Chapter Fifteen: Epilogue

"She looks just like you."

Emma smiles. "I know. You tell me every day."

They are sitting on the back porch swing in the warm summer twilight. Emma has her knees drawn up high so that their baby daughter sit up against them and look at both her mothers.

"When she gets a little older, anyone who didn't know any better would swear that was her picture in your locket," Regina smiles.

"Trust me, anyone who doesn't know any better is welcome to think that, because I am not explaining that story to anyone else, ever again. Never."

"Oh, my dear, tell me how you really feel," Regina chuckles, putting her arm around Emma's shoulder, and reaching out with her other hand to stroke the soft blonde peach fuzz on their daughter's head.

For months, they had started to believe the 'true love magic baby' thing was a myth, when month after month went by with no pregnancy.

But it had taken months to even get to that point. After a week of spending every waking moment together, alone in Regina's house, getting to know each other in the most intimate of ways, the Charmings and Henry returned from their vacation. The first few hours were filled with pictures and stories and 'I wish you'd been theres' and Emma and Regina smirking at each other and sharing secret shit-eating grins. Then it happened.

"So, Emma, what exactly happened to you? We tried to reach you for days."

It had been Snow who asked, and Emma had laughed, amazed that it took her this long to broach the subject.

"Oh, Mom, I'm not sure you would believe me even if I told you," Emma sighed, but Regina was already reaching for her phone, where the evidence lived.

"Emma had a minor magical mishap," Regina grinned, holding out her phone to show Snow and David the picture of Emma on her bed, wrapped in a towel, with her pacifier in her mouth, wide green eyes staring straight ahead. "That's her."

"Mom!" Henry cried, "that's the baby in the picture with you!"

Emma and Regina just laughed. "I told you it was a long story," Regina shrugged.

"Emma was a baby? Why wouldn't you tell us? We would have come straight back!" Snow lamented.

"Regina was trying to save me from pink dresses and Baby Yoga," Emma laughed, shooting her mother an apologetic look.

Snows ears turned red, and she pouted a little. "I wouldn't have put you in Baby Yoga."

"Yes, you would have! And it's not like I was really a baby. I was in a baby body with my own mind. It was… well, weird," Emma confessed.

"But you undid the spell?" Henry asked, looking at Regina.

"Yeah, kid, that's a whole other story," Emma said, also looking at Regina, trying to gauge her reaction. The subject of coming out had never come up during their week together, as they had been far too distracted with other things.

But Regina smiled, and raised an eyebrow at Emma, silently asking for her permission. And Emma nodded, figuring now was as good a time as any.

"Well, the spell was concentrated around this locket," Regina said, pointing to Emma's locket. "And to break it, I needed to replace pictures of Emma's first family, with pictures of the family who would never betray her."

Snow and David smiled, as they guessed where this was headed, and Emma felt a little bad, knowing they were about to be disappointed.

"So naturally, I put pictures of the three of you in the locket," Regina continued, motioning towards the Charmings and Henry, "but it didn't work."

"What?" Snow cried. "We would never betray Emma!"

"Right," Regina agreed, and Emma was glad she opted not to mention that they already had. "So then I assumed there was something wrong with the spell. I spoke with Ruby, however, and she suggested that maybe it didn't mean parents, but instead the family that Emma would create for herself."

Snow shook her head in confusion. "Not Hook? You broke up with him."

Emma laughed. "Definitely not Hook!"

"So who then?" Henry asked, clearly anxious to find out who his future step-parent might be.

Emma smiled and took off the locket. She opened it, and handed it to him, and smiled as she watched his eye get wide, and a grin creep across his face.

"You," he said, looking at Regina. Regina just nodded.

"Wait, so…." Snow shook her head in disbelief, clearly trying to process what was happening at that moment.

"Yep, 'fraid so," Emma laughed, putting her arm around Regina. "Regina's my soul mate. Who knew?"

"I knew," Henry said, matter-of-factly.

"You did? How?" Regina asked, raising her eyebrow again, this time in confusion.

Henry shrugged. "I'm the author now, remember? I've gotta pay attention to the story that's being told, along with the story that's… not being told. It's all in the subtext."

"The subtext," Emma repeated, shaking her head and smiling.

"Yeah. It's in the way you too look at each other, and help each other, save each other, and, you know, care about each other. It's obvious to, like, everyone around you."

That's when Emma noticed David nodding right along with Henry. Snow still looked visibly shocked, but Emma figured that was a Snow White thing, and coming to terms with the fact that her former step-mother just became her daughter-in-law to be would likely take time.

And Emma and Regina took their time. Emma spent the next week moving her things into the mansion. She should have been able to do it all in one day, as Regina pointed out to her several times, but she kept getting distracted, by food or video games or by Regina herself.

And Regina didn't really mind all that much when she served as Emma's distraction.

Six months later, they got married at City Hall, since neither of them were really into the whole wedding thing. Regina didn't want another big fancy wedding, she'd done that before, and Emma didn't want a big spectacle. So it was an intimate affair, with only the Charmings, Henry and Ruby present, and a big celebration at Granny's diner after the fact.

As far as Emma and Regina were concerned, it was perfect.

A month later, they started seriously talking about babies. And the months following that led to disappointment after disappointment and they started to wonder if it was even possible at all. They started talking about more realistic options, like sperm donors or adoption, but they never took steps in either of those directions, because they wanted a baby that was theirs. A symbol of their true love, like Emma was to her own parents.

In the end, of all people, it was Gold who had come through with a solution. It was a potion to counteract the infertility potion Regina had given herself, decades ago, which had been interfering with their true love magic all along.

"Why would you even want to help me?" Regina had asked, when Gold gave her the small vial.

And he just smiled. "I told you I wanted you to find your happy ending, and I meant it, dearie."

And now, here they were, a year and a half later, rocking their daughter on the porch swing in the backyard.

After forty weeks of poring through baby name books, they named her Sage.

"She's going to have strong magic," Regina had said, "ours combined and being the product of true love. She's going to need to be strong and wise."

"Sage," Emma smiled.

"What?"

"Sage," she repeated, holding up the book to the page she was on. "I read it just as you said that. It means wise."

"Sage," Regina smiled. "It's perfect."

It is perfect.

Emma leans her head over and lets it fall on Regina's shoulder. "How long do you think it would have taken us to get here, if it weren't for my little magical escapade?"

"Oh, it was an escapade now, was it?" Regina laughs, "yet when Henry found that video of you playing with a rubber ducky, it was any number of things I can't repeat in front of little ears."

Emma grins. "That was embarrassing."

"No, it was cute."

"Seriously though, how long do you think it would have taken?"

"It's hard to say," Regina admits. "But I believe we would have gotten here, eventually. It was fate, after all, calling you home to me."

Emma sighs as her cheeky grin melts into a genuine smile. "I am home."

THE END

Thanks again to everyone who read this and reviewed/followed. You are the best, and I'm glad you let me share this with you :) I hope you enjoyed the ending. I'm as sad to see it end as all of you, but it feels like the right time now :)