A/N: Apologies for the delay. Here's the next chapter!

26. Regina: Day 117 (continued)

There's a loud pounding on the door, which startles her awake. "Regina!" she hears the angry voice of her mother on the other side. "Open this door this instant."

"Jesus Christ," Emma says as she stirs next to her.

Right, Regina thinks, her memories of the chaotic morning slowly coming back to her as she emerges from the daze she's in. She pushes herself off the bed and checks her watch as she walks over to the door to unlock it — they had only been asleep for about 20 minutes, but she would have thought it was longer based on how disoriented she still feels. "What?" she says as she opens the door, blocking her mother's entrance to her childhood bedroom.

"Come downstairs," is the stern reply. "Gold and I would like to talk about the plan we've created to fix this."

"No. I told you. I'm done."

"Don't be stupid, Regina," Cora says, her voice thick with annoyance and condescension. "We both know you're going to do it eventually, so for once in your life can you just make this easy on yourself and do what I tell you to do from the outset instead of making such a fuss about everything? You don't need to be so melodramatic."

"No, Mother. This is your mess. You created it. I meant what I said downstairs. Emma and I are not going to be pawns in your campaign. You are not written into the stupid contract she and I signed. We do not answer to you. We don't even answer to Gold. All we are obligated to do is appear to be in a relationship together. Nowhere in the contract does it say we have to listen to anything you say. We've held up our end of the bargain. Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to pack so we can get the hell out of here."

With that, she shuts the door in Cora's face and locks it once again.

"Well said," Emma smiles from where she's still half asleep on the bed. "Were you serious about leaving today?"

"Yeah," Regina confirms as she walks over to the dresser to start removing her clothes from it. "I know our return flight isn't for another few days, but I can't stay in this house any longer. I'm sure my dad won't mind if we go back to the cabin, or we can get a room at the bed and breakfast, or we can try to change our flights and go back to LA early. I just can't be under the same roof as her for one minute longer than absolutely necessary. Aside from last night, this whole trip has been a nightmare. I just want it to be over."

"That's more than okay with me. I hate seeing how she treats you," Emma says. "And I'm already packed since I didn't really ever unpack, so I'm ready whenever you are," she says, finally getting off the bed. "Can I help?"

"It'll only take me a few minutes, so I'm fine. Have you looked to see how people are reacting to the photo I posted?"

"Oh, I totally forgot about that. Clearly I'm still not totally awake yet," Emma says, reaching for her phone on the bedside table. She starts to scroll through the comments and Regina continues to shove all her clothing into her suitcase, not bothering to take the time to fold it as neatly as she ordinarily would. "Over 4,000 likes…" she starts.

"Seriously? In less than a half hour?" Regina says, pausing from her frenetic packing to look up at Emma. "That's a new record for me."

"Yep," Emma nods, scrolling through her notifications and comments. "And 972 comments so far. Ruby and a few of my former teammates commented on it, and a few of your friends, of course, including Jefferson who posted 12 hearts and a tongue emoji" she continues. "And most of the fan comments are pretty typical. Lots of 'awws' and hearts and 'hashtag goals'."

"Any mention of the news articles?" Regina asks as she moves to the closet, throwing the items she had hung up earlier in the week onto the bed.

"A few passive comments, but not really. I'm guessing that a lot of our fans skew younger than the demographic would pay close attention to CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. A few people have commented along the lines of 'is it true?' and a few comments like 'this doesn't look fake to me', but those are mostly drowned out by the usual spam of 'omg I love you guys you're so cute' type comments.

Regina sighs in relief. "Okay, good."

"Posting that photo was a great idea," Emma says. "In case it wasn't obvious before, fuck Gold. Clearly you're better at PR than he is."

There's more knocking at the door, interrupting their thoughts. "Go away, Mother," Regina says as she resumes her packing.

"It's me, Regina," Zelena says from the other side of the door.

Regina looks at Emma briefly before walking over to the door. "Now's not a great time, Zee," she says as she cracks it open.

The redhead peeks into the room and sees the half-packed suitcase on the bed and the mess of clothes surrounding it. "So you're actually leaving?"

"Did you really think I would stay? I assume you overheard what was going on."

"I did," Zelena nods. "So it's really true, then? This is all some PR stunt?"

Regina sighs. Contractually she's not allowed to tell Zelena, as that was explicitly written into the contract, but her sister clearly heard the yelling about contracts and breakups and marriage and the news coverage, so it seems moot now. "It was," she admits. "Until it wasn't."

"Huh?" Zelena asks, clearly confused.

"Technically, yes. Originally this was all staged. But somewhere along the way things shifted between us, and so we've decided we want to actually pursue this and see where it goes."

"Oh, wow," Zelena says, clearly not expecting it. "So that's why you don't want to go along with their suggestion to break up or get married."

"Well, partially," Regina says. "The suggestion of marriage is ludicrous regardless. It makes me seriously question Gold's sanity and competence at his job that he even suggested going into a fake marriage. That's fraud."

"Yeah, that seems a bit extreme," Zelena agrees. "But why not agree to the break up plan? You could still see each other and then publicly get back together at some point if this works out between you. It could be a cute love story of overcoming obstacles and finding your way back to each other. The press and fans would love it."

"That's the thing though. I don't want it to be some story for the media. Yeah, we could stage a break up, but I don't like the idea of going through that when we are actually trying to see where this goes. Life already imitated art once when we fell for each other as a result of this, so I don't want the stress of orchestrating a public breakup to seep into our real lives. And yes, I know it would be fake, but there would still be a bunch of scrutiny on us afterward, at least up until the primary. And then if God forbid Mother actually wins, that would undoubtedly continue until November. I don't want to have to sneak around, and if we did make it seem like we 'got back together' at some point, the media would be all over it and the rumors would pop up again, especially in regards to the campaign. This is too new. I'm not willing to risk some stupid plan to fuck up our real lives. Emma is too important to me at this point," Regina explains.

"And what about you, blondie?" Zelena asks, looking past her sister at the woman still sitting on the bed.

"What about me?" Emma asks, standing up from the bed and walking toward the door.

"My sister is clearly willing to risk a lot for you. Pissing off and deliberately starting a war with Cora Mills is not something to take lightly. Do you feel the same way about her?"

"Zelena," Regina whines. "Don't interrogate her."

"It's fine, Regina," Emma laughs, placing a hand on her back. "Yes, Zelena. I do."

"Okay then," Zelena smiles. "You have my approval."

"We didn't ask for your approval," Regina points out.

"Well, you have it anyway. Plus, if you're going to stick it to Mother, I'm all for it. At this point I'm 99% sure I'm going to vote for Mal in the primary. Mother has become unbearable."

"No kidding," Regina says. "Now, if you'll excuse us, we need to finish packing so we can get out of here."

"Good luck, sis," Zelena says. "I mean it. And you'll need it."

*.*.*

"God, how is it only one o'clock?" Emma sighs as she shoves her rolling suitcase against the wall and plops face first onto the bed. "It feels like it should be tomorrow already."

Regina laughs as she tosses the keycard onto the table and crawls onto the bed to join Emma. "It's definitely been an interesting morning," Regina says. They had managed to make a quick exit from the mayoral mansion, as Cora, Sidney, Neal, and Gold were once again locked in a debate in the study. Zelena had texted their father about Regina's planned departure and asked for his help in letting them leave without causing more drama. He had managed to distract Cora and the rest of the crew by asking them to go over their plan once more to make sure they were all on the same page while he said he would go check on Regina and get her to come back downstairs. Instead, he closed the door to the study and ushered the two women outside undetected. With a promise that she would call her father that night and a hug goodbye, Regina and Emma had gotten into their rental car and driven away from the estate. They made it 10 minutes into town before Regina's phone had started ringing and both her mother and Gold started texting her incessantly demanding that they come back immediately.

"What now?" Emma asks, just as there's a knock on the door. She looks through the peephole to see the kind elderly woman who checked them into the room and the to-go bag of grilled cheese and fries in her hands. "Thank you," she smiles as she opens the door, the smell of fried food making her stomach growl.

"You are very welcome. Let me know if you need anything during your stay."

"Thanks, Eugenia," Regina says from behind Emma. "We appreciate it."

"Anytime, Regina," the older woman says before turning to walk back down the hall.

"Can we trust her?" Emma asks as she hands Regina the bag with their lunch in it.

"Yeah. She won't say anything. I'm sure my mother has already called her to ask if we're here, even though my dad told her we were going to the airport and getting our flights changed. Eugenia will cover for us. She's my father's cousin ,but is more like an older sister to him. She's never liked my mother, so she won't let her step foot in here."

After calling the airline from the car and being told there weren't any flights with openings before their planned departure in two days, they had opted to go to Eugenia's bed and breakfast. They were too tired to drive back to the cabin, not to mention that if Cora or Gold came looking for them, they wouldn't have anywhere to hide up there. They didn't feel like driving around aimlessly and didn't feel like taking the risk of going to a bigger hotel in another city where someone may recognize them, so Regina suggested the Storybrooke Inn so they could decompress and get some privacy in the meantime.

"And to your earlier question," Regina continues. "I don't know. I feel like we should say something and address it, though. Now that the story has circulated, we can't ignore it. I think the longer we wait to say it's BS, the worse it'll be. If we just quickly brush it off like the story is crazy, then maybe people will stop talking about it. That way it doesn't look like we're trying to hide anything, or that we're buying time to strategize."

"That makes sense," Emma nods, grabbing some fries out of the bag. "Should we make a video? Maybe it'll help if people can see and hear us say it, instead of writing out a formal statement. That may look better and less like a PR response."

"I like that idea. I think it's smart for people to see us together during it," Regina says, taking a bite of the grilled cheese. "God, I forgot how good her grilled cheeses are. I've missed these," she moans.

"Should I be offended that you seem to be enjoying eating that sandwich more than you enjoyed eating me last night? "

"Apples and oranges," she laughs. "But try it yourself. You'll see," Regina says, nodding to the extra sandwich.

"Okay, you're totally right," Emma agrees as she bites into it. "Holy shit. This may be the best thing I've ever tasted."

Regina raises an eyebrow. "I told you."

"Anyway," Emma says, attempting to refocus her thoughts to the matter at hand. "Should we do an Instagram Live, maybe?"

Regina shakes her head. "Lives are too risky. We definitely don't want it to seem scripted, but there's too much of a risk that we say the wrong thing if we don't prerecord it. We could do it as a Instastory, though. That way we can record it a few times to make sure we like it before we post, and we can keep it short and to the point. A minute max, then we're done. And that way people can't comment on the story like they could in a Live or a regular post."

Emma nods. "Works for me."

And that's exactly what they do. They ask to use Eugenia's office to record the video, mainly so they can sit in front of a non-descript white wall. Regina knows that her mother will recognize the very unique wallpaper that lines all the walls of the hallways and rooms of the bed and breakfast, and the last thing they want is for Cora and her crew of schemers to show up. Eugenia doesn't know the truth about their relationship, so she's a good test audience to see if she responds well to their statement. They play the video for her to see what she thinks.

"Hi guys," Regina starts off the video, sitting on the loveseat next to Emma in Eugenia's office. Emma's elbow is resting on the back of the sofa as she props her head up on her hand and curls slightly into Regina's side. They want to look casual, but not like they are trying too hard to look like a couple. "First, I hope you all had a nice Christmas yesterday. Emma and I ended up spending last night at my family's cabin up North where the cell reception sucks, so we weren't aware of the news reports until we got back to town later this morning," Regina says, which is only a half-truth, but is needed to explain the timing of their posts and lack of a statement earlier. "Needless to say, they were definitely not what we were expecting to wake up to the morning after Christmas," she chuckles sadly.

Emma nods. "And while neither us are fans of giving any time or energy to ridiculous rumors, we wanted to come on here to quickly address it before it gets any more out of control," she says, looking over to Regina quickly before returning her focus to the camera. "Basically, it's all bullshit. We don't know who the alleged source was or why they would say what they said. All I do know is how much I truly care about and love the woman sitting next to me."

Regina smiles genuinely at that, leaning into Emma a bit more and giving her an unplanned quick kiss before she continues their statement. "We know there are people who still won't believe us, and that's fine. Our relationship is ours and ours alone, so at the end of the day the only person whose opinion I give a shit about is Emma's. You are all welcome to believe whatever you like, and this is the only time we will ever mention this insane story. But, we wanted to at least acknowledge the allegations, because we're not stupid and we know how it looks."

"Yeah," Emma agrees. "And as much as we would love to ignore it, we wanted to clear the air so we can go back to living our lives and try to enjoy the rest of our holiday. Our relationship is still relatively new, and we didn't want the stress of this lingering over us. We appreciate the support you guys have given us thus far, but we also ask for a bit of privacy and understanding."

Regina nods her head in agreement. "After this we'll probably be going offline for a bit so we can focus on ourselves and our relationship and so we can just be, without having everything we do or say or post be scrutinized about what it means. So, like Emma said, thank you again for your support of us. We really do appreciate it, and we hope you have a great new year," she says, as they waive at the camera to sign off.

"Do you think it's okay?" Regina asks the older woman.

"I think so. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry you're having to deal with all of this. Your mother always seems to make things more complicated than they need to be. That woman is always causing trouble. I'm sorry her campaign is interfering in your relationship," Eugenia says sympathetically.

"Thanks, Eugenia," Regina says. "And thanks again for letting us hide out here."

"No thanks necessary. You know I would do anything for you, my girl," she says. "What would you ladies like for dinner later? I can bring something up from the diner after the dinner rush."

"Oh, some of your lasagna would be amazing," Regina says.

"You got it," Eugenia smiles. With a quick pat on the shoulder, she exits her office to head back to work.

"Alright, here goes nothing," Regina says, posting the video to her stories as they walk back to their room. Now all they can do is wait for the reactions from their followers, the media, and inevitably Gold and Cora.

"I noticed earlier that there's a clawfoot tub in our bathroom," Regina comments when they open the door to their room. "I am going to go make use of that. You're welcome to join me, if you'd like," she adds shyly.

Emma grins. "That sounds absolutely amazing," she says, walking over to the table where she left her phone earlier. "Let me quickly repost the video to my account, and then I'll definitely join you."

Regina smiles, but it turns to a frown as she notices the expression on Emma's face change. "What is it?"

"Neal texted me. He's demanding that we meet him first thing in the morning. And he asked that we don't mention it to your parents or Gold, and said we should ignore any calls or texts from them."

"That's weird, right?" Regina asks as she grabs a fluffy white towel from the armoire.

"Very. I wonder what he wants."