Chapter Seven: Traitorous Heart
Somehow the cabin was harder to find the second time around.
Emma had the benefit of daylight now to find her way, but so many twisting and winding roads which all seemed to lead back to the same beginning point had the blonde nearly at her wits' end. You'd think with no real trees to speak of cluttering the surrounding topography that someone could easily find their way around, but Emma despaired at the vast flatness of it all.
She wasn't sure how, but a road she could have sworn to have taken at least three times back in the opposite direction at last led her back to the cabin— Apparently, she just hadn't followed it far enough before turning off. The silver lining was that Emma was thoroughly satisfied with how secluded they were from civilization. It really would take a miracle for anyone to happen upon them by chance, though, if the owner thought to come by and check in on their property for whatever reason, Emma would have to be quick on the draw in order to come up with a believable enough excuse as to one: how they managed to get inside without having a key and two: why they were there in the first place. Emma could see movement in the bedroom when she came through the front door, and hoped to God that Regina hadn't somehow wriggled free of her restraints and was poised and waiting to attack her. She really was not in the mood for so much physical activity, especially with the state of her wrist. All Emma cared about was eating something before she withered away into nothingness.
"You hungry?" She called out, setting the sacks of food on a coffee table near the center of the sitting room.
"My savior—" Emma heard Regina's voice filter out of the bedroom, dripping with sarcasm. "Here I was thinking that I might die from starvation, but now it seems the boredom might be the only thing left to kill me."
Why was it that almost everything out of this woman's mouth made Emma's blood boil? What could Regina possibly know about starving? About hunger pains? About not having eaten in four days to the point where one could feel the slowing of their heartbeat as they drift off to sleep, terrified that they might not wake up the next morning because of it?
"Don't be dramatic." Emma taunted over her shoulder toward the room as she shrugged out of her jacket and bent to retrieve one container after another from a sack. She had to admit, imitating the other woman's level of opulent criticizing did have a sort of je ne sais quoi, though she would try her best not to lean into it too much lest it stuck to her like a bad habit.
"Really, Swan, what could I possibly do with a magazine, or God forbid…" Regina's voice paused for effect, "…a book?"
Emma gave up on trying to run her thick, wavy hair into an elastic at the back of her head. There was only so much she could do with one hand. Tying up her hair was a sort of ritual before eating, but she resolved (after several tries) to shake her golden locks out at the crown of her head with her fingertips. It draped long over her shoulders like the unruly tips of a horse's windswept mane as she walked into the bedroom, and the arm bent above her head drew the attention of Regina's eyes, more specifically to the bicep bunched right in the middle of it.
"Anything is a weapon if you throw it hard enough." Emma stated.
"Oh please…" Regina trailed off, muttering her frustration and throwing her eyes toward the wall.
Satisfied that Regina hadn't somehow escaped her cuffs, Emma decided to bring the food to her. They ate quietly for a while before she decided to speak again.
"We're gonna be laying low here for another day or two before we head out." Emma said, crumpling a napkin into her lap and chewing one cheek full of what was a surprisingly good pulled pork slider.
Regina pinched her brow together tightly with the blonde's declaration and moved her now empty food container onto the nightstand beside the bed. "Why, dare I ask?"
Emma ruminated on whether or not to be completely transparent with Regina, knowing that while it was the best practice to retain sole possession of a plan —including all future moves and decisions— allowing Regina to be aware of the looming threat could quite possibly be worth the risk. If it helped Regina to remain compliant and become less of a pain in her ass, she'd go ahead and tell her.
"We've got a tail." Emma said. Regina merely continued staring at the blonde with a look of consternation upon her face, almost as if she were speechless. "It's not safe to leave now…" Emma explained and then shook her head. "We'll wait here until I'm comfortable to move you again."
"What do you mean…? Someone else knows I'm here?" Regina asked finally, her voice full of dismay.
"Not 'here', specifically, we're pretty far out in the sticks." Emma turned her head toward the window where the sky burned with a warm orange glow now. "…minus the sticks."
"So, someone's following you?"
"Sweetheart—" Emma stood, gathering her scraps of trash and used napkins. "Someone's following you."
"But you've already caught me…" Regina tried reminding her, rattling the handcuffs against the wood of the headboard.
Emma laughed. "Oh, you're fair game until I hand you over to law enforcement, which is why we need to be careful. We don't know who it is we're dealing with."
"Really, what can they do—"
"They can hurt you, for starters." Emma interrupted, approaching the footboard of the bed. She leaned forward and placed her good hand down on top of the stitched quilt, staring hard at the dark eyes that looked back at her with a sense of bewilderment. "Some of these guys don't give a damn about your well-being, your highness. You're a paycheck to them. That's it."
Regina shifted uncomfortably on her hips and leaned back, listening to the hard truths Emma had to share with her.
"If you get it in your head to try and escape again, or to leave me up shit creek without a paddle again, you need to know something…" Emma said, her eyes narrowing into slits. "I'm the only one who's gonna treat you like a human being. That much I can promise you." She finished, cradling her injured wrist as she stood back up.
Regina's eyes followed her bandage. Emma noticed how in doing so, the other woman seemed to give away exactly what she was thinking or feeling. The expressive nature of her eyes certainly would not bode well at a poker table, this much Emma was sure of.
"Let me check your wrist?"
Emma shook her head. "Don't worry about it."
"How can I not when you still have to eventually drive us all the way back to Texas? If the swelling has gone down, I'll be better able to see whether its broken or not." Regina insisted with a wave of her unshackled arm, beckoning the blonde toward her.
With a final groan, Emma walked over and sat beside Regina, keeping her eyes peeled on her unrestrained hand. Ever the vigilant one, Emma would let Regina catch her off guard again over her dead body.
Regina carefully unwound the thin dishtowel that was meant to keep the mint applied to the skin of Emma's wrist. Miraculously, the redness was all but gone. All that was left behind was a deep purple hue of a ring about the width of a pair of handcuffs. The ligature mark triggered some hefty and traumatic feelings deep within the blonde, but she stifled her rising nausea by looking away. Then she stiffened with a jolt of pain whenever Regina pressed at the base of her thumb.
"You dislocated your thumb." Regina said, turning Emma's wrist over and back again to get a better look.
"Yeah, but I put it back, see?" Emma turned to face her again, wiggling the bruised appendage around with a grimace.
"I do. What if you hadn't been able to set it?"
Emma dismissed the question altogether with a wave of her other hand. "I don't think in what-ifs."
That was a lie.
The blonde quickly became very aware of every millimeter of her skin that Regina's fingertips alighted upon, their featherlight trace leaving a tingling sort of sensation that overpowered the dull ache at the base of her thumb. By now, Regina surely had sufficient time to assess Emma's injury again— So why didn't she move? Something so simple as a hand running over her own felt so strange and yet… so welcomed.
Nobody touched her like this. Not ever.
Such an unfamiliar tenderness seemed to gather up all of Emma's stress and displaced it entirely. It was so simple. So easy. Emma closed her eyes and felt Regina looking at her again, but she didn't care.
"Swan…" The dark-haired woman's gaze burned against her cheek. She spoke softly again after a beat, "I didn't do it."
Ripped away now from her moment of peace, Emma took back her hand. Looking Regina in her eyes again was a bad idea at this point, but damn it to hell if Emma's didn't pull like an ornery mule in her direction.
Don't…
Don't you dare…
Emma opened her eyes and found herself struck from head to toe again by the other woman. Desperate to run from the intense grip Regina's gaze had on her, she stood suddenly, her heart jamming its way painfully up the length of her throat.
"You keep saying that." Emma said around a thick lump, nearly choking.
"And you said that you could tell when people are lying." Regina replied quickly, a sob painting the end of her sentence with a painful upward inflection.
Emma knew that feelings like hurt and betrayal could still claw their way out of a person who wished to keep them concealed, no matter how emotionally fortified they claimed to be. She herself was no different. Pain like that had an unmistakable sort of tell, such as the faint up and down waver in someone's voice or the lurch of a cry held back. These were things that simply couldn't be faked.
"I can tell, but sometimes it's hard when people actually believe what they're saying." Emma explained dejectedly.
Regina hung her head. "Do you really think me that well of a liar?" She asked under her breath.
Just leave the room… Emma fought hard to remain impartial, not knowing why on earth it was suddenly so difficult to do so. Just walk away, now.
"Do you really wanna know what I think?" Emma blurted. Regina tilted her head up again where a look of interest was easily read upon her face.
Emma Swan, you damn fool.
"I think that liars usually have better material. They tend to over-talk, like it's much more important that I believe them than what it is they're actually saying." Emma's voice rang with an impatience to get away from the conversation. She then shifted her weight where she stood and continued, "You? You've just stuck to the one line, 'I didn't do it.' So, what I think is you're either a lazy liar… or you're telling the truth."
Emma watched as a tear rolled out from beneath a dark, copper penny like orb. Just one. It ran over Regina's high cheekbone and perched itself in the small divot of a scar on her upper lip. Feeling like her bones wished to live on the outside of her body now, Emma took the silence between them as an opportunity to flee the room. That was stupid… She thought. That was so, so stupid.
Emma Swan could absolutely kick herself right now. Pacing at the front of the sitting room beside the stonework hearth, the blonde racked her brain for a way to move forward. There were too many "unknowns" for her liking, and the associated risks for this job had just skyrocketed. The blonde felt as if the control she had on the situation was running through her hands like sand, spilling out between her pinched fingers.
She had one job.
One. Fucking. Job.
Nightfall the next day came with a strong wind. It pushed hard against the small wooden frame of the cabin, making the boards within its walls creak and groan like something hollow, and unearthly.
Emma craned her head back to look through the bedroom door from where she stood at the window. Regina was lying on the bed with an arm tucked under her head. Her vacant stare across the small room seemed to say everything and nothing all at once. What could she be thinking about?
And why do you care…?
"I don't." Emma reminded herself quietly, focusing her gaze back out of the window. She pried the cheap plastic blinds open further with a finger, pulling against their dusty edge. Beyond in the pale moonlight, she watched the cattails at the water's edge bounce back and forth against one another in the howling wind. A pair of swans circled each other gracefully on top of the shimmering, rippled surface of the lake. They worked against the hard pull of the wind to stay tethered to one another, wrapping their long necks around each other in an effort to keep close. Emma admired them from afar, and even envied their strong will to stay together. She wondered what that was like… To have an equal. Someone to anchor yourself to.
She supposed a summer here would be nice, perhaps on a small rowing boat out on the water— but it was a thought that was quickly flounced out of her head altogether. It was best that her mind not wander too far from the present. Someone had come too close to finding them, and there hadn't been a moment since discovering such that her teeth weren't on edge. An entire day spent staring out of windows brought an annoying ache to the base of her neck, and Emma realized eventually just how tired her feet were.
In the bedroom, Emma crawled on her hands and knees over the short footboard and let herself flop tiredly down onto the mattress again. It was soft, but not soft enough to absorb most of the bounce— which made the dark-haired woman lying beside her stir gently awake with a small noise.
"Clocked out for the day, have you?" Regina said with a sleepy voice. Her low notes echoed deeper than usual, sending a warm stirring of a feeling deep between Emma's legs.
Emma nearly failed to catch the pleased hum that billowed up from her chest. She froze, hoping to God that Regina hadn't heard it. How in the hell did her body keep betraying her like this? How in the hell could the mere sound of someone's voice feel so safe? Worse, how could her own voice do that without her even knowing? It was reactive and instinctual, and just as natural as the act of breathing. Emma wanted to wallow in the feeling of it, to indulge in it unrestrained and uninhibited. None of it made any real sense of course, but it would seem that Emma's body knew things that she herself didn't.
"Tired. Shush." Emma slurred with her cheek smushed against a pillow.
There was silence then. Emma pulled in a deep breath through her nose and let it go slowly, melting away the stress from her neck and upper back as best she could. The darkness behind her eyes began to vortex and a deep pulling feeling began to weigh heavy against her limbs…
"I need you to believe me." Regina whispered, rising Emma out of her approaching sleep with breakneck speed.
The blonde gave out a small groan. "I know you do."
"But do you?"
Emma paused, her tiredness lending a hand to her confusion. "Do I what?"
"Believe me?"
Jesus H. Christ…
"That's not my job. They have juries for that."
Emma felt the mattress dip then with a shift in position from the other woman. She blinked her eyes open again but only slightly, letting them acclimate to the darkness of the room. A slender yet shapely silhouette fizzled into view, and Emma knew that Regina was staring at her now.
"Go to sleep…" Emma begged, fluttering her eyelids shut exhaustedly.
"A jury will convict me the moment they lay eyes on me." The distinct -knock- of metal against wood beckoned Emma's eyes open again, wider this time as Regina shuffled closer toward her. Their knees were nearly touching, and Emma suddenly felt very warm from head to toe. "Emma… I need you to believe me." Regina repeated quietly, her voice more earnest than ever.
"I—" Emma lifted her head away from the pillow with a sharp incline then to look at the other woman, realizing that her name had been said out loud. She shook it off, no matter how many backflips the idiot muscle beneath her ribs continued to do. "You need me to believe you? Why is that?"
"Because you're the only one who can."
"That makes no sense. I know the legal system is screwed up but nobody's out to get you…"
"That's where you're wrong. I'm innocent but I've already been found guilty."
Utterly vexed, Emma gave a tired sigh. "Innocent people don't run, Regina."
"If you could just—"
"And being so cryptic isn't really doing you any favors, either." The blonde added with a yawn.
Regina paused, exhaling a breath that brushed gracefully over Emma's arm. The skin pulled tight there, raising a patch of small bumps akin to gooseflesh.
"I want to tell you- but I need to know that you will believe me first." Regina continued.
Emma turned over with another tired groan and mustered every available ounce of kindness she possessed, for she didn't actually wish to cause this woman any more suffering. It was clear now that Regina was suffering enough already. Either her guilt was eating away at her and she was desperate to run from it or…
"Regina?" Emma whispered, putting a stop to the wheel of questions in her mind. The woman lying behind her gave a curious hum in return. "Please, go to sleep."
A defeated sound came from behind Regina's nose as she tucked her legs closer to herself, hugging them with one arm. A short while later Emma drifted off to sleep with the quiet, gut-wrenching noise of puled tears and sniffles. The bed had shuddered once or twice with Regina's stiff sobs, but Emma didn't know what else to do.
Her goddamn traitorous heart… it broke for her.
Something tickled beneath Emma's chin, waking her with a roll of her head as if cresting a gentle wave. There was a pocket of warmth in front of her, heated by the small, exhaled breaths of the figure laying so close that Emma need only nod forward to kiss a crown of impossibly soft hair. Regina was curled up into her front and sleeping soundly, her breaths shallow and mild as if she were finally at rest.
Admittedly, it wasn't often that Emma deigned to share a bed with someone else while keeping her hands absolutely to herself. A bed was a sacred thing, after having gone for many years without one. Simply sleeping next to another person for the sole purpose of rest was a strange thing to experience, and Emma wondered briefly to herself whether or not that was a thing to feel strangely about to begin with. Her standard for things of "normality" were always a bit skewed, given her tumultuous upbringing. Acts of intimacy and physical touch were more along the lines of things that she had always sort of thrown herself into, knowing that a slow approach was terrifying, and diving in completely often took care of that fear altogether. Personal space was important to Emma, especially after every tangible and intangible part of her life growing up was trespassed with a cruel disregard… and often.
Here and now, Emma's personal space was definitely trespassed… but she was stuck. Again. Surprisingly enough, it didn't bother her so much.
The mellowed breaths that pooled in the hollow dip where her collarbones met made Emma feel like she was falling. As if there was no bed beneath her, no floor, and no ground even to walk upon, only a deep and dark void to which there was no bottom. It occurred to her that maybe Regina simply needed to feel close to something. Emma did have a way of forgetting that most people have the capacity to feel loneliness, especially since she herself had outgrown such an awful desire. That part of her that used to claw and beg for human connection… it was just gone.
Or so she had believed.
Emma struggled to get back to sleep in spite of her unwillingness to peel herself away from Regina. She told herself that it was merely the kind thing to do and that Regina would be none the wiser. It was harmless and obviously brought a sense of comfort to the other woman… Something as simple as being a pillow couldn't possibly hurt. Could it? It took a while, but Emma eventually closed her eyes and fell victim to her slumber once again. Stars wheeled overhead, and the concept of time and space were lost to her.
Sometime later, an indistinct noise came from beyond the room. It was a quiet rustling in the vast darkness… Or was it a shuffling against the floor?
Something knocked around clumsily then in the night as if it were traipsing around blindly, bumping into walls and furniture. In an instant, Emma shot straight up, immediately on the defense. She shook the arm wrapped around her waist, desperate to flee.
"Hey- There's someone in the house. We need to go..." Emma warned, terror welling up inside of her. The arm still clinging to her middle simply squeezed her, reluctant to let go. "Wake up—"
"Lilith?" A man's voice said.
He had come upon them so fast in the darkness that it made Emma yelp reactively in surprise. A large figure holding a flashlight stood over them. Emma blinked into the brightness and scrambled to her hands and knees out from under a blanket. The body that had been pressed against her own sat forward then with no real sense of urgency, composed and unafraid.
"Run, I got this." Emma said before turning her sights back toward the man towering above them. "Get away! You're not taking her anywhere! She's not going back with you!"
"Sweetheart, what nonsense have you been telling this girl?" The man asked.
Emma's confusion whirled like a bitter wind in her head. "What's going on? Who is this?" She asked, reaching out to give a tap on the shoulder in front of her. "Lily?"
"Honey, tell her the truth. I'm your father, and you're coming home with me. Your mother is worried sick."
A hollow feeling crawled its way into the pit of Emma's stomach. "Your father?" Her head whipped around once again. "You have a family? I thought you were like me…"
Emma blinked and suddenly, she was standing. The scratchy wool of the blanket covered her shoulders now.
The revolving blue and red flashes of light which painted the front porch of an unfamiliar house had begun to make Emma feel dizzy. Her eyes stung with tears as she fought hard to keep them at bay. She paced, wringing her hands anxiously. Voices from behind her spoke softly toward one another until the sound of hurried footsteps at her back turned her around, her vision blurred around the edges.
"Emma! Emma—" A hand came out to console her, but she shrank away from it. "Don't worry about my dad. He's just pissed that I used his visa. When this blows over, come find me… We can run away together."
"You tricked me." Emma's voice rang with a fresh sense of betrayal, along with a sort of young naivety that she hadn't felt in years. It rattled up the length of her throat on its way out.
Wait a minute… Had she been here before? What a powerful sense of déjà vu… Why did her body feel so different?
"I'm sorry…" Lily began to explain, drawing Emma's attention once again. "I know I lied about my family, but everything else I said is true. I hate my home. I feel invisible there. I'm just like you. I am! I was an orphan. It's just… they adopted me, but it's not my home. You promised… Together forever, no matter what, remember? I love you…"
Emma felt like she could die.
Like she could simply disappear.
She wanted to fold in half and then in half again, and then again and again until she popped out of existence like she never "was" to begin with. Besides… who would actually notice that she was gone? Who would care? Emma didn't have the words, perhaps because there were none left to say. She simply turned around and started walking.
"Emma…"
The voice behind her called out as the thread from her heart which had once connected them began to pull thinner and thinner with each step.
"Emma."
"Emma!"
The thread snapped, and her eyes opened.
Warm discs like dollops of melted dark chocolate stared calmly at her, waiting patiently to blink their delicious hellos. Emma found herself swimming in their thick embrace for a moment before the rest of the world fell back into place. Another dream. She'd been having a lot more of those lately, the bad ones.
Regina laid very still in front of her, just an inch or so away. She made no effort to move or to avert her gaze now that she'd been caught staring. Her lips were pursed as if she were studying Emma, not too tight and not so much that they resembled a pout, but Emma was drawn to them like a moth to flame. The blonde's will power began to circle and drain quickly, and she knew that she could make one of two decisions: move forward and press her lips against the ones hovering just a breath away from her own… or move away and rip herself completely from Regina's potent spell. The hold this woman had over her in these unexpected moments were a thing unlike anything Emma had ever experienced. It's no wonder that it felt quite like magic, or being "spelled".
All she had to do was lean forward.
It would be so easy…
Stop.
Bright spots burst around Emma's field of vision when she realized she'd been holding her breath. She pulled her head away and sucked in a sharp breath, batting her eyelids rapidly to bring herself back toward some goddamn sense. In a panic, Emma threw a fist into the collar of her shirt to search for the chain around her neck. When her fingertips brushed against the small key that lay tucked between her breasts, she wilted with a sense of relief.
"You talk in your sleep." Regina said.
Emma threw her legs out of the bed, desperate to be literally anywhere else at that moment. "I do not."
Cold water apparently meant something very different up north.
The icy spray from the shower head bit into the skin of Emma's upper back, pricking her like sharp needles. The cold shower had been a last-ditch effort to rid herself of her foolishness, thinking that she could kiss Regina and then be on her merry way with two hundred thousand dollars. It would be a violation of not only Emma's career, but of Regina's virtue.
Husband killers still had to have some kind of virtue… right?
Emma dressed quickly and stepped back into the bedroom with a fresh towel, tossing it across the room and into Regina's lap. Her damp, goldenrod hair dripped its cold water onto the top quilt as she leaned down and unlocked the cuff at the headboard just to clap it quickly over Regina's other hand.
"What are you doing?" Regina asked.
"Relax. You're gonna take a shower and then we're gonna leave." Emma replied as she helped Regina to stand with a slight wobble.
"I thought you said we'd be here longer—"
"Yeah, well, I changed my mind. I like to do that."
"Well, then—" Regina huffed, swiping her arm out of Emma's hand when she went to reach for it again. "…here's hoping you haven't used all of the hot water."
Not even a drop… Emma thought. The blonde trained her eyes to look at the wall across the room instead of the tight curve of Regina's hips inside her skirt. She'd worn the same clothes for days now, but Emma supposed she'd have to be fine wearing them a little while longer still.
Suppose I can give her a shirt, or pair of britches at least.
Emma caught the bathroom door, propping it open wide enough to keep her eyes on the woman standing just on the other side. "Now, I don't have to tell you what'll happen if you try to fuck with me, do I, Ms. Mills?" The decision to refer to Regina by her maiden name was one of the last small kindnesses Emma was willing to offer, simply because she also had no reason to disrespect her with the name of the man she was accused of murdering. Emma needed to toe a line carefully here and to be cautious of Regina mistaking her kindness for weakness.
"No." Regina said dolorously, her eyes downcast once again.
"Alright, because this is me doin' you a favor." Emma explained. "Do not repay me by making me swear, run, or fight. Oh, and lock this door at your own peril. I will break it down."
"Because you like to do that?" Regina asked snidely, jutting her hands through the space of the door far enough for Emma to uncuff her. Her quick-witted spitefulness was somehow beginning to grow on the blonde, as it didn't make her clench her teeth on reaction so much anymore.
"Now she's gettin' it." Emma replied, leaning further into their bantering powerplay.
Dark hair swished over a shoulder as Regina turned away from her. "Are you quite done?"
Emma shrugged, giving the empty pair of cuffs in her hand a playful toss. "I guess so."
The -click- of the door latching shut into its frame was followed by the sound of Emma's phone ringing from out in the sitting room. She hesitated to leave the room, but figured that Regina was good and ready to give up her habit of giving her any more grief. Especially since they seemed to both agree that it had been good fortune that Emma caught her and not someone else. So, for the most part, the worst seemed to be over. She could handle Regina's smart mouth for another day or two.
Emma crossed into the next room to pick up her phone and saw that it was Henry calling. Her thumb tapped to answer without another thought in her head.
"Hey, kid—" The glee apparent in her voice felt refreshing even to her own ears. "How're you doin'?"
"When are you coming home?"
Emma began to sputter. Answering a question with a question? Who the hell taught him that? She turned back and forth on her feet, looking for a way out. Oh, I did…
"Well, it'll be a couple more days but I'm about to head that way now… How's that sound?"
There was a long pause on the other end.
"Henry?"
Then… a sigh. "Okay, I guess."
"Great." Emma shuffled on her feet a bit more before she glanced out the window, thinking she ought to step outside just for a moment to grab some fresh air. She'd hidden all of the knives in the place as a precaution, anyway. "So… what have you been up to? Ruby said you're enjoying working at the diner?"
"Yeah."
"Henry, you do know you're thirteen, right?"
"Yeah?"
"And you don't exactly have to have a job yet? Actually, it's kind of illegal—"
"I like it. Granny gives me money just for washing dishes."
"That's… sort of how a job works, yeah. I'm glad you're having a good time with it, then." Emma said as she stepped outside and walked over to her car to locate a pair of fresh pair of socks. "Are you saving your money for anything in particular?"
She didn't want to pry, knowing full well that even her child's privacy mattered just as much as her own, but a part of her couldn't help but to ask. There was another lengthy pause where Henry said nothing again and Emma pulled her phone away to check that he was still there.
"Kid?"
"…Flowers."
Thank God… Emma was relieved that her son had chosen to be truthful with her, and so that was where she'd leave it. He's such a good boy.
"Alright. Well, that's very nice. Lemme let you go now, I've gotta get ready to come home and see you, okay?" She said as she dropped the hood of her car with a somewhat loud -bang- and walked back toward the porch. The mint growing along the walkway bombarded her with its menthol smell as she walked through it by accident, making it very hard to not picture Regina's hands gingerly touching her wrist. She really had to do something about those pesky intrusive thoughts…
"Okay." The small voice on the other end of the phone said, bringing her attention barreling right back.
"Hey- Henry?"
"Yeah?"
Emma leaned against the stacked woodpile just off to the side of the cabin's porch and took in another deep breath. "I love you, and I'm proud of you."
"Okay. Bye."
"I'll be home soon."
When Emma hung up, her chest grew tight with a harsh urge to cry. All she wanted to do was go home… It was less about the four walls and more about the young boy who seemed to be turning into a man in the mere blink of an eye. Home was wherever he was. Emma shook her head, ridding herself of her spiraling emotion as she stepped up onto the porch. With her long, cotton socks over her shoulder and square toed leather cowboy boots in hand, Emma walked back inside the warm shelter of their hideout. What made her stop dead in her tracks was the complete absence of sound.
The shower had stop running.
Dropping her items, Emma made a mad dash to the tall fireplace to pull hard at its damper, dropping the butt of her shotgun straight out of its flue. She took it up in her hands and quietly walked toward the opening of the bedroom door, ready to rock and roll if need be.
With a wide step, Emma swung into the doorway and lifted the barrel of the gun. There Regina was, hands up and eyes wide, wearing one of Emma's shirts and a pair of her jeans. The blonde guffawed at the sheer audacity but was quickly silenced after getting a better look at the other woman in her clothes.
"I wasn't keen to keep wearing the same skirt- I'm sorry… I—"
Emma lowered the shotgun, saving her healing wrist the trouble. "It's fine." She replied, shaking her head. "Though, you could have just asked instead of rifling through my bag."
She can wear a pair of jeans, that's for damn sure.
Something stirred low in Emma's stomach then. Regina seemed to have been partial toward Emma's long sleeved, light grey wool Henley and her pair of straight leg blue jeans. Over the light tan of her skin, the colors of each item complemented her perfectly.
Then again, I'll bet she'd even make a burlap sack look good…
Thankful not to have said the words out loud —she'd make time to kick herself for the thought later— Emma grabbed the boots she'd left on the floor at the front of the sitting room and brought them to the end of the bed for Regina.
"You can wear these. Here—" Emma tucked the pair of socks hanging from her shoulder inside the boots. "Your heels are nice, but they don't really say 'yee-haw' quite like these do."
"Thank you." Regina said as she sat and leaned down to put them on. Pulling on the pair of socks while struggling with the stiff legs of her jeans was one thing… but doing so while wearing handcuffs seemed to be a bit more than she could handle. It seemed Regina couldn't quite figure out how to run her socked feet into a pair of boots properly, giving a sharp -tsk- with her tongue as she pulled again.
Emma was, at first, determined to see Regina do it herself, but after another minute or so of witnessing her try it this way and then that, the blonde moved across the room to kneel at her feet.
"What are you doing now?" Regina asked, straightening to sit up at the edge of the bed.
Emma took the heel of a boot and matched it to Regina's foot, nodding first. "Watching you do all that was painful, just… stop—" She said, swatting her away whenever she reached again.
Patiently, Emma took each of Regina's forefingers and tucked them inside the leather straps at the top of her left boot.
"You pull on these at the same you point your toes up. It's less about shoving your foot right in and more about making the boot work for you." She explained. "Try it now."
One swift motion was all it took. Regina's heel met the boot's soft insole with a graceful -thok- and then something changed. The air became heavier, and Emma was suddenly unable to move. Her arms, her legs, her lungs… none of them listened. The blonde looked up…
Regina was smiling.
God—
"What?"
Grant me strength…
"Nothing—" Emma fumbled. "Just uh…" She coughed slightly into her hand then. "S-sorta didn't think you had any teeth, is all. What with all the frowning and everything…"
Regina rolled her eyes and then shooed Emma away with a wave of her hand. "Go away and let me do the other one. I'll be ready to go when you are."
"No, you finish that and then I'm putting you back in these—" Emma said as she stood, pulling the pair of handcuffs from her back pocket. "I've gotta load the car."
Regina stopped shortly after she pulled on her right boot, staring at Emma again with eyes that could make a calf jealous. "Really- we can do without the handcuffs now, don't you think?" She asked with a hopeful tone.
Emma would have to squash that hope like a bug. "No ma'am. That's not something I can do for you."
"Swan, please—"
Emma cut her short with a firm shake of her head. "The answer's no, Regina. Don't put it to me again."
Regina threw her head back with a vapor, as if she couldn't believe her luck. "You really don't trust anybody, do you?"
Emma stood and held her hand out in order to at least help her up, but Regina smacked it away, choosing to stand on her own out of spite. The accusation hit a tender place inside of the blonde's chest, but only because it was true. It wasn't something that Emma could hardly admit to herself, even. Apart from Henry, there wasn't a single person on earth she felt that she could fully trust. She held a sliver of doubt even for Granny. What killed Emma about it was that it led to the even deeper, darker secret of her heart… which was the absolute fear beyond words that she'd never be able to completely trust anyone other than her own son ever again.
Emma's eyes fell to the floor with her answer. "No."
