CHAPTER 15 – Regina – Unexpected

There were many things I didn't like: the majority of the people I was forced to deal with, for instance; the sound of people snoring; the unrequited invasion of my personal space.

In that moment, however, none of that seemed to matter. I had just woken up with a still-asleep Emma laying right on top of me, her head resting on my chest and her arms wrapped around my waist. The faintest – and, undeniably, cutest – of snores was coming out of her ajar lips, her warm breath a soft tingle on my bare skin. The covers were piled on one side, but the warmth of our bodies was enough not to feel cold.

We were both naked, tangled together as usual, and to my absolute surprise I found myself wanting to wake up to the sight of an extremely relaxed and insanely beautiful Emma more often, delighting in the softness of her skin, my fingers lost between her disheveled hair, the smell of sleep and sex mixed with the unique scent of Emma. Her taste was still on my lips, my muscles were pleasantly sore from the 'exercise' of the previous night and every inch of my body in contact with hers was prickling with magic.

She was all over the place, and I loved it.

I closed my eyes to rest for a bit longer, but a sleepy movement from Emma informed me she was waking up as well.

"Good morning," I greeted her with my eyes still shut, my voice annoyingly husky.

She snuggled closer, rubbing her nose on my chest and then hiding her face in the crook of my neck. She planted a chaste kiss there, for good measure, and I couldn't stop a goofy grin from forming onto my lips.

A small chuckle had me open my eyes and look at Emma.

"What?" I asked her, and my heart skipped a beat at the sight of her shiny eyes and her relaxed smile.

She shook her head, distracting me with a slow, lazy kiss that tasted so much of sleep and Emma that I felt like I could live off of it and be completely satiated.

"What time is it?" I managed to ask in between kisses. I moved from her lips to her neck while she leaned over to check her phone.

"Eleven sharp," she replied, letting out a shaky sigh when I kissed an especially sensitive spot right below her ear.

"We should get up," I commented, once again seizing her lips.

A distracted, 'Mmh-mh,' expressed her agreement, but neither of us seemed to be planning on doing that… until Henry's voice, dangerously close to my room, brought us back to reality.

"Mom, can I come in?" he shouted from the hallway. I hurried to grab the covers and throw them over Emma, whom I not-very-gently pushed further down so that her hair wouldn't stick out from the sheets, and proceeded to bring them up to my chin, in hopes that Henry wouldn't notice I wasn't wearing any clothes.

"Of course!" I shouted back, as soon as I made sure I was presentable.

He opened the door and peeked inside the room, slightly puzzled when he saw I hadn't gotten up yet.

"How come you're still in bed?" he asked, momentarily distracted from the reason why he wanted to come in.

"I came home late last night, I've only woken up ten minutes ago. Besides, it's Sunday: it's okay to sleep in," I explained, hoping he would fall for it.

Henry still didn't seem convinced, but he shrugged and went back to his original mission.

"Can we invite ma' over for lunch?" he asked, and my stomach flipped over. Did he know she was there?

"Of course?" I replied hesitantly, but his next words relieved me.

"Great! I'll give her a call right now," he said, beaming, and he closed the door as he took his phone out of his pocket.

I made sure the door was completely shut before I let Emma emerge from her refuge, ordering her to immediately switch her phone to silent mode so that Henry wouldn't hear it ring from my bedroom. She did as she was told and, after a quick peck, she ran to my bathroom to answer the call.

As soon as she greeted Henry with a, ''Sup, kid?' I ran to my bedroom door and pressed my ear against the wooden surface. I didn't hear Henry's reply, hence he had to have gone downstairs, to our immense luck.

I breathed a sigh of relief and joined Emma in the toilet that was connected to my room, planning on brushing my teeth… only to find my toothbrush unusable, at the moment, because Emma was very amusedly busy using it herself. Apparently, a mouth full of toothpaste didn't stop her from talking to her son.

"Of course, what time do you want me to be there?" she stammered out, spitting the excessive foam in the sink as she listened to Henry's answer.

As they went on talking, I stepped further inside the bathroom, hoping to at least be able to wash my face. When I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the mirror, however, I froze.

I stared at Emma flabbergasted, my eyes wide in shock and my mouth open in a silent gasp. She smiled even wider at my reaction, and I understood what her earlier chuckle was due to.

My neck was covered in hickeys. Hickeys! How old was she, fifteen?!

I inspected the condition of my skin, checking the back as well to see if there were any bruises there too, but it seemed she had limited herself to the front. My breasts weren't in better conditions, but at least the marks there could be easily covered by clothes. I counted ten, in total.

I looked like a Dalmatian, for gods' sake!

I glared at her amusement, rudely grabbing the toothbrush from her hand and beginning to brush my teeth. I was starting to suspect that she was dragging on the conversation with Henry only to keep me from scolding her, but if she expected to get away with it, hell, was she wrong!

"How mad are you?" she questioned, not a hint of worry in her voice, once she had finally hung up.

"Very," I said curtly, washing my mouth and, afterwards, my face.

Emma just stood there, eyeing me intently, a relaxed smile curving her lips.

"What?" I snapped after I was all dry.

She just shrugged in response, walking closer to me. "We sleep a lot."

"Perceptive," I commented, sarcasm filling every syllable. "At least I have my reasons: I haven't been able to rest for the past three months. I need to make up for lost time – besides, I also have my mental stability to restore. You have no excuses: you're a log."

Emma rolled her eyes at my reply, starting to put her dress back on: in a brief moment of lucidity, the previous night, she had had the good sense of poofing the clothes we had taken off downstairs in my room, as well as the bug, which was now safe and sound in front of Emma's loft.

"It's completely your fault. I've never slept this long, before. I know it doesn't look like it, but I'm very much of a morning person. It's just that you're very nice to sleep with… you make me want to stay in bed with you forever. I guess I'm a sucker for cuddles..."

She trailed off, looking at something behind me, and I quickly turned around, forgetting about the butterflies that had filled my stomach at her words: on top of the sink, right next to my tube of toothpaste, was yet another crystal.

Slightly blue, this one was shaped like a wavy, squiggly dagger, and although I couldn't put my finger on what it was exactly, it did look rather familiar.

With a sigh, Emma walked past me and took it, her attitude suddenly defensive.

"We'll put this in the jewelry box later," she stated curtly, and I didn't retort: she seemed pretty upset about the crystal, and I didn't want to make her feel even worse. I gave her a simple nod, and she carefully slid the dagger into the pocket of her overcoat.

She then teleported to her place, and I finally had the chance to actually think for the first time since the previous night. While I put some clean clothes on, I pondered on what was going on in my head: when and how did Emma and I go from 'sleeping together' and 'occasionally sleeping together' to 'cuddling' and 'making out like teenagers'? The other times we had both concurred that having sex had been a mistake, so… what changed?

You've just gone out on a date. You know exactly what changed, my inner voice pointed out, and I couldn't deny it was right.

It was time that I accepted the truth. I needed to admit, at least to myself, that my feelings were changing, becoming something more terrifying and new day by day.

By accepting to go on that date with her, I had – maybe unconsciously, maybe not so much – opened myself up to the possibility of a relationship.

The thought scared me more than I would ever admit. I didn't have proper memories about past relationships, but according to what I had been told and what I was living in that moment, none of them had gone well. I knew the same went for Emma, who had told me about Neal and had mentioned Captain Hook: perhaps that shared situation was the reason why, despite my fears, I had accepted her invite – not only out on a date, but also into her life.

The biggest problem was precisely that: I trusted Emma. I had begun trusting her the moment I first met her, and I had the strangest feeling, buried in my chest yet crystal clear, that I wasn't going to rue the decision of welcoming her under my skin. I knew for a fact that it was due to what I used to feel for her before the curse: I had contorted, confused but also extremely powerful feelings for Emma, back then, and trust was the first one on the list – immediately followed by that sexual tension that had led us to where we were now.

It was surprisingly overwhelming to let those thoughts out into the open: I suspected that the old me was used to repressing them even more than I had been, and finally allowing my mind and my heart the freedom they had so strongly been denied felt… relieving. Scary, yes; but relieving nonetheless.

Deciding that was enough confessions for one day, I grabbed a light scarf from one of my dresser's drawers and tied it around my neck, covering those damned marks as best as I could, and made my way downstairs.

"Take your feet off the coffee table," I admonished Henry as soon as I saw him. "Still dealing with those books, huh?"

I sat on the couch beside him, commenting on the tome he was studying.

"Well, there has to be something, somewhere!" he exclaimed, and I gently squeezed his shoulder to comfort him.

"We'll figure this out," I murmured, and excused myself to go make lunch.

The oven went off the exact moment the doorbell rang.

Henry was at the door even before I could ask him to go greet Emma: he clearly had been missing spending some time with both of his mothers.

I smiled when I saw Emma's bright grin as she hugged him: it appeared that the discovery from earlier had been forgotten, her affliction about the newfound crystal replaced by genuine happiness.

"Ooh, something smells delicious!" Emma exclaimed as soon as she was inside. "Oh, my God, did you make lasagna?!" she then yelled, clearly addressing me, and basically ran into the kitchen.

She had changed into some more comfortable clothes, and she held back a laugh when she saw my scarf.

"I love your lasagna," she informed me, overly-excited about the dish.

"Well, good to know," I replied, and gave her an evil smile, "because you're not eating these. The lasagna are for me and Henry; you're going to eat that very tasty salad over there."

Her expression dropped immediately; she looked at the side of the counter I was pointing at, and went pale.

"But…" she began, only to fall silent after a look at my scarf: she knew she had it coming.

See, Swan? This is what you get for messing with the Evil Queen.

A resigned sigh made me gloat, and she moodily flopped down on her chair in the dining room, a sulk forming on her face, as I set lasagna and salad on the table.

"How come you're eating that?" Henry asked with a grimace, almost disgusted by the healthy food in front of Emma.

"Your mother decided to be a responsible adult and eat healthy, today," I replied with a spiteful grin, raising a brow as I turned to Emma. "Isn't that so?"

"Mmh-mh," she replied, without even looking up. She half-heartedly stabbed the salad with her fork and brought it to her mouth, giving me a despising glare as she chewed.

"Oookay," Henry murmured, confused by our odd behavior, but he didn't question it, changing the topic of the conversation instead. "Why are you wearing a scarf?"

Crap. "Uh, I have a bit of a sore throat… You know, it was pretty cold last night…"

"Oh, by the way! How'd it go?" he asked, suddenly more excited.

Emma's ears perked up at the question, although her gaze remained fixed on her plate.

"It went… adequately…" I replied. I didn't want to give Emma the satisfaction of knowing just how much I had enjoyed her company, but I also didn't want to lie to my son. "We went to the Rabbit Hole, she offered me a couple of drinks."

That brief recap of the previous night, however, didn't satisfy Henry's curiosity. He insisted on wanting to know the details, and that's when it hit me – his plan was always to find out who I had gone out with. That's why he had invited Emma for lunch in the first place: he hoped she'd help him achieve his objective. Little did he know, Emma was on my side, not his. Every time the conversation would center on the identity of the mysterious woman I went out with, she very promptly changed the topic – which would've been extremely helpful, if she hadn't kept asking about my opinion on the evening and my feelings towards this person, not without an incredible amount of amusement that she didn't manage to conceal very well. I knew she was doing it as payback for the salad, but I still didn't want to admit to having very much enjoyed the night out.

Essentially, I wanted to tell Henry what I truly thought of the evening, but without Emma knowing; and I couldn't reveal my date's identity to Henry. I was screwed, and a headache was on the verge of breaking out.

"So, what did you think of her?" Emma asked at some point, placing her chin in her hand as she stared at me with a cocky grin.

"Beautiful," I simply confessed, honest; as long as we focused on physical attraction, I was fine. "She remembered I told her she looked good in red, so she made sure to go overboard with it."

I noticed a flash of hesitation behind Emma's otherwise confident eyes. Did she really think I hadn't realized why she had chosen to wear that color?

"And why did you think that color looked good on her? Maybe it complemented her skin tone, or her eyes?" Henry intervened. Oh, so now he was looking for a physical description, huh? Smart. Definitely, his perceptiveness and persistence were traits he had inherited from me, nurture-wise.

"A little bit of both, I imagine," I replied. Sorry, Henry: no details for you, today.

"What else?" Emma insisted. Her expression had now grown more serious.

I sighed, reading in her eyes a need she would never admit of out loud: the reassurance that what she had done was good, the confirmation that her effort had been appreciated. I saw a link between that necessity and her maimed childhood, and I gave in to the fear hidden behind those green irises, wanting to soothe it as much as possible.

"She was kind," I confessed, locking my gaze with hers. "Funny. Caring. She made me forget about each and every one of my problems, and I couldn't be more grateful. She was protective. Surprising. But, above all, she was special: she made everything around her just as unique as she was – she always does. She elevates the most ordinary moments to something unforgettable."

"You really like her, don't you?" Henry asked, causing me to move my eyes over to him.

I smirked, going back to the tease to lighten the mood. "Not particularly."