Author's Note: Okay. But seriously. I'm working hard on making the space between chapters shorter. I mean, damn, I wanted this done before 3.5 even started! Good job me. If you're liking it, hating it, or missing Vexed let me know. Feedback is fuel for writers. Especially the really cool feedback full of analysis or detailed criticism.

Just saying.

####

Emma never came and by five o'clock it was getting dark and even the janitorial staff seemed to be winding down. Leaving Regina and Henry all alone on the school steps.

"Is this normal," she asked.

Henry shook his head.

They each tried Emma, but both calls went directly to voice mail. Henry glared at his phone and Regina resisted the urge to fling her own phone away.

"Maybe her phone died," Regina suggested.

Henry hit SEND again and didn't look away from the DIALING on his phone. "Mom says only idiots and jackasses let their phones die."

"Colorful."

"She even had a battery pack in her purse."

"She could have lost it."

"She didn't lose it."

"Henry…" She reached for him. Her fingers grazing his sleeve before he pulled away from her. He then scooted further away for good measure.

It would have stung, but she'd grown accustomed to the way he ran from her touch long before.

No. No, that wasn't true. It still stung. Her fingers meeting air and hanging lamely there was miserable and embarrassing and worse still, stifling.

She was a mother incapable of comforting her son. She'd soothed him for twelve years and now she couldn't even touch him.

"My mom doesn't lose her phone okay? She's not irresponsible."

She tried another smile. "No one said—"

"She's an orphan who had me when she was eighteen." He shot Regina such a condescending look that she would have been proud if she hadn't been on the receiving end of it. "People always say she's irresponsible."

She slid across the step. "But I didn't. I think your mother is…" She swallowed, barely believing she was saying it, "I think your mother is remarkable."

Not because she'd raised a child when she was eighteen and in prison. Those were all fake memories. But because for the last year she'd made a life for herself and Henry. She'd made them both happy and kept their son healthy and whole despite a mind fogged by magic and a career carved from nothing.

"You barely know her," he countered.

"I know enough. She raised an extraordinary son in extraordinary circumstances. That makes her remarkable don't you think?"

He looked down at his book instead of answering, his finger plucking at the binding.

"And I don't think she'd forgotten you or her phone."

"Do you think she's okay," he asked. Surprisingly open in front of a woman he barely knew.

"I do," she said sincerely. "But I also think it's late and you have school tomorrow." She stood up and brushed off her pants before offering Henry her hand. "Now come on. We're going to leave a note on the door over there and I'm going to take you home."

####

Emma was ungodly late to pick Henry up. Like the kind of late that would get him taken away. Negligent late. Even though, technically, she hadn't been negligent.

Just unconscious.

In a crack house.

Which, if she had to talk with CPS would sound negligent. Especially if they her, her hair matted and the rest of her covered in a lot of stuff that went in toilets and not on clothes.

She raced through two boroughs and one tunnel to get to Henry. People at every stop light gave her the hairy eyeball. Either because she looked the way she did, or because all the windows in the Bug were rolled down. It had been an unusually warm day for January but not that warm.

She was eight blocks from Henry's school when her phone, finally had enough juice from the car charger to turn back on.

She was two blocks from the school (she'd only run one light) when she caught the text on it telling her that Regina had taken Henry home and he was safe.

She sat at the stop sign a block from the school and tried to catch her breath. Tried to tamp down the panic that had welled out of her since she'd woken up already an hour after she was supposed to pick Henry up.

Carefully she swung the car around and headed home, her entire body jittery with adrenalin.

She was a good mom, something she kept telling herself on the drive. She had to park four blocks from their building and trudge up the street with even more people gawking at her. It was worse on the elevator, where the only other occupant covered his nose and got out two floors early.

She was a good mom.

When she finally plodded into her apartment she was ready for a nap and a fight at once. The fight she knew was coming. It always came when she failed Henry. Whatever adult picked up the slack would judge and recriminate and sometimes even suggest a call to CPS.

But Regina didn't launch in on how awful Emma was. She instead sat, stunned, at the dinner table, a bit of chicken king casserole on her fork a good two inches from her open mouth.

Henry sat beside her, with a near identical look of surprise.

No anger. Actually. Emma couldn't be sure but she thought she saw things like worry and relief cross Regina's face.

It was so counter to the lecture she though she'd meet that she stood up straight, trying to maintain her dignity and said casually, "hey, save me any?"

####

They did save Emma some—a bit of which she tossed in her mouth on the way to the shower. After assuring them both she was fine she spent forty minutes scrubbing filth off of herself and working soap into her scalp until her wet hair squeaked.

Henry was in bed when she got out, but Regina was still sitting at the table, a large reheated portion of the casserole and a glass of wine set at an empty place opposite her.

"I took the liberty of opening that wine languishing in your cupboard," she said, raising her own glass.

"Thank God," Emma moaned. She flopped into the chair and took a huge gulp of her drink. "After the day I had I'm going to need a couple of bottles of this."

Regina raised her eyebrow in that very specific Regina way that did nothing to help Emma's crush. "Rough was it?"

"Got knocked unconscious and pushed down some stairs in a crack house. Not my finest hour."

Most people would have been alarmed by that story. Regina, being as unflappable as a prison intake officer, didn't blink—merely expressed concern. "Are you all right?"

"Nothing sleep won't cure."

She winced, "I don't think you're supposed to sleep after being knocked unconscious." Sipping her win her mouth turned up into a halp smile. "Not unless you have magic," she teased.

"Henry didn't tell you? I'm totally a wizard."

"Witch."

"Whatever."

That got her one a full, if bemused, smile. "So you're okay," she asked again, more seriously.

Emma set her fork down. "I am."

Regina peered at her, searching her face with bright eyes, "You're not just pretending to be okay to put up a front?"

"Why—"

"Henry told me." She stared straight at Emma. Pierced her with a sympathetic but even gaze. "About the conclusions people jump to."

"Oh."

She reached across the table, catching Emma's hand and giving it a squeeze. "I wouldn't jump to that conclusion."

"Really?"

"You're a single mom in a dangerous if lucrative line of work. You're not irresponsible."

"Thanks—"

"Maybe a little greedy."

"I've got a genius kid. Getting the best for him isn't cheap."

"You were doing this for Henry," she asked softly.

"Everything I do is for Henry, Regina. He's all I have."

####

She'd rarely had the opportunity to see Emma Swan so…unguarded. All their time in Storybrooke and Neverland and their shared moments had been fraught with tension and distrust.

But this Emma trusted her.

This Emma was fundamentally different. She hadn't been alone for ten years. She'd clung to Henry as a life line. Just as Regina had once upon a time. It changed her.

Profoundly.

Sighing, Regina stood up. "Come on."

"Why?"

"Because the light is better over the sink and I'd like to check for a concussion."

Emma stood but eyed Regina warily. "You have a lot of experience with concussions?"

Regina had the misfortune of being on the receiving end of more than one in the past few years. "I'm a teacher," she sniffed.

"That inspires no confidence."

She ignored her and dragged her under the light shining from above the sink. She had to step close—closer then she usually found herself—to inspect Emma. Their knees touched and it elicited a gasp that they both tried to ignore.

Regina more than Emma.

Silence descended.

There was just the tink tink tink of water dripping from the faucet and their breathing. Shockingly loud despite the big open space.

Shockingly intimate.

She noted the way Emma's hand curled against the edge of the counter, her knuckles white. How her lips were dry. How that lonely light highlighted thick tendrils of blond. And how…

How loud their breathing was.

A cacophony matched only by the quick beat of her heart.

Somehow they'd drifted into something dangerous in the stifling silence.

"What's the verdict," Emma asked. Her voice just a whisper uttered from lips too close.

"Definitely a concussion," Regina whispered. Though she had no idea.

She swallowed. Emma's gaze flickered to her lips and Regina told herself to step back.

Step away.

Run.

She didn't move.

"I'm not supposed to sleep if I have a concussion." She leaned forward, dropped her voice. "Any idea what I should do to stay awake?"

It was so bad—so bald—it bordered on good. But it created a crack in the tension. "You're flirting again."

Emma gently pushed them both back against the island, but looked up like she was being thoughtful. "Guess I could start on my taxes. Or read a book."

Regina gulped. "Good idea."

"Thanks," Emma wasn't looking Regina in the eyes. Instead she was staring at Regina's mouth again. "For taking care of Henry."

"It's my job," she said reflexively.

Emma leaned in. Down. Had she always been taller than Regina? "I still owe you."

She was taller because Regina was slinking down. She slipped underneath Emma's arms and backed away. "Dinner," she said. "You can owe me dinner."

"It's a non-date then. Right?"

"Y—yes," she stuttered. "Non date."

####

The non-date appeared suspiciously date like. Emma had brought her to a cozy restaurant with a cobblestone floor and flickering candles at every table and some old standards crooning coming from a dusty speaker in the corner.

And it was French.

Emma pretended it was normal. Not a date. Halfway through hor d'oeuvres, a well executed duck carpaccio, she even told Regina that they were going dutch. To keep up the masquerade.

But split bills and a lack of touching couldn't hide the fact that Emma Swan took her out. On a date.

One with warm tasting wine that seemed to blossom inside of her and careful smiles lacking all the guile Regina was accustomed to. And pleasant company. Company that made Regina stupidly giddy and happy and spoke to all the wrong parts of her.

It was an easy dinner.

She laughed at the realization.

Emma's knife stopped cutting through her hanger steak and she looked up with gentle amusement and a touch of confusion. "What?"

"This is nice," Regina said before she could stop herself.

Emma chuckled self-consciously, "That was the plan."

Regina waved her off, because explaining it would have been too big a trial. "How's work," she asked instead. It was what they talked about. Henry and work and Regina's book. If they'd been any more mundane one of them would have started DVRing Dance With the Stars.

"I get paid," Emma said. She stabbed at her steak a little too aggressively. Since the unconscious in a crackhouse adventure Emma had been obscenely safe. She hadn't said until now, but it also seemed to have drained some of the fun out of her work.

"You don't like it?"

"I'm good at it," Emma said, "Same with being a bail bondswoman. I was good at that too. Finding people is kind of my thing."

"When you're not getting beaten up in crackhouses."

"Right. Barring that I'm great at the job. It's just…"

Regina leaned in, genuinely curious. Emma's apparent ennui was no result of the curse—at least as far as Regina knew. "What," she implored.

"This thing the other day for example. If you hadn't been at the school I could have gotten in a lot of trouble for leaving Henry alone like that."

"But you get paid well don't you? And you must love the excitement."

"Sure. And the hours arebetter than a lot of other jobs too. But it isn't consistent. Hell it isn't even salaried."

"You would have preferred a salary?"

"Would have?" Emma grinned, "You make it sound like you'd have granted my wish if you could."

"You deserve to be happy." She said it out of reflex. She'd spent so long convincing herself it was true that there wasn't even a struggle to say it out loud.

Until she actually said it. And realized she'd said it. And realized Emma had interpreted it very differently. She reached for her wine.

Emma smiled. "I do, don't I?" She was flirting again.

But Regina was serious. She could be serious. "Yes, you do."

So serious it could give Emma pause. She looked back down at her dinner. "Thanks," she said without looking up.

Regina stared into her wine. "Sorry," she apologized before taking a sip.

"It's no big deal. You just like to be serious sometimes. It's nice."

"Is it?"

"Kind of reminds me of Henry."

####

It was risky, but it was only just past eight and Emma didn't want—couldn't have—the night be over.

So she suggested they walk back from Brooklyn.

"That will take almost an hour!"

"It's fifty degrees in January, the stars are out and neither of us are wearing insane shoes. This may never happen again," Emma shot back.

She'd headed up Smith without looking, assuming—hoping— Regina would follow. Then there was the click clack of heels on pavement and the warmth of Regina at her side.

"They invented taxis for a reason." It was just shy of a petulant mumble.

"You could say the same thing about the pedestrian part of the Brooklyn Bridge."

"If we get mugged—"

Emma scoffed.

"Someone could push us off."

"No one is going to push us off the Brooklyn Bridge."

"Or worse," Regina said. She quickened her pace and then spun around to walk backwards. Her hands were jammed down into the pockets of her overcoat and her collar up to battle the light breeze coming down the street. "We could get blisters." She said it like blisters were worse than mugging or death.

Emma laughed. "If it comes to that I'll carry you your majesty."

Regina's heel caught on a crack in the pavement and she slipped, Emma's quick reflexes the only thing keeping her her ass from meeting the pavement. She reached out and caught Regina's elbow, pulling her far too close for just friends.

From playful to serious. That was the two of them. One second a joke and the next a shared look so intense it made her heart race. Not just with expectation. Terror trilled through her. Terror at that near grimace and the way she fit perfectly against Emma's hands and the way it all felt unnervingly right.

Like fate.

Which wasn't real.

"You…" Regina was breathing quick—her eyes searching Emma. "You called me your majesty." Settling on Emma's mouth.

Her lips.

Her head was tilted in surprise. And wonder.

Emma could only nod, because if she did anything more, if she moved her lips, or opened her mouth, than the "just friends" thing was going to end. The playful would disappear and the seriousness would settle on the both of them like a stone.

Everything would change. Which was stupid. She hadn't known Regina long. It wasn't like having her or losing her should alter the very fabric of Emma's life, but it would. She just knew if she leaned in closer or let her eyes settle on Regina's mouth that—

She kissed her.

Regina kissed Emma.

There where Smith met Atlantic. Not romantic. Not special. Not quiet or soft or wondrous. The stars were masked by street lamps. Cars were roaring by. People were invading their tiny private bubble.

And Regina was kissing her.

It was a terrible place for a first kiss.

But kind of perfect.

"You just…"

Regina nodded and swallowed. "I shouldn't have," she said, nerves rattling in her voice. "I should have—"

Emma cupped Regina's cheek in her hand to pull her closer and took another kiss without asking. Her other hand on Regina's hip, rooting them both to that spot. She let herself savor the sensation of Regina's mouth. Quick and nervous and tasting like wine.

Regina had told Emma she tended to be impulsive. Had said she'd been that way since she was a little girl. It was probably why she'd kissed Emma, and why she'd apologize. And would apologize again when they parted.

So Emma kept kissing her.

####

It had spilled out of her over coffee and crack pie—a buttery confection Regina had purchased a slice of even though the calories were insane and she didn't have the benefit of magic to burn them off.

"I suppose I've always been a little impulsive," she'd mused and Emma had laughed and Regina had told her everything. How Daniel and Cora and Gold and even that mad hatter had told her she was too impulsive for her own good.

"It gets me into trouble."

"A little impulsiveness never hurt anyone. I wouldn't have Henry if I played things safe."

"Fair point," Regina had said.

And they'd talked about Henry and Emma had glowed telling Regina stories about their son and dumbly, naively, Regina had thought the fondness she'd felt in the moment had been for Emma's affection for Henry.

She hadn't thought it was more. Hadn't thought the affection was for Emma herself.

She hated Emma.

Or disliked her.

At the very least she didn't love her.

Love was reserved for the son that couldn't remember her and the mother and dead lover entombed.

Kissing. Pleasure. Happiness. They didn't have to be based in love or lead to it. Scratching an itch and kissing Emma Swan wasn't the end of the world.

It was just nice.

"Sorry," she said again when they parted. She stepped back and ran her hand through her hair. "That was—"

"Okay by me." Emma was smiling dreamily.

Regina couldn't stop looking at her. She had to physically shake her head to stop. "We're supposed to just be friends."

Emma nodded, "True. But you also weren't supposed to kiss me."

"You—" She couldn't even manage to lie and her chin dropped to her chest in resignation. "I suppose I did."

"You kissed me, and now we're gonna walk across the Brooklyn Bridge." Emma had caught Regina's hand somehow and was holding it in her own.

She swallowed. "We…we are? Really?"

"We are." Emma leaned in, her breath hot on Regina's cheek. "Because I don't trust either of us in the back of a cab."

"There's the…subway," Regina squeaked.

She shook her head, "Come on Miss Mills. Go for a walk with me."

Regina went.

She'd always been impulsive.

####

When Regina got back to the apartment she actually had to lean against the door and catch her breath. Her whole body was humming. She rode up the elevator staring at her grinning reflection in the mirrored surface of the doors. Every time she'd spy it she'd pull the grin into a neutral purse of the mouth. Then it'd creep up again, tugging at the corners. Her insides were being tugged at too. As if someone—something—was pulling her apart molecule by molecule.

She didn't get giddy over affairs. Hadn't since she was a girl and she'd kissed a stable boy in the hay. Giddiness was for idiots. Just like flowers, romance, French restaurants and walking across bridges hand in hand.

She wanted to groan, but then she remembered the way the other woman had looked at her and the way those kisses a hundred feet above the river had felt and—

It was an actual sigh—a tremulous sigh—that escaped her mouth.

She pulled at her hair so it didn't look so disheveled and tugged at her coat to try to feel more like herself and she was almost, possibly, Regina again when Hook poked his head out of the kitchen and asked "How'd it go?"

She'd kissed the woman he "loved." That's how it went.

She'd kissed her and she didn't regret it.

"It went—"

"You're looking chipper," he interrupted.

"I had a nice night."

He tilted his head. "She let you tuck the boy in," he cooed. It sounded like a jibe.

She bristled. "It's none of your business."

His eyes were by no means hawkish—especially as red rimmed as they were from too much alcohol—but they were sharp. "What happened?"

"I'm not recounting my evening for you Hook."

"Did you talk about the book?"

She glanced down at her nails. Were they too long? They seemed too long. "We did."

"And that's got you happy?"

"Yes."

His chin jutted out, "I don't believe you."

"And I don't like you."

"Just tell me—"

She pushed away from the door. "I'm going to bed Hook. We can talk about my date in the morning." She brushed past him and went to her bedroom, peeling her coat off and kicking her boots away.

The pillow hit her in the back of the head so hard she tripped into the dresser. "The hell is your—"

"Your date?!" Hook was standing in the doorway, his narrow chest heaving.

She stooped down to pick up the pillow and chucked it back at his face. "My date."

He swiped it away with his hook, the tip tearing through the pricy pillow and sending stuffing flying around the room. "You cannot date Emma Swan."

"Because you called dibs?"

"Yes!"

"You're a neanderthal."

"And because its unethical," he continued.

"Since when did you have ethics?"

"Since you went on a date with the woman I love." God he sounded like he actually believed that drivel.

Regina snorted.

"She loves me too you know."

"Yes, something that bit of lip assault you did proved. Her knee driving into your crotch was what? Love tap?"

"She just can't remember," he grumbled.

"Exactly. She can't remember. Which technically means she isn't the same person." She said it carefully. Like a teacher speaking to a slow student. "She's a new person. One who likes to go on dates with me and listen to me talk about the book."

She unclipped her earrings and lay them carefully on the dresser. Behind her Hook was now sagging against the door frame and looking whipped like a sad old dog.

"That's not how it works," he said feebly.

"A pirate, an artist and now you're a philosopher?"

"Says the evil witch mayor turned writer. Emma Swan is in there. You didn't just—you can't—make a new person."

"Yes, I can. And I have." And Emma wasn't the first one. She'd once made a whole town of new people.

"Fine." He stood up straight again—his lips contorting into something churlish. "Then that means the boy's her son. Not yours."

"No, it doesn't."

He stepped towards her. "Yes, it does," he shouted in exasperation.

"Henry is my son. And if you talked with him for even half a minute you'd know it—"

"He's changed. Just like her." Another step.

Regina turned her back on him entirely, fussing with her hair in the mirror before unbuttoning her blouse. "He was raised by a single mother who worked hard to keep him healthy and happy. He's serious, kind, and intelligent." She used their reflections to hold his gaze. "He's the same. Emma, on the other hand, raised an infant in prison rather than give him up. She's had a family for ten years versus ten months. She's fundamentally different."

"I suppose you could be right." He was too close now. A bad habit of his—though one she couldn't criticize. Neither of them seemed to understand personal space.

She spun around. "Exact—"

"She's dating you after all." His eyes darted to her lips. Settled there—as if he was only addressing them. "The real Swan would never do that in a million years." He swooped in when he said "years"—close enough to kiss her if either of them had wanted it. She shoved him back.

Asshole.

He grinned, nodding at her. "And she'll crucify you when she figures it out."

"She can try." She jutted her chin out for affect and crossed her arms.

Hook, maddeningly, didn't argue.

With a smug grin he bowed out of the bedroom, leaving her all alone. Half dressed, but completely naked.