"Ma what are you doing?" Henry asked. He had come to hang with Emma at the station, and had walked in on her folding paper.

"Making a swan," Emma said. She finished off the last fold and smiled in satisfaction. It was perfect.

"Uh, why?" Henry asked.

"You know how you told me a couple days ago that I should just admit my feelings for your mom and get it over with?" Emma asked.

Henry's face lit up. "You're going to?"

Emma smiled and nodded. "And this is how I'm going to do it."

"An origami swan?" Henry asked in confusion. "That hardly seems romantic."

"On the outside maybe. But on the inside, this little guy says everything that I want to," Emma said. She smiled as Henry caught on.

"How are you going to get it to her?" Henry asked.

Emma smiled at him. "I'm going to put it on her desk. But I'm going to need a little bit of a distraction."

Henry smiled back. "I love distractions."

"Hi mom," Henry said, walking into Regina's office.

"Henry," Regina said in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to know if you wanted to grab lunch with me at Granny's," Henry said.

Regina looked in surprise at the clock on her wall. "Is it really lunch time already?"

Henry laughed. "Yeah mom. It's lunch time already."

"Let me finish this last piece of paperwork and then we can go," Regina said. Henry sighed dramatically and plopped into the chair in front of her desk.

Regina rolled her eyes affectionately. He definitely had some of Emma in him. Which she of course had no problem with, considering her feelings for the blonde. Not that she could ever act on them.

Henry waved his hand in front of Regina's face. "Earth to mom."

Regina jumped. "Sorry. We can go now."

"But you didn't finish your paperwork," Henry said.

Regina smiled at him. "I have a feeling that you have your ma's patience level. Therefore, we might as well go now."

Henry laughed as he stood up. "You make a good point."

Regina came back from lunch with Henry feeling ready to dive back into her paperwork. She set her purse down and was about to sit in her chair when she noticed the paper swan on her desk.

"Emma," Regina said with a smile. She delicately picked up the swan and examined it. Somehow she knew that the swan had something more to it than just making her smile.

Sure enough, written on one of the wings was "unfold me". Regina took a deep breath before starting to unfold the swan. She stopped as she got to the final fold that would reveal what was on the inside. Did she really want to see what it was?

Regina shook her head before setting the paper back on her desk. Too much risk. And she had work to get done.

But as the minutes went by, Regina's curiosity increased. Clearly whatever was written in the swan was important, or Emma wouldn't have gone through the effort to make the swan itself.

Sighing in defeat, Regina opened up the swan and looked at the message inside. Her eyes widened and she dropped the paper in shock. Getting up quickly, Regina ran out of her office and headed towards the sheriff station.

The note had only three words, but they had Regina running out of the building like it was on fire.

I love you

Emma heard the door to the station slam and was immediately ready to spring into action. With how much trouble that the town attracted, she wouldn't have been surprised if another demon or villain had showed up and was already getting into trouble.

Instead, Regina came running into the room. "Hey," Emma said. "Are you okay? You're really out of breath."

"I ran all the way from my office," Regina panted.

Emma raised her eyebrows. "In those heels?"

Regina rolled her eyes. "I was a queen. I know how to run in heels."

"Touché," Emma said, leaning back in her chair. "So what can I do for you Madame Mayor? New demon in town that we need to take care off?"

Regina smiled and walked behind Emma's desk, leaning casually up against it. "I didn't realize that you knew how to do origami."

Emma's eyes widened. So that was why Regina had been running. "Um. Uh. Yeah. Only swans though. I didn't learn anything else."

Regina smiled. She held out her hand, and in a puff of purple smoke she was holding an origami lioness. "Queen of the jungle."

Emma laughed before taking it from her. "Am I supposed to unfold it?"

"Of course," Regina said. "Go ahead."

Taking a deep breath, Emma slowly unfolded the lioness. She smiled at the words inside before standing up and pulling Regina to her, kissing her passionately.

Regina's lioness had four words, but those four words had been the start of everything.

I love you too