Regina has finished all of her work earlier than she would have expected. Regina takes off her reading glasses and throws them onto her desk. She runs a hand through her hair, closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath.
Emma spent most of the afternoon with Jack, doing God only knows what.
Regina opens her eyes and notices that Emma is in her office kneeling on the floor in front of the coffee table.
Emma intently coloring in a picture. Regina gets up and walks over to where Emma is kneeling and sits behind her on the couch.
Emma sees Regina walking over and quickly hides what she is working on.
Regina lifts her eyebrow and Emma gives a knowing toothy smile. Regina laughs and moves back to her desk, still watching Emma. Emma nods and puts her drawing back on the coffee table.
Regina is now curious as to what Emma has been working on. It is then that she realizes that Emma has markers, crayons, and colored pencils hidden in a box tucked between the couch cushions.
Regina rolls her eyes and knows Jack gave Emma the coloring supplies and told her to hide it; since the supplies were supposed to only be used for town hall event fliers. Regina sees Jack stick his head in and calls to Emma. "Pssst.. Em"
Emma looks up and smiles. Regina quickly looks down like she is reading something when Emma looks over to her. Jack knows Regina is listening very carefully to what is going on, and smirks.
Jack gives emma something in a small tube and something in a plastic baggie. Regina glances at them and gives Jack a glare asking 'what is going on?'.
Jack just shrugs his shoulders, turns around, and exits the room. Emma skips back to where she was working and takes the tube and moves it all around the paper. She then carefully opens the baggie and starts putting its contents on the paper.
Regina gives up trying to figure out what Emma is up to and goes to shopping online. She has to be in the office for another 5 minutes anyway so why not.
Just as Regina is about to shut down her computer and pack up her stuff, Emma gets up and walks over to her. She taps Regina on the leg. Regina looks down at Emma and smiles. Emma holds out her hand and Regina takes it.
Regina's lip curls when she feels that Emma's hand is sticky, but ignores the gross feeling. Emma walks Regina back over to the couch and sits. Emma pats the space next to her.
Regina sits and looks at Emma. Emma smiles and says, "close your eyes." Regina quirks an eyebrow and Emma whines, "come on. Just close em. please please please!"
Regina relents and closes her eyes. She can feel Emma jump down from the couch and can hear her moving around. She then feels Emma jump back onto the couch and excitedly say, "Ok you can open em now!"
Regina opens her eyes and tears start to form. On the coffee table is what looks like a kids book. Regina gingerly picks it up and reads the title. "Henry's Secret"
Regina sees the typed strips of paper and knows that Jack had a large part in this. Regina looks through the book. She sees Emma drew her foster parents before leaving her in the woods, Henry finding her, Henry giving her food, clothes, and reading to her. The image that made her cry was the last one. Emma drew a picture of herself with Regina and Henry with gemstones and markers. Below the scribbles of a four year old was the caption 'Regina my mommy and Henry by brother'.
Regina wiped her eyes and looked at Emma. Emma was smiling and asked, "Do you like it?"
Regina nodded her head and said, "Actually I love it."
Emma crawled into Regina's lap and gave her a huge hug. Regina kissed Emma's temple looked up when she heard movement at the door.
Jack has tears in his eyes as he looked on at Regina and Emma. Regina caught his eye and mouthed "Thank You".
Jack smiled and walked away.
Regina composed herself and held Emma who sat on her lap.
Regina then remembered that they needed to go to the stores for some clothes and other essentials for Emma.
Regina patted Emma's leg and said, "Well we are done here for the day, and I believe I promised a special girl a shopping trip."
Emma smiled and jumped off of Regina's lap. While Regina shut her computer down, gathered her things, she put Emma's book in her desk drawer; Emma cleaned up the coffee table and waited patiently for Regina by the door.
Regina took Emma's hand and turned out the lights. They walked out of Regina's office hand in hand smiling. Regina said goodnight to Jack and Emma ran over and gave him a quick hug, "Thanks for the markers ."
Jack smiled and said, "No problem princess. And you call me Jack ok!" Emma nodded and smiled. Jack gave Emma one last hug before Emma ran back to Regina.
Regina called out to Jack, "Jack. Go home. Take the rest of the night off."
Jack smiled and said, "Thank You madam Mayor."
Regina nodded and walked out with Emma.
Jack watched from the door as Regina tickled and chased after Emma in the parking lot. Jack couldn't help but smile. He looked at the time and was surprised it was only 5:00pm. Regina never leaves before 5:45, even though she is only required to be in the office until 5:00pm.
Jack took the rest of the night off, as he walked out of the building he realized that Emma was one of the best things to happen to this town, not just to Regina, in a long time. He can only hope that she sticks around.
A/N:hope you are enjoying the story. please review and follow! I love reading peoples reviews. If there is something y'all want to see happen please either comment or PM me. I take every suggestion into consideration. Thanks again for reading!