Enjoy, my pretties.

Only You by Delilah

Laughter?

Emma rolled onto her side and groaned as her back popped and protested. If this damn kid didn't decide to exit her womb soon, she swore to reach up in there and rip it out herself. Him, rip him out. Green eyes flew open, wide awake when the previous night slammed into her with the entire force of an imperial army. She expected Regina to still slumber a few feet from her but only found a crumpled blanket and an empty room. A quick aural scan of the house placed the mayor in the kitchen, along with another female voice, quiet laughter and the sound of metal scraping metal. What the hell?

Emma waddled into the foyer, stiffer than she wanted to admit. Was every mother this miserable or just her? Maybe the cold worsened all of her aches and pains. Probably not the wisest choice to keep walking everywhere in the low temperatures, especially when ice threatened her balance. The internal grumblings stopped abruptly when she reached the kitchen door. Regina stood at the stove, still dressed in the same rumpled clothing she'd worn to sleep the previous night, and held Ruby about the shoulders while the girl concentrated on something in a skillet. Flour streaked her young face but barely concealed the color of her cheeks and eyes. Ruby looked happy, so did Regina.

"Now, lift up an edge. See that nice golden brown color?" Ruby nodded. "Now slide the spatula in as far as possible." Regina switched sides and wrapped her hand around Ruby's. They flipped the pancake successfully and smiled at each other – Ruby so tiny that even the short mayor looked down at her. "Now, we allow the other side to brown. Should only take a moment."

"So, you can't really time them because the heat's different on every stove and skillet?" Regina nodded and squeezed her shoulder, keeping the girl tucked against her as much as possible.

Emma cleared her throat and pretended not to have seen the tender moment. "Glad to see your head doesn't hurt too much this morning."

"Hey Emma," Ruby greeted but kept a vigilant eye on the pancake.

"Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"We're making pancakes. Regina says you can have a small one if you promise to eat your fruit without a fuss." Emma chuckled. Of course, she'd said that.

"Miss Lucas will arrive on time," Regina assured her, a clipped annoyance in her voice. Emma smiled, and Regina returned it for only a moment before throwing all of her attention at the younger girl. She kept herself distanced by using Ruby's last name, but that edgy energy she always carried stayed far away from her tone. A special, soft voice replaced it – one she assumed completely reserved for Ruby alone.

"You work in a diner, shouldn't you know how to cook?"

The two shared another grin, and Ruby glanced over her shoulder. "Granny tried to teach me once. I caught the kitchen on fire at the diner. I haven't been near a stove since then."

"How bad was it?"

Ruby giggled and leaned into Regina who answered for the girl. "Nearly two thousand dollars in repairs and a week without operation."

"It would have been longer if you hadn't paid the contractor," Ruby tossed out with very uncharacteristic bluntness.

"I wasn't aware you knew." Regina's inner life froze, waiting for rejection that never came.

Ruby shrugged and returned her focus to the pancake. Regina rubbed her back in an 'atta-girl' encouragement. The change in the tortured woman knocked Emma off her game, and if she'd not felt like an intruder before, she certainly felt it now. Regina wasn't broken or heartless. She'd just been stripped of the only things that mattered to her – her family, her daughter. If Emma hadn't seen the two of them just two weeks prior, she'd never have believed they'd been parted or that Ruby actually hated the older woman. Now, she taught her how to cook as though she'd done it every morning since they met. Emma touched her belly subconsciously. Maybe Regina would teach her son how to cook.

She almost choked on the air halfway to her lungs and coughed to cover the sudden panic.

"I'm gonna go find a bathroom. Yell when breakfast is ready." The two other women barely acknowledged her request, and Emma slipped out of the doorway, leaving them to their reunion. She really needed to pee anyway. The freaking gremlin must have slept on her bladder or something. She finally found one upstairs third from the stairs and pranced into the lavish porcelain and silver garnish.

A laugh bubbled from somewhere deep, tickling her inside until it finally exploded from her lips, and she leaned her elbows onto her knees. Nobody knew anything about Regina, what made her tick, what made her drink. She'd lost her entire family in one night, and no one knew the truth – or at least, they refused to acknowledge it. Regina was the other woman, and as such, when the life of her lover ended, so had her involvement in the family only a few days away from moving into her home and into her protection. The whole situation seemed way too fucked up to have taken place in Storybrooke, yet it made total sense in a cliché sort of way. Small town skeletons that no one talked about surfaced eventually in the strangest of ways. In this case, her very presence caused it because she risked caring for the pariah. She'd not meant to start a revolution.

"Emma?" Ruby's small voice called from the other side of the door.

"Yeah?"

"Breakfast is ready. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, be down in a minute."

As promised, a pancake waited for Emma along with her usual fruit and eggs. Hovering near the door, she joked. "So, did you magically conjure food to your kitchen?" She tried not to feel obtrusive. Ruby had invited her, right? And Regina remained silent on the subject, so she probably had nothing to say. The heady sensation of being welcomed at a family meal warmed her chest, trembled in her fingertips, coiled in her belly. They rarely ate together at the diner and never at a table.

"Don't be ridiculous, Miss Swan. The grocery store opens at six in Storybrooke," Regina clipped into coffee, raising an eyebrow as she sipped. "Do you intend to lurk in doorways or join us?"

"I'm not really hungry." Not exactly a lie. She'd probably have puked all over them if she attempted to top the knot in her belly with food. "I'm gonna watch tv." She retreated to the living room and flipped on the noise box, something to cover the soft voices floating from the small table in the kitchen. Nestled beneath a blanket that smelled like Regina's perfume, she closed her eyes and willed the dangerous thoughts from her mind. She never belonged here, despite the statements otherwise by the inhabitants of Storybrooke.

"Miss Swan?" Regina stepped into the living room fully dressed in a clean, pressed pant suit. A black and white vest with white stripes on the lapels flattered her form while also concealing it, all about perspective with that outfit. It told her that she'd probably dozed off again. "Emma, are you alright?"

First name basis, that was new. "I think I'm just tired. Almost freezing to death has that effect on a person, I guess."

Regina nodded once. "Of course, stay as long as you'd like. I must see Miss Lucas to school and attend a meeting, presently."

"So, I can't break into your house but you trust me alone in it?"

"After last night, not many secrets remain to discover. Try not to break anything," she added, covering the brief display of emotion. Regina hadn't forgotten anything her drunken self had said or done, but she refused to talk about it, at least in front of Ruby.

"I would never," Emma assure in a very un-assuring tone. Regina rolled her eyes and clicked away in insanely high heels attached to what was supposed to be winter boots. "Ya know, it's okay if people know you're short. It's better than busting your ass on ice."

No response from the mayor, but Ruby appeared in the doorway grinning. Unlike either of them, she wore her emotions for the world to see and use as it saw fit. "You okay, Em? I don't think I've ever seen you skip a meal." Her thin body perched at the edge of the sofa near her knee. Without her cape, Ruby looked so frail, so tiny.

"I could say the same about you. Don't think I've ever seen you finish a meal." The light words carried a weight that stooped the girl's shoulders.

"Granny was pissed when she found out you'd come to Regina's last night." A small hand touched her belly, searching for the unborn life that normally greeted her each morning. "Where is it?"

"He," Emma whispered.

A possessed energy slowly eclipsed her face until a smile appeared, wide and beautiful and enchanting. Damn, if Ruby's mother smiled like that, no wonder Regina fell so hard. She giggled and flung her weight at Emma's chest. She may as well been a whale because her swollen breasts twitched and protested the hug with the voracity of a torture victim.

"Rubes, my tits would like to breathe."

"Oh, right, sorry." She scrambled away but immediately wrapped herself around the protruding bump of life. "Hey, little guy." A tiny fist or foot bumped her cheek, and that stunning smile appeared again.

Emma almost shifted away, stayed to spare Ruby's feelings. She hated that she cared about Ruby's tender heart. She hated that Ruby cared about her, needed her as a friend and pillar of support. Attachments weighed her down, made her slow and weak when she needed to move, to flee. "So, how pissed is Granny that you're here?"

"She doesn't know." She would soon, though; the guilt in Ruby's voice ensured that. But, that same quiet strength from the previous night surfaced. When Ruby found her footing, she'd be a force in Storybrooke. "I'm mad at her."

Emma barely caught the laughter the petulant statement inspired and grinned down at the girl. Caramel eyes in the doorway caught her attention instead. Something there excited her heart into a war drum, thundering the impending battle into her ears. She read Regina well, but this… not this. It was tender and fierce and impassioned and muted all at the same time. Whatever Regina felt, she directed it at her but kept it close to her heart. That look reminded Emma that like Ruby, she'd become far too attached to the tortured mayor and her small, cliché town.

"Emma?" Ruby raised her head, concerned.

"What?"

"You're hyperventilating. Are you okay?" Green eyes glanced to an empty doorway. Ruby's gaze followed, finding nothing as the cause of Emma's sudden panic. "Should I get Regina?"

"No!" Ruby jumped, wide brown eyes shocked by the loud, harsh tone. Emma didn't yell at people, especially her. "Sorry, no. I'm fine," she amended quickly, soothing the fear in the other girl's eyes.

"Miss Swan," Regina called as she clicked around the corner. No trace of the emotion that slipped out only a few moments before remained in her eyes that now studied her phone. Her business suit became her suit of armor, shielding her from the people who couldn't love her. "Ms. Cochran has reminded me of an appearance I must make today at the orchard. Can you accompany me?"

Ruby pushed off Emma, her quiet energy both soothing and awkward at the same time. She'd forgotten, Emma realized. For one moment, she'd forgotten who Regina was and where they were and the sad situation of their lives together up to the point. The closed album on the coffee table taunted them, Regina at least. They might come back together, but they'd never be the same. Too many scars marred their souls to ever whole again, complete and peaceful in their reunion. And for just one second, Ruby had forgotten that. Emma's heart reached for the girl, but she silently dismissed herself to the foyer. Regina's caramel eyes remained lowered but followed the miserable girl they'd both come to love. "I'll get my cape," she murmured as she passed the mother she'd almost had.

"Since when do you ask?" Emma tossed, happy to get back to their usual mode of communication – sarcasm and bitchy demands that pulled them through emotionally charged moments. She needed to stay. Ruby and Regina needed her to stay. Her sanity needed her to stay. Storybrooke needed her to stay. Her child needed her to stay. Her son.

Hell, she wanted to stay.

"Since you decided to get lost in the woods and suffer from hypothermia," Regina responded, nonchalant and without raising her eyes from the text sent currently tapped to her assistant. If she noticed Emma's inner turmoil, she never raised an eyebrow in its direction.

"Yeah, what time?" Was that her voice? That softness, the vulnerability? Regina exploited weakness. She'd kicked Emma in the teeth every time she'd lowered her emotional wall, and she braced for impact.

Finally, those magnetic eyes raised to find stormy green flailing in emotional chaos. "I'll pick you up at 11:30," Regina said. Her mouth opened again. Air rushed into red lips, but no sound escaped the opposite direction. Crimson climbed her chest, flushed her cheeks. Emma watched, struck by the beauty of the flustered mayor – made stronger by the hint of a shy smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. She dared to speculate that Regina Mills looked happy.

"Thank you," Regina whispered, "for staying with me."

A surge of adrenaline constricted Emma's chest. Regina knew more than she said. She knew Emma had already decided to stay, despite the reservations that tugged at her anxiety. Emma nodded once, and Regina left without another word. Nothing else needed to be said. They both needed to be loved, accepted as they were without reservations or judgments. They needed a home, a place to belong… even if only in the presence of another person. And maybe, maybe it was okay to need someone. Regina's need made her weak unfulfilled, but she'd seen more strength in the lat few minutes than the past month she'd been in Storybrooke. Regina's attachments made her strong, her greatest source of strength and weakness. Regina understood need. She'd understood Emma's the second she'd set eyes on her. Emma had needed someone, and Regina yearned to be needed. It had given her inspiration, motivation, a reason to breathe and live. She knew her life meant something if someone depended on her, and if Emma were honest with herself, she understood the heady power of that sensation.

To be needed.

Maybe it was okay with Emma if Regina needed her as much.