Emma was sitting at her desk in the Sheriff's office, staring intently at a quarter sitting in a cleared off space. The book that Mother Superior had given her was open beside her, including the roughly translated pages. She'd been at this for forty-five minutes and nothing had moved.

"Careful, Emma, if you continue doing that you might accidentally defecate in your pants." She didn't need to look up to feel Regina's sneer.

"I don't need the commentary on how I'm a horrible sorceress from the local magic nerd."

Regina smiled a little. "You aren't a horrible sorceress Emma, you are just working with inferior tools."

She walked in and placed a stack of paperwork on the corner of Emma's desk and before Emma could yank it out of reach she picked up the magical theory book.

"Really?"

"I take it that it doesn't meet Her Majesty's approval?"

Regina sighed. "Frustrated are we?"

Emma stared at her and moved to take the book out of her hand, but Regina moved it out of her reach.

"Emma... magic is emotion. This method of teaching you won't let you move a speck of dust much less that coin."

"I take it you are about to tell me I should get really angry and blow things up with my mind?"

"It can be very satisfying." Regina granted. "And you could probably use a chance to get mad away from your perfect parents."

"The Blue Fairy says I need to avoid doing magic while angry."

"The Blue Fairy wants to make sure you don't have any tools she can't control." Regina leaned against the doorframe and folded her arms.

"What do you care?" Emma asked angrily.

"I care about watching you waste your ability because your family insists on putting you in a box that never fit you, Emma." Regina said with a sigh.

"Of course you'd make it about my family." She rolled her eyes. "Going to make fun of my mother now?"

"Your mother is... an idiot... but not without her redeeming features." Regina grumbled.

"Was that a compliment? To my mother?"

Regina growled, "Don't push it."

"What do you want?"

"To burn this entire town down and take my son away from all of you people. But I'm being a good girl now."

"You are not nor have you ever been a good girl. You aren't even trying to be good these days, except for Henry. Or have you forgotten nearly killing a dwarf the other week."

"I don't have to live by anyone else's standards of good."

Emma rolled her eyes, "She says to the sheriff."

"You have to deal with me as I am."

"Has it ever occurred to you Regina, that you might actually like yourself a bit better if you weren't such an asshole."

She got up from her chair and yanked the book out of her hand and put it the top drawer of her desk. She didn't see Regina following her and when she turned around the mayor was standing within inches of her. She took her hands in hers.

"Magic is emotion. Anger, happiness, love... hate. Any emotion except frustration." Regina wrapped her hands around Emma's. "Calm down and try and clear your mind. It shouldn't be that hard, there isn't much in there."

"I'm not sure that kind of comment is supposed to help me calm down." Emma observed.

"Shut up and focus." The queen ordered.

Emma found her breathing slowing, and she closed her eyes, feeling the softness of Regina's hands. "Now I want you to think about Henry. About... what is like to see him playing with the other children after school. How it makes you feel."

She opened her eyes and saw the coin scouting across the desk top.

"Are you doing that?" She asked Regina.

The other woman just smiled and shook her head. They were standing within inches of each other, it wouldn't take much to lean in and ...

"Regina what are you doing here?" David's voice was harsh. He was standing in the office door, a bag of lunch and two coffees in his hand. The quarter went flinging across the room missing his head barely and embedding itself in the wall behind him. "Hey..."

"I was attempting to limit the damage the meddling moth was doing to your daughter's talents." Regina let go of Emma's hands and stood erect again. "Your budget figures are unacceptable. And we're not buying you more ammunition until our new un-elected co-sheriff gets himself actually certified to carry a gun."

David rolled his eyes. "I've mostly been pointing it at you. I'm pretty sure you don't get to cut me off from bullets."

"The fact that you keep pointing it at me might suggest I should."

"You are a villain."

"I'm not the one who shot out the window of Little Miss Moffat last week."

"That was an accident," David protested.

"Precisely my point." Regina swept out of the office imperiously, and something in Emma wanted to follow. But instead David was handing her a cup of coffee.

"Your mother was too generous to let her continue being mayor."

"Idle hands, is I believe what Mary Margaret said. Besides, if she's torturing us over budget figures it means she's not tormenting Belle French for the fun of it."

She sat back down at her desk. "That smells like a burger..."

Emma hadn't been able to get her run in with Regina at the sheriff's station out of her mind. Really she hadn't been able to get the brunette out of her mind at all, and seeing her five mornings a week in her kitchen wasn't helping any. It wasn't that they ate breakfast together. She ate breakfast with Henry, and Emma sometimes watched them munching a pop tart. And maybe a little jealous of the ease that Regina slipped into what she had started to call 'mommy mode'. It wasn't that Henry always did what she said, but he always listened to her, which Emma didn't always feel was the same for her when she was trying to set out rules.

Henry was over at the Tillman's house for the evening, probably learning horrible behavior from Paige, though she was less of a holy terror now that her father was around and remembered who he was. Emma found herself in the liquor store debating between tequila and vodka when she found herself wandering over to the wine section and picking something out a bit more expensive than she would normally get.

The same brand that Kathryn had sent her home with from the wedding. The kind Regina had approved of. She drove over to the mansion without much thought, almost on auto pilot. This was, of course, a bad idea. Regina was always a bad idea when she was in Emma's head this way.

At least this time she was unlikely to be plotting her murder by poisoned apple thingie. Well, less likely.

When Regina answered the door she seemed surprised to see Emma. And Emma was a bit surprised herself. The mayor seemed different, and it took her a few moments to realize she was several inches shorter.

She wasn't wearing shoes. Regina wore heels when other people would be in slippers. Hell she'd even worn heels when she had a sprained ankle.

"It's been a long day, Miss. Swan."

"For both of us." She held up the bottle. "I thought maybe ..."

She didn't finish the sentence. Regina moved out of the doorway and allowed her in.

"Thanks."

"Only because you didn't pick a terrible wine."

"I debated one of those boxes but the quark seemed more romantic." A voice in her own mind screamed at her for saying romantic. Regina just raised an eyebrow. "I wanted to thank you for your help today."

"It wasn't anything."

"I moved the quarter. It's better than I have been doing."

"I told your mother not to go to the fairies." She shook her head with contempt.

"She didn't want to, but there isn't anyone else except for you and Gold. And she said I should under no circumstance go to Gold."

"She's right." Regina seemed smugly satisfied at that.

"And it's not like you would teach me."

Something impossible to identify crossed Regina's eyes. She took the bottle and headed to the kitchen. "Henry at Hansel and Gretel's?"

Mom conversation. That's what Regina defaulted to when she didn't want to talk about something these days with Emma.

"Yeah, what do you have against them anyway."

"They don't listen to instructions." But there was something else in her voice. Regret? Sadness? Loneliness.

"Regina..." Emma put a hand on her arm before she started to open the wine bottle. "Thank you for your help today."

"It was nothing."

"It wasn't." She looked into the other woman's eyes. She could feel the queen's breath they were standing so close. And then they were kissing. Not the angry possessive kissing that had quickly lead to other things in the past. Soft, lingering, exploratory but hesitant...

When it broke Regina leaned forward to catch her lips again, but only managed to capture her lower lip for an instant before she looked down.

It was the queen who spoke first. "That was a mistake Emma... I think you should leave."

"Regina..."

"Now." She ordered, and then amended. "Please."

Emma left the wine, and the house, unsure of what had happened and why Regina seemed to want it so badly when it was happening, and be so dead set against it once it was over.