Well, the U.S. is back in Daylight Saving Time as of this morning. Happy Sunday, SQers! Here's the next part. Enjoy!
Chapter 3
Emma rolled quickly over and grabbed for her cellphone currently loudly proclaiming the early hour on the small single-drawer table next to her bed in the Mills guest room. "Sh!" she hissed at the device. She pulled the screen close enough for her to see the on-screen button and turn off the alarm. She exhaled to calm her racing heart when she finally had silence.
In the dark of the room, she looked around only vaguely able to take in the heavily curtained windows, the set of drawers where she had put away her few clothes. The mirror atop the drawers reflected the vaguest outline of her sitting upright amid crumpled blankets and sheets on the bed.
Standing up and shuffling in bare feet to the door, Emma gave herself a pep talk. "Five a.m., okay, Em. First day of the rest of your life. Go get 'er."
The "her" in question being Regina Mills meant Emma had a lot of hard days ahead. The brunette was mercurial at the best of times, but pregnancy, Emma knew, would add a whole new layer of complexity, from out of control hormones. Emma recalled her own pregnancy rollercoaster, being a raging madwoman one day and a weeping wallflower the next.
After a glance toward Regina's bedroom door assuring that the brunette was still asleep - no lights underneath, Emma entered the hallway bathroom. Once the door was shut and the light was on, she found her contact lenses and put them in. When the world was much clearer, she found she could think more clearly too. She finger combed her hair, stripped out of her boy shorts and tank top. Without waiting for the water to heat, she stepped under the shower spray and nearly bit off her tongue to silence her scream.
"Shit." She breathed out while her racing heart slowed and the water warmed. Washing with the available liquid soap and shampoo, Emma mentally ticked off a to-do list.
Determined to support Regina through the pregnancy and prove herself a worthy co-parent were long-term goals. However, Regina clearly was not simply going to take Emma's word. She had bristled at the notion she might need to be cared for. Maybe Emma could prepare breakfast for everyone as a good start.
Out of the shower and drying off, Emma couldn't help but take stock of her body in the mirror. She was fit, briefly flexing the muscles in her shoulders and back and smiling. Her gaze dropped to the faded marks on her lower abdomen from when she had carried Henry. Regina wouldn't like that, Emma thought. Though, she added, remembering their night aboard the Jolly Roger, Regina had not shied away from any part of Emma's body. She considered that they were both highly distracted and maybe the brunette hadn't noticed them. In any case, it gave Emma an idea. Researching ways to minimize stretch marks was a small thing she could do to show Regina she cared.
Tying her wet hair back in a ponytail, Emma returned to the guest room. Fresh underwear, jeans, and a t-shirt later, she stepped out into the corridor and down the steps to the first floor. Emma followed the glow of dim lighting into the kitchen and found the range hood's light on.
From there she found the refrigerator and retrieved coffee beans. She walked back to the side counter where she'd spotted a coffee maker. A quick hunt in the cabinet above and the drawer below located coffee filters and measuring scoops. Emma prepped a 10-cup pot, but wouldn't turn it on until she heard the brunette coming downstairs. If Regina didn't drink it all, Emma had a thermos for work she could fill with anything left over.
Finally, Emma turned on the main light over the central food prep island and started to bring out items for a morning meal. She found both sausage links and patties, bacon, eggs, and five different varieties of cheese. Peppers, onions were next from the vegetable hydrator. There were tomatoes, apples, and a melon, which she thought might be cantaloupe, too. She remembered being very hungry during her pregnancy, but she remembered also craving variety. At least until her dairy craving kicked in. Yogurt, cream cheese, just plain cheese chunks - she used to beg those off other inmates' plates in the cafeteria.
"Are you planning to feed all the dwarfs or the Lost Boys?"
Emma jumped. Regina was right behind her. She inhaled, catching the woman's scent, surprised to find it was oranges, not apples as she would have predicted.
"It's breakfast," she said.
"I can see that. But for whom?"
"You, uh, Henry, me. Us." Emma shrugged. "What are you doing awake already?"
"I'm typically an early riser."
"Oh. I just thought that was a result of being on the ship and the island," Emma said. She wanted Regina to know that she'd noticed. "Kind of hard to sleep when we were roughing it."
"Agreed," Regina said.
In the silence, Emma took a chance to study Regina. The brunette had on a long black padded satin robe, though the house was well-insulated from the blustery weather outside. Her hair was still damp from a shower, there was that scent of oranges again, and gray fuzzy slippers enclosed her feet. Emma swallowed as she thought about how she knew how ticklish those feet were.
Regina cleared her throat.
"So." Emma forced herself to lift her head and focus on brown eyes. "What would you like for breakfast?"
"I usually make Henry pancakes for a weekend breakfast."
"It's Tuesday, though," Emma said. "What's a typical morning meal for mighty Mayor Mills?" she teased.
Regina's head tilted slightly as if Emma's behavior was puzzling, which, Emma thought, it probably was. Eventually the brunette answered, "I have coffee and a muffin while I'm making Henry's school lunch, then I make his breakfast."
"Well, I'm here today and I can do all that. So, would you like something special?"
Regina's brows narrowed."Miss Swan-"
"Emma."
"Emma, this is not you. You don't even cook."
"I do cook," Emma protested. "It's just easier when it's only me not to bother." She smiled and thought, you're beautiful. Regina's cheeks tinted red and she brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. Sensing victory, Emma nevertheless resolved not to gloat.
Regina exhaled and the color receded from her cheeks. "We're going to do this every day until I say yes, aren't we?"
Emma grinned. "Yep." She popped the 'p' to lighten the mood.
"Fine. Just coffee and one of the apple cinnamon muffins I made last night, please." Emma noticed that Regina rubbed her stomach.
"That's it?"
"I told you that's what I typically consume."
"Yeah, but -" Emma cut herself off; she reminded herself not to push. Maybe Regina had some nausea this morning. "Okay. Fine." She flipped the coffee machine's switch and asked, "Would you at least like the muffin warm?"
Regina, who had started to leave the kitchen, paused in the doorway. She turned back, and Emma was treated to a smile that crinkled the corners of the woman's brown eyes. "That would be...nice."
"Okay. Yeah." Emma smiled back but Regina missed it since she had turned and gone quickly out of sight.
Regina walked quickly through the front door down to the curb and collected the day's edition of The Storybrooke Mirror. The typical action covered for her racing heart and flushed cheeks which had appeared the moment she found Emma in her kitchen planning to make me breakfast. The blonde's appearance, in tight jeans that hugged her hips and a t-shirt that outlined her body, had made Regina instantly feel warm. But her stomach had twitched and made her grumpy.
When she had first awakened that morning for a few moments she hadn't felt weird at all. She was surrounded by her familiar things, knowing Henry slept down the hall safely home in his bed.
She was standing and pulling her bedcovers up when she was assaulted by a sour smell. She realized it was her own body at the same time she felt her stomach flip and a spasm in her throat. She'd barely made it to her bathroom to throw up in the sink. She washed out her mouth, showered quickly, only to find she was put off by the smell of cocoa butter in her body lotion. Instead she found a scented body spray that didn't immediately turn her stomach: citrus.
She had sat on the chair in front of her vanity styling her damp hair when her brain finished cataloguing all the symptoms and reminded her she was pregnant. Her stomach had twinged but had seemed unlikely to rebel again. Parting her robe Regina had looked over her body to assess the differences. The areola around her nipples appeared darker and, her breasts did not fit in the cups of her bra as neatly. She had no idea what else to look for, or expect and the not knowing made her, a woman used to being well-informed, uncomfortably uncertain. She had closed her robe and gone downstairs to find Emma making breakfast. The blonde looked beautiful, fit, and slim in her customary skin-tight jeans and fitted t-shirt.
Warring with the flash of resentment, Regina remembered Emma would know all about pregnancy. She had carried Henry for nine months. Walking back into the house, she avoided the kitchen and headed directly for her study. How could she ask without asking, and learn without having her own intellect questioned?
When she snapped open the newspaper and saw a Lost Boy had been arrested in the early evening trying to break into the pharmacy. Her stomach soured at the reminder of the cruel story she'd ordered Sidney publish revealing that Emma had Henry while in jail. Emma might not want to talk about her pregnancy, Regina realized. Every day Regina's growing condition would remind Emma of what she had gone through alone and unloved. The blonde might be giving now, kind now, but certainly there were limits to her tolerance. Regina crumpled the newspaper in her hands and bowed her head.
"Hey, you okay?"
Regina sniffled and lifted her gaze, finding Emma entering the study with a tray.
"It's just coffee and a muffin like you asked," Emma said.
Trying to discreetly wipe her face, Regina lifted the paper. "Just reading."
"Something awful happen?" Emma asked, leaning close and twisting to get a look at headlines.
"No." Regina shook out the paper, refolded it and set it down to the side away from Emma. " Thank you," she said, looking at the coffee in the cup swirling in the aftermath of Emma putting it down. The muffin had threads of aromatic steam rising as well. Regina inhaled. Apple. Her nose wrinkled.
"I didn't know if you wanted cream or sweetener," Emma said. "So I brought the packets I found on your dining table."
"I usually drink it black," Regina said. "But I think I should add cream." The idea instantly felt like the right choice the longer she contemplated it. "Yes, cream."
"Coming right up." Emma lifted her right hand, palm upward and flat. Her brows drew together. Following a brief flash of light, there was a dainty pitcher in the palm of her hand. "I set it out but left it on the counter," she explained when she offered it to Regina.
"You're working on your magic." Regina rolled her eyes at herself. What an inanely obvious statement to make. "Be careful," she warned.
"It's just a pitcher of cream," Emma said.
"Which could have spilled." Regina frowned.
"Well, it didn't," Emma snapped.
The retreat the blonde made - snapping on her heel and striding quickly out, slamming the study door shut, would have made Regina laugh at any time over the last two years. Instead, Regina's throat thickened with tears. "Damn." She eyed a box of tissues on a distant table, beside the bookcase and willed it to her hand. When it appeared, she realized it was empty. The tissues remained stacked on the table. Only the box had been transported by her magic. Stalking to the table, she took the box back over to the tissues. The entire pile fell into disarray when she tried to grasp just one off the top.
Fear sliced through her at the idea that her magic would be haywire for the duration of her pregnancy. Resolutely she tried another spell: putting the tissues back in the box. Two false starts further disheartened her, but she was not a wilting woman. Finally she focused on the magic tingling through her left fist, directed it, and the spell worked correctly.
Cream in her coffee did indeed make the drink go down smoothly. A few bites of the apple muffin were all she managed, however, before she had to close her eyes and give up. When she opened her eyes, a fresh orange sat on her desk. The aroma instantly made her mouth water. That was what she wanted. She gratefully snapped it up and peeled it, relishing the flesh of the orange skin catching under her nails and the juices dripping onto her fingers.
A flash of Emma underneath her on the Jolly Roger accompanied the robust bite she made into the fruit and the burst of tart juice on her tongue made her hum with pleasure.
When her coffee and orange were finished, Regina collected the cup and the plate with the muffin and the orange rind pieces and walked with them out to the kitchen where she found Henry pouring himself a bowl of cereal.
"Good morning, Henry."
"Morning, Mom." Barely looking up he dove into his cereal.
"Didn't you want me to make you breakfast?"
Between bites, Henry explained, "Emma told me to take care of it myself today." He shrugged. "Besides, you were busy in your study." Regina read her son's shrug as genuine. Henry hadn't minded handling things himself.
"Emma told you? Is she not here?" Regina was conflicted how she felt about that.
Unaware of her inner conflict, Henry answered her question. "Ma said she had to head to the station, but that she'd be back to take you to an appointment."
"Appointment?" Regina didn't get an answer to her question. Henry had shoveled the rest of his breakfast into his mouth, chewed and swallowed, dropped the empty bowl in the sink and scooped up his backpack.
He kissed her cheek but before she could kiss him back or offer a hug, he backed up. "Gotta get to school. Love you, Mom!"
Following him quickly to the door, Regina stood in the doorway and watched Henry run down the street. Mentally she checked off that he had his school uniform, his shoes, matching socks, and his lunch bag. Had Emma made that for him, too? "Have a good day, sweetheart!"
"You too, Mom!" He waved and then was gone around the corner out of sight.
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