Thanks for all the new follows and reviews for this story. I know it's outside my normal smash and dash, live-action, kick-ass grandiose plot form, so thanks for giving it a shot.

Enjoy!

Song: Only Human by Christina Perri

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Regina tugged at the half-open, teal robe that revealed the matching flimsy spaghetti strap camisole and shorts that barely touched her thighs.

Emma blinked up at the hoarse voice cursing at her from the foyer of the mayoral mansion. Regina looked like refried hell – pale and sickly with greasy hair and smeared makeup she'd not bothered to remove the night before. Disregarding the harshness, Emma settled into the plushy black leather sofa and resumed mindless staring at the television. Some talk show she'd not actually absorbed during her 30-minute wait for Regina to roll her hangover out of bed.

"Miss me?"

"Like a brain parasite."

"I made coffee. Granny sent you some muffins. Chocolate almond cranberry, she said they're your favorite."

"How the hell do you keep getting into my house?"

Emma shrugged, not bothered by the underlying threat in Regina's voice. "Picked the locks with two bobby pins, and your alarm system is pretty rudimentary for someone who has so much money. There's a generic code to disarm the system, just in case you forget yours."

"You seem quite confident I won't call Sheriff Hunter."

"The salty air makes your locks sticky, you should oil those."

"Am I supposed to take advice from a contemptible wretch barely out of diapers?"

"Just go drink your fucking coffee, eat a muffin, and shut the hell up. Is your head so far up your ass that you can't even say thank you? I went to your office. Stacy said you cancelled all your meetings again. You can't keep doing that." God, why must Regina make being nice to her so fucking difficult? Not even Emma had the patience for it that morning. Ignoring the ache of tears in her throat, she stared at the television.

"You're a child. You know nothing."

The fresh sting tore deeper than any of the other scathing insults and witty jabs. Those were simply Regina protecting herself. This one felt like a reminder. She reminded Emma of her place and herself to whom exactly she spoke. "I know more than most adults," Emma murmured. Something in her voice stopped Regina cold.

"Is this knowledge the root of your episode yesterday?" Regina crossed her arms, partially in refusal to give Emma the satisfaction of watching her pinch at the headache behind her eyes but mostly because the question made her personally involved. Curiosity had always been her downfall. The last time a woman intrigued her… That didn't matter. Her muscles coiled, trapping the thoughts, but it was too late. Emma lowered her gaze, almost respectful of the maelstrom of emotions flickering in those expressive caramel eyes.

"Can we just pretend that we both aren't super fucked up and watch T.V. right now? I don't want to be alone, but if one more person asks why I'm not smiling today, I might become a demented swan and peck their eyes out and eat their tongues for lunch."

The pleasant imagery turned Regina's queasy stomach. Emma's heart fell when she simply left the living room. Whatever demons clawed at Regina's heart with sharpened claws and open bloody jowls, kept all other visitors at a safe distance. She'd not expected a warm welcome anyway. Granny warned her, Regina Mills kept no friends and trusted no man, woman, or child. Without the cover of television, she heard Regina moving around the kitchen. Cabinets slammed, porcelain on marble. Not even the gift of fresh muffins melted Regina's heart, which was like getting an experimental medical treatment only to find out it had been an absolute waste of time. Emma waddled into the foyer with disappointment on one shoulder and emotional flagellation on the other. It wasn't her job to save everyone, especially when they clearly wished to be left to their self-destruction, but her stupid heart never stopped trying. She tried not to care, but something about Regina inspired concurrent urges to claw at the woman's eyes and hug her until her pain loosened. She got the closure of neither action.

"Where are you going?" Regina demanded, like all other questions that fell from her red lips.

"I thought… I mean, you didn't…"

"Do complete a proper sentence if you intend to stay." The mayor left her standing dumb in middle of the foyer and disappeared into the living room with a plate of muffins and a cup of coffee. A moment later laughter of a studio audience echoed into the large space. The familiar sound brushed against her physically, a cocoon of warmth and pleasant memories – the only ones she had. The piquant sensation left her no choice but to follow that lovely sound.

Returning to the living room, she teased, "You don't strike me as The Golden Girls type."

"It was the height of American comedy. We've done nearly nothing of value since then," Regina defended her slight obsession before she realized the softness in Emma's features. Time passed and allowed them a moment alone to consider the inexplicable emotions shimmering in the scrutiny. "What now, Miss Swan?"

"Nothing, just… I used to watch this every morning before school with Mary. She was a kooky bat with too many cats, but this, we totally agreed on." Emma reclaimed her seat closest to the door next to Regina and grinned at the television.

Regina studied her profile, chewed a piece of muffin. She'd missed Granny's muffins. Every morning during the first few months as mayor, those tiny warm balls of baked perfection summoned her terrified 27-year-old self to the shit show of an office her predecessor left. Those muffins might have saved Storybrooke, even if they'd not save her. As all things painful, she drank until it disappeared, worked until her mind numbed and forgot, or threw attention upon other people – it mattered little to her if she tore them down or built them up, only that their lives were her focus.

"Was she one of your foster mothers?"

The question packed a punch Emma hadn't prepared for; she'd forgotten that piece of information had slipped to the highly observant mayor. Emma suspected she rarely forgot anything, leaving her with only deflection and honesty as options. "Yeah, a good one, too. Granny's a lot like her. I was with her for two years on her farm, 13 to 15." A darkness eclipsed the light energy around the girl. A hard pulse banged in her throat, but those green eyes never left the screen, though Regina already saw the miles of distance between Emma and her living room.

"What happened? It seems as though you were happy there." Regina reached for another muffin, nonchalant. It irritated Emma. Hadn't her confession moved her in any way? Hadn't she understood this was Emma's only span of any type of happiness and she'd just shared it with her?

"Why do you care?" Emma slouched into the plush leather and propped her feet on the coffee table. Regina bristled but allowed the impropriety for the moment.

"I don't," Regina answered without her usual bite and forced her eyes to join Emma's on the large flat screen across the room. "Thank you for the coffee."

"My god, the earth is going to implode and become a black hole."

"That's scientifically impossible. Earth is a planet, not…"

Sharp green eyes silenced the rant. The studio audience guffawed at something Sophia said. Poor Rose. She hadn't a clue how much the others actually insulted her. Regina felt that way sometimes, clueless to human behavior. One moment Emma practically thrust her presence upon her, and the next she brooded with her arms crossed. People, especially women, confounded her. Sweet chocolate and tart cranberries mixed on her tongue. Emma watched from the peripheral but conveyed complete indifference of her expressions or movements.

"I wanted to be a marine biologist, not a politician. The ocean and all of its creatures fascinate me," Regina confessed, quiet and vulnerable.

"What? Do you have Tourette's as well as Bitch Syndrome?"

Regina's mouth twitched, amused. "Hardly, Miss Swan. You asked some time ago if I'd always aspired to politics, and the answer is no."

"Aaaaaand, now seemed the perfect time to answer instead of when I asked the question?"

Regina sipped coffee, hummed as the warmth soothed her abused throat. "It often requires a day or two in order for me to determine if I wish to answer the question." Crimson fingers stretched across the piece of chest uncovered by the thin robe. Embarrassment?

Oh. Regina was sharing. The poor mayor just went about it as awkwardly as she. One by one, Emma's defenses fell as deliberately as her arms, baring her body and soul to the dark woman who held the power to shred her into tiny emotional nuggets and fry her up in flour and oil. "Why didn't you? Become a marine biologist, I mean."

"I don't like boats," she admitted, growing redder with each embarrassing detail revealed.

Emma laughed out loud, not cruelly, just at the irony of the conflicting urge and fear. "I can't see how that might be problematic. Hold on, I'll tag that shark just as soon as I let go of the railing and tie myself off." Regina contained a laugh but not the accompanying smile, bowing her head at the playful scenario. "How the hell did you end up in politics?"

"My mother, she's a senator and my step-father works in Congress. I suppose I was conditioned to be one from childhood." The smile faded with the explanation, replaced with the ache of becoming a disappointing daughter.

"Hey," Emma ducked her head, catching her eyes. "Now you can poke at critters from the shore in the morning and sign a peace treaty by noon. It's kind of perfect."

Regina rolled her eyes. "Storybrooke is not a tribal village, Miss Swan."

"Your spirit animal could be a crab holding an apple pie in its pinchers." The girl imitated the ridiculous image in her mind, looking more like a drunk attempting a traditional Indian dance.

The mayor laughed out loud, barely keeping her coffee within the rim of her mug. The sound and sight of it struck Emma stupid once more, she simply watched. An emotion vein on her forehead appeared in the faint shape of a V, beautiful white teeth bared. Regina reigned in the expression of joy as abruptly as it exploded, touching three fingers to her lips like she'd gone so long without laughing that the movement of the muscles felt foreign to her body. Emma blinked away the enchantment before Regina raised her eyes, mocked her for caring.

"Perhaps a beaver would be more appropriate for Storybrooke, small but capable and productive."

"Beavers are assholes, though. Ever hear a story about a cute beaver that needs to be rescued by a human? No, you haven't because beavers are assholes. And squirrels? Those little fuckers know how to thrive anywhere. Ever been to a park in the city? They're going to take over the world one day, tiny little bodies clad in chainmail made out of bread ties, parachuting from buildings with little nut guns." Emma bolted up and to the edge of the cushion, body jostling with the consistency of a fully automatic weapon. "Commander, we're taking heavy fire. The humans have fortified the orchard. Please advise."

Regina chuckled, tucking a leg beneath the other as she turned on the sofa to watch Emma's shenanigans better. Headache forgotten, she propped a temple on her fist against the back of the couch. Emma flashed an effortless smile, obviously as entrapped in the spell they created as she.

"Your child will enjoy story time immensely with an imagination like that, Miss Swan."

A band of tension snapped tight around her young charge. Shoulders forward and coiled, not every ounce of her strength could have twisted her neck to look at Regina. "I'm not keeping it."

"After what you've experienced in the foster system, you'd willingly subject your child to such horrors?" Of course, Regina would call her out. Fair is fair.

"It's better off. It might get adopted by a good family and be okay. I know it's going to be screwed up with me. I'm choosing the lesser of two evils."

"Is that why you came to Storybrooke, Miss Swan? Do you hope someone here might accept the responsibility?" The thought had never entered Regina's mind. Emma clearly had a big heart to match her mouth, and she grasped the reality of her bleak situation better than Regina thought.

"It's totally cliché," Emma admitted with a sad little laugh.

"Storybrooke is a wonderful place to raise a child."

She expected harsh laughter. She expected ridicule for the naivety that brought her to small town nowhere, USA. She'd not expected sympathy from the one person most unlikely to give it. Soft caramel eyes greeted her as she finally faced this new Regina level she'd unlocked. For the second instance that morning, time moved beyond the moment unfolding. The scent of coffee and chocolate hung between them. Regina's makeup still caked and streaked. Gail forces whipped and brandished the groaning stilts supporting Emma's heart above the storm. Her life's story picked at her throat, climbing the previously insurmountable ice wall.

"I'm hungry," Emma blurted, forcing her pitiable existence into the well of stomach acid where it belonged. It was the first thing she thought of to end this awkward intimacy. Regina was the one person who wasn't supposed to be sentimental and mushy.

The mayor snorted and leaned forward. She understood, saw the uncertainty in those expressive green eyes. She'd worn that same expression enough, but no one else seemed to notice her inner workings. This stranger, this child, understood what it meant to experience such unimpassioned grief that expanded and contracted with a life of its own because they'd both been too damaged from birth to truly feel whole. Without speaking or ruining their intense staring contest, trembling fingers curled around a muffin from the plate on the table. Her breath caressed Emma's cheek, only a few inches between them. The girl sat perfectly still, every muscle tight, and prepared to flee from the weird intimacy pulling them closer that morning. Smoky caramel danced over her plump, pale lips, got lost in a sea of green.

Regina's breath frightened her, now closer, hotter. A surge of adrenaline excited the hair on her arms. That… that's why she cared. She had a stupid crush on Regina.

"I'm allergic to almonds," she whispered, lack of air stealing the strength from her voice. Even her hazy mind recoiled at the blatant lie. Why had she said that?

"You told Elizabeth you had none the night you arrived." Regina's voice cracked with softness. The wet warmth of breath disappeared, and Emma released a shuddering sigh. Regina was going to kiss her. Right? She'd not imagined that.

"I was pretty sure I wasn't getting nuts for dinner." A thousand reasons to stay jumped at her, beat against the fear. A thousand and one excited the wary woman to her feet. "I should go."

"I'll drive you."

"I'll walk."

"Miss Swan, have I upset you? I thought I was being quite pleasant considering you burgled into my home after I explicitly demanded otherwise." The mayor looked as confused as Emma felt. The emotions cowering in the dark corners of her mind probably hadn't even realized what she'd almost done. Then again, Regina was more self-aware than most… it's what unnerved Emma the most. Like her, Regina said and did everything deliberately, but that genuine confusion in the mayor's unusual eyes wove an entirely different tale. Pure emotions drove her actions, and now they both had no idea how to navigate the labyrinth.

"No, it's not you. I just… I just want to go okay?" If Regina responded, Emma never waited to hear it.

By the time she reached Granny's, she almost wished for that ride. Maine was damn cold and windy. Red-nosed and out of breath, she stood just inside the door of the diner, soaking up the warmth. Granny's was always warm and inviting, something she figured intentional to lull her customers into complacency and feel-goods that kept them coming back. Everyone loved a visit to a grandma who baked sweets and fed them like gluttonous royals. Emma particularly loved her blunt way of speaking. No one told the truth anymore, so that was appreciated when stumbled upon in her life.

"Well?" The woman of her thoughts barked from the food window, her eyes fixed on the grill. Creepy how wise women always knew stuff without looking. Emma waddled across the diner, almost empty in the calm before the lunch rush, and leaned crossed forearms on the ledge under a heat lamp.

"Volatile and hungover, as usual. Why do you care?"

"Regina's a good kid, just got problems like the rest of us." She shrugged. Emma watched. Something happened between Granny and Regina years ago, and it breached the point of blissful ignorance. Her ignorance set her up for a potential shit show she simply wanted to avoid. Granny cared about Regina and challenged her authority to keep her on track, not to be a pain in the ass or fight for the "little" people. Regina took care of her town, from janitor to magistrate, she saw that much. What she missed was what exactly happened between the two older women currently stretching her life in different directions.

"I'm pretty sure she has the hots for me," she tossed out casually, studying the minute but uncontrolled reactions in the old woman's wrinkles. A slight twitch of a frown, a furrow of the brow. She'd struck the right nerve. "Wow. Mayor Mills isn't nearly as boring as everyone thinks. Bitchy, beautiful, and totally not a prude." She left out the part of the story where she still felt Regina's breath on her cheek, how her body reacted to merely the thought after her sloshy trek through the freezing wind and rain.

"You stay away from that fire, girl. You'll get your ass burned." Of course Granny saw the mutual attraction anyway.

"What the hell did she do to make you so mad at her? You're not the grudge type, Granny. Is it because she was like a mom to Ruby and then abandoned her?"

"I think you should get the hell out of my diner and take the day off, girl, before I rethink our arrangement."

Emma raised her hands in surrender and backed away from the window two steps before shoving her hands into her back pockets and charged towards the door, head bowed in determination. No real destination stuck out in her mind, but she needed time alone to think before this town made her insane. No matter where she was or what she did, the precious commodity of solitude eluded her. If she didn't figure out her head and heart, she predicted disaster in the short time still left for her in Storybrooke.

Maybe the time had already come to move on before she made things worse.