Doing the former Evil Queen and current Mayor of Storybrooke, Regina Mills', laundry, is not what Emma signed up for. Well, to be perfectly honest, she didn't sign up for any of the shit that had happened since she set foot in this little town.
She didn't sign up for being the curse breaker aka the Savior of an entire land. She never wanted to meet her family and become best friends with her mother and Red Riding Hood, of all people. Well, somewhere deep inside, she did want to meet her parents and demand an explanation about why she was abandoned on the side of the road like trash. She did get that. "You were destined to be the Savior. We put you into a magical wardrobe so you can go into this new world and after 28..." That is when Emma stopped listening to their explanation. It was dumb, if she had to be polite. After all, they were her parents.
And then there is Regina. She definitely didn't sign up for falling for her son's other mother. Though that is definitely a plus, Emma muses.
"Emma, I'm hungry." Regina's husky voice sends chills up and down her body.
"Coming." And she can't help but laughing at the pun intended.
"What do you want, Your Majesty?" Emma bows when she comes out of the laundry room.
"Don't mock my title." Regina raises her finger and tries to stand in the Queen's pose but no luck. She bites her tongue and decides it's best to use just her voice to influence Emma.
"I'm not mocking. You are still Queen, right? I mean, I don't know much about the laws over there, but I..." The blonde stops because Regina is looking like she wants to kill her. She walks over and sits on the edge of the bed, feeling the other woman's magic around her.
Regina eyes the woman sitting inches away from her. Why is she here again? No one has ever taken care of her. Why is Emma, of all people, the first one? Brushing away these thoughts, she remembers that Emma is waiting for an explanation.
"I...Technically, I haven't been dethroned. But there is no one in my kingdom to be ruled."
"Do you wanna go back and live there?" Emma asks with sadness in her eyes.
"No." Regina replies too quickly for her liking. She clears her throat and looks directly at Emma. "I want to stay here."
And it's almost like she wants to say something more.
"I'm glad we are on the same page here." Emma says after a while. It is strange that the silence between them is no longer awkward. It feels...good and welcome.
"Not completely...I'm still hungry."
They both laugh.
"I didn't know you are so funny, Madame Mayor." Emma reaches out and caresses the other woman's cheek.
"There are a lot of thing you don't know about me, Emma." The brunette leans into the warm touch and feels the butterflies in her stomach kicking her. It's good feeling though.
"I would like to get to know you." The younger woman whispers and presses her lips against the red ones. It's just a quick peck but enough to speed up her heartbeat.
Emma pulls back and they both lick their lips.
"Well, you can start by making me breakfast. No. Scratch that. I want you to buy me a burger from Granny's. She knows what kind I like."
"Really? You eat burgers?" Emma chuckles and refuses to believe it.
"Yes, for some unknown reason I crave burgers on my first day." Regina looks away from the blonde, ashamed.
But to the younger woman, she looks like a cute puppy.
"Just when I thought I couldn't l-like you even more," Emma stutters at the L word.
She was going to say the big L but decided against it. Somehow, she is still afraid of pushing too far and forcing Regina to come to terms with their feelings. Okay. They said it once. It is not like they have to say it all the time right? That's how people in love act, right?
Regina can practically see the questions spinning in the other woman's mind. She looks so adorable when she is processing.
"How about you buy me that burger and I will grant you three questions?"
"Why three?" Emma asks, although she suspects why. She and Regina has lived their whole lives with walls up, and bringing them down takes time and patience; all in baby steps.
"I want to..." Not sure if Emma is gonna like the idea. "I want to take it slowly with the getting to know each other part."
"Why?" The blonde wonders what she did wrong.
"Because I feel like we rushed things. The past six months, though they have been great...We feel more for each other than just that, right? We both want more than just that?"
"We already have that, so now it's time to have the other thing." Emma smiles at how simply Regina talks about something so big, and it makes the knot in her stomach even bigger. It's unsettling to understand how much you actually want from someone six months after you are intimate with them. "Okay. Taking it slow...I-I'm down with it."
"Thank you for understanding." A smile spread across Regina's face, and Emma can't help but smile back.
Again, a silence envelopes them as they stare at each other like they haven't seen each other at all. And maybe they haven't.
"So... I have to get you a burger from Granny's, right?" Emma asks after a while.
"Yes." Regina says, but looks down at her hands.
"And what else?"
But the woman next to Emma doesn't say anything. Brown eyes are focused on their hands like they are the only thing in the world.
"I promise I won't laugh if it's some bizarre craving..."
"No, it's not that." Regina cuts her off, looking up at green eyes. "It's...ladies' articles" comes out as barely audible words, which she hopes Emma doesn't hear.
But she does.
"Oh, okay." Emma says like it's no big thing.
She slides out of the bedroom and looks around.
"Shit. I have to go back to my house to get money and dress."
"If you want, I can lend something to you?" She hears from behind her.
Turning around, she sees Regina lying on her stomach and brown eyes glued to her butt.
"Well, there is that blue silky shirt that fits me for sure."
"Did you sleep with it when Henry gave it to you?" Regina asks with a playful note in her voice.
"No. I just... enjoyed it since that was the only thing I was going to get." Emma teases further.
"Then..." Regina slowly stands up to see if the world will spin again. It doesn't. She sits on her knees at the edge of the bed and reaches her hands towards the hem of Emma's boy shorts, pulling the woman towards her. "Why haven't you returned it, since you are getting me?"
Emma's legs hit the edge of the bed and she looks down, "Coz I can't get enough of your smell." She admits, taking Regina's face in her hands and kissing her hard.
Emma breaks the kiss, swallowing her arousal. "I-I...clothes..." She looks over Regina to her wardrobe. "From there."
"Help yourself." Regina gives her permission with a wave of her hand. She lies down again, but this time facing the wardrobe.
A few minutes later, Emma emerges with black leggings and a black tank-top, grinning. "Awesome. I have never imagined you wearing this type of clothes."
"How do you think this body is maintained?" Regina arches a questioning eyebrow.
"I thought the curse took care of it." Emma walks towards the door.
"The curse only stopped the aging. But I started exercising when I saw it on TV one day, some...twenty years ago if I recall correctly."
Emma freezes in her spot and turns to face Regina with her jaw clenched. She squeezes her fists, which doesn't go unnoticed by the other woman.
Gulping, she asks softly, "What it is?" Though she is fairly certain what bothered the blonde.
Emma points a finger at her and says, avoiding eye contact, "You... Twenty years ago, I was eight and I had just moved into my second foster home."
Oops, there it is, Regina thinks, but remains silent. The playfulness that inhibited the room seconds ago is replaced by their unresolved issues.
"I-I..." Emma's hand goes slack against her hip. Her bottom lip starts to shake. She blinks rapidly. "I prayed for that t-to be my... last home. So I wouldn't have to move after... a while."
She looks at the woman before her, and for the first time since the curse broke, she sees Regina for who she truly is: the woman who ripped her out of her family and left her an orphan.
And with that, Emma leaves the room without giving Regina a chance to say anything.
Just like that, the pain returns to Regina as she lies down on the bed. The pain that cuts through her lower abdomen is nothing compared to the pain in her heart. Damn be this organ. It had always caused her troubles. This time, it hurt even more, because she knows that the feelings she has for Emma are like nothing she had experienced before. It is nothing like what she felt for Daniel. It is much stronger and so different. It makes her feel alive and crave more. It makes her feel safe. It makes her feel like someone. Yet it hurts because...
Regina sighs at the realization.
The past six months have been a mistake. They have completely ignored the feelings in them and jumped into bed without thinking. Instead of letting it all out in bed, they kept the feelings inside. They pushed them further inside, afraid of what will happen when it all surfaced. And this is what happened – a complete mess. They have never talked about the past and now it is a problem. She suspects Emma has never thought about her past at all when her head was buried between tanned thighs.
"Fuck."
They both blew it. They both screwed up their chance. And now, Regina is pretty sure that the blonde will never come back through that door or magically appear again.
Stupid. Stupid. So stupid. She is so stupid. How could she forget who she is when she's in bed? The woman who is the reason she grew up in all the screwed up homes she was.
Emma strides to her apartment as she hits a nearby rock but with her big finger and it fucking hurts.
"Dammit." She curses, but it's more about her current situation not her finger.
Shaking off her legs, she looks around.
It's the middle of the day and she has just left Regina's house. There are few people that cross the roads of Storybrooke because a lot of the people went back to the Enchanted Forest. Her parents also went there. They just left her...again. And this time, they weren't threatened by any curse. They did it on their own. Sure, they visit every weekend, but it is not the same. She wants them around her. Sure, they had suggested that she could go there with them, but the idea of living in a world without Internet, indoor plumbing, and Granny's food is not an appealing idea.
There is of course Henry who she loves with all her heart now. He goes to her apartment, Snow's former one, every other day, and after helping him with his homework, they play cards, darts, or go in the park and kick the ball until they are so hungry that they could eat everything in Granny's. The kid is calm now. He is not walking around and worrying about the happy endings, because according to him they will be... in time.
And then there is Regina. Regina... Complicated is an understatement. When Emma came first to the little town, that woman did anything by her power to drive her away. And yet Emma stayed. She stayed because... Why? Because of Henry? No. Admitting that would be lying. She stayed because there was something off when she asked Regina whether she loves Henry. And looking at it from her perspective now, Regina probably didn't feel love. Or maybe she had forgotten how to love. Has she ever been in love? Did she remember anything during the curse?
On the spur of the moment, she stops. She doesn't know shit about the woman whose sheets she rocked for the last six months.
So stupid. Because Regina is not one night stand, and yet, Emma had treated her just like one; having sex without a single question. Well, at least she knows her name.
"Fuck me." Emma spins around and heads to the pharmacy and Granny's.
Thirty minutes later, she magics herself to Regina's bedroom without so much as a warning. She sways lightly while the purple cloud of her magic disappears completely.
"You are here?" Regina is lying on the bed with hands covering her eyes and tries to sound annoyed, but it really isn't working because Emma sees her fighting a smile that wants to show her true feelings.
"Yeah... Well, you need supplies so..." Emma hands the other woman the paper bag.
Regina lifts her body and leans her head on the headboard.
Emma watches closely as Regina opens it and pulls out what's inside. She sees her smiling at the burger, which is put on the night stand. She sees her pulling out the next item with excitement. But the frown that followed is unexpected.
"What is that?" Regina asks, holding a box of tampons.
"Um... These tampons are for me." She grabs them, but then the curiosity overtakes her. "Why, you don't use them?"
"The curse repeated the same day over and over again. That is until you came."
"So you haven't had a period for twenty eight years?"
Regina hesitates for a second. "Yes."
"Ha. Lucky you. Is... Is that why you decide to adopt? Coz you weren't able to have kids because of time standing still?"
"Yes. I didn't use any protections with Graham. At first, I was happy that I couldn't get pregnant."
"Seriously everyone would be. And then?"
"After five years, I started to think otherwise, that I wanted a child. But I couldn'thave one, so I decided to adopt."
"How did Gold know that Henry is mine?"
"That I have no idea of, Emma."
"I blew my three questions. Now it's your turn."
And both women realize at the moment that three questions are not enough. Three questions will get them nowhere.
Not that they know where they want to go, but still...
"So why you use only pads?"
"When I first went to the pharmacy, the pads were the only item that was familiar for me. It was just like the pads we used in the Enchanted Forest. Why did you always buy for yourself too?"
"Because for some reason, mine always follows yours."
Silence fills the room as Emma sits down on the edge of the bed and stares at the tampons at her hand.
Regina takes the burger in her hand and unwraps it. It really is delicious, but her mind is soon filled with more important issues. Emma's cycle is in sync with hers and that's yet another bond. There are already linked enough by their magic and their mixed feelings. Now their bodies seem to have no problem mimicking each other, which bring the question: Can they overcome their issues, like the magic and their bodies already have?
"So... is that burger good?" Emma cuts her thoughts.
"Mhmm."
"Good. How is the pain?"
"It came when you left and left when you came back. I guess it can't tolerate you."
They both chuckle and the awkward tension is no longer there.
Too easy, Regina thinks.
"Oh, look at you, cracking jokes already. I must be some healer."
"You are."
Their eyes find each other and smiles appear on their faces.
Regina takes another bite of her burger while Emma watches her in awe.
Thank you for the amazing respond for the first chapter. Sorry it took so long, I'll try and update more regularly once I get into my writing schedule. You know I was off to the sea for two months and now I have a job.
So how was the comeback?