Regina waits for Emma to slip from view before she pulls the door open and regards her visitor warily.
"Can I-... Can I come in?"
Snow's enquiry is rife with awkwardness, and she pulls her coat tightly to her chest with one hand. The brunette raises an eyebrow but says nothing, simply hesitating for what seems to the schoolteacher to be a cruelly long stretch of time before stepping aside so that she can move past her.
"Thank you."
Mary Margaret acknowledges the invitation quietly, and the Queen opens her mouth to bark at the raven-headed woman to remove her shoes, but the small flinch this action garners alone has her shrugging irritably and stalking back towards the kitchen with a toss of her pretty, dark tresses.
Mary Margaret follows behind nervously, eyes wide in search of the blonde. In search of comfort. Her gaze falls upon a half-eaten bowl of cereal left abandoned opposite the seat the Mayor now reclaims and she feels a wave of discomfort deep down in her stomach.
There is just something so bizarre about the idea of her girl and the Queen sharing a domestic breakfast.
"Where's Emma?"
"Don't worry, I haven't done anything to her."
Regina's tone is spiteful, but laced with a bitterness the schoolteacher doesn't miss. Sighing, Snow takes her daughter's recently vacated seat and plays her spoon through the soggy Cheerios pensively.
"I know that, Regina..."
She replies softly. Glancing back up, she frowns when the brunette shrugs with an air of indifference as though she couldn't care less; something which Snow knows not to be true. She sighs, suffering a small twinge of sadness as she's faced with the fact that the blonde is clearly more comfortable here, with the Queen, than back home, and while she is understanding of the fact... It still hurts.
"I know that."
She repeats solemnly.
"Then why are you here? What do you want?"
The Mayor demands coldly.
"What do I want? Regina! I have my daughter back! I finally have her back, and instead of being able to enjoy it, and being able to hold her the way I should finally get to do, she's-... Sh-she's in another woman's arms! What I want is a chance to speak to Emma about all this! About the Curse. About what happened... I-... I mean, have you even told her? Does she even know what you did?!"
"Yes... I told her everything."
"But, then-... She's-..."
"She's still here."
The brunette finishes the younger woman's sentence for her, her tone dripping with ice. Snow doesn't answer, and she doesn't need to. Regina glares at her venomously, before telling herself that this is a situation in which she has an opportunity to either help or hinder things between herself and the Sheriff. It's not instinctual - in fact, it goes against her very grain - but she sighs as she leans back in her chair and addresses the younger woman solemnly.
"On the day of the storm, I came across your daughter walking along the road like a complete idiot in the rain. Soaking wet, and with plans to cut through about three miles of woodland without a clue where she was going. I invited her to come home with me in order to wait out the rain... I despised her, as I'd made all too obvious, but not only that, I knew exactly who she was, understand? It would have been only too easy to let her continue wandering around cluelessly the way she was, but I didn't want the girl to come to such a hatefully pathetic end. For no greater reason at the time than... Miss Swan was better than that. It was just too easy an end after all the clashing of horns between herself and I.
Unfortunately for me, Emma can be rather bewitching when she puts her mind to it, or rather, thinks before she speaks."
The Mayor catches the glower that finds the schoolteacher's face upon her choice of the word 'bewitching' and she tries to decide whether the blonde would find her mother's reaction amusing or embarrassing. Sighing, she gives a dismissive flick of her hand and elaborates
"She intrigued me. Put it that way, if you prefer... She can really be quite lovely, despite hiding it remarkably well."
Regina muses, and Snow catches the small smirk that tugs at the brunette's lips at this statement and finds herself mimicking her foe helplessly.
"She can."
She agrees. Nodding, the Mayor sighs as she decides to drop her air of mere pleasantries; all too aware that despite the apprehension that had crossed the Sheriff's face upon recognising her mother's voice, Emma will only remain absent from their company for so long. Speaking in a low voice and playing with her knife to match Mary Margaret's continual stirring of the spoon, she continues in a tone that causes the younger woman to look up at her with a frown.
"I didn't know if Emma would come back after everything fell apart. After the truth could no longer be denied... And I didn't call her here under false pretence either, just so you know... I was fairly certain she would come in response to my call given its nature, but her staying here with me is as much a surprise to me as it is to you... You have a girl you should be proud of, Snow. To a point that it concerns me..."
"How do you mean?"
"She wishes to track down Rumplestiltskin."
"As do I! After what he-"
"-She thinks she can help him... She thinks that if she offers to take up her part of a deal they made - she is lovely, but she can be alarmingly stupid in the process - that he'll leave her alone. That he'll leave everyone alone."
"... What?!"
"Don't act so surprised. She is your blood after all."
"She-... Well yes, she is, but, you can't let her actually do it! She doesn't understand what the man's capable of! What he did back in our land. She-"
"-She understands well enough."
"No! Regina, you and I both know what happens to those who deal with Gol- Rumplestiltskin. He kidnapped her, true, but she doesn't know how bad things could have gone for her with that beast."
"Yes, she does... Snow, when I walked into that apartment, I found the Hatter, not Emma. He was going to kill me, and then he was going to murder your daughter. He told me so. He told me all of this very casually, due to the fact that the Dark One was lying sprawled out on the floor suffering a concussion after your little ray of sunshine incapacitated him. The Hatter drew his shot and I hit the floor. I hit the floor because Emma came running in and sent us both crashing down to avoid the madman's bullet, before penetrating Jefferson with one of her own. She came running in from the bathroom where she had been hiding, and she'd had reason to hide. She shot the Hatter because she understood perfectly what happens to those who cross the Dark One, she just called him by a different name... When I walked into that apartment, the woman was smeared with her own blood, filthy, half-naked, and gravely injured... She understands."
"Oh, god, Emma..."
"Yeah?"
Mary Margaret glances up, startled, as the blonde pads into the kitchen. The Sheriff sniffs and tosses her hair, clearly trying to pretend she's totally at ease with her present company. The action lets the others know that she has heard nothing of their conversation, and Regina shoots Snow a warning glance but the schoolteacher ignores her, addressing her daughter incredulously
"She says you want to help Gold!?"
Emma stills in her tracks, looking from Mary Margaret to the Queen, before throwing her hands up in the air as she leans against the kitchen counter.
"Seriously? You came over here just to yell at me?!"
"No, I came over here to talk to you... Now I'm here to yell at you!"
Snow growls, causing the blonde to roll her eyes moodily, and the Mayor can't help but smirk at the peculiar family dynamic taking place. Clearing her throat, she addresses Emma silkily.
"As you can see, your mother is about as keen on the idea as I am..."
"Why the hell did you tell her?!"
The younger woman cries irritably.
"She told me because I care about you! I know this is all a lot to take in, Emma, but you're my daughter, and I love you!"
Mary Margaret interjects angrily, eyes bright with frustration as she stares the blonde down.
"You can't just say stuff like that because you know who I am now..."
The Sheriff's words are spiteful, but her expression reads of uneasy discomfort, and she crosses her arms over her chest defensively. Snow frowns, glancing over at the Mayor who raises a brow but remains silent, before turning back to the blonde.
"I loved you before the Curse broke too, Emma... It wasn't just Regina looking for you."
She reminds the blonde unhappily, and Emma sighs, staring down at her feet awkwardly.
"I know... I love you, too... Damn it."
She lets out a low chuckle, and Regina rolls her eyes while the schoolteacher pushes herself up from the table and pulls the younger woman into a tight embrace. Dark eyes find the blonde's as the latter regards her from over Mary Margaret's shoulder and the Queen offers the Sheriff a small smile.
Wrapping her arms around her mother, Emma closes her eyes for a brief second, before muttering loudly
"So where do you guys think Gold might be?"
Snow sighs, pushing the blonde away to glare at her at arm's length before turning to the brunette.
"I don't think we're going to be able to talk her out of it."
She laments.
"I doubt we will. I've been trying to talk Miss Swan out of all sorts of things since she got here to no avail..."
The Mayor agrees, causing Emma to grin triumphantly, and Regina has a sneaking suspicion that, had her mother not been present, she would have had quite the list of innuendos to add to that last statement.
She smirks, before addressing the others in a more businesslike tone.
"Go home, Miss Swan. Get changed, spend some time with your mother, and meet me here at noon... And please send Henry back home."
There's a brief moment's hesitation following her request, but for Regina, it feels as though her heart might just burst in that short space of time. Finally, the blonde offers her a small nod and an easy smile.
"Alright."