A/N: I think we all need some escapism from the news this week. Here you go.

The kitchen was quiet, except for the tapping of fat raindrops on the window as autumnal skies drenched the city. A gloomy light shone through from the sodden garden, confirming that summer was well and truly over. Steam coiled upwards from the two mugs of coffee which sat in front of the women. Emma reached for hers and took a sip, while Regina's remained untouched.

"Will you stay with me?"

Emma turned towards the woman who was looking not at her but at the mobile phone which lay beside the full coffee cup.

"Of course," Emma replied, reaching out and placing her hand comfortingly on Regina's thigh. "I'm not going anywhere."

"What's the time?"

Emma tapped the phone screen, illuminating it to show that it was three minutes to two in the afternoon. Regina nodded and slid off the barstool, Emma's hand falling away as she moved. The younger woman began to walk up and down the length of the room. The sight of Regina's anxiety made Emma feel completely helpless. There was nothing she could do, she knew that. But she wished she could help in some small way. All Regina had asked for was her presence and, of course, Emma was going to be right beside her girlfriend the whole time.

They hadn't talked much about what Regina was going to say. Emma has tried to broach the subject ever since Regina had announced that she wanted to contact her parents that morning. But the brunette had been vague and dismissed the idea that she might want to rehearse breaking the news. "I don't need to rehearse what I'm going to say. I lived it, remember? I know what happened," she had snapped.

Emma didn't take it personally. She knew that Regina lashing out had nothing to do with her and everything to do with the fact that she was about to devastate her parents with news of her uncle's abuse. And yet, Emma still wondered whether it would have been a good idea to prepare a little more. That said, she assumed Regina had been thinking about this phone call for months now. She probably already knew exactly what she was going to say, even if she hadn't told Emma what her plan was.

On her next time past the kitchen counter, Regina tapped the phone screen herself. One minute past two. She stopped. Placing both palms flat on the col work surface, Emma watched as Regina closed her eyes. Steeling herself.

Chocolate eyes snapped open as she snatched up the phone and unlocked it. Her fingers fluttered over the screen and then she paused. "Are you sure it's ok for me to use your phone? I don't know how long this is going to take. It might get expensive."

"Regina, it's fine. I called my carrier, remember? It's peanuts, I promise."

Whether the cost of the call was a stalling tactic, Emma wasn't sure. And while she didn't want to push Regina to do anything she wasn't ready for, Emma also didn't want to be the excuse Regina made to herself to avoid reconnecting with her parents. It was important. It was long overdue. And it couldn't be put off any longer.

Pressing the screen a final time, Regina lifted the phone to her ear. Emma smiled encouragingly at her.

"Mamá?" Regina said after just a few seconds. There was a pause and then a shuddering gasp. "Yes, it's me. I'm ok. I'm well. I -." Not being able to hear the other half of the conversation meant Emma had no idea what sort of reaction Regina's mother was having. She wondered how her own mother would react if Emma called after months of not only silence but silence from a faraway country. There'd be screaming and crying, she imagined.

"No, Mamá, I didn't mean to -." Another interrupted sentence and then. "Sí, lo sé. Lo siento …"

Oh, Emma hadn't considered this scenario. She listened, intrigued and impressed as fast Spanish fell from Regina's lips. The brunette's English was so good that she often forgot that the woman had grown up speaking another language. Emma's own grasp of the Spanish language was poor at the best of times and she could also tell that Regina was speaking extremely quickly. There was nothing she could do now but sit and be there, be present, be ready for whenever the phone call ended.

Regina resumed pacing, the phone clutched to her ear. Emma sipped her coffee. Five minutes passed. Then ten. Then Regina came to a stop and sat down abruptly. "Mamá, escucha."

And that was when Emma heard the name 'Killian' enter the conversation. What they had been talking to up until that point, she didn't know. Now, however, Regina was telling her mother that her uncle, her mother's own brother, had been the reason why she hadn't been in contact. And more than that, that he had been responsible for the worst year of Regina's young life.

The words slowed, got quieter as Regina settled into her story. She talked for fifteen minutes, almost without a break. Whatever she was saying, it appeared that her mother was listening. By the time she finished, Regina was crying. Emma had shuffled her own stool closer and looped her arm around the shaking brunette, a silent reminder that she was there for her.

Into the silence that filled the kitchen, Emma could hear faint, muffled Spanish emanating from her phone. Regina wiped the tears from her cheeks as she listened to her mother and then, Emma noted, a man's voice joined the conversation. "Pappy," Regina gasped, fresh tears leaking as she heard her father for the first time in months. "Lo siento, I didn't want to, I tried to say no."

She slipped back into her native tongue again but Emma had heard enough to know that she was apologising, trying to explain that it wasn't her fault. Of course it wasn't, Emma thought to herself. Why was Regina apologising? What had been her parents' reaction? They weren't blaming Regina, were they? They weren't taking Killian's side, surely? Emma felt the anger bubble inside her at the thought but tempered it quickly as her girlfriend dissolved into sobs and she focused once more on being supportive, not speculating on a conversation she half couldn't hear and the half she could hear, she couldn't understand.

Standing up, she hugged Regina more completely into her side, allowing the brunette to burrow into her, while still listening to the conversation which continued from the Puerto Rico side. Every now and then Regina replied to her parents. But mostly she listened. Emma burned to know what was being said but tempered her impatience. Regina would tell her when the call ended. Or wouldn't, and that was fine too. It was the younger woman's choice what she did or didn't tell Emma.

After over an hour, the conversation finally started to wrap up. Emma listened to her girlfriend's declarations of love mixed with repeated apologies. She caught a number and a day in the Spanish and guessed that they were arranging another time to talk. And then it was done. The phone was laid on the counter, warm from Regina's hand. Emma didn't know what to say. She'd wasted all that time waiting for the call to end without knowing what she'd say when it actually did.

"Well?" she said finally when Regina didn't speak.

"I … I told them," the brunette said simply.

"And?"

Regina turned to look at Emma and registered the yearning look. Despite everything, she chuckled. "Sorry, you haven't understood anything I've said in the past hour, have you?" Emma grinned back and shook her head. "My parents do speak English but we generally speak Spanish at home."

"That's cool. No need to apologise. You're speaking to your parents, not me. I didn't mind. In fact, I liked hearing you speak Spanish. But, yeah, I have no idea how that call went or what you told them. I mean, you were crying but you talked a lot. It sounded like they listened when you were telling them about Killian, right?"

"They did, actually. I'm not sure what I was expecting their reaction to be. I mean, he is her brother. But I think they knew something was wrong. Before you turned up as my knight in shining armour, I called them once a week. Weirdly, it was Killian who insisted I did that. Of course he also insisted on being in the room every time I called, so that he could monitor what I said. But he did let me text them, to be fair. I guess he assumed, rightly, that I wouldn't tell them anything while I was completely at his mercy.

"Anyway, the phone calls stopped back in July. I never even replied to my mother's last text which she sent on my birthday. And the money too. I used to send money back to them every couple of weeks. Not much, but something to help them out. When it all stopped they were worried. They told me that they had called Killian and he'd told them I was busy at work and that my landlord had put my rent up to explain why the money has stopped coming. But it sounds like they didn't believe him after a few weeks and then he started screening their calls. Apparently they'd wanted to call the police but didn't want to get me in trouble with immigration if there was a problem with my work or something. I should have called them earlier. They've been sick with worry."

"It's not your fault," Emma soothed.

But Regina shook her head and wriggled out of Emma's embrace, standing up again. "No, it is. I could have called them the day you brought me here. I've been safe for months now. I've been safe and healing and happy and I didn't even think about what my parents would be going through, not hearing from me."

"Regina, you -"

"Don't make me try and feel better, Emma. Please. I need to hate myself a little bit right now. My parents didn't deserve what I did to them."

"You didn't deserve what happened to you," Emma pointed out.

The brunette didn't answer. She was back to pacing. "I should have called them. I should have told them as soon as Killian started to traffic me. I should never have believed him when he said that if I told them they'd disown me. Why did I believe him over what I knew? My parents love me. Of course they were going to be on my side. And I've put them through months of pain because I didn't trust them."

Emma watched as her girlfriend strode up and down, berating herself for so many things which, as far as the blonde was concerned, were not her fault. But she understood that Regina needed someone to blame. And while Emma was more than happy to place every single molecule of blame for every single modicum of pain at Killian's feet, she recognised that Regina wasn't able to do that just yet. She needed to rant and rage at herself, for now.

"I'm starving."

Climbing off the stool at the sudden declaration, Emma set about getting some food together for Regina who had stopped pacing and sat down once more. The brunette had barely touched her lunch, her stomach coiled with nerves ahead of the phone call as she waited for the time difference to allow her to finally reconnect with her parents. Now, she was ravenous.

As soon as Emma placed food in front of her, she dove in. Emma was pleased to see the younger woman's appetite back and picked up an apple from the fruit bowl as a snack for herself.

"I'm going to call them next week," Regina revealed. "I said I'd call them every week again and keep them up to date with what's going on with Killian and the court case."

"Did they know about his arrest?"

"No, I told them."

"And did they seem to believe that he was guilty?"

Regina hesitated. "They knew something had happened to me when I stopped contacting them. I don't think either of them could have imagined why, but it sounds like my dad in particular thought that Killian at least knew what had happened. It's a shock, obviously. For my mum. It's her brother. My dad was never Killian's biggest fan but even if you don't like your brother-in-law, it's not like you would immediately assume he was a pimp."

"No, that wouldn't be your first assumption. But, they believed what you told them?"

"They did, yes. I … I didn't give them all of the details. I didn't mention the drugs either. And, um, I didn't tell them about you."

"Oh, that's fine. I mean, no pressure or anything. I guess there was already a lot of information for them to take in. That their daughter is in a same sex relationship might have been information overload."

In truth, Emma had been listening for her own name throughout the conversation and when she didn't hear it, she had assumed that Regina had made the decision not to disclose their relationship.

"They'd be fine with it, I'm sure," Regina said quickly.

"Really? I thought you said they were strict."

"Yes but they're liberal in other ways. At least, I think they'd be fine with it. But, yeah, it felt like too much. I'm sorry, I don't want you to think I'm hiding you or anything. I will tell them soon."

Emma reached out and squeezed Regina's hand. "No pressure. In your own time, ok?"

"Thank you. And thank you for being here. I know you just sat through over an hour of conversation which made no sense to you. I really appreciate it. Knowing you were here helped. It always helps."

Smiling, Emma leaned forwards to kiss Regina. "You're welcome. I'll always be here for you."

Regina smiled too, pulling Emma back towards her and curling her hand around the nape of Emma's neck.

"Well, that has to be unhygienic."

They broke apart. "Hey Belle," Emma said, spotting her long-lost flatmate.

"Good afternoon," her friend smirked. "Sorry to interrupt. Hi Regina."

"Hey," Regina replied, smiling shyly. She'd only met Belle a handful of times and didn't really know her well. She felt comfortable around Ruby now and they'd even had a few conversations about what had happened to her. But Belle was a relatively unknown person and she had no idea how much the elusive housemate knew about her past.

"Look, I'm glad I caught you. Not making out but here rather than at work. Ems, can we talk? I've got some news."

"Sure, what's up?"

"Well, this probably isn't a surprise but Robert's asked me to move in with him."

Emma balked. "Oh wow, congratulations!"

"Yes, congratulations," Regina echoed.

"Thanks," Belle beamed. "I mean, I'm there almost every night anyway and it does make sense what with, well, we're expecting a baby." Her hands drifted to her stomach, cupping an invisible bump.

"I - um … congratulations!" Emma repeated. For some reason, the announcement knocked her sideways. Pregnant? Belle was twenty-five. She'd only been with Mr Gold for six months. It all seemed very fast.

"That's wonderful news," Regina said, sounding far more enthusiastic than Emma.

"Thank you. And, look, I know this is a huge thing and a big conversation and I'm sure you want to hear all the details about the proposal," the thought hadn't even crossed Emma's mind, "but I wanted to let you know now because I guess you'll want to start looking for a replacement for my room."

"Right, of course. Thanks for telling me."

Emma could feel Regina looking sideways at her. She didn't blame her. She knew her reaction was not what it should be. She should be happy, ecstatic for her friend. She knew Belle wanted children and she had to admit the woman was clearly besotted with her boyfriend. Why wasn't she happy?

Belle, too, felt that Emma's reaction was a little deflated. "Um, I have to go. My shift starts in an hour. But maybe we can go for dinner some time? The four of us," she added, waving towards Regina. "I think it'd be great if you were to get to know Robert, especially with our little one on the way."

"Of course," Emma said, forcing a smile. "Next week?"

"Perfect. I'll check our shifts at the hospital and let you know when we're both free. I'll leave you to get back to whatever you were about to do before I interrupted," she finished with a wink.

"Bye," they said in unison as the shorter brunette left.

Neither spoke again until they heard the front door shut.

"Are you ok?" Regina asked, peering into Emma's face which was unreadable.

"I dunno," she admitted. "I mean, I should be happy for her, right?"

"I don't know Belle as well as you but she seems happy, so, yes, I think that means as your friend you should be happy for her."

"And I am," Emma replied. "But I just … it feels fast, you know?"

"To be fair, we got together pretty quickly, especially considering the circumstances."

"Yeah but it took months for us to have sex," Emma pointed out. "It started quickly but then we slowed down and took it at a pace that was right for us."

"Maybe this pace is right for Belle and Robert. We don't know anything about their relationship, Emma. Just like they don't know anything about ours. There's no template, right? There's no set path. And I don't know about you but I think those months were more than worth the wait."

Emma couldn't help but grin at the cheeky smirk which was playing across Regina's lips. "Oh, so worth the wait. But I don't know if I want to wait another moment to have you again. Are you up for -?"

"Let's go," Regina said, reaching for Emma's hand and practically pulling her from the kitchen and leading her up to their bedroom.

A/N: If any of this Spanish is wrong, blame Google Translate (and the British school system for their terrible language syllabus).