DISCLAIMER:: do not own. just borrowing for purpose of creative expression. no profit obtained.
A/N:: and we've reached another one of the original three chapters written for this story and our turning point. to those of you who've stuck with the story so far, i thank you. your continued support means everything to me. though emma's twenty eighth birthday is fast approaching, this story is still far from over. i hope everyone will stick around for the rest of the ride. enjoy and review.
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-Chapter 39: Is It Too Late To Try?-
When she woke up, the room spun and she put a hand to her head, groaning. This was not good, this was not good at all. She really didn't feel like being sick today. Of course, when did one ever really feel like being sick?
She threw the covers off and got out of bed, trudging down the hall to the bathroom. She refused to look in the mirror, not really wanting to see her reflection as she reached for her toothbrush. Once she had brushed her teeth and her hair, she left the bathroom and went downstairs. The look Mary Margaret gave her told her she should have checked her appearance in the mirror after all.
"Emma, are you feeling alright?" Mary Margaret's face was a mask of concern and she immediately set about making Emma some decaffeinated tea.
Emma sat down at the counter and put her head on her arms. "What gave it away?"
"Well, besides the fact that you look like someone shot your cat?" She set the cup of tea in front of Emma and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You missed a spot on your hair and it looks like you have a cowlick."
Emma looked up in horror and ran back upstairs. Upon looking in the bathroom mirror, she discovered that Mary Margaret hadn't been exaggerating. She was pulling an Alfalfa. She thanked whatever higher power was up there that her roommate had been decent enough to point it out to her before she went into work looking that ridiculous. If either Graham or Regina caught sight of her looking like that, they'd never let her live it down.
When she came back downstairs, she at least looked slightly more decent, if not almost composed.
Mary Margaret smirked. "Much better."
Emma grumbled as she grabbed her tea. She took a long drink and just had enough time to grab the rubbish bin before it came right back up.
Mary Margaret frowned. "I'm calling Graham; you're not going into work today."
"No!" Emma held the rubbish bin at the ready just in case but she looked pleadingly at her roommate. "Regina will just use it against me. The only reason I'm still deputy is because I have yet to mess up at the job. If I call out, knowing her, she'll find some fine print attendance clause that authorizes my immediate termination." She turned back to the rubbish bin as the remnants of last night's dinner decided to make an appearance.
"I don't care. You're in no condition to go to work. You're staying home and that's final." Mary Margaret grabbed the landline and dialed the station.
Emma felt too crappy to stop her.
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Emma heard the knock and lifted her head from the arm of the couch, ever so lightly, staring at the closed door and willing whoever was intruding upon her peace to just go away. She didn't want to deal with anyone right now. But the knock came again, more persistent this time and with a heavy sigh, she pulled herself up off the couch and slunk across to the door. She opened it to find Regina on the other side, with a look of pure… was that concern?
"Miss Swan…"
Regina pushed past her and Emma let her, not up for the fight today. She closed the door. She eyed the couch longingly, but it would be rude to just ignore the mayor as if she weren't currently standing there, waiting for… god knows what.
"Can I help you with something Madam Mayor?"
Regina frowned. "You weren't there."
Emma managed to make it to the sofa, despite her spinning vision, and balanced on the arm, regarding Regina with a look of pure exhaustion. "There was somewhere I was supposed to be?"
"This morning… you're always there… I… And then when I called the station and Graham said you hadn't shown up for work… I thought after last night that maybe you were..."
Right, it was Saturday. Their morning rendezvous at the bed and breakfast. She'd missed it. If she wasn't feeling so lousy, she would have smirked. It wasn't very often she could reduce someone as complex and trained in the art of wordplay as Regina Mills to speechlessness. But today, she wasn't in the mood to celebrate the small victory. "I'm sorry Regina. I'm just having an off day."
She never saw it coming. She'd grown so used to the cold shoulder, the insults, the disparaging looks, that it had become commonplace to predict a negative reaction. So she nearly fell off her perch when Regina stepped up to her and put the back of a hand gently to her forehead.
"You have a fever." She let her hand linger just a moment longer than she needed to, a fact that registered with Emma but she chose to file it away for processing at a time when her head wasn't pounding quite so much.
"Oh, it's still there? I thought it might have run away."
Regina rolled her eyes at the sarcasm. At least Miss Swan wasn't sick enough that her wits weren't about her. "An emergency has me in the office for a couple hours this morning, but I'd like to return and check on you once I'm off work."
Emma shrugged. "That's not really necessary. Mary Margaret just went out to market to get some groceries and will be home by then. I'll be fine."
Regina nodded. "I have no doubt you will Miss Swan, but I'd still like to confirm for myself if it's all the same to you."
Emma got up and walked to the door. "By all means then." She held it open for Regina, the politest way she could think of to convey 'get the hell out, I feel like shit and I just want to sleep'.
"Feel better, dear." For perhaps the very first time she didn't hear the usual venom in that word. Regina was being rather genuine.
"Have a good day Regina." She closed the door and slid back into the comfortable embrace of the couch.
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She never remembered falling into a fevered half sleep or Mary Margaret arriving home from the store. She dozed through the day, oblivious to the world around her until that knock sounded once more. Emma woke, but refused to open her eyes, once again willing the intruder away. She heard the door open.
"Mayor Mills. What brings you by?"
"I told Emma I'd be stopping by to check on her. Did she not tell you?" Regina sounded like she could care less whether Emma had told her or not.
"She's been asleep since I got home."
Emma heard Regina's heels tapping against the floor as she entered. "Sleep is good."
"Uh…" She could hear Mary Margaret struggling for some way to make small talk with the normally un-chatty mayor and part of Emma willed herself to make her awakened state known so as to save her roommate from any unnecessary awkwardness. But a greater part of her kept her from fully waking herself up. Laying there, in the semi-aware place between asleep and awake, felt so good. When had this couch gotten so comfortable? She felt a cool hand touch her forehead and didn't even flinch at the intrusion, the touch was welcome.
"She still has bit of a fever."
"When she wakes up, I'll make her some tea."
"Don't bother. I'll do it. We wouldn't want you to get sick, now would we?"
Mary Margaret immediately became defensive. "And what about you?"
Regina ran a hand absentmindedly through Emma's blonde locks (an action that did not go unnoticed to Mary Margaret, or Emma herself for that matter) and smirked. "What ailment would dare infect me?"
Mary Margaret would have done a perfect spit-take had she been sipping something at that moment. Had that been… a joke? From Regina?
"Besides dear, if I get sick, I can work perfectly well from home. You, however, cannot teach from this pitiful excuse of a residence. I don't want you infecting my son or his classmates."
Mary Margaret found she had no retort, except maybe 'my house, my rules' which sounded so childish that she dismissed it a second after it entered her thoughts. Finally, she nodded. "I need to take a shower anyway. Tea is in that cupboard, cups in that one." She indicated the cupboards in question. "Please be nice to her when she wakes up."
The brunette schoolteacher expected Regina to get defensive and argue, but she didn't. Instead, she just nodded and stared down at Emma.
Emma waited until she heard the shower turn on upstairs before she finally forced herself to wake up and confront the normally fickle brunette. She rolled over and glanced towards the small kitchen and the mayor currently filling the tea pot with water. "You came back."
"I told you I would." She said it as if it should be obvious.
Emma sat up slowly, wary of a possible headache. "I know. But saying you're going to do something and actually doing it are two very different concepts."
"I, Miss Swan, am a woman of my word."
Emma looked at her thoughtfully. "I believe that." Headache averted, she stood and walked into the small kitchen to join the mayor as she continued to make the tea.
Regina was methodical in the way she moved about the kitchen; it was almost graceful. She moved with a practiced ease, the simple way of someone who had an intimate knowledge of the room. In that moment, she looked very much the doting mother she claimed to be.
"Thank you Regina." Emma leaned against the counter and managed a small smile for her.
"For what dear?" Regina reached up into the cupboard for a mug to pour the tea into.
"For checking up on me. For caring, in your own way. I know it's not incredibly easy for you and you didn't have to do it, but you did. So, thank you."
Regina offered a small half smile as she shut the cupboard slowly. She placed the tea in the mug, wrapping the cord around the handle to hold it in place and then poured the hot water over it. She held the cup out to Emma. "I did miss it, you know."
"Miss what?" Emma gratefully accepted the cup the mayor offered her. She breathed in the fragrant tea with a smile.
"You. Having you there." Regina shrugged and leaned back against the sink. "I've grown accustomed to seeing you in the mornings, especially Saturdays."
Emma managed a grin. She stuck out her leg and nudged the other woman's calf playfully with her knee. "Admit it. You like me."
Regina rolled her eyes and tossed the dish towel at her. But, Emma noticed happily, she didn't deny the accusation either.
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It took some convincing, but Emma finally negotiated Henry and Regina to have dinner with her. Regina left to pick up Henry and get take out from Granny's because lord knows Emma wasn't fit to cook in her condition and, beyond that, she had no culinary skills to speak of. Mary Margaret declined an invitation to stay, saying she'd go out instead with Ashley and Ruby. She claimed she'd rather not be present for "the next world war". She was gone by the time Emma's two dinner guests returned.
"Emma!" The little boy ran through the door and towards his birth mother.
"Henry, no!" Both women said in unison.
The little boy stopped in his tracks, looking dejected.
"Sorry kid, but you just recovered from your flu and until we're sure this is not just some twenty four hour bug, it's safer if you stay in the safety zone."
Henry nodded and slumped over to the table. Regina followed, setting the take out bag down and opening the containers, putting the correct Styrofoam box in front of each person.
Emma smiled at the brunette. "Thank you Regina. I know this isn't exactly as fancy as dinner at your place, but I'm glad you're both here." She looked at Henry who was staring back at her with a slightly perplexed expression, probably curious as to why she'd ever be glad to be dining with the Evil Queen.
"You're welcome Miss Swan. Thank you for having us."
Henry looked even more shocked at that comment as it left his mother's mouth. She never genuinely thanked anyone for anything. Most of the time when the normally polite remark left her mouth, it was of the "thank you captain obvious" variety. But he turned to his dinner and tried not to focus too much on the polite exchange between his two moms. It just made his head hurt.
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"Henry is asleep." Emma came trudging down the stairs. They'd spent the entire night after dinner watching movies, just as they would at Regina's. It had been a nice night, but too much for little Henry. He'd cut out and gone up to Emma's room about halfway through movie number three. Now that they'd just finished number four, Emma had gone to check on him. He'd been curled up under her covers, out like a light. The sight had warmed her heart.
Regina nodded. She patted the spot beside her on the couch and smiled when Emma took it.
The blonde squeezed Regina's knee. She would have attempted to initiate something on a normal day, but today her body still felt like it had been run over by a semi. "Thank you. I know you aren't fond of being here."
Regina nodded. "It's alright. The evening wasn't entirely unpleasant." She took a sip from the cup in her hand.
Emma smiled but it broke quickly into a yawn.
"You can sleep you know. Don't keep yourself up just because I'm here." Regina set the cup back down onto the table.
Emma frowned. "I want to be up when you leave. If I go to sleep with someone… I want to wake up the same way. I'm tired of…" She couldn't say 'going to sleep in your arms and walking up alone', though that was what went through her mind.
Regina pulled Emma down until the blonde's head rested in her lap. She momentarily caressed her cheek with the backs of her fingers. "Close your eyes Miss Swan, I'll be with you in the morning."
Emma frowned for a moment before accepting it. She knew Regina; Madam Mayor would not last the night. She'd bow out gracefully once she'd done her due diligence by seeing Emma off to sleep. Then she'd slip out into the darkness. But it also wasn't an entirely false statement. She'd awaken the next morning in the Enchanted Forest where her Regina would be waiting. It was the best she could hope for. "Just in case I forget to tell you this later… I'm really glad Henry found his way to you. You're a wonderful mother Regina. I owe you everything and I hope one day I can repay even a portion of the debt I owe you." She rolled onto her side and buried her face against Regina's stomach. She was asleep within seconds.
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Regina stroked Emma's hair as the blonde slept peacefully, her head still buried against Regina's abdomen.
"You're still here?"
Regina nearly jumped at Mary standing behind the couch; she hadn't even heard her get home. "You sound surprised."
"Probably because I am."
"I do care for her, Miss Blanchard." The truth of the statement was blatant by her continued presence.
"She loves you, ya know? There are times I see in her eyes that she doesn't want to, that she constantly struggles with it, but she does love you… so very much." Mary put a hand on Regina's shoulder. "Please, don't disappoint her."