It's somewhat early when Emma slides out of bed, hissing when the cold air hits her bare skin, and picks up her discarded clothes, pulling them on as she moves around the room. Regina watches from under heavy-lidded eyes, curled on her side with the covers tucked right up under her chin. The inside of her thighs are still vaguely sticky, and her muscles ache from her knees up to her navel; some spot on the underside of her breast throbs and she can feel the dried sweat on her body, craves a shower. All that and she still can't help but smile sleepily when Emma stubs her toe on the foot of the bed and curses loudly. "Careful," she murmurs, and Emma turns to face her with a sheepish smile.
"Sorry—I didn't want to wake you."
Regina hums, rolls onto her back and stretches her legs out, wiggles her toes a little. "So you were just going to sneak out of my bed without a word, then?" Emma's sheepish expression morphs to stricken, and Regina lets out a low, throaty giggle, and another—higher-pitched—when Emma sticks out her tongue petulantly. "Graceful and witty," Regina teases, "how did I get so lucky?"
Emma shakes her head, still smiling, then drops her jacket back on the floor and crawls up the bed, props herself up with her hands just above Regina's shoulders. "Don't forget classy and charming."
Regina rolls her eyes, can't help but smile when Emma kisses her. "Definitely not charming."
"No?"
"Not a bit," she murmurs, prepares for another kiss, but lets out a stifled shriek when Emma sits back, straddling her hips, and starts to pull back the covers. "No, it's cold!"
"So my ass can freeze, but yours can't?" Her grip on the edge of the comforter is the first thing Emma attacks, first trying to wrench the covers from her, then lowering her mouth to flick her tongue against Regina's fingertips, nibble at them intermittently.
"Mine's too nice," she retorts, and tries to push Emma's face away—which is the mistake. As soon as her right hand lets go of the blankets, Emma pins her free hand and drags the covers back, exposing her body to the cold and forcing another yelp from her. "Emma," she complains.
And then she has no reason to complain, because Emma, practically hypnotized, leans forward, presses warm dry kisses around each pebbling nipple but leaves them untouched. Instead, she kisses her way to the sore spot on the inside curve of her breast, laves her tongue over it slowly. "Does it hurt?" she asks, and her breath is moist and hot.
Regina bites down on her lower lip, peers down at her chest to see the mottled mark, deep red with darker impressions of Emma's teeth. "A little sore," she admits, and sighs when Emma closes her eyes, noses and then grazes her lips over the bruise. "I like it."
Emma freezes, eyes snapping open. "How much?" she whispers, and her lips seal onto Regina's skin at the end of the question. She doesn't wait for a response before resetting her mouth, letting her bottom teeth scrape down so she can suck the bruise into her mouth again.
Regina gasps, and arches into it, and when Emma's fingers rake up her ribcage to finally, finally tease her nipple, she has to grab at something—Emma's shoulder, and her messy hair, and she digs into the fabric of the sweater and fists her hand in those curls. "What happened," she hisses, and loses her words briefly when Emma bites down, gets them back when she releases her skin with a wet pop, "to sneaking out without a word?"
Keeping her eyes on her handiwork, Emma just chuckles, sits up and grabs onto the hem of her sweater, strips in one smooth motion. "We don't have to talk," she drawls, but when she looks at Regina her eyes are bright, bright, bright, so bright that Regina doesn't even have a choice, doesn't stand a chance.
She sits up and kisses her and strokes the dimples beside her spine and kisses her and traces the scratches on her shoulders and kisses her and Emma loses patience, unhooks her own bra and tosses it to the side. It's cold and they'd forgotten, and Emma whines against Regina's mouth until she brings her hands up to lightly cup, squeeze, caress Emma's breasts. "C'mere," Regina murmurs, drawing back so Emma follows, pulling her close so their torsos press together and kicking her feet just enough to get the sheets out from between them. "C'mere," she says again, and Emma kisses her distractedly, reaching back to pull the blankets over them again.
Their little cocoon of white sheets and white blankets gets hot quickly, but Regina relishes it, savors how everything slows down a little. She leaves wet, wet kisses up the column of Emma's neck, humming into the skin every time Emma's steadily wandering hands stroke some particularly sensitive strip of skin. The softness on the back of her thigh is a particularly good spot, and Emma traces up and down and up again until Regina spreads her legs a little wider, draws her legs up to hook her ankles around Emma's thighs. Emma, who's been hovering, who's been propping herself up, lets out this soft sigh, right into Regina's mouth, and lets her hips drop to grind against Regina's wetness.
She doesn't expect to respond as strongly as she does, but she's not used to stiff denim scraping at her like that, or remotely prepared for the cold metal button that just misses her clit. Emma laughs at her moan, presses against her harder and squeezes her ass with one hand. "Again," Regina commands, and Emma grins, rolls her hips slowly, gentler than before. It's just right—Emma is always just right—and Regina lets her breath stutter out of her. Emma grinds once more, and Regina sucks in air, touches her cheek. "Chafing now," she says, and smiles when Emma slides down just enough to bring her lower abs in line with Regina's cunt, drops an apologetic kiss between the points of her collarbones.
They trade lazy, lazy kisses, touching slowly but confidently. Regina knows to use her nails—lightly over that taut stomach, lighter still when she touches pink nipples and pale pale breasts, hard and harder on Emma's arms and shoulders, ass and thighs. She knows to bring her own pelvis higher and make sure Emma doesn't hold a position that'll stress her back too much, to be gentle when she squeezes her thighs around Emma's waist and presses harder with her right, rolling them so she tops. She uses her teeth and her tongue to mark her path down Emma's body, both hands to unbutton her jeans, toys with the zipper for far longer than she should—but when Emma holds her breath just so, whimpers just so, how can she resist?
The alarm goes off, blaring and obnoxious, and Emma half-slaps, half-punches the little digital display, manages to silence it. "Ignore that," she orders, and Regina smirks, finally tugs the zipper down. It goes off again before she's even pulled them four inches from Emma's hips, and Emma hits it again, but it's too late; Regina releases the denim, sits back on Emma's thighs. Emma pouts, and then scowls when the alarm goes off a third time.
Chuckling, Regina leans over to the nightstand, flicks the alarm switch off and lets her body follow her shift in balance to fall onto the mattress next to Emma. "You should go shower," she says softly, and curls her body slightly, brings her knees up to rest against Emma's hip.
"Fuck a shower," Emma grumbles, and turns towards her, slides a hand up her calf and tugs at the back of her knee to try and bring her close again.
"You have to go to work," she points out, but accepts Emma's still pouting kiss anyway.
"Fuck work."
"You have to take our son to school."
"Fuck—" and Emma cuts herself off, grimaces. "—me," she sighs, and flops onto her back.
Regina laughs, low and breathy. "After your shift, dear," she teases, and just smirks when Emma glares at her.
It's maybe not the best move, because Emma suddenly throws off all the blankets, baring both of their bodies to the air, and gets out of bed with rough, irritated movements. Regina's just moving to pull the blankets over herself again when Emma grabs her by the ankles and yanks, hard, drags her to the edge of the bed. "Emma—what—" she sputters, before Emma slides both hands under her ass and lifts, hoisting Regina against her body. It's sudden and startling and Regina shrieks, clings to Emma with her legs around her waist and her arms around her neck. "What the hell are you doing!"
"Going to shower," Emma says shortly, but then lets a tiny smile sneak out. "And you're coming." She adds a quick wink. "Promise."
Regina laughs so hard that she doesn't even care that Emma almost drops her twice on the way to the bathroom.
The next time, the call comes from the hospital, right when Regina is about to put the pies in the oven. It's the day before Christmas Eve and Henry apparently promised both David and Fred that Regina's bourbon pecan pie would be on the menu—although she's fairly certain Henry is merely taking the fall for Emma—so she's baking again. It's been… a long time, since she properly baked anything, and she has to keep stopping to remind herself that all of the ingredients are good, and safe, and unhistoried, and she was asked. She was asked, so it's okay.
But then the call comes from the hospital and nothing's okay, at all.
They won't let her see him when she gets there, because he's not conscious and they're still stitching him up, and she just about loses her mind, because why does he need stitches, and what do they mean still, and the nurse who's trying to handle her keeps putting hands on her and—
And then Emma's there, and the nurse has her hands full with Emma, who's shouting and demanding to talk to a doctor and honestly scaring the hell out of everyone in the waiting room. "Sheriff," the nurse keeps saying, "Sheriff, Dr. Gulliver is still tending to your son—"
"Gulliver? Like the fucking travels? Some fucking Lilliputian who wrote a book while on shrooms is stitching up my kid?"
"Sheriff, he is taller than you and an excellent doctor—"
The double doors to the ER swing open, and the man who's suddenly facing them both is so familiar, so familiar—the woodcutter. Michael Tillman. It's Michael Tillman looking at them with shock and slight fear on his face, and his hand on Nicholas's shoulder, and Nicholas—
"Nick?" Emma whispers, and sidesteps the nurse, takes one step towards the Tillmans and stops when Michael pulls Nick back against him. Regina takes inventory in silence: blood-stained shirt, cuts and bruises on his face, bloody knuckles, but he's walking. He's going home. They can't even see Henry yet but Nicholas is going home. "Nick, they—were you with him? Did you see who did this to him?"
She wants to pull Emma back, to put distance and her whole body in between Emma and the truth, but she just can't move, her whole body is burning, and she can't can't can't.
So when Emma gets it, when she looks at Nicholas and sees it, she actually manages to take one more step forward, one horrible staggering step, and Regina almost falls forward in the rush to stop her from following through with that realization. "Emma—Emma," she whispers, but it's no good.
Emma looks at Michael, and then at Nicholas, and her whole body surges forward another step. "He's your friend," she hisses, "he's brought you home, you fucking little shit, he's your friend!"
Regina grabs at Emma's wrist and her waist, tries to pull her back, and as soon as she touches Emma it's all over because when her hands come forward, fingers splayed out in fear and desperation, Michael moves to shield Nicholas with his own body.
All the solid rage in Emma's body collapses, and Regina ends up half supporting her weight and she can't. She can't, because Emma caving like this means—means something terrible. Means the same thing it did last time they stood here without their son, the same thing it meant the last time Henry suffered because of her.
"There's no magic," Emma whispers, and turns her wrist out of Regina's grasp only to bring their hands together again, only to hold fast. "There's no magic. Don't you—why would you do this to him? What did he ever do wrong?"
Regina doesn't look at Michael, and she doesn't look at Nicholas, because she knows what she'll see. She just looks at Emma, and waits for her, and waits for her. When those sea-sweet eyes finally meet hers, the fire she wants to see, the fire she should be seeing is banked. Emma just looks at her with such sorrow, such resignation—Regina crumples.
The bay doors open again, and a tall, graying man in wrinkled scrubs steps through. "Henry Mills?" he calls, and Emma's hand tightens around hers.
They set Henry up in an ICU room with windows that look out over the hospital courtyard. It's the only thing about the room that she's capable of taking in: the wide, bright windows and the empty brick on the other side. The room isn't important; what's important is that his chest is rising and falling without the aid of any machines, and the muted monitors on the left of his bed flash green numbers every sixty seconds. What's important is that his ankle is compressed and elevated and his arm has been set in a cast and the split skin at his jawline has been stitched closed and his ribs have been wrapped tightly. What's important is that he's going to wake up.
Emma is gone. She'd stayed long enough to hold Regina through the worst of the tears, long enough to speak in low tones with Dr. Gulliver about what kind of weapon would cause the blunt force trauma to Henry's torso. Long enough to touch the backs of her fingers to the uninjured side of Henry's jaw, to press a kiss to his cheek and whisper something hoarse and cracking to him. And then she'd straightened up and given Regina that small, shy, all-softness smile, and left with Mulan.
And yes, Regina wants her here, but with the way the anger was vibrating in Emma's fingertips, leaving was the best thing. Leaving means Emma can do something, anything to make it stop for good. She doesn't care if it means the whole lacrosse team gets sent to juvenile detention; if there were magic—
She cuts the thought off just as David presses the button for the automatic door and wheels into the room, comes around the bed to stop next to Regina's chair. "Hey," he says quietly.
"Hi."
"Emma called," he says, and Regina almost smiles, nods in understanding. "Snow's getting coffee for us—if that's all right?"
"Coffee would be good," she says quietly.
"How is he?"
She runs through the list of his injuries: bruised and fractured ribs, sprained ankle, broken arm, 9 total stitches to various cuts including his jawline, and a mild-to-moderate traumatic brain injury that they can't really assess until he wakes up. She doesn't repeat any of the warning words Gulliver had said, quietly and cautiously, like aphasias and alexithymia and dysarthria.
David stays quiet while she speaks, fists clenching sporadically around the metal handrims. The monitors beep softly to mark the half-hour measurement and recording. Henry's blood pressure is getting better, up to 90 from the 65 it was when she first sat down. "You shouldn't blame yourself."
She closes her eyes, searches for just an ounce of patience. Emma gets it, at least, understands that there are actions and reactions and that sometimes the reaction travels through space and time in a curve, not a straight line. "Please don't."
"Regina," he says strongly, and when she finally looks at him, he has that same patient clarity to his eyes that Emma shows her when she's afraid. "There is no crime in existence that would justify attacking your child."
She scoffs, looks away. Stupid David. As if Emma was the only child ripped from her parents because of the curse. As if the Charmings were the only family to sacrifice.
"I know about the Tillmans. And Grace. And the Barretts. And I'm telling you now, there's nothing that justifies hurting Henry. You did not bring this on him."
She thinks again of the high ridge to the Hangman's Tree and how she and Snow had been knocked to the ground but David and Emma, always the vanguard, had been thrown. Thinks of the dull thud and then the sharp crack when David's body collided with the trunk of a jack pine and Emma's body had hit him. Thinks of how he'd screamed soundlessly until the pain overwhelmed him, knocked him unconscious. How he's never once looked at Henry with anything but love and adoration and yes, exasperation—but never with bitterness, never with anger.
"Not everyone has the pure heart of a shepherd," she hisses, and looks away before he can see the salt stinging at her eyes.
He clearly wants to say more, but the door clicks open and Snow hesitates with a cardboard tray of coffee in hand. Henry has her eyes—glimmering hazel, always so full of emotion. "Oh," Snow whispers, and takes a step towards the bed, lets the door fall closed behind her. "Oh, Henry."
No one speaks while Snow stands there and just looks at Henry. Regina doesn't have it in her to watch—can't stomach the tears that will inevitably rise, the sympathy. She knows Snow will want the doctor's report but she doesn't have that in her, either. All she has is the certainty that Henry will wake up and Emma will make this world safe for him again and Regina will learn to break bones with her bare hands to keep it that way. Never again. They'd promised.
There are hands on her knees, cold through the sheer tights, and she looks up to see Snow crouched in front of her. The coffee tray is on David's lap; Snow's trapped them both where they sit. "I'm sorry," Snow says, and Regina bites her tongue, hard, relishes the pain of her incisors digging in. "I handled this whole thing badly. I'm sorry. I should have done things differently, done more to protect him."
She wants to scream and yell and tear the hair out of Snow's empty little head but she can't. Can never. "Yes," she finally says, almost hisses. "Yes. You handled it wrong and you should have protected him."
Snow tears up, swallows nervously, but doesn't look away, doesn't flinch.
Exhausted, Regina brushes Snow's hands from her knees. "Get off the floor, you'll dirty your coat," she says, and gestures to the chair on her left.
Snow does as told, and David hands Regina a cup with her name on it, and she sits back in her chair and waits.