Chapter Forty-Four

It had taken her a while to realise it, but suddenly Regina was all too aware of the fact that she really, really did not give a damn about her work anymore. The pile of ten or fifteen papers that had sat on the right hand side of her desk a few months before had gradually moved onto the floor beside it, and now it was so high that it had almost managed to reach the top of the desk again. One gentle nudge with the toe of her shoe and it would topple over, carpeting the floor of half her office.

Though at least that would give her another job to do when she was trying to avoid doing her actual job, she thought, eyeing it with a new interest.

At first, the suffocating indifference had started because she had been busy. The day after Moe had taken his gun into City Hall, Regina had had far more pressing things to worry about than yet another request from the owner of The Rabbit Hole (and Leroy) saying that a strip club should be added onto the already crumbling bar. But for the weeks that followed, and then the months, Emma was there. She became a priority. And while at first Regina was just trying to help her, for a long time afterwards she was trying with every part of her to just be with her. One thing kept piling on top of another just like the precarious stack of papers resting next to her leg, and it had ended here: with a faintly broken heart, a bad taste in her mouth, and the sudden realisation that she didn't care about being mayor anymore.

She glanced over her shoulder out of the window and saw that it was raining again. Storybrooke as a whole had crept peacefully through winter and had seemed to enjoy it so much that, even though it was nearly spring again, the temperature and the sun had both remained decidedly low. Thick snow had covered most of the town up until the previous week, and every time that Regina had driven down Main Street she had been able to spot Emma, her cheeks pink and hot air clouding from her mouth, helping to dig yet another person's car out of the rut that their tyres had gouged into the ice. Now the constant rain has melted the white powder down into a depressing brown slush, and Emma was nowhere to be found.

Regina gave the stack of papers another acidic look, and then turned back to the computer that, she realised then, she hadn't even switched on yet.

She pressed the power button and groaned, leaning back in her chair with eyes half closed.

The futility of it was what really got to her: the futility of having to spend all of her time pretending to give a damn about the running of a town that wasn't even real when there were so many other things that she actually cared about now.

The computer slowly creaked itself into to life, and her brimming inbox and an empty Excel spreadsheet popped up on screen. Then nothing. The green light in the corner of the screen blinked up at her expectedly, waiting for her to do something for the first time that week – but, as usual, Regina's eyes were elsewhere.

…why didn't the damn door ever open anymore?

Other than one text about Henry coming over for dinner and an automated invitation to start playing Candy Crush Saga, she hadn't heard from Emma in the past two weeks. Not since she'd told Regina that they had to 'work stuff out'. Well, Regina thought bitterly, she certainly seemed to working it all out as thoroughly as her blissful little head could possibly manage – and all the while Regina was stuck in her office, snapping at anybody who dared to interrupt the work that she wasn't doing, and staring at that damn door like it alone was going to spill the secrets of the universe to her.

Her inbox binged. She ignored it.

Where was she?

A long time ago, she'd promised herself that she'd never care about anybody again. She'd learned the hard way that loving somebody else was dangerous, and destructive, and deadly. And yet here she was, staring at a closed door, her heart in her throat for days at a time and her fingernails raking frustrated red paths up and down her own thighs.

Her inbox binged again. For god's sake, she gritted her teeth. I know. I'm late. Whatever it is that you're emailing me about, I'm late with it.

She went back to glaring out of the window, sucking in a breath any time that she caught a shadow passing by the door out of the corner of her eye. She knew that she'd recognise Emma's silhouette as soon as she saw it: stomping and slouching and, against all odds, probably shy. She saw absolutely nothing that matched this description and yet, with every person who skulked by her door as quickly as they could manage, she felt her whole ribcage contract and her one, permanently nervous hand crawl up towards her throat. But – nothing. Not a knock. Not a whisper.

Her inbox made another frantic chiming sound and she just about threw the monitor out of the window.

Something stopped her though, as it always seemed to nowadays before she did something that her old self would have seemed both normal and quite justified. She paused to look at the screen, and she felt her skin go pale, and then hot.

Two emails from counsellors who didn't deserve the time of day, much less an actual response from her.

And one from Emma. One from her Emma.

She looked down and saw that her hand was shaking before it had even reached for the mouse. She forced herself to wait, composing herself before she dared to double-click.

Regina.

It was a good start. She was still calling her by her name, at least.

I've got Leroy at the station again… he wanted me to ask you where you are on that strip club proposition.

Regina slumped back in her chair. Oh.

But then her emailed pinged once more and she found herself frantically clicking, a pathetic, wretched smile invading her face without her permission.

(I think word has gotten out that I have certain ways of convincing you to let people get naked.)

Regina let out a bark of laughter and, to her horror, found that tears were welling up in her eyes. She scrubbed them away at once, even though they weren't from sadness – exhaustion had become a permanently debilitating fixture in her life, and so, tired and miserable and feeling utterly without hope, it didn't take much to make her want to cry. Nothing hurt her more than thinking that Emma had left her and stopped loving her and never wanted to see her again, because – no matter what Emma said to her whenever she came nervously edging back towards her – she wouldn't be able to convince her that Regina had ever, or would ever, deserve her. But, against all odds, she had come back again. Emma was lonely, like a kicked puppy who, no matter how bruised she felt, still just wanted to be loved back. And Regina found herself crying because, god – she had missed having those eyes gazing devotedly up at her.

She swallowed, her shaking hands poised over the keyboard, and slowly typed.

Emma,

Please tell Leroy that, as the only attractive woman in the town is not available to perform there, the mayor will not be approving any decisions that involve sub-par floozies grinding against each other on her town's one and only stage.

As soon as she pressed 'send', the panicked thoughts began bombarding against her like a sack of stones.

She's going to hate me, she thought. She's going to realise that I can't make her laugh anymore. She's going to regret literally everything that's happened over the last year and she's going to find somebody else. She's going to think that I'm a sex pest as well as a murderer and she's going to walk out of my life for good. Regina heard the thoughts as they gradually escalated in ridiculousness, tumbling through her mind like a collapsing sandcastle, and she could feel her stomach turning with how pathetic she'd become. But that couldn't stop her. Her eyes hardly blinked as she worried over the flickering screen and its lack of new messages.

When Emma replied, only three minutes later, Regina's heart was already situated somewhere around her larynx and her palms were sweaty.

I didn't realise that you have the same high opinion of how you look as I do, Madame Mayor?

And Regina read it with her ears full of her own heartbeat and her brain full of static. She felt the laughter bubbling back up in her throat.

I was talking about you, you fool.

This time, Emma replied in less than a minute.

Oh, now that's a nice way to talk to your sheriff. Really professional.

I just called you attractive! That might not necessarily be professional, but it's definitely nice.

You called me 'too attractive to be a stripper for Leroy'. Who, by the way, I'm thinking must be one of the seven dwarves? He's always hanging around those other short guys. Am I close?

You are. Apparently whoever wrote that wretched storybook wasn't exactly a stickler for political correctness. Surely he's at least 5'6"?

It's hard to say – every time I see him he's either slumped over a bar or passed out in the back of the car.

And I'm a bad person for not wanting you to be a stripper for him?

I never said you were a bad person.

You've called me a bad person many times, nearly all of which were deserved.

True. But I'm starting to doubt that more and more, if I'm honest.

Why?

…

Emma?

I just know you pretty well, Regina. I don't know if you noticed, but there was a time where I knew you better than anyone.

And you don't anymore?

I still know you. I don't know this Evil Queen chick so well.

…do you want to?

Sort of. I don't know. I probably shouldn't but I feel like she might have been pretty badass. Even if she was a bit of a psycho.

Regina let out a snort of laughter, remembering the leather and the plunging necklines and the uncanny ability to deliver a scathing retort even when she could feel her world crumbling.

Badass is one word for it.

And what's another?

I would say 'damaged', but that sounds a bit too much like a justification. Can I go with 'disturbed'?

That's something I've known about you since day one, Madame Mayor. I was expecting a far worse stone to be turned over, if I'm honest.

Most of my stones are turned now, Emma. Which is good, since I don't think either of us would survive any more dirty little secrets creeping out of the woodwork.

True. I'm finding it hard enough to survive at the moment.

How so?

…don't make me say it.

Please, Emma.

Because I miss you. Even if you are a pain in my ass, I miss you every day.

Then why haven't we spoken or seen each other? I thought we were going to try and work things out? Or have you changed your mind?

No, I haven't. I want to see you. But I hadn't heard from you either and I thought maybe you'd realised that I'm… not actually worth the fuss.

And just when Regina had thought that her heart couldn't break anymore, she felt another piece break off.

Without thinking she reached out and grabbed her cell phone, dialling the only number that she knew off by heart.

'Hello?'

'You don't actually think that, do you?' Regina asked, her question coming out far more brusquely than she had intended.

Emma sighed. 'We haven't spoken properly in weeks and this is what you decide to call about?'

'I'm not talking about that via email,' Regina said. 'Some things I need to hear your voice for. Now tell me the truth. Do you still think that you're not worth the effort?'

She heard Emma reaching out to shut the office door, locking herself away from Leroy's prying ears. 'Just ignore what I said. I was typing without any input from my brain.'

There was a loaded pause. Emma laughed.

'You're not going to say it?'

'Say what?' Regina asked.

'Say "oh, does that mean there are some occasions when you do engage your brain?"'

Regina felt her lips quiver. 'I wasn't going to say that.'

'Yes you were, Regina.'

'Okay, fine,' Regina sighed. 'I wasn't sure whether I was allowed to go back to insulting you just yet.'

'You know our relationship wouldn't be anything without you insulting me. I'm not so emotionally fragile that I'll start crying when you call me an idiot.'

Regina paused. 'But you are emotionally fragile enough to make you think that I wouldn't want to insult you anymore. Seriously – you thought that I was done fighting for you?'

She heard Emma sigh, leaning back in her rickety chair. 'No. Not always. I don't know, sometimes these stupid thoughts come creeping in and I can't stop them. You feel really far away, and… I don't know. That distance means that anything could be happening in that head of yours.'

'I love you.' It came out of Regina's mouth without her realising what she was saying.

'You do?'

'Always,' Regina said firmly. 'And I won't ever stop fighting for you. I was giving you space because I thought you needed it but, you're right – that was a terrible idea. You shouldn't have been the one to reach out to me first. You're always the one reaching out and it's unfair of me to make you.'

Emma laughed nervously. 'You frighten me when you're being reasonable, you know.'

'Ah,' Regina said, a smile creeping over her face as she leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. 'I see that we're still at the stage where you're allowed to insult me, then?'

'I think it just comes naturally,' Emma said. 'As it turns out, I'm not that great a person either.'

'We're a match made in heaven, obviously.'

'Maybe not heaven. Somewhere around the fifth circle, I think.'

Regina laughed, rolling her eyes. She could hear the smile in Emma's voice. As they fell back into quietness, she realised that she could hear her breathing – it was soft and familiar, the same sound that she'd woken up to night after night over the last year. She would turn over in bed and find Emma's face on the pillow next to her's, her gentle breaths coming from beneath a mess of tangled curls, and she would reach out to brush the hair away from her face. In doing so, Regina's fingers would always graze against her scar; a thick line that felt like a crack underneath her fingertips. Sometimes Emma would wake, smiling sleepily, and ask Regina why she was up. But more often than not she remained fast asleep, unconsciously shuffling closer to Regina's side so that she could bury her face in a silk-clad shoulder.

When Emma lay next to her, the tiny smile on her usually anxious lips let Regina know that she made her feel loved. Her soft breathing let her know that she felt safe.

'Regina? You still there?'

Regina blinked, the distant memory of what it had felt like to sleepily love Emma in the middle of the night still wrapped around her, and shook herself back to reality.

'Would you like to go out with me?'

Silence followed, and it took Regina a moment to realise that it she had been the one who had just asked that question.

Emma cleared her throat. 'You… want to go on a date?'

Regina nodded, and then wanted to slap her own face when she realised that Emma couldn't see it. 'Yes. I… yes, I would.'

'…why?'

And another piece of Regina's heard chipped off just like that.

'Because… because I'd like to start over,' she said quietly, wetting her lips. 'I think I owe you that. When I asked you out the first time, it… it wasn't right. You agreed to date a stranger. Now you know me and I want to take you out without having to hide anything from you. You can ask me whatever you like and you can get up and leave halfway through if you realise that you can't bear me anymore. I just… I'd like to try this again. If you'll have me.'

There was another pause, and Regina could hear that Emma's soft breathing had stopped. She knew that she was frowning.

But eventually she whispered, 'Don't get mad at me if I'm not the same as before, okay?'

Regina nodded once more. 'Of course. Of course I won't.'

'You promise?'

'I swear on my life.'

There was a longer pause this time, and she knew what Emma was thinking: Regina probably didn't value her life enough for that promise to mean anything anymore. But somehow, she could hear Emma nodding back.

'Okay,' she said quietly. 'Let's do it.'

'Really?'

'Yeah. We should… we should see what happens.'

A nervous fluttering crept into Regina's stomach.

'Yes, of course. Okay.' She wasn't sure what else to say, except, 'Is Friday okay? Henry can go to those little thieves' house.'

Emma laughed gently. 'Friday is fine. I should probably get back to work now though.'

'Of course. I'll… I'll pick you up at eight?'

'Perfect.'

'Okay.' Regina swallowed and closed her eyes. 'Thank you, Emma.'

And, of course, Emma didn't need to ask what she was thanking her for.

'It's okay. I'll see you Friday, Regina.'

'Yes. See you then.'

The line clicked, and Emma was gone. Regina put her cell back on the desk and let her gaze drift back out the window once more.