I'll admit those reviews made me laugh a lot!
I know that cliffhanger was kinda cruel, I'm sorry. Here, an update as promised. Have a great weekend, you amazing people!
Chapter nineteen
Emma was pretty sure Regina was yelling at her, she just couldn't quite place why.
She had always loved it when the brunette yelled at her.
She smiled when Regina Mills, that beautiful pain in the ass, stood up furiously in the middle of Mr. Medina's class to yell at her because she was just telling Ruby that she stuck chewed gum inside the keyhole to Robin Locksley's car.
She hated Robin, but she felt something else entirely for his gorgeous girlfriend.
Regina was yelling, and all Emma could see was the way her lips moved, and how her pretty face contorted in anger, and well, her boobs bouncing inside her t-shirt were really sort of hypnotic…
There was a change in the scenario and suddenly she was scared, holding Regina Mills around the waist, dragging her to the hospital, her beautiful lips covered in blood because of Storybrooke's version of Cujo.
The images faded away and then Regina Mills was the Mayor of Storybrooke, and she was yelling at her in her expensive, tailored suit and pencil skirt, and Emma could barely concentrate on her words when she turned around, exposing the most beautiful backside in the whole world.
Then she remembered a face.
A little boy's face.
He grinned at her when she reached out for him down the mine-
You made my mom happy once. Do it again.
To hell and back.
Please don't give up. I'll think about something on the way to the museum, Ma…
Then she remembered David's pager, and she remembered the fire. She literally went to hell.
I love you, kid…
Now she just needed to get back…
I need to get back to Regina. That's why she's yelling.
"We got a pulse!" the paramedic shouted. "Take her to surgery! Now!"
XXX
Regina stared blankly at Dr. Whale.
Except for the greying hair, he didn't look much different from the time she was a kid. She did not like the way he was looking at her now. It was the same look he had when he informed them that her father had died.
"You understood what I said, Regina?" he asked her quietly.
"Yes. Second degree shoulder burn. Thigh injured by splinter of wood. Two broken ribs. Perforated lung."
"She also inhaled a lot of smoke, and that complicates her situation. We're doing everything we can."
"Do more than that," Regina whispered, finally reacting and looking up at him with fear and anger in her eyes. "Do more!"
He nodded. "Excuse me."
Regina looked back down at her lap. She heard Katherine talking quietly to a nurse. Killian sat right across from her in silence. Mary was next to her, holding a cup of coffee.
"It's decaf, if you want," she said.
She shook her head, sighed and sat up straight on her uncomfortable chair. "No, thanks."
Ruby was on her feet, arms folded as she chatted with Dorothy, who was covered in dust and grime. Both women turned to the Mayor, and Ruby was the first to walk towards her.
"David's bringing Henry."
Regina nodded. "Thank you, Ruby."
"Are you feeling okay?" Sergeant Gale asked with a small frown.
"I'm not wounded. They already checked my lungs. Three times."
"I don't think that's what she means, dear."
Regina looked up and found her mother approaching her. She had dirt on her forehead and her hair no longer looked flawless, but she seemed fine.
Cora pulled Regina out of her chair and hugged her. The brunette let out a deep sigh and closed her eyes as she rested her head on her mother's shoulder.
"She's a tough woman, Regina," Cora said, smoothing the crumpled fabric of her shirt – Emma's scorched, ruined, diamond shirt. "She can make it."
"I'm scared, mom," she whispered, no longer holding back the tears as she sobbed convulsively in her mother's arms.
"I know you are," Cora patted her back gently. "You need to stay strong for her and for Henry, now."
David came hurrying down the hall, bringing Henry by the hand.
"How's she?" he asked out of breath, looking expectantly around and then at his wife. "She-?"
"She's still in surgery," Mary said, pulling him to sit down next to her.
He too looked dirty and battered.
Regina disentangled gently from her mother's embrace and bent over to hold her son. He seemed a little apprehensive as he threw his arms around her, but she knew her brave boy was doing everything he could to stand his ground.
"I told you she was the coolest person in Storybrooke," he said, turning to Cora.
The older woman felt all eyes on her. Her lips faltered a little as she stared around and at her grandson. "You were right. Why don't you sit with your mother so you can both wait for her together?"
She turned to Regina, who was watching her with curiosity. "My driver's here. You can call me if you need to stay overnight. I'll take Henry home with me."
"Why don't you wait with us?" Henry suggested before Regina could even formulate a response.
"Me?" Cora looked around again, and she found something weird in those kids' eyes. They were all grown-ups now, but to her they were just a band of rascals. And they looked hopefully at her. She refrained from rolling her eyes, but she couldn't help the small grin that insisted on crisping her lips.
She had never felt so… welcome in all her life.
"We are her family now, right?" Henry shrugged. "You can also say sorry when she wakes up."
Cora immediately searched for her daughter's face. Regina had that same look of hope she always threw her father's way when she felt doubtful when she was younger.
"I guess I could stay and wait with you," Cora said finally, taking a seat next to her grandson.
XXX
It was past midnight.
Ruby yawned and let her head fall on Dorothy's shoulder. Henry was fast asleep, stretched in two chairs Killian had put together and added a blanket he got with one of the nurses, to make it more comfortable.
"You should all go home," Regina muttered to her friends.
They began to protest, but when Ruby was unable to stifle a second yawn, Cora stood up from her chair.
"Go get some rest, all of you," she said in a bossy tone. No one dared to say a word as they started to get up, one by one. Maybe it was because she was the only parent left, but it was most likely that they all still were terrified of the Evil Bitch.
"You're going home with Henry?" Regina asked her mother.
"I was thinking I'd rather stay. If you don't mind me joining you," Cora said. "I suppose your friends wouldn't mind-"
"We'll take him," Mary said, approaching the two women.
"Are you sure?" Regina frowned. "It looks like all you do now is watch my son because I-"
"Because you're waiting for Emma to get out of surgery," Cora interrupted her. "You'll have plenty of time to stay with him after this. Thank you very much, Mrs. Nolan. And you, Deputy."
Regina wanted to laugh at the shocked expressions on MM and David's faces. Cora had never been nice or even polite to any of them.
"Thank you," Regina said to the couple, grinning as she watched Cora shake hands with Katherine, Killian, Dorothy and Ruby to wave them off. "I think she might have had a concussion and the doctors missed it."
"Or maybe things are just… changing," Mary said to her, sighing with a proud smile when her husband picked Henry and placed him gently on his shoulder without waking him up.
Regina sat down once again, hugging her knees against her body, and she felt her mother placing a blanket around her shoulders. Cora didn't even scold her for putting her feet up the chair.
"What are you doing?" she asked quietly. "Why are you doing this?"
Cora sighed, avoiding her daughter's eyes. "I'm your mother. That's what mothers do."
XXX
"What's wrong?" David asked with a frown.
Henry was sleeping on their bed, and after they cleaned up, they sat together on the couch, and Mary wouldn't stop glancing at him.
"Nothing."
"You wouldn't stop staring at me while I carried him upstairs. And all the way from the hospital here."
"I was just…" Mary shrugged. "Just watching."
David frowned and turned back to the movie on the TV. He glanced at his pager. Nothing about Emma yet.
"You'll be an excellent father, you know," she said cautiously, her eyes glued on the screen even though it was obvious that she wasn't actually paying attention.
David felt his heart jolt as he remembered what Emma had said earlier that day.
"Honey?"
"Mm?"
"Did the test turn out… positive?"
XXX
When Dr. Whale showed up around the corner, Cora looked up at him. Regina was sleeping with her head against the wall, and for a moment, she looked so young…
Her mother stood up and beckoned the doctor to take a few steps aside.
"She fell asleep just ten minutes ago. How's-?"
"Everything went fine. She's stable, and she might wake up at any moment now."
"Oh!" Cora sighed, relieved. "That's good. Thank you, Dr. Whale…"
"Is she alive?"
They both turned to the side when they heard Regina's weak, hoarse voice.
"She's alive," Whale grinned at her.
"Where's she?" Regina asked with a tearful smile, getting on her feet.
"Recovery room two," he said. "You can go stay with her."
The brunette grabbed her purse and offered the pair a smile of relief before spinning on her heels and running to the recovery aisle.
Her heart was thudding in her ears, and when she entered the room and saw Emma, she had a meltdown.
The blonde looked peaceful, supporting a few visible bruises. Her shoulder was covered in lotion and Regina could see bandages around her torso. She dragged the armchair closer and sat down, reaching out for Emma's hands as she dropped her head on the mattress and let all the pain out.
"Please, come back to me…"
She stayed there for hours, it felt. She dozed off and woke up several times, never letting go of the blonde's hand. Cora entered the room early in the morning.
"She's like a… bull. Dr. Whale explained to me everything she went through… I… I'm so sorry, Regina. Your father was right, and you were right, and…"
The brunette moved automatically to hug her mother. It was still strange how the foreign gesture became so compulsive in the last twenty four hours.
Then a weak voice spoke.
"Hey… I'm not dead yet."
"Oh God, you woke up!" Regina hurried to the side of the bed, her heart melting with the sight of green eyes. "You… You saved me, you saved us all and… And I should… God, you are SO IRRESPONSIBLE! WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, EMMA?"
"I was going to call Dr. Whale, but I think that's announcement enough," Cora said, surprised with how fast the romance was gone and replaced by all the yelling.
"-COULD'VE DIED! AGAIN! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO DIE ANYMORE! WHAT WOULD I SAY TO HENRY-?"
And then she was sobbing in Emma's arms, halfway on top of the bed, hugging her desperately. "Don't ever do this to me again," Regina whispered against the crook of her neck.
Emma watched as Cora discreetly left the room. She planted a kiss on Regina's head, holding her strongly against her wounded body, ignoring all the pain. She could live in pain forever, but never, ever again without that woman.
The blonde held her close, inhaling her scent as Regina calmed down and the sobbing subdued. Her breathing became regular again, and after about one hour, Emma noticed she had fallen asleep.
Cora returned, and she looked slightly surprised that it was her daughter sleeping and not Emma.
"I think she was tired," Emma said quietly.
"She… Yes. She probably is."
Emma looked down at the spiky black hair splattered on her shoulder and chest. Cora was watching her when she looked up again.
"What? Came here to finish the job?"
"Sheriff Swan, that's-"
"I'm joking," Emma chuckled, wincing in pain with the movement.
Cora glared at her, like she was facing the impossible child that Emma Swan had always been, but then she approached the other side of the bed and the look on her face was different.
"That was inappropriate."
Emma stared down at Regina again, wishing she would wake up and take her mother out of the room, but neither did the brunette wake up nor did Cora left.
"It does look like you want to kill me a little bit," Emma muttered, resting back on her pillow and closing her eyes as she distractedly stroked Regina's hair.
"I would never... I don't like you, it doesn't mean I want you dead."
Emma's eyes snapped open. "Oh, that's… nice, thanks."
Cora sighed deeply.
"I used to hate you when you were a kid."
"And after I grew up too."
"Well, I hated just how much you tormented my daughter when you were younger. That was my way to stand up to her. I'm… Her father was kinder. With his words and with his grand gestures, but I was protecting my daughter, too, Miss Swan."
Her voice was slightly shaky, and Emma wasn't very sure, but she could've sworn that she saw her lower lip tremble.
"I was not always just and good, but I wanted the best for her. I wanted her to have a great life, and great things…"
"Sorry to disappoint."
Cora ignored Emma. "If she has a person that fought a dog for her, fell from a rooftop to see her-" she scoffed at Emma's wide eyes. "Yes, I always knew that was you… If she has a person who'd throw herself down a collapsing mine to save her son… If she has a person who got inside a building on fire to save her…"
"Mrs. Mills-"
"She will have a great life, Sheriff. And I know you will do anything within your reach to make them both happy. And to keep them safe. That's the only thing they need, and you sure can… provide that."
"I don't-"
"It's rude to interrupt, don't you know that?" Cora spat impatiently. "Dear Lord, I'm enrolling you in etiquette classes as soon as you're discharged! You're not going to date my daughter with those manners, Miss Swan!"
Emma was in shock for about a minute after Cora Mills stormed out of the room. Then she started to laugh, and that made Regina wake up.
The brunette looked confused at Emma as she stirred from her lap.
"Hi," the blonde said with a smile.
"I thought I heard… Was my mother here?"
"Yeah," Emma entwined their fingers together, watching every detail of Regina's face. Her scar, her lips, her nose, the outline of her beautiful brown eyes...
"Was she just scolding you?"
"Yes."
"I can't believe her-"
"Hey, Mills," Emma pulled Regina to her and grinned, that shit-eating grin that made Regina's body tingle. "I think your mother just gave me her blessing to date you."
XXX
Emma was discharged three days later, and on the meantime, Town Hall issues were being handled at the Mills mansion.
Katherine was pretty much in charge of shunting nosy journalists who wanted to talk to Regina about her allegedly Savior, as people were referring to Emma after the second disaster and a total of three Mills rescued since she returned to Storybrooke.
David ran full investigation with the fire department, trying to relate the seemingly innocent letters Regina received with the incident. Sergeant Gale and her team searched every inch that was left of Town Hall – it had been a misfortune and a flawed system, but nothing indicated that someone had deliberately messed with it.
As second in command, David was mostly busy, but he used all his free time to offer cigars to people, and when they asked why, he would smile from ear to ear and announce that Mary was expecting a child.
"You don't even know if it's a boy," Killian said to him, sniffing it. It was the third David handled him, and he finally decided to cut and light one.
"No smoking, Captain," Regina snatched the cigar from his hand as she passed by him to get to Emma's fridge.
"Hey!"
"Besides, why does it have to be a boy?" Ruby passed the vegetables to Regina so that the brunette could stash them on the lower compartment of the refrigerator. "We should handle cigars for girls, too."
"I don't care if it's a boy, a girl, or one of each, no one is smoking here!" Regina snapped, and they all went silent.
They were all crumpled in Emma's small kitchen. Ruby and Dorothy went grocery shopping, Killian cleaned the house, and David and MM took turns helping Regina with Emma's bandages.
"I want a cigar," Emma grunted from the living room.
Regina sighed and passed the paper bag to Ruby. "Finish this, please."
She stopped by the archway and smiled at the sight of the blonde and her son sitting side by side on the couch, playing with her old Atari.
"Your mom sucked at this," Emma muttered to Henry, her eyes glued on the TV screen, fully aware that the brunette was at the door.
"She tickled me when I was beating her," Regina said, folding her arms as she walked in. She joined them so that Henry was squeezed between the two women on the couch.
Emma looked at her over Henry's head.
She had been mostly grumpy for staying home all day, doing nothing, and she was more than happy when the brunette assembled the group to stay with them on Friday night.
She smiled at Regina, who reached out behind her son to hold Emma's hand.
XXX
"You really don't have to stay here," Emma mumbled as Regina adjusted her body on the other module of the 'L' shaped couch.
Regina flipped on her belly to stare at the blonde behind her. "Do you want us to leave?"
Emma smirked at her lascivious dark eyes. "You're lucky I can't move, Mills."
"What would you do if you could?" she hissed, making Emma's body ache.
"First, make sure your kid is a heavy sleeper-"
Regina laughed. "Well, you can't be serious that it makes you so uncomfortable. How's that going to work if we live together?" the brunette realized what she had just said and her eyes lost all the amusement. "I mean, I'm not saying we'll do that, and I'm not suggesting-"
"Regina, come here," Emma interrupted her gently, patting the space on her couch. When the brunette sat down next to her, she clasped her hand with hers, squeezing it until the other woman looked up at her. "I said I wanted a home, didn't I?"
Regina inhaled deeply. "Yes. You did."
"Well… I didn't come back from the dead to break any promises..."
"I should go back to my couch," she whispered in Emma's ear with a naughty smirk. "The things you say… It makes me want to straddle you and have you inside of me."
"Jesus Christ, I think I just broke another rib," Emma groaned. "Get out of my couch, Mills."
Chuckling, Regina walked back to her arrangement of pillows and bedsheets. She lied on her side and pulled the covers up to her shoulders, feeling hard to fall asleep with all the throbbing between her legs.
"You know," she heard Emma say. "You look cute and all wearing my old clothes as pajamas… but I miss the 'sleep in the nude' days."
Regina grinned. "My son is sleeping next door!"
"Well, you better figure it out how to do it when we all live together in the same house, Madam Mayor."
The brunette moaned under her breath, pulling the blanket over her head, picturing the exact dirty smirk Emma might have on her face.
"Go to sleep. Idiot."
She heard Emma chuckle. "Sleep well, Mills."
XXX
Regina sat proudly on the front row of the school auditorium.
She had Katherine cancel most of her appointments to be there, and she was glad she did when she caught the look on Henry's face upon seeing her arrive.
His class was going to sing a song for mother's day as one of the students played the piano, and he waved nervously at her from his spot on the stage. Regina waved back eagerly.
She saw MM running behind the last row of students, and she looked slightly nervous too.
Henry's face lit up again and he smiled in his mom's direction. Regina frowned in confusion, but when she followed his eyes, she noticed he was looking slightly to her right. The brunette turned around and saw Emma standing there.
"Hi," she breathed, flushing slightly.
"Hi!" Regina grinned, making room for her to sit down. "You really came!"
"I told him I would," Emma muttered.
"I know Henry can be a little… persistent. But you didn't have to come, you're still staggering a bit."
"I'm okay," Emma squeezed her lips into a tight smile.
"Are you sure you're okay?" Regina asked with a frown.
The blonde sighed, avoiding her eyes for a moment. When she looked up, she seemed hesitant.
"Emma, what's wrong?"
"The day I took Henry to the bus… for his school trip… he called me Ma."
Regina stiffened on her seat. "Oh. He didn't tell me that."
"Yeah, I think… he was a little embarrassed," Emma said with an awkward chuckle.
"It's okay if that… freaked you out a little," the brunette said gently.
"It didn't," Emma turned her green eyes at her and met expectant brown ones. She smiled. "It was the moment I realized that I loved him. He called me Ma, and my first reaction was to tell him that I loved him."
"Did you?" Regina whispered. The lights went out and the audience went heavily silent. The kid on the piano started to play.
"I held back. I was afraid of… getting his hopes up." Getting her hopes up.
Regina felt Emma grabbing her hand like she did when they went to see Cujo at the theater.
"And now?" the brunette asked quietly, leaning close to Emma's ear.
"Now I'm sitting on his Mother's Day recital," Emma whispered back, grinning as she turned her proud eyes away from the stage for a second to look at Regina.
The brunette laced their fingers together and leaned closer so that she could rest her shoulder against Emma's. "Thank you."
She felt Emma pressing her lips against her temple and sigh. "Let's hope he's not a bad singer like you."
"I'm not a bad singer!" Regina hissed, smacking her arm.
"Oh, see?" Emma pointed at Henry as if he were the only child singing on the stage. "He's on tune. And look at his face… He has my smile."
Regina looked up at Emma with a huge grin the blonde didn't notice. "Yes he does," she muttered, turning to the front to watch her son.
Their son.
