EPILOGUE
Forty didn't look bad on Emma. She was in her prime. Her long blonde hair still shined the way it did all the first day she met Regina, back many moons ago. Her face had aged considerably, much like her mother's, but that's life.
So far, she had a good twelve years with her wife, full of laughter that had caused some laugh lines to begin to develop, and some crow's feet around her green eyes as well. Emma considered her emerging wrinkles an example of a life well-lived, one nowhere near over.
She tucked her flannel shirt into her jeans and made her way down the hallway of her home. Five years ago, Regina decided that they should own Ski Esta. It was the place they first said their I love you's, where they got married, and the place they vacationed with their family. It was their home now. A rather large home, but hey, Regina could afford it, so why not? After they had made it official, they moved to the middle of nowhere, Maine. Emma quit her job as a detective to focus on her family. Working in homicide had been too draining, at the end of the day.
It was April 22, 'T' day, and the snow had already melted outside. It was another one of those warm winters, and Global Warming was still a thing. Emma was passing by her son's room, and she caught him sitting on the edge of his bed looking pretty spaced out.
"Henry?" She asked concerned. "Why aren't you outside with everyone else?" She walked in and sat next to him. "Something on your mind?"
She could read her son like a book, and something was wrong. There was this scowl across his tiny face as if he was trying to figure some crazy math theorem in his head.
Though, considering Henry was their ten-year-old, she had to assume it wasn't a theorem but rather something else. It took two official years to adopt him. The process was tedious and, while they had quick approval, getting matched up with a baby took some time. There were many nights filled with doubt that they'd ever become mothers. They actually got to the point where they were coming to terms with it just being the two of them. While that wasn't what they planned for, they knew they were enough for one another.
One day, however, they got the call. Emma remembered it just like it was yesterday. They had made their annual trip to the Westbrook Christmas Tree Farm to pick out their tree just after Thanksgiving day. Emma declared their new tree to be named Agatha. Regina, of course, rolled her eyes at that, and while Emma's butt was up in the air sawing the darn thing down, Regina's cell phone started to ring.
Emma was frustrated at first because she assumed it was a work call. She even yelled, "Oh come on Regina. No phones! You promised!"
Despite her complaint, Regina answered the call.
Emma could still remember the smile that broke out across Regina's face. There were tears of joy between the both of them. There was so much happiness that day, knowing they'd be bringing a son home just before Christmas. It was a running joke, when they first got together, that Emma had her naming privileges revoked. The best part was, when they got the call and heard it was a baby boy, she instantly knew, his name was Henry.
"Why is it called T day?" His face pinched with confusion.
Throughout the years, they celebrated annually, T day. Henry assumed it was a normal holiday, and sometimes they kept him home from school to celebrate. They did family outings and went places. Each year felt more special than the last because as Emma aged, she found herself falling more in love with her life. Her life being her family that she built with Regina.
Two years ago it was the ten-year mark since Emma's surgery, and they took a vacation to Paris for the week to celebrate. Seeing the Eiffel Tower in real life, getting to kiss her wife, and be happy in her skin, well that was one of the best gifts in the city of love.
While they had had Henry since he was an infant, Regina, and Emma both agreed they wouldn't address Emma being transgender till he was old enough. They wanted him to get to know his mother as who she was. And the fact of the matter was, she was just like Regina. That same old nagging mother, 'did you do your homework?' or 'don't run in the house!"
Apparently that time was now to share this side of herself with her son. She sighed as she settled next him. For once in her life, she was able to plan for something. God knows, her wife, while she loved her implicitly, she made it impossible to plan anything. "Well, I guess now you know it's a special holiday that we, as a family, celebrate."
"Right. I asked my teacher last week, and she told me T day wasn't a holiday."
Emma laughed, "I have no idea what she's talking about. T day is a very real holiday in our household." Emma paused. "You know what your mother's first gift to me on T day was?"
Henry shook his head no. "What?"
"The approved adoption papers that led us to getting you. Took us two years, but you came eventually to us, just in time for Christmas!" She draped her arm around his shoulders. "And I have to say that's one of the best gifts I've ever gotten. Your mother is the best gift giver." Emma said with a smile.
"But why do you get gifts? Your birthday is in October." He son questioned, "I don't have a T day, so what's so special about it being about you, Mom?"
Emma nodded and sighed out. "Well, T day is very special to me. You know how you're named after Grandpa?"
"Yeah?"
"Well, when I think of him, I think of all the ways he saved my life." She started to explain. She had rehearsed this a million times in her head to get it right, and now was the time.
"You almost died?" He asked looking at her with big brown eyes.
Emma shook her head. "No, well yes." She paused. "Okay, you see, when your mother and I first started dating I was in a different place in my life." Emma said, delicately. "I met your grandpa and the first time your mother and I got into a fight, he was a voice of reason. He made me think differently, less irrationally. So instead of being an idiot and ruining things with your mother, I fixed them. That was the first day I ever told her that I loved her." Emma explained.
"Then there was the time I was attacked by a moose." She said with a straight face.
Her son instantly started to laugh, "No way! Is that why you always freak out when we go in the woods?"
Emma rolled her eyes, "It was in those very woods, mind you, that I nearly died. It was a massive 1500 pound moose, Henry. I was picking up wood for the fireplace, and then I heard the leaves rustle. I thought it was grandpa. Don't ask me why, but I thought it was him. And when I realized it wasn't I didn't know what to do!"
"Did you not read the 'Moose Attack Survival Guide' that's downstairs?" He asked, seriously.
"Of course not. When that damn, I mean darn, thing charged at me." She tried to breeze past her slip up, "I screamed like a banshee and just as I was sure that was it, that I was a goner, your grandpa saved me." Emma recollected. "Your mother lost her mind! She was afraid of losing me, so she did that thing where she yelled at me, for nearly getting myself killed. And then we made up."
"Oh man. Did her vein poke out?" Her son laughed along. "That thing is scary!"
Emma nodded, "Totally. Don't tell her you noticed that too. I was in the dog house for a week after I pointed it."
Her kid started laughing some more. "That was stupid."
"Hey, I'm your mom, you can't call me stupid." She lightheartedly told her kid.
His laughter simmered down, "What about the third time, you mentioned three times he saved your life."
Emma knelt down in front of Henry and grabbed his hands. She was ready for this and knew, sooner than later, Henry would ask questions.
"What I'm about to tell you, Henry, it's very special and important. Why else would your mother and I celebrate T day, or name you after your grandpa Henry?" She asked.
She squeezed his tiny hands and said, "On April 22, I had a really big surgery." She started.
"Were you sick?" He asked instantly.
Emma shook her head no. "Not in the sense of cancer or anything. But something was wrong." She softly said. "I was born differently than your mother or sister. I was born like you."
"What do you mean?" He knitted his brow together.
"I was born, seven pounds and eight ounces. I was considered a healthy baby. I had a head full of hair and was the pinkest little thing." Emma told her son. "But I was swaddled in a blue blanket and had a little blue cap on my head, not pink. And my name was Emmett."
Her son looked at her and waited for an explanation. "Your grandmama Mary Margaret and granddaddy David took me home, and I grew up as a little boy. But something was wrong Henry. I didn't fit in my own skin. I didn't want toy trucks like you did growing up, or dinosaurs. I wanted American Girl dolls and Barbies. I liked to play dress up in your grandmama's clothes and do my makeup." She paused and looked at her son, and she smiled up at him as he listened to her intently.
"They thought it was a phase that would pass, but I was angry and threw tantrums when I had to wear boy clothes or get my hair cut. I wanted to be a girl. So your grandparents took me to see a doctor. They told my parents I had gender dysphoria." She said carefully, "Do you know what that is?" She figured he didn't. He was just a kid and this kind of stuff wasn't something she expected him to be educated on.
"No." Her son said anticipating an explanation.
"Gender dysphoria is when someone's emotional identity does not reflect their biological identity. So I was born a boy, but was, very much so, a little girl at heart." She simplified it for him to understand.
"So you had surgery?" He was trying to follow.
She nodded, "Eventually, but before that, your grandparents let me be my authentic self. I got to be Emma and dress in all the girly clothes that I wanted. I grew up since the age of six as a female. My biology didn't define me. I defined me. Just like how your mother and I let you be who you want to be." She held his hands close.
"But you don't look like me. You look like mom." He stated. And that was true. When Henry grew up neither one of his mothers were shy about their bodies. It was kind of hard when they both slept naked and woke up with him wedged between them, arms and legs all sprawled out. It was like that nearly every night from when he was three until he was six, that he somehow managed to sneak into their room to sleep with his mommies.
"I do. I took treatments that helped me develop as a female, and then later I got some surgery to fully transition. That day was April 22, twelve years ago. T stands for transition. On this day, I got to be who I always was destined to be. So, your grandpa Henry is the person that made that happen for me. In a way, he saved my life again for the third time. He helped me be the woman I was meant to be. I am eternally grateful for him. And I have to say, I think I picked out the best name for you. I can't ever tell you enough how much he means to me." She patted her chest where her heart was hidden.
Her kid nodded. A few long seconds passed and Emma wasn't sure what to say. She'd pretty much told Henry everything.
She squeezed his hands to grab his attention, "Come on kid, talk to me. What's going on in that head of yours?" She encouraged.
"I think it's super cool. It's like you're a superhero in real life. Like, you literally changed." He said. And then asked, "Can I write a comic on it?" Her son, her little creative writer, inquired.
"That's it. You're just going to compare me to a superhero?" Emma knew it couldn't be that easy.
"Yeah, you're my mom. I love you. I think you're awesome, except on Sunday's when you make me do all my homework." He frowned at her.
A scream echoed down the hall followed by the sounds of feet smacking against the hardwood floors. "I'm Superman!" Emma looked up just in time to see her daughter with a head full of blonde curls zoom right on by.
"Mia, don't run in the house!" She heard her wife following after their daughter.
"I think she's confused. She should be Supergirl." Henry rolled his eyes. "I told her last night, and she started to cry."
"Henry." Emma scolded. "Let Mia be Superman, even if it doesn't make sense, that's who she wants to be." She laughed. She saw so much of herself in that wild child of hers.
A bit winded, Regina stopped by the door and peeked her head in, "She's giving me a run for my money." She joked. "You guys coming outside?" Emma looked at her wife who looked more beautiful than ever. Like Emma, she too had aged over the last twelve years. Her face had a few wrinkles on her forehead, and she even named one of them 'Emma' as a joke.
Emma nodded, "Yeah, we'll be down in a few minutes. I was just explaining to Henry what T day is." She told her wife, whose eyebrows instantly rose.
Regina hesitated for a few minutes and looked at Emma and Henry, "Oh? Henry, are you okay?" She asked, softly noticing the intimate moment between mother and son.
"Better now that I have inspiration for my newest comic!" He beamed. "She's basically got the powers of mimicry! This is going to be epic!" He declared with his hands extended out in the air cackling to himself as he walked over to his desk and grabbed some drawing paper.
Regina smiled, "That's not what I expected you to say, but alright. Come down soon. Your granddaddy is making hot dogs!" She blew Emma a kiss and mouthed, 'I love you.'
When Regina left, Emma turned to her son and then asked, "So you can ask me questions you know. I mean if you don't have any right now, that's fine, but if you do, you can ask me. Or your mom. Don't ask Uncle August, he's mentally compromised half the time."
"Yeah, Yeah, it's the watery Bud Light that killed his brain cells." Her son dryly said.
Emma's eyes bugged out of her head, "Please don't let your mother hear you say that." She knew Regina would have a fit and to the dog house, she would go.
"Come on, let's go downstairs." She stood and grabbed the kid by his shoulders and practically dragged him away from his comic book drawing board.
"Hey, mom?" He looked at her, "Thanks for telling me."
She nodded, "Thank you for listening. I love you." She pulled him into a hug. "Love you to the moon, over to Mars, slingshotting past Venus…."
"...And around the sun and back to Earth, times infinity, I know!" He recited from memory.
She ruffled his hair and walked with him outside where all her family was.
Mia was bouncing around in the jumping castle, with her Superman costume on, with Alice. Alice was Kat and August's daughter. The two girls were just one year apart and the best of friends. It was something else to believe there was a time when August, the ladies' man was a player and Kat was Satan. Now, Emma adored her, just took nearly a decade.
August and Kat had eloped in Paris when he went after her. Emma encouraged him to go after her. She never said get married. But they did, and here they were, still going strong twelve years later with a beautiful little girl that Emma saw as a niece. Henry was friends with Jeff and Graham's son, Greyson. He was a bit younger, but Henry got along with him well. Graham was still a detective with the Portland Police Department. And Jeff was promoted to be a Director of Business & Community Relations of Westbrook shortly after Regina left office.
It was funny how much had changed in twelve years since Regina came into her life.
"Mia, don't jump as high!" Regina hollered. "I swear that kid ate a bag of jumping beans."
Emma turned and smiled at her love, her life. "Hey, beautiful."
Regina blushed, even all these years later. "Looks like Henry took it well."
Henry took it amazing, and Emma was a bit mystified by that. "Yeah, that kid is something else. I swear he's genetically yours." Emma quipped.
"He just takes after my personality. Besides, what's not to love." Regina wrapped her arms around Emma and pulled her into a kiss.
"Get a room!" Cora deadpanned as she walked by with a cocktail glass in hand and a young stud in tow.
"Never." Emma crashed their faces together in a playful kiss again to flaunt their love. This could never grow old to Emma. She loved her wife's lips on her own.
"Want to see your gift?" Regina pulled back and asked Emma.
"Are you kidding? Do you even know who you're asking?" She teased Regina.
"Yes. I sometimes wonder if you're my oldest child and not my wife."
"Hey!" Emma poked her side causing Regina to flinch. "Not funny!"
"Do you want your gift, or not?" Regina asked again.
"Yes. I do, I really do."
"Okay, go sit over by your mother." Regina pointed to the deck chairs.
Emma cut her eyes at her and followed instructions.
Her mother beamed with glee, "How ya doin' honey bee?"
"Never better. I finally had that talk with Henry." She told her mother who was already one glass down. She was still beautiful, even with her thinned out hair and age spots more apparent on her face.
"Looks like he took it fine." She looked over at her grandson. "He's a good boy, Emma. I don't know why you were so nervous."
"I guess I just figured he'd ask more questions you know. He thinks it's 'super cool' and wants to do a comic on me."
Her mother laughed into her glass, "Typical."
"I think I'm going to tell Mia soon. I know she's five, but I think I'm ready to be open with the kids. She's not likely to understand, but it feels good knowing Henry took it so well."
"Kids are resilient. They can handle more than us adults give them credit for. Take you as an example. You were this independent thing so sure of herself, even before I knew who you were."
Emma smiled at her mom. "I hope that I'm as good a mom as you were for me."
"Oh honey bee, you are. Those kids love you to the moon, over to Mars, slingshotting past Venus…."
"...And around the sun and back to Earth, times infinity." Emma finished.
"Okay! Close your eyes!" Regina announced from behind her. Emma covered her face. She could hear the kids and their friends gather more intimate around her.
First she heard Mia squeal like a little pig and Henry say, "No way!"
"And open!"
Emma's eyes shot open and there before her was a fluffy black kitten. It's high pitched meow caused Emma's face to melt, "Aren't you just precious!" Emma reached for the small ball of fluff.
She held it close and looked to her wife, "Are you serious?"
Regina smiled with joy and nodded her head, "Yeah, I think a year was long enough to wait since Weezy's passing, don't you think?"
Emma turned back to the kitten wiggling in her hands. "Hey, little one," She said in that stupid high pitched cat voice she always used to use with Weezy.
Weezy lived a very long cat life. They lost him roughly a year ago to 'old age.' It was hard for Emma and Regina. When Weezy first was moved from Florida up to Maine, it took him some adjusting, but soon he fell in love with Regina too.
Before they had the kids, Weezy was their child. Many times Emma would come home working late on a homicide case to her wife and Weezy all snuggled up together. They were her family and when Weezy passed, it felt like a little piece of their past was lost.
"Is it a boy or girl?" Emma looked at the little fuzzy kitten that's big green eyes looked into her own. "I'm going to spoil you rotten. Give you all the treats in the world." Emma murmured to the cat.
"Mommy I wanna see!" Mia's little hands reached for the cat.
"Mia, give her a minute," Regina told their daughter. "It's a girl." She then added, to answer Emma's question.
"Ah, okay kids, what should her name be?"
"Princess!" Mia proclaimed.
August laughed from a few feet over. "Yeah Princess, why don't you name your cat that!"
And Emma rolled her eyes. There was once a time he mocked her because her father had called her that.
"No, Mia, something else." Emma shook her head at her friend.
"Sprinkles." She immediately spat out.
Henry interjected, "How about Batman because she's black?"
Emma looked down at the cute little fluff, and she squeaked out a meow. It sounded so precious her heart melted. She didn't have Weezy as a kitten, so this was new to her, and it gave her all the warm fuzzies. Regina, yet again, did a job well done.
"I think her name should be Squeaky," Emma said holding up her new cat. "Do you like that? Huh?" The cat meowed.
"Done. I guess that's her name then." Emma ran her fingers through her long fur. She sat her down on the grass for the kids to play with. "Be careful Mia, she's tiny,," Emma said from her chair.
"Yeah, Henry, why don't you watch your sister." Regina motioned to their daughter, who was chasing Squeaky across their back yard in her Superman costume. Her wild blonde hair being swept away in the warm, Spring breeze.
"Thank you." Emma tugged Regina down for a kiss.
"Happy T day, Emma," Regina smiled into their kiss.
When they pulled apart, Emma said, "I love her. She's perfect. I just hope Mia doesn't scare her nine cat lives out of her." Emma laughed.
"She takes after you." Regina pointed out.
Emma looked around at her family. Her father still grilling some hot dogs, August and Kat were curled up on a lawn chair together. Jeff and Graham were talking away about God knows what. The kids were all running around. Cora was inside probably getting it on with the questionable younger man. Emma even did a license check when they first arrived to make sure he was legal. And then there was her mother, who chuckled sweetly into her glass.
Emma was in love. In love with her life, her friends, and her wife. She couldn't ask for more.
It was past midnight, bordering twelve thirty and apparently Mia had some trouble falling asleep. Their daughter was all hyped up on cake and the new kitten. Emma dodged that bullet since it was Regina's night to tell bedtime stories.
"That took a while." Emma turned over, the sheet dropping exposing her bare chest.
Regina climbed in next to her. "She wouldn't take off the Superman outfit."
"You're kidding." Emma shook her head. "We're going to need to buy five more."
"She was insistent that she'd sleep in it. So after about thirty minutes of her tantrum, I gave in." Regina deflated a little. "I then read to her Junie B. Jones and she wouldn't fall asleep. I read nearly half the book." Her wife vented to her.
"Well, how about we unwind a little?" Emma suggested. She ran the palm of her hand against her wife's breast. Regina's body was still to this day, gorgeous. All Emma wanted to do was make love with her. Now that they were parents it was rare they had a good night in, uninterrupted.
Emma leaned forward and straddled her wife's hips and started to kiss along the edge of her jawline, down her neck, and across her chest. Her lips sucked on one of her nipples causing Regina to squirm.
"Emma." She sighed out long, and breathlessly. "Touch me, please?"
Emma's hand ran between her thighs and felt how wet her wife was. "That was fast."
"It's been since Monday." Regina deadpanned. "I love our kids, but I need to have time like this with you," She confessed to Emma.
"I know." God did Emma know. Since Mia's recent nightmares, she'd spent more nights in their bed than her own, much like Henry once did. That meant less sex and more dilating, which Emma was still not a fan of by the way.
Regina pushed off the bed and buried her hands into Emma's stringy blonde hair and crashed their lips together in a searing kiss. "I love you," She said with passion.
"I love you too," Emma told her. "I will love you forever Regina. And in death, may we never part."
They made love together on Emma's T day and every single one that followed. April 22 was something special for them and would continue to be so long as they lived. For Emma, it was the first day of her life. From that day, she could truly live and be her authentic self, the woman she always was meant to be.
When Emma and Regina were in their sixties, they finally had seen both their children through college and to the point where they had their own families. Henry went to school in Boston and got a job at the Globe and worked to produce the Sunday comics. Emma always knew he was a writer. The best part was, he ended up marrying Alice. Her kid made August and Kat officially family.
Mia moved to Spain after college, to follow her dreams of being an artist. She had a relationship, or twenty, and ended up single with two children. She was always Emma and Regina's wild child, but they loved her and knew someday she'd find her way. She was a man-eater, or so August liked to call her jokingly since she always seemed to wake up in a different man's bed. While she was easy to poke fun at, she did become a very well-known artist, whose work was showcased in many contemporary art museums.
Emma's kids did well for themselves, and she couldn't be a prouder mom. Regina's breast cancer scare was the catalyst for them traveling the world together. There was so much left unseen, and they had the means to see it all. They knew their lives were coming to a close, and they'd be damned not to live it to the fullest together.
Emma's favorite was India. Riding an elephant, well, that was something for the books. Regina fell in love with Peru. She enjoyed hiking the old ruins. Of course, everywhere they went, they took pictures together, documenting their great love together.
Their home showcased their travels with the treasures they collected and the pictures they took. This was the life Emma had always wanted. And she got it. She lived it to the absolute fullest, to her dying day.
She lived a total of three hours without Regina before she died of a broken heart. She always told Regina if she ever left her first, she'd be quick to follow. They were the best kind of love. Love that's rare to find, but once it's found, you can never let it go.
In their will, they requested to be cremated so that the particles of their ashes could be mixed and spread out over their property at Ski Esta. It was their home to their first I love you's, where they got married, raised their kids, and shared a life together.
Emma always knew that their love was more like the tension before Hydrogen and Helium met, and what many scientists would spend lifetimes trying to coin. Emma knew it as forever because that's what Regina was: forever, in life and in death.
The particles of their ashes would coexist alongside each other long after they no longer lived. And that's how everything would start all over again. Their love was so strong that it existed solely because their particles would fuse together intimately to create something bigger, just like Hydrogen and Helium did.
So yeah, they were more powerful than the elements, because they were what created them in the first place. Emma was sure of it.
Even if this seemed like the end, it was just the beginning of a timeless romance. One that was eternal. That's exactly what Regina and Emma were. Emma vowed to Regina, in death, may they never part.