seriousfic

Happy Valentine's Day! Read about fictional people kissing!

Title: Not A Fairy Tale Romance
Fandom: Once Upon A Time
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,022
Characters/Pairings: Regina/Emma, Mary Margaret/David
Notes: This fic is an AU as of 1x07 - The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Previous: Part 3
Summary: It's morning, time for Emma to stop guarding Regina's house. If that's what they both want.

Dispatch was quiet as the grave that night, like most. Graham would usually be back in his office, sneaking a nap, but the break-in at Regina’s had his blood up. He drove by her house and saw Emma’s car outside. He had a feeling no one would be doing Regina or her boy any harm that night.

Back at the station, he showed Kathryn inside and took back his jacket. The central heating worked wonders on her, returning a flush to her bare skin. Sitting down at Emma’s desk, she wrapped herself in a blanket Emma had been using to block out a troublesome window which tended to cast light right in her face.

Graham left her to it, returning with a fresh pot of coffee and something a little stronger—the bottle he kept in the last drawer on his desk. “Jim Bean,” he said, holding the bottleneck above her mug to offer a dollop. “Warm you right up.”

Kathryn grabbed the bottle from him and did a chug. He raised an eyebrow, impressed, as she slammed the bottle down and wiped her mouth. “That’s better. Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.” He gingerly removed the bottle from her presence. “So… would you like me to call David? Tell him you’re alright and just… working late?”

“He probably hasn’t noticed I’m gone. We spend so much time avoiding each other—maybe he just thinks I’ve gotten really good at it.”

Graham pulled up a chair and sat down across from her. It wasn’t fair that she was hurting this much. None of it was her fault. All she wanted was to be loved; the spell had used that against them, tying her to David like a weight around his neck. No one had asked what it would do to her, being between true love but not having any of her own.

“Look. This isn’t any of my business, but. But, it seems to me, what you miss isn’t David, not precisely. What you miss is the ways things were between the two of you. I know things were bad before we left; would you have wanted him back quite so much if you thought things were going to be that way instead of… a honeymoon?”

“You don’t know what it was like back then.” Kathryn wasn’t near tears, not exactly, but she sounded perfectly exhausted. If she had tears, she would’ve shed them.

“I know what it’s like now. You’ve got someone—they seem just perfect. Beautiful and smart and strong. The kind of person anyone would be lucky to have. And you have them, so if you’re not happy, it must be a problem with you. But some things just aren’t meant to be.”

Her face twitched. She reached for the bottle absently before realizing it wasn’t there. “Why not?”

He shrugged. “It isn’t written.”

And she stood, so abruptly he was almost afraid she would run off, hurt herself tripping around in the night. “What do I do? Christ, what do I do?”

More than anything, Graham wished he could tell her something. That there was something she could do to save her marriage, to make David hers, to be happy again without becoming miserable first. But there wasn’t.

He was putting her out of her misery. That’s what he told himself. Doing what had to be done to stop the queen. But it felt like an ugly kill, an arrow launched into an animal that lodged there instead of doing its job, bringing pain and fear instead of oblivion.

“Have you thought of letting him go?”

“Go? But he’s my—“

“Ask him if he would like to see other people. Just… just to see how that goes down. Maybe he’ll try it and it won’t feel right and he’ll come running back. Or maybe you’ll see that the relationship is gone and you need someone else to give you these things.”

“But maybe he’ll stay.” Kathryn looked at him with pathetic hope. Cracks ran through her. She was one breath away from shattering. “Maybe he’ll get it out of his system.”

“Maybe,” Graham said, and damned himself.

***

Regina woke up to find Henry still in the cradle of her arms, dead to the world. Her son had finally run out of energy.

Getting up, she was surprised at how refreshed she felt. Didn’t all the shark attack victims on the Discovery Channel say they hadn’t slept for weeks after? Shouldn’t the same principle apply? And yet, she felt safe. Not even the nightmare of Henry abandoning her, with the same look on his face as all the others…

Going downstairs with a satisfied yawn (and clutching her taser all the same), Regina was greeted by a perfume equal parts coffee, bacon, and pancake batter. She tried the kitchen door, taser held behind her back, and found Emma at a hot stove, looking both abashed and smug.

“I saw your kitchen and couldn’t resist.”

“After everything you’ve done, the least I can do is let you cook for me.” Regina ladled out sarcasm like dark chocolate.

Emma smiled despite herself. “How do you like your coffee?”

“Black. Like my heart.”

“Whoa. A sense of humor.” Emma poured for Regina. “What’s next? Showtunes?”

Regina grinned behind the mug she tilted to her lips. She sat down at the long table, stretched out past reason for just Henry and her, but already a little cozier with Emma on the other side of the island like she owned the place.

Hmph.

“So when are you leaving?” Regina asked, pushing her coffee away, only to have it replaced by a plate of steaming eggs.

“After the locksmith gets here.” With a smile like that, Emma would’ve gotten a lot of tips as a waitress. “I saw a Lifetime movie once where one turned out to be Ashley Judd’s abusive ex-husband in disguise. Plus, her boss didn’t respect her because she was a woman.”

Again, that smile that couldn’t be let out in the open. When it died: “It’s not that I don’t appreciate this…”

Emma broke away to serve herself. “It’s just that you don’t trust me.”

“I try to!” Regina said defensively. She speared an egg yolk and the yellow bleed made her even less hungry. “It doesn’t matter anyway. You’re not… you’re not part of my ending.”

Sitting down across from her, Emma took a bite. She didn’t appear to taste her own cooking. “You should care more about beginnings and less about endings.”

Regina scoffed. What kind of line was that? She should make an exit, most of her was screaming to, but Emma was too close, in her house, so she had nowhere to go to hide her interest. “And what do you want to begin here?” she asked, trying to be as snide as possible, her voice still lilting with interest.

Emma’s smile was long-suffering and beautiful, like a saint’s. “A friendship. It’d be good for Henry. It’d be good for us.” Her fork chimed against her plate. She held it still.

She was nervous. What did she have to be nervous about?

Of course, she was talking to the evil queen, but Regina didn’t feel that way at the moment. “And how would it be good for me?” she demanded, her voice running away from her again. It came out terser than it should have. “Complimentary breakfast?”

Emma was staring at her with, hellfire, sympathy. Her eyes reached into Regina and peeked under the veil Regina had drawn around her soul. Regina’s teeth clenched of their own accord. “You wouldn’t be so lonely.”

Regina needed to be ice-cold to defend herself, but she couldn’t frost over. Something in her was burning out of control. It blocked off the part of her that usually dealt with Emma. “Lonely is another word for needing people. I don’t.”

Emma stood so swiftly Regina could’ve gasped. She was suddenly towering over Regina, her jacket off, her shirt ruffled in the night, slack and untucked at her midriff. It settled in a lazy way across her breasts, showing their rise and fall, faster now. Emma was as nervous as she was. That was her only consolation.

“You need Henry,” Emma said, breathing fire. Cooling but not calming, she walked around the table to Regina. “You need him so much, you’re choking the life out of him. Try needing someone who can choose to give to you. You shouldn’t have to force people to love you, there’s nothing wrong with you—“

Regina stood with uppercut force, knocking her chair back. “Stop talking this second. This is still my house and at least here, you owe me some respect.”

Emma never backed down from Regina. No, she inched closer. “I wouldn’t be telling you this if I didn’t respect you,” she stated, her voice low and husky, like a snake charmer’s must sound to the snake. She eased deeper into Regina’s personal space, wanting to taste the adrenaline shooting through her veins. “You deserve to be loved. You deserve happiness.”

They collided—just a bump as Regina tried to turn away, her elbow against Emma’s arm—and Regina broke. Something exploded in her, and like a fire it burned its way out, gutting her. “No I don’t!” Regina screamed in Emma’s face. “I’m supposed to feel this way, I’ve always felt this way! The only way someone could love me is if they were too stupid to know better; why do you think I adopted your damn kid? And even he sees through me. He smells it on me. They all smell it on me! I’m rotten—stop pretending you feel different.”

Emma was shocked into silence (finally) by the tirade, but she still mutely shook her head through it. “It’s not pretend—“

Of all the things Regina had borne, she couldn’t take this, more fake sympathy, more po-faced trickery from this woman. She needed to make Emma admit she found her repulsive. She had to force it out of her in a way she couldn’t go back on. Instinct drove her against Emma. It only took a heartbeat to close the distance between them and then the wrinkles of Emma’s shirt were pressing right through Regina’s thin silken robe to her skin, their lips were crashing together.

Emma didn’t push her away. She didn’t gag or curse or any of the things Regina told herself she would do if Emma kissed her. She just put her arms around Regina and kissed her back. And Emma went down like a strong, strong drink, scorching Regina’s throat and warming her insides. Regina felt a slipperiness between her legs—like she was melting.

She didn’t know anything anymore. Not how she felt about Emma, not how Emma felt about her, not what to do about it. Oh, but she was sure of one thing, pulling away, looking into Emma’s eyes and basking in the warmth.

She wanted more.

The doorbell rang. It doused Regina like a bucket of cold water. “That would be the locksmith.”

“Yeah,” Emma confirmed, and the sound of her voice made Regina smolder.

“And Henry will wake up soon,” Regina said. She wasn’t sure why. What could be more important than staying just like this?

“Uh-huh,” Emma replied. She was biting her lip.

Regina licked hers. “You just want to keep kissing me, don’t you?”

Emma rested her forehead against Regina’s, the only way to keep their lips separate. “Hell yes.”

“Please don’t…” As if drawing a nail out of her own flesh, Regina pushed Emma back. “Ever since I was a little girl I’ve been ruled by my passion. And all my life I’ve tried to be cool and collected. Regal. Now for the first time, I want to give in, but I don’t have to… I do bad things when I’m hotheaded. This is a good thing. But I still have to be able to control myself, especially when I don’t want to.”

Regina’s robe had fallen open. Emma closed it like she was defusing a bomb—slow and careful. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re stuck with me.”