AN: I changed the rating to M for the third chapter. Let me know what you think of part 2 in Emma and Regina's life years after the events of season 5.
The second night they slept together, Henry was officially a college bound, high school graduate and an almost empty bottle of red wine sat on the small end table between their lounge chairs on the back patio. Two glasses of wine rested on the table beside the bottle and both were in need of a refill.
"I can't believe he's eighteen," Emma said as she stared up at the starry sky.
"I can't believe he's leaving," Regina corrected.
"He'll be fine. And it's not like he's going to California. He'll be in New York. It's not too far a drive. We can visit him a lot. Bug him and socially stunt him. He won't have a friend or a girlfriend for years because we'll be around too much and cramp his style."
Regina unhappily laughed. "Thanks for trying to cheer me up about this, but it's not working. You're a great lie detector but an abominable liar."
"It's not a lie. We will visit him every chance we can. And I'm sure he'll want to come home. Maybe even once a month. For the weekend. The whole weekend."
Regina smiled at Emma before a shiver ran through her.
"You're cold," Emma pointed out the obvious.
"I'll manage."
"No, you'll be warm. Hang on." Emma got up from her chair and disappeared inside the house.
While Emma was inside, Regina poured most of what remained in the wine bottle into her glass. She poured the very last of the wine into Emma's glass and set the empty bottle back down on the table before she sipped at her half-full glass. A minute or two later, Emma returned with a couple of blankets and a sweatshirt.
"Here." Emma handed her the sweatshirt and dropped one of the blankets on the empty lounge chair before the younger woman spread the other one over her. "Blanket, sweatshirt, alcohol. The three best things to warm you up on a cold, Fall night."
Regina looked down at the balled up sweatshirt in her lap and picked at it with unsure hands.
"Are you going to wear it or treat it like I just grabbed it from the bottom of my dirty hamper," Emma asked.
Regina held it out, away from her, by the shoulder areas and saw the blue lettering of the name of Henry's college printed on the gray material. Emma had picked it up when the three of them went for a college visit after Henry had received all of his acceptance letters. The sweatshirt had only been washed a couple times and it was soft to the touch.
Regina slipped it on and settled into its warm and fuzzy inside. She then pulled the blanket up to her waist and watched Emma get comfortable under the other blanket in her own chair.
"Now's the time we get to cry into our alcohol about how our little boy isn't so little," Emma said. "And we can talk about all his embarrassing childhood memories. Although, I might need a refresher course on a lot of them. My only knowledge of him before he brought me to Storybrooke comes from the altered memories you fed me when he and I left town to escape a curse."
"I'm not sure that'll help make this any easier to accept," Regina confessed. "It'll help with crying into my wine, but that doesn't sound very appealing."
"Too bad," Emma replied. "Prepare yourself for a salty drink because I remember Henry's first steps and I want to talk about it. I want to talk about his wispy hair, big eyes, about him just sitting there playing with his toys until he saw you getting ready for work."
"You do not remember me getting ready for work. I wasn't in any of your memories."
"Right. In the memory you gave Henry and me, I was the one going to work, but now that I know better I know it was you standing there. Anyway, you were getting ready and he was making these cute little noises that made you smile, but then they stopped." Emma looked at her with a raised brow and expression that prompted Regina to continue from where she left off.
Regina sighed and took a sip of her wine. "I turned to him when he went quiet, just to check on him, and he was on his feet. His little hands were on the table to keep him steady and his eyes wide and focused on me. He'd stood up before, several times, so I wasn't surprised. I did smile, though. And I started to walk toward him asking what was so urgent he'd stopped playing and stood up."
"But you didn't make it very far," Emma interjected.
"No, I didn't," she fondly said with a broad smile. "I made it from the mirror to the entryway of the room Henry stood in before he slowly and a little awkwardly started to walk toward me.
"He took his hands off the table and walked. He made it a few steps before he looked a little unbalanced, so I swooped in and scooped him up before he could fall on his face or his little butt. I was so proud and I suddenly didn't want to leave. I was thirty minutes late to work that day."
"And you called off the sitter and brought him with you to the office," Emma added with a smile. "You encouraged him to walk again, but he didn't."
"Not until I was in a meeting and the secretary made the mistake of not calling me."
"I don't remember that part, but I'm sure you fired her for that."
"I did. And Henry sat back down. He'd been standing before I started yelling. Just standing not walking. But I took that tone with the secretary and I guess he thought he'd done something wrong."
"Aw, poor kid."
"Yes," she agreed as she looked down at her wine glass for a moment. "I tried to tell him it was okay and spent the next two days trying to get him to walk. The same night I fired my secretary, I cried myself to sleep."
"What? No. You really did that?" There was obvious concern in Emma's voice.
Regina nodded and took another sip of her wine before she said, "I did. Henry hadn't stood up all day after my outburst. It was my fault he didn't feel comfortable to do it again and it was the first time since I'd adopted him that I felt like my mother."
"Oh, you are nothing like her. I know you two said your final goodbyes on good terms, but your childhood was awful. Some details of my cursed memories might have changed, but I know Henry's childhood was nothing like yours. It was good. Until he realized he was adopted and my mom gave him the book, anyway. But the point is, you weren't like your mother then and you aren't like her now."
She looked over at Emma and saw certainty and warmth in beautiful green eyes. It stunted Regina's breathing, her chest a little tight. Her cheeks flooded with heat and a rosy tint most likely informed Emma of her reaction.
"Thank you," Regina quietly said with a hint of a smile. She couldn't give more than that because everything suddenly had so much weight. It was a good weight, nothing uncomfortable, but it was all so real in that moment. "His first steps, his first day of school. It all feels like it was just yesterday."
"Think of it this way, he still has his first day of college, his first serious relationship, his first serious breakup, his first wife."
"Emma," she scolded with wide eyes.
"What?" Emma laughed as she spoke.
"Don't you dare joke about that. He's only getting married once and it'll last until death do they part."
"Who knew you're so into happily ever after the first time around? Wow. Regina Mills, a one and done kind of woman."
"I always believed in meeting the one and living a good life together, committed to each other out of love and respect for each other. I believed in a marriage like your parents'. The only thing changed any of that was...well, the most unpleasant part of my life." She didn't want a reminder, didn't want to talk about the darkest part of her past that definitely helped her stay on the path to becoming the Evil Queen, so she looked at Emma to keep herself from drowning.
Emma met her gaze with sympathy and understanding. "I'm sorry," Emma said with audible honesty in her tone and sincerity in her eyes.
"It's not your fault," she replied. "You weren't even born yet."
"Yeah, but it's still wrong. It shouldn't have happened."
"We lived in a different world then. That's just how things were." Regina tried to shrug it off despite how sick it made her to even think about it, think about him.
"I don't care. I don't blame you for thinking differently about marriage after that horrific experience. If you never wanted to marry again, I'd completely understand."
"Careful, Emma. That almost sounds like a proposal," she joked, and immediately felt better about the topic of conversation.
Emma raised her hands in a gesture of surrender and replied, "Definitely not my intention. I mean, first I'd have to know if you wanted to get married again before I thought about proposing. It'd be common courtesy given your history. Not asking about that before proposing would just be rude and inconsiderate."
Regina smiled, a full and genuine smile, as her eyes prickled with tears. Emma's expression changed as her eyes watered and, soon after, the blonde amended her statement.
"But I'm not proposing and I'm done talking about proposing, and I'm sorry I brought it up."
Regina shook her head. "It's fine. I'm not...I'm not about to cry because of the almost-proposal thing."
"Then...why are you about to cry?"
"Because I don't think anyone else would think to ask," she admitted. "Even...Robin."
"Well, I don't think a lot of people know you like I do," Emma replied with a small smile as she seemingly tried to pull Regina away from her thoughts.
Regina chuckled, but was still on the verge of tears. "No. They don't."
A moment passed between them as they sat in silence and looked up at the stars, but Regina spoke again on the subject a short time later.
"I might not like the idea of marriage for myself, but Henry... I hope he feels strongly enough about someone to want to commit to them for the rest of his life. And that someone should feel the same way about him or the wedding is off. I promise you that."
Emma nodded and a moment later said, "That's part of what makes you a great mom, you know that?"
Regina's lips twitched at the corners with a barely there smile. A second later, even in her borrowed sweatshirt, she shivered. She pulled on the sweatshirt and tugged the blanket further up her body.
"Are you still cold," Emma asked.
"No," Regina answered and she shook her head, despite the chill that passed through her almost as soon as the word came out of her mouth.
"That was definitely a shiver," Emma said a second before she got up and closed the gap between them. The blonde ripped the blanket away from her, but quickly slid beneath it at Regina's side.
Emma spread her own blanket out over Regina's blanket. The younger woman smoothed it out a little and then reclined. It wasn't until after she wriggled around and wedged herself firmly between the arm of the chair and Regina that Emma asked, "Is this okay?"
Regina almost replied with a sarcastic quip on instinct, but the worried look on Emma's face like the blonde had just figured out she could have done something upsetting or something that could have made Regina uncomfortable changed the brunette's approach. "It's okay," she answered. "I'll even move over to give you a little more room. I'm sure your back will be screaming in no time if you press it up against that armrest any longer."
"I'd live." Emma's eyes were on her again and held her captive in her intense gaze.
"I appreciate the sacrifice, but you've sacrificed enough. For me, for your family, for the entire town."
"Hey, after being the Dark One, a bruised backside is nothing," Emma responded a little jokingly with such ease that replaced the hurt and draw back into darkness that would have been her response a few years ago.
Regina smiled and looked up at the stars as she played with the top of the blanket. "And that's what makes you an incredible woman," she replied.
"You think I'm incredible," Emma quietly asked.
She slowly turned back to Emma and looked from the other woman's eyes to her lips. Just as slowly as she refocused her attention on the blonde, her eyes flitted back to Emma's. "You're still an idiot."
Emma rolled her eyes and looked away.
Regina grinned at the other woman's reaction and added, "But you're also incredible." When Emma looked at her again and beamed, Regina took great pleasure in voicing another reply that would annoy the younger woman. "An incredible idiot."
Emma gasped and swatted Regina's arm, the one that the blonde wasn't practically on top of, and then adjusted her position against Regina's side. When Emma seemed settled, the blonde lowered her hand and pinched just above Regina's hip.
"Ow," Regina yelped and started to squirm. "Hitting my arm wasn't enough?"
Emma only answered with a laugh, but Regina was quick to end that laughter as she pinched the top of Emma's belly button. "Damn," Emma hissed and lurched upward as she threw a leg over Regina's hips. By complete accident, as far as Regina could tell, Emma straddled the brunette's lap and practically thrust her breasts in Regina's face. "Let's see how you like it," came seconds before Emma pinched the top of Regina's belly button in retaliation.
Regina doubted it had the desired effect because instead of pain or the urge to repay the not-so-favorable action, she rolled her hips into Emma and gripped tightly to the armrests on either side of them. She didn't make a sound, but she did feel the sting. It wasn't all that painful for Regina, though. It was a bearable discomfort and her instinctive roll of her hips lessened that sting when she felt Emma. And she assumed that, all of it, was evident in her eyes by the way Emma looked at her.
"Did that- Did I just- Is that a turn on for you," Emma asked where she continued to hover over her.
"Not...entirely," Regina cautiously confessed.
"Oh my god. So, if you got a navel piercing, would you have to hide a moan or would you just instantly orgasm," Emma asked with a bright, overly amused smile.
"I'd never get a navel piercing."
"Why would you deny yourself that pleasure," Emma teasingly asked.
"Shut up," she said before she pinched the swell of Emma's left breast where it was hidden beneath the white sweater the blonde wore.
"Ah!" Emma laughed a little as she shouted and also moved toward Regina's touch instead of away from it.
"It seems I've found something that turns you on," Regina said with a deliciously evil smirk.
"Two somethings," Emma admitted after a few seconds, green eyes locked on brown the entire time. "When you look at me like that... All you need is a corset or one of those Evil Queen outfits, and even without them, it gives me shivers. And not the kind that happens because of the weather."
Regina arched an eyebrow, which worked more in her favor than Emma's.
"Stop it," Emma warned her, but smiled as she did.
"Mm, this is far too much fun to stop."
"Oh my god. Regina, I swear."
"You swear what? Fealty? Do you want to get on your knees when you say that?"
"Regina!"
She laughed.
"I'm not kidding," Emma said. "This is about to be a splash zone if you don't stop."
Regina's lips parted as she quietly gasped. She held Emma's gaze for a moment before she looked down at the button on Emma's jeans and licked her lips. "That sounds intriguing. It also sounds like you have somewhat explosive orgasms." The second statement was punctuated with eye contact that caused Emma's pupils to dilate.
"You want to find out?"
That took Regina by surprise and Emma appeared to love that judging by the blonde's massive grin.
"All bark and no bite," Emma proudly teased.
"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Regina purred in response.
The quip was enough to wipe the smugness from Emma's expression, but not enough to keep the blonde from raising a questioning eyebrow.
"I'm not saying anything more unless you tell me something first," Regina offered.
"What do you want me to tell you?"
Regina smirked and held Emma's gaze for a long moment—long enough to make Emma squirm above her—before she faked a British accent and asked, "Do I make you horny, baby?"
Emma huffed and rolled her eyes as she slid down Regina's body and wiggled her way back against the brunette's side. "Clearly, begging you to watch all three Austin Powers movies was a mistake."
Regina laughed, a bit like her mayoral self and a little like the Evil Queen who reveled in Snow's misery when the fallen princess made out with one of the Queen's mirrors because it had projected the bandit's charming shepherd. "Then you'll just have to come up with better movie choices that won't come back to bite you in the ass."
Emma narrowed her eyes. "This is your sneaky way of getting me to let you pick the next movie on movie night, isn't it?"
"If it's sneaky, why would you expect me to tell?"
"I have my ways of getting people to talk."
"Even if that were true, it's Henry's turn."
"He's not going to be here much longer," Emma unnecessarily reminded her. "The next movie night could be after we drop him off at his dorm."
"No. We're going to have a family movie night before we take him," Regina insisted.
"You're really going to miss him, aren't you?"
"Of course I am. He's my little prince."
"He's your grown up prince," Emma corrected.
Regina glared.
"Okay," Emma said. "I get it. Not helping."
"Aren't you going to miss him? You've only know him for the last eight years? You think that's plenty of time to bond with him and be done with it? I suppose you already gave him up once—"
"Hey," Emma snapped with eyes as hard as steel. "You don't get to say that."
Regina swallowed a thick lump in her throat and nodded as she averted her eyes. "I know. You're right. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that, I just—"
"I get that you're hurting, but I didn't deserve that. Eight years ago, I stayed. You thought I needed roots, so I got roots. Right here. With Henry and my parents…and you."
"I know," Regina repeated. "I'm glad you stayed, and so is Henry. I can't…I can't imagine what things would have been like if you hadn't broken the curse, if Henry hadn't been able to find you, if the book hadn't shown up in Snow's closet when Henry was angry and struggling to come to grips with the fact that he was adopted."
"I can."
Regina's eyes snapped to the blonde with surprise and her lips parted only seconds after she met Emma's gaze.
"It would have been boring," Emma finished. "So boring. And you would have had a moody pre-teen on your hands and maybe he would've accepted that he was adopted, because I'm sure you would have found a way to talk to him about it, but everything here before I showed up was dull."
"It was not."
Emma flashed her a smug smirk, her defensiveness and sour mood forgotten, and said, "The only source of entertainment you had was Granny calling Ruby a slut because of how free spirited she was and the fact that she wanted to get out of this quaint little seaside town."
Regina rolled her eyes like Emma didn't know what she was talking about, even though both women knew the blonde had a point.
"Admit it," Emma said. "Things got so much more interesting after I agreed to stay."
Regina huffed and shifted a little in the chair before she replied, "Everything changed when you got here. And then it became more of the same after you broke the curse. Everyone wanted to either kill me or lock me up."
"But I saved you from that, too. Well, Henry did at first. Just Henry. And then I helped after that."
"Only because he'd be upset with you if you didn't," Regina grumbled.
"Yeah, but you did the same with me. When my mom and I were trying to get through the well after a twisted fight with Cora—"
"And your stupid pirate," Regina unhelpfully added.
"He's not my anything anymore," Emma quietly said, but it had been nearly as much time since Robin's death as it had been since Emma and Hook's breakup, so the blonde didn't seem too affected by the reminder of who Hook used to be and sometimes still was. "Anyway, you only saved us because Henry told you to, but you and I have come a long way since then."
"Because it's been about seven years since that happened."
"Exactly. I didn't think time could heal all wounds, but I guess maybe it healed this one."
"No, Henry did." Regina stared up at the sky for a moment before her lips curled into a smile. "Henry fixed a lot of things and he's never stopped trying to fix things."
Emma chuckled. "He always wants to be the hero of the story, the white knight that saves the day."
"Except now he's leaving. There are no fairytale roles for him to fill where he's going."
"No, but he can still be a good guy. He can still rescue girls from their jerk boyfriends and walk the drunk girls home to make sure they get there safely. He can be a gentleman anywhere he goes, and he still plans to come home any chance he gets. So he can go back to being the Author and a valiant knight in more literal ways then."
"I suppose."
Another moment of silence passed between them again as they only heard the sound of crickets chirping and branches swaying in the steady breeze.
"It's not going to be the same with him gone," Emma said. "But you've still got me. And a full house. With Zelena and Robyn there, and with Neal over for playdates whenever my parents need a babysitter."
"And they get two babysitters because they only come to my house to ask you to watch him."
"You can do your own thing while I watch him, you know. You don't have to get involved. No one's made you do it and no one will force you to do it in the future, so I don't know why you're complaining," Emma said with a light and playful tone.
"What sane person would ignore the children running rampant in her home just because she'd rather relax on the couch watching TV with a glass of wine?"
"Right," Emma said with obvious disbelief. "I know you like a nice night in, but you light up every time my parents drop Neal off and you're always quick to play with Robyn. Do you forget that I always know when you're lying?"
"How can I when you remind me of it almost every time we talk," she dryly asked.
"Maybe if you'd stop lying to me every time we talked, I wouldn't have to remind you."
"If I didn't love our son so much, I'd strangle you," Regina threatened with a glare.
"You could always kill me while he's away at college and claim it was an unfortunate accident," Emma suggested. "He'd never know."
"Yes, he would. He knows you and he knows me. He's probably betting on how soon I'll snap because of some ridiculous thing you did."
"Probably," Emma agreed with a smile. "I'm pretty sure the entire town has a pool going and he's got at least twenty dollars invested in sooner rather than later."
"If I ever found out the town had a pool on when or what I might do next, I'd string them up by their clothes and let them hang together, naked, in the center of town."
Emma laughed. "I'm not sure you've thought that through. There are so many people in the town I would pay not to see naked."
Regina thought about it and nodded a moment later as she said, "That's true."
Emma reached behind herself and grabbed her drink. "More wine?"
"I already have my glass." Regina raised it to prove her point. There was still enough wine to sip for several minutes.
"Doesn't mean you aren't in need of more."
"Emma Swan, are you trying to get me drunk?"
"Only if it's working," the blonde said with a chuckle. A few seconds later, she poured a little of her wine into Regina's glass.
"It's not, and I'm still sad about Henry," Regina answered.
"I figured. But look at it this way," Emma said before she took a sip of what remained in her glass. "He's made it this far and he doesn't seem interested in stopping."
"That's the problem. I don't want him to keep going. I don't…I don't want to be standing in the middle of the road watching him drive off without hesitation as he puts distance between us. And all I become to him is the sad face in his rearview mirror that will never stop loving him or caring for him or wanting him to just come home."
And then the tears came. She scrunched up her face and tried to hold them back, tried to remain on the verge of crying without actually crying, but it was no use. Tears spilled out of her eyes the more she scrunched up her face and salty, wet tracks stained her cheeks.
Regina felt and watched Emma nudge her legs over Emma's own until they were stretched out over Emma's. The younger woman's body curled toward her and Emma joined their hands a few seconds later. When Emma slowly started to rub circles over the back of hands with her thumbs, Regina sniffled and looked up at her. Their eyes met instantly.
"It's not gonna be like that," Emma said with unwavering conviction and a gaze to match. "Nothing is threatening the town. Nothing is threatening our son and he'll remember you. He'll come back for you with all his memories still intact, plus a few new ones he'll hopefully share with us."
"You can't promise that," she replied, her voice shaky.
"Yes, I can."
"Zelena managed to reach you outside of Storybrooke all those years ago. And she did it from the Enchanted Forest. Anyone can send a flying monkey in disguise and hurt him."
"They won't."
"You can't know that," Regina repeated her argument.
"He knows what to look out for. We got him this far. Death threats, common colds and worrying fevers, kidnappings and almost losing him to the Lost Boys. And look where he is now. Just had his eighteenth birthday and not a scratch on him. We've done plenty to emotionally scar him for life, but he's okay. He'll be okay. There's nothing anyone can throw at our family that we won't overcome."
"You may have just jinxed that," she grumbled.
"And if I did, we'll get through it. Just like we always do."
Regina rolled her eyes. "Charming."
"If I'm my dad, that makes you Snow White. So, who's really being insulted here," Emma rhetorically asked and beamed when Regina glared daggers at her. "Regina… We did it. We fought like hell to keep, protect, and save our kid and now he's going off to college. And we did it all while fighting villains and overcoming our dark sides and struggling to get along with each other, even with Henry as a buffer."
When Regina took the time to think about it, to remember all the things they'd done to each other and for each other over the years, and realized how far they'd come individually, as co-parents and as an entire family—full of dysfunction, but definitely a family—she smiled. A moment later, she almost reverently agreed with Emma. "We did it." She looked at Emma again after a brief moment, a smile still on her face, and just stared into green eyes for a while.
Emma looked at her as well. Their eyes remained locked in an impenetrable gaze before the blonde's next move caused Regina's eyes to flutter shut and her head to loll against the back of the chair.
Emma slid her thumbs further up Regina's arms and dipped them beneath the sleeves of Regina's borrowed sweatshirt. It sent goosebumps from the former queen's wrists to her chest and calmed her as much as it seemed to excite her nerves.
Regina relaxed her entire body and only opened her eyes to see how Emma felt about the reaction the blonde had on her. Thankfully for both of them, Emma just continued to stare at her with kind eyes that searched her face and shoulders for any sign of tension. "You must be using magic on me," she groggily said as the pull to sleep increased with each breath she took.
"No magic," Emma informed her. "I'm sure you'd know without a doubt if I was. You'd feel it."
Emma was right, of course. Magic would have easily been detectible, especially the blonde's. The second the other woman sent a shockwave of her potent magic through Regina's veins, it would have been delightfully obvious. Unless Emma was using it to hurt her. Then it would have been painfully obvious. But Emma hadn't hurt her physically or otherwise in years and either way, the magic would have been quickly detected.
But in addition to that, Regina also couldn't let Emma think the woman was capable of relaxing her to the point of sleep. There was falling asleep after an exhausting night of babysitting two little ones and then there was consciously making the decision to drift off when it only took a few seconds to slide over Emma, stand up and head back inside.
"It's magic," she insisted. "Otherwise I wouldn't be falling asleep."
Emma quietly chuckled, the lower volume of her voice a dead giveaway that she was starting to tire as well. "Right, because there's no way your emotions or the wine or the way I'm touching you have anything to do with it."
"Exactly," Regina said with a lift of her eyebrows even as her eyes closed yet again.
The next time she opened them, birds chirped instead of crickets and the sun replaced the moon in the sky. Although she didn't see the sun. She mostly just saw blonde hair. Emma had rolled on top of her at some point overnight. The blonde's hips cradled her thigh and their breasts were pressed together. Emma's head rested in the crook of her neck, a cheek pressed against her sternum just beneath her collarbone.
She felt a tingle in her arm and tried to move it, which was when she realized it was wrapped around Emma's waist. Her fingers snagged on a belt loop of the other woman's jeans as she attempted to lift her arm and the movement caused Emma to stir. When bleary, green eyes found hers, Regina drowsily said, "You have got to stop falling asleep in my space."
Emma chuckled, her voice a little rough from disuse, as she lifted a hand that had previously been tucked against her side near her hip. The younger woman rubbed one of her eyes and dropped her hand back onto the cushioned back of their shared lounge chair. "If you were really upset about it, you wouldn't cuddle me like you did."
Of course the blonde, who wasn't at all a morning person until she had her caffeine fix, made some smug little remark first thing in the morning.
"I don't cuddle," she replied, her own voice just as raspy from sleep.
"Oh yeah? Tell that to my lower back," Emma said with that stupid, beautiful lopsided smile of hers. "Because I didn't fall asleep until I felt you trace patterns across it. And your hand definitely slipped under my sweater to do it."
Regina was a little mortified by that shocking revelation, but she masked it as best she could. It was only embarrassing if Emma realized how much she actually enjoyed the comfort of the blonde's presence and touch, their bodies close enough for Regina to hear her breathing and feel her heartbeat. Their friendship had grown to something Regina couldn't have ever imagined. They were close enough to openly talk and tease about sex, close enough to fall asleep together, close enough to hug when they parted for the night or day, close enough to text and call each other about more than just Henry. They were close, but Regina had no idea whether or not Emma could, would, or did feel the same way about her as she felt about Emma.
What she felt for the other woman was why she'd allowed Emma to take over a guest room much like Zelena had, but Emma wasn't without options like her sister. Emma had a home and had parents that could have accommodated her when she refused to stay in the house she'd acquired as the Dark One. Zelena only had her. Emma had other people she could have gone to first, but she'd come to her and argued that it made more sense to live with Henry. And since Henry lived with her—and because Regina liked having Emma close—a guest room offer was extended.
Emma said it was temporary, but how temporary was four years? Henry was thirteen when Emma suggested the arrangement to live under one roof, which the other woman had suggested only two months after Robin's death. Even if he didn't move away for college, even if he'd decided to stay in Storybrooke, he was still going to move out of the house to be his own man with his own space like any regular adult that could afford to do that. But until then, until he graduated high school, Emma had planned to stay with them and both women—and their son—knew that point in time was years away from that point in time. So, again, how temporary was their arrangement?
But even knowing that temporary was a lie, that Emma would be sticking around for a while, Regina welcomed Emma into her home. Regina put up a lame fight about Emma moving several of her things into the guest room over time and the groceries that only Emma would buy that filled the refrigerator every week. All because Regina felt things for Emma that she had denied for some time, time that—if she was honest with herself—preceded her involvement with Robin Hood.
"You're staring." Emma's words snapped Regina out of her trance, which was when she realized her eyes had been focused on Emma's freckled face for a little too long. She was sure there was a certain fondness in her gaze as well, something Emma probably saw and recognized.
"Sorry. I was just thinking," she tried to cover for herself.
"No need to be sorry," Emma said with a bright smile, a sunny smile not unlike the early autumn day that had only just begun. Emma grabbed her cell phone out of her back pocket and turned on the display for just a moment before she said, "I think it's about time I start a fresh pot of coffee."
Emma carefully extracted herself from Regina's semi-lazy embrace, still smiling with her eyes set on Regina, and collected the blankets.
"Those have been outside all night," Regina unnecessarily reminded the other woman. "Leave them in the laundry room. They should be washed before anyone uses them again."
"Already on it," Emma said. "And you really should have gotten yourself a sweatshirt during the college visit. That one looks good on you."
Regina smiled at the compliment, one of many Emma gave her throughout the last four years as though that would help her to keep the guest room the woman had made her own, before she rhetorically asked, "Why would I when I have yours at my disposal?"
"Ha ha," Emma sardonically laughed in response as she headed toward the back door, blankets bundled up in her arms. "You're getting your own when we drop him off next week. I actually happen to like that one."
A week later, when they dropped Henry off at his dorm, Emma was the one buying herself a new sweatshirt at the campus supply store while Regina purposely wore the one she'd commandeered from the blonde that night under the stars.