"How dare you," snapped Regina, outraged, "come to my home to teach me how to raise my son!"
"You're not listening!" Emma protested. "Jeez, will you just hear me out for one minute?! He came to me! He didn't want to go back home, he wanted to stay with me. You guys have serious issues! I thought you'd like to know."
"Well, thank you for bringing Henry back home, Miss…"
"Swan," said Emma.
"…but none of this is your business," Regina concluded. "Now if you'll excuse me, it's very late and we have to get up early tomorrow."
Regina, dragged out of bed in the middle of the night by the doorbell, was in her silk pyjamas, robe and slippers.
"It's four in the morning," Emma pointed out, rising from the immaculate couch where she was sitting opposite to Regina. "You're not going to send Henry to school with only three hour's sleep, are you?"
"School is not optional. He has to deal with the consequences of his choices," Regina stated firmly. "He'll just go to bed early tonight."
"He'll run away again, you know," Emma warned, "And I can't just pretend he doesn't exist now. I am his biological mother after all."
"Indeed, that explains a lot…" Regina answered, looking Emma up and down as if she were something the cat had dragged in.
"Hey! Henry is so miserable that he ran away from you! It's not my fault if he hates you!" Emma replied sharply.
Regina rose. Her face was carefully controlled, although her deep brown eyes were staring daggers at Emma. God, Emma thought, completely off topic, that woman is beautiful.
"You leave us alone!" Regina said. "Henry has everything he needs. I don't want to hear about you ever again!" And she encroached angrily upon Emma's personal space, the better to enforce her threat.
"As a matter of fact…" Emma mumbled, distracted by Regina's closeness. She was close enough for a slap. Or a kiss. Those dark sparkling eyes and full lips. That perfume. And that cleavage… Unexpectedly out of bed, barely dressed and with no make-up on, there was no denying that Regina was indeed a gorgeous woman. And the mother of your son, Emma chided herself inwardly. Which made her thoughts completely inappropriate, especially in the middle of a spat about child rearing. She did her best to get her head back into the game.
"As a matter of fact what?" Regina barked.
"Hm, you'll lose control entirely if you don't let Henry do some things. He is fourteen. You can't keep him at home forever. And he really wants to see me again. I promised him that I'd teach him how to play the guitar -"
"Excuse me?!" said Regina, as genuinely horrified as if Emma had offered to initiate Henry to the art of hustling.
"Don't worry, I got this," Emma explained, misinterpreting Regina's horror. "I'm a professional guitarist. I have a good gig going on in a downtown club with Ruby, a rock singer. I'm one of her side musicians."
"Of course you had to play the guitar," Regina sighed, looking disgusted. "Didn't Henry tell you? He already plays the cello. We don't need you and your guitar." She glared fiercely at Emma.
"Hey," said Emma. "Playing the guitar is an honest job and I love it, I won't let you trash it! Sorry if it's not fancy enough for your classical ass, but I have nothing to be ashamed of!"
"I won't let my son become some… Street musician," spat Regina. "He could become so much more!"
"Don't you want him to be happy?" Emma asked.
"Of course I do! But I want him to live up to his potential, not to yours!"
"Or do you mean yours? No doubt mine is not high enough for you."
"Well," Regina snapped, blushing with indignation and coming close enough to Emma for her to catch another whiff of her heady perfume, "I am not the one who gave him up in the first place. You don't have a say in his life anymore. Now please leave."
Emma couldn't help noticing – completely irrelevantly – that the deep blush illuminating Regina's fair skin like a sunrise made her look even more beautiful.
"I gave him up because I thought it was his best chance to be happy," she answered softly. "I hoped he was."
As if thunderstruck by Emma's simple words, Regina lowered her eyes and stepped back. Embarrassed, Emma wondered what to do. She had the irrational urge to comfort Regina, even though her son had spent more than an hour explaining what an awful, cold and heartless mother she was. But Emma could tell that Regina wouldn't accept any support from her anyway.
"Listen," she said. "We're both tired and upset. Let's call it a night, OK?" She took one of her club's flyleaves from her jacket and scribbled something on the back. "Here's my phone number. Henry has it too. Call me when you have decided what to do." And she left.