A/N: So, I sat down and I told myself, "We're going to write smut today!" and then I totally chickened out and it just didn't happen. I don't know how you guys who do it do and do it so well. Mass kudos. And I may have been listening to "Something There" from Beauty and the Beast on repeat while writing this but you'll never prove it. ;)
########
Regina didn't have much care for movies or television or anything of the kind; For an embarrassingly lengthy amount of time after their arrival in this world, she had been convinced that everything the infernal little boxes showed her was actually happening, somewhere out there in the world. She had thought it some marvelous technological rendition of her own magic mirror.
When she'd finally realized the truth of the matter she'd wanted nothing to do with it. Who, after all, wanted to waste hours of their life watching fake people work out their equally fake and often trivial problems? She hadn't even owned a set of her own, prior to Henry, and then she'd come around only because she wanted him to have all the amenities every other happy child of this realm possessed. Of course, she had eventually realised the true magic of television was in it's ability to entertain children, providing a few sanity affirming hours of peace.
So while she was familiar with the concept, of throwing up a large white screen to project the fictitious images on and paying to gather around it, aware even that her little town had an establishment that existed solely for that purpose, she had never actually seen such a thing for herself.
Henry must have sensed her trepidation, though she was certain he had no inkling of the root of it (Or maybe he did, with that gods forsaken book of his there offering incite into her old life she would have preferred he not be privy to.). He was all reassuring smiles and affection even as she made him bundle up like an Eskimo (For while they were taking blankets she still couldn't shake the fear that he might be to cold in the night air.).
"It'll be fun mom, I promise."
She was saved from having to formulate a response by the knocking at the front door, the unmistakable graceless thud announcing Emma's arrival.
Emma took one look at Henry, his little arms stiff under layers of sweater and coat and sporting a knit cap whose braided strings trailed down past his chin to the middle of his chest, and burst out laughing. "Geese kid, we're going to the park for a few hours, not the Antarctic."
Emma was wearing her own hat, one that Regina couldn't recall having seen before, with a fuzzy little bauble on top that the Mayor had to resist smacking in irritation. "Yes, well. If he gets too warm he can always take something off but if he's under dressed and gets cold there won't be anything for it."
Emma smiled at her in a strange way, an almost, dare she say it, affectionate way, and it disconcerted Regina such that she didn't protest when the blond gently pulled the neatly folded blankets from her arms to carry herself. "Yeah, okay."
As they proceeded down the sidewalk Emma slipped her free arm around Regina's, linking them together, and Regina allowed it, delicately clasping the crook of the blonde's elbow even as she scrutinized her with a slightly puzzled frown. They'd been close but largely refrained from touching in any way shape or form since the blonde's declaration of "friends first", though not from lack of wanting.
Neither noticed their son, grinning in their wake.
########
It was almost magical, Emma decided as she reclined back with her weight resting on the palms or her hands, staring lazily at one of the twinkly little lanterns someone had strung up in the trees. She had worried about being crowded in with half the town, but in spite of the surprisingly large turnout (From what she gathered the theater had been playing the same three films since the early eighties and this one was certainly nothing everyone hadn't probably already seen a dozen times before.) they had managed to secure a comfortably secluded patch of grass for themselves.
Even with the incessant cricket chirping, mumbled voices and high pitched childish laughter, it was peaceful.
As the last dregs of sunlight faded away and conversation tapered off with expectation she settled back into the tree trunk behind her, finding the rough bark to be a reassuring ground. She was hyper-aware of the woman sitting next to her, even with Henry serving as an unwitting chaperon on the brunette's other side. They were close enough to touch, thigh to thigh, if she shifted only a little. It was as maddening as it was innocent.
Henry disappeared to buy a hot chocolate sometime after the opening sequence rolled, muttering something about wanting to congratulate Ruby on a job well done. Emma watched him all but skip over to the waitress's makeshift booth with a quirked brow but was drawn from her suspicions by a sudden weight settling against her shoulder.
"It's cold, Miss Swan." Regina muttered irritably when the blond glanced sideways at her, and Emma realised the other woman was indeed shivering under her dark overcoat. She reached for their extra blanket, settling it around the other woman's shoulders. When Regina didn't immediately move away Emma peeked over at her again, surprised to the Mayor's attention riveted to the screen.
"I forget sometimes you kind of share Henry's nerdy." She said, amused. "Classic favorite, I presume Madam Mayor?"
"Never seen it before, actually."
"Really?!" They were accosted by shushing noises and Emma rolled her eyes, repeating in a quieter tone, "Really?"
"Really."
Emma wanted to press for more information but agitated brown eyes silenced the words in her throat.
"Wow."
It wasn't until the carbonite encased Han was being rolled away that she realised Regina was crying, silent pretty little tears that glittered on her eyelashes in the flickering glow of the movie screen.
"Oh hey, hey it's okay. They save him in the next one I promise." Emma's hands fluttered uselessly, wanting to comfort but unsure if she'd be welcomed.
Regina sobbed something, and Emma thought she heard the word 'love' in there somewhere but it didn't make any kind of sense else-wise, and then she'd buried her face against Emma's chest, clutching at the sheriff's lapels. Emma rested her palms against the backs of the Mayor's shoulders soothingly, amused even though it broke her heart just a little bit. She had always found the scene dreadfully corny herself, what with Han's basic dismissal of Leia's declaration of love and the weird slug guy, but something had clearly struck a chord for Regina.
She was on the verge of genuine concern, entertaining fleeting images of how she might explain to Henry that she'd somehow broken his mother ("What did you do to her? She won't stop crying!"), when Regina finally pulled away, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeves.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"Don't be. It's-" Emma gestured helplessly, "Sad." Apparently. She couldn't help the thumb that reached out to brush the rest of the tears away, could help even less the goofy grin that stretched her face when Regina didn't smack her hands away.
By the time the last of the credits flashed by the Mayor was perfectly poised once again, though silent as they gathered up their things. This was it, Emma decided as Henry reappeared at her elbow clutching a now empty styrofoam cup, she'd been allowed inside a fission in Regina's armor and now she was going to be forced out again, cast aside.
So she was surprised, when they arrived back at the mayoral mansion, to be invited inside to bid Henry goodnight and partake of a nightcap.
When Henry had finally stopped babbling about how "cool" the night was long enough to be tucked in and they'd retired to the Mayor's study, Emma was in no mood to actually drink the cider Regina placed in her hands. She instead settled the cool glass on the coffee table, ignoring how her hands shook, poised on the balls of her feet as though to flee as she waited for the metaphorical boot to kick her in the ass.
Regina cut an impressive profile, back-lit by the orange flicker of the fire place, and Emma wished dearly she could see the other woman's face. Not that it had ever been a great help in discerning her emotional state before. There were only flashes, glimmers of truth beneath the mask.
"What's your angle, Miss Swan? Emma."
"My- I'm sorry, what?"
"You're always here, with your caring and your kindness and your smile. You claim you're not trying to take Henry away from me and I-" She finally turned around, leaving her own drink upon the mantle, and Emma was gratified to see that the lines of her face weren't harsh with anger. "I believe you. So what exactly is it that you want from me?"
"Just... You." Emma cringed at her own sappiness but it was true, she realised, gaining enough confidence to step inside Regina's personal space. "I'm not saying I understand it. You're bitchy and cruel and a little bit crazy. But I see you with Henry, and how kind you can be and I just... I feel like... Like I barely know you, but I want to. God, I want to." She thought of pretty, pretty tears shimmering against soft skin and red, red trembling lips and she burned to know how someone could be so sad. And then she wanted to make it better. "I can't shake it."
It felt like a good moment to go for a kiss, with those smoldering eyes watching her, watching her face, watching her eyes and her lips and her hands, but was stopped by a palm splayed out flat against her breast bone, gently holding her back.
"Don't. Kisses there... They're for someone you love. I don't- We're not there, yet." And there was that smirk, at handing Emma's words back to her, that infuriating, confident, wonderful little quirk.
Emma was fine with that, with 'yet'- for now, at any rate. It was way too soon to be tossing the word love around anyway. She settled instead for kissing the tips of the fingers that no longer quite restraining hand, then her palm, wrist, the sensitive inner flesh of her elbow. By the time she made it to her shoulder, the underside of her jaw, Regina was making the most delicious noises in the back of her throat, little moans that Emma wanted to evoke over and over again.
When Regina finally unlatched her long enough to pull them upstairs, it occurred to Emma that they probably weren't here yet either, but she was too far gone to care.
########
Emma awoke to the feeling of lips pressed against her bare skin, laying gentle kisses atop the place where her heart rested over and over again. The sensation abruptly stopped, replaced with the tickle of hair just under her nose. Emma peeked out from beneath still heavy eyelids and was jolted to realize that Regina, unaware that her bed-mate had woken, had her ear pressed against the blonde's breast bone and was attentively listening to the steady beat.
"Hey you." Emma smiled sleepily, reaching up to twine her fingers through the dark locks spread out on her chest. "Good morning."
Regina stiffened briefly in surprise but didn't move, instead relaxing more fully into the body spread out beneath her.
"It's a beautiful thing, isn't it?" She said after a moment, and there was something dull and not quite right about her voice. "A heartbeat?"
Emma felt a plummeting sensation in her belly. Was this a Graham thing? Was she laying there thinking about her previous lover, who's heart had so suddenly stopped?
Emma could have kicked herself. She had forgotten, so caught up in her own haze of feeling. As big of a mess as that whole thing had been, it wasn't so long ago that Regina mightn't still be very seriously grieving. Whatever her predecessor had or hadn't felt, they'd still shared an intimate relationship.
"Regina... are you okay?" She almost didn't want to know. She didn't want to think about this beautiful creature wrapped up in anyone else's arms but she'd feel like a total ass if she just let this go.
"Of course, dear. I just..." Another little kiss whispered against Emma's skin. "I love your heart. I love that it's here, beneath your skin."
The organ in question gave a little flutter that Emma was certain the other woman felt, but before she could remark on the oddly sweet sentiment Regina was pulling away.
"Henry will be up soon... You should probably go. He shouldn't know you were here."
Henry, Emma secretly thought, would be thrilled to know progress had been made on the relationship front, but of course Regina didn't know that. Someday maybe she'd tell her.
"Can I see you later?" Emma asked, in the process of re-buttoning yesterday's shirt.
For a moment she thought Regina would say no, would dismiss this as something that should never happen again and send Emma on her merry way.
Then the blond found herself the sole focus of a dazzling smile. It left her feeling dizzy. There just wasn't enough oxygen in the world to make up for the things that smile did to her.
"I thought we might go to the diner for lunch around. If you should happen to show up..."
"I'll- I'll be there."
The remembrance of the look she received in return stayed with her all the way back home.
########
It was a Sunday morning, so of course she should have expected Mary Margaret to be there when she came stumbling in with her bed head and her rumpled clothes. She couldn't have been prepared, however, to find her roommate actively waiting for her, sipping coffee with a bemused expression as she leaned against the foot of their kitchen table.
"Good morning, Sheriff. Nice night?"
Emma felt a bit like a petulant teenager, underneath Mary Margret's scrutiny, a fact she blamed entirely on Henry, putting the idea of a motherly relationship in her head.
"Peachy. I'll tell you all about it later."
"Good. I'd recommend a shower first. I didn't know hair that long could stand up like that."
Emma scowled, reminding herself that she liked their camaraderie and that throwing things at the woman who owned the roof over her head could only end badly anyway.