Hello My Doves! Finally got this edited! Thanks for the reviews and follows!

Enjoy Lovelies!

Songs: Beautiful with You by Halestorm, Slow Goodbye by Lesley Roy, All Over Me by Lindsey Harper


Ten minutes turned into three hours, and Regina shivered as the chill of evening spread over her exposed skin. One glance at the window told her that she'd fallen asleep and pulled a grumble from her chest. She craned her neck and looked at Emma, unmoved from the position in which she'd fallen asleep. She shook her shoulder lightly.

"Emma, it's time to wake up, Darling," Regina whispered into her hair and smiled when Emma grumbled and pressed her face into her chest.

"Not been ten minutes," she grumbled, eliciting a chuckle from Regina who turned an eye to the clock on her nightstand.

"It's been three hours, and I no longer feel the arm beneath you," Regina informed, not really upset about her arm, not when Emma's body felt so wonderful pressed against her side.

"Shit," Emma cursed and raised her head. Her wild blonde hair fell into her face, obscuring her features, and Regina brushed it back. She loved Emma's hair.

"Hey," she said as a burst of timidity crept into her chest as she caught dark caramel eyes studying her intently.

"Hey," Regina answered with an equal amount of shyness. "How are you feeling? You didn't pull anything?" She steered the conversation towards a safe subject.

"I'll let you know when I get up," Emma answered honestly, thankful for the icebreaker. They struggled to talk to one another, but they certainly didn't suck at communicating.

"I'm fairly certain Eva will not approve of our mid-afternoon activities, though," Emma continued, a smirk on her face.

"Your bullheaded nature is widely known," Regina countered and weaved her hand into Emma's hair.

The gentle caress melted the ice of awkwardness, and Emma leaned into the lips below hers. Tenuous at first, it grew in intensity, tongues searching and teeth nipping, until Emma pulled back breathlessly.

"Damn," she puffed. "I will never get tired of that," Emma grinned and then lay her head on Regina's chest again. She came face to face with an ugly purple bruise shaped like her teeth on the side of Regina's right breast, and her blood ran cold. A delicate fingertip traced the mark.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," she said carefully, ashamed to look at Regina for the apology. After everything Regina had gone through, she now lay in the arms of someone who continued to mix pain with pleasure. The idea made Emma sick.

"You didn't," Regina recoiled at the words and craned her neck to catch Emma's eyes. She slipped her hand beneath Emma's chin and pulled it off her chest, fingers immediately finding that untamed mane again.

"You did nothing that I didn't want. I…" Regina closed her eyes, almost embarrassed to admit her quirk aloud. "I need a little pain to finish most times. I always have. I've never considered why. It doesn't matter because trudging through that won't change it. Trust me, Emma. Trust yourself. If you go too far, I'll pull you back, and I believe with unwavering certainty that you will stop yourself."

Regina held her breath as Emma simply looked into her eyes, hearing and considering her confession seriously. Would Emma think her disgusting and broken beyond repair? She blinked rapidly, containing her sudden angry tears before they pooled.

"You should have said," Emma accepted quietly. Regina breathed. Emma judged nothing, just sought understanding.

"You figured it out," Regina congratulated with a smirk that faded slowly when Emma turned her eyes away from hers and studied the mark again. Something lurked there.

"Em?" Please don't leave me, she finished silently.

"I'm here," the blonde responded, their trademark reassurance phrase when they had nothing else to offer. Regina played with her hair nervously, waiting for the rest. After a long pause, it came.

"I'm not good with rough, which is weird because I'm me, and everyday Emma is all about the rough and tumble of life. I mean, don't get me wrong, angry sex might be one of the best things to ever happen to this world, but lover Emma is gentle. I feel everything too much not to be, I guess." Emma puffed an exasperated sigh across her chest.

"What I'm trying to say is that it might take me a little bit to get used to, but," she paused and looked into Regina's eyes, making sure she could keep the promise she hadn't yet spoken. "I want you to feel good, always, so if that's what you need, I'll do it, but I know that it will take me a while to get comfortable with it. Just promise you'll stop me if I seriously hurt you." She studied Regina's shining eyes and knew that despite her babbling, she'd said something right.

"I will, I promise. I'll try to be gentler," Regina mumbled quickly, and Emma actually laughed out loud. Regina seemed as uncomfortable with the idea of being consistently tender as she did with being rough.

"We jumped the gun on this one, didn't we?" Emma asked with a smile that told Regina that she hadn't minded.

"Perhaps. I blame you entirely," Regina sniffed and fixed her with twinkling eyes and a stern expression.

"What? How in the hell is this one my fault?" Emma bit on the offered hook just to see where it would go.

"You seduced me with your feminine wiles and exquisitely developed biceps," Regina squeezed the body part in question and donned a girlishly offended expression, her eyes the picture of innocence. She was using her royal training of masking emotions to fuck with her, Emma realized.

"And what if I did this right now?" Emma asked and tighten her bicep, pulling her fist upward slightly to make it bulge and show off the toned muscle beneath. She glanced at her arm, ensuring it did what she demanded and then flicked her eyes back to Regina's.

"Oh Sheriff Swan, I do believe it an abuse of power," Regina sighed faintly and made a show of resisting and covering her eyes as she trailed hot finger tips down Emma's arm. Emma cracked, her easy laughter filling the room.

"You sound like a Jane Austen character," Emma exclaimed, and Regina allowed a deep chuckle to rumble from her throat. It felt good to laugh again.

"Though I enjoy her novels, I find her portrayal of aristocratic society utterly ridiculous. People in your world actually lived in a such a manner?" Her question was serious, but her tone was light.

"I guess. Oscar Wilde wrote a play called The Importance of Being Ernest, which pretty much satirizes the entire culture. So, I guess it's pretty accurate at least in some aspects, but Victorian England also had some of the most perverse that society had to offer as well. So, I'm going to assume there was probably a lot more happ… What?" Emma realized that Regina stared at her with shocked eyes and parted lips. Her ears burned in embarrassment.

"I've never thought of you as well-read or cultured. I see that you've hidden more behind your bluster and arrogance than I anticipated," Regina explained guardedly, not wanting to confess that she'd thought Emma a moronic brute with a one-dimensional intelligence that encompassed only her ability to hunt down criminals.

"Oh," Emma read between the lines anyway and averted her eyes to the chest beneath her. She traced one of the tiny scars absently. Regina waited.

"I love books. Maybe not as much as Belle, but they were always there for me when I needed an escape. I wish I had more time to read as an adult," Emma smiled shyly, eyes glazed with nostalgia.

"No matter where I went, I always made sure there was a college within walking distance. I snuck into literature lectures when I needed to calm down and escape for a little while. It was easy enough to break into the university's website and download the syllabus," Emma grinned smugly, clearly proud of her hacking skills.

"You never enrolled?" Regina prodded gently, wanting more of Emma's past, to know every aspect of her life.

"Nah," she wrinkled her nose. "I wanted to for a long time, but I never finished high school, dropped out when I was 17 and ran away from my last foster home. I eventually got my G.E.D. and took some computer classes, figured if I was going to have a skill, it should be that one. Money was always tight except for the last three or four years before I came to Storybrooke, but I couldn't slow down or it would have become tight again. So, I just never went, and now…" she waved her hand, sadness filling her eyes.

"Guess I'll never leave Storybrooke now, huh," she tried to smile and accept her situation, but it stopped short of her eyes.

"Trapped. I've felt trapped since I got here." Emma's confession from that night she'd broken down on the treadmill flashed into Regina's mind.

"Emma, when all of this is over, if you need to leave, Henry and I…" Regina never finished her sentence before Emma's lips were on hers in a silencing kiss.

"I won't leave you or Henry or my parents, not now that I've finally found a family," Emma declared, leaving no room for discussion, and Regina fell for her all over again.

"I was going to say that Henry and I could come with you. He'd have an opportunity to see this world. We could come visit your parents and Ruby and Granny every month. Henry could spend summers here with his grandparents while we traveled to places that didn't require a coat 9 months out of the year," Regina painted the scene with a distant look in her eyes, a cross between excitement and reticence.

"You'd do that?" Her soft voice and wide eyes displayed her surprise.

"I'd do anything for you, Emma Swan," Regina unknowingly repeated the vow she'd given Emma the night of her drunken confession, and Emma's face tightened with emotion. She hadn't believed Regina that night due to the alcohol and heightened emotional situation, but she believed in her now. Regina touched her cheek with four fingertips.

"Think about it. No decision must be made this moment," Regina comforted her conflicted lover. Emma fell silent in thought.

"We should go get Henry," she finally said guiltily. What their son must think of their heated dismissal of his presence.

"We should," Regina agreed.

Emma rolled away and groaned. "Ow," she said, more as a statement than an interjection. Regina sat up, concerned but not worried for Emma's immediate health status.

"Definitely jumped the gun," Emma grumbled and rubbed her stomach lightly.

"Next time you'll more carefully consider your seduction of an unsuspecting woman," Regina tossed at her from her gigantic closet and then disappeared into the bathroom with a fresh pair of black slacks and white button-up shirt still on the hanger, a white lacy bra and matching panty set dangling from the finger beneath the hanger hook.

Emma smiled and then sat up slowly, wincing and groaning as her still healing muscles pinched and bit from the inside. She snagged her pants from the end of the bed and pulled them on as far as her thighs and then leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees. Her head dropped into her hands as she fought against the pain.

Regina emerged from the bathroom and padded across the floor quickly. "Em?"

"I regret nothing. Nothing, I tell you," Emma joked at the expense of her pain, knowing she'd have made the same choice a thousand times now that she realized how it would end, the pleasure part and the pain part.

"I should think not, Dear," Regina offered cockily and shoved three maroon colored pills into her line of sight. Emma accepted them and the glass of water gratefully and then resumed her hunched over position.

Regina disappeared for a moment, shuffled around the room, returned. "Emma, I need you to sit up for a second."

Emma complied silently, and Regina slid her bra straps over her arms, followed by the black AC/DC band shirt she'd worn earlier. "Okay, lean," Regina allowed and slipped onto the bed behind her.

She hooked the flimsy material at her back, reached beneath her arms and tucked her modest breasts comfortably into the cups before tracing every inch of the material and ensuring it wasn't rolled or twisted. She stretched the shirt over Emma's head with some effort then straightened and smoothed it with the same care she had the bra. Her lips pressed into Emma's shoulder, eyes on Emma's pained face. Definitely jumped the gun, she thought.

She pushed off the bed and knelt in front of her new lover. The socks and boots presented by far the easiest challenge in dressing Emma Swan. She gripped Emma's knees when she finished, catching her eyes. "When you're ready," she allowed the sentence to hang openly between them and then moved back to her closet.

She slid into soft leather boots with five inch heels and settled them around the middle of her calves. Emma hadn't moved so she slipped into the bathroom, brushed and worked mousse into her hair, and applied some basic make up. When she returned to the bedroom, Emma sat upright but still hadn't stood. The Ibuprofen must have begun working, lessening the pain to something manageable.

"Hold onto me," Regina commanded, and Emma wrapped her arms around Regina's neck.

"Next time I tell you not to pick up heavy boxes while recovering from surgery caused by a projectile tearing through your insides, perhaps you will listen," Regina chided gently, knowing for sure now that not all of Emma's pain came from their lovemaking.

She lifted her from the bed with firm hands beneath her shoulders. Emma clung to her neck until the pain ebbed and then released her. Regina pulled her jeans over her hips and then buttoned and zipped them for her. They nodded in agreement that is was time to move despite Emma's pain.

At the top of the stairs, Emma slipped her fingers between Regina's and held her hand all the way to the Mercedes. The second Regina slid behind the wheel Emma's hand appeared on her thigh and stayed there until she exited the vehicle in front of Granny's. Regina met her on the passenger side, moving much more quickly, and reached for her hand but not taking it. She sensed Emma's unspoken need to be physically connected to her but not the reason. The reason mattered very little, only giving Emma what she needed mattered to Regina. Emma threaded her fingers between Regina's smaller, warmer ones and smiled.

They sucked at talking, but they communicated very well, Emma thought for the second time that day.

Every eye in Granny's turned towards the door anxiously when they entered, hands still clasped. The diner was full, but a somber tension filled the air. They'd missed something yet again. Ruby smirked behind the counter and raised a suggestive eyebrow. Regina rolled her eyes. Snow jumped up from her stool and stomped towards them. Her face was blotted and puffy like she'd been crying for some time. Definitely missed something.

"Where the hell have you been?" She screeched, and the two lovers recoiled in unison.

"Ruby wouldn't let me call you. What exactly were you were doing that was so important that you couldn't take a damn phone call!" She heaved, and Regina sneered, obvious to everyone she'd taken enough flak from the woman who nearly had her killed unjustly.

"Well, Dear Snow, I was fu…"

"Regina!" Emma hissed and then cleared her throat, nodding towards Henry intently observing the interaction. Regina cocked her head to the side, eyes cold, and then brushed passed the distraught woman to hug her son. Her fingers clung to Emma's until the last possible second, and then they parted reluctantly. It was only a moment's hesitation, but anyone with a sharp enough eye saw it.

"What happened, Mary Margaret?" Emma changed the subject before her mother read too much into the fact that she and Regina had been holding hands.

"Cora," Snow whined and then burst into tears. Emma's eyes widened at the dramatic reaction. She felt bad for Mary Margaret's obvious pain but felt no compulsion to comfort her. David saved her from the obligation by wrapping his body around his wife.

"She killed a woman named Johanna and told us her endgame. She wants Rumpelstiltskin's dagger so that she can give it to Regina," he explained as he escorted Snow to a stool at the bar next to Leroy. The dwarf placed a supportive hand on his princess' shoulder and rubbed gently.

Ruby fidgeted as though she might reach out and comfort her friend, but her dark eyes hardened. She turned away and busied herself with wiping the counter behind the bar. Regina had said nothing about Snow's execution sentence and Ruby's perceived murder, but Granny sat her down the day she was released from the hospital and confided everything, knowing word would eventually reach her ears. Better it come honestly than by rumor, Granny said. Since then, Ruby struggled between her old allegiances and her new. It was up in the air how it would end.

"Johanna?" Regina broke the silence. "Your mother's chambermaid, your nursemaid?" She asked, grasping for details of their old life.

"Yes," Snow squeaked and cried harder. David's face tightened with the knowledge that he could do nothing for his wife but be there if she needed him.

"How have we not found her yet? I mean, how hard is it to find a powerful sorceress in a small town that no one can leave?" Emma steered the discussion back to the source of the problem and crossed to Regina and Henry.

"Ruby, I need a burger and fries, stat," she whispered to the waitress when she slumped onto a stool. If they were obligated to stay, she was going to eat. Regina clicked her tongue at the greasy food and then sighed.

"Gotcha. And a grilled chicken salad with bleu cheese crumble, almonds, raspberry vinaigrette dressing, and two coffees," Ruby prattled Regina's order mechanically and disappeared into the kitchen.

"She may be able to cross," she confessed quickly once Ruby disappeared, though the wolf probably heard every word. Ruby struggled to remain objective and refrain from blaming her for Belle's condition, but sometimes she did when she had nothing but anger to cling to. Regina allowed it and picked up the pieces as best she could.

When everyone except Henry and Emma looked at her as though she'd betrayed them all over again, she elaborated.

"I've been researching the curse that brought us here, and it says nothing about those who enter the barrier without being cursed. Emma and Henry cross with no side effects. I'm certain I could as well since I was never cursed," she finished when Ruby reappeared. She expected a glare from the young woman, but Ruby sat two steaming mugs before them and then touched her hand. Lacey must have had a good day, she thought.

"Then you and Emma should cross the line and search for her," David suggested.

"No," Emma said firmly, ending any further strains of the idea. "If Cora shows up while we are gone, the only person who stands a chance against her will be miles away with no magic beyond the line, and no one should go out looking for her alone."

Emma nodded when everyone appeared to agree with her logic. David drew a breath to offer another suggestion when a blaring of obscene rap music interrupted him.

"What about up in the candy sto' that chocolate chocolate make it melt. Whips and chains, handcuffs, smack a little booty up with my belt. Scream help play my game. Dracula man, I'll get my fangs. Horseback and I'll get my reigns. School teacher let me get my brains."

Regina jumped off the stool and shoved adrenaline-filled fingers into her tight pocket. Why the hell did she keep putting it in tight pockets? Ruby spit her beer over the counter and onto Leroy, but the dwarf stared at Regina, completely unaffected.

"I wanna, li-li-li-lick you from yo' head to yo' toes. And I wanna, move from the bed down to the down to the to the flo'. Then I wanna, ahh ahh - you make it so good I don't wanna leave. But I gotta, kn-kn-kn-know what-what's your fan-ta-ta-sy."

"Hello!" Regina barked without looking to see who had called, cheeks flushed.

Emma's face, neck and chest turned ten shades of red, and she hid behind her coffee, completely convinced that her son was scarred for life. Snow's eyes flitted between the two obviously embarrassed women, mouth open and eyes wide in horror as she finally realized what had taken them so long on their important mission. David, well everyone really, held a similar expression.

Ruby cackled, breaking the silence, and Emma raised a concerned eyebrow. Was Ruby drunk? She decided to speak with Regina about it later. Losing Belle was taking it's toll on everyone who had cared for her, including her son, but no one felt it more than Ruby.

"Well, that explains a lot," Leroy said, drained his beer, and shook his head with eyes wide open as if clearing it of an image.

Emma rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee. Her face and chest cooled as Regina spoke quietly into her phone, despite the blatant stares in her direction. Regina ended the call and turned around triumphantly. Her heeled feet ate the distance between her and Emma excitedly. She set her phone on the counter with one hand, turned her son's head with the other and then grabbed Emma's face with both hands and pressed a meaningful kiss to her lips. Yep, cat out of the bag, so might as well roll with it.

"You're a genius," she praised breathily when she pulled back. Emma accepted it gracefully, though she hadn't a clue what she'd done.

"That was Stacy," Regina explained and faced the rest of the group. "Emma thought perhaps Cora would find shelter in one of the abandoned buildings or homes outside of Storybrooke proper but within the barrier to retain her magic. Stacy investigated with the utility companies using her connections with the mayor's office as leverage. She's found two possible locations. Both have been abandoned for years but have maintained electricity and water. They both belong to Gold."

Finally, everyone felt as though they grasped something solid and breathed freely for a moment.

"Why wasn't I informed of your plan?" David queried, a hard edge in his voice.

"David, sit down and drink your beer," Ruby slurred bitterly and slammed a glass on the bar at his hip with enough force to shatter it.

Regina was around the counter before anyone breathed. She wrapped her arm around Ruby's waist and disappeared into the kitchen before the amber liquid dripped over the counter and splashed against the linoleum. Emma stood, forcing her pain into a dull ache in light of her new anger.

"Don't forget, David. I'm still the damn sheriff, and the only reason I've allowed you to stay in the position is because Ruby doesn't want it anymore. Now get out. Everyone, get the hell out! Meet up at Town Hall at 10 tomorrow morning if you want to help search the two properties," Emma ordered, and people slapped money onto the counter and filed out the door, not willing to test the patience of Snow and David's daughter.

Snow lingered. She wanted to spend more time with Emma, even an angry Emma. She patted David's hand and sent him towards the door.

"I'm staying. I'll be home soon," she informed her husband and then kissed him.

She said nothing else as she moved behind the bar and snagged some rags beneath the counter. Emma watched her mop up the mess, gathering the glass in the stained towel. She disappeared into the kitchen and then returned with Emma's burger and a foam box a few minutes later. Granny must have abandoned their food on the grill when Regina brought Ruby back.

"Bacon cheeseburger, with lettuce, tomato, and mayonnaise," she said proudly and set the foam box in front of the stool Regina had previously occupied. "I thought she'd like to eat it later," Snow explained without expectation and then disappeared from Emma's sight. A minute later, a hand slid a hot chocolate in front of Henry and vanished quickly.

She heard her moving around the diner, though, stacking plates and silverware into a bus pan. She disappeared into the kitchen with the full tub. When she didn't return immediately, Emma assumed she washed and dried them as well.

"Hey Kid," Emma said and then bit into her burger.

"Hey Emma," he returned and sipped his hot cocoa.

"Emma?" he asked, big eyes looking up at her. She hummed, mouth full of food.

"Is Ruby going to be okay?" He pondered sadly. Emma froze. She and Regina had been so focused on each other and their budding relationship that they hadn't even asked Henry how he felt about the Belle/Lacey situation and his moms dating.

"She's hurting, Kid. I'm sure she'll pull through it, but it's going to take some time," she sat her burger down and cleaned her fingers on a paper napkin. "Belle's gone, but she still sees her everyday. It's tough. I'm sure you feel some of the same things. You and Belle got real close, real fast. You doing okay?" She asked, praying Henry opened up.

"I'm doing better than Ruby, but I've been through something like this before with Mom," he admitted hesitantly.

"What do you mean, Buddy?" Emma's forehead scrunched in confusion, drawing blanks about his meaning.

"You said never to call her The Evil Queen again," he said sadly, shutting her out. Her heart clenched.

"It's okay if it's in the past, right? It already happened," she rubbed his back, soothing him into security.

"Well, when she was acting like The Evil Queen, she still looked like my mom, you know. When she tried to bribe me with things to get me to stay with her, it was confusing because she used to do stuff like that for me all the time, surprises and presents just because. She was a good mom, and then she started acting like The Evil Queen. She doesn't do that anymore, but it's still confusing because I remember her being evil and when things don't make sense to me, I go back to that." He gushed openly and honestly in a way only a child could but with a voice and understanding far beyond his years.

Everything made perfect sense now.

"Hey," she wrapped her arms around him and kissed his head. "I promise you, Henry, she is not evil anymore. You don't need to worry about that, and if you want to tell her what you just told me, it's okay. She'll understand, I promise she will," Emma comforted her son the best way she knew how.

"So, I can talk about it again?" He asked into her neck and wrapped his arms around her waist. She released a silent hiss at the pressure on her already aching torso but said nothing and held her son tightly. It was worth the pain.

"Yeah, if you talk about it like this it's okay, Henry. It just really hurts her when you call her evil. She's not, and she's trying very hard not to use magic. She only uses it for good now, like poofing Ruby to the hospital when she was hurt. She saved my life with magic because she got me help so quickly when I was shot, did you know that?"

Henry shook his head but said nothing as all of the new information washed over him. He struggled to see the world as the mass of grey it actually was instead of the black and white of his book of stories. Emma held him tightly, letting him know it was okay to question things, to feel pain and to rely on her for support. She helped him understand the grey.

A movement caught her eye. Mary Margaret stood at the door of the kitchen with silent tears sliding down her cheeks. Emma knew not how much of the conversation she'd heard, but a ray of hope warmed her heart as she held the other woman's gaze. Just maybe, she'd helped her mother understand, too.