Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I'm just taking them out to play with them for a little while and promise to put them back unharmed. And probably a lot happier.

Chapter 13: The Good, ...

"I don't want to go," Emma whined - again - and Regina wondered when she had started to find that adorable rather than annoying.

"And yet you must," Regina declared but there was a sigh hidden in her tone that Emma picked up on immediately.

There were no words needed between them as they came together in a hug in the middle of the cabin's kitchen. The table still held the remains of their light breakfast and as Emma stared at her empty coffee cup she wished for the umpteenth time since waking up in Regina's arms that she could just freeze time.

"Go," Regina pleaded. "Before I won't have the strength to let you leave."

Emma swallowed but nodded. She let Regina go and walked away, straight out of the cabin where she stopped to center herself to call forth the magic that was to take her to her apartment. Regina watched from the doorway as Emma closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, unwilling to take her eyes off her lover unless she absolutely had to. Emma was simply breathtaking in the early morning light.

"It's not working," Emma stated after a moment. "My magic … I can't transport myself."

Regina stepped closer to her and pressed herself against her back. "That's probably because you don't want to go," she whispered, her breath skittering along Emma's neck. "Think of your home, your bedroom, Henry's bedroom … whatever place in your apartment you can visualize the clearest."

That's the problem, Emma thought. Home is where you are. "Maybe it's not that," she said, turning her head a little toward Regina.

"What do you mean?"

"What if I need our connection to do this without actual magical training?" Emma asked. "I had no idea what I was doing when I managed to follow you yesterday, so what if it's not my magic that allows me to do this but … you know …?"

"Our connection?" Regina mused.

"True love," Emma decided to just say it.

Regina smiled against the nape of Emma's neck. "It's possible, dear," she whispered softly. "But no matter why our connection seems to allow you to tap into this particular power, one thing is painfully clear."

"What?"

"You do need proper training." Regina turned Emma in her arms so she could meet her eyes. "You have so much magic inside you, such potential, and it could be dangerous not to teach you how to handle it better. I can guide you," she continued. "Unless you'd rather …" she trailed off.

Emma laughed. "You're the only one who could deal with me when I'm forced to learn something new," she said with a smirk. "I drove all my teachers absolutely crazy."

"I wonder why I'm not surprised." Regina raised an eyebrow. "You drive me crazy too, quite regularly."

"Different kind of crazy." Emma grinned unrepentantly. "In the best way possible."

Regina chuckled but didn't deny it. "Your mother is going to demand that you learn from that blue gnat she keeps around," she pointed out.

"Yeah, that's not happening," Emma scoffed immediately, knowing how Regina felt about the fairies. "I don't trust her … there's just something about her … I don't know." She failed to put her gut feeling into words. "And what's more, you don't trust Blue at all, and that's good enough for me. Snow is just going to have to accept that."

Regina rewarded Emma's loyalty with a small kiss, before taking one of her hands and pressing her lips to the knuckles. "Where do you want me to send you?"

Emma pouted and let out a long sigh. "The apartment, I guess," she finally replied. "Henry should be at school but who knows with the little rascal?" She and Regina shared an exasperated look. "In any case I can get a change of clothes and then go to work. After all, it seems as if I still am the sheriff. Well, after I talk to Neal."

Regina nodded and took several steps back, causing Emma to pout more and look at her questioningly. "You can't be touching me, Emma," Regina said softly. "Remember what happened last time?"

She waited until the memory of Emma's first trip to the cabin brought a grin to her face before turning her wrist and sending her away. She watched the purple smoke dissipate in the morning sun, then turned to walk back into the cabin with a sad smile, alone once again.

o o o

Emma materialized in the middle of her apartment's main floor, much to the shock of her son who was just trying to drink some orange juice from a carton. "Jeez, Mom," Henry cried out. "Since when can you do that?"

Since I realized I was in love with your mom and desperately needed to see her. "Good morning, kid," was what she said instead. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be at school?"

Henry shrugged and put the juice back in the fridge. "I told dad I needed to get my school stuff," he explained. "You said you were going to come back today, and I didn't want to miss you. Besides, Grandma said she wasn't going to be a teacher any more because she was the queen ... and I'm a prince, so why do I need to go to school? I need to learn lots of other things, and Grandma can teach me."

"Oh, hell no. Your mom would kill us both," Emma said, completely ignoring the fact that she had wanted to talk to Henry anyway. "Did Snow say you don't have to go to school anymore?"

Henry shook his head. "But if I'm a prince shouldn't I be learning other things?"

"Princes need all that school knowledge too, Henry, okay? More than those ... prince-ly things, especially here. What good is sword fighting in Storybrooke? You are going to go to school until your graduation, kid, and you're going to learn everything there is to learn." She took a moment to ruffle his hair because he was her son in so many ways sometimes. "There's so much you still have to learn," she sighed.

"But Grandma said we were going to leave here and go live in the Enchanted Forest," Henry complained, his eyes wide with excitement. "And we're going to live in a real castle."

"Kid," Emma said, wishing that Regina was here to help her through this particular talk. "Even if they found a way to go ... there, it's really not a place I want to live. So even if that happened, your mom and I would stay here."

"That's not what Grandma said."

"What did she say?"

"She said everyone would have to go back with them."

"See, I was never any good at doing things I'm told I have to do," Emma said, anger at her mother boiling slowly in her gut. "I don't believe in forcing people to do things without giving them a choice. That's why I'm staying here, and so is your mom and a lot of other people. And so are you."

Henry gave her a long look but didn't say anything for a while. Emma wondered what was going on in his head. "Where is mom?" he finally asked, looking around as if he expected her to jump up from behind the couch. "Didn't she come back with you? Why did she go away? When is she coming back?"

Emma held up her hand to stop his barrage of questions. "Relax, Henry," she laughed. "Your mom is fine. She'll come back soon."

"But where is she?" Henry asked again. "I miss her. I want to see her."

"I know, kid, and your mom misses you too."

"Then why hasn't she come back yet?" Henry asked petulantly.

Emma sighed. "Because she still needs some time to think about some things, and we're going to give it to her."

"Can I go see her?"

That question stumped Emma. "Er … actually, no."

"Why not? You went to see her!"

"Because I have no idea where exactly she is, kid," Emma admitted.

Henry looked confused. "But … what?"

"She's somewhere in the woods around Storybrooke," Emma explained. "That much I know. But I got there by magic, and it's not like I have a tracking device built inside …"

"Since when can you do that anyway?" Henry got back to his original question.

Emma walked over to the couch and sat, beckoning Henry over. "Come here, kid," she said as she wondered how she was going to tell Henry about her and Regina.

Henry plopped down next to her and looked at her expectantly. Emma bit her lower lip, feeling Henry's eyes on her.

"What is it?" he finally asked a little impatiently. "Did something happen?"

Emma swallowed. "No … but something changed," she replied. "You know your mom and I … we got along a lot better in Neverland, right?"

"Yeah."

"Well, actually … we … erm … werealizedthatweloveeachother," she blurted.

Henry sorted through his mother's breathless burst. "You love each other?"

"Yeah."

"Like … like …?" Henry wasn't sure what to ask.

"Yeah, I like like your mom," Emma said, misunderstanding Henry's reaction. "In fact, she's my true love." She couldn't help the smile that broke out at the thought.

Henry had never seen that particular smile on his birth mother's face. He was confused. "But … I thought … Grandma said … and Dad …"

"Kid, I know what a lot of people have been thinking and saying," Emma said soberly. "But your father is not my true love. I loved him a lot when I was very young, and I will always love him for giving me you, but …"

"But you love mom more?"

Emma nodded. "I love your father like … an old friend," she tried to explain. "But I'm in love with your mom. That's a really big difference."

Henry bit his lip in a move that was so like Regina that Emma smiled again. "I thought we were going to be a family," he said after a few moments. "You, me and Dad."

"Henry … Neal is always going to be there for you," Emma said gently. "But the family you've been dreaming of … that's going to be you, me and your mom." She studied him but his face was unreadable. "Do you think you could be okay with that?"

"That's why mom ran away, isn't it?" Henry suddenly asked. "Because she thought we wouldn't want to be a family with her?"

"Yes."

"And she'll come back if we can be together like a family?"

Emma nodded. "She will."

"Does that mean we're going to live together?" he wanted to know. "I can have my room back?"

Emma's eyes filled with tears as she smiled and nodded yes. She had a feeling Henry was going to be just fine with this new development. "Does that sound good?" she croaked softly.

Henry grinned. "Yup, it does," he exclaimed, but then his face fell again. "Dad's not going to be happy."

"I know, kid, and neither are your grandparents." Emma wondered what Neal was going to say or do. It wasn't like she had given him any hope but he had always been a little stubborn. "I'm going to tell him later, them later … but, Henry, if I have to choose between their happiness and my own and your mom's, I'm always going to choose us."

"I just wish everyone could be happy," Henry muttered.

"One of the things you'll learn when you grow up is that not everybody can be happy all the time. A lot of people are never happy, or just have fleeting moments of happiness, and that's exactly why I'm going to grab this chance at happiness with your mom and never let it go."

"Do you think she's your happy ending?"

"She is, and I'm hers." Emma got up. "But you're going to be unhappy with me now because I'm going to take you to school, so I can make it to work at some point today. Move it, kid."

"Mom!"

o o o

Emma knocked on the door to Gold's house for the third time in a minute but still nobody answered. She was a little ticked off that Neal wasn't there because getting herself to his door to tell him about her and Regina had not been one of the easier things she'd had to do in recent days.

She knew he still had feelings for her and harbored a not so secret hope of them getting back together, of becoming some sort of perfect little family. The thought that it was the fear of exactly that happening that had almost driven Regina away forever, didn't help her anger either.

She sighed. Maybe she should just go to work. She supposed she could just call Neal but she didn't want to tell him the news over the phone. Still, her phone was in her hand in the next second without a conscious thought on her part. She shrugged at that as her hand automatically scrolled through the entries in her contact list.

Skipping right over 'Neal'.

Stopping on 'Regina'.

Her thumb pressed the button. Hearing Regina's voice would feel good and probably bolster her resolve to go talk to her parents if she couldn't find Neal first, she thought with a small smile. She ignored the snicker in her mind that told her that it was a little weak that she couldn't go two hours without talking to the other woman.

It was when Regina's voicemail answered that Emma remembered that there was no service inside Regina's protective bubble. She slipped the phone into her pocket with a disappointed frown and slowly walked away from Gold's house. But the fact that she couldn't talk to Regina right now, that she couldn't just call her, couldn't just hear her voice, suddenly made her desperate for the raspy tones and that beautiful smirk.

And before she knew what was happening, she felt her molecules dissolving. This used to be harder, was her last thought before she was gone in a plume of blue smoke.

o o o

Ruby was grinning from ear to ear until Granny slapped her ass with a dish towel. "What's up with you? You look like you just had a couple of kids for breakfast."

Ruby laughed. "Nah, nothing like that." She looked around the diner which wasn't all that busy at the moment. "Say, Granny, can I ask you something?"

Granny grumbled something that Ruby took as a yes.

"You saw Snow in here yesterday," Ruby started as casually as she could manage. "Did you think there was anything unusual about her?"

"Apart from the fact that she was gnawing on a pen all day while trying to write something?" Granny asked. "Not really. Why, what are you trying to hint at?"

Ruby pulled the proclamation from the pocket of her shorts. "This is what Snow was working on yesterday."

Granny peered at the copy and scanned its contents quickly while drying a coffee cup. "So Snow wants to be mayor," she stated. "She's the queen, it's her right. Do you think it's strange that she wants to have an election?"

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Snow didn't want to have an election," she muttered. "I persuaded David to talk Snow into accepting one."

"Oh?" Granny gave Ruby a sideways look. "Who do you think would run against Snow?"

"Regina," Ruby said firmly.

Granny burst out laughing. "Not even Regina can be that conceited that she thinks she'll get even one vote in this town."

Ruby shook her head. "Oh, she'll get more than just one vote." She smiled wolfishly. "She'll definitely get mine and—"

"And mine," a voice added.

"Belle!" Ruby beamed.

Granny didn't look impressed. "Why on earth would you want Regina Mills to be in a position of power again?" she asked the two younger women. "After everything she's done to everyone here."

"Because she's the only one who knows what she's doing in that office," Belle said reasonably. "I can't see Snow White being happy taking care of zoning regulations and balancing a tight town budget. Can you?"

"Okay," Granny conceded. "Paperwork might never have been Snow's forte … she's always been more of a take-action-kinda girl. She'll get someone else to take care of that."

"Who?" Belle asked reasonably.

"You, for instance," Granny shot back. "You did a great job when they all left for Neverland to bring the boy back."

Belle smiled politely. "Funny, Ruby had the same thought," she said softly, " and I'll tell you what I told her yesterday: the only reason I did a somewhat adequate job was that Regina is such a great administrator that she left me an easy job. Otherwise I would have been in way over my head." She paused. "I have no interest in being Snow's office manager."

Granny huffed, still very unconvinced. "She can learn. She's the queen, she knows how to lead people."

"Unless I'm very wrong, she's never actually ran a kingdom or town or anything much really apart from a grade school classroom," Belle commented mildly. "And even if she did, things are really different here. This is the modern world, this is a democracy, and there are different rules."

Granny seemed to give that some thought. "But didn't the proclamation say that we're going back home?"

"That's what Snow wants, yes," Ruby replied, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice, which earned her a strange look from Granny. "But that's a long way off and until then we still have to live here."

"But why should we live with this world's rules, if we go back anyway?"

"Because it might take years to find a way back … there," Ruby said. "And Storybrooke might not stay hidden forever."

Belle looked from Ruby to Granny and back, seeing the tension in Ruby's shoulders. "Besides," she jumped in. "Not everyone wants to go back, but Snow doesn't plan on giving anyone a choice."

Granny shook her head. "That's not like her," she mumbled. "I can't believe that's true."

"She told me so herself," Ruby said sadly. "And that's one more reason why I want Regina to be mayor again. She won't make anyone go back."

"Most people will want to go back," Granny pointed out.

"Maybe," Ruby admitted. "But I sure don't."

"I don't," Belle added.

"Emma doesn't either," Ruby added. "And I can't believe you'd want to go back."

"Why wouldn't I?" Granny looked surprised. "It's our home, Red."

Ruby laughed lightly. "Granny, half your meals depend on the huge microwave back there," she explained, pointing to the kitchen. "And you can't tell me you don't want to know how your soaps end, or that you'd really want to miss out on your Game of Thrones marathons. You absolutely love Ygritte. You love the internet. What would you do without your tumblr?"

Ruby and Belle watched as the implications of going back to a land without electricity, indoor plumbing, and other modern amenities slowly became clear to Granny. When she was certain that Granny had gotten their point, Belle decided to add a final point. "Or free will."

"Yeah," Ruby agreed. "Free will … that little thing."

Ruby's eyes met Belle's and their eyes said it all. One down; many, many more to go.

o o o

"Ow, dammit!"

Emma felt as if she had been raked backwards through a sheet of ice or tossed into a frozen lake. There was a moment of such cold just as she materialized that she panicked until she saw the now familiar surroundings of Regina's cabin.

"What the hell is that?" she yelled.

Regina was standing not two feet from her, hand pressed to her chest in surprise at the sudden appearance. "What is what, Ms. Swan?" she barked in reflex, before taking a deep breath to calm down. "Sorry," she amended instantly. "Did something happen? Are you all right? Henry?"

Emma shook herself to get rid of the icy feeling. "Everything's fine," she said soothingly. "Apart from feeling like I have a million little icicles embedded in my skin. So, again, what is that?"

Regina breathed a sigh of relief and took another step closer, so she could rub Emma's arms with her hands. There was an unnatural, magical warmth emanating from her hands, and Emma felt like she was sitting in front of a warm fireplace all of a sudden. She closed her eyes in pleasure and for a moment, Regina actually thought she heard Emma purr. "That, dear, is an after-effect of going through the protective border," she explained gently.

"I thought you, I don't know, told it to let me through," Emma huffed.

"And you're here, aren't you?" Regina rolled her eyes. "The border lets you through, but it will still make itself felt unless you're in direct contact with me."

"But I did feel the same the first time I came here and we were touching then," Emma remarked.

"And if you remember, the border was still supposed to keep you out then," Regina said pointedly. "You broke the protective spells that night."

"When I kissed you?"

"Hmm."

"Oh."

"Yeah, oh." Regina pressed her lips to Emma's in short but searing kiss. "Now will you tell me why you're back here so soon?"