Chapter six

-Two days later-

Regina tapped her fingers against the counter-top and checked the time once again. The package was supposed to have been here the day before, but she had long since lost her faith in One-Day Delivery considering that she basically lived in the middle of nowhere. However, that didn't mean that she hadn't hoped that the Spiderman issue that Henry had been yearning for about six months wouldn't have come the day before. If it had, then she would have already gotten through the awkward conversation of trying to convince her little brother that he should tell her everything he knew about Emma.

Her phone buzzed and she rolled her eyes as she looked down at the device:

Kathryn: I thought you was going to meet us at the mall :(

The brunette shook her head and quickly typed out her reply: I told Ruby that I had to wait at home for a delivery, maybe if you didn't bicker all the time, she would have passed on the message.

Kathryn: can't someone else wait for it?

My parents are both at work and Zelena and Henry went to the library or something.

Regina placed her phone back down onto the counter and didn't even bother to look at the message when it buzzed. She knew that her friend would be asking what about Emma and the fact was that she didn't want to address the fact that she was in the mayoral mansion with her new foster sister as the only other person there. Strangely, it was the first time that this had happened since Cora had been so reluctant to go to work since Emma arrived but it wasn't as if the mayor could ignore her duties forever without the town going to shit. That meant that she had to force herself to go to work on a Saturday with Regina's assurance that she would stay in all day in the event that Emma needed something. Of course, Regina didn't want to admit that to Kathryn since she would probably want to come over for some inexplicable reason. It was honestly beginning to bug her just how much Kathryn seemed to obsess over Emma but it wasn't something that she wanted to deal with, especially not today.

As she waited for the comic book that would be her gateway to maybe having a conversation with the timid blonde, there was always the chance that she might actually need something, which freaked Regina out slightly. If Emma wanted to ask a question that she would have no problem asking Cora, would she still feel comfortable asking the girl who had done nothing but ignore her? If she actually needed something, then would she just go without it because she didn't want to talk to Regina?

More than once since she had been given this responsibility, she had considered that she should just go upstairs and ask Emma if she was okay, but the mere thought made her throat constrict and she wished that she knew why exactly. She had barely exchanged more than two sentences with Emma since she had arrived in Storybrooke, so there was no logical reason that her hands would get slightly sweaty when she thought about those beautiful emerald eyes underneath those adorably dorky hipster glasses.

Before the brunette could mentally delve further into the many reasons that she thought Emma was beautiful and adorable, she heard hesitant footsteps behind her and blush instantly crept up her face.

After a brief moment to compose herself, she spun the stool around away from her laptop (on which she had been refreshing the order page to see whether the bar had moved slightly towards being delivered).

When she was finally facing towards the doorway her eyes connected with Emma standing awkwardly. Very much the definition of a deer caught in headlights.

The pair of them remained in silence, but the promise that she had made to her mother quickly jumped into Regina's mind and she shifted in her seat as if it would help to shake of the oppressive awkwardness.

"Hey," Regina said to break the silence.

Emma's eyes widened at the sound of the cheerleader's voice and she swallowed hard to try and wet her suddenly dry throat.

"Hi," she said, just about managing to stop herself from squeaking.

Regina bit the inside of her cheek as the silence stretched on for a few moments before she asked, "did you need something?"

In the brief second before Emma replied, the brunette mentally berated herself at just how rude her choice of words sounded. She had the awkward silence to try and think of a better way to ask what she wanted but she had the distinct feeling that there was nothing that she could have said that would make this interaction any less painfully awkward.

"I just wanted to get a bottle of water…" Emma replied, with uncertainness lacing each of her words.

Regina nodded and jumped from the stool and over to the refrigerator.

Emma's eyebrows shot up as she watched the other girl open the door to pull out a chilled bottle of water before she walked over to the threshold of the kitchen and held out the beverage to her.

Emma hesitantly reached forward to accept the water with her un-casted arm, "thanks…"

Regina smiled and nodded and then the two of them remained standing uncertainly in silence for about five seconds.

The cheerleader scanned her mind to think of something that she could possibly say. This was the perfect opportunity to talk to her but the fact that she hadn't talked to Henry yet gave her pause.

Emma brought her bottom lip into her mouth and she shifted from foot-to-foot and prayed that there was some way that she could get away from this…even if Regina did smell good.

The muteness was suddenly cut through by the sounding out of the doorbell and the brunette frowned for a second before it dawned on her what she had been doing before the blonde had come seeking her water.

"I should go get that…" she announced and once Emma nodded she walked quickly (though she was trying not to appear as though she was rushing) and went towards the front door.

"I really need Henry's help," she muttered to herself before she reached forward to open the door in order to accept her ticket to a less awkward interaction.

"That sounds so awkward!" the girl on the other end of the call laughed.

Emma sank further into the pillow behind her and thanked anyone who was listening that there was no one around to see how deeply she was blushing.

"Shut up, Lily," she mumbled as she cautiously looked over to the door to make sure that no one was about to walk in. She was pretty sure that it would be hard to explain why she looked embarrassed. There was also the fact that she hadn't told anyone in the Mills household that she was still in contact with her oldest friend. When Emma had met Lily Page at the age of thirteen in her tenth foster home, she hadn't expected that they would stay in contact after the first time they had been parted.

Surprisingly though, they had met again about a year later and had been afforded the chance to actually bond further as best friends. When Emma had told August about how she had made a friend he had felt terrible about the prospect of them being parted again, but Lily had actually gone to a home with a family who was willing to adopt her. She was two states away, so Emma was sure that she would never get to see her again but then August had brought her a birthday present: a phone programmed with Lily's phone number. She finally had someone her own age who she could talk to on a regular basis and she had to admit that it was nice to talk about the girl she liked rather than pretending that nothing was wrong during her time in her last foster home. There were many times that she had wanted to talk to Lily about what was happening, but she had never quite built up to courage. Plus, there was the fact that she was rather afraid of staying on the phone too long since she didn't want her foster parents to find out that she actually had a phone. Now, however, she has the shiny new iPhone to match her new MacBook, but she was still using the old flip phone that August had brought her all those years ago.

Lily laughed on the other end of the line at her friend's obvious embarrassment and said, "why don't you just tell her that you like her?"

Emma brought her eyes away from the door in spite of her urge to roll them. She was relatively certain that Regina had left once Cora had returned home to start dinner but she couldn't help the paranoia at the thought that the brunette would find out about her crush. It was just a crush that would eventually go away, of course, living with your crush didn't exactly help. She had to spend every meal for about a week and a half sat at the same dining table across from the other teen and she had taken to looking at her whenever she thought that she wouldn't get caught. Regina was so unfairly beautiful and Emma had only Lily to rant to about it.

"You know that we could never be together. If anything ever happened then August wouldn't be allowed to let me stay here," Emma sighed, "you know that I can't date my foster sister."

"You would only have to keep the secret for two years and then the world could know about the love between Emma Swan and Regina Mills," Lily laughed and the blonde blushed deeper as she wished that it was possible to burrow further into her pillow.

"I've known her for ten days…"

"And she has let you have the room next to hers, taken you shopping, saved you from a nosey cheerleader and stayed home on a Saturday even though she probably wanted to go out with her friends…"

"What does that prove?" Emma asked while she used her free hand to push her glasses up her nose, "she only did all of those things because Cora told her to."

"If all you wanted to do was to tell me that nothing could ever happen, then why did you call me?"

"Because…I have no more assignments…"

"You have about three days before you start school, don't you think you should be relaxing instead of studying?"

"Studying is how I relax," Emma countered, "and I didn't call you so you could accuse me of being a nerd."

"So I'm not allowed to talk about Regina or school…"

Emma actually rolled her eyes this time and replied, "I called you because I needed to talk to someone about just how awkward it was and my only friend in Storybrooke is a thirteen-year-old boy. I need to have a conversation that isn't about whether the Hulk could defeat Thor."

"Obviously the Hulk would win…"

"Lily," Emma interrupted in exasperation, "can you please just say something that will get my mind off everything?"

Lily was silent as she searched for another topic.

The ugliest side of the foster system was definitely off limits, if Emma wanted to go over her traumatic experiences, she would be ready to listen but she was pretty sure that this wasn't the time. Thankfully, in her current home, the only apparent issue that she had was a hot cheerleader that she shared a mansion with so there was no urgency to talk about what happened in her previous placement.

"Alex and Mal were talking about taking a road trip for the Christmas break…" Lily began as a thought occurred to her.

Emma frowned as she wondered exactly why Lily's adoptive family going on a road trip would be an acceptable change of subject. But she didn't have to wait long for her friend to elaborate:

"I was thinking that maybe I could suggest going to Storybrooke…do you think Cora would be okay with that?"

"Christmas isn't for a couple months, Lily," Emma replied.

"I know," the other teen shot back as she tried to hold back her smile. She knew that it was usually a bad idea to assume that you would be allowed to stay in a foster home for any given amount of time but she just had a feeling that it wouldn't be an issue with this family.

The blonde frowned, "I don't think I have any right to invite guests…"

"We could stay in a hotel, it's not like we would be gate crashing her house, Em," Lily laughed.

"I guess I could ask…if Alex and Mal say yes..."

"Great," the brunette laughed, "because I'm gonna have to meet Regina and give her the big sister speech."