A/N: Hey everyone! Sorry again for all the waiting, and thanks for your patience and sticking with this story!
Chapter 20: Labels
Prior to this moment, Emma would have said that she moderately enjoyed hugging. She hadn't had a huge number of opportunities in her life to engage in the activity, but she certainly appreciated it when given the chance. Still, it had never been something she felt too strongly about. Never something she felt she needed.
But now, with Regina's arms around her, holding on as hard as possible, their bodies pressed flush against each other like even a millimeter of air is too much distance, Emma feels a need to amend her opinion. Hugging, in general, is decent. Hugging Regina is like finding water in the middle of a desert.
She never thought she'd be so dependent on another person, but this confirms it: she needs Regina to live.
"I missed you so much," she whispers, deeply inhaling the scent of apples and grass and wood that pervades Storybrooke and that seems to have lingered on Regina even after a couple of weeks in the big city.
Regina buries her face in Emma's shoulder and it's fairly obvious she's crying.
Emma isn't sure how long they stand there, clinging to each other, rocking slightly back and forth and letting themselves bask in the sensation of being whole again, but she's sure she never wants to stop. They do, though, eventually. The five-minute warning bell rings, and the classroom is far from a private space. Their grips gradually weaken, and the space between them increases until there's enough room for Regina to lift one hand to wipe her eyes, and both girls attempt to pull themselves together.
"So, Regina, Emma says you didn't like Wicked," Mary Margaret accuses, her voice soft so as not to disturb the blue jay she's stroking.
"Why is everyone so fixated on that? I never said I hated it, I just don't understand all the hype. The sun doesn't rise and set on whether I enjoyed some dumb musical."
"I'm personally offended that you just called it dumb, but I suppose you're entitled to your opinion," Mary Margaret says lightly.
"Even if it's wrong," Emma mutters, playfully shoving the other girl. "Good thing I love you anyway."
"Well, it's a good thing I love you, even though you're the most irritating person I've ever met," Regina shoots back.
"So nice to see you two getting along," Ruby jokes as she enters the classroom. "Welcome back, Regina."
Suddenly, a shocked exclamation comes from just outside the classroom door. "Regina!" Two seconds later, Regina is practically on the ground, having been tackled by an overly enthusiastic Henry.
"Geez, kid, play it cool," Emma laughs.
"Oh yeah, like you did?" the freshman says accusingly. "I wasn't even here, and I know how it went. I'm surprised you didn't leave your Golden Retriever slobber marks on her face." Still, he reluctantly drops his arms to his sides and tries to look cool and aloof.
Regina hugs him fiercely, the biggest grin imaginable on her face. She briefly rests her head on top of his and whispers, "I missed you, Henry."
"I missed you, too," he says seriously. "This one," he grumbles, jabbing his thumb in Emma's direction, "can't even remember how to properly find the slope of a line half the time."
"Delta X over Delta Y, right?"
"Oh god," Ruby mutters, shaking her head. "I didn't think it was possible for someone to be worse at math than me. I feel bad for you, Henry."
"You're never allowed to leave me alone with her again," Henry tells Regina. "You have to promise."
"I promise," laughs Regina. "And I would like to point out, once again, that you live with our teacher!"
"What? We don't talk about math at home. We're too busy gossiping about our love lives."
"Emma Swan, I swear, if you and Miss Blanchard talk about-"
"We don't talk about you," Mary Margaret say quickly. "Just Emma's five other love interests."
Regina shoots the teacher a glare that almost looks more affectionate than menacing, and Mary Margaret gives her a small smile. The other students have begun filing into the classroom, so Emma and Regina take their usual seats and open their books, not even remotely prepared to focus on class.
Emma reaches out under the table and grabs Regina's hand, lacing their fingers together and giving a tight squeeze. The brunette mutters, "I can't take notes like this," but she makes no attempt to remove her hand. If anything, she holds on tighter.
xx
If there's one person who doesn't seem particularly surprised to see Regina back at school, it's Zelena. Emma and Regina run into the older girl in the hall on their way to English, and the two half-sisters stare at each other awkwardly for a few minutes before Zelena mutters, "How are you."
Regina shrugs. "I've been better. And worse."
Zelena shifts her weight between her feet in obvious discomfort and nods. "So, are you staying in Storybrooke? Or going with your dad?"
"Which one are you hoping for?" Regina challenges.
"Well, it doesn't really bother me one way or the other. Personally, I'd choose to get out of here and never come back, but I don't really have that option, do I?" She stops briefly to consider. "I guess college isn't that far off."
Regina nods and gives her sister sympathetic half-smile. "I'm going to stay, at least for now. Storybrooke is my home, even without..." she trails off, struggling to maintain composure. Being away from town for a while may have helped some, but the loss of her mother and the aftermath of all that's happened are still very raw.
Zelena looks vaguely conflicted, like she wants to make some remark but recognizes that it would be in poor taste. Emma internally commends her for keeping silent - she knows Zelena has her own issues, that are just as raw, surrounding Cora.
Maybe someday, talking about the abandonment and years of emotional abuse will help the sisters. Heal them, even. Maybe one day they can actually be a family together.
But that day probably won't be today.
"I like your haircut," Zelena finally mutters. "It makes your face look less fat."
Emma sighs and hardens her features into a glare. Of course Zelena couldn't leave well-enough alone. She starts lifting her hand to place it comfortingly on the small of Regina's back, but shockingly, the other girl actually laughs.
"Thanks, big sis!" she says cheerfully. "See you around."
xx
Dr. Hopper, as her new acting guardian, has all but forbidden Regina to step inside Gold's classroom, believing that continuing to study magic will do her more harm than good. Not that she really wants to, anyway. Not yet.
So, the class remains Emma's personal tutoring session with the creepiest guy she's ever met. When Regina questions her about why she doesn't just quit like everyone else, she says she hasn't gotten around to taking it off her schedule yet, and a good attendance record is one of the terms of her probation. She can't admit, even to herself, that she doesn't actually want to quit. Terrified as she is of these powers that shouldn't even exist, she kind of enjoys them. She likes being the special one for once in her life.
Today, Gold greets her with the she scariest smile she's ever seen. "I hear that Miss Mills is back from her trip. Is she not attending this class anymore?"
"Yeah, apparently she's not interested in learning magic anymore," Emma mutters. "Wonder why."
Gold looks slightly perturbed for a second, but it quickly fades. "She never was particularly interested after she learned she couldn't use it to raise the dead. Anyway, I do hope she's doing well."
"You mean after you killed her mom? Yeah, she's doing as well as can be expected," Emma says sarcastically. She wonders, briefly, why he and Mother Superior aren't in jail for that, but she quickly drops the thought. She's not sure how an argument about enchanted hearts and fairy dust could possibly hold up in court, and her head hurts thinking about how to keep the two most powerful living magic users in town locked up for very long.
"For the last time, I did not-"
"Yeah, yeah, you didn't kill Cora," Emma interrupts. "We'll just have to agree to disagree on that one. Now, are you going to teach me magic, or what?"
Gold raises his eyebrows and looks almost impressed with her. "She may have been Regina's mother, but Cora did her no favors. Actually, she never did anything that helped either of her daughters."
"I actually agree with that, but I don't think that means she had to die."
"With all due respect, you barely knew her."
"I had her hand in my chest!" Emma counters angrily. "And Regina knew her pretty well and didn't want her to die."
Gold sighs. "In order to do the magic I plan to try with you today, it's essential that you not hate me, so let's say we end this argument and resume our study."
"Fine," Emma scowls. The people in this town have some ridiculously fucked up logic.
"Excellent. Now, one thing I observed when you and Regina were in class together is that when you made physical contact, you were able to join your powers."
"Wait, what?" Emma demands, head spinning. "Are you talking about - but you weren't even in the room when that happened!"
Scoffing, Gold gestures to the small mirror on the wall. Emma stifles a gasp. "Are you serious? Is this...? You know what, I don't even want to - wait, yes, I do. How many of these do you have?"
"Just here and in my office," the teacher says dismissively. "I have a lot of valuable and sensitive magical objects that I like to keep an eye on."
"Wait, just wait. Does this mean you saw everything, with Zelena and...you were watching the whole time?" Emma sputters. "And you never did anything?"
"Not everything, but what did you expect me to do? It wasn't my conflict to interfere in, and I wanted to see if Regina would sink or swim. Magicians' true abilities tend to reveal themselves in stressful situations, when their instincts kick in. Much like yours did, actually."
Emma has to stop and take a breath, because she's seeing red. If he wasn't so powerful, she'd focus her own magic to blast him into next week without a second of hesitation. "Yeah, well, she could have sunk!" she exclaims.
"But she didn't."
"It was a close call!"
"I may have underestimated the damage that Cora did to her psyche," Gold admits. "But the fact is that she didn't sink, thanks in part to you. Which brings us back to the question of your powers."
Emma groans and tries not to roll her eyes as Gold describes for her how he's going to attempt to join their magic together to move a desk across the room. This doesn't make any sense, and she knows before it even happens that it's not going to work.
When he gives the signal, she joins their hands, trying her best not to shudder. She can feel his magic, buzzing underneath his skin, but there's none of the shock that she felt in her own body the first time she accidentally joined powers with Regina. None of his magic goes into her, and for this she's actually quite grateful.
The teacher shakes his head. "It's not working."
She considers telling him that she was pretty much able to figure that out for herself, but decides against it. She's not sure how much sass he'll tolerate before setting her on fire or turning her into a snail or something worse, and she doesn't want to risk it, not when she's been having such a great day.
Instead, she asks, "Why?"
"Well, it's not something inherent to your power, the ability to join to others, so my guess would be that you and Regina have something special. A magical connection, if you will."
"How did we get one of those?"
The teacher looks about as baffled as she feels. "I honestly haven't seen anything like it before."
xx
Emma leaves Gold's classroom with a million different thoughts dancing around in her head that she's not sure how to interpret. So she decides not to interpret them at all, instead heading towards Mary Margaret's classroom. Her foster mother had promised to take her to buy a cell phone this afternoon, and while that's quickly dropped down to last place on her list of priorities now that Regina is available to speak to in person, she figures that it's something fun they could potentially do together.
She stops short outside the door, blinking in confusion, when she hears voices inside the classroom. She doesn't recall Mary Margaret mentioning a meeting this afternoon. Maybe someone just stopped by?
The door cracked slightly open, and a quick peek inside reveals Regina, of all people, standing in front of Mary Margaret's desk. Emma quickly jumps away from the door and flattens her back against the wall, hoping she wasn't noticed. Not that she thinks either of those two people would be unhappy to see her, but she has no idea what sort of moment this is. Are they going to hug and make up? Kill each other?
She knows she shouldn't eavesdrop, but she thinks that if it's the latter, someone needs to be around to break things up.
She's caught completely off-guard when it's Regina's voice she hears first, "Miss...Mary Margaret, I think I owe you an apology, for my behavior toward you over the last two years."
The math teacher seems just as shocked. "Regina, no!" she exclaims. "I'm the one who needs to apologize to you. I didn't - I never intended-"
"I know," Regina says quietly. "And you did apologize. I just didn't want to hear it."
"Do you want to hear it now?"
Regina sighs. "I don't know. I understand where you were coming from. You didn't know about Mother. You didn't think...you didn't have any idea what would happen."
"But maybe if I did think, I would have had an idea," Mary Margaret argues, her voice sad and resigned. "I just want you to know that I have never stopped regretting what happened."
"Me neither," Regina rasps. Emma can practically hear the tears in her voice, and she wants to run into the room and pull the other girl into her arms and rub her back until she lets them all out. Regina clears her throat and continues, "But it might have happened anyway. Mother...Mother was..."
"You don't have to say it," Mary Margaret reassures her. "But thank you."
Regina's voice cracks as she says, "I know that you thought you were looking out for me."
"I did. It ended up completely backfiring, but-"
"Thank you," Regina whispers. "For not stopping."
After that, Emma stops hearing sound coming from the classroom, except for a few muffled noises that could be sobs, and she sneakily ventures another peek through the door. She's simultaneously surprised and unsurprised by what she sees: Regina and Mary Margaret holding each other, tears streaming down both of their faces.
Emma feels a bit of moisture in her own eyes as she quickly flees down the hall. This isn't her moment to intrude on, but she feels a small amount of pride at perhaps having had a hand in bringing it about.
She leaves a note on Mary Margaret's car windshield that she's walking home with Graham and Ruby, thoughts of phone shopping entirely forgotten.
xx
Regina's dad leaves for Boston that night, in preparation for his flight that leaves early the next morning. Regina insists that Emma accompany her to Granny's to say goodbye to him, which makes the blonde feel entirely awkward, but she figures she can handle it for one evening.
Henry Mills does not make the situation any easier. He reaches out to shake her hand and says, "Nice to meet you, Emma." Emma shoots Regina a confused look - she didn't mention anything about her dad having memory issues, but the older man catches her glance and laughs. "Of course, we've already been introduced," he says with a good-natured smile, "but I had no idea, at the time, that I was meeting my daughter's girlfriend, so I feel the need for a do-over."
"Daddy!" Regina hisses, looking thoroughly embarrassed.
"I...um..." Emma fumbles for words, eyes darting around to avoid focusing anywhere but Regina's beet-red cheeks or her father's humorous brown eyes. "We haven't really been using labels like that just yet, but..."
"Oh." Henry's forehead wrinkles, and he blinks confusedly several times. "The way she talks about you, I just assumed - but you're right, she never did use that word, now that I think about it, and I've clearly made both of you uncomfortable, so I'm very sorry."
Emma shrugs. "No harm done, right?"
Regina squeezes her hand under the table and clears her throat loudly. "Should we order?"
Mr. Mills checks his watch and says, "Actually, angel, I have to get going a little earlier than planned - it seems that I misread the bus schedule earlier. But your dinner is on me," he adds, slipping his daughter a twenty dollar bill.
"Oh. But Daddy, I..." Regina looks heartbroken, and Emma feels like punching her dad in the face, not for the first time. But then he pulls her close and whispers something that sounds suspiciously like "go for it."
Regina nods and sniffles and offers to walk him to his car, telling Emma that she'll be right back. The blonde shrugs, watching father and daughter walk out the door arm in arm. She plays with a stray straw wrapper on the table and waits, confused and possibly a little nervous about what's going to happen next.
Regina returns a few minutes later, wiping red-rimmed eyes but, thankfully, smiling. "Sorry about my dad," she mutters as she wipes her nose on a napkin and slips into the seat previously occupied by her father, across the booth from Emma.
"About the whole calling me your girlfriend thing? Don't worry about it," Emma says quickly. "It's not like he's the first one, and at least he meant it in a nice way."
"He did," Regina agrees, fidgeting nervously with her ring. "But it made me realize, you know, we never really talked about labels. I mean, we said we wanted to have something, but..."
"But then all this other crap happened and we never got a chance to put a name on it?" Emma guesses.
"Exactly. So, I was wondering-" Regina takes a deep breath and looks Emma straight in the eyes "-do you want to be my girlfriend? I know, of course, that I come with a lot of baggage - and, to be honest, you do, too - and such a label carries the weight of-"
Emma interrupts eagerly, "Are you kidding? Of course I do!"
Regina moves her mouth like she wants to say something, but nothing comes out except a tiny, barely audible squeal. She quickly reaches across the table with hands trembling, for once, not with trauma but excitement, and interlocks their fingers together.
The two girls stare at each other for a moment and lean in closer across the booth, identical smiles on their faces revealing hearts about to burst, too overjoyed in the moment to ruin it with words.
It's Granny who interrupts. "Are you two going to order food?" she demands. "I run a diner, not kissing booth."
Regina coughs, and Emma mutters, "Right," and both girls release their hands and quickly flip through the menu, cheeks reddening.
"Swan, do you want your usual, or are you going to change it up for once."
"I'll have the usual," she says quickly, embarrassed that her voice sounds like she's on helium.
"I'll have the same." Emma raises her eyebrows in shock at her girlfriend - her girlfriend! - who only shrugs.
Emma and Regina exhale simultaneously when the gruff woman walks away, tentatively rejoining their hands.
"So, I guess this is our first date," Emma observes with a cheesy grin she can't seem to wipe off.
"Is Granny watching us?" Regina asks.
"No, why?"
"Because," she explains, sliding out of her seat and moving quickly back into the one next to Emma, still holding onto the blonde's hand, "I really want to kiss my girlfriend."