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: Wow… how unacceptable I took this look to update the story. A billion sorry's wouldn't be enough to show how disappointed I am with myself. Work and responsibilites just get in the way of all the fun things in my life! Anyway, for those that are still sticking around for this story, thank you so much for your support.

And as always, thank you Erin for proof reading!

~~~ Chapter 11 ~~~

It was no surprise when Emma woke up the next morning it was accompanied by a pounding headache. With a painful groan, she turned away from the bright windows and buried deeper into the sea of pillows and down duvet. Despite being hung over, however, Emma couldn't stop her lips from pulling into a silly grin when her nose picked up the distinct scents of apples and lilac.

Regina. Her mind automatically associated the smell with the beautiful brunette. The mere thought of the woman made Emma's heart flutter. Sighing happily, she pulled the pillow in her arms even closer, her brain slow at working out what it meant to be waking up to Regina's scent.

Hold up, she tensed when the realization finally hit her. I'm in her bed.

Pushing herself up onto her elbows, Emma's bleary eyes scanned the elegant and pristine bedroom.

"Holy shit, I'm in Regina's bed," she whispered out loud to herself. "How the hell...?"

Emma's brain tried to sort through the events of last night that lead to her waking up in Regina's bed this morning. Her memories were a big jumble of images. She remembered the diner, the whiskey... lots of whiskey, kissing Graham and having both Regina and Henry walk in on it. She remembered climbing into Regina's room, where they talked.

And argued.

And inevitably once again, ended up kissing each other.

Even after a night's sleep, Emma's body was still reacting to the memory of the kiss, tingling in all the right places. Unfortunately, her indulgence of the passionate moment quickly came to a halt when the flashback fizzled, then blanked out completely like a broken film reel.

What the hell happened after the kiss?! The question roared inside Emma's head. She kept replaying last night's events in her mind but came up with nothing after the point she had Regina laid out on the bed beneath her. A foreboding sense of dread settled deep in her belly. She couldn't have fallen asleep on the hottest woman in town…

Could she?

"Fuck!" She let her head fall back onto the pillows, knowing she shouldn't need to question this in the first place. "Fucking fuckity fuck!"

The reality of the situation finally set in and she truly had no recollection of anything after climbing onto Regina's bed. What was more, as Emma looked down at herself, she still had her goddamn jacket on! So clearly, things did not go beyond kissing before she lost consciousness.

Letting out a long, mortified moan Emma collapsed back onto the bed and pulled a pillow over her head. The scenario of her passing out on Regina was looking more and more plausible.

There must be some kind of cosmic vendetta against her Emma concluded. There was no other explanation to why every time she gets ahead with Regina, something shitty will happen and sets her back. She just couldn't catch a break with it comes to that woman. With another painful groan she wondered if Regina would ever let her live this one down.

It was then she finally wondered, where was Regina anyway?

Throwing back the covers to sit herself up, she tried listening for sounds that would tell her where the Mayor was, but the house seemed awfully quiet.

Why hasn't Regina come kick her out of bed? And why would she trust Emma to the mansion alone without any supervision?

Maybe the situation wasn't as disastrous as it seemed.

Maybe Regina's not upset.

Even as she was considering it Emma knew she was just blindly latching onto any ounce of optimism she can find. Seriously, no normal person would find having their lover (or would-be lover in Emma's case) passing out on them in the heat of passion acceptable, let alone that person is, of all people, Regina Mills.

"Shit," Emma muttered and quickly rolled out of bed. The change in position amplified her headache, forcing a pitiful whimper out of her. Clutching her head, Emma wobbled into the bathroom hoping Regina would have some painkillers on hand.

First, she needed to get rid of this pounding in her head. Then she needed to find Regina. And she needed to find her fast!

Emma wasn't about let any more misunderstandings come between them if she could help it. She needed to go explain herself and do whatever it takes to clear up this mess. The one positive thing she was hanging onto now was remembering Regina had wanted her to stay. She just hoped that her faux pas last night didn't change the Mayor's mind.

The walk from Regina's house into town, along with the fresh air, helped Emma feel less hung-over. She felt at least humanly functional by the time she reached Granny's Diner. But she quickly lost her equilibrium at the sight of the imposing black SUV parked outside next to the curb. Her stomach immediately did a flip, her heart pounded inside her chest and her palms started to sweat. She really had no idea what to expect when she sees Regina or how she would go about redeeming herself for her latest transgression.

Emma wasn't sure how long she stood staring at the diner's doors, apparently long enough to garner strange looks from other town folks walking by the blonde deputy. When one finally came up to tap her on the shoulder asking if she was okay, Emma snapped out of her anxiety ridden haze and politely waved off the concerned citizen.

Sucking in a deep breath and squared her shoulders, Emma walked up the short steps leading up to the diner. The uncertainty of the situation was irrelevant, she reminded herself. Because nothing was going to stop her from making things right again with the woman she was falling in love with, right?

Right.

Regina spotted her the moment she stepped through the door; bedraggled blonde hair and signature red leather jacket, blue eyes darting around the busy diner. She knew Emma was searching for herself and Henry, so she quickly averted her eyes before Emma noticed her and back on the newspaper in her hands that she hadn't been reading. Somehow, she didn't want to be caught being the one to notice each other first, didn't want to give away the fact she had been watching the door every 5 minutes since she and Henry sat down in a booth at the back of the diner.

Waking up this morning curled up against Emma was an interesting experience. It occurred to Regina then it was the first time ever she'd slept so soundly alongside another person. She never could allow herself to be such a defenseless position as Queen; not when there was a heavy price for her head. Even after cursing everyone to Storybrooke where no one remembered to have any motives to kill her and having Graham as her one constant obedient bed warmer, she never felt at ease enough to let him sleep over.

Then there was Emma Swan, sprawled across the bed like she owned it. An arm and a leg draped boldly and possessively over Regina; which should've made the Mayor royally annoyed, but instead she ended up snuggling closer to the soft body behind her. The familiar warmth she had come to associate with Emma licked at the pit of her belly.

She had felt, simply put, content. The revelation was bittersweet and caused her to let out a worried sigh. This feeling will come with a price, she reminded herself. Regina never did have much that truly, unequivocally meant the world to her. And happiness, one way or another, always ended up costing her the few things she held close to her heart. So what will the price be this time?

Her first thought was and always will be Henry. She didn't think she would ever stop having fears of losing him. And as she lay in her bed, feeling Emma's soft breaths on the nape of her neck, it seemed there was now another person she couldn't quite bear losing.

Regina had reached down and grasped Emma's hand with her own. Letting out a heavy breath, she hoped with all her might that Emma would keep the promises she made last night.

Jarred out of her thoughts when Emma flopped heavily into the seat across the table, Regina felt her heart rate picked up at the mere proximity of the blonde and she wondered if she would always react to Emma like this.

Despite how much she liked waking up in Emma's arms, she was not one bit impressed with the blonde falling asleep on her, and it stung her ego to think about it again. After all, she was still the respectable Mayor and she had a reputation to maintain. And in that regard, Regina couldn't really just let the blonde deputy off the hook so easily.

"Hey, kid." Emma bumped Henry's shoulder with hers playfully. She expected the usual toothy grin from him in greeting; instead Henry just spared her a brief glance before going back to poking the stack of pancake in front of him with a pout.

Taken aback by his unusual demeanor Emma turned to his mother sitting across the table. Regina had yet to acknowledge her presence, never breaking from intently reading the newspaper.

"Hey, Regina," Emma said casually, testing out the waters. But the Mayor simply continued on reading, seemingly set on ignoring her completely.

When Emma tilted her head to one side, trying to catch Regina's eyes, the brunette just raised the newspaper higher creating a screen between the both of them. Clearly, this wasn't going to be easy. But not that Emma had expected it to be otherwise.

Okay then, Emma thought with a slight shrug of her shoulders, I'll just have to deal with one grumpy Mills at a time.

"Henry." Emma tugged on his sleeve while she moved out of the booth. "Could you go get me the menu from Ruby please?"

Henry looked questioningly at her strange request. "Why? Don't you always order coffee and bear claws in the morning?"

"Yeah? Well, maybe I want to try something different today," Emma sassed back. "So please, go and grab me the menu," she insisted again.

With a dramatic roll of his eyes and a sigh that was louder than needed, Henry shuffled out of the booth and went searching for Ruby.

Emma quickly shuffled back into the booth. "Regiiii-na," she sang out. When she received no response from the woman she then proceeded to poke at the paper keeping the brunette hidden from her.

To her surprise, Regina caved in quicker that she expected. The Mayor roughly pulled the paper down and glared at the blonde.

"You are like an incessantly irritating child, Miss Swan," she hissed.

Emma shrunk back into her seat, her lips twisted into a rueful expression. "Sorry," the blonde said and nervously scratched the side of her nose. Then after a beat, she added, "And ya know, for last night too."

Regina arched an eyebrow at her. "The sincerity of your apology is astounding," she quipped in a sarcastic tone. "You couldn't even properly apologize for your last night's misdeed?"

Emma flinched. "Can you, like, cut me some slack here? What happened last night was really embarrassing for me."

"Oh sure," Regina drawled, clearly not buying into Emma's sob story. "And having someone past out on me was just so flattering for me. Tell me, does that work for you often? Do people actually get impressed by you?"

"What? No!" Emma retorted. "I've never had this happen to me before."

"Oh, so you're saying I was the problem," said Regina incredulously.

"I didn't say- Jesus Christ, no! That's not what I meant!" Emma exclaimed, becoming quite alarmed and agitated by how quickly this conversation was spiraling out of her expectation. Why did she think she could sneak in that half-assed apology and hoped to downplay the embarrassing ordeal?

Before Emma could say another word, Henry returned with the requested menu. "Here," he muttered and tossed them onto the table.

Emma didn't even spare the laminated sheets a glance as she pushed them to the side and nudged Henry towards the serving counter again. "Go tell Ruby to get me my coffee and bear claw."

"See? Didn't I say you wouldn't need the menu!" he whined but after another roll of his eyes and a huff of exasperation, he shuffled over to the scantily dressed waitress.

Turning her attention back to Regina, Emma's face took on a somber and serious expression. She sucked in a deep, steady breath and started her attempt at righting her wrong. "You're absolutely right. That half-assed apology was nowhere near acceptable. I'm... I'm just utterly mortified by what I did last night and please don't mistaken any of it as a reflection on you. I meant no offence when I say I've never had this happen to me before. The thing is, in all my past relationsh—argh, I can't even call them relationships." Emma winced as she sifted through her brain for a more appropriate term for her past dalliances.

"Hookups," she said finally. "That's what they were all more like. And I never once stayed overnight with anybody, ever. Let alone fall asleep. I never felt like I could, or should, stay past after the... Well, you know, the indulgence. It just never felt right… like something bad would happen… Shit! Now I sound like some weird, paranoid nut job." Emma buried her face in her hands.

Regina watched the blonde's display of frustration quietly while a sense of kinship washed over her. The fact of how much Emma's words paralleled her own thoughts earlier was not lost to her.

"You didn't feel safe." The comment was said softly, almost absently. And Regina didn't realize she had spoken aloud until Emma's head snapped up and met her gaze, curiosity and surprise swimming in those blue eyes.

Regina looked away quickly, suppressing the sudden urge to reach across the table to touch the other woman. Instead, Regina picked up her cup of lukewarm coffee and sipped from it, conscious in maintaining an air of indifference. She was supposed to be still angry with the blonde, for goodness' sake, and not to be giving in to her innate desire to establish a connection. But by god it was getting difficult by the minute to maintain a cool front.

"Wow." Emma blinked at the woman's insight, mildly surprised and amused. "Uh... yeah, that pretty much sums up how I used to always feel. Except last night." She quickly held up her hands to forestall any comments from Regina. "Honest to god, I'm not just saying this to talk my way out of the trouble I'm in. I feel a lot of different things when I'm with you. But never have I felt unsafe. Being with you always felt... right." Seeing that Regina's expression softened considerably, Emma turned on her best puppy eyes. "C'mon, please forgive me? I promise it won't happen again."

"Again?" Regina's eyebrows rose at the preposterous statement. "How awfully presumptuous of you to just assume there will be a next time."

Emma fought to suppress the tug at the corner of her mouth. It was subtle, but she noticed the lack of bite in the brunette's words and the tension between them fading away. "I don't know," she shrugged, "I just have a really strong feeling there's definitely a next time in the near future."

"Oh, is that so?"

"Umm-hmm," Emma nodded with a knowing grin. "I know you won't admit it, Regina, but you like me."

Then before Regina could utter a word of protest, Emma leaned across the table, mischief swimming in her blue eyes, and whispered conspiratorially, "And the great thing is, I really, really like you too."

The way Regina's eyes twinkled and her lips twitched as a smile threatened to break through was enough to make Emma's heart double in size.

"You're impossible," Regina muttered while trying to give the blonde a stern look, but that just resulted in a full-blown grin on the face of the woman sitting across from her.

Emma leaned back in her seat when Henry rejoined them at the table.

"Ruby got your order," he said sullenly.

"Thanks," Emma replied before getting up to allow the boy to slide back into the booth. Sitting back down, she studied him while he went back to pushing his cold pancakes around the plate. "So what are you sulking about, kid?"

Henry propped his head on his hand, sporting a major pout. "One of my classmates invited a whole bunch of us to go riding up to Sunset Point next weekend."

"Okay," Emma drawled. "And you're upset because...?"

Henry's eyes shifted other to his brunette mother. Emma followed his gaze and turned a questioning look at Regina.

"I didn't forbid him to go," Regina answered. "I even offered to drive him to up to the spot to meet up with his friends."

"Mom," he moaned. "That is so embarrassing! Why can't I just get my own bike?"

"Because they are unsafe," replied Regina while trying to ignore her son's massive pout. She never told anyone, but during the early days of the newly conjured Storybrooke, much before Henry's arrival, the former queen had tried to ride one of those strange 2-wheeled machinery that many seemed to have taken an affinity to. The attempted resulted in a broken wrist and a very badly scraped knee. So she really was not entirely keen on her son attempting the same feat.

Emma couldn't contain her chuckle. "So kid, does this mean you don't know how to ride a bike?"

Henry furrowed his brows and glowered at the blonde. "Mom doesn't know how either!" he exclaimed defensively and deflected Emma's ribbing over to his mother.

"There never was a need for me to ride a bicycle," Regina responded coolly, refusing to give Emma the satisfaction of reacting to the smug grin on her stupid face.

"But I have the need to!" Henry insisted.

"There is a difference between need and want, Henry," the Mayor reasoned. "Insisting on riding a very unsafe contraption just because all your other friends are doing so is not a need. It's a want."

"Emmmmma!" Henry whined and pulled on the blonde's arm.

Regina gave the boy a scolding look and then narrowed her eyes at the woman across from her with warningly. But she quickly wondered why she even bothered when she caught the mischievous gleam swimming in those blue eyes.

"I have an idea," Emma said excitedly as she looked back and forth between mother and son. Henry was easily intrigued. And naturally, Regina was not.

"Miss Swan..."

"No, really." Emma forestalled further protest from the brunette. "It's gonna be great. Trust me."

Regina could barely contain herself from groaning. "Famous last words," she muttered.

"Just meet me at the schoolyard in an hour," Emma instructed quickly as she shuffled out of the booth.

Regina watched with shakes of her head as the blonde deputy grabbed her coffee and pastry from Ruby before bounding through the front door of the diner. Clearly, her plan was to impress Henry by giving into his wish and teaches him how to ride a bicycle and thereby going completely against Regina's opinion on the matter. Does Emma really think she couldn't see through her little scheme?

Turning to Henry, she saw that he was practically vibrating with anticipation. So it seemed that even her young son caught onto Emma's intention.

That damn Emma Swan! She muttered under her breath.

"Mom! We're gonna go, right?" Henry was bouncing in his seat, beaming at her with bright wide eyes. "We can't bail out on Emma. Pleeeeeea-se!"

She wanted to continue asserting her parental authority and maintain her stance on this silly bicycle business. Because it seemed like being the strict and overbearingly protective mother was the only role she had left to play in her son's life. Regina sighed, pained by the how fragile their relationship has become and how she wished Henry would react with such enthusiasm to her as he had to Emma.

"I suppose we can go find out what she's really up to," she conceded finally, tired of letting Emma reap in all his affection. "But you better go quickly and get Miss Lucas to reheat your pancakes; because we are not going anywhere until you finished what you ordered. I didn't raise you to waste food."

"I don't need it heated up," Henry said quickly and began shoving the cold pancakes into his month. And Regina's first instinct was to tell him so slow down. But the smile he flashed at her in between bites made it just that little bit easier to hold her tongue and instead soak in the light hearted moment that was so precious between the two of them.

Henry cleared his plate in record time and scooted out of the booth. He was so anxious to get going he even took Regina's coat off the hook and held it out for her.

Sometimes, Regina thought as she smiled at him and slid into the jacket, I really do get tired of sitting on the fence between being thankful of Emma Swan and despising her.

(TBC)