Chapter Eight
Regina was usually at ease in the library of Storybrooke High, especially when she was planning an essay well ahead of the deadline, but Daniel had noticed that feeling was difficult to come by for her lately.
She was visibly tense as he and Mal took the seat opposite her.
He was aware that if he asked what was wrong she would blame her Ivy League oriented workload and that she absolutely wouldn't appreciate him mentioning that she was never this overwhelmed when she had a girlfriend.
It was for this reason that he went with a different method, offering her a way out of the little academic cell she had created for herself.
"Hey Gina, do you want to go to Granny's after school?"
Regina held in a sigh, but released her pen as if accepting that she was bound by friendship to not ignore such a gracious invitation.
It was Mal who replied first though, sniping at him, "Is this another attempt to ask Ruby out? She's still too old even if you could actually talk to her."
Feigning offence like it would hide his blush, Daniel replied, "No, I want a milkshake. What do you say, Gina?"
"I can't today," Regina said to no one's great surprise, "I'm working on my English project after school."
The additional explanation instantly drew Daniel and Mal to exchange a look to express their shock with unnecessarily widened eyes.
"What?" Regina demanded.
"Your English project with Emma?" Mal prodded.
"Yes," Regina replied with a huff as she viciously dragged her hand through her hair, "I assume you have a point?"
"You didn't frown," Daniel shot back, pointing daringly at her increasingly frustrated face, "Are you actually happy to see her?"
"Of course not," Regina scoffed, curling her fingers into a fist, presumably so that she didn't slap his finger in the middle of the library, "I just want to finish the project."
"Does that mean that you will come to Eric's party?" Mal interjected before Daniel could press for more details regarding her feelings about Emma Swan.
Regina switched from touching her hair to pushing her fingertips against her temple as she stared longingly at whatever essay she was working on today.
"Why would I do that?" Regina sighed hard.
"You know," Mal shrugged, "The best way to get over someone is to…"
Regina snapped her pen up to thrust in Mal's directions and said warningly, "Do not finish that sentence!"
"So you're going to spend the rest of High School as an unsociable hermit?" Daniel challenged.
Regina opened her mouth to retort but a screeching bell all around her had her gathering her things with impressive speed instead,, "I have class, sorry to put an end to this overwhelming support."
She retreated before either of her friends could object, so Mal slumped back and muttered, "Wll it was worth a shot."
Daniel crossed his arms and asked, "You really think that she needs to be with someone else?"
Mal pulled herself up, her face painted with incredulity, "You can't be serious, Emma's pregnant, remember?"
Daniel shrugged, increasing her indignation, "They were so happy before though, Emma just made a mistake."
"An unforgivable mistake, Daniel. We need to help her move on," Mal said resolutely.
"With who exactly?" he challenged, sure that she couldn't think of anyone more compatible.
"I don't know…maybe Ariel?" Mal suggested.
Daniel tilted his head, dropping his arms and said, "I thought she's straight?"
"Pretty sure she's bi."
"And that's enough for them to be together?" he asked, glad that the library was characteristically empty for this talk. Rumours would not help Regina's levels of social integration, "Don't you think Ariel is a bit too…shiny for Regina?"
"And who would you suggest?" Mal demanded, exasperatedly.
"Emma," Daniel said, shrugging again.
Mal pushed her finger into her forehead but also stood to swipe at her bag, "You're delusional…I need to get to class, use your free period to think of someone."
Daniel hung his head over the back of the chair to watch her leave and reassured, "I'll think of nothing else."
Mal rolled her eyes and he watched her go until he lifted his head, figuring he could make a start on his homework, but jumped upon someone materialising to take Regina's seat.
"Oh god, Killian, where'd you come from?" he breathed.
Killian waved the question away and asked, "How's it going?"
"Not well," Daniel admitted, "But I'm pretty sure that Regina can stand being in the same room as Emma again."
Killian puffed out his cheeks and said, "Well, that's a start."
Daniel nodded.
When Killian initially approached him for help, he figured that it was wrong to be colluding after the break up, especially when he was also still angry with Emma at the time.
WItnessing Regina's misery changed his tune rather quickly.
"Any chance that you could get EMma to go to Eric's party?" Daniel ventured.
"Not really her scene right now," Killian sighed.
Daniel nodded in understanding despite his resignation, "Is there anything else you had in mind?"
"Keep suggesting that she should try and forgive Emma?"
"As long as Regina doesn't murder me, I'll give it a shot," Daniel promised.
"Good, hopefully they won't be miserable if they can at least be friends," Killian replied.
"Can you think of anyone that Regina could date?" Daniel asked.
"Not really sure that you get what we're doing here, Coulter?"
"Mal is convinced she needs to move one and trust me, she will find a way but if we can control it…" Daniel explained.
Killian perked up and finished, "Maybe we can remind Regina what she is missing!"
"Exactly!" Daniel said, excited again, now that he wasn't faced with someone who hated Emma Swan, "So…any ideas?"
Killian reached over to steal Daniel's notebook and produced a pen which he clicked with a flourish.
"Let's figure it out!"
S
Regina blocked out her conversation with her friends as the day went on which became especially necessary when Emma appeared at her door.
She couldn't think about 'getting under someone' as Mal would put it while she was in the same room as her ex-girlfriend.
Things may have changed dramatically since a time when Emma would have cuddled into her side, making jokes while Regina tried to do their project but it didn't mean the feelings were gone.
It certainly didn't mean that she was any less beautiful. Much to Regina's chagrin, she now understood well what people meant when they said that pregnant women glowed.
It was this that made it so difficult to think about being with anyone else, they would always be compared to what they had before everything had blown up so spectacularly.
Putting this out of her mind was the only thing that allowed her to discuss passages of Shakespeare without caving into impulses to forgive Emma just so she would be allowed to kiss her again.
Hatred was so much easier when they were not in the same room though it was complicated by the visible bump that she had either given up on hiding or had run out of clothes to do so.
It was even more prominent now as she kept shifting as she pressed her back hard against the back of the chair as she suggested themes contained in The Merchant of Venice.
It was different to last time, she wasn't touching the bump so Regina had to assume that the issue wasn't the baby moving but that she was genuinely uncomfortable.
Regina objectively shouldn't care whether or not the desk chair was to her liking. They should just be getting through their to-do list so that Emma could be on her way.
The words left Regina's mouth anyway, "Are you okay?"
This cut Emma off mid-sentence about Shylock's 'pound of flesh' and she was momentarily too disarmed to reply but did eventually pull herself together,
"Yeah…it's just my back but I can deal with it…"
Regina repositioned her books so that they created a little barrier in the middle of her bed and then said, "You can come and sit here instead."
Emma's gaze lingered longingly on the bed, her cheeks flushing but she replied, "It's okay, Regina, I don't want to make you uncomfortable."
"You don't need to be in pain, just…come on," Regina insisted.
Emma considered this, but ultimately was unable to resist the offer to make contact with the exquisitely soft mattress.
She gathered her notebooks and stuck her pen into her mouth as she unsteadily approached what had become forbidden terrain.
She dropped the books to the surface but the impact forced a loose piece of paper out of the pages and flew out onto the bed.
The pen fell out of Emma's mouth and she reached out to pick it up but it was too late: Regina had already instinctively picked up the sonogram to pass it back.
Regina stiffened upon registering what it was and Emma stood bolt upright beside the bed, sure that she was about to be sent back to the desk.
Regina's mouth dried, unable to resist inspecting it more closely.
She, of course, knew what pregnancy meant and what was concealed by the ever growing bump, but this felt like proof of some kind.
Evidence that the person she most wanted to 'get under' was in the process of creating another living thing.
She cleared her throat to cut through the oppressive aura that had descended but scrambled when it came to finding actual words, "He has your…"
"Squiggly lines?" Emma supplied with a little chuckle but this was cut short as if she'd realised where she was and what they were actually talking about.
Regina lingered on the lines a little longer until she coughed to slice through the tension and said, "I'm sure he will be pretty cute, Neal isn't…bad looking."
Emma tilted her head, at last taking a seat, sure to keep sufficient distance from the book wall.
"I hadn't noticed," Emma replied, beginning to flip through the play to return to the scene that they had been discussing before the interlude.
Regina frowned, neglecting the opening to move on.
"Really?" she asked.
Emma dragged her face up, suddenly bashful.
They were hardly cuddling but it was the closest they'd been in months.
The topic of conversation certainly wasn't helping.
"Yeah…" Emma said slowly, flicking involuntarily up and down her ex-girlfriend, "We're just friends. He's not really my type you know…"
Regina palmed her notebook with her free hand and used the other to thrust the sonogram at her.
Was it supposed to make her feel better that their relationship had ended over someone she wasn't even attracted to?
Sparks at her fingers drew her attention to where Emma brushed hers as she took the sonogram back.
Emma's eyes were wide, also stuck on where they had just touched.
"Sorry…" Emma said.
"It's…okay…" Regina interrupted, violently turning to her unfinished page, "Do you think that we could include Shylock in the second section?"
Emma stowed the offending image back into her book and then scratched the back of her neck, "Yeah…that would work," she replied, returning to their awkwardly professional dynamic despite now sharing the bed.
S
Regina Mills was not one to sleep in but multiple study sessions with her ex-girlfriend that week was enough to render her more tired than usual.
Trying to maintain a civil facade was always going to be exhausting, she knew that when she'd foolishly made the decision not to allow Emma to ask for a change in partnership.
The worst part of it was wholly unexpected, she still enjoyed Emma's company, found her funny when jokes slipped out and truly cared about how she was.
On more than one occasion, she caught herself wanting to ask whether pregnancy was as arduous as it seemed to be and it was this that had her swaddled at 9 am on a Saturday morning.
It allowed her to think about the cosiness rather than whether she was on the path to forgiveness, that was supposed to be impossible.
As with a lot of her plans as of late, it was shattered quite swiftly, this time more dramatically by a weight dropping onto her.
She shot up instantly to push at the mass and Daniel flopped down next to her, laughing as he announced, "Morning Gina."
Regina scowled first at him and then at Mal lingering back at the door, her arms crossed as she rolled her eyes.
"How did you get in?" she demanded, slapping her blanket down out of pure tired exasperation.
"Your dad let us in," Mal replied.
"At 9 am?" Regina shot back, doubtfully raking her fingers through her unbrushed hair.
She didn't at all care about either of them seeing her like this, but her mind was trying to catch up with whether this was actually reality or if it was an exceedingly annoying dream.
"He probably assumed that you've been studying since 5 am," Daniel said, popping up, far too cheerily.
"What do you want?" Regina huffed, longing to lay back down.
"We're here for an intervention," Mal announced, unmoved by the pure frustration exuding from the bed.
"More like a rescue mission," Daniel added.
"What are you talking about?" Regina sighed.
"Your social life," he supplied eagerly.
"It's been dire since…" Mal started.
"Since my girlfriend cheated on me?" Regina snapped, expecting silence as but they were each undeterred.
"I mean one time is hardly an affair," Daniel mused as Regina's face twisted, scandalised by the suggestion that her own brain had already conjured a time or two when her guard was down. She had no desire to think about Emma in that way, at least not with another person.
Mal held her hand in Daniel's direction before Regina could detail to him how ridiculous that statement was, "We're not here to talk about Emma, Eric's party…"
"Is in twelve hours," Regina said, "And I'm not going, I have too much to do."
"Like what?" Daniel challenged.
"Extra credit," she replied, aware that her position under the blanket was not compelling evidence for anything urgent enough to refuse the invitation.
Not that she could see why it was that she had to justify herself.
"What do you need extra credit for?" Daniel asked, "What's more perfect than perfect?"
Regina was not allowed to reply with 'Harvard' as Mal said forcefully, "You are going and you're coming to the mall with us to get something to wear."
Regina ran her hand over her face, deciding that her life would probably be simpler if she conceded to one party to prove that she could socialise.
Maybe then they would see that she was fine with the way things were?
"And this couldn't have waited until later?" she asked.
"We figured it would take at least an hour to convince you and Daniel requires a lot of food in exchange for shopping," Mal explained while Daniel nodded exaggeratedly.
"Thank you for your sacrifice," Regina drawled sarcastically as she threw her blanket away with great reluctance.
"As you should," Daniel agreed, stretching out along the mattress.
"So you will come?" Mal asked.
Regina puffed out a breath as she stood to search for something to wear for clothes shopping.
"I don't see any other way to convince you that this is unnecessary," Regina said, ripping her jeans out of the closet as Daniel beamed triumphantly at Mal.