"I thought you'd learnt not to visit any suspicious websites after the last time." Emma tried her best to keep a straight face but knew she was unsuccessful when Regina glared at her.

"I did! I've no idea what caused it this time." Her laptop had recently started glitching (the technical term she'd given to Emma to describe the problem) and slowing to a crawl when she started trying to do anything more intensive than just logging in.

Emma remained unconvinced, but still sat down at Regina's desk and started working through her internal checklist of steps to diagnose the most likely causes for it to be misbehaving. After several minutes and yet to find anything suspicious, she wondered if the laptop itself was at fault. She cringed when she checked the health of the disk drive and immediately shut the laptop off.

"Problem?" Regina had watched Emma closely and could tell something was wrong despite Emma trying to keep a poker face.

"Your drive, where you save everything, is starting to fail. Gonna need to replace it."

The brunette paled at the thought of losing all her hard work. "Oh no... all the files on it, can they still be rescued?" When Emma nodded in reply, she let out a relieved breath.

"It's an older model laptop, so parts like the drive won't be that expensive to replace. I'll back everything up to an external USB drive first, so you won't lose anything. If anything is already corrupted, then it's already lost, sorry." Emma gave her an apologetic look.

"It's not your fault, dear. I'm grateful it was caught before it got any worse. Can you buy the parts you need? I'll reimburse you of course."

"Sure, I'll order them later today and let you know when they arrive."

~~~~~~~~ SQ ~~~~~~~~

The following weekend found Emma back at the mansion, sitting in Regina's office.

After being given the password to Regina's laptop, and a stern warning not to go poking through the files, Emma plugged in the external drive and waited while it was set up for use. On the plus side, the laptop was still booting up without help, but she knew that wouldn't last if the health check she'd performed was even vaguely accurate.

"Thank god this is a Mac; all the important stuff should be in her home directory." Emma muttered to herself, as Regina was elsewhere in the mansion while she fixed her laptop. Opening a pair of file browsers side-by-side, she copied the entire directory from the internal drive to the external one. A progress bar appeared and Emma's jaw dropped at the reported size.

"Jeez Regina, what on earth have you got on here?" Fortunately the drive she'd brought with her was big enough, but it looked like the directory was huge; almost a hundred gigabytes. Shrugging, Emma made sure the laptop wouldn't put itself to sleep before going out to the kitchen to make herself a coffee.

"How's it going?" Regina had heard her move and wandered into the kitchen to get a drink herself.

Emma leant against the kitchen island while they waited for the coffee maker to brew. "Slow. You've got a lot of files to copy and it won't be quick."

"Hours? Days?" Regina's eyes widened at the thought of having to wait that long before Emma shook her head and chuckled.

"Nah, probably an hour or so. Fitting the new drive and getting it setup will take another hour or two once it's finished. Actually swapping the old drive for the new one takes minutes, but installing everything is gonna take ages."

With a fresh cup of coffee each, they sat at the island.

"Any word on how my parents are doing as co-mayors?" Emma held her mug in her hands as it gently steamed.

Regina shrugged. "No absolute disasters, or not that I've heard. What about you?" She had received a few more emails, but they didn't contain anything that alarming.

"Nothing. Snow's getting a thousand-yard stare and Charming isn't looking much better. He's starting to develop an eye twitch every time someone mentions the budget, but I haven't spoken with them much since they're often staying at the office late these days."

They chatted a little longer about her parents' chances before Emma returned to the office, dismayed to find the files were still being copied. She shrugged and played candy crush while she waited.

After another hour and almost completely draining the battery on her phone, Regina's laptop finally completed transferring all the files to the external drive.

Emma's curiosity was piqued; what the hell could be taking up so much space?

Her hand hesitated over the mouse as she went to use it to turn the laptop off. Regina had told her, explicitly (with accompanying no-nonsense glare), not to go looking through her files. Not to even peek at what was in there. At all. Which she totally would listen to. Yep. She was going to behave herself and not open the file browser (*click*), navigate to the apparently huge directory labelled 'Tax Returns' (*click*) or start looking through all the... sound files?

Tilting her head, Emma looked confused at seeing all the mp3 files and wondered what they were doing in a folder about financial records. She nervously looked around to check Regina hadn't snuck into the room while she was distracted before plugging in a pair of earbuds. Picking a file at random, and another quick glance to confirm she was still alone, Emma started playing it.

Several noises registered; the sound of a door being closed with a wooden thunk, then followed by a rustle of fabric and finished with what could only be the gentle smack of lips on skin. "Hello dear. You're home early, everything ok?" Regina's voice was soft and coaxing, in what Emma had taken to calling her 'Henry' voice. After a pause, presumably for the listener's reply, the recording continued.

"Let me help you, darling." The sound of something hitting carpet echoed in Emma's ears. "Shoes off, isn't that better? A nice little massage to get the blood flowing again. Stilettos make your legs look so nice, but they're a pain to wear aren't they."

That Emma rarely ever wore high heels was beside the point as she imagined coming home to someone (she refused to acknowledge that it could ever be Regina) and being treated with such reverence. "I think this is my favourite time of day; you sitting above me, with me kneeling in front of you and adoring you. Looking up, into your eyes and seeing such affection in them. It would be so easy to kiss my way up your legs." Lips meeting skin could be heard. "Just like this."

A sudden blush rose on Emma's face and neck as she listened, shifting uncomfortably. She pulled at the neckline of her tank top, trying to ease the rising heat. Was it suddenly hot in here?

"You know I'll do anything to make you feel better. You, my Mistress, who works so hard every day. Keeping everyone safe." It must be a coincidence that Regina happened to be talking about someone very much like Emma, right? "Using these hands." Another noise of lips meeting skin. "To protect me." Regina's voice changed, whispering and promising something... darker. "And keep me, just for yourself. Hold me down and do those wonderfully wicked things I know you love to do to me. Like pulling on my hair, using it to guide my head between your thighs."

"Doesn't that sound nice, Mistress?" A contented sigh played through the earbuds. "It would be a nice start to our evening; my tongue buried in your cunt." Emma squirmed on the chair at the vulgar word, not something she'd usually associate with the uptight former mayor. "It would take the edge off, release all the stress from work, before we went up to the bedroom." Wet noises, slick and utterly lewd, seemed to echo through Emma's head. "Mmm..."

The blonde groaned and pressed her legs tightly together. She really should stop this; she was going to get caught and having Regina find her so aroused was going to be incredibly difficult to explain without also saying what she'd been listening to. Her finger hovered over the pause button, indecisive.

"I could do this all day for you, Mistress." Another rustling of fabric could be heard. "Half naked in just my tiny, tiny underwear, on my knees as I suck you off. It gets me soo worked up, so utterly wet for you. For your touch." Regina's voice letting out a throaty moan was now the most wonderful thing she'd ever heard. "Please Mistress, touch me. You know where, you always do. You know the perfect places I love to be touched. Please?"

Emma bit her lip and was moving her hands towards her lap when the lid of the laptop was slammed shut, with an irate Regina scowling at her. The last time she'd looked this angry was when Emma had taken a chainsaw to her beloved apple tree.

"What. Did. I. Tell. You?"

Each word was clearly enunciated, despite the gritted teeth. Regina was utterly furious with her, breathing hard and looking beautiful. A tiny part of Emma wondered where that thought had come from but was interrupted by a harsh slap to the cheek. It brought her out of her thoughts just in time to intercept a second hit and grab Regina's wrist as it came towards her face.

The same voice that had just been begging, pleading, in her ears was now flinging (screaming) insults at her with abandon. Regina was now two people in Emma's mind; the stern, unforgiving (ex) mayor and the sweet, almost shy, submissive girl. Who was apparently still spitting vitriol at her as she tried to free herself from the blonde's grip and it spurred her into action. "Regina... Regina!... Stop!" Emma grabbed Regina's other wrist and wouldn't have been surprised if the brunette resorted to biting or kicking her to get free.

Both of them were breathing hard by the time Emma's words got through the red haze that had descended on Regina when she found Emma listening to one of her performances for Reddit.

Seeing Emma working her jaw to try and lessen the sting in her cheek made Regina realise she'd slapped her. All of the fight left Regina as quickly as it had come and her knees gave out, dropping her to the rug on the floor next to Emma. "I-I'm sorry." Her lower lip trembled and she couldn't meet Emma's eye, despite the blonde invading her privacy and making her blood boil, assaulting her wasn't the right thing to do. Uncovering Regina's secret had left the brunette feeling vulnerable and she'd resorted to what she knew best; anger.

With her legs still refusing to work, Regina settled on the rug with a sigh and waited for the mocking to start. If this had happened even a year or so ago, she knew Emma wouldn't hesitate to use it against her.

"No, I'm sorry Regina. I shouldn't have gone snooping." Releasing Regina's wrists, Emma spoke gently to her. "I promise not to tell anyone; I'm not my mom." Her attempt at a joke, even a poor one, managed to raise a tiny smile on Regina's lips.

The smile vanished almost immediately when Regina thought about what was going to happen next; namely being blackmailed into doing whatever Emma wanted without question. "What is it you want Emma? What's it going to cost me to keep your silence about... about this?" She gestured at her laptop.

"Want? I don't want anything." Emma seemed genuinely confused as she rubbed her sore cheek. At least she hadn't been punched this time.

Regina didn't believe for one moment that Emma was that dumb. "But why? This could give you everything you ever wanted."

"I think this is a conversation best held without you on the floor." Looking so submissive and putting some very unwelcome (at the moment) thoughts into her head. Emma helped Regina over to the sofa and sat a discrete distance away. "I know what you're thinking and I'm not gonna do it; I'm not gonna tell anyone about this or use it against you."

"R-Really?" Regina internally cursed at how weak she sounded, cuffing at an errant tear that had managed to escape.

"Really really." Emma's somewhat childish reply made her snort in spite of herself. "Uhm... I know you don't wanna talk about it, but can I ask you something?"

Trying not to resign herself to whatever humiliating questions she was about to be asked, Regina nodded and sighed. "You might as well, dear, I doubt you could ask anything that would be as embarrassing as what you've already found." She'd no idea which one of the recordings Emma had listened to, but none of them were exactly tame in their content.

"You post these? On Reddit, I mean." Emma had recognised the website name on the files.

"I came across some... adult material while searching for new books to read. Don't look at me like that. You know what some of these community-driven websites are like and I didn't intentionally go looking for such things. Anyway, I found a subreddit where people can submit scripts for fantasies, or the recording of a performance of one. They were quite... stimulating." Regina's cheeks couldn't have been any redder if she tried, but she plunged on. "I got talking with some of the members." She held her hand up as Emma had looked like she was about to interrupt with her usual tirade about keeping things private online. "Yes I remembered your warnings; they don't know anything about me other than my first name. Having enjoyed some of the scripts and after some positive comments about my voice, I started recording my own performances."

It had felt so liberating to be doing something so different from her usual routine. Perhaps she wasn't as popular as some of the other performers, but she was slowly gaining a small fanbase and it cheered her up immensely. It must have shown on her face at that moment as Emma had reached over to gently squeeze her hand.

"Are you gonna keep recording? I haven't seen you smile like that without Henry doing something you find adorable."

"I'm not sure."

Emma nodded in understanding. Having someone so close knowing what she got up to was sure to put a dampener on things. "One last question, it's really personal. You can tell me to shove it if you want. The performance I was listening to... you were quite... uhh, submissive. Is that something you like or was it just a fantasy?"

Of course Emma would ask the one thing Regina was hoping she wouldn't. Poofing away from this conversation was looking attractive, but she knew it wouldn't solve the problem, nor would telling Emma to mind her own business. The door had been opened to an intensively private part of her personal life and trying to deny it would only trigger the blonde's built-in lie-detector.

"It's something that's been part of me for a long time; before the curse and while I was queen." She studied the carpet in front of her as she replied. "Not... not all the time... just when everything got too much and I really needed to let go. Without being violent, I mean. Let someone I could trust take over and care for me, but who wouldn't also try and manipulate me." Unpleasant memories of her mother surfaced.

"Yeah, I can understand that." Given their history, Regina was fully expecting Emma to make fun of her and was surprised at what the blonde had said instead. "What? You wanna let go in the bedroom, that's up to you." Emma shrugged and gave her the aw-shucks smile, though a bit more tentative than usual this time. "I'm kinda the opposite; so much shit has gone wrong in my life that I like taking charge."

"I hate to say this, but we're starting to sound like we're in a script; friends discover they share some intimate passion and become lovers because of it."

Emma gave an inelegant snort "As if that's ever gonna happen." Her expression fell at the look on Regina's face. She looked almost... hurt by what she'd said. "Regina?"

The former mayor looked away, desperately trying to hide her sadness from Emma as she knew Emma's words weren't intended to be cruel. "It's nothing." She knew denying it was a mistake as soon as she said it.

"Regina... It's clearly not nothing. I don't even need my superpower to tell that." Emma reached out to gently turn Regina's face towards her, looking dismayed at seeing fresh tears slowly running down the brunette's cheeks. "You were hoping we might be something more than friends one day?"

"Don't be absurd; of course not." Another lie that pinged Emma's superpower.

"You know I can tell you're lying, right?" Emma tenderly wiped the tears away, trying to catch Regina's eyes. All of the little interactions they'd been having since Regina had stepped down as mayor suddenly started to make sense to her; the offhand comments, the looks, and the very infrequent touches that lingered a beat longer than they should have. She inched closer to her, almost touching their hips together. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"You never showed any interest in me, not like that, and I didn't want to lose your friendship or the truce we made about Henry." Thinking back to the argument she had with her inner Evil Queen, Regina remembered an important question. "Besides, I don't even know if you like women as anything more than friends."

"You could have asked me, ya know?" Emma gently nudged Regina's shoulder with her own.

"Not exactly the sort of thing that comes up in polite conversation; 'hi Emma, I'd love to have you fuck me against the nearest wall. Are you gay and when could you make that happen if you are, please?'" Regina's delivery was utterly deadpan and it made Emma snort before she started giggling. "Well thank you very much, I'm glad my feelings are a laughing matter to you." She lightly slapped Emma's arm in annoyance and let out an aggravated huff.

"S-Sorry." Emma managed to get herself under control and hugged Regina, despite the other woman's bristling posture.

After several moments, Regina finally let the rigidity out of her frame and relaxed against Emma's side. "You'd have probably thought I was drunk. Or perhaps I should have gotten drunk first to work up the courage." She sounded contemplative as she again looked at the carpet. Cowardice wasn't in her nature, but deliberately making herself vulnerable, especially to someone she could lo-... like, wasn't something she wanted to do. Her previous lovers had been there to provide a service; a temporary loss of control, nothing more, and were people that meant absolutely nothing to her afterwards.

Emma was... Emma. Her son's birth mother, a friend (that she really wished could be more), someone that she trusted (especially after saving each other's life more than once) despite having met through less than ideal circumstances.

"You said I haven't asked, so." Taking a deep breath, she finally met Emma's eyes. "Do you like women?" Please say you do, she didn't say aloud, I'd really like to date you and find out just how tight those jeans are.

Realising now wasn't the time for making jokes, Emma nodded. "I do. Well, I kinda like both? I haven't really put much thought into it." She gave an eloquent shrug. "Like you said; it's not the sorta thing that comes up in polite conversation."

'Kiss her you useless twit!' Her inner Evil Queen yelled. 'At least show her you're interested!'

"Shut up." Regina mumbled to herself, though not quietly enough for Emma to miss.

"Huh?"

"Nothing dear, just arguing with myself." Regina shook her head. "In case I've not been clear enough, I am very interested in you. As much more than a friend. Are you free sometime? In the evening I mean. It's ok if you're busy, it's not that important." Her nerves were getting the better of her and she tried not to panic when Emma looked at her for several long moments without replying after she finally stopped rambling.

'Pull yourself together!' Apparently she hadn't heard the last of her inner Evil Queen yet, though it did help a little. 'She hasn't said no.'

When Emma still hadn't replied, her heart suddenly felt heavy in her chest and she made to get up, to flee from the room. She'd blown it and completely misread the situation; Emma wasn't interested in her like she'd hoped. With a little luck, Henry hadn't completely decimated her supplies of chocolate and she could console herself with a bar or three. A hand on her arm stopped her from getting up and she looked questioningly at Emma.

"Are you asking if I'd like to go on a date with you?"

"No... I mean; yes, yes I am." Regina tried to keep the hopeful look off her face as her eyes refused to make contact with Emma's again. She didn't want to see the blonde's reaction if she was going to be rejected.

"I would love to."