seriousfic

Title: Not A Fairy Tale Romance
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 1,541
Characters/Pairings: Regina/Emma, Mary Margaret/David
Notes: This fic is an AU as of 1x07 - The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Previous: Part 1
Summary: Emma's first step in mending bridges with Regina is getting Henry to lay off her. He sees her point of view.

The non-aggression pact with Regina soothed Emma a little, but there was a core of unease that crept up on her in the rare quiet moment. Honestly, it went beyond concern. She'd felt it since the fight with Regina. There was such a look on Regina's face. She was frightened, but not of Emma--of losing something hard-won and already half-gone. Emma didn't know why she cared; it wasn't like she'd ever had anything worth losing, while Regina probably still had the silver spoon she'd been born with.

Sympathy for the devil. She must've been spending too much time with Mary Margaret. The nun was rubbing off on her. Just hopefully not the celibacy part.

She had just decided to put Regina out of her mind and focus on delightful small town police work (Incident report: George Porg had exposed himself at the all-girls boarding school again) when Henry skipped into the police station.

"We just let kids into the jail?" Emma groused at Graham, who looked like he was trying to be as far away from kissing her as possible. She appreciated the effort. "That's how you get Dexter."

"My name's Henry," Henry retorted. "And I'm here to see the sheriff."

Emma turned to Graham, raising an eyebrow.

"Guy talk. Poker and Bruce Willis movies. You wouldn't be interested."

Her birthday was next month. "Fine, be mysterious. But if it's a surprise party, I'm killing the least cute one."

"And which is that?" Graham asked, with his dazzlingest look. A nudge to Henry and the kid joined in.

That reminded her. "Mind if I take a few minutes before you start smoking cigars? Mom talk."

Graham held his hands up. "Take all the time you need." He took his leave, probably to feed that stray dog that'd been hanging around all morning.

Henry sat himself on the other side of Emma' desk, eager to please. "Here, have a donut." She shoved the box his way. His youthful metabolism owed it to her to take the hit. "Your mother and I had a talk--"

"She's not my mother," Henry said, kicking his legs gently.

She rolled her eyes. "Don't start. I gave you a donut." Steepling her hands on the desk in the fashion of a mature and reasonable adult, Emma continued. "I don't want to fight with Regina anymore."

"But she's the evil--"

"Donut!" Emma shouted him down. After he took a bite and relented, she went on in her indoor voice. "Look, have you ever read Grimm's Fairy Tales? They're awful! People get their eyes pecked out and hot irons put on their feet and--" Henry looked like he was going to vomit. "--and cooties. I don't want to do that to your mom. Do you?"

"Maybe you could throw her in the dungeon?"

Emma ran a hand through her hair. "Okay. You're a kid, you can't read fairy tales all the time. Haven't you ever watched Star Wars?"

"Of course I have. I'm not a Mormon."

"Well, maybe your mom's like Anakin. She's had some tough breaks," Emma poked Henry's chest from across the desk, "but as long as her son believes in her, she can come back to the Light Side. So give her a chance to, alright?"

Henry looked at her with the guilty sullenness of a child who knew he had no choice. "Alllright."

Emma gave him her most reassuring smile. "Cool. Go bro-fist Graham. Have another donut for the road."

And that was it. That was all the precious time Emma was going to give Regina Mills and her small town power trip. Only she went to the room Graham and Henry had secured themselves in, listening at the door. She just wanted to make sure Henry didn’t go spelunking again.

“So Mary Margaret and David have to kiss to break the curse?” Graham’s voice.

“True love’s kiss,” Henry corrected. “If they have their happy ending, everyone gets a happy ending.”

“And where’s that leave Kathryn?”

“David doesn’t even love her. Would you wanna date someone you don’t love?”

“It’s just a shame. She seems nice.”

Men. Emma left them to their RPG.

***

And now she was done. Henry stopped by, not wanting her help with more Candyland adventures, but just to show her his comic books and try to rope her into playing Pokemon. Training Charmander did wile away the hours at the town speed trap. The first time he showed up at the station, interrupting her perusal of a Cosmo (Five ways to get your boss to ask you to stay late all night), she asked if Regina knew he was there. “Sure. She said it was cool as long as I did my homework.”

She sent him to get them a pizza and called Regina to make sure. Her call went to voicemail. Emma laid out the facts, hung up, and a moment later got a text from Regina. “I’m holding you accountable for his safety. No high-speed chases while he’s in the car.”

Was that a joke?

After a week of Henry being as much a fixture as the bars, it was Sunday. Graham was out of the office on, of all the things, a camping trip, leaving Emma alone with her Angry Birds. She had just continued the cycle of violence with the pigs when the mayor strolled in, hands behind her back and a look in her eyes that made Emma think of an eagle spotting a mouse.

“Regina,” she greeted affably. “Come to confess something?”

“Oh, all my naughtiness is so far in the past that I expect people have forgotten all about it.” She brought her hands in front of her. Smoke shot into the air. Had she just fired a gun?

Emma nearly quick-drew before seeing it was steam coming off a pie. Her neurosis would never let her live that down, so she took it out on the mayor. “Little late for a housewarming gift, don’t you think?”

Regina set it down on her desk. Going into the tiny kitchen to find a knife (she seemed to know her way around the place. Romantic dinners with Graham?), Regina continued, maybe finding it easier to talk to Emma when she wasn’t looking at her. “My first peace offering didn’t go over so well. I thought I’d try again with baked goods. I have a lot of apples to use before they go bad.”

Emma didn’t go wandering into that minefield. “Thanks,” she said, enraging Regina to the point where she came back and stabbed the pie. Or just scalpeled it like a coroner doing an autopsy.

“Henry’s been more obedient of late. I assume I have you to thank for that?”

Emma watched the slice Regina cut for her. It looked delicious, insides as red as Regina’s nails. “I told him to ease off a little, yeah. I don’t want him getting torn between us.”

Regina bit her lip, dragging it between her teeth for a moment. Red lipstick. White teeth. “As much as I… didn’t choose it, you are a part of my son’s life. We should make the best of it. You can be a good role model. You’re strong… intelligent… willful… beautiful…” Regina finished cutting the pie, so hard she nearly cracked the pan. Satisfied, she set it on one of the plates she’d fetched from the kitchen.

“I’m not hungry,” Emma said quickly. “Already had supper.”

“It’s three o’clock.”

“I’m a stress-eater.”

“Oh. I see… worried about laxatives in the crust?”

“Something like that.” More like cyanide in the filling.

Regina sank one long, slender finger into the pie. She pulled it out slowly, dripping red, and sucked it into her mouth. It came out clean. “I assure you, deputy: one taste of this pie and you’ll be begging to lick my plate.”

Perching herself on Emma’s desk in a way that showed more leg than skirt, Regina inched the pie closer to Emma… who leaned forward, as if to take a whiff, but instead stared Regina down with a ‘friendly’ smile. “Even if I were hungry, I come to dinner with a big appetite. And I don’t think your pie is all that filling.”

Regina leaned forward as if to take a whiff of Emma, but instead hovered over her with an uncomfortably intense closeness. “Dessert isn’t about nutrition. It’s about taste. It’s about how your mouth waters with desire. So you try this. And if you get a taste for it, come find me. We’ll see about a second helping.” So abruptly it left Emma a little breathless, Regina spun the other way and walked off without a second glance.

What was that all about? Emma wondered.

***

What was that? Regina wondered. She wasn’t a seductress. Men just loved her because they were supposed to, not because she flaunted herself. She’d just been so… not upset… inflamed by Emma’s presumption that she had to do something to ruffle her feathers. Only Emma hadn’t given an inch. She’d met Regina’s eyes with more interest than Graham had ever shown. And Regina had responded in kind. It actually scared her a little, how she’d lost control. And made her look forward to their next meeting.