Chapter fourteen
Regina was not ready for this.
Well technically she was. The lasagne was cooked and ready to be served, dessert had been collected from Granny's by Emma and Henry was just finishing setting the table.
"Are you okay, babe?" Emma asked and the woman's attention snapped away from the counter she had been cleaning intently for about five minutes now. She saw the blonde holding a high-chair for Neal and she relaxed slightly when she noticed that it was once Henry's.
Being reminded of baby Henry was always a sure fire way to calm her down.
The blonde put the chair down and came over to the other woman, who instantly put her hands around her neck as her own fell down to the mayor's waist.
"Okay so it's too late to cancel now, so I think we're just going to have to embrace the awkwardness," Emma said softly.
Regina sighed but still smiled.
She had this irrational idea that if this went wrong, it would spell the end of the best relationship she'd ever had. However, having Emma so close to her only served to remind her of the not-so-insignificant facts that she was the vampire's mate and that they shared a son.
It seemed very unreasonable to assume that she would give up what they had because her parent's needed some time to come to terms with their relationship.
Plus, it seemed very unlike Snow White to suggest coming to dinner if she wasn't going to at least try and come to terms with everything.
It hardly seemed like the Charming's style to deny love, especially since it had been quite some time since either Snow or Charming had hated her. In fact, she would even go as far as to say that they were something resembling friends.
She just hoped that the fact that she was now dating their daughter wouldn't destroy all of the progress that they had made since the curse broke.
"I'm sure everything will be okay," Regina said more for herself than for Emma and leaned forward to steal a kiss which successfully calmed her down as it had earlier.
However, it didn't last long as the door bell rang and Emma released her hold. The vampire placed a kiss to her cheek and whispered, "you've got this babe," though butterflies erupted in the saviour's stomach. She'd never had a 'meet the parents dinner' before and this whole situation was already ten times more complicated than this situation would have usually been.
"Henry, can you get the door?" Emma called and her reply came in the form of the sound of footsteps heading towards the front door.
The blonde kissed her girlfriend on the lips and then turned away to grab the high hair and resume her duty of placing it in the dining room.
Regina takes the sound of the door opening as her cue to move away from the now very clean counter.
The former-Evil Queen took a deep breath and moved over to the doorway so that she could make it to the dining room just in time to see Emma lining up the high chair. At the same time, she heard muffled voices and quickly realised that it was David talking to Henry.
She had just enough time to receive another smile from Emma before Henry appeared in the dining room with his grandparents and uncle.
"Hey," Emma said with a bright smile and Regina actually felt herself unclench at the sight. If her girlfriend wanted this to go well then she was determined that she would make the effort to make sure that it did.
The mayor managed to catch Mary Margaret's gaze and offered her the smallest of smiles in the hopes that she would see that she was at least trying. The other woman returned the smile almost instantly and Regina felt the knot in her stomach untie, though not completely.
The school teacher didn't seem entirely comfortable, but Regina was pretty sure that there was a chance that she would look like that upon meeting anyone her precious little girl was romantically involved with.
"Hi Regina," David said brightly after Emma took her brother from him and started making faces, causing him to let out a very audible laugh.
"David," she greeted while Emma placed Neal in the high-chair.
"Something smells delicious," the deputy sheriff announced and walked over to take the seat he had sat in during the many family dinners before and Snow took the hint and came to sit next to him where she also had access to the high-chair so that's he could feed Neal.
"Regina made lasagne," Emma replied while both she, her girlfriend and their soon took their respective seats. The blonde instantly dangled her hand under the table so that she could tangle their fingers together. Regina squeezed the sheriff's hand in appreciation and to reassure her that she was fine.
Both David and Snow took a moment to inspect the pair and were instantly shocked to find that they looked absolutely no different to the last time they had seen them sat with each other at the dinner table together.
In that moment, it hit Snow just how inevitable their relationship was.
As strange as it was to think that Regina had to curse an entire realm to be with her True Love and Emma had to break said curse to find her 'mate'. As weird as it all was, she had come to terms with the fact that her life was meant to be some kind of story and she couldn't deny that the Evil Queen and the saviour falling in love made a damn good story.
She made a conscious effort to moisten her lips so that she could say evenly, "it really does smell delicious, Regina."
Regina just nodded and smiled and pointed to the serving dish in the centre of the table, "please help yourself."
Around thirty minutes later, everyone at the table had finished their meal, and mostly thanks to Henry, the conversation flowed relatively smoothly.
Regina excused herself from the table to grab the dessert after Emma and Henry had finished taking all of the dirty dinner plates to the kitchen.
She blew out another relieved sigh the moment she made it to the counter.
She wasn't sure what she had been expecting to happen, but she certainly hadn't expected everything to just feel like it always had.
The only major difference was that Emma tended to touch her more, whether it be holding her hand or placing her hand on her knee. It wasn't like they were going to make out at a family meal anyway so everything felt relatively normal in spite of the fact that everyone present now knew that they were together and that the saviour was a vampire. When she really thought it through, those things weren't really that strange considering everything this family had been through,
With the knot in her stomach now completely untied, she pulled the pie towards herself and turned to head back towards the dining room.
However, she quickly found her path blocked by a pixie-haired brunette who was standing in the doorway and nervously ringing her hands together.
Regina stood still for a moment and considered if there was any way out but she quickly decided that would be missing the entire point of the meal. Plus, Snow had been on her best behaviour for the entirety of the dinner, so she saw no reason to fear the conversation right now.
"Are you okay, Snow?" she asked and took a step towards her. The younger brunette forced herself to stop wringing her hands together and swallowed hard as she shifted from foot to foot for a couple seconds.
Finally, she seemed to decide that it was time to actually form words and she said, "I just wanted to…apologise…"
Regina's eyebrows shot up in surprise. She honestly thought that the princess was far too stubborn to even know that word.
She cleared her throat and asked, "what for?"
"For making you believe that I am in anyway against the relationship between you and Emma, it's just that the last few weeks have been…"
"Stranger than usual?" Regina supplied and the other woman sighed and nodded.
"I've been acting rather childishly and I suppose finding out about you and Emma didn't help. I just wanted you to know that in any other circumstance, my response probably would have been far more…positive…I just can't stand what my reaction did to our family…"
Regina held up her hand, using the other to balance the pie on, and said, "it's okay, Snow, I completely understand."
Mary Margaret nodded and smiled, "a part of me thought that I was prepared to find out you two were together but I guess finding out vampires are real threw me off…"
The mayor actually laughed at this and nodded, "I can see why."
Snow let out a little laugh herself and finally felt the air discharging of all the awkwardness that had existed between them for a while now.
"We should probably get back, Emma is probably wondering where dessert is," Regina said and Snow nodded in agreement before she motioned for her daughter's girlfriend to follow her back to the rest of their family.
-The next day-
Emma couldn't remember the last time she smiled so much.
Sure, being Regina's girlfriend made her happier than she had been in quite some time, but the fact that she couldn't spend time with both her girlfriend and parents at the same time kind of put a damper on things.
She loved the fact that everything was finally out in the open.
There was no longer any need to hide what she was, her sexuality or the fact that she was insanely attracted to the former Evil Queen.
Everything was almost perfect, except for that one unfortunate psychopath currently locked in the holding cell. However, as she waited for her morning 'coffee' she couldn't really allow thoughts of Talia to ruin her mood.
"Someone's happy," Ruby announced, bringing the sheriff out of her thoughts.
Emma just smiled at the wolf and accepted the to-go cup from her.
"What can I say Rubes, it's a beautiful day," she replied and brought cup up to her nose so that she could inhale the scent of the crimson liquid inside.
"You're kind of disgusting when you're in love, do you know that?" the wolf asked.
Emma just smirked at her and the other woman rolled her eyes.
"I don't know why you're complaining, Belle would be mad if I still lived with you guys," she shot back.
"I suppose," Ruby sighed,
"Ruby!" Granny called from the kitchen.
"Duty calls," the wolf sighed again and turned on her heels to go and see what her grandmother wanted.
Emma waited a second and tapped into her super hearing to listen to the argument between the two women.
Finally, she decided that it was time to actually go to work and she placed the money on the counter.
Five minutes later, the saviour made it to the station with a certain spring in her step.
However, the closer she got to the main room, the more dread began sinking into her stomach.
Her steps faltered and she took a second to tell herself that she was probably being irrational.
Talia had been in the holding cell for a while now and there was no reason why she would have tried anything today.
She forced herself to take the steps into the room and her stomach twisted to the point of pain.
The holding cell was empty.
There was no sign of escape, it just looked as though someone had opened the cell door.
The blonde clenched her jaw when she realised that the other vampire could have literally just convinced someone to let her out using her powers.
Emma had grown so comfortable in the idea that Talia didn't plan to escape any time soon that she didn't come up with a plan to prevent it from happening.
The to-go cup in her hand slipped to the floor but she was too busy pulling her phone out with shaking hands to worry about the blood splatter on the floor.
Within seconds, the vampire typed in the number that she now knew off by heart and brought the device to her ear.
The blonde forgot to even consider that she might need to pretend to breathe as she waited one, two and then three rings until there was finally an answer.
"Hello, Mayor Mill's office, Joan speaking. How can I help you?"
Emma took a second to appreciate just how chipper her girlfriend's secretary sounded, that had to be a good sign, right?
"Joan it's Emma," she breathed, "can I talk to Regina please?"
There was a silence on the other side of the line before the assistant replied, "Mayor Mills hasn't arrived yet, I assumed you of all people would know that…"
The saviour clutched the phone tighter, very close to breaking it, but she managed to reply, "she went to work before I got up this morning."
"She doesn't have any meetings today until one, I thought that she would have been spending the morning with you, Sheriff Swan…" Joan replied, finally sounding just as concerned as Emma felt.
A dinging stopped Emma from crushing the phone and throwing it into the empty cell.
She didn't even bother saying goodbye before she hung up on Joan and tapped the screen to get to her text messages.
It only took a couple seconds for her to tap through the options on the screen until she arrived at her text messages.
The screen cracked as the sheriff read the new message from the unknown number.
'You forgot that you're mine'.
Emma's eyes glowed red and she could feel herself growl as her fangs protracted without permission and she threw the phone out of pure rage.
She had absolutely no idea what Talia was currently doing to Regina, but she knew for a fact that if anything happened to her girlfriend, she would finally allow herself to tear the psychopath apart like she had wanted to so many times over the years.
"Anger will achieve nothing, Swan," someone called and Emma brought her eyebrows together.
She looked over in the direction that she had thrown the phone and a part of her finally realised that there hadn't been a clatter of the phone hitting the floor and the reason for that was because there was a woman holding the device up with a little smirk on her face.
The blonde's eyes returned to normal as shock ran through her system. Every muscle in her body still wanted to go and find Regina, but right now, her mind was kind of short-circuiting.
Her fangs re-sheathed themselves and she asked, "Rowan?"
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