Paradise

Author: Lilylovett

Disclaimer: "Once Upon A Time" the TV series © ABC and its related entities. All rights reserved. There is no profit, aside from personal satisfaction here.

Rating: M

Summary: Out on the open road, Emma Swan meets a broken woman, claiming be a failed singer.

Notes: Inspired entirely by Lana Del Rey's EP album "Paradise" and the song of the same name, "Ride", and its music video.

I. Ride

I once had a dreams of becoming a beautiful poet, but upon an unfortunate series of events some of those dreams dashed and divided like a million stars in the night sky that I wished on over and over again, sparkling and broken. But I didn't really mind because I knew that it takes getting everything you ever wanted, and then losing it to know what true freedom is.

It's the summer of 2002. The sun rests in the desert sky, hot and heavy. Emma Swan has kept to her red leather, blonde mane trapped underneath a red bandana. There are men that she has traveled with, and as much as they resent her, they respect her mystery and appreciate her mechanical talent. They know Emma can fend for herself, and so after a time they just let her ride among them.

"Failed pop star," The woman offers sheepishly, her ruby red lips dangerous. A tight, high ponytail of sun-kissed brunette locks, high-waisted denim shorts, and a plain white t-shirt are all too innocent for her dark eyes. Emma takes a final drag of her cigarette, considering the woman before her. She is beautiful, but so clearly damaged. Emma always takes to people that don't have their lives quite together, but this girl in particular seems different.

"Swan," Emma offers a gloved hand.

"Call me Gene," Regina takes it, and Emma bristles when she removes the glove. She turns over her palm, stroking it between smooth fingers. "Your hands are callous like theirs."

Regina nods to Emma's crew, currently sitting in a line of motorcycles in the nearly empty lot. Cicadas sound from somewhere, and the sun will begin to set, soon. Warmth in the air will soon be exchanged for dry winds. Emma feels herself melt just a little into this woman's touch. Regina stirs some long forgotten feeling.

"Are you sure about this, babe?" Emma never actually means this question. She always takes men and women whom she knows are sure. People that understand what kind of person she really is without ever needing to ask. But Regina settles in the corner of her long numbed heart. There is darkness there in Regina's pure demeanor; a shattered soul buried deeply.

"Of course, Swan," Regina replies with regal confidence. She behaves in a manner so sophisticated compared to the other girls Emma has met out on this road.

"I trust you."

"You probably shouldn't," Emma smirks. "I won't be there to scrape you up if your ass gets skinned on the asphalt."

Then Regina is leaning in, filling Emma's nostrils with the scent of sandalwood and apples. (It's a clean, earthy scent for a stripper or waitress—the kind of career Emma would have assumed Regina would be in.) But the truth of the her story, the origin of the smell of apples, isn't for Emma to know. They are only together for this moment.

But they are riding, now. Free.

It is an immaculate, unusual sensation. The sights and sounds are loud. Sand dunes rise and fall before them as the sky turns hues of pink and purple. Air whips her hair, the length of it dancing wildly from her back. Emma's crew rides ahead of them, and Regina feels a sense of protection that she has never before felt in this world. She is no longer so vulnerable, not with Emma. Gripping Emma's sides, Regina knows she's never quite been so immediately comfortable with a stranger, a person she is not destined to be with; not since Daniel...but Regina buries his name from her mind. The road stretches out, and Regina lets the past escape.

After another rest stop, the crew finds a bit of empty space to host a bonfire. Some of the other men have found their own women for the evening, and though they may not know all the details of each other's identities, families, or previous jobs (if they ever had one), this group of people are all they need to feel at home. At least for the time being. The stars above them, the cooling ground beneath them, remind Emma of being human, and it's why she's taken to being a vagabond.

Fire crackles, they roast hotdogs, pass around a loaf of white bread, and throw around assorted packages of Hostess sweets as a desert. Then a single bottle of whiskey still wrapped in the brown paper bag goes around, in addition to the dozen cases of beer that they've already almost powered through.

The men and women laugh, telling stores that may or may not be true, making plans for the future, being idle, and pretending that it's entirely natural to live this way. But Emma and Regina know that the moment they met, it was only a temporary life for them. Their paths were only meant to cross as a form of symbiosis: Regina finds the person to be her summer after a lifetime of winter, and Emma finds someone to be hers, at least for the night.

Under the moonlight, Emma is chain smoking her 27s, drinking faster and hard, even as Regina watches, her sitting between a hungry-looking man, and a woman hard cut from the fields in a farm nearby. Regina always finds Emma's eye across the fire, and they share smiles and conversations without words. Their glances alternate between bashful, austere, knowing, and flirtatious. It's a backwater romance, a dalliance, Regina never expected to find herself in.

Even after leaving her previous life, Regina is still at war. The rage continuing within her mind has consumed her the entire time she has walked in this world, but the anger has subsided in the presence of this other woman. It scares her to think that Emma, this person, this nobody that she will only illicit an affair with for one evening, might actually be saving her.

Eventually, they retire. Emma takes nearly twenty minutes to chain lock her bike. It is, after all, all that she really has. Regina just bites the bottom of her ruby lips, keeps her hands at her sides to prevent them from wandering. Still a bit intoxicated, Regina waits loudly, laughing to herself at an untold joke.

"So, Swan," She starts as Emma continues wrapping cords around her bike, tethering it to a metal pole. "Isn't it just a hunk of metal without the key to the ignition?"

"Gene, babe, my bike, she is everything I have," Emma nearly starts off. But after another drag of her cigarette, she softens. "If the guy knows what he's doing, my ride isn't so hard to steal. I like to play it safe when it comes to her."

"Seems nice to have a steed that doesn't mind being left out in the cold." Regina wishes she'd had a motorcycle growing up; maybe then she could have escaped the crushing spires of her castle. Though, the feeling of flight is more lonely, more selfish and personal than the concept of equestrian riding.

"You're really something, y'know that?" Emma lets Regina grab her collar, and they kiss hard. Emma tastes like beer, the metallic blend of her tobacco, and the warmth of her breath.

Somehow, they don't even make it to their shoddy motel room. They're in the corner of the empty lobby where this old pinball machine is the only source of light. Regina is not used to being seduced, but then Emma is clearly the assertive one of the two; they're shedding clothing and still biting lips and laughing in between. All that Emma really needs, though, is the giving of a zipper, and then her hands are invasive enough to push past the thin material of Regina's panties. Emma is careful to attend to the other woman's needs, adept it at what she is doing.

Regina isn't quite sure how she feels, being fucked against a pinball machine in some greasy place. She wonders if it meant the mighty have fallen, but then, her mind was lost long ago. The conflicting realities that exist in her mind and in this place, have driven her to the madness of vagrancy and pretending to sing blues tunes in down-trodden bars.

When they move to their room, continuing their string of sex and drunken play, Regina realizes that it's actually nice, here. Being pressed against a stranger, all of their salacious acts at hand, it's the first time she's ever felt less lost, less crazy in this confusing place without magic. There is something even more freeing than riding, about letting Emma take her.