A/N: I'm so sorry for the massive delay with this chapter - I've had a mad busy week (moved out of university, started back at my job, collapsed with exhaustion because the real world absolutely sucks) and so I genuinely haven't had time to proof-read this until now. But it's a long chapter to make up for it! I hope you all enjoy :)

Chapter Thirteen

August grappled for the loudly trilling phone that was sat on his desk. 'Hello?'

'August!' a voice hissed down the line at him. 'Something's happened!'

'What do you mean?' he frowned. He hooked the chair out from beneath the desk and sat down. 'What's up?'

'My mom was just on the phone to Kathryn,' Henry said, his voice low but throbbing with excitement. 'She's asked her to babysit me tomorrow night.'

August narrowed his eyes. '…okay?'

'And when she had to tell her where she was going,' the boy continued, almost dizzy with glee, 'she said that she was going out for dinner. And when Kathryn asked her who with, she said, "someone whom I would very much rather not spend any time with at all".'

'But that could be anyone, kid,' August said. 'I mean, your mom does dislike a whole lot of people.'

'But then,' Henry went on, ignoring the interruption. 'They were talking about where they would be going or something, and she said laughed and said, "yes, well, I just hope that she is capable of showing a little decorum and manages to not drink herself under the table for once".'

'Ah.' At this, August's face broke into a grin. 'Now that couldn't be just anyone.'

'What does this mean?' Henry spluttered, now pacing around his bedroom. 'I thought they were angry at one another? What's happened? Have you spoken to Emma today?'

'I saw her this morning,' August said, frowning. 'She was still really upset. I have no idea what your mom could have said to make her agree to this, but it had to be good.'

'Or maybe Emma just does want to be friends with her,' the boy said happily, throwing himself onto his bed. 'And that's enough for her.'

August thoughtfully ran a hand over his chin. 'Maybe. Maybe that's it.'

'Anyway, I've got to go,' Henry said. 'Dinner's nearly ready. I just wanted to let you know.'

'Thanks, buddy – I appreciate it,' August said, leaning back in his chair. 'Hey, if your mom says anything about it over dinner tonight, will you give me another call?'

'You bet,' Henry said. 'Speak to you later, August.'

The line went dead, and August replaced the ancient phone on the desk. An odd smile was spreading across his lips: one that half came from relief, and half came from knowing. Because he had been right: something was happening there. August knew that Emma Swan did not just automatically forgive people because they offered her dinner, nor did she overlook a blinding betrayal just because she missed a few catty, sarcastic exchanges. Emma was the type of girl who held onto her hurt and let it burn inside of her, and the only reason that she would have decided to let this particular pain go would be if there was something far, far more important waiting for her on the other side. Something that even she would not be willing to pass up.

August threw his head back, letting out a delighted, throaty sigh. This is too strange, he thought to himself. Too strange, and too perfect.

'You look pretty, Mom.'

The voice came from the door that Regina hadn't realised she'd left open. She jumped, turning to look at where her son was leaning against the frame with his arms folded across his chest. He was smiling, and not in his usual happy-ten-year-old kind of way.

'Thank you, Henry,' she said, turning back to her full-length mirror. She frowned: she didn't feel pretty.

'Emma will like it.'

As Regina reached up to adjust one of the pins in her hair, her eyes met her son's in the glass of the mirror. She raised one eyebrow.

'I highly doubt that Miss Swan will even notice what I'm wearing.'

'She'll notice,' Henry insisted, taking a small step into the room. 'I promise.'

Regina scrutinised her reflection once more. As much as it pained her to admit it, her stomach had been jumping with nerves since she'd suggested this meeting to Emma the previous evening. As a result, the tightly-fitted black dress that she was now wearing was the sixth outfit that she'd tried on in the last hour.

She swallowed, watching the smile on her son's face in the mirror. 'Do you… do you think this dress is better than the red one?'

He glanced over at where his mother's other clothing options were currently spread out across her bed. 'Definitely. That one's nice. Plus red's a sort of lovey colour anyway – you don't want people thinking that you and Emma are out on a date.'

He giggled as he said this, like the idea was the most outrageous thing that he'd ever heard. Regina forced a smile, nodding.

'You're absolutely right,' she said, examining her reflection once more. 'Black it is.'

The dress was perfectly tailored to her body, but it was one that she'd never worn before tonight because she'd never had anywhere to wear it. It was too dressy for the mayor's office, and it wasn't like she'd been invited on many dates in the past twenty-eight years. Her brief meetings with Graham hadn't required her to consult with her wardrobe very often – generally she went into them blindly, not thinking about what she was doing at all. He hadn't either. The whole thing had just been yet another familiarity that Emma Swan's arrival had managed to shatter, and yet she couldn't honestly say that she even missed it that much anymore. There had always been something in it that made her feel as cheap and as worthless as she had done many years before, in another land, in another man's bed.

She reached up, anxiously patting at the side of her head to make sure that her hair was staying in place. She'd pinned it up, forcing it into an almost old-Hollywood up-do that she'd never attempted before and was already making her face feel far too exposed. She examined herself in the mirror, all of a sudden worried that her red lipstick was too bright. Maybe if she wore the red dress after all it wouldn't appear quite so garish.

She turned around to ask Henry's opinion, suddenly not considering what it must look like to him to see his mother quite so worked up about her going for a simple meal with her town's sheriff, only to find him sat on her bed, watching her.

She stopped in her tracks. 'What?'

He blinked, like he hadn't realised that she was even there anymore. 'Oh. Nothing. I was just thinking.'

'Thinking about what?' she asked, forcing herself not to look back into the mirror again.

'About you. And Emma,' he said, tilting his head to one side. Regina's stomach clenched. 'You're really trying to be friends with her, aren't you?'

'Of course I am,' she said, beginning to step into her towering black heels. 'I promised you I would, Henry.'

'But you want to – right?' he asked slowly. 'You're not just doing this for me?'

Regina paused, one hand leaning against the wall. She swallowed.

'I do,' she said eventually, her voice quiet. She wasn't sure that she'd ever admitted it before – to herself, or much less out loud to somebody else. Then again, she hadn't had anyone who would have wanted to know before now. Not many people in Storybrooke showed an interest in her personal life.

'Really?'

'Yes,' she said, smiling at her son over her shoulder. 'I do. Miss Swan is… well. She's annoying and she's rude and she feeds you far too many sweets while thinking that I won't notice. But she's also your mother, and she's… she's a good person. I think. And I'd like to be able to live in a world where we can get along with one another, with civility; not fighting over you and not having to worry about one another anymore.'

There was a pause after she had spoken and she kept her head down, pretending to be absorbed in the task of putting her left shoe on. Then suddenly two thin arms were wrapped around her waist, squeezing surprisingly hard for a tiny, timid ten year old boy.

'I'm glad,' he mumbled against her dress. 'I want you to be happy, Mom. I really do. And I'm glad that you're trying to let yourself.'

It took every ounce of strength that Regina possessed to force back the tears that were choking at her windpipe.

The doorbell rang, and Regina ran a hand over her son's hair. 'That'll be Kathryn. Will you go and let her in for me?'

'Sure,' he said, smiling up at her before he turned to leave the room. As he reached the doorway, he turned back for just a moment. 'You do look really nice, Mom. She's going to love it.'

And then he disappeared down the stairs, leaving Regina alone in the middle of her bedroom with her shoes pinching at her feet and one tendril already threatening to slip free from her hair.

She was the first to arrive at the restaurant because, naturally, she was ten minutes early. At her request the manager had given them a table that was far into the corner of the room, where Regina hoped that she and Miss Swan would be slightly less conspicuous: from the moment that she sat herself down, however, she could feel the eyes of countless other patrons slipping across the restaurant towards her. She wet her lips, forcing her gaze to remain staring down at the table. Her right hand reached out and started fiddling with the cutlery, lining up the tines of the fork with the top edge of her napkin as she waited for her breathing to slow down.

She heard a cackle of laughter coming from a table on the other side of the room. She had absolutely no reason to suspect that she was the one being laughed at, and yet she felt her cheeks burn all the same.

Those ten minutes crawled by, until finally she heard the door to the restaurant open at exactly seven o'clock. She didn't need to look up to recognise the sound of the footsteps that were being led over to her table by the waiter.

When she did raise her head, her jaw nearly dropped back to the table in surprise. At first all she could see was the sea of green-blue fabric, a perfect match for the eyes of the woman wearing it. It took a second for Regina to realise that the material was taking the form of a dress, and that Emma Swan was definitely the one who was wrapped in it.

Without the sheriff's usual armour of red leather and denim, it was suddenly all too obvious to the mayor just how thin she had actually gotten over the past few weeks: the dress was tightly fitted around a waist that was so narrow that it looked like a child's, and her pale limbs were as thin and fragile as those of a cartoon deer just learning how to walk. And yet, Regina couldn't take her eyes off of her: it pained her to admit it, but this aching thinness almost suited Miss Swan. Her eyes, highlighted by the dress, shone from her face; blinking anxiously from atop sharp cheekbones. Perfect blonde curls fell like a cloak over the fierce wings of her shoulder blades.

She looked stunning, and uncomfortable. And Regina still hadn't said a word.

'Hi,' Emma offered after a few moments, sliding herself into the chair that the waiter was holding out for her. Regina blinked, shaking herself back into consciousness.

'Miss Swan,' she finally stammered out, forcing a smile. 'Forgive me. I just wasn't quite expecting… this.'

'The dress?' Emma asked, a tiny, nervous smile slipping across her lips. 'Yeah. I can understand the surprise. It's… a change.'

'That it is,' Regina smiled, her eyes falling back down to the oceanic fabric. 'It's beautiful.'

'Thank you,' Emma said, looking down at where her fingers were tangled together in her lap. 'You look nice too. Your hair… that style suits you.'

'I feel a bit First Lady-esque.'

'Well, you've got to go somewhere when you're done with being mayor,' Emma said. 'Marrying the president may as well be your next career move.'

Regina laughed, shaking her head. Emma realised in that moment that hearing the mayor giggle was possibly her favourite sound in the world.

There was a pause, and Emma put the purse that she'd had to sneak out of Mary Margaret's room earlier that evening on the floor by her foot. Out of it, she pulled a bundle of papers.

Regina frowned. 'Do you often bring homework with you to restaurants, Miss Swan?'

Emma's lips quirked upwards. She unfolded the papers, then slid them across the table towards the mayor.

'They're just some old emails that I found in my desk,' she said quietly. 'I thought… I thought that tonight might call for props.'

The understanding hit Regina so fast that she almost laughed. 'So that people will think we're actually here to discuss work?'

'Something like that.'

'I see,' Regina said, nodding down at the mundane email that had been addressed to Emma two months ago: it had come from the man who ran Storybrooke's animal shelter regarding a lost dog. 'That was actually a very smart idea, Miss Swan.'

'Always so surprised,' Emma said, leaning forwards across the table, tapping her finger against a blank space at the top of the paper. Regina's eyes flicked up to meet Emma's as she continued in a low voice, her face carefully expressionless. 'I'm glad you came, Regina.'

Regina's heart skipped slightly. 'Why wouldn't I?'

'Panic. Regret,' Emma said quietly. 'Or suddenly realising that you actually do hate me after all.'

'That's a bit presumptuous – I don't recall ever saying that I don't hate you?' Regina said coolly, and Emma immediately snorted with laughter. She sat back in her chair, shaking her head at the brunette sat before her.

Regina bit her lip, then forced herself to say the words that had been bothering her all day. 'Actually… I was more concerned that you weren't going to show up.'

Emma's eyes looked at her curiously. 'Me? Why?'

'I thought that maybe…' Regina's sentence drained off into nothing as she went back to adjusting the straightness of her fork. 'I thought that you might want to get back at me. For what I did.'

'By standing you up?'

'Perhaps.'

'Glad to hear that you still have such a high regard for me,' Emma said, sounding only slightly offended. 'For what it's worth, Regina – I am still annoyed at you. I mean, I'm trying really hard not think about just how pissed off I am at you right now because I might take that damn fork out of your hand and run you through with it.'

'Charming.'

'But that doesn't mean that I was about to humiliate you by leaving you here alone,' she said, frowning slightly. 'I mean… I wanted to see you. God knows why, but I did. Even though I've spent most of the day feeling absolutely sick and then took nearly two hours to get ready. Two hours, Regina. Do you realise how ridiculous that is for me?'

A small smile spread across Regina's face, but she didn't comment on how her own preparations that afternoon had taken closer to three.

Her eyes yet again fell back to the perfect ocean colour of Emma's dress. 'That is quite a long time. Especially since I would have thought that someone like you would be fairly apt at preparing for dates by now.'

Emma raised one eyebrow. 'Someone like me?'

Regina dropped the fork that she had still been fiddling with back to the table with a clatter. 'Oh. No – I didn't mean… I just meant, you know, someone who looks like you. I just would have expected you to be asked out for dinner often enough that you no longer worry about it.'

'No, I get it,' Emma replied, sitting back in her chair and trying to repress the urge to smile over just how horrified the mayor was looking at her own faux pas. 'You think I look easy. I understand.'

'That's not what I meant,' Regina spluttered, feeling her face flushing bright red. This was a disaster – it was barely five minutes in and her foot was already fixed firmly in her mouth. She firmly chose to blame her awkwardness on how she was feeling so deeply uncomfortable that they may as well have decided to meet in a Taco Bell, rather than blaming it on the more obvious reason: ignoring the electric fluttering inside her stomach had become second nature to her, even if it had never been quite as nauseating as it was tonight.

Finally, Emma laughed. 'Calm down, Madame Mayor. I'm just screwing with you.'

Regina groaned, leaning back in her chair. 'That was cruel, Miss Swan. I was trying to pay you a compliment.'

Emma raised her eyebrow.

'Why?' she asked, tilting her head to one side. 'Because we're on a date?'

'Well,' Regina said, forcing herself not to stammer. 'I suppose so, yes.'

'You don't have to do that,' Emma said. She folded her arms across the edge of the table and leant forwards, lowering her voice. 'I'm not expecting anything big or grand or different tonight, Regina. I'm just expecting you.'

'Yes. Well. Being myself hasn't worked out very well for me recently.'

'I wouldn't exactly say that,' Emma said softly, not blinking. Regina felt that fierce rush of blood rising in her cheeks once more.

She went back to fiddling with her fork, hoping that focusing on lining up its silver end with the knife that lay parallel to it would distract her from how loudly her heart was pounding. Her mouth had gone completely dry, and it wasn't lost on her that the waiter was obviously avoiding coming over to take their wine order.

'For what it's worth,' Emma said after a moment, eyeing the frown that had begun to form between the mayor's eyebrows. 'I don't actually go on many dates.'

Regina's dark eyes flicked back up again. 'I find that difficult to believe.'

'The last one I went on was on my birthday. On the day that Henry came to find me,' Emma said, rolling her eyes. 'But that didn't exactly count – I was working. Plus I ended up having the table thrown into my lap.'

Regina blinked. 'Do… do all of your dates normally end that way?'

Emma flashed her a smile. 'All of the ones where I'm trying to throw some guy's ass in jail do.'

'And, before that one?' Regina asked, the fork finally laying still. 'You must have dated in Boston?'

'Not really,' Emma shrugged. 'The odd guy here and there. But honestly, since… since Henry's father, the idea of going out to deliberately get my heart broken kind of lost its appeal. It's easier to just stay away from guys unless it's clear that they definitely aren't wanting anything long-term.'

Regina frowned: that was one honest admission that she hadn't been expecting.

'And yet you're here now.'

'I know.'

'Why is that?'

Emma swallowed, looking down at the table. 'I'm not sure... why are you here?'

Regina smiled faintly. 'I don't really know either. As far as I can recall, I'm supposed to hate you, Miss Swan. And yet… you're the first person that I've actually wanted to spend any sort of time with since… well. For a while, anyway. And I don't really know why.'

Emma watched her as she spoke, taking in the absolute expressiveness of her eyes. The mayor still looked uncomfortable, and terrified: like she was absolutely convinced that Emma was only there to play some kind of joke on her, and she wasn't necessarily sure that she didn't actually deserve that.

It suddenly struck Emma just how small Regina was. Sat in front of her, rather than squaring up to her in her towering heels with her eyes full of fire and challenge, the mayor looked tiny and uncertain. It was something that Emma found endearing in a way that she never had before.

She learned forwards against the table, forcing Regina's dark eyes to meet her green ones.

'People do say that there's a fine line between love and hate, you know,' she said quietly. 'We spent months being scared of one another, resenting one another, feeling threatened by one another. Maybe it just took something big to make us both realise that, once you remove the Henry issue from the equation… we're really kind of right for one another. Which is a thought that I'm still not quite used to.'

Regina smiled faintly. 'I didn't realise that you were a believer in true love, Miss Swan.'

'Oh, I'm not,' Emma shrugged, glancing around the room. 'But I am a believer in balance. You do realise that we're pretty much opposite in every way? And it's all of those things about you that I don't see in myself… your self-assurance, your dignity… the fact that you actually iron your clothes… Those are the things that always riled me up the most. And I always thought it was just because they irritated me, but over the last few weeks… I don't know, Regina. I just think that we balance each other out because all of that stuff that I don't see in myself, I see in you. And it was only ever annoying because I… I found it really, insanely attractive.'

'You did?'

'Are you kidding?' Emma rolled her eyes, but she could feel her cheeks beginning to burn. 'All of those fights, Regina – did you really think we were just doing it because we didn't like one another?'

'I didn't know why you were doing it,' Regina said in a low voice. 'I knew why I was doing it.'

'…and why was that?'

The mayor swallowed. 'Because I enjoyed annoying you. Because whenever you got annoyed, you would get right in my face and refuse to step down again until you'd proved that you weren't scared of me. And I suppose that all of this time I told myself that I liked that because it was a challenge, and I always enjoy a challenge. But recently… I realised that maybe I liked it because it was just exciting. To have you angry at me, and determined to outdo me, and turning up at my office just so that you could shout at me. Sometimes you just don't let yourself think about why you're doing things even if deep down it's so obvious to you that it almost hurts to hold it in.'

Emma blinked, tilting her head to one side. Across the room she could see that the waiter was watching them, obviously wanting to come over to take their order but terrified to interrupt their conversation. She was thirsty, but she ignored him nonetheless: she wanted to hear this.

'You…' she started, then swallowed. 'You've liked me for a while?'

'I suppose so,' Regina muttered, going back to lining up her fork with the edge of her napkin. 'I would never have admitted it, even under torture. Even to myself. But there had to be a reason why I always went after you even when you weren't doing anything to particularly offend me that day. There had to be a reason why I found myself moving so close to you that day when Henry got trapped in the mines.'

'…I always assumed that you were just trying to manipulate me.'

'You remember what I'm talking about?'

'Of course I do,' Emma said with a shrug. 'Because it annoyed me at the time. And basically, whenever you do something that annoys me, it's usually because I'm frustrated by how… flustered it got me.'

A smile was now spreading across the red slash of Regina's lips. 'You don't seem the type to get easily flustered, Miss Swan.'

Emma smiled faintly. 'I never was. Until you came along.'

Finally, the waiter appeared with his notepad clutched in one trembling hand and his smile too wide, too eager to help. Before he could speak Regina picked up the papers that Emma had brought, folding them neatly in half and sliding them into her own purse.

'We'll continue discussing those later, Sheriff Swan,' she said in her familiar, cool mayoral voice. 'For now: would you like some wine?'

It was somewhere around the second bottle that Regina finally allowed herself to relax.

For the entirety of the meal she hadn't been able to take her eyes off of Emma. The initial awkwardness of their uncertain, slightly stilted conversation had slowly dissolved into laughter, and even though she could feel the eyes of every other person in that restaurant continually turning to look at the pair of them, she couldn't stop herself from smiling. Neither, it seemed, could her sheriff. Emma has stopped nervously tangling her fingers up in her lap and instead had them looped around her full glass of red wine, her other hand moving animatedly as she told one story or another. Regina sat back in her chair, nodding her thanks to the waiter as he removed their empty plates, unable to speak for fear of interrupting the sound of Emma's voice. It was excitable and free in a way that she didn't think she'd ever heard her sound before. It was a beautiful noise. The red wine had turned her lips the colour of plums, and her green eyes were shining. Even the scar that now ran down her temple somehow seemed to glimmer.

Regina could have happily sat there and watched her all night – it wasn't until she finally forced herself to look around, seeing that the majority of the restaurant was now empty, that she realised that she almost had done.

Emma followed her gaze, jumping. 'God. What time is it?'

'Almost half eleven,' Regina said, glancing down at her watch. 'Tell me, Miss Swan, as our resident expert on dating: at what time does one consider a dinner to have been a success?'

Emma smirked. 'Probably about an hour ago.'

'That's certainly encouraging.'

'And I'm not an expert on dating,' Emma said, rolling her eyes. 'We've been through that.'

'I'd still say that you're the expert at this table.'

'And I'd say that you're lying,' Emma said, leaning back in her chair with her wine glass held loosely before her. 'You must go on dates.'

'Fairly sporadically.' One loveless marriage and one cursed booty-call could hardly count for more.

'Tell me about them.'

Regina swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry. 'I think… I think you'll find that you already know about them.'

Emma frowned, considering this. And then her eyes went wide. 'Oh. You mean Graham… he's it?'

'Yes.'

'In ten years?'

'Yes, Miss Swan. He's it.'

Emma could already hear the defensive tone slipping back into Regina's voice, and she forced herself to take a step back.

'Okay – I'm imposing a new rule.'

'I didn't peg you as someone with a fondness for any rules at all.'

'The rule,' Emma continued, ignoring her, 'is this: we don't mention Graham. Not for a while, anyway.'

Regina blinked: she hadn't been expecting that.

'And why is that, Miss Swan?'

'That's a door that I don't think that either of us wants to be opening, Regina. There was a lot of anger there, on both sides. And a lot of hurt. It probably still hurts, and so why bring it up and ruin everything that we've managed to do since then? I'm happy to put a pin in that topic for now, if you are.'

Relief hit Regina like a train. Thinking about Graham was… difficult. Talking about him was even more so. The knowledge that Emma didn't plan on bringing him up any sooner than she did was something that she planned to cling onto for dear life for the foreseeable future.

Until, of course, it inevitably had to be talked about. But that was a worry for another day.

'Agreed,' Regina said, forcing a smile. She took another look around the room, exhaling. 'But, for now, I think the time might have come to put that fidgety waiter of ours out of his misery and perhaps ask for the check. Wouldn't you say?'

Emma grinned, glancing across the room towards where he was skulking near a potted fern. 'He does kind of look like he might start crying.'

Regina raised one hand in the air, gesturing that they were ready to pay for the meal, and he nearly fainted with relief. Emma couldn't help the ungainly snort of laughter that escaped from her nose.

She had barely leaned forwards, reaching for the purse by her feet, before Regina said in a low, warning voice, 'Miss Swan. Stop that.'

'What?'

'Put your money away. This is my treat.'

'Don't be ridiculous, Regina, you don't have to buy my forgiveness. I think we've already established that I'm not exactly furious at you anymore.'

'You are still mad at me,' Regina said simply, pulling out her own credit card, 'and rightfully so. But that's not why I'm paying: I'm paying because I invited you, because you are my guest, and because I want to say thank you.'

'Thank you? For what?'

Regina paused, her eyes skittering across Emma's curious face for the hundredth time that evening. Eventually she replied in a soft voice, 'I'll tell you some day.'

Emma couldn't help but smile. She replaced her purse on the floor, and she let Regina pay.

Outside of the restaurant, the parking lot was mostly empty. Their own cars were sat on opposite sides of the concrete, but given that Emma was already struggling to remain upright in her heels and that Regina's eyes were stubbornly refusing to focus on anything at all that surrounded her, they both knew that they wouldn't be leaving in them.

'I suppose I'd better call us a cab,' Regina said, bracing her body against the sharp air. Emma was already shivering, having stupidly neglected to bring any sort of jacket with her. 'And preferably before you catch hypothermia.'

Emma gritted her teeth into a smile. 'Please.'

Regina called the taxi company, and then the pair of them walked over to the low wall that surrounded the parking lot. Regina sat as close to Emma's trembling arm as she could, hoping that her body would help to shield her from the wind. Emma smiled to herself, looking down at her feet; unfamiliar in towering heels and prickling with the cold.

'I've had a really good time tonight, Regina,' she said after a few moments. The mayor turned to look at her: from her position she was barely half a foot away from the deep scar on Emma's forehead, and she was suddenly filled with the overwhelming urge to reach out and drag one finger across it.

Instead, she clenched her fists more tightly in the pockets of her coat. 'So did I.'

'It might be a shame to finish the night now,' she slowly offered, still looking down. 'You… you can come back to mine for a drink, if you like.'

Regina's face broke into a smile, and she quickly turned her head away so that Emma wouldn't see it.

'That's a very kind offer, Miss Swan,' she said, biting down on her bottom lip. 'But I'm not sure that that's a good idea – given that I'm assuming that your roommate will probably be there.'

'She won't be,' Emma said with a shrug. 'She'll be out with—'

And then she froze. Shit. She glanced around to see if Regina was waiting for her to finish her sentence and found that the mayor was watching her with narrowed eyes.

She's friends with Kathryn, you fucking idiot, Emma snapped at herself, trying desperately to think of another alibi for where Mary Margaret could be at midnight on a Tuesday evening.

'She'll be out with… Ruby,' she eventually said, not looking up. There was a pause.

Then Regina snorted with laughter, nudging the woman sat beside her. 'Don't worry, Miss Swan. I'm well aware of where she'll be tonight.'

Emma's head snapped around to stare at her, her brow furrowing. 'You are?'

'Of course. Kathryn's round at my house looking after Henry right now – do you think that our resident adulterers would pass up such a perfect opportunity to burn some more holes through David's wedding vows?'

'You knew?'

'I'm the mayor, dear. I know everything.'

Emma breathed a sigh of what could have been relief, wrapping her arms more tightly around herself.

'They're idiots,' she said after a moment, her voice low.

Regina nodded. 'I couldn't agree more. But then again, so is Kathryn for not suspecting anything.'

'She really doesn't know?'

'Not as far as I'm aware. If she were willing to look harder, I suppose she might notice something. But she's… desperate. She wants her marriage to work so badly that she's ignoring what's right in front of her.'

'And…' Emma swallowed, watching the sad lines around Regina's eyes. 'And you haven't told her?'

'No,' Regina forced a smile. 'Some things aren't for me to meddle in. I've learned that the hard way recently.'

A small smile came over Emma's face just as the taxi pulled into the parking lot. Regina stood, then held out a hand to help Emma to her feet.

'How about that drink, then?' the blonde asked, her face carefully expressionless. Regina smiled.

'Well. I don't see why not.'

'What on earth is this?' Regina said, snapping her head around at the sound of the music that had just started playing from Emma's speakers.

'Van Halen,' Emma muttered, her thumb scrolling furiously through her iPod. 'Don't worry, I'm not subjecting you to this all night. I'm just looking for something.'

Regina wrinkled her nose, already dreading what that 'something' would be, before sitting herself down on the very edge of the sofa. The sofa that belonged to Mary Margaret. She forced herself not to shudder.

Something softer and more acoustic began to leak from the speakers and, when Emma didn't see Regina actively turn the coffee table over in disgust, she decided that it would do. Picking up two glasses in one hand and a bottle of scotch in the other, she padded barefoot back across the room towards where Regina was perched on the edge of the couch looking like she'd been sucking on a lemon.

'The couch doesn't have fleas, Regina,' she said, holding out a glass to the mayor.

'I fail to see how you can possibly know that,' Regina muttered, taking the tumbler and watching as Emma liberally filled it with scotch. She filled her own, then placed the bottle on the table in front of them. When she sat down on the couch she forced herself to leave a gap between her and the woman perched uncomfortably next to her.

'Do you… like living here?' Regina asked after a moment, her eyes on the peeling paint of the wall opposite her. She had meant it as a genuine question, but her usual scathing tone slipped through her words without her meaning it to.

Thankfully, Emma was fairly adept at not being offended by it anymore.

'Yeah,' she said, tucking one leg beneath her and sipping at her drink. 'I really do.'

'Your apartment in Boston must have been nicer than this.'

'I guess,' Emma shrugged. 'But it was pretty empty. And cold. And going back to somewhere like that after a day of nearly getting shot by people who think you're the scum of the earth isn't exactly relaxing.'

'Plus you have Mary Margaret here,' Regina said slowly, drinking some of her scotch. She was surprised to find that it didn't leave her mouth with the foul taste of burning flesh.

'Yeah. That's a bonus.'

'It's… it's good that you two get along so well.'

Emma laughed sharply. 'Don't give me that, Regina – you can't stand her.'

'Well… no. But that doesn't mean that I can't be pleased that you've found a friend in her.'

Emma leaned forwards, her eyebrows raised. 'Regina. I told you – I'm not expecting anything different here. I'm just expecting you.'

'And I can't be nice about people?'

'Not about Mary Margaret, you can't. She's the only person in this town that you hate more than me.'

'And look how well hating you worked out for me,' Regina said with a faint smile, her eyes flicking down to watch Emma's lips curving upwards in return. 'Who knows – I might end up adopting her.'

Emma burst out laughing, unconsciously shuffling closer to Regina on the couch. 'I'm not sure that that's legal, Regina. She's, what? Six years younger than you?'

There was a pause, and then Regina said quietly, 'Yes. I believe it's something like that.'

Emma didn't notice the dull note of sadness that had penetrated through her voice. She was too busy watching the fluttering of Regina's eyelashes over her dark, thoughtful eyes.

She could only stare for a few moments before those familiar butterflies started beating their wings against the inside of her stomach.

She took another sip of her drink, and then reached out a hand for Regina's glass.

'Give me that for a moment, will you?'

Regina slowly handed it over, confused. She watched as Emma placed both of the glasses on the coffee table, then returned to her seat beside the mayor.

Her hand reached out and found its new favourite spot at the back of Regina's neck before either one of them could register what she was doing. Biting down on her bottom lip, Emma leaned forwards and quickly pressed her mouth against Regina's.

Almost immediately Regina's own hands slipped forwards and wound their way around Emma's narrow waist, tugging her body closer to her as their lips parted. She could taste the sheriff's chocolate dessert still lingering on her tongue. Regina's fingers trailed down her back, counting the nodules of her spine, the dents of her recently healed ribs. Emma inhaled sharply, wriggling closer to her, dragging one hand out from beneath Regina's hair so that it could trail down the side of her face and rest underneath the hard, working line of her jaw. She pressed her fingers against her frantically throbbing pulse, sighing into Regina's mouth as she pushed herself up onto her knees. Slipping her left leg between both of the mayor's, she pulled away from her for just a moment, looking down into those desperate brown eyes with her heartbeat racing.

She brought both of her hands up to the sides of Regina's face, pushing back at the tendrils of hair that had escaped from their new style, and smoothing them down. Regina watched the concentration in her misty eyes. Emma slowly leaned forwards, planting a kiss on either of Regina's temples, before tilting the mayor's head back until her lips could capture Regina's between them once more.

As her tongue dove into the mayor's mouth, Emma could hear herself moaning from the back of her throat. Her hands were tangled in Regina's hair now, tugging the pins free and letting the dark tendrils fall freely across the back of the sofa. She snaked her fingers through them, bunching her hands into fists and not loosening them even as she heard the sharp intake of breath coming from Regina's mouth. Hands were clawing at her back, finding the dress's zipper and sliding it slowly downwards so that Regina could rake her nails down Emma's bare flesh, her fingers skittering across the bumps of her ribcage. Emma groaned, leaning her body downwards until the majority of her weight was resting on Regina's left thigh. She realised with a jolt just what point of her own body the pressure was being focused on, and suddenly it was too late to do anything about it.

As she dragged her tongue across Regina's, she could feel her left knee sliding further between the mayor's legs. She heard a groan. Regina dug her nails deeper into Emma's back, carving a path down her spine, and suddenly she could feel her hips rocking forwards to meet the weight of Miss Swan's leg; an action that she had no idea that she was even about to attempt. As soon as she felt the pressure grinding between her legs, she came undone. Her head fell backwards against the couch, her bare throat once again exposed to Emma's voracious eyes. She could hear herself moaning the moment that she felt those same sharp teeth nipping at the flesh of her neck, that languid tongue slowly tracing a line down to the hollow of her throat. Her hips rolled forwards once more, and she whimpered. Emma's own body ground against the top of her thigh, and the sudden warm dampness that it left behind made her want to throw the sheriff onto the coffee table and rip that dress clean off of her.

'Emma,' she groaned, her voice vibrating against the blonde's lips. 'We need to stop.'

Emma's heart was beating so violently that she thought that she could feel it bruising her chest. She rolled her hips against Regina's leg once more, pressing her knee further forwards without a word. The sharp gasp that came from the mayor's lips was enough to make her want to scream.

'Emma.' Regina sounded more firm this time, but her nails still held furiously onto the sheriff's back. She could already feel the little half-moons that she was digging into the pale flesh beneath her fingertips, and yet she didn't let go. She couldn't let go. The fluttering in her stomach had turned into a fierce, hot grating, and if she let go now, she would crumble.

'Mm?' Emma eventually responded, easing the fabric of Regina's dress off of one shoulder so that she could drag her tongue across the hot skin.

'...oh, god.'

'You want me to stop?'

'I… yes. I mean, no, but… we should— oh.'

Her sentence was cut off by her own groan as Emma's fingers suddenly found their way up to her breasts, gently kneading against the soft flesh until Regina's mouth began to quiver.

'I can stop if you like,' Emma muttered against her throat, trailing a line of kisses from her throbbing pulse down to the lacy fabric of her bra. She didn't push it aside, but instead she let her tongue trace along the edge of it. Everything within Regina wanted her to bite down, to tear the damn thing off, to tear her own clothes off and press her full body against her and make her come completely and utterly undone.

But she couldn't. She had to do this right.

'You… you need to stop, Emma.'

This time, Emma looked up. Her eyes, which had been wide and desperate, now narrowed with disappointment.

'Oh.'

She started to pull away, moving to clamber off of Regina's lap – the second that she did, a hand snaked around the back of her neck and pulled her in for a fierce, devastating kiss.

'Do not think,' Regina muttered against her lips, leaning forwards to kiss her between the words, 'that I want you to. But you have to.'

'Why?' Emma said sulkily, not kissing Regina back but in no way trying to get her to stop. 'I thought you—'

'I do,' Regina said firmly. 'I promise you, I do.'

'So why—'

She was interrupted again by Regina tugging her forwards, trapping her lips between her own.

'Because,' she said after a few moments, her chest rising and falling furiously. 'This is… terrifying. Nothing has ever scared me more. And I don't want to fall headfirst into it and then regret moving too fast later, because we've burned out all of the passion and just moved onto resenting each other once more. I won't have that, Miss Swan. I want to do this right.'

Emma eyed her thoughtfully, taking in the sincerity that was melting through her caramel eyes.

'You think too much,' she said after a while. But she was smiling.

'And you don't think at all,' Regina replied, dragging her nails down Emma's bare back one last time and relishing the shiver that passed through her. 'Like you said – we balance one another out. So one of us has got to be sensible here.'

Emma rolled her eyes. 'That's the worst idea I've ever heard.'

'Really? Ever?'

'Well,' Emma thought about it, then leaned forwards to press her smirking lips back against those of the mayor. 'It definitely ranks in the top ten, anyway.'

Kathryn was asleep on the couch when Regina finally returned home. She hadn't realised it had gotten quite so late. Waking her up with a tentative shake of her shoulder, she thanked her for her help and then finally sent the dozing woman home. Then she climbed the winding staircase in order to kiss her son goodnight.

Henry had obviously attempted to stay up in order to see Regina when she got home: he had failed, however. Still sat upright in his bed with his flashlight on and his book wide open on his lap, his head had fallen forwards onto his chest, and he was fast asleep. Regina stood in the doorway to his room watching him for a moment. Every now and then, especially when he was in bed, Henry looked exactly like the baby that she had collected from Mr Gold all those years ago. It was somehow heart-breaking to see him like that again.

She slipped into the room, taking the flashlight and the book from his hands and placing them on the nightstand. It was only when she was sliding him down in his bed, propping the pillows up beneath his head, that his eyes flickered open.

'Mom,' he mumbled, half sitting up. 'How did it go?'

Regina just smiled, kissing him on his forehead.

'Goodnight, Henry.'

He fell back against his pillows.

'Night, Mom.'

He went back to sleep almost immediately. Regina left the room, leaving the door ajar behind her, and returned to her own bedroom.

She jumped when she saw herself in the mirror: she was flushed, her hair was tangled, and she was smiling like a love-struck adolescent. The make up that she had smeared over that damned hickey on her neck earlier that evening had mostly worn off and was now glaringly obvious, even in the dim light of her bedroom. It was a wonder that Kathryn hadn't picked up on it.

She took a step towards the glass, pushing her hair back from her face. It was odd: she looked… happy. She tried to straighten out her features, leaning closer to the mirror, watching the way that the corners of her mouth would stubbornly spring back upwards any time that she tried to frown. Her olive skin was tinged with pink. Red, swollen lips smirked idiotically back at her, and she forced herself to take a step away from her own reflection.

You mustn't let yourself get like this, she told herself as firmly as she could, even as she flopped backwards onto her bed and closed her eyes. Don't get too attached. Don't turn into one of them.

She fell asleep with her clothes still on. She didn't wake up all night.

Mary Margaret crept back into the apartment almost an hour after Regina had left. Emma waited for silence to fall, and then she stole down the stairs and began to do her nightly check of the apartment. The doors were locked; the kitchen was clear; the hallway outside was deserted; and Mary Margaret's bedroom was empty apart from the sleeping woman curled up in the centre of the bed with a smile pressed firmly onto her face.

Emma took another look around, checking under the kitchen table another time, just in case. Then she forced herself to climb back up the stairs, shutting her bedroom door behind her and carefully lining up her gun along the edge of her nightstand. She snapped the light off, and the room fell into a familiar darkness.

She slid beneath the covers, staring up at the ceiling. Her left hand crept up after a moment and began to fiddle with the swan necklace that still hung about her throat. For once, the thought of Moe and his clammy fingers and hot breath didn't seem to bother her. She was thinking of another set of hands; another set of lips. But she didn't smile. She stared up at the ceiling and listened to the sound of cars rolling down the street below her window, her necklace remaining fixed in her hand. She inhaled the sharp scent of Regina that still clung about her; that now familiar mix of coffee and expensive perfume and pancake syrup. She didn't sleep, like she always didn't sleep. But that night her restlessness was a little less threatening: it smelled spicy, and it felt like sharp nails raking a possessive line down her spine. It didn't scare her so much, even as she realised that she was already wishing that there was someone there sharing it with her. That same thought struck her over and over again, until the watery sun began to rise.

A/N: I really hope you liked this chapter! Leave me a review to let me know what you thought :) remember, every 50th reviewer gets a one shot!

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