A/N: Longest chapter EVER, I think. Please, please review. I know some people don't like being asked that, but it's so important to know what you think and to have your response. It motivates me to write, it helps me get better, and your thoughtful reviews always make me smile, too - thank you so much for that! I don't have time to answer each review, but I always answer PMs, and I communicate a lot on twitter too if you want to make friends - I'm at galsbeingpals, come say hi!

TW for mild violence in a school setting (And a note I always want to put with these, this is a very small part of the chapter, so please don't use it to frame your approach when reading. Another thing, if you're worried by any of the trigger warnings in any of my stories/chapters and want me to send you an edited version, I would love to do that for you if it's possible, so please ask.)

BREAK

I get back to a thankfully empty room - patched up as we are, I don't particularly feel like M's supervision while I try on seventeen different outfits as I decide what to wear to dinner. I fire a text to Regina.

On campus. How's the meeting?

To my great entertainment, she replies almost immediately.

Painfully boring, dear. How was Henry?

Great! We read stories and he made me sing.

I'm sorry I missed it.

I'm not. I have a voice like a dying cat.

Now I am even more sorry.

Aren't you supposed to be, you know, meeting?

I can multitask. As I identify as a woman, this is supposedly quite easy for me.

Ha. Rude, though, texting…

Not at all. They cannot see me, I have my phone under the table.

Sly. Btw, I just realised, I still haven't changed your name in my contacts to what I put when I first got your number.

I assume you wish to tell me what it is.

I assume you're palpitating with curiosity.

If only you paid such attention to your vocabulary in class. Very well, Miss Swan, I will indulge you. Please, tell me, what do you call me in your contacts?

Professor McSexy.

Hardly inventive, dear. One might even say, rather obvious.

Cocky much!

Quite the opposite, I assure you ;-)

I pause. I don't know how far to take this. I don't think she knows, either. But it's too tempting, and I'm itching to reply with…

I don't know, Regina. You've always struck me as the one who wears the strap on.

I'm cringing as soon as I send it. It's too much, too crude, not her style. I feel even worse because she doesn't answer straight away. I tell myself she's in a meeting, she probably had to join in, but the minutes tick by and I become more and more certain I've put my foot in it. I practically dive for my phone when the next message appears, nine whole minutes later.

I cannot say that I have ever had the pleasure, though I would not be opposed to it if the opportunity arose.

I'm about to reply (with a combination of bemused emojis) when she sends another message.

I apologise for my tardy response. I was forced to participate in the conclusion of the meeting. I am finished now, would you like me to pick you up?

Sure, see you in 5!

I have another "oh shit" moment when I realise I'm standing in my underwear. My hair looks good, but that's about it. I hastily spray on some deodorant and roll on my tightest skinny jeans. They aren't fancy, but they make my ass look amazing. I reluctantly reject my red plaid shirt (the comfiest thing I own) in favour of a sleeveless off-white blouse. Then I grab my jacket, keys, phone, wallet, and toothbrush, and book it to the bathroom.

I make it outside just as she pulls up, and literally caught in her headlights, I realise I'm still holding my toothbrush and toothpaste. I'd throw them out, but it's a nice toothbrush and a new tube of toothpaste and I can't bring myself to waste them. So I shove them in my jacket pocket (they stick out) and dare her to question me.

She chuckles as I get into the car.

"I appreciate the commitment to minty freshness, dear, but I'm afraid I'm still a little confused as to why you have your toothbrush."

"Why d'you think I have it?"

"My first thought was this was your version of an overnight bag, but firstly, I think you might consider that presumptuous, secondly, you already have a toothbrush at my place, and thirdly, even your overnight bag would need more than a toothbrush."

I grin. I like the way she glances at me while she drives. I grin even more when I look at her a bit more closely. She's wearing a tight black dress, in her full work-mode make up, and she has black stiletto heels, but to my delight, she's kicked them off to drive. Something about the contrast between the dress and bare feet makes her impossibly adorable.

"What?" she asks, sounding as cute as she looks.

"You drive with bare feet," I tell her. She chuckles.

"I like to feel the car," she teases, putting on a husky voice and pressing on the gas pedal - which is reasonable, since we've just joined the highway.

After a moment, she shakes her head.

"No, I've still got nothing. Why do you have your toothbrush?"

I laugh. "No other guesses?"

"You're planning to eat garlic?" she says, her brow wrinkling; she knows that's not it.

I shake my head. "The truth?"

"Put me out of my misery," she says dramatically.

"I was late getting ready and I brushed my teeth last thing before leaving. I do it quite often, but I throw it in my bag. I only realised when I got outside that I don't have a bag to put it in."

She laughs. "That's far simpler than anything I'd thought of."

I consider this. "Answers often are."

"Very true," she says thoughtfully. There's a slight pause in the conversation then, but it's not uncomfortable. When we speak next, we do it simultaneously.

"So where are you taking me?"

"I didn't know you wore glasses."

We both chuckle.

"You wear glasses too," I point out. "You have them for reading."

"Observant. And I am taking you downtown, but we'll have to go somewhere that doesn't require reservations, I'm afraid." Suddenly she seems a little awkward. "I would have made one, I'm not usually so disorganised, but it utterly slipped my mind today-"

"Hey, it was my idea. And I don't like reservations."

I'm not really talking about dinner ones, and she knows that, but it still makes her smile.

"I like them," she says. "Your glasses, I mean."

"Thanks, but I think they make me look young and nerdy."

She looks around at me; we're stopped at a red light.

"Not really… I suppose," she chuckles awkwardly, "if I am quite honest, I said like them because I can tell you don't. You seem uncomfortable with them, you keep playing with them, and I've only seen you with them in class once or twice. You wear contact lenses, mostly?"

I nod. "Do you psychoanalyse everything I do?" I ask, but I'm not really attacking her.

"There is really nothing wrong with them. They change your appearance very little, and they do not change who you are at all."

I bite my lip. There are a lot of things I want to say. I take a deep breath.

"I don't mind how I look in them, really. Not any more. But they bring back memories."

"You needed them as a child, too?"

She only asks to give me time; she knows I'm ready to tell. I hesitate.

"Let it out," she advises. "These things, these stories that you carry, if they're pushing against the top of the bottle, let them out."

"You don't," I blurt out before I can stop myself. She worries her bottom lip with her teeth, but only for a moment.

"I am something of a hypocrite. But that doesn't mean I'm wrong."

It's not much, but I can tell it's hard for her even to admit she has painful memories at all. Not for the first time, I'm very aware that she's no better than me. She's different, her life has meant she deals with things differently, and she doesn't go wild like I do, at least not now she has Henry. I think helping me is helping her, helping her be more ready to talk about and deal with her own problems. I don't think she knows that, but I hope it's true. I've been silent for a while.

"Mine are not pushing," she says. She doesn't sound weak, exactly. A little tired, I suppose. I remind myself of just how much she has shared with me, because Henry is a very big deal, and then I take another deep breath.

I take off my glasses and fiddle with them in my lap. I'm glad we're in the car; it's a perfect excuse not to look at her. I hear myself begin to speak, in a faraway voice that's hardly mine at all.

"I was in 5th grade and I couldn't read. I guess no one was worried until then because it's common for foster kids to do badly in school, but by the time I was ten, I could still hardly write my name. I was failing everything. I had a foster home at the time and my teacher called them in to speak to them and they told the long story of me being bounced around and how it wasn't my fault, and more importantly, wasn't their fault, but then my teacher asked me some other stuff, random questions, like about the world, I don't even remember. And then she looked like she'd been hit by a lightbulb." Regina laughs, I fumble with my glasses again.

"She asked my foster parents if I'd had my eyes tested. They got all defensive and said they didn't know, and the next day my teacher sent me to the nurse and she did some stuff and everybody realised that maybe the reason I was so stupid was because I couldn't see shit. My foster parents, social worker, optician when I saw one, were all so mad at me because I never said anything, but how was I supposed to know? My whole life everyone had told me I was stupid; I just thought they were right, and all these blurry squigglies and stuff made sense to other people. When I got my glasses, to be honest, I just felt like an idiot. I'd spent years not being able to do the things other kids could do, and I knew some people needed glasses, but I hadn't managed to figure it out. I never said anything, I never asked… In the system, you don't do that. You don't ask people for things, not ever. I learned that right at the start. So it wasn't really my fault, but I felt like it was…"

I trail off. Regina can tell we haven't even got to the good part yet. She waits, knowing I'll pick up when I'm ready.

"I got these glasses around half a year before I went to middle school, and I was so determined, I caught onto this idea of college and LA and all that crap and I studied like hell. By the end of 5th grade, I was caught up with the class, reading and writing, all of that. I knew no one liked me in elementary school, but I convinced myself that they'd just thought I was dumb. Having me over the summer was too much for my foster parents but I got a new family right before school started and they had a bunch of other kids and were definitely in it for the money, but they were okay, they fed us right and they weren't on drugs or anything.

"You gotta understand, I loved my glasses. To me they were like, my saviour. They were what was going to make everything okay. My first pair were beautiful, the optician's stock was changing so they had a bunch of frames on sale and I think maybe the assistant took pity on me or something but they said I could have whatever frames I wanted, since they'd be switching them all out in a few days anyway. Mine were red, but they had this black etching on the side, kind of swirly, like fire or something.

"I walked into that first day of school with my head held high. I had my own bag, my own pencil, and I had my glasses. They made me feel so powerful. I actually felt smart. I'd never felt that way before. I was so sure, so stupidly, childishly sure, that I was gonna make friends, that my teachers were gonna like me… I was too keen. I forgot everything about shutting up and sitting at the back of the class. I raised my hand and answered questions, I even thought I was making friends. There were these two girls, they knew each other already but they talked to me at recess and taught me how to play jump rope.

"And then at lunch… I was walking with my friends to the bathroom. They were talking about some cartoon, I was pretending I knew what it was, it was all great, and then some 8th grade boys grabbed me. I recognised one of them as my foster brother. They dragged me into the boys bathroom.

"This is who she really is, he yelled at my new friends, who were still standing in the doorway. I felt bad for them. They were totally stranded, they knew better than to get a teacher, they were too small to help me themselves, but they were kind. They didn't want to leave. You're not like them, you don't belong near them. This is where you belong. They dragged me into a cubicle. I struggled, I've always been scrappy, but there were too many of them, and… Well, after that, they left me in there, the bell had already gone off so they had to go to class. I coughed up all the water, tried to wash up… And then I saw them. Somehow in the scuffle, my glasses had come off, and then one of the boys must have stepped on them. Or stomped on them, probably. I'd been too busy choking when they left to really notice. I picked them up. The frame was bent, one of the arms had snapped off, and both lenses were cracked. I didn't cry about the cuts and bruises, I didn't cry about what was probably in my hair, I didn't cry about my soaked, gross clothes, but I cried about those glasses.

"I never went back to class. I didn't go to my new home, either. I just wandered around. It got dark… Eventually some cops found me and took me back, but my foster parents, understandably I guess, didn't want to keep me any more. I told my social worker I lost the glasses. I don't know if she believed me. I didn't want to admit… Anyway, they had to get me new ones, but they were big and ugly. They survived much better, loads of fights." I smile ruefully.

There's an interesting pause, in which neither of us say anything.

"Did the bullying continue, at the school?" Regina asks, although when I look over at her, she looks like she wishes she didn't. She can tell from my face, not that she needs to. She knew the answer before she asked, she just wants me to say it. And I realise that I kind of want to say it, too.

"Yeah. I'm a good mark, I guess."

"Because you're so brilliant," Regina says, by way of agreement.

"I never saw it that way, but if that's what you think…" I glance at her sideways, trying to be flirtatious, but she ignores my attempt to lighten the mood. She's thinking. Remembering.

"I have needed glasses for reading since I was a child, too," she says. She's trying to sound conversational, but there's a lot more to what she says than the words. I wait for more, but there isn't any. She pulls into a parking lot and concentrates on parking her car, then leans back in her seat.

"What was wrong, earlier?"

I'm kind of mad at her. I just gave her a huge personal story, but she won't give me the equivalent, even though we both know it's there. I know that's not how this works, I know we're not the same, but I want to know, I want to know more of her, and now she's asking about earlier and I'm thinking back to it and a significant part of me just wants to get out of the car and run. But the rest of me knows that I only want to do that to see if she'll run after me. Hell, not even that. I know she'll run after me. I want to know if she'll put her shoes on before she runs after me.

I'm struck by the knowledge that she really would, that I know she would. I don't have to run because finally, there's someone that cares enough to chase me. I feel a tear dribble down my cheek. It's not really about the running, it's about the glasses and the story and Regina sitting beside me wanting to be close to me, and neither of us knowing how the hell we're going to do this. I wipe the tear, the one tear, away, and shove the damn glasses back on my face.

"I want this," I gesture to the pair of us with my hands, "so badly. Last night I was with my friends after work and I realised I just want to be with you, all the time, all the freaking time. I missed you, I missed you and I was away from you for less than a day. The whole time I was with my friends, I just wished I could be hanging out with you instead, but that's…" I shake my hands again, trying to explain. "Is that really healthy?" I say in the end, asking it quietly, desperately worried that she'll pull away now I've confessed.

"I missed you too," she says carefully, looking right at me. "I think when people are fa- When people are starting to really care about each other, they do think about each other all the time, they do miss each other, even if they're only spending a night apart. You're looking at me as if you think I hate you for telling me this, but I assure you, I feel quite the opposite about it. I want to spend as much time with you as possible. I find myself… I find myself feeling things I did not believe were even possible any more. I have worries, I have a lot of them, but… I want this, too. Very, very much."

I don't break eye contact, but I'm still worried. "We don't even know what this is?"

She smiles, it's small, but very real, and all for me. "So what?" she says. I think she's telling herself too, but with those two little words, all my fears seem to drop away.

As they do, we see rain beginning to fall from the darkening sky, and our hands bump as we both reach over to take the other's. We laugh as our fingers weave together.

"Thank you," she whispers. It's for a lot, I can hear the weight of the words; I can see it in her big brown eyes. She's so beautiful. It's not about her physical features (though they are fantastic), it's about… Her soul. Her fingers, gripping mine. Her eyes, looking into me and not turning away even when they see my pain. She's thanking me for telling her, she's thanking me for caring about her, but mostly, she's thanking me for not pushing her. I have a feeling she notices everything I feel. She knows when I'm mad, when I want more than she's giving, and in this moment I think she's thanking me for not forcing something she's not ready for.

I still want to know. But as she thanks me, what I really want to know is her, and she is not her past. She's not her pain.

It's raining harder. We still have the car engine on. I shrug out of my jacket, and turn on the radio, flipping through stations until I find what I'm looking for - classical. She raises her eyebrows, but I know she likes it. She's just… she just would. I like it too. It's even a waltz. Perfect. I crank up the volume and open the door of the car. She gapes at me; I run around to her side, take a theatrical bow, then pull open her door too.

She glances at her shoes, but decides against. I'm a bit worried she's going to tell me I'm being an idiot. I am being an idiot. But then she takes a deep breath, smiles like a kid (looking so much like Henry it gives me the fuzzies), and takes the hand I offer her. She gasps at the rain, which soaks her in seconds, but it's a happy gasp, a gasp of freedom, of everything washing away. Rules, restrictions, reservations. The rain and the music sweep away everything else, all the walls, until there's nothing left but us.

I lead her into a dance, making it up as I go along, but moving in groups of three (which someone once told me is the only rule of waltzing anyway). She holds me, dancing as theatrically as I am (though I suspect more skilfully). It's not a happy, floaty waltz, it's something powerful and Russian and it sends chills to our bones and shivers up our spines and we whirl around together, in the rain, our expressions deadly serious, full of furious passion. I imagine us both in flowing ball gowns, in a fairytale world, a land and a time far from this one.

We don't stop until we're shivering wildly and the radio station's switched to something un-waltz-able. Back in the car, I wrap Regina up in my jacket, we turn up the heat (she even has heated seats), and she looks at me. She also looks like a drowned rat.

"That was amazing. How did you… How did you know?"

"I don't have to know all your secrets to get past your walls," I say. The answer's easy, though I didn't plan it like that. I pulled her out of the car to dance with me because I wanted to. What it meant for us just sort of happened. And I can tell it meant a hell of a lot.

She leans over, manoeuvring in the car until she's holding herself above me. She raises her eyebrows a little in question. She always asks. Always. She's the most powerful woman I've ever met, but she never forces me. She never controls me. I wonder if she knows how important, how amazing, that is for me. And then I nod my head and her lips meet mine, and it's wet and it's messy and we're stuck in the car and my toothbrush prods my butt. I retrieve it and when she realises what's happened she bursts out laughing, then I can't help it, I laugh too, then we kiss while we're laughing. We kiss as we smile, we explore and play and touch, we kiss until we're not smiling, until we're desperate, we kiss until the car is way too small, we kiss until we're flushed and panting, we kiss until she falls back in her seat, gasping for air, incredibly flustered, and I mirror her in mine.

"Dinner?" she says, sounding more breathless than she probably meant to.

"Not hungry for food," I groan.

"One of these days, we're going to have to go to dinner. It's a dating must."

"So we're dating?" I say slyly.

She leans over and wipes a streak of her lipstick from my mouth, then examines her finger as if assessing the evidence. But then she grins.

"Not until we have dinner."

I am actually hungry, it's just hard to make food a priority right now.

"Can a date be to McDonalds?"

She gives me a death glare.

"What about In and Out?"

She narrows her eyes even more, but she can't hold in a giggle.

"I have an idea," she says. "Do you like Italian?"

"I like everything," I say. "But my favourite is Mills."

She rolls her eyes, then leans through to the backseat, producing a packet of wet wipes for us to clean ourselves up with (seriously, she gets them out of nowhere) and her jacket, meanwhile tossing my own jacket back over to me with a flashing eyed thank you. The heat of the car has dried us out for the most part, and after another exploration of the seat, she produces a large yellow umbrella.

"Yellow?" I ask, mock-incredulous.

"I like it, it's bright. Everybody has black."

"You're adorable."

"So are you. Wait, don't get wet," she says, getting out of the car and coming around to my side.

"Too late," I grumble. I don't think she'll hear, but the smug, flirty smile she gives me when she opens my door suggests otherwise.

"You can deal with it later," she mutters in my ear, trailing a hand down my back, then resting it around my waist.

I'm kind of disappointed she's suggesting she won't be the one dealing with it later, but only on my basest level.

We walk along the street, then to my surprise, down a little alleyway. She ducks inside a tiny Italian restaurant. It's packed - I'm not sure how we're going to get a seat. I say as much. She chuckles.

"You can trust me with your deepest, darkest secrets, but not to get us dinner?"

"Whatever."

To my relief, a host appears in front of us and distracts her from my shameful comeback.

"Ms Mills!" he cries. "It's been ages. Come in, I'll take you through. Who's your beautiful friend?"

"This is Emma."

"Great to meet you," he tells me. He takes us to a table at the back marked 'reserved' and disappears to get us wine (non alcoholic, but apparently dinner isn't dinner without some kind of wine).

"So, who's he?" I ask.

"He's Luke, and as you see, he works here. But his uncle, Jefferson, is the owner. And Jefferson is Paige's father."

I try to remember. "In Henry's ward…"

"Yes. I… I do not go to support groups, I have met very few parents, but he brought me coffee one night that we both had to be there, about six months ago, and we got to talking… Henry and Paige have had a few playdates, and I had dinner with him and his wife here, once. I didn't know he owned it, but I loved the food and said so, and he told me I should come whenever I want. I have only taken him up on that offer twice before, both times with Henry."

Luke appears with the wine and I tell myself sternly to ignore the throbbing between my legs, and listen to his conversation with Regina instead.

"How's Henry? Paige is always talking about him. She says she wants to be a dragon too."

"He is doing well. Another cycle of chemo, he had a slight relapse. And Paige?"

"Good, too. Jeff visited tonight. She misses her hair."

Regina gives him an understanding smile, and we get on with dinner. I play with the ends of my own hair, and suddenly have the urge to shave it all off. It's a bit of a sappy movie thing to do, and I kind of know I won't do it, but, seriously, fucking cancer, making me feel guilty for having hair. I make a kind of growling noise. When Regina asks me what's up and I explain, she's obviously trying not to laugh. So I growl again, at her this time.

We eat a fantastic meal, then Regina watches me eat ice cream and I rub it in her face (not literally) because she had the opportunity but rejected it like the grumpy old weirdo she is. I explain that to her too.

"It is good to know what you really think of me," she says as we walk back to her car under the umbrella. I'm glad it's still raining, because we have to be so close to both fit.

We sit in the car again. I want to go home with her. I don't want to go back to dorms. Ever. It's not about sex, well, it was earlier, but I know, really, that I'm not ready, and I don't know if she is either. I just... I don't want to be away from her. I want to kiss her again. I want her to hold me. I want to eat breakfast with her, I want to wake up and not be alone, I want to feel cared for, and that I care for someone, I want… I want family.

We sit there, and I say none of this.

"Home?" she asks softly. I slump back in my seat. I have an annoying habit of turning into a toddler when I'm tired and I want something I think I can't have.

"Em-ma." It's gentle, almost lyrical, like a caress of my name. And it's a question.

"I don't want to go back there," I say, in a tiny, tiny voice.

"I don't think we should-"

"I don't want to do that either. I mean I do. But not tonight."

"Oh."

It's like a light comes on, a light on her rain-cleansed face. It's a beautiful light. It's a light that says, she heard me before, when I said I wanted to be with her all the time, but now she believes me. And when I see that light, a light comes on inside me. Because I heard her too, when she said she wanted to be with me. And now I kind of have to believe her too. People can lie. But lights inside them can't.

She looks at me, still shining, full of her light.

"Emma?"

"Regina?"

"Would you like to come back to my place?"

I grin from ear to ear.

"More than anything," I tell her. And it's not just an expression. It's the truth.