Emma watched from bed as Regina ran a brush through her hair with more aggression than was necessary. The former mayor stood in front of her vanity mirror and worked hastily to make herself presentable for the day.
"So you really think Zelena is your half-sister?"
"I don't think, I know," Regina spoke to Emma's reflection. "I don't know how or why, but I can remember everything about our missing time in Storybrooke."
Emma sat up slightly in bed, pinning the bed sheets against her naked torso. "Do you think you're the only one? Or did everyone get their memories back?"
"I have no idea, which is why we have to get ready and go find out."
Emma groaned in complaint. "What's the rush? The sun's not even up yet. Don't you want to hide out a little longer?"
The hand holding Regina's hairbrush froze mid-air when the Egyptian-cotton sheets slid down Emma's torso. "No," Regina lied.
A mischievous grin curled on Emma's wide, expressive mouth. "Are you sure?" The sheets slipped farther still to pool at her waist, revealing her naked breasts.
Before Regina could respond, the chime of the doorbell reverberated through the house. "What now?" she sighed.
Leaving the naked blonde behind in bed, Regina stormed downstairs, tightening the sash of her robe around her waist. Knowing better than to simply open the front door without knowing who was on the other side, she peered through a side window to see who was standing at her door.
When she recognized the woman on the other side of the door, she shut her eyes and breathed out her nose. God, just what she didn't need.
"It's late; what do you want?" she snapped as she pulled open the door. She let her annoyance go unchecked.
Mary Margaret rushed the entrance like a tackle going after the quarterback.
How did she find out? Regina internally panicked. But her anxiety made way for confusion when she realized the arms thrown around her neck were hugging her, not strangling her.
"What are you doing?" Regina said in horror. She tried to peel the other woman off of her, but Mary Margaret was not to be denied.
"Regina! I remember," Mary Margaret gushed. "David, too. You saved us! You saved my family!"
"That's no reason to touch me," Regina continued to protest.
Mary Margaret paused in her adulation when she spotted movement inside of Regina's house. "Emma?" She let go of Regina and stood upright. She glanced between Regina—who wore only a robe—and her daughter who, while clothed, looked disheveled in clothes she'd worn the day before. "What are you doing here?"
Emma raked nervous fingers through her hair. She knew how she looked—like she'd been thoroughly fucked. "Uh, sleepover?"
"Miss Swan came over to discuss Henry's future. She had too much to drink," Regina said smoothly, "so I graciously let her sleep on the couch."
The confusion flickering on Mary Margaret's features turned to near-relief. Luckily, she didn't possess Emma's Super Power of being able to tell when she was being told a lie.
"So it was Zelena all this time," Mary Margaret said, getting back on track. "And masquerading as a midwife. Why would she do that?"
"Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?" Emma proposed.
"Whatever her motivations for getting close to you and the baby, it can't be good. We have the upper hand—she probably doesn't know our memories are back-but that advantage won't last forever," Regina said sagely. "Snow, you should go back to David. It's not safe for you to be on your own."
"Regina's right, Mom," Emma agreed. She could tell that Mary Margaret was about to protest her exclusion. "I know you want to be in the thick of things, but you've got to think about what's best for the baby."
Mary Margaret's lower lip trembled with emotion and then stiffened with resolve. She placed a protective palm over her distended abdomen. "I've always tried to do what I thought was best for my children," she defended.
Emma laid a hand on her mother's shoulder. "I know," she said gently, "which is why you can't be a part of this."
"I'm not going to let you two go in alone," Mary Margaret protested. "Zelena's too powerful."
"We won't," Emma assured her.
"I'll get contact Robin, Hook, and Ursula," Regina proposed. "Besides Emma and myself, they're our strongest fighters."
Mary Margaret continued to hesitate. "I don't like it. We should do more research before confronting her."
Regina sighed loudly. "Snow, will you watch after Henry?"
The pregnant woman's eyes widened. "Really?" she squeaked.
The words took great effort on Regina's part. "You and David are the only ones I trust to keep him safe if something happens to us."
Mary Margaret's eyes filled with tears. She nodded her head.
"Great." Emma clapped her hands together. "Now that that's settled, Regina and I have some work to do. I'll drop off Henry at the loft in the morning."
The confusion returned to Mary Margaret's features. "Why don't you come back with me?" she proposed. "I'll drive you back if you still don't think it safe to drive."
"Regina and I should probably strategize," Emma said. "No time like the present, right?"
Mary Margaret returned her gaze to Regina, but the former evil queen's face showed no emotion.
"Okay. David and I will be at the loft, waiting for Henry."
With her mother's final goodbye, Emma shut the front door, resealing she and Regina inside.
"You seemed rather eager to get rid of your mother," Regina coyly observed.
Emma folded her arms across her chest. "Too much to drink, eh?"
"Would you rather I told the truth? To your mother? In explicit detail?" Regina threatened. "Because I assure you, Miss Swan, few things would give me greater pleasure—"
"How about I give you pleasure instead?" Emma cut in. "Last night was pretty one-sided."
Regina felt her face grow hot. "If I had known you were going to pass out so quickly," she huffed to mask her discomfort, "I would have drawn out your orgasm."
"Is that so?" Emma challenged. "Because if memory serves me right, you were just as eager as me to get to the finish line."
A surge of something akin to electricity jolted down Regina's spine. She had long suspected intimacy with Emma might be like this. Here was a partner who could match her, step for step, barb for barb. But it was too late. They'd squandered their opportunity; Emma had made her decision.
"Emma, we have to confront Zelena."
Emma knew they couldn't sit on the knowledge that Zelena was responsible for their return and memory loss, but she wasn't ready to back down. She gripped Regina by her chiseled hipbones and pulled her flush against her body. The sash around Regina's waist loosened and the front of her robe fell open.
Emma leaned in. "Okay." She spoke so her words hit the side of Regina's neck. "We'll take care of Zelena, and then we can come back here so I can take care of you."
Regina hated how her body betrayed her. She wanted nothing more than to fall back into bed with this woman—or the kitchen, or the hallway, or any flat surface she could pin her against, really. "You're still planning on leaving."
At Regina's words, Emma's body language slipped from playful to defeated. She released Regina's waist, and her shoulders slumped forward. "Zelena's spell might be broken, but Henry still doesn't have his memories. I don't know if I can play hide and seek with him anymore, Regina."
"No. I understand," Regina clipped. "Nothing's changed."
Guilt sloshed around in the pit of Emma's stomach as she quietly climbed the back steps at Granny's. The sun would be up in a few hours, and she didn't quite know how to explain her prolonged absence to Henry. She'd never left him on his own like that, either, but when Regina had been kissing her way down her body, being a responsible mother had been shoved far from her thoughts.
She unlocked the door to their rented room as quietly as possible, but it didn't matter. Henry was still awake. He was sitting up in bed with the reading lamp on.
"Kid," Emma hissed in a whisper as she stepped into the room. "You should be asleep."
"I was waiting up for you. I was worried."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"Where did you go?" Henry asked.
"To Regina's." Emma gingerly sat down on the edge of the bed. "I had to tell her we're not staying," she explained. "It, uh, it took a little longer than I thought it would."
"She was upset?" Henry frowned.
Emma nodded. "It'll be okay though. She understands this is what's best for you. We've got to get you back to New York."
Henry chewed on his lower lip. "Oh. Okay."
"What ya got there?" Emma gestured to the ancient-looking tome Henry had clutched to his chest.
"A book."
"Oh, did Ms. France drop that off?"
"I don't know. It was the weirdest thing. I was getting ready for bed, and when I came out of the bathroom, the book was just sitting on the bed-like it had been waiting for me."
Henry pulled the book away from his chest to show his mother.
Emma swallowed her gasp. It was Henry's book—the book he'd shown her so many years ago to convince her that everyone in Storybrooke was a fairytale character.
Emma hadn't wondered about the book's whereabouts in their absence. She couldn't have remembered it when they were in New York because she didn't have any recollection of Storybrooke, and when they'd returned to Storybrooke, their plate had been too full. Mary Margaret had once briefly explained the book's genesis to her—it had appeared, seemingly out of thin air, when they'd needed it the most. And now it was back.
"They're fairy tales, but they're different," Henry unnecessarily explained. "And look at all these cool illustrations." He flipped deeper into the book and stopped on a colored drawing of the Evil Queen. "Pretty neat, huh?"
Regina's face—dark eyes and red painted lips—glared at her with disapproval from the linen page. Unthinking, Emma reached out and traced her fingers along the proud lines of Regina's illustrated face. She couldn't believe that she'd had such a hard time believing Henry's story before. It had been right in front of her the entire time. Just like Regina.
"Do you really want to leave this place, Ma?" came Henry's gentle question.
Emma remained silent, not because she didn't know the answer to Henry's question, but because the answer terrified her.
TBC