A/N: Miss me yet? My classes were cancelled because of snow (go figure) and I'm sitting here with my finger up my ass so I'm able to post this a little early for once.
This epilogue is pretty much fluff, and I did something with it that I'm not proud of. My beta would kill me if she knew…
Around eight months later…
Regina wasn't the slumber party type but she was planning on asking Emma to move in with her. It wasn't an easy step for her to take and it wasn't something she knew how to do, so she called Tink over for cider.
The fairy was a known lightweight, however, and was three sheets to the wind after three glasses. Regina had to put her to bed in one of the guest rooms and return downstairs to mull over her thoughts alone. For once she didn't have another drink and almost wished Mab was around.
They had thought that the Pixie queen would leave after the portal closed but no such luck. Granted, she would still show up on occasion. Just last week Regina had been giving a presentation to Belle and the city council on zoning laws when her slide show turned into a porn video involving a necrophiliac with a leg fetish.
Why she hadn't killed the petulant moth yet evaded her. Perhaps she was more sentimental than she realized.
She let her feet carry her to the study, where she'd taken Emma for a drink on the night they first met. She stared into the fire, remembering how she'd thought the Savior was a cutie even back then, and didn't know how much time had passed when she heard Tinkerbelle scream.
"QUEENIE! HE'S GONNA EAT ME! HELP! HEEEEEEEEEELLLLPPPPP!"
Regina vanished from the fireplace in a puff of smoke and reappeared in her guest room, where Tinkerbelle was thrashing and screaming in bed while a huge white bird flew around the guestroom with what looked like a bundle in its beak. Feathers flew everywhere, ruining the pristine condition of her carpets.
The dark witch raised her hands, preparing to light a fire under the intruder's ass, but it turned its head towards her and looked at her for a moment with strange eyes. The bird gave her an almost human expression of relief before dropping the bundle on the ground and flying off through the open window.
"And stay out!" Regina huffed as she slammed the window shut. "Every day it's something! If it isn't an albatross in my house it's a pixie in my barn or elves pushing magical mushrooms outside my shop!"
"Queenie…" the green fairy's small voice whimpered behind her. The brunette turned and looked her friend over, checking for any sign of injury.
"Are you all right, Tink?"
The blonde seemed to forget her fear and hiccupped before grinning broadly at her friend. "Yes, I am. He wasn't here for me."
"Who?" Regina asked gently, assuming the other woman was babbling nonsense. "The bird?"
Tink only giggled. "Not just any bird. A stork." She pointed to the bundle it had dropped on the ground, which wiggled as though there was something alive in it.
"It's been centuries since I've seen anything like this," the fairy went on. "I don't know why I didn't think of it… I should have known! After all, you and Emma both have magic."
Regina felt Tinkerbelle's forehead. "Why don't you lay back down and I'll get you a glass of water? I'll deal with whatever reptilian horror no doubt awaits us in that bundle in a moment."
Tink only giggled again and jumped up and down, clapping her hands. "It's nothing horrible, believe me!"
"Okay, Tink…" Regina replied, patting her friend's cheek. She probably wasn't going to remember this in the morning. Fairies and pixies really were ridiculous when it came to alcohol. Raising her hands in a defensive posture, she slowly approached the bundle on the floor, which seemed to be making odd yet strangely familiar noises, and untied it.
Regina stared. "Oh my gods…"
"…So my goal here is to remind you all of what I see when I look out at the lot of you," Belle said proudly into the microphone at the podium. It was a ceremony marking the grand opening of a new park that she'd been working with Regina to build. This was her groundbreaking speech for the ribbon cutting ceremony if you wanted to call it that, and Ruby stood at her side, holding her hand.
Her wolf threw Emma a wink, and she returned it with a smile.
"I see people," Belle went on. "Not heroes, or villains, or fairies or dwarves or… ahem, pixies. I see human beings all working towards a common goal. We can move on from the past and build a new generation of families in this world who will never deign to assign roles to the unwilling. The children of our enemies will play together in this park and build a better Storybrooke for all of us."
Emma slung her arm around Henry's shoulder. "I wish mom were here to see this," he told her, grinning. "Where is she anyway?"
Emma shrugged. "No clue, kid. I thought she'd want to be here to see this too but I haven't seen her since yesterday."
Snow, who stood on her other side with Charming and Leo, piped up. "I got a text message from Tinkerbelle late last night saying she wouldn't be here but she didn't say why."
Emma frowned. Why had Tink texted her? It wasn't like Regina to miss an opportunity to make fun of Snow these days. After they sealed the Pixie portal everything went back to normal. Charming was human again, Leo was back to being a toddler and Snow was back to being a conservative, saintly schoolteacher. But Regina was unwilling to let Mary Margaret live down the time she'd acted like a trust fund baby: constantly making references, turning the Charmings' SUV pink, asking her when her sex tape was going to come out. The two of them were never going to come out and say that they loved each other, but Snow's lack of retaliation told the entire story.
"I think I'll go check on her," Emma said. "Tinkerbelle isn't here either, so she's probably at Regina's house with her."
The Sheriff left her son with her family and moved through the small crowd to get to her bug. Upon her arrival at her sweetheart's house nothing seemed out of the ordinary, so she strode into the front door like she always did these days instead of knocking. "Regina?" she called.
"We're upstairs!" Tinkerbelle could be heard shouting. Emma followed the sound of her voice to Regina's bedroom. Both of them were sitting on the bed and in between them…
"Is that… a baby?" Emma asked disbelievingly.
It didn't look to be more than a few weeks old. It lay on its belly and peered up at Emma with green eyes that were exactly like hers. There was a very cute shock of red-brown hair on top of its head.
"She looks like my mother, don't you think?" Regina said hoarsely, looking up at Emma with moist eyes. "But she's got your mouth, and my nose."
"Is that… is that OUR baby?" Emma gasped. She grabbed onto the doorframe and tried to keep from falling over.
"Yes," Tinkerbelle said and rose to her feet, clapping Emma's back in sympathy or congratulations, she didn't know which. "The stork delivered him last night."
"The STORK? Are you shitting me? I thought storks were just what parents told their kids about when they didn't want to talk about sex!"
The green fairy shook her head. "Gay sex, actually. Between witches or wizards." When Emma stared at her she elaborated. "In the enchanted forest, special children are born to same-sex couples, but only if both of them have magic. Such children are rare and very powerful."
For what seemed like ages none of them moved or spoke, except the baby who wiggled her legs around and babbled. A bit of drool dribbled down her chin and Regina absentmindedly wiped it off with her sleeve.
Emma ran her hands through her hair. "Well, we do tend to do things backwards don't we, Regina? It's usually fall madly in love, have a baby, get a divorce, loathe each other and then engage in a custody battle that unfreezes time. We just do it the other way around, right? I'm not saying we have to get married. I specifically remember you saying you'd sooner gouge your eyes out then get married again. But… if you'll have us, Henry and I should move in so we can raise this kid properly, don't you think?"
She walked over to the bed and picked the baby up. It gazed at her with her own eyes and Emma remembered the alternate universe Regina had sent her and Henry to when escaping Pan's curse, remembered how she'd felt when she held Henry for the first time.
The tears were sliding down her cheeks before she had a chance to notice they were there. She bounced the baby up and down and it grabbed a lock of her blonde hair.
"Your parents will be thrilled, don't you think Emma?" Tinkerbelle said. "You two ought to decide on a name. I'm going to go call them and get them over here."
She left Regina's bedroom and the brunette moved off the bed to stroke their child's cheek. "I say we name her Cora."
Emma snorted through her tears. "We're not naming our kid after your piece of shit mother. Not unless her middle name is Snow."
"We'll name her something else then, but Tinkerbelle will be her godmother. She's the only reason this child exists, after all." Regina replied, trying to sound sassy through her own tears.
"Agreed," Emma nodded. "What to name her, though?" She nuzzled the baby's cheek against her own as Regina rubbed her little back.
"How about Pumpkin?"
The two of them spun around. "Where have you been, Mab?" Regina asked crossly, looking up at the Pixie, who floated above their heads and out of their reach as always. The baby smiled and raised her little hands up, flexing her fingers as though trying to reach her.
"Aw, did you miss me Queenie?" Mab asked cheekily.
"Hardly, I've merely been feeling particularly passive lately and without you around there's nothing to drive me into a murderous rage. I'm quite at a loss," Regina sniffed.
"Ah, ah," Mab waggled her finger. "You've got a kid now, Queenie, and that's a big responsibility. Those crazy days of terrorizing the townspeople are behind you. Party's over, as they say."
"I think she's right and we should name the kid Pumpkin," Emma said.
"Seriously?" Regina raised a perfectly sculpted eyebrow at her.
"Indeed, you should," the Pixie Queen replied. "After all she was conceived in the Pixie Grove when your fingertips met and you shared true love's kiss."
They took Pumpkin downstairs to the foyer and Mab followed, continuing her incessant chatter but neither Emma or Regina paid attention to her, too lost in their own world with the baby.
Henry and the Charmings arrived a few minutes after that. Snow had rivers of embarrassing, joyful tears streaming down her face and whenever she tried to talk nothing came out but gurgles. She held her arms out to Regina, who had Pumpkin pressed protectively to her chest. "What's that Snow?"
"I wenna see da baby an hold er an da ba baba so cute," Snow gibbled.
"Very well," Regina sighed, rolling her eyes and placing Pumpkin in her arms. "Do try not to get any idiot on her, though."
They all took turns passing the baby around and making silly faces at her and talking to her in stupid voices. Even little Leo had his turn before Emma handed her off to Tinkerbelle. "We're going to have Blue christen you as Pumpkin's fairy godmother," she explained to the other blonde, whose eyes filled with tears. "We owe you one, Tink."
"Oh, thank you Emma!" the green fairy said, her smile bright. "I'm so pleased. I'll teach her fairy magic, so she'll never be tempted by outside influences and can one day be a good and kind Queen to the future residents of… well, of wherever our kin or we are at that point due to something ridiculous happening. In any case, I assure you this child will be great."
Above them all, Mab groaned in disgust. "Gods, this is sickening. All this mushy crap gives me gas. I'll take it as my cue to return to my home in the Fae Forest at last."
"What?" Emma asked, looking up at the pixie in surprise. "You're leaving?"
"The Pixie Princess has been delivered, so I have no reason to remain." The Mab flew down to Regina's eye level and Emma moved to stand beside her protectively. "Queenie, I'll miss you most of all. You're not so evil for an Evil Queen." She turned to Emma. "And Savior, who says a thieving, trailer trash, no good ex-con can't be a hero? Let your story be a lesson of hope to losers everywhere."
She next flew to Snow, apparently doing a succession of farewells. "Snow White, your haircut is really stupid and sometimes it makes you look like Alfalfa from the Little Rascals but you're a great gal and you're a lot stronger than people give you credit for."
"Thanks, Mab," Snow replied, smiling.
Mab fluttered her wings affectionately against Leo's cheek and he giggled before she floated to Charming. "Charming, you're an idiot and you make a better dog than a Winnebago."
Charming blinked and then smiled. "Uh… thanks?"
She then turned to Henry, and for the first time since they met her, she almost looked sad. "And Prince Henry… there's no excuse for what I tried to do to you. It won't make it right, but I plan to open my harem and let my love pets roam free. No more pixie dusting mortals for me. But it was fun while it lasted."
Henry smiled. "All is forgiven, Mab. You helped my moms. I couldn't be more grateful to you."
The Pixie nodded and rose above all their heads before turning to Tinkerbelle, who still held a wiggly Pumpkin in her arms. "You watch over that baby, Tink. She'll be important to our kind one day."
Tinkerbelle nodded. Henry turned to Emma and Regina. "Hey moms, can me and Leo take Pumpkin out to the backyard to play with the horses?"
Regina nodded. "Yes, but your grandparents are going with you to keep an eye on things and are well aware that if our baby is harmed their heads will soon be bronzed and mounted on the wall of our study. Isn't that right Emma, dear?"
"Sure is," the blonde responded menacingly. David and Mary Margaret rolled their eyes and disappeared with the children a moment later.
"And so they all lived happily ever after, thanks to the Pixie Queen, who has a suave, enigmatic kind of wisdom that you really don't see anymore. Not to mention she's ridiculously attractive and has the most stunning fashion sense of all the eras of the world—
"Will you shut the hell up, Mab?" Emma snorted. She turned to Regina and gave her a gentle kiss on the lips. "I'm gonna go check on the baby. We'll talk more later." She looked up at Mab. "Wish I could say it's been a pleasure."
Regina watched her turn to leave and beckoned Mab over to her. "Will you do something for me Moth? Since you said you had gas?"
The Pixie grinned at her. "I've said it before and I'll say it again, Queenie. I like your style. Emmaaaaa!"
The blonde turned back around and looked up at the Mab in annoyance. "What now?"
Mab spun around in the air and unleashed an explosive, bean dip and onion style fart. Golden glitter exploded out of her bottom in a stream that she used to spell a sentence in magical dust.
I love you Emma! (I guess) -Regina
Tinkerbelle burst into tears, clearly overcome with the sweetness of it all. "You two are so stupid!" She ran out of the foyer, leaving the Savior and the Evil Queen alone with the Mab.
"Now I truly must be off," The Pixie Queen announced. "Don't hesitate to call on me if ever you have need of it. I will always come to your aid."
Without any fanfare, the Mab was gone just like that. It was strange but somehow fitting of her. Emma grinned at Regina. "I love you too. Any verdict on me and Henry moving in?"
"No, Emma," Regina said sarcastically. "I'm desperately in love with you and you're the mother of my children. You may NEVER move into my home."
Emma looked up at the glittery sentence Mab had left in midair. "We'll never have boring lives, will we?"
"I suppose not, dear."
Emma held out her hand for Regina to take. "So what do you say we go hang out with our new baby who is currently being watched by her literal fairy godmother and your former step-daughter who is also her grandmother?"
Regina took her hand. "Once upon a time I never thought I would say this, but I would love to go play with you and your mother."
Yeah, sorry. I went there. To magic! Baby town. I hope you all enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. It never got wildly popular or anything but I'm proud of it nonetheless and I have you as my readers to thank. Until we meet again!