A/N: Hello! This chapter is a little bit lighter than they have been, especially in the last half. I know this is supposed to be an angsty fic but I find it so incredibly draining to constantly be writing angst, so I try and throw in some lighter moments aswell. Please keep the reviews coming in, I really love reading them and finding out how you perceive the character's choices etc, it's really interesting to me to get the perspectives of other people!

Anyway, enjoy the next chapter! :)

It's like your head is stuck in a tightening vice

Your ears are deaf to your friends' advice

Because you know that your heart will never be full

It doesn't always have to be beautiful

-Slow Club, It Doesn't Have to Be Beautiful

As the two lay together in bed, side by side, neither said a word, with Emma focusing all her attention on the rain.

The rain. Always, rain. Emma couldn't remember the last day it hadn't rained, and truthfully she couldn't help but think it had something to do with Regina. She'd created this town; there was an irrefutable link between it and her, and maybe the reason for the freak weather was the storm inside of her.

"Do you think maybe you should go back to work?" Regina blurted suddenly, interrupting Emma's trail of thought.

"What?" Emma was taken aback by Regina's abruptness, her frown visible in the dim light.

"You haven't been there for more than a few hours since I got out of hospital, I thought maybe you'd be itching to get back there." Regina reasoned, staring at a spot on the ceiling. "Plus I'd hate to think the town was over-flowing with criminals in your absence."

"Believe me, it's not that kind of town. I doubt a single arrest has been made since the last time I was there."

"Should you really be saying that to the person who pays your wages, Sheriff?"

"You always knew that. I think you just liked having me around." Emma considered, turning her face to look at Regina, whose eyes were still fixed on an indeterminate point on the ceiling.

"Perhaps." Regina finally turned to face Emma, as the woman's gaze burnt into her, smiling fleetingly before composing an earnest expression. "I don't like you making sacrifices for me. It's not fair on your parents either, especially with a baby to take care of." Emma had to admit the thought of her parents running the town, as well as caring for her brother and son made her feel overwhelmingly guilty.

"I'll try it." Emma sighed noticeably, and smoothed the covers down over on top of her. "I think I'll miss you. God knows I see enough of you every day, it'll be strange."

"It might be good for us. We both know this isn't going to continue forever."

"Yeah. Right." Emma settled down into the pillow, and pretended as if she'd always realised this new arrangement wasn't going to be permanent. "I best get some sleep if I'm back tomorrow, then. Night, Gina."

"Goodnight, Emma." Regina spent a few seconds staring at the woman's face, crinkled as she relaxed into sleep, before she herself closed her eyes.

Emma woke with reluctance. She'd always enjoyed her job, truthfully she had, but this few weeks had been the first time in her life where she hadn't been rotating every day around work, and she'd got used to the calm of having no concrete plans. But as always, real life comes back with a bang, and she was left shivering and alone in Regina's cold and uninviting shower at dawn.

She dressed slowly, killing time, she realised, and took a second to look at herself in the mirror. The sleepless nights had clearly taken their toll. She looked weak and haggard, her skin pale, her eyes sunken into their sockets, and a crease was developing between her eyebrows. Obviously anticipating some kind of miracle, Emma lightly pressed her cheeks to give them some more colour, and pulled her unkempt and still-wet hair into a ponytail. With one last look of derision at her reflection, or what she saw beneath, she exited the bathroom and returned to Regina's bedroom.

"Hey.. Regina." She whispered, leaning over the frail form of the still sleeping woman. "I'm going to work now, remember? Everything you need is on the table here, and the station phone number if you want me. I'm going to pick Henry up from school too, so I'll be back around 5."

Regina mumbled into the pillow. "You told me all this half an hour ago. Wrong kind of amnesia. Goodbye, Emma." Regina sighed, as the woman continued to fuss with the objects on the bedside table before finally leaving.

The pile of paperwork sat on Emma's desk when she arrived at the Sheriff's Station was enough to harbour an audible groan from the woman. Settling down to it, as relentless as she was exhausted, the next time she looked up it was lunchtime, and she was only just over halfway through. She decided that she was long overdue a break, however, and practically jumped up from her desk at the thought of a burger.

"Mary Margaret!" Emma's mother was the first person she saw as she entered Granny's, and she approached the woman warmly, giving her a hug before stopping at her brother's carrier to look over him. "Hey, little man! I hope you've been looking after mom and dad and your… nephew for me!" she whispered to him animatedly, as their mother watched her admiringly.

"You seem brighter, today, Emma. I've missed you being like this." Mary Margaret noted, a concerned look spreading over her face. "You look so tired, though. This can't be good for you."

"I've started back at work today, so that's one less thing for you and dad to be worrying about. And as for me.. I'm fine."

"You aren't, Emma."

"I am." Emma responded, a little too insistently, just as she had been too bright in her greeting. "If you're going to try and persuade me to go back home, you might as well save your breath. Regina needs me. And I know it's shitty, but that's just the way it's got to be right now. How's Henry been?" Emma quickly changed topic.

"He's been fine, as he always is. He misses you, though. Both of you."

"I'm picking him up tonight, I'll bring him out for food. This whole thing isn't fair on him, he deserves some quality time with at least one of us."

"It's not fair on you either."

"I told you, Mary Margaret. Don't worry about me. Regina's getting better, soon she'll be out and about more on her own, and I can get as much rest as you want me to." Emma smiled, her mother's hand covering her own slightly shaking one.

"If you're sure. I just want you to be happy, Emma. Me and your father love you more than anything."

"I… I know, mom." Emma still tripped over the word sometimes. Maybe it was because her and curse-Mary Margaret had been so close as friends, but she'd always had much more of a hard time thinking of Mary Margaret as her mother than David as her father.

"Right, I should be getting this one home." Right on cue, Emma's brother began screaming at full volume, his face turning red and wrinkled just as Emma imagined Henry's must have done. "Bye, sweetheart." Mary Margaret bent over to kiss her daughter on the cheek, before exiting the diner in a flurry of "shh"-ing and cooing.

Emma's afternoon was a lot more relaxed than her morning had been, and on more than one occasion she felt her mind, inevitably, turn to Regina. As alone as Emma had felt in her life, as scared and vulnerable, she'd always had herself. She was her own hero. Regina didn't even have that. Feeling guilty once again for leaving the woman, she picked up her phone and began to dial Regina's home phone on automatic pilot.

"Oh.. Hello?" Regina answered the phone with a confused tone, as if she wasn't expecting it.

"It's me. Is everything ok?"

"I… was just dialling your number."

"Why? Is something wrong?" Emma panicked, her breath increasing.

"Relax, dear, everything's fine." Regina let a silence hang. "I just wondered how your day was going."

"You mean you missed me." Emma smiled into the receiver.

"Don't be ridiculous, it's only been a few hours." Regina feigned disagreement. "I'm not completely reliant on you, you know. I can last a day without you."

"Alright, alright. So what have you been up to today?"

"Well I just got back from a marathon, and next I'm going to steal a boat from the port." Regina said sardonically.

"Well, pardon me, your majesty."

"I haven't actually got outside. I tried, but I was too… weak."

"Like I told you you were, you mean? Remember how I've told you constantly not to push yourself?"

"I know, I know, you're always right. Gosh, you're unbearable. So, you're seeing Henry this afternoon?"

"Yep, I'm actually about to leave to pick him up from school."

"Right, well I shan't keep you. Tell him hello from me." Regina sighed anxiously into the phone.

"I will do. He misses you."

"I think I miss him too." Regina hesitated. "I can't help but feel there's something… missing. Something that isn't there."

"I get it."

"Oh?"

"That's how I felt." The two women were once again silent for a moment.

"Goodbye, then."

"I'll bring you back some food. Bye." Neither of the two hung up immediately.

"Goodbye." Regina said once again, before eventually cutting the call short.

Emma arrived at Henry's school a few seconds before he exited, and, though he was growing up fast, he still ran to meet her as he used to when they first met.

"Ma!" He grabbed her into a hug, ignoring the few amused looks he was getting from other students.

"Hey, kid! God, I've missed you so much." Emma pulled him in tighter.

"How's my mom? Is she ok? She said she was getting better, but is she?" Emma was bombarded with questions the whole ride to the diner.

"She's getting better. I think maybe she'd like to see you. Soon. But I'll need to talk about it with her, we don't want to overwhelm her."

"Ok." Henry looked down dejectedly.

"I know you miss her, kid. She's just having a tough time lately, you get that, right?"

"Yeah I do." Henry shifted awkwardly, and looked out of the window. "How has it been, living with her? You haven't tried to kill each other yet?"

"No, we haven't." Emma responded amusedly, "We've actually been getting along. I had a second chance at a good impression, and she seems to like me this time around."

"She always liked you."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"It was the saviour she didn't like." Henry said matter-of-factly, "she was the Evil Queen. She's not supposed to like you, she's supposed to stop you. But now she's just Regina, and you're just Emma."

Emma didn't say anything until they pulled up across from Granny's. "You're a smart kid, aren't you?"

"I get it from my other mom." Henry joked.

Henry continued to pander Emma for information about her time with Regina throughout their meal.

"You like her." He eventually surmised, smiling in spite of himself.

"Get out of here." Emma waved him off, wishing for once that her son wasn't as astute as he was.

"You do."

"Henry, I don't. And even if I did… it's complicated."

"Are you worried it won't be True Love's Kiss?"

"It won't be." Emma insisted, "My true love is you, and you're Regina's as well."

"There's more than one type of true love. And you're the product of true love, the rules are different for you."

"Oh yeah? Well, that's convenient." Henry nodded assuredly in return, and after a momentary blip, Emma flicked back into denial mode. "It doesn't matter anyway, because it's not going to happen. I'm not interested in your mom, Henry."

The boy simply smiled in return.