Just a quick note, anything between [...] denotes a flashback scene

Storybrooke really and truly was the town that never changed. Regina realized that more so the next morning when she went to Granny's diner early after another long and sleepless night. The wake had gone on well into the night, but only her parents' closest friends and Zelena's friends had stayed after the food was long gone.

Regina had gone to her room after the conversation with Emma, hiding away from the drunken laughter that all too soon carries its way throughout the house. It hadn't even mattered how many times she told her sister she didn't drink anymore, it all fell on deaf ears and it infuriated her to no end. Zelena did end up leaving her alone, but not after trying six times to get her to leave her room and join everyone in the dining room for drinks.

And she was just so tired of crying. Everything in that house held memories of her father, and everything outside of the house, everywhere she looked, there was one thing right after the other that only served as a reminder of so many memories of her father.

So, there she was, just before seven in the morning and sitting at the end of the counter at the diner nursing a delicious cup of hot coffee. It was a futile attempt to avoid her mother and sister that morning because, on top of being tired of crying, she didn't have the energy to deal with them yet. She wasn't the only early customer in there either and she recognized a few of them as they'd attended the funeral and some she remembered from a long time ago when she used to work at the Rabbit Hole. Ruby was the only one working that morning and she had greeted Regina with a big, warm smile the moment she first walked in the door.

Regina turned as the bell over the door rang and she saw a man walk in and it the officer that had been in the church parking lot yesterday morning. He wasn't in uniform, though his badge was pinned to his flannel shirt and he wore blue jeans and an old Boston Red Sox baseball cap. He waved and smiled at the few people sitting around the diner and approached the counter with a small and slight swagger in his step.

"Hey, August," Ruby said as she strolled out of the kitchen. She smiled at the man as she wiped her hands on her apron. She turned and picked up a bag she'd packed up barely ten minutes earlier from behind the counter and placed it in front of him with a smile. "Threw a little extra in there for you this morning, just because."

"You know you're supposed to call me Deputy Booth when I'm on duty," he chuckled. "How are you doing this morning, Ruby?"

"Great, you?" Ruby asked and she turned to grab a couple of Styrofoam cups that she quickly filled up with coffee. "Let me guess, rough night, Deputy Booth?"

"Just pulled a double shift actually. I get off in an hour. Wanted to have the good stuff ready and waiting for when Sheriff Swan shows up at the station soon."

"Em's been the sheriff for three years now and you're still kissing ass, August?" Ruby teased and placed the three cups into a cardboard tray. "You know Emma loves you. You are her best deputy. You don't have to keep buying her breakfast. You and I both know that if she could, she'd promote you to deputy sheriff, but the town only needs one sheriff in charge here."

"And she's the best one to do the job if you ask me," a man sitting at a table nearby said and the other man he was sitting with just laughed. "You, on the other hand, Booth," he said as he raised a bushy eyebrow, "you could work on brushing up on your people skills."

"Yeah, yeah," August laughed and he took the tray from Ruby before picking up the bag on the counter. "Thanks, Doll. What do I owe ya?"

"I'll add it to the tab."

"And I'll be sure to remind Emma to pick that tab up next time she's in," August said with a wink and he looked over at Regina and just smiled at her.

"Oh, so it's Emma when it comes to paying the mile-long tab the sheriff's station is racked up, but it's Sheriff Swan when it comes to kissing ass, huh?" Ruby asked and they laughed. "I'll be sure to bill her lunch to your tab later, Deputy Booth."

The deputy left, still laughing, and Ruby walked over to Regina with the coffee carafe and topped up her mug. Regina moved to sit at the table by the window as thunder cracked loudly outside. She watched the rain fall as it hit the window and she sipped her coffee as a memory, a strong one, came back and this time she didn't fight it. She embraced it and remembered every little detail of the morning she had first met Emma Swan.

[…]

It had been raining steadily since early that morning, but the storm had only gotten worse when Regina had first walked into the diner with her best friend after they finished their very last exam. It was the last day of school and their senior prom was that night, though Regina wasn't planning to attend as she did not have a date and did not want to be the third wheel again with Kathryn and Fred. That hadn't stopped Kathryn from trying to convince her all morning to come, that it was a rite of passage for all seniors and that it was a once in a lifetime experience.

Regina hadn't cared. She didn't have a date and had no interest in having one. She did have the tickets, though, because Kathryn had talked her into buying them months ago. "Get two, just in case, you never know you just might end up finding a date, Regina."

They'd stopped by the diner for a late breakfast after their exam before Kathryn was due for her appointment at the salon just around the corner. Neither of them had anticipated that the rain would turn into a full-blown spring thunderstorm and they were essentially stuck there until the storm eventually passed.

It had been a very overwhelming day and Regina had found it hard to believe that one era was coming to an end rather quickly. Another one would start in just a few months when she was expected to move to the dorms at the end of August and be ready to start her very first semester at Boston University School of Law as soon as September rolled around. Kathryn, however, had other plans as she'd told Regina a few weeks ago she was planning to take the next year off before attending the very same university the following autumn semester.

Kathryn and Fred were in the midst of planning their big road trip to California they were hoping to start before the end of the summer. A part of her was a little envious that Kathryn had the option of taking a year off before starting the next phase of her life. Regina didn't have that luxury. She had been accepted into BU with a full-ride academic scholarship and it was one she simply couldn't turn down because it meant she would leave Storybrooke for the first time in her life.

"You know, I could always call Fred and see if he'll come pick us up," Kathryn offered as she stared out the window at the torrential downpour outside. "Or, we could just walk? You could come to my appointment at the salon and keep me company? It's not far."

"You want to walk in that?" Regina asked incredulously. "Absolutely not."

"Maybe not," Kathryn winced as a loud crack of thunder shook the building. "Well, Fred is working this morning anyway. I could always call David."

"Your incredibly annoying step-brother?" Regina asked with a roll of her eyes. "He won't come. He hates both of us. Me, especially. We'd be better off risking the walk in that storm."

"You're right." Kathryn frowned. "So, what do we do then? Do we just stay here and wait it out?"

"Do we have a choice, Kathryn?"

"No, I suppose we don't. But, if I miss my appointment…" Kathryn trailed off, frowning deeply at Regina's lack of concern over the chance of her missing her appointment to get her hair and makeup done for prom. "I just don't understand why you aren't coming tonight. You have already have the tickets, Regina. You don't need a date to go to prom."

"I told you many times already that I don't even want to go. I don't have a date. I don't even have a dress, Kathryn," Regina sighed. "Prom isn't high on my list of priorities. You know that."

"Neither was driving to our exam this morning, either."

"My car is in the shop. There was nothing I could do about that, Kathryn, and you know that."

Regina rolled her eyes just as Kathryn did. Her car, her father's old Mercedes he had gifted to her last year on her seventeenth birthday, was in the shop for the next couple of days for its annual tune-up, tire rotation, and an oil change. It hadn't even been raining that hard earlier when she first left the house, but that had all changed as the wind picked up and brought the storm raging in. The storm itself hadn't even been in the forecast when she checked it earlier that morning either. Even if she had known, they were both limited on options to call someone for a ride.

Regina couldn't even borrow her mother's car that morning as her parents had driven it to pick her sister up from the airport in Boston since Zelena had been so adamant about flying in from London for Regina's graduation ceremony on Sunday afternoon.

Suddenly the door slammed open and the bell hanging just above it nearly flew off the hook in the process. Regina looked over as the blonde-haired girl she'd never seen before came rushing in from outside, drenched from head to toe. Everyone in the diner suddenly turned their eyes onto the drenched girl standing in the doorway as she shut it with a loud gasp and shuddered. She looked to be about their age, Regina guessed, and she could not seem to take her eyes off of the blonde-haired stranger.

Regina couldn't seem to take her eyes off of the stranger as she watched her push down the hood of her black sweater and push aside the wet strands of her hair away from her eyes. And she watched, even as everyone else went back about their own business, as the blonde-haired stranger pulled off her soaked hoodie, dripping rainwater all over the mat by the door before she casually hung it up on the coat tree and made her way over to the counter.

"Hey," she said to Ruby as she hesitatingly sat down on the only empty stool at the counter. "Do you know where I can get a tow in this town?"

"The Marine Garage," Ruby replied and she placed a mug down in front of her that she promptly filled with some hot coffee. "It's just up the street."

"I was just there," the girl said and she groaned in annoyance. "They said their only truck is out on a call right now. Is there any other place I can call? Kind of have a bit of an emergency here. Blew a tire and spun out on the road just outside of town and ended up in a ditch. I also kind-of-may-have-hit-the-sign," she finished in a rush. "Maybe?"

Regina laughed. She couldn't stop herself. She ignored Kathryn's intense glare and got up from the booth. "either you hit the sign or not," Regina said as she walked up to where the blonde was sitting and took a seat once the man beside her left. "So, which one is it?"

"Come on, I barely clipped it," the blonde replied cheekily. "So, is this a one tow-truck town then?"

"Unfortunately," Regina replied as she languidly tucked a strand of her hair behind her hear. It was so hard for her to take her eyes off this girl and she couldn't figure out why. Ruby scoffed from behind the counter before she walked off into the kitchen. She smiled at the stranger as she leaned against the counter casually. "Storybrooke is a small town, it's barely on a map. Are you new here or are you just passing through?"

"Just passing through, I think," she shrugged nonchalantly. "So, I'm shit outta luck, is that what you're telling me?"

"Just until Michael gets back to the shop with the truck and responds to your call," Kathryn said as she took it upon herself to join them at the counter. "Hi, I'm Kathryn. This is Regina."

"Emma."

"Join us?" Kathryn asked and Regina blinked as she turned to her friend with a questionable glare. "We're stuck here too. We're just trying to ride out the storm."

"Yeah, well, I definitely wouldn't recommend going out there right now, that's for sure," Emma chuckled. She slipped off the stool and followed Kathryn over to the booth and Regina was right behind them. She chose to sit next to Kathryn and sighed. "If my phone hadn't died and if the ditch wasn't flooding to the point where I feared I'd drown, I would've just stayed out there until I could get myself out. Seemed safer to try and find some help instead."

[…]

Remembering that morning also brought back a lot of other memories with it and ones that Regina wasn't quite ready to revisit just yet. It felt different though than all the other times she'd thought back to that particular memory now that she was back there in Storybrooke. Back in the very place where her and Emma's story had first begun all those years ago.

She remembered how, just hours after they first met that morning, and after Kathryn had finally left for her appointment at the salon, they sat in the diner and talked. It had been so easy to talk to Emma and it felt like they were a couple of old friends just catching up after a long time apart. Emma had been so insistent that they crash Regina's senior prom together that night, too. For a long time, she had been so against going to prom even long before it was relevant for just about everyone else in her class, long before anyone worried about finding a date or the perfect dress to wear. It hadn't taken much convincing from Emma, however, and they ended up going together that night. It ended up turning into a night Regina hadn't forgotten for years.

Emma had been a breath of fresh air for her at the time. Emma had been everything that was the complete opposite of her life. Emma had taken her to a height she never imagined possible and Emma had been an awakening for her when she realized that if Emma had been a guy, she would've been the guy her parents hated and chased away because he wasn't good enough for her. Yet, her family had always loved Emma, even from the first time she showed up at the house the morning after prom with Regina in her arms. She had practically carried Regina home at five that morning and put her to bed, just as she promised she would after Regina agreed to go to a party they'd been invited to.

It was clear her family still loved Emma just the same to that very day, too, possibly even more so than ever before.

Regina still, after all these years, wasn't sure what had made her agree to Emma's idea of crashing her senior prom or how she ended up actually going through with it in the end. It had been the first time she'd ever felt a spark with anyone, not that she ever went on dates or anything before that. The kiss they shared just before sunrise and just before Emma put her to bed early that morning was a moment that Emma never spoke of for a long time afterward. It was a moment though that Regina had dreamt of to that very day. She remembered it just as well as their second kiss, which Emma claimed to be their first as if that morning after prom had never happened at all, and that kiss had come the day that Emma told her she was pregnant just before Christmas, seven months after they'd first met.

She remembered the days that led up to that moment too because it was a very defining moment in their lives and for their relationship. She had known for months that she was in love with Emma Swan, but she'd been so scared of her own feelings and she hadn't been able to tell Emma how she really felt as she planned to when she came home from school for Thanksgiving. She'd been scared for a multitude of reasons, scared about how her family would react knowing that she was in love with another woman, scared because she'd never been in love before, and scared because even though they hadn't spent much time together since she'd left for school at the end of August, she was afraid of losing Emma if she confessed how she truly felt about her.

It wasn't until that morning that changed everything and it was one memory that Regina had tried to forget for a long time after she first left, but it was also one that was rushing back to her, clear as day, just as the memory of the first time they met had hit her moments ago.

[…]

She was going to tell her. She had to. She just couldn't keep it inside of her any longer and she'd already chickened out the last time she'd been home for the holidays less than a month earlier. Regina took a few deep breaths and climbed the stairs at the inn, approaching the door of the room where Emma had been staying since her arrival in Storybrooke at the end of May.

She had never felt so nervous and so excited all at once before. She was still so scared, too, because she wasn't sure how to was going to tell Emma how she felt, that she was in love with her and had been for quite some time, but she knew she needed to do it before it simply drove her insane with the simple thought of what if. What if she told her? Would she lose a friend or gain a lover? What if she didn't tell her? Would she spend years, if not a lifetime, wondering? Wondering what if?

Regina undid the buttons on her heavy wool jacket and dusted off the snow that had fallen on her shoulders outside. She tentatively lifted a hand and knocked on the door once before she reached for the handle and opened it. Emma didn't even know she was coming there and she certainly didn't expect to walk in that room to find Emma laying on the bed with her face buried into a pillow as she cried hard.

"Emma?" Regina said quietly as she shut the door behind her. She shrugged off her jacket and laid it over the chair beside the door. "Emma, are you all right?"

"No."

Regina frowned as she crossed the short distance over the room towards the bed. She reached out and rubbed Emma's back, feeling the sobs that wracked through her body at the small touch. Not knowing what to say or how to comfort her because she wasn't sure what was wrong, Regina kicked off her books and moved to lay beside Emma on the bed. When Emma finally lifted her head from the pillow a few minutes later, Regina just smiled as she continued to rub a hand over her back ever so gently.

"What are you doing here?" Emma whispered.

"I came to see you. I-I wanted to talk to you about something, but I think that's not such a great idea, not when you're upset."

"Upset is the understatement of the year," Emma scoffed. "Wait. You're here. You're home. When did you get back?"

"Late last night. I left right after my last exam."

"Oh."

"I wanted to surprise you."

"It's not really a surprise when I already knew you were coming home, just didn't know when since I thought you weren't coming home until tomorrow," Emma laughed a little and she tried to blink away the tears that continued to fall. "Nice surprise, though I'm sure you're more surprised to see me. Bet you didn't expect to find me like this, crying my eyes out and all."

Regina sighed and lifted a hand to wipe away some of Emma's tears from her cheeks. She hadn't seen Emma since they spent Thanksgiving together with her family, and before that, she hadn't seen Emma since just before she left for Boston at the end of August. They hadn't even kept in touch for those three months as she'd found out three weeks after the semester started that Emma had taken off on a road trip with Ruby.

Regina hadn't forgotten when Emma's birthday rolled around in October, but with no way to contact her, she couldn't send a card or even call her to sing her happy birthday. She wanted to do something special for Emma since she had learned over the summer all about Emma's life as an orphan. She wanted Emma's seventeenth birthday to be one she'd always remember and one that made her feel special and loved. Regina blamed the strange bout of depression she fell into right after Emma's birthday on the fact that she hadn't been able to do just that, though now she knew exactly how she felt, she knew it was for a whole host of other reasons, too.

"You're staring," Emma murmured. "What, do I have a booger coming out or something?"

Regina laughed and shook her head no. "I'm sorry," she whispered and her heart started to thud harder and faster in her chest. "I-I didn't mean to stare."

Emma managed a small smile; the first real smile Regina had seen since she got there. Regina ran her thumb gently over Emma's cheek after realizing her hand was still cupping her face gently. With a sharp inhale, Regina wet her lips and leaned forward. She captured Emma's lips in a soft, lingering kiss and one Emma pulled back from in surprise after a few blissful seconds.

At first, she thought she was being rejected and she could not open her eyes, not even when Emma reached up a placed a hand over hers that was still resting there on her tear-stained cheek. She still couldn't open her eyes, not when Emma gently pulled her hand away with a soft sigh.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," Emma whispered and Regina could feel Emma's hand trembling against hers as she held on tight. Regina's lips were still tingling in the aftermath of their short kiss and she blinked open her eyes to finally look at her. "Regina, I need to tell you something."

"You can tell me anything," Regina replied quietly. Emma shuddered as she leaned back on the bed, putting a little bit of space between them. She looked down at the hand Emma was holding onto and easily intertwined their fingers. "Whatever it is, you can tell me, Emma."

"I'm pregnant."

Regina closed her eyes again, fighting back her own tears as she just reached out and pulled Emma close to her. She just held onto her, rocking her gently, and she felt her tears escape the moment Emma buried her face into her neck. Hot tears spilled from Emma's eyes onto Regina's skin, soaking the collar of her shirt. Emma sniffled after a moment and shook her head as she pulled back away from her with a frown.

"How could I have not known?"

"How far along are you?" Regina asked tentatively. She tried to remain calm and nearly forgot the whole reason she had come there in the first place. Telling Emma how she felt about her, telling her that she was in love with her, it seemed pointless now as Emma was pregnant. Pregnant. "Emma? How far along are you?"

"A month," Emma exhaled sharply. "That's what the doctor told me when I went to the clinic yesterday. I-I took a test a few weeks ago, but it wasn't positive. I took it a few weeks ago because something just-I just had this feeling that something was wrong. Off, you know? The doctor at the clinic took two blood tests then did a few other tests to confirm my diagnosis." Emma wiped furiously at her tears as she suddenly sat up next to her. "I had to have that test, all of them, with that creepy doctor, Dr. Whale. You know him?"

"Always a pleasure," Regina said bitterly as her own memories of the doctor weren't pleasant at all. "Emma, what are you going to do?"

"I'm seventeen," she sighed. "I don't know. It's early enough that I could just get rid of the baby. It's not really a baby yet, you know? It's the size of a peanut, really."

"You would have an abortion?"

"Seems like the best and only option, doesn't it?" Emma half laughed, half sobbed. She wiped her tears on the sleeve of her shirt and shook her head as anger settled in. "I'm an orphan, Regina. I have no family. I have nobody. I can't raise a kid by myself."

"You have me." The offer came quick and it came easy. Regina smiled as she reached for Emma's hands. Emma shook her head again and pulled her hands away almost immediately. "I am serious, Emma. You have me. You are not alone in this."

"You're in school. In Boston."

"Your point, dear?" Regina asked, raising an eyebrow questioningly at her. "Boston is not that far. I can come home as much as my schedule allows. Besides, I am home now for another month before the second semester starts."

"And what am I supposed to do, Regina? Live here?" Emma asked and she waved around at the small room incredulously. "I can't raise a baby in a bed and breakfast. That's ridiculous."

"I'm sure Granny won't mind."

"She will when I run out of money," Emma muttered under her breath. "Honestly, Regina, how can I even be a mother when I never had one myself? I don't know if I can even be a mother. How can I even raise a kid when I'm still basically a kid myself, huh?"

"You'll figure it out," Regina replied and she reached for Emma's hands once again, smiling when Emma didn't immediately pull away this time. "We'll figure it out. I promise."

"We?" Emma looked absolutely utterly confused and Regina couldn't help but laugh at the look on her face. "You said we. We'll figure it out? We will?"

Regina smiled and leaned in, closing the small distance between them to place a soft and chaste kiss on Emma's trembling lips. "Yes, I did. We will figure this out," she whispered, not quite pulling way, not quite wanting to pull away. "I can help you find a place to live if you want to stay in Storybrooke. I-I can even take a year off of school and stay here with you, or wherever you end up, and we will figure this out together."

"Are you crazy?" Emma laughed. "You can't do that!"

"I can and I will."

"Why the hell would you do that?"

"I'd do it for you, Emma," she whispered. "I would do anything for you."

"You're crazy."

"I'm crazy about you," Regina admitted and she felt her cheeks instantly grow hot. It wasn't quite the way she planned to tell Emma, but she'd said it nonetheless as nothing about this surprise visit had gone quite to plan anyway. "Gods, Emma Swan, I am so crazy about you. You make me feel things I've never felt before, things I never knew were possible to feel at all. I am in love with you." Regina inhaled deeply as she stared into Emma's eyes, waiting for Emma to say something and when no words came, she laughed in spite of herself. "I wanted you to know that I thought I knew that I was in love with you before I left in August and I knew for certain that I was-that I am in love with you when I came home for Thanksgiving. I've never been surer of anything else in all my life, Emma Swan, and if that makes me crazy, then-"

Emma cut her off with a kiss, one that was nothing like the other two they'd just shared. It was hard, it was deep and full of passion, full of emotion. It set Regina's whole body on fire and made her heart race impossibly fast-faster than it'd been when she first walked in the door. She gripped onto the front of Emma's plain white shirt and gasped as Emma kissed her even deeper and she pulled back a moment later, her chest heaving heavily, and her lips already aching for more.

She had not expected for Emma to react quite that way. It had been all she hoped for when she thought about how this revelation would play out and yet it still came so unexpectedly. It blew her away far more than Emma's confession that she'd just found out she was pregnant. Regina looked down at her hands in surprise as they were still grasping tightly onto the front of Emma's shirt. Despite the fact that all she wanted to do was to keep kissing her, she released the hold she had on Emma and tried to ignore the need to want to kiss her just long enough to forget about the rest of the world for a little while.

"Are you sure?" Emma asked. Her voice was tentative and unsure. All Regina could do was glare at her, idiot repeating itself over and over in her head as she smiled at Emma like a damn fool in love. "Okay, okay!" Emma laughed, but the laughter quickly died as a frown fell upon her face. "I have to tell him, don't I?"

"Who?"

"The baby daddy." Emma sighed and she moved away from Regina, standing up from the bed. She exhaled sharply as she ran her fingers through her long hair before wiping away the last of her tears that lingered on her cheeks. "You remember? You remember the guy that I told you about on Thanksgiving, right? The asshole that nearly got me thrown in jail for a year?"

"Are you sure that it is his?"

"He's the only one I've ever been with, Regina. Of course it has to be his."

The asshole's name was Neal Cassidy, a guy Emma run into on her road trip to the west coast a few months back. Emma had told her the whole story about him over Thanksgiving and Regina still remembered how deep that cut hurt in her heart just hearing Emma talk about how she thought she'd been in love with him when everything literally fell apart into pieces. That asshole had taken Emma under his wing the first time, just days after she first ran away from the last group home she'd been in, and much like the first time, it ended in nothing but trouble for her.

The first time, that asshole left her stranded in a motel room she couldn't pay for and ended up running from that. It was the whole reason she'd ended up in Storybrooke, Maine that fateful morning in the first place. The second time that asshole left her, he tried to make her take the fall over twenty-thousand dollars' worth of rare and expensive watches.

Now, here she was six weeks later, back in Storybrooke and pregnant with his child. Seventeen years old and pregnant.

When Emma told her the story about Neal Cassidy at Thanksgiving, and Regina remembered that conversation well because it had become the only other thing she could think about these days, she remembered how she had wished she'd told Emma how she felt before she'd even left for Boston back in the summer, thinking that maybe Emma never would've gone on that road trip with Ruby Lucas and that maybe Emma never would've run into Neal Cassidy at all. She thought that if Emma had known, everything would've been different. She didn't expect this, however, to come back home ready to confess her feelings for Emma only to find out she was pregnant.

Emma had gotten lucky. She'd managed to get a state-appointed lawyer that helped proved she was innocent and once the charges were dropped and she was in the clear, had managed to find her way back to Storybrooke just in time for Thanksgiving.

Emma could've gone anywhere she wanted from there and yes, there she was, back in Storybrooke and pregnant. Neal was in jail and Emma was still stuck with him, even trying to get as far away from him as she could, and she was stuck with a part of him. A baby.

"Then tell him," Regina said, not once taking her eyes off of Emma as she paced the floor in front of her. "It is the right thing to do."

"I'd really rather not," Emma scoffed. "He's nothing to me now, Regina. He used me. He's nothing more than a freakin' sperm donor if you ask me." Emma stopped pacing, her anger burning so brightly in her eyes. "He set me up! He was willing to let me take the fall, to do time for his crime. He barely even looked at me in court that day. He has no remorse. Nothing! Do you really think, even if he wasn't in jail right now, that he'd even help me raise a kid? A baby? He'll turn out to be just another deadbeat father, just like his was."

Regina could see how terrified Emma was in that very moment. She couldn't even imagine. Afraid and alone. She couldn't even begin to imagine what it felt like, either, to be pregnant at seventeen without the father of her child in her life, without a family of her own to help her, with nothing more than the clothes in her back and whatever was inside the car she'd "borrowed" from Neal when she left Seattle. She couldn't even imagine what was going through Emma's mind and all she could think about was how much she wanted and needed to help Emma through it all. To be there for her when she had no one else.

She was willing to give up everything for her. So willing. She was in love with Emma Swan and she wanted nothing more than to be there with her through every step of this next journey in her life. She wanted to be with Emma in every way. She wanted to fall asleep with her and wake up next to her in the morning day after day. She wanted more than a friendship with her. She wanted to be able to kiss her whenever she wanted and to say those three little words every time she felt that full feeling in her heart and those butterflies taking flight in her stomach just as they did whenever she was near her.

"It's your choice," Regina said, breaking the silence that had settled between them. "Tell him or don't. Just know one thing, Emma Swan, I am here for you in every way and I will support whatever decision you make. Just know one other thing," she said, pausing as Emma stopped pacing the floor again to look at her. "You don't have to make that choice today. You still have some time."

"I'm just so scared, Regina," Emma whispered. Her tears began to fall again as she sat back down next to Regina on the bed. "I'm so fucking scared. How can I take care of a baby? What if I do something wrong and screw his whole life up? I can't give him up, either. Look how well that turned out for me. Growing up as an orphan isn't something I'd wish on my greatest enemy."

"Him? Isn't it too early to know if it's a boy?"

Emma shrugged. "Feels like a boy. It's stupid, isn't it? I'm like a month along and not even the doctor can tell what it is yet. It could be a boy or a girl or some kind of demon monster from hell."

Regina couldn't help but laugh as she reached for both of Emma's hands gently and intertwined their fingers, loving how easy it felt just to do that now and how Emma just lether. "It's not stupid and it isn't a demon monster from hell, either," she said lightly. "As I said before. You don't have to do this alone, Emma. I'm here. I'm here for you and for the baby. We are in this. Together."

[…]