Remember Who You Are
Disclaimer: Blah. Blah. Not mine or yours, I think they're ABC's.
Warnings: This fanfic depicts romantic notions between two adult women. If you don't like that, well, I'm sorry for you.
Note: Thanks for waiting so patiently for this chapter. And thanks for all the reviews! Keep them coming! And as always, thank you Haku2009 for proof reading!
~~~ Chapter 5~~~
It was well past midnight when Emma quietly slipped through the door of the apartment she shared with Mary Margaret. The sheriff department had been abnormally busy, as new leads on old cold cases began turning up in the past few days. She and Graham had to pull extra hours to cover each other's shifts.
The apartment was dark saved for the small lamp on the kitchen counter. Hanging up her beloved red leather jacket on the hook beside the door, she shuffled silently across the floorboards and into the kitchen. The drapes separating Mary Margaret's bed from the rest of the apartment were drawn, implying to Emma that the school teacher was already asleep.
Tired and hungry, she opened the fridge and pulled out a beer. While sipping on the cold brew, her eyes raked over the contents of the fridge and immediately lit up at the sight of her favourite dessert. 'Cheesecake! Whoohoo!' Tilting the plate towards her she read the sticky note that was tacked on top of the cling wrap.
It read: Made this tonight. But you were working late again. Help yourself, ONLY after you eat a proper meal first. - MM
An arrow was drawn underneath the message, pointing to the left to what looked to be a chicken salad wrap. Emma couldn't keep the smile off her face at Mary Margaret's thoughtful gesture. She pulled both dishes out and grabbed a fork from the drawer. After sending a silent thank you to her roommate, she tiptoed up the stairs to her room.
She flopped down on her bed after depositing her dinner on the night stand. Pulling her phone out of her jeans pocket she dialed a number that she had memorized already by heart. She balanced the plate of cheesecake on her lap, forking a piece of the dessert into her mouth while waiting for the call to connect.
It had been almost a week since the car accident. Regina hadn't allowed Emma to visit Henry, but with some firm insistence the Mayor eventually permitted Emma to call and get updates on the kid. It was not an arrangement Emma liked, but Regina left her with no room to argue, warning her not to push her luck or she'll be served with a restraining order.
Thoughts associated with the infuriating Mayor easily took her emotions on a roller coaster ride, a regular phenomenon for Emma lately. Regina's decision to shut her out again hurt. Emma was also pissed off that her effort to put aside her own insecurities, letting down her walls and reach out to another person totally went unappreciated.
But when Emma thought how unnatural it felt for her to put down her defense, she'd start to feel guilty for barging through Regina's carefully protected boundaries without much caution, knowing it must have drove the other woman crazy with her disregard to the limits that were set. Mary Margaret warned her to stop "poking the bear", but Emma just laughed it off and snickered at the imagery. She couldn't really picture Regina as a bear. The mayor was more cat-like. Perhaps a pather would be more fitting. And a black one at that. All dark and dangerous. But nonetheless graceful and, Emma had to be honest, very sexy.
Emma's attraction to Regina was undeniable. She simply had to comfort herself that there was still hope for them since Regina at least had allowed her to maintain telephone contact. Which unfortunately sent Emma back to feeling hurt again because of how ridiculous she thought it was to be barred from seeing her own son.
After four rings, the line was picked up. "Hello?" Henry's voice filtered through.
"Hey kid." Emma was a bit surprised at Henry answering the phone this late into the night. "How come you're still up? How's the head?"
"A lot better. I'm not as tired during the day anymore." Henry reported. "Mom said I can go back to school tomorrow."
"Glad to hear you're doing better. Take it easy, you hear?" Emma smiled into the phone.
"Emma... when can I see you? There's something really important I need to tell you." Henry said with a sense of urgency.
Emma sighed helplessly. "I don't know, kid. Your mom said no visits for now."
"I hate that she won't let me see you!" He proclaimed, disdain clear in his voice.
"Don't be mad at your mom, Henry. She just... She just needed some space." Emma defended Regina without a second thought. "What is it that you wanted to tell me?"
"Well..." Henry hesitated. "I think I should wait until I see you in person. But I'm scared."
"Of what?" She drawled, almost afraid to find out what his statement meant.
"My mom." He answered simply.
Emma held back a frustrated sigh. 'This is getting to be too much.' "Where is your mom anyway?" she asked.
"Mom's outside in the backyard." Henry answered, then continued with unease. "She's been acting really weird, Emma. I don't think she's slept since the car accident.
"She hasn't?" Surprised to learn of Regina's insomnia. 'So I'm not the only one.' Emma briefly wondered if the usually impregnable Mayor was affected by her as much as she was affected by the other woman. Keeping the narcissistic part of her in check she pushed that self-indulging thought aside and focused on the issue at hand. "Henry, your mom won't hurt you." She assured patiently.
"You don't know that. She's the Evil Queen and she's capable of anything." The boy argued.
'Why can't he be obsessed with Harry Potter instead like a normal kid?' Emma rubbed her temple and took a deep breath. "Know what, Henry? I'm going to go have a talk with your mom."
Regina stood alone in the garden looking up at her treasured apple tree. Running her hand along its trunk she hit the stump where a prominent branch used to be. She glowered at it. Hating that in such a short amount of time, Emma Swan left her mark on so many places in her life. With a slight tremble, her fingers reached up and touched her own lips, remembering the last encounter with the blonde woman and was immediately unnerved by the memory as her heart skipped a beat.
She couldn't help but feel she was fighting a losing battle trying to keep Emma away. As much as she hated to admit, Regina was quite at lost with what to do about this particular torn in her side. In the beginning of this nightmare, as she had taken to refer, she was so assured in her determination to drive Emma out of town and out of her life. She promised she would destroy the blonde woman and there wasn't an ounce of doubt in her mind that she could carry out her threat.
But Emma's unorthodox behaviour towards her made her uncharacteristically hesitant and indecisive in following through with her ruthless plans. The deputy's recent display of solicitude stir up emotions she long ago gave up hoping for. Now she found herself torn between wanting to believe Emma's concern to be real and knowing full well how impossible it was for Emma to genuinely care about her.
Simply because the curse does not allow it.
In the beginning when they first got sent here, she thought that with a clean slate she might finally have a real shot at happiness. Starving for affection, she had tried to be cordial, friendly even, to some of these people. She didn't hate all of them, some she actually tolerated. She was so hopeful and naive that she even thought she could find love.
But it didn't take long for Regina to realize that was not meant to be. Despite having no memory or knowledge of their past lives, not a soul in town showed anything but fear and distain for her.
So when Mr. Gold approached her with the prospect of adopting a child she jumped at the chance, hoping someone from the outside world would be immune to the curse. The first few years were bliss, when she kept Henry mostly to herself. But the effects of the curse seemed inevitable. Soon the boy she had given all her love to turned on her and shunned her for what she was in the other life.
It appeared that even in this lifetime, Regina was destined to be alone. She figured this must be the void Maleficient warned her about so long ago. The unexpected price she paid to enact the curse.
Not one to cry over spilled milk, so to speak, Regina just worked with what she was given. She wanted everyone's happy endings taken away and, in some way, she got her wish. The fact that she ended up in a position where she has the ultimate power to ensure her wish stay the way she liked it was a bonus.
'If I can't get my happiness, neither will any of these pathetic fools.'
Letting out an audible sigh, she turned back to the task she came out to do. Balancing herself precariously on a short stepladder, Regina stretched herself up into her beloved apple tree trying to cut off an inward growing branch. Dead in the middle of the night really wasn't the best time to be pruning fruit trees, but Regina couldn't sleep. Not since Emma kissed her again that other night. Taking care of the tree somehow calmed her, grounded her. The tree was the only constant in her life that hadn't betray her, have always allowed her to shape it as she see fits.
"Should you be doing that in the dark?"
The voice startled Regina, causing her to lose her footing on the ladder and she felt herself falling. She braced herself for the impact but it never came. Instead, sure arms wrapped themselves around her breaking the fall.
With dread, and strangely a touch of anticipation, Regina turned in the embrace and found Emma looking at her with an amused grin.
"Need a hand with your late night gardening project? I still got my chainsaw in the trunk of my car." The blonde teased.
Regina narrowed her eyes warily, annoyed by Emma's obvious amusement. "What are you doing here?" She scowled at her unexpected visitor.
"And hello to you too, Regina." Emma watched with mirth as Regina's eyes twitch. She's been purposely addressing the Mayor by her first name lately, knowing it annoys the hell out of the humorless woman. And also that Emma really likes how the name rolls off her tongue.
At such close proximity, Emma winced inwardly as she registered the dark circles under Regina's eyes. 'Maybe I should have came sooner...' Her thoughts were halted by a sharp pressure on her hallow of her neck. Backing up she looked down to find a pair of pruning shears firmly pushing against her skin. 'Or not.'
"Stay away from me." Regina pointed the gardening tool at the Deputy. Recent experiences in allowing Emma to get into her personal space proved to have all ended badly.
"Chill out, you don't need to be so hostile." Emma held up her hands in defense. "I'm just trying to be nice."
Convinced it was another pretentious act, part of some scheme the blonde was playing, Regina scoffed, "I don't need you to be nice. I need you to-"
"Leave?" Emma finished the sentence. "Are we back to that again?" She rolled her eyes. 'What will it take you to quit trying to tell me to leave?' "There's this quote that says insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expect different result. So stop telling me to leave. It's getting old and you don't struck me as insane."
"There's also this quote that says the first day one is a guest, the second a burden, and the third a pest." Regina countered without missing a beat, hissing out the last word.
"Touché." Emma muttered. She shoved her hands into her jeans pockets and looked away from the brown eyes that reflected nothing but loathe. Rocking lightly on her heels, she tried to appear nonchalant while she waited for the sting of Regina's words to pass.
Regina watched Emma's demeanor carefully and, for a fleeting second, she thought she caught a wounded look on the blonde's face. 'I'm reading way too much into this. What do I care if her stupid feelings are hurt?'
"Why are you really here, Swan?"
"Henry said you haven't been sleeping." Emma chose her next words carefully. "He is... worried about you." Emma glanced up at the house, catching a silhouette in Henry's bedroom window.
Since after the accident, Henry had refused to engage Regina in any conversation other than the occasional yes, no, and okay. Hearing her son had talked to Emma about her and, on top of it all, concerned about her easily garnered her full attention. But the sense of suspicion was still strong in Regina, refusing to let Emma bait her. "I'm fine." She stated firmly with a lift of her chin.
It was obvious to Emma that Regina was fighting down a desire to learn about the conversation she had with Henry. But even if the dark haired woman asked, Emma had no plans tell her what exactly their son had said. While Regina may be trying her damnest to maintain that hard-ass image, she had no doubt in her mind Henry's words would break the Mayor's heart into a thousand pieces.
It suddenly occurred to Emma how right it felt to shield Regina from any unnecessary heartaches. And the fact that no one else is willing to take Regina's feelings into any consideration made her take even more pride in her self-assigned responsibility.
Looking up at the tree and reached up to an apple, Emma snapped it off from its branch. "You know," tossing it in the air and catching it again casually. "Henry has this idea that your apples are poisonous."
"Excuse me?" Regina turned sharply to Emma, thoroughly insulted. Then she remembered, and frowned. "Right, of course. His fairy tales...and I'm the Evil Queen…" Regina seemed utterly beaten. Her next words were soft, barely audible, almost as if they were spoken only for her own ears. "He seemed to have forgotten how much he used to like apple pies made with apples from this tree."
But Emma heard them clearly. "Maybe you should remind him of that," Emma suggested. Rubbing the apple on her shirt, she made sure Henry was watching before she turned the fruit around in her hand and promptly picked a spot to bite down on it. Her blue eyes widened in surprise as combined flavours of honey, tanginess, and zest exploded in her month. She looked down at the crispy fruit incredulously. 'My god, she didn't kidding about how delicious these apples are. They are awesome!'
Regina watched her actions with confusion. Then took a step back away from the tree turning towards the house where Henry's form was visible at his bedroom window, looking down at them. A bit surprised, Regina turned back to Emma with a curious expression on her face.
Emma gave her a knowing smile while munching on a mouthful of the sweet fruit.
Regina didn't know what to make of this. Emma was trying to prove to Henry that she didn't have any poison apples. "Why are you doing this?"
The blonde woman just shrugged and answered, "I keep telling you, Regina, but you won't believe me. I'm really not here to be your enemy." Emma didn't expect the other woman to just take her words for it, but it was the truth that she spoke.
Regina looked utterly bewildered. And Emma wanted nothing more at the moment than to envelope the woman in a hug. But she was becoming more proficient in reading the Mayor's body language and knew it was the worst time to test tolerance for breaching her personal space.
Emma continued to take bites into the apple, waiting and bracing herself for the usual spiteful comebacks from the cantankerous woman. But the Mayor remained silent and Emma found the absence of speech and the scrutiny from those deep brown eyes increasingly uncomfortable. She was wrecking her brain to come up with anything to say when Regina turned her back on Emma and slowly walked back up to the house without another word.
She didn't see how Emma's shoulder slump and her face crestfallen. Didn't see how the Deputy braved two steps to follow her before letting out a helpless sigh and turned to walk the other way.