It'd been a hard walk. Not for Regina; she was well-used to roughing it. But the uneven terrain taxed the boy greatly. And Emma was even worse. As she explained it, she'd spent years imprisoned. Some family…

Regina kept an eye on her. Emma was less liable to complain than Henry, but nonetheless, Regina watched to make sure she wasn't overexerting herself, stopping for constant breaks and encouraging Emma to take off her boots and massage her calves, lest she tear a hamstring. Going from years of inactivity—even if Emma insisted she'd kept herself exercised—to a forced march was a recipe for disaster if Regina had ever seen one.

"We're not moving until you've caught your breath," Regina said firmly. "And I said to stretch your toes."

"What is it with you and feet?" Emma demanded. "You have a foot fetish?"

"What? No, I don't have any sort of foot magic. The first month I spent in the woods, I gave myself blisters as big as a copper piece, so unless you'd like to take one of those with you back into the 'real world'…"

"You still don't believe?" Henry asked. "Then why are you helping us?"

"I saved her life!" Emma said quickly as she pulled her stockings and boots back on. "She owes me."

"When?"

"When you were asleep." Even more hurriedly, Emma turned to Regina. "Can we go now? It's almost dark. I assume there are, like, vampires?"

"No. There's a town. An hour's walk from here. The innkeeper owes me, we can spend the night there. You can also soak your feet in some salt water…"

"Oh my God!" Emma yelped as she took off at a hasty trot.

Regina followed, intent on making sure Emma didn't strain anything. Watching Emma Swan walk wasn't the worst way to keep her mind occupied. Her brain might not've been all there, but there was nothing wrong with her ass…

The innkeeper was much as Regina remembered him. More dignified when he wasn't being menaced by ogres. "I'm sorry, Regina, but we're all booked up. The best I can get you is a double. Two beds, counting the cot in the odd room."

It really wasn't so bad. The odd room was a well-sized closet and since they didn't have really any luggage to store in it, it made for a fine bedroom. Regina claimed it, telling Emma and Henry to take the main bed. "You're family. Shouldn't be that weird."

"Yeah," Emma said, "I kinda arrived after the 'I had a nightmare, can I sleep with you?' years."

"Oh?" Regina glanced at the door. Henry had gone to fetch supper. She thought he was hoping to sneak some ale. "After we had him, was he kidnapped by a wizard?"

"No… wizards…" Emma sat heavily on the bed, prying off her boots. "Look, maybe you can't remember this, but I promised I'd always be honest with you. It's kinda a thing with you."

"Oh, the other me isn't one of those people who just loves being lied to? How disappointing."

Emma eyed Regina, who laid down in her own bed. With the closet being the size it was, there wasn't much room to get out of the line of sight through the doorway, not without shutting the door. They could converse if they didn't mind craning their necks too much.

"Well, you don't care either way," Emma said. "You're in this for—well…"

"Ulterior motives," Regina concluded.

"Yeah. I don't even have to tell you anything. None of it's going to matter once you kiss Robin."

"Have you noticed me practicing for that?" Regina teased.

Emma gave her a sharp look. With her boots eased off, she worked off her stockings. Then just relaxed with her feet in open air. "It's just weird seeing you like this. Not the other way."

Regina perched herself on her elbow. "Like what?"

"Like a hero! People owe you favors and give you little tokens and whatever. You're beloved!"

"Try asking them to fight the Queen for me."

"It's just different, is all."

"Different from what?"

Emma rolled onto her side, noticing that Regina was still perched, watching her. "You sure you want to know? Trust me, it's stupid. I'm pretty sure everything you could say about it, I've said at one time or another."

"Your real world is stupid?"

"That's how you know it's real. We have these things called pennies for like no reason… and Eli Roth. Also for no reason."

"So in your world, I'm…?"

"Well… pretty much Snow White."

Regina's face fell. "I'm sleeping with Charming?"

"No, no, he's with Mary-Margaret—wait, you're not into him?"

"You are? He's supposed to be your father."

"Yeah, I know, I got his hair."

"Since Robin Hood is apparently my true love, I suppose I don't have much room to complain, but your daddy dearest is just so… so…"

"Basic?"

Regina's head turned like she had just seen someone walk on the Moon. "Yes! I don't know what that means, but that is exactly him!"

"The wonders of modern living. We don't know how to fix the economy, but we do know how to describe Blake Lively."

Regina laced her fingers under her head, relaxing on them. "So, in your world—I'm the Evil Queen and Snow White lives in the woods?"

"It starts off that way, yeah. You end up a hero, though. Promise."

"Oh?" Regina's eyes slid to Emma. "Redeemed by the power of true love?"

"I told you, we're not together. Oh, and uh, Rumpelstiltskin's the Dark One, Zelena's green… little things…"

"So, mostly I'm just in Snow White's place and she's in mine?"

"Basically."

"That seems very convenient."

"Yeah, well, they call him the Author, not the Really Good Author. I literally got sidelined by his big dumb plot. And I'm the Savior!"

"Delusions of grandeur," Regina said with a stretch. "That's nice. Why go a little crazy when you can think you're King Arthur?"

"I actually met King Arthur. Well, Lancelot. You know he's black? That kinda threw me. Am I just racist or is that a little weird?"

"Lancelot means 'I am black'."

"Really?" Emma squeaked.

"No, of course not."

Emma rolled her eyes. "You have a sense of humor here. That's weird."

"So in my official life, I am formerly evil and have no sense of humor. It's a wonder you're so fond of me."

"You feed me," Emma told her. "I'm like a stray dog. You keep leaving food out, I'll stick around."

"Cooking? Me? Unless you like squirrel—"

"You have this weird thing for apples. You're not as good at that as you think you are. But the other stuff—lasagna, meatloaf—oh my Christ, you're like a one-woman cooking show. You've even got me trying kale salad."

Regina looked at her again. "And you're sure we're not together?"

Emma laughed. "This is usually the part where you criticize my parenting."

"Why?"

"Well, Henry—it's been a while. What's taking him?"

"Assuming he is from another realm, I'd guess he's taking in the scenery. I was like that as a girl. I couldn't get enough of new places."

"And this place is, you know, safe?"

"The innkeeper'll keep an eye on him. He still owes me. Only a double room indeed!"

Emma turned on her side to fully face Regina. "Wait. So if Snow White was like you as a girl, were you like her?"

"I'm lost…" Regina yawned. "I must be tired, this bed is starting to feel comfortable…"

"But you had a happy childhood?"

"I was a princess, so, yes. Until Snow White took over the kingdom and outlawed, well, me." Her eyes traveled to Emma again. The trip came easier this time. "Why?"

"The other you… had some mommy issues."

"Didn't get me that pony when I was six? No wonder I turned to evil."

"She, uh—I assume you know Snow White's mom. And that she's not the best."

"No," Regina said simply.

"Well—that was supposed to be your mom."

"Ah. Explains a lot."

"I've always kinda wondered what you would be like if it weren't for Cora."

Regina's words were cold: "Do tell me if you manage to destroy all my happy memories of my mother."

"You're not that different."

Regina looked at her sharply. "Oh?"

"You have the same strength. No matter what Cora does to you. She just… she tricks you into thinking you don't deserve to be happy, not without jumping through a bunch of hoops, and it takes you a long time to be able to make that choice for yourself. Here, you'd just be happy. You'd be happy in a heartbeat."

"If I can choose to be happy," Regina said, "what am I doing in this lumpy secondhand bed?"

Emma scooted over. "Here. Bed's big enough for two. And that closet bed is just about munchkin-sized."

Regina was shaking her head even as she stood. "One kiss and you want to go to bed with me. I must be better at this than I thought."

"Don't flatter yourself; I just got out of prison. And it'll teach Henry an important lesson about not keeping his moms waiting."

"Well, if it'll be educational for a teenage boy, by all means, I'll ravish you…"

Emma retreated beneath the sheets. "You can stay right on your own side."

Regina agreeably slipped under the sheets, keeping to her side of the imaginary line down the center of the bed. She fisted the mattress a little before curling herself around the pillow. "That still leaves the matter of payment for…"

"Being in tomorrow's tour group, I know, I know. Let me sleep on it. I'll come up with something."

Regina watched as Emma turned on her side, away from Regina. Her posture ramrod-stiff straight down to her ass inside trousers that, Regina's good fortune, seemed a size too small.

"I'll see if I can come up with a few suggestions myself."

Regina felt a hand briskly patting her arm, quickly rubbing warmth into it, then pulling back. She blinked her eyes open, rubbed at them quickly. "It's the middle of the night…"

"Henry's asleep," Emma whispered, nodding to the closed closet door. "I thought it's about time we negotiated."

"Yeah?" Regina asked as Emma got out of the bed, bare feet padding across the floor. Her leather vest remained on the foot of the bed with Regina's fur one. "You're going in the wrong direction."

Emma stood at the foot of the bed. She leaned from one side to the other, grabbing the columns on Regina's four-poster bed. She shook them to test their sturdiness, then backed away, just standing in place. "You know what I did in the real world?"

"I have my hopes," Regina smirked.

"I was a bail bondsman. But it takes money to start that up. And I needed to get a lot of money, very fast." Emma broke the belt on her pants quickly. The first few laces of the fly were already undone. Without the buckle, her trousers virtually flew open, unveiling her bloomers over the shaded roundness of her groin. Emma grinned victoriously at how Regina's eyes stabbed at it. "Tell me—they pay women to dance in this world?"

"Yes," Regina said, hoping Emma couldn't tell how dry her mouth was. "But they wear clothes."

Emma bent down to slide her trousers down her legs. Regina could see down the top of her shirt—Emma had partially undone that too. It was a slow, subtle dance that Emma did, contorting herself down, staying down with her ass over her head as she—wiggled it.

Then she straightened up, pants in hand, and tossed them at Regina. Her legs were strong and bare and didn't have any fabric on them.

"Wimps," Emma said.

She tore her shirt from her body and her brassiere flashed into Regina's mind, seeming impossibly thin, a brushstroke, a wisp of smoke over cleavage that perfectly topped her lean stomach, the slow undulating of her torso. Then sauntering closer with hips wagging, breasts jiggling, she took hold of the poster of Regina's bed. Pressed herself to it, a thigh around the thick wooden length, working herself upon it like it was a dance partner. Regina watched breathlessly as her body arced and swayed, all flexibility and sweat. God, Emma wasn't dancing with the bedpost, it was more like she was… fucking it.

Regina reared up as Emma climbed onto the bed, still clutching the pole. She backed into the bed's headboard like she she was trying to get away, while Emma leaned back, dangling experimentally from the bedpost. Regina could see the thickness of her biceps, how taut they were, how tense. She admired Emma's strength for a moment—then Emma shook her firm ass, towards Regina, away from Regina, and all the bandit could think of was Emma's stamina.

"You want me to dance for you, Regina?" Emma asked, swinging around the bedpost to stand behind it, hooking a long leg around its length in a way that made it impossible for Regina not to think of that leg being wrapped around her. God, she wouldn't be able to go anywhere…

Belatedly, Regina realized she'd been asked a question. "I didn't think I had a choice in the matter."

"I could always stop… if this isn't going to get me a tour guide tomorrow…" Emma purred, eyes closed just enough to provoke, to make you think she was picturing something.

"One dance, one day," Regina said quickly, and Emma thrust herself against the bedpost, her covered sex touching the beveled wood.

"Not the best tip I've ever gotten," Emma purred, voice huskier, lowering herself down the bedpost before shimmying back up it, dragging her breasts over the pole. "But I didn't entirely do this for the tips. Sometimes I liked being…" Her hand wandered down, hand flat as if about to paddle her own ass, but then instead she snatched her bloomers, pulled them down over her ass—just a peek, then they were back up. Regina staring at the gauzy silhouette that had momentarily been firm, wonderful flesh. "Watched."

"Just watched?" Regina asked. "Sounds boring."

Emma leapt up onto the bedpost, legs cinching around it, holding herself up first with all four limbs, then slowly letting go with her arms so she hung upside-down from the pole between her thighs. "I had a solution for that."

Regina was speechless, just watching as Emma's sweaty thighs slipped on the smooth bedpost, bearing her slowly downward to the mattress.

"If someone was really loaded—really generous—I'd take him to the champagne room. Or her. Do you know what a champagne room is?"

Regina shook her head. Abs tensing, Emma pulled herself back up to the bedpost in a sit-up, choking it with her hands, uncoiling her legs from it, mattress groaning under her feet as she dismounted atop it. Then, as simply as you pleased, Emma took hold of her bloomers and slid them down her legs.

She had an ass that begged to be spanked, to be groped, to be fondled. Hell, Regina wanted to bury her face between those cheeks and just find out if it was anywhere near as soft as it looked. But then Emma turned around—both agonizingly slow and far too fast for Regina to get anywhere near a proper look—and when she was facing Regina, her hands were held in front of her groin. Regina could see the V of her pubis, all of her thighs and waist and tight, compact belly—all but the place she'd so briefly touched the other day.

Emma came closer, smiling at how agog Regina was. Well, maybe in the real world, you could see a next-to-naked woman with a body like that every day, but here—Regina felt like her eyes were feasting.

"I asked you if you know what I did in the champagne room?" Emma asked in a babyish voice, and Regina looked at her to give her a pronounced shake of the head. For some reason, that made Emma smile even wider. She was standing right in front of Regina now, almost pressing her into the headboard—God, could Regina smell her, or was that just her imagination? "In the champagne room, I didn't dance for everyone. I gave one lucky SOB a private dance. Do you know what that means?"

Regina's frustration boiled through her arousal. "No, I'm clearly not familiar with your idea of naked money dancing! Please stop being rhetorical!"

Emma laughed out loud. Regina would've minded even more if it hadn't been such a cute laugh.

"A private dance," Emma said, and suddenly slipped down Regina's body to straddle her lap, hands off her crotch, now on Regina's shoulders, chest upthrust so she was practically presenting her breasts to Regina. They were about the only thing that could distract Regina from the knowledge that Emma was completely bare, right next to her, the only thing between them Regina's clothes and a damnably thin sheet. "That's where I get to touch someone. And…" she added, picking up Regina's arms and draping them over her shoulders like they were about to dance. "They can touch me. If I want them to."

"And did you?" Regina asked, softly, like she could hide the lust in her voice by making it a whisper. "Want to?"

"No," Emma answered without hesitation. "None of them were like you."

Regina swallowed. "You know…" She just had to look down and she would see Emma's womanhood. It was right next to her. Right there. So why couldn't she stop looking at Emma's damn eyes? "You could buy more… tour guiding. Ahead of time, I mean."

"Yeah?" Emma asked. She brushed at Regina's arm on her left shoulder, and for a heart-stopping moment Regina thought she was going to stop her from touching Emma—but she was only moving Regina's arm so she could get to the strap of her brassiere. She tugged it down her arm.

"The whole week's travel," Regina said—practically begged. "If you play your cards right…"

Emma took hold of the sheet between them, pulled it in her direction, toward the foot of the bed… hiding herself behind it, but also exposing Regina. Regina shivered. She'd taken the slip with her when she'd left the castle as a teenager—since then, she'd clearly grown. It still fit her… just not quite all of her.

Emma's voice became a whisper that was hard as steel. "Are you wet, Regina?"

Regina nodded.

Emma's voice was even lower now. "If I touched you, would my fingers slip right inside?" Regina wouldn't have heard at all if Emma hadn't been leaning in, her lips so close they were all Regina could see.

Regina nodded harder, eyes closer, dreading Emma's touch as much as she wanted it. It had been so long. Why had Regina let it be so long? She hadn't even touched herself in weeks, but it all seemed worth it with Emma about to… everything feeling like it was supposed to feel, not shameful, quick, ugly, but right.

Emma's lips were next to Regina's. Her own mouth tingled where Emma's lips should've been minutes ago. "Would you come for me, Regina? Come so hard this bed wouldn't be dry for a week?"

"Oh, fuck!" Regina moaned, feeling like she'd come then and there. "For God's sake, would you just—"

Emma reared up. "Earn another day's transport? I thought I already had."

Regina blinked. "But… the rest of the week…"

Emma rolled off Regina. "We can work that out tomorrow." She pulled her bloomers back on. Regina hadn't even seen. "But that was a hell of a dance, right?"

"You can't just… I mean… aren't you going to…?"

Emma looked at her seriously. "Don't you know, Gina? There's no sex in the champagne room."