AN: My late contribution to Swan Queen Week. I tried my hardest to keep this a oneshot, but the ending has been difficult to write. I've spent the last four days waiting to finish this fic as a oneshot and it hasn't worked out too well for me. So I'd like to share some of what I can for this fic as soon as possible at this point, which means it's now become a three chapter story. Hopefully I can fix the ending in the next few days and you can have more than the first part of this three-parter. For now, enjoy the first installment of the day 5 prompt: sleeping.

The first night they slept together, exhaustion didn't even begin to describe how Regina felt. A look at the clock informed her it was finally time for bed, but baths still needed to be had and Emma hadn't yet wrangled the children. She heard the laughter, the high-pitched giggles, along with the thumping footsteps of a graceless woman who'd all but officially moved into the house. It was obvious in the way Emma's boots weren't the only pair of shoes the blonde left by the front door. Obvious in the way that Emma's red leather jacket hung on the coat rack while her black leather jacket, which the blonde seemed to favor more than the red in recent months, hung in the guest room closet.

"Neal, get back here, you booger," she heard Emma call out to the little boy that, only seconds later, flew down the staircase and crashed into her legs.

"Gina, save me," he exclaimed before he grabbed onto her pants and hid behind her legs.

Regina smiled and ran a hand through his wispy brown hair. He poked his head out from behind her head, which made it easier to touch his hair, and stared up at the top of the staircase with wide eyes. Thankfully, Regina no longer hated and wanted to kill Snow White because those big brown eyes of Neal's were too cute to ignore. He looked more like Charming than he did his mother, but Neal was still a product of her former stepdaughter and arch nemesis and if she had still hated Snow, the woman's son could not make her feel all warm and fuzzy. Although, that ship had sailed as soon as she became friends with Emma.

Emma appeared in the spot Neal focused on at the top of the stairs. The other woman met Regina's gaze first before green eyes found Neal tucked behind her.

"Oh, Kid. Big mistake," Emma said with laughter in her voice and started her descent to the first floor. "There's no way she's going to protect you from me."

"Is that so?" She relied on her Evil Queen voice and arched an eyebrow at Emma. She dropped her hand from Neal's hair to his shoulder. "What makes you think I'm not the Savior of this story?"

"Uh," Emma pretended to think about it before she smirked, "bath time. You can't sleep if the kids aren't clean. Babysitter's responsibility. At least when the babysitter is family."

Regina's eyes sinfully glimmered before she grinned at Emma. "You're right," she said before she whirled around and crouched down, her hands poised to tickle. "No one's safe from bath time."

"No!" Neal yelled right her face and tried to bolt into another room, but Regina grabbed him under his arms before he could get past her.

"I've got you now," she unnecessarily announced and lifted him onto her hip. He wriggled around and continued to deny what was clearly happening, bath time being worse than a timeout for a five-year-old boy with far too much energy. She remembered nights like that one all too well when Henry was his age. It wasn't a new experience to her, but Regina hadn't expected to relive it and especially not with a Charming. Well, another Charming since Henry turned out to be from that unfortunate bloodline.

Regina whisked Neal off to the stairs where Emma met them at the landing.

"Gina, you be-rayed me," Neal said.

"Betrayed," Regina corrected with an amused smile. "And I'm sorry, but you've got to take a bath, young man."

"Noooo," Neal whined and finished it up with a dramatic pout.

"Yeeesss," Regina elongated the word to mimic Neal.

A puff of green smoke appeared just to Regina's left and, when it dissipated, her redheaded niece stood beside her with a devious smile and some serious attitude in her body language. "Bet you can't catch me," the smartass teased with such confidence.

"You're just like your mother," Regina grumbled, but the girl heard her and grinned like it was the greatest compliment to receive. She handed Neal over to Emma as his fidgeted, wiggled, fought hard not to accept his fate. "I'll be up in a minute. Hopefully he won't give you much trouble."

Emma chuckled. "Yeah, I'll take baby brother over that troublemaker any day. Good luck."

Regina rolled her eyes, but didn't otherwise respond. Emma started up the stairs with an uncooperative Neal just as she turned to the tricky, cocky, little girl. "Alright, Robyn. Do your worst."

Robyn flashed her teeth when she smirked that time, tilted her head to the side with a consistent level of cockiness, and gleefully replied, "Okay."

Another poof and Robyn was gone. The only indication of where she'd reappeared came in the form of her villain-in-the-making giggle, although Zelena and Regina's influences would keep her from killing or maiming people, casting any curses if it was the last thing they did. So, only a villain in the sense that she definitely, constantly, was up to no good with all the drawing on the walls and magical stunts like the hide and seek situation she had going on with Regina at that moment.

More giggles erupted from a different room than Regina had heard the last giggles. With a sigh and spectacular determination after such a long day, she vanished in a cloud of her signature purple smoke and poofed into the other room just in time to see Robyn disappear in her own cloud of green.

The long day was over, but her long night had just begun.

Regina collapsed onto her bed three hours later with a sigh as heavy as her bleary eyes. She only had the strength to remove her clothes for the day and slip into an old, loose T-shirt she'd once worn when painting one of the bedrooms. There were a few different paint colors splattered across the shirt that hadn't washed out and a hole near the hem at one of her hips. It was the least put together she'd looked since Henry was teething, but she didn't have it in her to care. She just wanted to pass out and sleep like the dead until it was bright out and she couldn't avoid the new day any longer.

With two wild children in the house, sleep was a thing of the past. It was impossible. It wasn't something either Neal or Robyn appreciated and Regina couldn't wait to see the day they were old enough to understand the hell they'd suffer if they didn't at least take a nap at some point. But that was years away and at four and five years old, Robyn and Neal were awake after twenty minutes of rest. At least Robyn wasn't the weight on top of her only seconds after she'd closed her eyes. If it had been Robyn, there probably would have been another magical runaround and Regina wasn't sure she was up to it.

"Gina," Neal loudly whispered, his breath hot against her cheek.

She scrunched up her face and groaned before she opened her eyes to look at him. His nose was nearly pressed against her own, his little knees wedged up against her side where he knelt beside her on the bed. "Neal."

"I'm hungry."

"You are not," she tiredly argued.

"Uh huh."

"No. It's late. Go back to bed."

"But I can't sleep. I'm hungry."

Regina sighed through her nose. "No snacks. It's after bedtime."

"But, Gina, I want—"

"No snacks," she firmly said.

He pouted. He looked a little upset to hear the word no, maybe even especially from Regina because she hardly ever said no to him.

"Nice try, but that face won't work on me."

The door opened with a small squeak and tore both her and Neal's attention away to focus on their company. Emma walked in with her eyes partially closed and Robyn on her hip. "I believe this one belongs to you," the blonde groggily said as she trudged toward the bed.

Robyn, like Neal, looked very much awake. It wasn't just in the way Robyn didn't at all lean on Emma and lay her head on the blonde's shoulder, but her choice in outfit. Regina had watched her change into her pajamas after much insistence, so she knew Robyn had changed out of her pajamas sometime after Regina had tucked her in. Because Regina had not insisted Robyn go to bed in her Halloween costume. Even if she had allowed it, there was no way she would have let Robyn sleep with the pointed witch hat or the bejeweled diamond-shaped wand. When they first bought it, Robyn had complained that the wand was a stupid addition to the costume because, as a natural born witch, she knew she didn't need a wand to access her magic. And yet, there she was with the wand in her hand as Emma carried her into the room.

"You fed my sister the labor inducing onion rings that brought Robyn into our lives prematurely, so I think that makes her mostly your responsibility."

"She's your niece, your blood. That's your responsibility."

"Fine, then by the same standards that makes this one your responsibility," Regina countered as she ran a hand down Neal's back to indicate who she was talking about, though they both knew the subject of her statement.

"I really don't feel like trading off," Emma groaned.

"Neither do I. Your brother is apparently starving."

"Seriously? Come on, Neal. You ate truckloads of food at dinner. You ate all the leftovers before they could even become leftovers."

Neal smiled even though Regina was sure he didn't understand anything Emma had said. It was a big, cheeky smile that she was also sure he'd picked up from hanging around Robyn too much. The girl was seven months younger than him and yet he mirrored her a lot more than she did him. Of course, Robyn had the personality that just made people, especially other children her age, gravitate toward her. That was something that made Zelena proud as a mother, which Zelena had mentioned to her on multiple occasions. Regina had to admit, the girl commanded a room with her mere presence alone. At four years old, that was definitely something to admire and made even an aunt proud.

"What does she want," Regina asked and nodded her head at Robyn just as Emma dumped the girl on the bed and then fell face first onto the mattress in the only available, childless, legless space the other woman had to land.

"I want to play," Robyn answered for herself. She waved the wand for effect and bopped Neal on the head with it.

Neal rubbed his head and frowned before he climbed over Regina and reached for the wand.

Regina winced as the boy accidentally pinched her side and kicked at her hip on his way toward the middle of the bed where Robyn sat and turned away from him to keep the wand in her possession. Regina looked at Emma while the two children fought and was instantly met with eyes as tired as her own.

Emma propped her head up on her hand, pushed her elbow in the mattress to hold herself up, and looked at her during the struggle for the wand. Thankfully, Robyn and Neal fought quietly and didn't move too far away as they remained on the bed. It made it easier for her and Emma when they would undoubtedly attempt to drag the two of them back to their own beds.

But that didn't happen.

Emma pulled herself further onto the bed and slid up Regina's side before she flopped onto her back and rested her head on the unused pillow, which she pulled closer from the other side of the bed. Emma hummed and closed her eyes before she shimmied against the bed, a move that suggested the blonde was settling in.

"Oh, no," Regina started to scold. "You are not going to fall asleep here."

"Why not? The kid's will probably tire themselves out in a little bit and neither one of us is really capable to carry them anywhere. So if they get to stay, why can't I?"

"Because they're children and even if they're old enough to know better, they don't have the same self-control or discipline that adults do."

"Well, that's just the thing, isn't it." It wasn't a question. Emma had even said with it with a lopsided smile. "I'm not adult. You said so yourself."

"Because you wanted to have Lucky Charms for dinner and tried to pick out the actual cereal in favor of a bowl of marshmallow charms drowned in milk," she clarified with a raspy voice, roughened up by her level of exhaustion.

"The charms are the best part of Lucky Charms," Emma said in defense. "Everyone knows that."

"Mm." The noncommittal hum was what did her in. In a matter of minutes, Regina was unconscious and so were the rest of her sleepover companions.

Light crunching sounds slowly brought Regina back to consciousness. She furrowed her brow, her eyes still closed, as she stretched mid-roll onto her side. She opened her eyes a few seconds later and was met with a sight she couldn't have imagined in any realm or lifetime. Emma Swan, Henry's birthmother and the woman that broke her curse, lay in her facing her in her bed.

Everything was perfectly decent. There was a child-sized space between them, a specific child actually between them at that very moment, but Emma Swan was in her bed. And had Cheerios in her disheveled blonde hair. Cheerios, she noticed, that came from the child seated between them with a sandwich bag of them in hand.

Robyn.

"Where did you get those," Regina asked with a voice deepened and raspy from sleep.

"Mommy," Robyn answered with a smile.

"Of course you did," Regina grumbled before she rubbed her eyes. "You put them in Emma's hair?"

Robyn's smile turned into a wicked grin.

"Why?"

Robyn flashed her teeth as her grin split wide open. "It's fun. Mommy said it's okay."

Regina sighed and muttered, "Of course she did. Why don't you go eat those with Mommy?"

"Mommy told me to wake you up. She made breakfast."

For the first time that morning, she smelled the fresh brewed coffee and bacon as if Robyn's words had sparked that particular sense of hers. "Well, I'm awake. Go downstairs and be with Mommy."

"Emma's not awake."

"I'll wake her. It's fine."

"Okay." Robyn closed her fist around the top of the sandwich bag, but didn't reseal it as she squirmed and rolled herself out of bed. Regina was sure the girl also purposely left Cheerios in Emma's hair. Regina hadn't asked her to pick them out, but even at four years old Robyn knew better.

So, Regina took it upon herself to remove the Cheerios in Robyn's absence. After the first two were picked out of wavy blonde hair that had fallen over Emma's face, she smiled and let out a quiet and breathy laugh. Her breath brushed aside some of Emma's hair and the other woman's face scrunched up in response.

Regina's smile, though it should have, didn't fade as Emma stirred. Even when Emma opened her eyes, a little confused about her surroundings, she continued to smile.

"I fell asleep," were the first words out of Emma's mouth and they surprisingly sounded apologetic.

"You did."

"Sorry."

"It's okay. I fell asleep, too."

"Do you hate me now?"

"No," Regina said with a hint of laughter and pulled another Cheerio out of the younger woman's hair.

Emma frowned. "There's something in my hair?"

"Cheerios."

"Cheerios? How is there cereal in my hair? I didn't even eat cereal."

"That would be Zelena's handiwork."

"Your sister snuck in while we slept and put Cheerios in my hair?" Emma sounded incredulous, but it was entirely possible Zelena would have done just that if Robyn had been somewhere else or hadn't been willing or hadn't existed.

"She sent her little minion to do the job," Regina informed her.

Emma looked around the room and furrowed her brow when whatever it was she was looking for wasn't there. "I don't see the minion."

"Downstairs. Zelena's apparently made breakfast and I told Robyn to join her. I'm sure Robyn will be back if we don't get up soon, though."

Emma grunted. "Five more minutes."

Regina rolled her eyes, but smiled again as she did. "You're already awake."

"You say that like I can't just fall right back to sleep."

Regina snorted. "Sure, Sleeping Beauty. Come on. Get up. I'm not mad at you for falling asleep here last night, but if you fall asleep here again after being fully rested I will kick you out of bed. Physically kick you."

"Thanks for the warning," Emma mumbled, but her words were clear and her voice wasn't at all hushed.

Regina's smile widened.

Emma propped herself up on her elbow and ran a hand through her hair. A few more Cheerios tumbled out of it and onto the bed in front and behind the blonde. When she settled again into her new position, Emma noticed Regina's smile. "What? Why are you looking at me like that?"

Regina cleared her throat and masked the smile instantly as she looked off to a random spot in the room. "I'm not looking at you."

Emma jiggled just the slightest bit with barely contained, audible laughter. It pulled Regina's attention back to the other woman who beamed at her as soon as she met green eyes. "You were definitely looking at me."

"In your dreams," Regina insisted with narrowed eyes.

Emma bit her bottom lip and slid closer. She rolled partially onto her stomach, which nearly put the blonde on top of her.

Regina held her breath and couldn't focus on one place on Emma's face to look. Her eyes first landed on Emma's eyes and then fell to the woman's lips. It took her a few seconds before she was able to look in Emma's eyes again and when she did, it was obvious she'd been caught staring.

"You were looking at me. Again. I think you like me."

"Not at all."

"I'm your favorite person in the world, only second to Henry."

"Keep lying to yourself."

"You're the one lying to yourself. Because you like me. You were looking at me. And you slept with me."

"I fell asleep in my bed. You fell asleep next to me. We did not sleep together."

Emma flashed her a smug smirk. "Either way, you didn't mind it." Emma crawled over her to get out of bed and left her with the words, "I love your PJs, by the way."

Breakfast was going to be interesting.