve. It shouldn't be so hard to remember that.
"Well," Emma looked skeptical, but then nodded her head. "It has been a long day. So... sure, why not. A drink sounds great."
Regina smiled tersely, turning towards the house and motioning for the girl to follow. Emma's brain lagged momentarily, and Regina pretended not to notice when she nearly stumbled on perfectly smooth concrete as she shuffled to catch up. That must be where Henry got his clumsiness, she supposed.
Regina had to admit, however begrudgingly, that there was something she enjoyed about Emma Swan. She wouldn't exactly credit it to personality, per se. Emma was defiant, overly confident, and brash. She had absolutely no qualms standing up to Regina when the mood struck her. And yet, on the other hand, there were moments like these, where Emma's nerves shone through her sad puppy eyes and she tripped over her own feet in her eagerness to please. She certainly knew how to press all of Regina's buttons, often in combinations that created swirling patterns of irritation that she hadn't even known existed. But Regina knew how to stroke Emma's keys just as deftly, she was coming to realize, and she would be lying to herself if she didn't admit that it was, at the very least, rather entertaining.
She walked purposefully through the foyer and down the hall, watching from her peripheral Emma's slack-jawed stare at her first glimpse of the luxurious interior of the mansion.
"This place is incredible," Emma awed aloud as they entered Regina's study, hands sliding delicately over the back of the leather sofa while her eyes drank in walls of books. "I never could have given him anything even close to all this."
This was Regina's least favorite part of the dangerous game she'd created for herself and this anomalous woman. The part that tested her sympathies and tugged at her humanity, when Emma's soft, shining eyes threatened to foul her next move. But it was all about how she played it, in the end, and so Regina took the words as a compliment.
"We've done alright for ourselves," she said with a victorious smirk, dramatically uncorking a glass bottle from the bar cart. "How would you like a glass of the best apple cider you've ever tasted?"
"Please," Emma nodded, her attention divided as she gravitated towards the shelves of books, inspecting the titles lining their spines. Despite every last volume being on topics she was fairly certain Emma could hardly claim a high school level knowledge about, Regina suddenly felt her confidence dwindling. She knew Emma wasn't just idly browsing, she was studying her opponent. She wasn't entirely sure Emma viewed her as an adversary, at least not outright. But to Regina it felt like a strategic move, and as such that her upper hand was slipping.
She poured a glass for Emma— then, since the girl's back was still turned, a smaller one for herself that she quickly swallowed in a few sips. Just to take the edge off. Then she poured another.
"I promised Henry I'd be up to tuck him in," Regina said, depositing her cup on the table and handing the other to Emma. "I won't be long. Please, make yourself at home," she offered cordially as she strode toward the door. "Just," she turned back again at the last moment, "don't touch anything."
Getting Henry settled in was relatively easy. He was well worn out from his little dalliance with delinquency, and his mother suspected he knew tonight was not the moment to push his luck in any direction. They would discuss the terms of his punishment tomorrow— right now Regina was leaning towards 'grounded for life'— but tonight she was just relieved to have him home. She started a story from their book of fairytales, though Henry was out cold halfway through the second page. Regina kissed his head and left to return to her other charge waiting downstairs.
Regina's cider was strong, and she could already feel the telltale signs of her serrated edges smoothing. Perhaps a bit too early, she thought with a start, realizing she'd left a convicted felon she really hardly knew unchaperoned in her home. Emma could have been looting the entire downstairs, rifling through Regina's personal papers, or just getting drunk and causing general mayhem. She wondered how on earth she could have been so foolish to make such an oversight, but deep down she knew.
Emma wasn't doing any of that. She might not know much about the woman's history, what made her so different or why she was the way that she was, but she knew Emma Swan was driven by three things— loneliness, love, and the desire to do the 'right thing.' To most, it may have seemed like a lot to deduce about a person in only a few meetings, but of these facts Regina remained quite sure.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," she said, breezing casually back into the room. She noticed Emma's drink was still more than half full, the bottle on the bar cart unmoved, and considered that perhaps the girl did have some manners after all.
"I... didn't touch anything," Emma said awkwardly, earning a pinched smile.
"So you can follow directions after all," Regina crooned satirically. Emma squared her shoulders and tipped her chin high at that, and Regina's grin spread to show her teeth. Emma did the right thing because it was moral, not because anyone told her to.
"Listen, lady," Emma snarled as Regina crossed back to the bar cart, retrieving the bottle of cider there. "Let's get one thing straight— I don't answer to you."
"Of course not, dear," Regina replied with mock sincerity, gliding over to top off Emma's drink before sitting down on the opposite sofa with her own. "I don't imagine you would answer to much of anyone."
"I did my time," Emma nodded in agreement. "I spent the last eight years being told what to do, where to go and how to behave. Those reins are off now, and I plan on keeping it that way."
Now it was Regina who nodded, thoughtfully sipping her drink as Emma followed suit. She hated to admit that she empathized with the sentiment, though her warden had been her mother and her prison her marriage. She had broken free of them both in time, though still she remained shackled to this wretched town. In a sense, Emma was more free a woman than Regina herself had ever been.
"Speaking of your little stint," Regina subtly tried to shift gears as both women continued to seek solace somewhere at the bottom of their cups. "I don't believe you ever told me your story."
"I don't believe you ever asked," Emma replied, smirking as she mimicked the other woman's haughty lilt.
"Enlighten me," Regina settled back on the sofa, making no further comment as she waited for her request to be indulged.
Emma sighed, downing the last swallow in her glass. Regina followed suit, always carefully matching Emma's pace.
"Another round for my 'tale of woe'?" Emma proposed, giving her empty tumbler a little shake. Regina nodded demurely and Emma grabbed the bottle, reaching across the table to refill Regina's before pouring another for herself. They took another hearty sip.
"I was just a kid, really," Emma began, a bit reluctant, but steadfast. "And I was with this guy— Henry's father, as it would turn out. Neal was his name. He was a professional thief, and way too old for me. But I'd never had anyone else. I'd spent my entire life looking for my parents, anyone to call 'family' really, but by then I'd kind of given up on all that, and at least he was someone, you know?
Anyway, Neal and his buddies got this bright idea that they were going to go big time and rob a bank. I never thought they would go through with it. I was cool with the small time stuff, I even did some of it myself. Not that I'm proud of that fact, but anyway.
One day he says he needs to make a quick stop, and he tells me to wait in the car. I'm just sitting there, parked outside minding my own business, when suddenly I hear alarm bells ringing and Neal and his buddies all come running and jump into the car and start screaming at me to drive.
I had no idea what was going on at first, so I panicked and put the pedal to the floor. Before too long, my brain caught up and I realized what they'd just done, and that I was their getaway driver. By that point though, the cops were in hot pursuit, so I had no choice but to just keep driving.
They caught us eventually, of course. I'm not exactly a nascar driver. I went to jail with the rest of them and was charged as an accomplice. I'm not sure how much time Neal got exactly, it was a lot more than me. But I was back to being alone, just like that.
And then, just a few weeks into my sentence, I found out I was pregnant. The irony of course being that I had spent my whole life looking for family, and now here it was, growing right inside my body, and I still couldn't have it. I knew right away what I had to do.
That's where you came in. I finished out the rest of my sentence, and now here I am, just trying to pick up whatever pieces I have left to make a life with."
She looked at her cup with resignation as she finished, punctuating the story with a rather large gulp of her drink as though it might wash her clean of the old memories she'd just recounted.
Regina's gut was tight with anger on Emma's behalf. She had already known the basics, of course. Any fool with an internet connection could easily uncover that Emma had been charged as an accomplice in a felony bank robbery. But the details, those were what made Regina want to throw her head back and curse this whole damned world.
Of course it had been a man. Some skeevy, older man, only out for himself and getting his kicks from an innocent young girl. Emma had been an unwitting participant in it all. Just a scared little doe trying to belong to someone. Regina was more than a little shocked to find that she and Emma had more in common than she could have ever imagined.
"Emma, I'm so sorry," Regina said with utmost sincerity and a rueful shake of her head.
"It is what it is," Emma replied, shrugging noncommittally, her demeanor suddenly shifting in that disarming way it always did as a little glint appeared in her eye. "Maybe next time you can tell me your story. It's not like your life has been all sunshine and rainbows."
"And what makes you say that?" Regina asked, feeling very foggy as she noticed their glasses were nearing empty again.
"I know people," Emma said simply. "It's kind of my thing."
Regina hated that she knew that was true. Since day one Emma had looked at her as though she were transparent as tissue paper, and it haunted Regina to no end that she didn't have the slightest idea what it was Emma could see. Whatever it was, she knew it was most certainly meant to stay hidden.
Apparently feeling quite comfortable after their drinks as well, Emma pulled her knees up onto the couch, folding her legs beside her. The short shorts were not accommodating to this, much to Regina's dismay, putting far too much skin on display once again.
"I see," Regina finally managed to nod her head, cursing the way her eyes seemed magnetized to forbidden flesh and her losing battle to regulate her stare. Finally, her eyes landed on Emma's face. She didn't appear to have noticed Regina's plight, thank goodness, seeming lost in thought somewhere between here and her memories.
She really was quite pretty, Regina caught herself thinking. She'd noticed this the day they first met, and she hadn't been precisely unaware of it in recent days, but still the notion struck her. Emma was very pretty, actually. Her milky skin looked so soft, and Regina felt her fingers itch with the desire to reach out and—
"I think it's time we called it a night," Regina said quickly, trying to hide the urgency in her voice. What on earth she had been thinking to allow herself to become inebriated around this woman, she hadn't the slightest clue. But one thing she knew for certain— drinking with Emma Swan would never, ever happen again. "I'm sure we both have busy days ahead of us tomorrow," she added with a plastic grin.
"Oh, yeah," Emma nodded, poorly concealing what at least appeared to be disappointment as she stood and took her last swallow. "Very busy."
Regina showed her to the door and opened it, more than ready to see this woman on her way out. As Emma crossed the threshold onto the front stoop, Regina was reminded of the initial event that brought Emma into her home today, and a question nagged at the back of her mind.
"Miss Swan," she called, beseeching the woman to turn back around. "I looked everywhere for Henry today. How did you manage to find him?"
Emma shrugged. "When you said you didn't want my help, I decided to just start walking. Eventually I saw the castle thing, and I remembered you guys talking about the fairytale book, and how much he loves dragons. Seemed like a logical place to look."
Regina was kicking herself then. It was so simple, she should have thought of it herself. She was his mother, after all. And Emma, well, maybe she wasn't exactly a stranger anymore, but hardly more than an acquaintance. It shouldn't have been so easy for her, and Regina felt that familiar resentment bubbling beneath the surface.
But Emma looked so damned earnest, her story still echoing in Regina's ears, and she just couldn't find the air of indignation she sought.
"Thank you again for your help," she said instead. "And, I suppose tonight wasn't entirely intolerable."
"Why, Madam Mayor," Emma gasped with a grin, "that might be the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
"Yes, well," Regina replied, stifling a smile of her own, "try not to let it get to your head."
Emma grinned brighter, the moonlight shining in her sparkling green eyes, and Regina felt a tightness pulling at her chest. Why did Emma suddenly look so pretty?
"Goodnight, Miss Swan," she said with perfect stoicism.
"'Night, Regina," came the smiling reply.
As she watched Emma walk down the path and disappear into the night, one thing became abundantly clear.
Regina desperately needed Emma Swan to get out of her life.