Chapter 2.
"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
Regina grumbled as she reached out to hit the snooze button but the loud beeping continued. She jumped up in her bed.
'That's the smoke detector. HENRY!'
She ran down the stairs to the kitchen only to find Snow White scraping burnt pancake batter off her frying pan while David was turning the smoke detector in his hands trying to find the off switch.
"What are you doing?" She snatched the detector out of David's hands and hit the reset button taking a small amount of solace in the silence.
"We were making pancakes and we got a bit distracted." Snow answered blushing as she looked bashfully at her husband making Regina stare at the two with wide eyes.
'Were they fooling around in my kitchen. Oh god keep the vomit down. Keep it down.'
"Sorry if we woke you..." Snow said cautiously.
Regina grabbed her pan from the pixie haired woman. "Don't scrape it off with a spoon! You leave it to soak...G-get out of my kitchen." She gripped the counter by the sink and counted to ten trying to calm herself. Snow dragged her husband away.
"I never got breakfast though..."
Emma having been woken by the smoke alarm wandered quietly into the room to get a glass of juice.
"And another thing!" Regina whirled around holding up her pan. Her face relaxed when she saw a startled blonde.
"Hi." Emma said nervously before sipping her apple juice. "Not a morning person?"
Regina dropped the pan in the sink. "It is only 8am and already your parents have ruined a frying pan, a smoke detector and woke me." She realised then that in her hast to make sure Henry was okay she hadn't even ran a brush to her hair. She tried to smooth it down nervously. She ran her eyes over Emma's legs that were on show, she hadn't seen them since she brought her a basket of apples more that a year ago.
"Yeah they're like that...I'm surprised you invited us all to stay with you." Emma stated looking in the fridge for something to eat.
"I didn't invite them." She said sighing. "I invited you and Henry and they tagged along." Regina groaned looking at the mess around her kitchen. "And they messed up my kitchen."
Emma was speechless. Regina had invited her and sure she knew that the day before but knowing that she just wanted her and Henry to move in made her stomach to a small flip. "You can go relax. I'll clean up."
Regina raised an eyebrow. "You will clean up? You Emma Swan?"
Emma rolled her eyes. "I can clean. I had a few cleaning jobs when I got out of juvie..Stop giving me that look. I can get this mess under control."
The mayor relented and walked past Emma on her way up the stairs. "Wait Regina."
She whirled around. "Yeah?"
"Blue satin suits you." Emma said with a small smirk.
"They are silk." Regina shook her head as Emma started sniggering with her back to her. "Nice shorts...are you not freezing?"
"I am but my longer pyjamas bottoms need to be washed." Emma told her as she ran the water.
"You can borrow a pair of mine until then if you'd like...I wouldn't want to get the blame for giving the sheriff pneumonia."
Emma smiled broadly at the random act of kindness and at how cute Regina looked when she crossed her arms. "That's really nice but I don't think they'd fit."
"Did you just call me fat?"
"What no, I meant me." Emma corrected making Regina frown.
"You are the same size as me." She said as she looked the blonde over making her squirm. Emma scoffed.
"No your body is perfect." She blushed realizing what she said. "I mean...no it's the truth."
The mayor gave her a genuine smile as her cheeks tinted pink. She looked down bashfully as she spoke. "Well...uh you are certainly no slouch."
"I wish I had your ass." Emma admitted tucking her hair behind her ear.
"Why yours looks gre-good?" Regina let out a nervous laugh. "So uh...I should get ready...I will leave some silk pyjama bottoms on your bed." She quickly walked out of the blonde's eyeline.
'Way to keep it together, what the hell was that?!'
'I wish I had your ass? I might as well have told her I carried a watermelon. But she did say she liked my ass.'
Emma did a mini victory dance as she cleaned up.
"Are we having pancakes?"
"Jeez kid! We need to put a bell on you." She said with her hand over her heart.
"Why are you so happy?" He asked looking at her suspiciously.
"Just having a good morning."
#
Later that evening Henry had managed to convince the adults in the house that they needed a Christmas tree. Regina and David went out reluctantly together and returned without either one biting the other's head off and a large fir tree that just barely made it through the front door. David set it up while Snow baked cookies with her grandson and Emma helped Regina retrieve the decorations from the attic.
Emma was up a ladder halfway shining a torch while Regina stood below her holding the ladder steady with her eyes on Emma's ass.
"Where are the decorations exactly?"
"Huh uh...I'm sorry I didn't hear you."
"The decorations? Where are they?"
"Oh the far left. Near the rocking horse...Do you see it?" Emma turned her head and saw the two rocking horses; one was wooden and appeared to be handcrafted and the other was plastic and bright blue.
"Yeah I see two. Henry liked horses huh?" Emma pulled herself up into the attic and trudged past cobwebs to get the boxes marked "Christmas" past the horses.
"Not really, I was hoping he might but he had zero interest until he got that book and by then he had grown out of those."
Emma grazed her fingers over them and looked around seeing a red tricycle, a small fire engine truck, a dusty chalkboard with big plastic letters spelling ABC and a box marked "Baby clothes." She bent down and opened it looking at the baby blue onsies. A tear rolled down her cheek as she looked at the little hats in the box.
"Emma! Did you find it?" Regina called out.
She wiped her cheeks roughly and blinked several times. "Yeah. Sorry be one minute." She grabbed the boxes and handed them down to Regina before descending down the ladder.
"Are you okay?" Regina asked furrowing her brow as she took in the puffy eyes and the red cheeks.
"Yeah, uh, I'm fine. Must be allergies. You know you have some cobwebs up there." She mentally kicked herself when her voice cracked as she said cobwebs.
"You may be a human lie detector but you are terrible at lying." Regina moved closer. "What happened?"
"Nothing...I just, I found the baby stuff, Henry's baby stuff." She shakes her head at how ridiculous it was to get so upset over some clothes.
"Ahhh." She took Emma's hand and led her to her room. "I know you missed that part of his life." She pats her bed and goes to a huge bookshelf and pulls out a large photo album. "I took a lot of pictures of him, especially in the beginning when he didn't cover his face in all them." She sat down beside Emma and opened the book. "This was our 3rd week together...he took a while to warm up to me."
Emma smiled down at the picture of Henry in a white onsie with green trains on it. She flipped the page and cooed at the picture of mother and son. There outfits were almost matching with the pale grey. "Who took this one?"
"Uh...Archie I believe. Ten minutes after the photo was taken Henry spit up on me." She chuckled to herself and flipped another page. "These are saved for when he has his first girlfriend over."
Emma rolled her eyes at the image of a naked Henry in a small bubble bath crying. "He hated bath times. I learned later on not to wear any expensive clothes around him during baths."
Emma grinned and made a fake gasp. "You have non expensive clothing?"
"Yes. I have some vintage concert t shirts." Emma looked at her genuinely stunned.
"Really, you?"
"Yes." Regina didn't see how it was so hard to believe.
"Have you ever been to a concert?"
"Yes, I left Storybrooke a few times before Henry was born."
"So come on what bands did you see. New Kids on the Block? Backstreet Boys?" Emma teased causing Regina to frown.
"My first was a Bruce Springsteen concert, then U2, Fleetwood Mac, Pearl Jam, a final Eagles tour that wasn't the last one, Bon Jovi, and you can't judge but Rick Springfield."
Emma stared at her. "And all this time I thought you were into classical music...who is Rick Springfield?"
"Jessie's girl. It came out two years after I got here but was on Storybrooke radio station every morning when I got up." Emma laughed. "Isn't he a one hit wonder."
"No! He had other gre- you know what he was better than U2 live." Regina jutted out her chin.
"Sure he was." She sniggered and looked at the next page in the photo album. "Is he wearing a suit?"
"It was Christmas!"
"You match!"
#
"Where's mom and Emma?" Henry asked his grandfather with a plate of hot cookies just out of the oven.
"They were getting decorations from the attic but that was 20 minutes ago now." David took a cookie from the plate and toussled Henry's hair. "Why don't you go check on them."
Henry handed the plate to David. "Don't eat them all." He warned before heading upstairs. He walked to the ladder in the landing but walked by it as he made his way to his mother's room following laughter.
"What are you two doing?"
"Uh, your mom was showing me some of your baby pics." Emma explains and pats the space between them.
The mothers and their son ignored putting up the tree for another twenty minutes as they looked at 10 year old pictures.
#
"Who was that at the door?" Regina asked Henry as she added another bauble to the tree. "It's Belle...she's here to see grandma."
Snow jumped up from the sofa where she had currently been sitting as she tried to untangle lights. "I wonder what she wants." She smiled as disappeared to the front porch.
It wasn't until a few minutes later she returned with a book in her hand and a red face.
"What do you have there?" David asked curiously.
"It's uh, my um, secret santa gift. I got a book." She said looking down.
"Lame!" Henry called as he ate another cookie.
"Says the nerd." Emma teased.
"Emma!" Regina chided her. "You aren't a nerd honey, be glad you didn't get your smarts from her."
"Hey!" Emma threw a piece of popcorn at her while Snow pointed upstairs. "I should put this near my night stand you know to uh, read it later." She disappered upstairs with her present in her hand.
Emma looked down at her phone seeing a new text from Ruby. [Can you help me with my gift tomorrow? Please! Love Ruby] She replied quickly that she could and took a star out of the box.
"Emma No! I always put the star up!" Henry took the silver tree topper out of her hand.
"He is just like you." Emma commented looking over at his mother.
"Come here buddy." David swooped him up in his arms and raised his grandson above him. "Can you reach the top?"
Henry leaned forward and placed the star on top. David let him down and Regina stood behind him and wrapped her arms around her son as they looked up at the tree they just decorated.
Emma leaned on the arm of the arm chair smiling widely. "It looks good huh?" Snow stated as she came back down to them.
She looked at her son and his other mother. "It sure does."
.