it’s all love now

“Ooooooh, Emmma! I forgot to tell you about it,” Snow slurred, laying her head on Emma’s shoulder. “You’re gonna love it!”

“No, she’s not,” Dorothy groaned as Belle giggled the same. Ruby scrambled away from Dorothy’s hold, crawling across the short distance between couches to sandwich Emma between her mother. She was all at once too drunk and not drunk enough for whatever was about to happen, especially when factoring Dorothy’s pinched demeanor and Belle’s devolving giggling fit in with the unhinged energy radiating from Snow and Ruby.

“So there’s this new app,” Ruby started, already snaking Emma’s phone from the floor and opening it to the lock screen. 

“Her password is-“ Snow interrupted. Ruby waved her off, already downloading something. 

“Same as her debit PIN, I know,” she continued. “There’s this new app where you can see all the hot stuff in town.”

This couldn’t be good.

Emma made a wild grab for her phone, hoping that the element of surprise would work in her favor. Ruby slipped from her blindly grasping hands, kicking her way up onto the couch. Emma tried to climb after her, certain that she wanted no part of it—being shoved to the floor by her own mother sealed the deal. She shook the hair from her face, sitting up on her elbows to see Snow and Ruby huddled on her couch, hunched over her phone.

“Oh, I’ve got such a cute one! I’ll send it to her and you can use it,” Snow half-shouted, scrolling through her own phone excitedly. Ruby looked at whatever was on Snow’s phone, then snorted.

“I’m not using that one, Snow, we actually want her to pull.”

“I don’t know what that means, but she could pull with this! She could!”

Belle’s mostly settled giggling fit reignited, spurring Dorothy, the ever stoic pillar for Ruby and Belle, to crack a grin. Emma looked to her, hoping that she could get a little bit of help. It was useless; Belle whispered something, and Dorothy was off, laughing just as hard.

Emma groaned, dropping back to the floor and covering her face with her arms. The buzzing feeling was starting to become too much, her bones vibrating between her skin and the hardwood.

She was never drinking with her mom again.

“Will someone please tell me what the fuck is happening?” she pleaded. The floor creaked as someone shifted next to her head. She cracked an eye open to see Belle’s face, staring soberly at her.

“There’s a dating app,” she started, crossing her legs to sit fully.

“Ruby’s been dying to see who’s on it,” Dorothy added, sounding the least bit apologetic.

Belle nodded. “I’m sorry for laughing, I’m just surprised she made it this long before bringing it up.”

“So they’re-“

“Making you a profile, yeah.”

“Ruby!” Emma was up faster than she thought she was capable of after the night they’d been having, which is probably what Ruby had been counting on.

Unluckily for her, Emma was pissed.

Snow had been pushing her to start dating again, but Emma never thought she’d go as far as to enlist Ruby’s help in making a dating profile for her.

Ruby looked up right as Emma made it to her feet, locking their eyes in a truly cinematic, freeze frame moment. 

Then Ruby bolted. Emma lunged. Momentum carried them over the back of the couch, Emma hanging onto Ruby’s shoulder with one hand and reaching desperately for her phone with the other. She twisted instinctively, taking the impact on her own shoulder before rolling clear.

Her shoulder immediately started screaming and everyone was talking really fast, but at least she got the phone.

She looked down at her empty hands. A loud raspberry drew her attention upward, where Ruby had clambered to perch on the back of the couch, Emma’s phone in hand. Ruby stuck her tongue out.

“It’s happening, Ems. Embrace it,” she said sagely. Emma flipped her off. Ruby gasped dramatically, clutching at her imaginary pearls. “Snow! Can you believe your daughter would tackle me, then make such a rude gesture?”

Snow laughed, peeking over the couch at Emma. “It’s just looking, Emma! You’ll never be ready, so just put yourself out there!”

“We’re almost finished,” Ruby promised, turning her attention back to Emma’s phone. She scrolled, then typed, then scrolled, then looked almost pensive for a moment. She came to an apparent conclusion, spurring a tut of discontent from her mother.

“Really? You don’t think both?”

“Snow, have you seen your daughter?”

“I don’t know what that means, Ruby.”

“Look at her. Do you really think she’s interested in both?”

“Well, she dated Neal… and Killian, sort of!”

“Is it, like, an issue?”

“Of course not! I just thought…”

“Hey, I’ve got a novel fucking idea! Why don’t you ask her?” Emma snapped. She was pissed off and her shoulder was definitely bruised. 

Ruby and Snow turned to her in unison. Snow had the decency to look somewhat apologetic, but Ruby looked like a cat who had finally cornered the canary. Emma felt nauseous, though it was hard to tell from what.

“Boy and/or girls, Emma?” she asked, tilting her head in mock of a question. 

“Oh my god,” Emma groaned, collapsing to the floor, supine with her eyes closed. The world was spinning, and she was desperately pleading to simply melt into a puddle. A puddle wouldn’t have to deal with this. Puddle-Emma could just slip through the floorboards. 

“Earth to Emma!” Ruby broke her from her wishing to be anywhere but her apartment.

“Just do both.” It didn’t matter; Ruby had made up her mind.

Hopefully Ruby really did just want to snoop through the app. Though with a drunk Snow and Dorothy and Belle laughing from the sidelines…

Emma had never liked the apps. Back in Boston, she’d used them to track bail jumpers more than she’d ever consider downloading one herself. A profile felt permanent. Searchable. Like she was inviting strangers to inspect her life.

Storybrooke made it worse.

Leroy probably had one.

Whale definitely had one.

If Gold had one, she was going to leave town.

Emma closed her eyes. Behind her, Storybrooke’s audition for the loudest Greek chorus was underway.

“Oh, no.”

“That’s the picture he chose?”

“She’s married!”

“Why are all of them group shots?”

Ruby finally gasped. 

“No fucking way!”

Emma heard her crawling across the floor like a fucking horror movie monster.

“Did you find Leroy?” Belle’s voice was tinged with exhaustion behind the excitement.

“No! Better.”

Then Belle and Dorothy gasped.

“No fucking way!” Dorothy was in true disbelief.

Another scuffle as Snow dropped off the couch.

“Who is… That can’t be real!”

Acid suddenly started bubbling in Emma’s stomach.

“It must be, like, a prank.”

The skin on her arms prickled.

“Probably Zelena.”

There was only one person they could have been talking about.

Regina.

No.

She needed to get to her phone.

Ruby’s life expectancy depended on it.

She bolted upright, ignoring how her head spun.

“Ruby Lucas!” It didn’t matter that her stomach was churning, or that her blood was nearing boiling point. If Ruby swiped right—

They’d both be in a world of shit.

It was easy to knock her phone from Ruby’s hand. They were all huddled around Ruby, who was perched haphazardly in Dorothy’s lap, staring at a photo of Regina like Emma had never seen her. She was smiling like she did at Henry, but the gleam in her eye was… Emma abandoned the thought.

She was beautiful.

Sexy.

Her mouth—

“If you swiped on anyone I’m going to tell Granny exactly who broke—” Emma started, but Ruby looked over at her with a shocked expression.

“Emma, that’s Regina.”

“Yep.”

“Regina’s on a dating app.”

“Looks like it.”

Ruby’s surprised look turned into a shit eating grin in a flash.

“So that means you definitely have a shot.”

“Ruby!”

“Well, who do you think she’s on there for? Whale?”

“What are you trying to imply?”

Dorothy laughed.

“It’s barely an implication, Swannie.”

“Stay out of it, Kansas. Regina absolutely did not make this profile.”

…

She glanced down.

Damn it.

The photo was definitely a selfie—the angle, the quality, the background of her office.

There were four dots at the bottom. Three more pictures.

And a profile she hadn’t gotten to, because Ruby kept plowing through.

“Think she’ll give Mulan a shot?”

“That’d be a match, for sure,” Snow chimed.

Heat flashed through Emma’s chest, sharp and wholly uninvited.

Belle giggled from Dorothy’s side and murmured something that made Dorothy shake with laughter.

“I don’t know, Bells. They might wear each other out.”

The chorus continued around Emma. She tried to ignore them, retreating into her phone.

Regina had a dating profile.

Regina Mills had a dating profile.

Regina Mills had taken a selfie.

On purpose.

Everyone needed to leave.

“We’re done,” Emma announced, closing her phone as if she could pretend the last ten minutes didn’t happen.

The protest began immediately.

“Emma!”

“C’mon!”

“Don’t be like that!”

Emma shook her head with finality, ignoring how her eyes swam and didn’t quite want to open again.

“Nope. I’m going to bed.” She stood on wobbly legs and took a few steps toward her bedroom. “Sleep here, go home, I don’t care.”

“Emma, you didn’t even read—” Ruby started. Emma cut her off with a deadly glare.

“We’re done,” she said again.

Her bedroom was dark and quiet.

She didn’t bother changing, just collapsed on the bed and toed off her socks before pulling the quilt over herself. Her reflection stared back at her from her phone screen, fractured by scratches and the tiny chip that seemed to grow every week.

Regina had a dating profile.

Emma’s brain was yelling for her to go to sleep. Ignore it until the morning, when she could decide to ignore it until it went away.

It was perfectly normal to have a dating profile.

Who didn’t want to find someone?

…

This had been the best day since moving here. Everything was amazing. Seeing Regina again…

Emma was not going to make it through this week.

She couldn’t stop herself. At all. She’d tried all day. The city was busy, though, and Regina kept getting close. And looking around with wonder. And smiling at her with that scar on her lip and those big brown eyes and—

“You are absolutely hopeless, Swan,” she groaned into her pillow.

It really didn’t help that her bed smelled like Regina. Emma had switched to the same detergent years ago, when she practically lived at the mansion. An everyday, familiar scent. Regina being just down the hall made it frustratingly noticeable again.

They had slept together before, in the completely platonic, literal sense. Several times. Usually it was shared bouts of insomnia finally giving way on the couch, waking up with a blanket draped over them by Henry. One time Emma had stayed in the guest room, woken terrified from a nightmare with a concerned Regina in the doorway—she laid down next to her and held her hand.

Emma didn’t finish the thought.

She burrowed into bed and didn’t think about how she woke up the next morning with Regina curled towards her, their hands still linked. How her hair spilled over her neck, how she stretched slowly before her eyes opened, unfocused and soft. A flicker of embarrassment before they moved past it. A joke, like always.

Emma never pushed. She didn’t want to move too fast, ask too much. She wasn’t herself then.

Hadn’t been for a long time.

She remembered more now. How much she liked things. Nothing here was so intense. No one looked at her like they knew she wasn’t what she used to be. She could move as fast or slowly as she wanted and didn’t feel the need to justify it.

She picked up some plants and learned to take care of them, joined a gym and made friends. Her bedroom had felt too sterile, so she got a bucket of paint. When her neighbors needed help, she helped them. Not because she had to. Because she could.

Now, Regina was here. Emma had missed her every day, even if she wouldn’t let herself say what that meant.

She wanted her. She wanted to show Regina the city, the life she’d found. She wanted to hold her hand on the street and her waist on the subway, and listen to old records all night again.

It was hard not to pull her close on the couch. There hadn’t been much room between them, Regina’s shoulder against hers. But Emma wanted to be closer.

Regina would go back home in four days. Emma didn’t want to complicate things, didn’t want to have a perfect week only to wonder why the hell she’d let herself have it. But she’d spent most of her life walking away before things could hurt.

She wasn’t sure she wanted to do that again.

Still, she’d invited Regina to share her bed in the worst showing of communication in her entire life. And Regina had just teased her, told her to relax.

“Trying to get me into bed, Miss Swan?” kept echoing as Emma flipped back onto her side to get a better view of the brick wall outside her window.

“It is,” Regina agreed. She didn’t know what time it was; they’d listened through a substantial amount of Emma’s records. The day was wearing at the back of her eyes, but she didn’t want this—leaning against Emma, listening to her voice, feeling her so close—to end.

“Henry said he’ll be here at nine for breakfast.”

“So he’ll be here at eight-forty-five.”

“Please, don’t underestimate him,” Emma warned dryly. “I’m expecting eight-thirty.”

Regina sighed, letting her head tip over to rest on Emma’s shoulder briefly. Emma chuckled, bumping their heads together gently.

“You’re the one that raised him,” she reminded with a grin, tugging Regina up as she stood. Regina rolled her eyes but followed Emma to the hall.

At Henry’s bedroom door, Emma lingered. Regina waited, unsure of what was coming, but knowing Emma needed to get it out. Something unfamiliar fluttered deep in her stomach—not fear, though she almost wished it was.

“I’m—” Emma started. She stopped for a moment, and Regina could almost see her brain scanning for the right words. After a few breaths, she continued, “Thank you. For coming.”

Regina nodded. She didn’t reach out to take Emma’s hand or step forward to be embraced. Instead, she opened her mouth without preparing her thoughts.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” she said. Her voice came too softly, too vulnerable.

“You don’t have to thank me,” Emma replied, matching her tone. “You’ve got a place here, always.”

That settled into Regina’s chest like a block clicking into place.

Of course, then Emma was Emma.

“That place is probably one of the worst mattresses in America, though.”

The laugh was unbidden and slightly unbecoming—a snort, really—but Emma grinned as Regina covered her mouth.

“I’m sure it’s perfectly fine,” she insisted. “Henry sleeps on it.”

“He slept on it for the first month. He usually crashes on the couch.”

“If it’s truly that bad, I’ll move to the couch.”

“I’m not letting you sleep on a couch. Take my bed.”

“I’m not taking your bed away for a week, Emma.”

“Sleep with me, then,” Emma said, like it was obvious—then short-circuited as the implication cleared. “Wait, no—”

Though she felt as if she’d just touched a live-wire, Regina cut in, “Trying to get me into bed, Miss Swan?”

“I didn’t mean—I meant we could, like, uh, share—”

“Relax,” Regina smiled despite the heat washing over her body. “Henry’s bed is fine.”

Emma nodded, her cheeks bright red as she took a few steps to her bedroom. “Goodnight, Regina.”

It was strange, using someone else’s shower.

Regina set her toiletries by the sink and opened the linen closet.

The towels stacked above the washing machine complemented the hand towels, just as Emma had claimed.

She let out a quiet laugh—they matched perfectly and she expected Emma would be insufferable about it. As she undressed and adjusted the shower temperature, her mind stayed on Emma.

Emma was blooming here. Not just managing or scraping by. She looked like herself again, reminding Regina of when they had first begun to tolerate each other. Back when Emma irritated Regina endlessly, but Regina couldn’t tell her to leave.

She’d told herself it was for Henry. 

Then Emma needed magical guidance.

Always a convenient excuse to never shut her out fully.

Along the way, though, there had been moments where undeniable tension almost spilled over: arguments that got dangerously close to something else, flirting disguised as bickering, near kisses after too much wine. 

Regina couldn’t tell her to leave, but she couldn’t cross the line, either.

Five years, a few curses, and hundreds of miles later, Emma wanted her to be there. Regina would have laughed back then.