"Ah! Crap! Watch it!"
The blonde holds the paper cups of hot chocolate out swiftly on instinct; warm, brown froth spattering up from the mouthpieces as she jumps in surprise. Henry removes his hands sheepishly from the Sheriff's shoulders where he had grabbed her, unsuspectingly, from behind, having spotted her sitting patiently on a fallen tree beside their swing.
"Sorry."
He scrambles up to sit opposite her; straddling the mossy log with his sneakered feet dangling a good few inches off the ground on either side. She hands him one of the steaming cups and moves into a similar position to face him.
"It's ok, I'd just rather not be wearing it, that's all."
Henry grins and takes a sip of his drink, eyeing the blonde curiously. Being a ten-year-old boy, he has never spent much time contemplating the Sheriff's use of makeup - other than having been informed by his mother shortly after Emma's arrival that her resultant look is 'cheap' - but seeing her completely barefaced now, he notices the difference instantly.
"That bad, huh?"
Emma gives him a knowing look and he smiles brightly, shaking his head with all the genuine honesty of a small child. She chuckles huskily and takes a sip of her hot chocolate; lamenting the way her current ill health allows her to feel the burn but not taste the sweetness.
"So, you managed to get out of the house then? Is your mom working?"
"No, she doesn't have any meetings today, she'll probably just spend the day baking or something."
Henry confides, and Emma raises a brow; partly at the idea of the brunette arms deep in flour, and partly due to the fact that there's no way in hell Regina's sharp, watchful eye would allow her son to leave the house undetected.
"Does she know you're here?"
"Uhuh."
"... And she was ok with that?"
Henry shrugs his shoulders, resting his chin thoughtfully on the lid of his cup.
"She didn't really say anything about it, apart from that I had to go and change into my jeans... Oh, and to give you this."
He reaches into the pocket of his coat and pulls out the manilla envelope, holding it up to the blonde who eyes it warily before taking it gingerly from his small hand.
Emma frowns when she feels a small object weighing down the envelope on one side. She glances up at Henry whose eyes are fixed on the letter in her hand, before he realises his nosiness isn't going unnoticed and looks away sheepishly; seeming suddenly absorbed in his hot chocolate. The blonde feels her cheeks flush pink; mystified by what the Mayor could possibly wish to send her, and unsure whether whatever the answer to that may be is suitable for the boy to see.
Henry's curiosity finally gets the better of him and he looks back up at the Sheriff inquisitively.
"What do you think it is?"
"I don't know. Knowing your mom, it could be anything from a dinner invitation to anthrax. In fact, the second is more likely..."
"What's anthrax?"
Henry asks, and Emma looks up distractedly and realises she has been musing out loud. She shakes her head, doubting that discussing methods of biological warfare is a good idea with a kid that already believes his mother to be the evil queen.
"Nothing. A band."
She shrugs, ignoring Henry's perplexed expression as she slides her finger beneath the envelope's flap. Peering curiously inside, a frown settles across her brow.
"What is it?"
The boy asks, and she pulls out the small item carefully and holds it up between them.
"A key?"
She muses, and Henry's eyes flicker with recognition and a frown creases his forehead to match Emma's uncannily.
"That's one of my mom's skeleton keys."
He informs her uneasily.
"Skeleton keys? To what?"
"I don't know... She has loads of them."
"What's this one for?"
I'm not sure, they all look the same."
He pulls a face, and Emma studies the key more closely; unsure what to make of it. She checks the envelope for any sign of a clue but it's otherwise empty.
"Weird."
Tipping back the rest of her hot chocolate, she shoves the empty cup under her bag to be discarded later and pushes the key into her jeans pocket. She offers Henry a winning smile - an expression until recently saved only for the boy and occasionally her housemate - and swings her legs up and around, jumping down from the log.
"So, I figured our swing worked so well, we should try a treehouse."
She advises, and Henry's eyes light up and widen comically, causing the Sheriff to laugh until she throws herself into a coughing fit. Henry thumps her companionably on the back and scrambles off the log.
"With what?"
"Well, it won't be anything fancy, but I used to make them as a kid just with sticks and branches and stuff I found lying around. We just need to find a tree with the right fork in its branches and then we can lay the sticks across to make a shelter... It's quite fun..."
She tags this last part on dubiously, slowly realising that what she had thought would be something Henry would enjoy immensely may actually seem rather lame in this day and age. She imagines he has seen a great many expertly crafted tree houses and supposes a simple roof of ill-dispersed twigs may seem rather lacking in comparison. To her relief, Henry confirms his excitement with a firm 'sick!', which she suspects might be her own influence- and she suspects this with a marginal sense of pride - and immediately goes about collecting suitable branches.
"Easy, kid, you got it?"
Henry glances down at the blonde with bright eyes that are slightly too wide for her liking, but experience over the past couple of hours has taught her not to keep pestering him on whether or not he's comfortable being up at the height they currently occupy. She imagines the answer is, in fact, no, but the kid seems determined to prove himself. She would scold him over his perceived need to do so, but knows she would do exactly the same. Instead, she smiles up at him encouragingly; keeping her grip on his shin firm, but casual.
They currently reside a good eight feet clear of the forest floor; Emma with her boots planted squarely on a thick branch jutting out of an old maple tree, with her hips steadied against the smaller branch Henry clings to as he carefully pushes a handful of twigs amongst the sticks they have already managed to lay across the highest fork of the tree. She's given up offering to do this herself, and so simply keeps Henry steady as he works.
"Yeah... I got it."
He speaks through gritted teeth, with concentration written clearly across his face, but at the tightening of Emma's fingers he looks down at her briefly with an encouraging grin. His cheeks are flushed scarlet with the winter wind, and his hair sticks up in all the wrong places. She can't help but watch him humorously as he goes about each, meticulous movement; delighting in the fact that today is about them just having fun, and that for once, the damn fairytale book has remained unopened in his rucksack.
It's not that she doesn't acknowledge the fact that without the book, she would most likely be sat trawling through case files in her apartment back in Boston; vodka in hand, Waits on the sound system... It's just, sometimes she worries that once Henry realises how fucking nuts this whole fairytale thing is, he won't have a use for her anymore.
She's found this thought to be more and more unsettling.
"Nice one. Ok, come back down and we'll get some more wood, I think it'll only take two more trips."
"Wicked!"
Now that one's definitely on her. Thoroughly Boston.
Henry shimmies slowly back down the branch so that his jean-clad butt pushes against Emma's hand, and she holds him steady as he swings his leg around to lower his feet onto the branch below.
She doesn't say anything, but he can see the cautious concern in the set of her jaw and he decides that he doesn't want the blonde to think him babyish and so lowers himself the rest of the way down quickly to land with his feet planted beside hers in one deft motion.
The achieving grin on his face is short-lived as the branch they now both stand on gives an alarming crack reminiscent of a gunshot, and the two find themselves suddenly falling gracelessly to the ground. Enough goes through the Sheriff's head to grab Henry and pull him into her, leaning a little into the fall so that she is somewhat beneath him, but it's a vague thought; instinctive.
"Ow..."
They land in a tangled heap, Henry with his arms flung around the blonde's neck; his small frame cushioned clumsily by hers, but not enough to avoid his fair share of scrapes and duly blooming bruises. Emma blinks up at him through watering eyes but can't help herself from letting out a small, shaky, laugh. He rolls himself off of her gingerly, allowing her to sit up with a wince and survey the damage.
They are surrounded by a litter of snapped twigs and foliage, with the guilty branch lying to their left. The sweatshirt she'd lent Henry now sports a healthy rip down its right sleeve, and a small amount of blood wells up from a scrape on his forearm to match the bloodied grazes colouring his palms. She panics when she takes in a dark smear across his forehead, but a second glance reveals the mark to be nothing but mud.
The Sheriff hasn't faired any better; her own hands sporting scarlet swatches where the skin has been torn as a result of uselessly grabbed branches, and the knees of her jeans are ripped and bloody. A thin laceration grazes her forehead before tapering off into her hairline.
"Holy crap... Are you alright, kid?"
She takes his arm gently in her hands and rolls up the ruined sleeve to assess the damage. He doesn't cry, for which she is grateful, and the cut is shallow; just a sporadic beading of blood as the damage is only to the very top layer of skin. Henry rubs at the muddy streak on his forehead tentatively, checking himself over before looking up at the Sheriff to give her a shaky nod.
"Yeah, I'm okay."
"Wow... Well, at least the treehouse survived."
She points up above them to where a perfect thatch of interwoven leaves and twigs creates a small shelter. Henry follows her gaze and lets out a breathy chuckle before glancing back at the blonde to spy a trickle of blood making its way down her cheekbone.
"Emma, you're hurt!"
"Huh? Where?"
She notes her grazed knees distractedly but is surprised when Henry touches his hand to her cheek; his eyes wide with concern. She rubs her hand curiously over the side of her face and raises an eyebrow when her fingers come back red.
"Oh, I guess I got cut by a branch or something."
"Does it hurt?"
"Nah, I'll live... Well... Actually, if your mom finds out..."
She bites her lip nervously, but Henry gives her a burlesque wink - something she has been teaching him, and that he is finally able to do without screwing up the entire side of his face - and points over to his rucksack.
"It's ok, I have my coat, she'll never notice."
Emma grins down at him, before licking her fingers and rubbing at the dirt that clings to his forehead.
"Eww!"
Henry pushes her away, laughing, wiping at his face with his sleeve.
"Don't you 'eww' me! I'm trying to help!"
"I don't want your gross spit on me!"
"Is that so?"
She leans menacingly over him and makes as if to spit while he shrieks giddily and scrambles away laughing.
"Emma!"
"What?"
He scoops up a handful of leaves and pours them over her in a flurry before sprinting away, only to have her chase him down and tackle him to the floor. He crows delightedly and follows suit when the blonde pushes herself up and stretches out so that she sits with her back against the log on which they'd previously perched; her breath coming out in misted pants and hair spilling everywhere in a spectacular mess. He peers up at her out of the corner of his eye, subconsciously rearranging his limbs so that his position mimics hers exactly.
"Your head's bleeding, still."
"Yeah? I guess I'm just a poor, wounded survivor of the terrible treehouse accident of 2012... Tragic."
"Hey, I'm wounded too!"
He shows her his scraped arm, waving it around pointedly, and she sighs dramatically; eyes glittering impishly in the fading daylight.
"Yes, but not like I am... I don't know if I'll make it back... You might have to carry me."
"I can't carry you."
"Then you'll have to go on without me, my injuries; they're too severe."
"Mine are, too! My injuries are totally severe! My hands are worse than yours are!"
"Oh? Well, I've lost more blood than you have."
"I have more bruises!"
"Well, mine are deeper!"
"Mine hurt more!"
"... Do they?"
"Uhuh. Way more than yours!"
She laughs and gives him a nudge as he pulls at her hands to display the palms; all the better to compare their war wounds.
"What the hell do you think you're playing at, Miss Swan?"
Regina snaps as she storms through the irksome fortress of trees. She inwardly damns the fact that she had declined to change before heading out; her heels sinking maddeningly into the packed dirt of the forest floor.
She has spent the day on edge knowing that Henry is spending time with the blonde; hating the very fact itself, but knowing by now that her son will only strive harder to find ways around her rules if she forbids him from seeing the Sheriff altogether. She had paced her impressive kitchen irritably; failing to see what those two could possibly be doing in the woods all this time.
She wonders what Emma has made of her little gift.
She has been irate and ill-tempered since the moment Henry ran out the door, but she had forced herself to keep busy. To keep herself in check.
Until now.
The cold steel of the winter sky is fast deepening to a bruised purple, and the temperature has dropped accordingly.
She had waited until five - half an hour past the time Henry knows he's expected home - before wrestling on her coat and driving her Benz down to the small turning point she knows to be closest to her son's new meeting place, fuming the entire way.
Now, as she trips over an upturned root, she wonders if, perhaps, this despicable insolence isn't simply another degree of punishment for what she'd said to the blonde last night.
"Go to hell!"
She glares at the accusatory root murderously; scarlet-painted lips pursed in distaste. Why anyone would choose to spend their time out in this dump is beyond her... But then, she supposes she should be aware of the Sheriff's poor choices by now.
Finally, as she stalks briskly up a remarkably steep incline - with more grace than anyone should be capable of when wearing Jimmy Choo's in a Maine forest - she catches the telling murmur of voices. Cresting the hill, she spies her son and the blonde chatting away with their backs resting companionably against a fallen tree; showing no intention of moving anytime soon despite the indigo haze of twilight settling merrily upon them.
Her first instinct is to storm over from her secluded viewpoint and give the younger woman a piece of her mind; her anger at being left to stew alone in her mansion indefinitely still coursing hotly in her blood. She struggles to quell the urge, however; not wishing to instigate a blowout in front of Henry for fear of him instantly siding with Emma, as well as not being entirely sure where she currently stands with the blonde.
She finds that now she is actually within screaming distance of the Sheriff, she feels less inclined to do so.
Instead, she watches as Henry points to something in his hand and then appears to do the same to the blonde's hands. She can hear the jovial quip of their voices but fails to decipher any words. The tone of their conversation is painfully obvious, however. They are simply 'assing around' as she has heard the blonde put it. Something that she and Henry haven't done in as long as she can remember.
The rage that this thought conjures depletes defeatedly as she continues to observe the way the Sheriff chats to the boy. Emma has her head cocked to the side, regarding him with a dry smile. The body the brunette has come to know intimately well is swaddled in her parka - that fucking parka - and uncharacteristically baggy jeans which appear to have obnoxious rips at their muddied knees. The blonde nods attentively as Henry chatters away at a mile a minute, and, despite her loathing over her exclusion from this little scenario, Regina finds herself intrigued by the openness on the younger woman's face as she regards their son.
Giving herself a firm mental shake, she gathers her thoughts and marches briskly out from her shadowed vantage point and into clear view.
"Henry! What time do you call this?!"
She demands.
"Mom! I-"
"-And you! You should have sent him home at least an hour ago!"
"Regina..."
Henry and Emma scramble quickly to their feet, facing the Mayor; Henry with his eyes cast down sheepishly and Emma with her hands on her hips, her expression suddenly hard. The brunette matches it easily before dark eyes widen upon taking in her son's ripped sweater and grazed hands.
"Sheriff, why is my son bleeding!?"
"I'm fine! I just-"
"I didn't ask you, Henry."
She snaps, turning back to the Sheriff in demand of an explanation.
"It's nothing, we just-... We were climbing a tree and a branch broke... He's fine."
"Oh really? Bloodied and filthy is 'fine' in your book?"
"It's just a scrape!"
"And I suppose that's what you'll argue with the doctors if it becomes infected?"
"Oh for god's sake, Regina..."
Emma blows her hair back irritably and the brunette glimpses the thin laceration just above her temple. Running her eyes briskly over the Sheriff, the Mayor notes her bloodied knees and palms and sighs. Turning her attention back to her son she beckons him sternly.
"Come on, Henry. It's time to go home."
He nods defeatedly and collects his backpack before trudging off behind the brunette. Emma collects her own belongings and waits to save herself an awkward trek back to the main path in the wake of the Mayor.
Regina looks back over her shoulder as she reaches the edge of the small clearing and studies the blonde who nibbles thoughtfully on her bottom lip; her attention cast down at the mud. Sighing, the brunette raises her voice and addresses the younger woman coolly.
"Next time, Miss Swan, I expect him back unharmed and before dark. Goodnight."
Emma glances up at the Mayor, holding her gaze momentarily.
Next time?
"Uh, yeah, sorry... Ummm... Night."
"Coming!"
Mary Margaret hurries over to the door; hobbling a little as she struggles to straighten out a wrinkle in her tights. She sighs, wondering who might be knocking at this time in the evening, and, of all nights, when she has somewhere to be. She briefly considers shouting for Emma to come down and play hostess, but decides that by the time she manages to coax the blonde out of her room, whoever stands on the other side of their front door may have died of old age.
Introverted, sure, but a better description would just be bone idle...
Running a hand distractedly through her hair, she pulls open the front door to apologise to her visitor that they may need to come back at a more suitable time, unless it happens to be Ruby, who seems to be one of the few people the blonde doesn't mind traipsing down to see.
It's not.
"... Madame Mayor?"
"Good evening, Miss Blanchard, were you going somewhere?"
Dark eyes roam distastefully over the schoolteacher's pastel-toned outfit and shiny pink lips.
"I was, actually... Sorry, did you-... What do you-...?"
"It matters not, I was actually hoping to speak to Miss Swan. Is she around?"
"Uh, she's in her room, I can call her-"
"-No need."
The schoolteacher steps back automatically as the brunette strides into the living room and makes her way authoritatively towards the iron steps leading to Emma's bedroom. Eying the darker woman warily, Mary Margaret watches her ascend the stairs with sharp taps of her heels and sighs, shrugging on her coat and making her way out of the apartment.
Well, I'm sure that will go down well.