Something Real

Emma stayed up all night worrying for her sister until she got home. She couldn't think straight until she saw that Kathryn was okay.

After Kathryn walked into the apartment and headed to bed Emma didn't let her feelings known. She Exploded with what this night represented to her. " I'm getting way too comfortable lying and sneaking around all this spy stuff, okay. I'm starting to feel that that is my real life."

"It's all to be expected."Regina shrugged, coming toward Emma with a mug of coffee. "It's an existential spy crisis of sorts."

"It used to be all compartmentalized, you know." The Blonde said, freaking out. "Emma world and spy world. But when I watched those ambulance doors close and my sister was behind them with that sweaty nuclear spy freak, my worlds collided. I put Kathryn's life in danger."

"No, Emma," Regina said, shaking her head. "That guy was sick with or without the intersect in your head. And spy world or no, Kathryn helped that guy because that is what she is trained to do."

Emma sighed… yeah hypocratic oath…"Yeah, I guess so."

Now that that was settled, Emma wanted to broach the subject of the break-up. But before she took a break, Regina said, "There's something else I have to talk to you about."

Emma paused, "What's that?"

"I'm a little worried about our cover," Regina said, handing Emma her coffee. Emma nodded and took a sip of the coffee. Perfect, We can just break up now she thought and was about to say something when Regina said. "I think it's time for us to make love."

Emma spit the coffee back into the mug. And choked. "It's a hot coffee." She walked away to her room. "Talk Later."

They didn't talk later. Emma totally chickened out, and the next day, while Regina and Blaize were getting Briefed on the situation, Emma was at work… when Lou walked in. The hot boi smiled. She was holding a brown paper bag as she approached Emma.

Emma smiled back and straightened out at the Genius bar. "hey!"

"Okay, just give me the verdict, Emma; I can take it." Lou said as she came up to Emma.

Emma's eyebrows shot up in amusement. "You sure you want to hear?"

"If you're teasing me, please stop," she said, bringing her hand to her chest, which Emma's eyes followed because Lou was not hiding her body that day. She wore an incredibly cute moderately girly outfit. A pair of trendy pants with suspenders and a flirty top accentuated the cleavage. "If you're not teasing me, don't lie to me."

Emma smiled and headed to the back room to retrieve the phone. When she came back she pulled it out for her and smiled. "Good as new-ish."

Emma had made the extra step of signing the phone to the cloud so that she could back up the phone which had never been backed up. She knew the phone was going to have to be restored at the end and she hated for Lou to lose everything.

"I don't believe you." Lou said just happy to see it.

"You should really passcode to protect your phone," Emma said, "I'm not supposed to do this, but I backed up your phone to iCloud temporarily because I didn't want you to lose all those notes." Emma watched as Lou looked through everything. She handed her the paper where she wrote what she had changed. "Change your password… You know, You can learn a lot about a person through their cell phone, by the way. For example, I saw that you listed your nana first, under "a nana."

Lou smiled and hugged Emma tightly "thank you."

Emma chuckled and hugged back. "Hey, yeah."

"You really saved my ass, Emma."

Emma's eyebrows jumped up again "Wow, you love your nana and you have the mouth of a trucker." She and Lou chuckled. "You're a very complicated woman, Lou."

Lou then tilted her head now that her business was done. She was going to ask this girl out. She seemed interested. "I brought you something," she said softly. "For fixing it."

Emma furrowed her brows and smiled. "Thanks." She looked in the bag and saw the wrapped bundle. "A sandwich?" She smelled it and it smelled divine.

"It's the sandwich," Lou said, squeezing Emma's forearm. "turkey, Muenster cheese, egg bread… I'm even going to call it the Emma Swan."

Emma giggled… "That is the dream! I can't believe you're going to name a sandwich after me"

"You know, you should come by the shop sometime and taste it fresh."

The blonde nodded. "Yeah, yeah. Yes, I'd love that." She looked down at the bag and back at the brunette. "Lou, this is kind of the biggest honor… Regina!"

Her spy girlfriend had snuck up on her. Emma looked at her then back at Lou speechless.

"Hi, I'm Regina," she said cheerfully.

Emma finally recovered and said Uh… Lou... Lou is her name. This is Lou. I was fixing Lou's phone for her, Lou."

Lou's eyes narrowed as she looked at how close this Regina was standing next to Emma. Emma looked at Lou and then remembered she hadn't introduced Regina. Not that she was worried about what Regina thought. She wasn't her girlfriend anymore."Who's that? That's Regina."

Lou let out a chuckle, Emma was adorable, but not if this woman was anything more than a friend. "Sh-she said that…Uh, who's Regina?"

"Regina... Is…" Emma paused because she hadn't discussed with Regina what dating would be like while she was using this cover. "What's the best way to describe… Regina is my…"

Regina got the gist, and Emma needed her to let her date. Regina didn't want that. She Liked Having Emma to herself. Lou was beautiful. So Regina played dumb, because no they haven't established the rules. So she extended her hand. "Girlfriend, Nice to meet you."

Lou stiffened. "Nice to meet you, Regina." She looked at her. She was in a casual dress, but still wearing more sophisticated things than her cutesy blouse and trendy pants. This was the last time she got cute for a girl. Thank god she hadn't asked the girl out. "Uh, you should refrigerate that 'cause it'd be a shame for the swan to make you sick." Then she walked away.

"Yes, absolutely, i...Great idea." Emma said her spirit deflated.

She couldn't even look at Regina. She could feel the undercurrent of Rage, even if Regina refused to show it or even say anything. The brunette took a breath and said, "Uh, there's more to the Mason Whitney incident than we thought." Then she walked away.

Emma was stuck in place, she couldn't believe what had just happened to her. She was stuck between two beautiful women. One that wanted her but thought she was taken and one that didn't and wouldn't let her go. "Let's go, Emma," Regina said and Emma followed her to the Morgue.

After the morgue and finding out the man Kathryn tried to save had been poisoned and bugged, the team dispersed. Regina still had a mission to ensure their cover was not blown. She and Emma needed to sleep together. So They were going to spend the night side by side.

Grant it, Emma knew Regina had been with Daniel. But She herself had been into Daniel, it didn't mean Regina wasn't into girls too. Right? IT didn't matter. She never made a move, it was platonic and this night was bound to be torture because Emma wanted her so badly.

She had to establish some rules. She needed to be loved by someone or she was going to be insane, so she was going to ask permission to open this relationship a bit. The two of them still needed to discuss the night, so Emma went to the cheesecake Factory. Regina immediately pulled her to an outdoor table and they sat together. "I just wanted to make sure we're all set for tonight's mission."

Emma nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah." she swallowed. "I mean, it's, you know, it's been a while since I've slept with someone- no-no-not, not slept With someone, but slept with s... it's actually been a while since I've done either one, so…"

"Emma, listen, I know this is kind of uncomfortable." Regina said.

"I'm fine. It's fine."

"It's just that we have to do it…" Regina stated.

Emma nodded and put two thumbs up. "Got it."

"Mean not," Regina stammered. "not do it."

Emma chuckled, "I got it."

"so we don't blow…"

"I got it!"

"Our cover."

Emma exploded. "I got it. I got it. Okay?" Emma stood up and walked away. And as she crossed the parking lot to her store, she saw, "Lou!" The brunette looked up from her searching in her backpack then turned away from Emma. "Hey!Hey, hey." Emma ran toward her. "Hey, hey, wait, wait, wait, wait, Lou, listen. About earlier with Sarah, I can explain."

Lou shook her head. "Forget it, Emma." She shrugged. "You don't have to be single to fix a broken phone, right? Maybe our signals just got crossed. At least I got the gay part right."

"No, no, not at all. That's…" Emma paused, "That's kind of what I'm trying to say is that they...They weren't crossed. You know, Sarah and I, me and Sarah, that whole thing, it's really very… It's complicated?"

Lou rolled her eyes. "Well, is she your girlfriend or not?"

"Well, yeah, sort of, kind of hard to explain." Lou waited for the explanation. "I really, really, very badly wish that I could explain."

She shook her head again. "Listen, if you're not going to tell me the truth, I'll tell you. Okay?" She shrugged and moved closer to her car. "I like you. I like almost everything about you. I think you're cute, you're funny. The fact that you even pinged my gaydar at all intrigues me." she ran her fingers through her hair then placed her hands on her hips still very open to hearing what Emma had to say. "But want to know what I don't like?"

Emma nodded. "Very, very much."

"I think anyone who cheats on their girlfriend is a big, fat, stupid jackass."

"Exactly, I concur." The blonde agreed.

Lou laughed, throwing her hands up. "Of course you do, which is why I like you." The brunette paused and sighed. "Why don't we do this, okay? If your situation ever gets less complicated, you just let me know. Okay?"

Emma smiled because that was what she was planning all along. "Okay. Yeah." Emma walked away with a plan.

That night, Emma prepared for her pretend sex date. She didn't know Regina had seen her talking with Lou. She had no right to tell Emma not to speak to that woman, so she settled for dressing so sexy she wouldn't be able to deal.

Regina walked into the apartment. Kathryn had let her in and she slid toward Emma's room. The blonde was dancing in the middle of her room, in a pair of red panties and a white tank top. Regina nearly melted at the sight of the long shapely legs of her charge. Thank heavens Emma couldn't really dance, or the sight of her doing something elegant might make Regina cum on sight.

Emma jumped startled when she noticed Regina standing at the door. " Kathryn let me in." She looked around the room and the setting was romantic. There were candles and music… was she going to be able to resist? "Wow, Em…What do you think is going to happen here tonight?"

"Why?" Emma said Furrowing her brows, "What do you, what do you think, I think?"

Regina shrugged, "Well, I don't know, the candles and the music. I mean, you do know we're just spending the night together for cover, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Emma laughed and shook her head. "Why, why would I possibly think anything else? I mean, by now I'd say I'm pretty familiar with the concept of faking it, so…"

"We've got to take this assignment seriously." Regina stated

"I Am!" Emma stated. "Look, I was setting the scene. I'm a girl, I like girly things like this or Kathryn would know what's up." The blonde looked around the room. "Okay, I'll lose the music." Emma said, turning off her phone, and hedging for the bed. "You can change in the bathroom."

"That's okay." Regina stated reaching for her trench belt. She pulled off the coat and underneath was a mauve nighty, completely see through.

"What?" Emma stated sitting up looking at all of the beauty displayed for her. At first her brain wanted to seize functioning. But Then her brain wanted to fight. "You're giving me crap about lighting some candles and you come in wearing that?"

"What, this? This is part of my cover."

Emma scoffed and turned away from her. "Well, it doesn't cover a thing."

"And what if Kathryn or awesome were to walk in?" Regina asked, coming toward the bed. "This is exactly what someone would wear to seduce their Significant other. I am just being professional."

"Yeah... " Emma grumbled. "The world's oldest profession."

Regina Gasped. "Oh… Well, that's real nice, Emma." She said, turning to face her. Emma's back was to her. "What is the matter with you tonight anyway?"

They fall silent, then suddenly there is an argument in Kathryn's room. Emma thinks that maybe they should be making sex noises so that it sounds like they are doing something in here. But she wasn't about to say anything. She was still angry at Regina.

"We're starting to sound like them, aren't we?" Emma stated softly.

"A little." Regina sat up in bed and turned to face Emma. "Are you okay? Is there anything you want to talk about?"

Emma frowned and sat up with her. "What exactly are the rules with our…" She faltered, unable to capture it in words. "Like you know, our, our thing?"

Regina furrowed her brows. "What do you mean?"

"What do i... What do I mean?" Emma stated exasperated. "I mean hypothetically speaking, are we allowed to see other people?"

There it was. Regina had been waiting for this conversation. And she had a prepared answer. She tried not to smile through this. It was kinda cruel, but she wasn't sharing her girl. "Well, uh... Our cover is as a couple, so tactically, that would be challenging." She could have left it at that, but she continued to add complications so Emma never thinks of asking again. "Plus any prospective date would have to endure a rigorous vetting process to determine their Motivation."

Emma scoffed "Wouldn't their motivation be love?"

Regina nodded. "Ideally, but you're a very important piece of intelligence, and you have to be handled with extreme care."

"Well, that sounds very nice." The blonde groused.

"Emma," Regina said, finally confronting the elephant in the room. "I don't have to be a spy to piece together the clues here. You're interested in that Lou girl, aren't you?"

"Well, i…" Emma started but then got interrupted by Kathryn coming into her bedroom. She was also poisoned by the same drug as The weapons master. All talk of covers and relationships went out of the window.

It was all irrelevant to Emma now. She needed to save her sister.