Title: These Aren't the Happy Endings You're Looking For (1/?)

Pairing: Regina/Emma
Rating: PG (this is just the warm-up, subsequent chapters are headed straight to the gutter, ratings wise)

Disclaimer: These characters are not my creative property

Summary:After the curse is broken,Emma has a difficult time adjusting to life in the Enchanted Forest and seeks out a disgraced Regina to help her navigate fairy-tale land. Whimsy and romance ensue.

A/N: Writing this is entertaining the hell out of me. This fic was inspired by an awesome prompt I received a while back, but I don't want to quote that prompt in the summary because it will spoil the end of the story.

Post-curse Fairy Tale Land wasn't all it was cracked up to be, at least not by Emma's standards anyway. It was boring: especially since her lovely 'parents' were forcing her into round two of her adolescence and treating her like a child. Sure they wanted her to learn from scratch the ways of the new world and manners and etiquette befitting a princess of her stature, but it wasn't Emma, and it never would be.

Recently, Emma had discovered all of this grooming was so she would be fit to marry a 'prince charming' of her own. She didn't want to get married, and she was way too independent and feminist to even entertain the barbaric idea of a royal arrangement. Didn't her parents learn anything about the importance of true love? No. Yeah, Fairytale Land sucked balls. They wouldn't even let her join the hunt or play with swords, because she might hurt herself and she was a princess, (yeah whatever). What kinda shit was this? She was almost a 30 year old woman, God damn it! She knew from Henry's book that mommy Snow had been a badass in her day, and she should be more understanding of what Emma needed to thrive here.

Snow and James acted so different here, and getting used to the awkward fucked-up-ness of them being her parents had changed the dynamic of their relationship drastically. They were still close and Emma felt a kinship with them, but they didn't understand her home was America, not here in this Fairy Tale hellhole. Besides, Snow and James were too busy being in love and making up for lost happily-ever-after time to really hang out with her all that often. Sometimes the dwarves would come over and play cards, but they had a pretty busy schedule in the diamond mines and Emma wasn't entirely convinced that Dopey didn't cheat- (he claimed he didn't understand the rules, yet suspiciously he always seemed to have a pair of aces up his over-sized sleeves when the heat was on.)

She was one of only two people who had never lived life in the Enchanted Forrest before, and Henry was no help at all in the situation. The whole thing was his absolute ultimate fantasy. He had spent the past few months wandering around the castle exploring. He was fascinated with every minute detail of the place, and spent all his free time interviewing/annoying all the servants and guards. Really, he acted no different than he had in Storybrooke: if anything he had gone from being spoiled at Regina's hand to being spoiled in a castle at the hands of servants to fulfill his every whim. Of course he loved it here, and no Evil Queen to tell him no. Emma supposed that was her role now, but she never was very good at being a mother, and he just did what he wanted anyway, so what was the point?

Regina- Emma couldn't help but think about her- a lot. When the whole curse breaking went down and the cat was out of the bag, there were some tears and anger, but Regina had some bargaining chips at the bottom of her Prada bag that had most definitely saved her life. She was the only person who knew how to 'transport' them all back 'home' for one, and she convinced Snow and James that she no longer held any of her former magic and power. Even better yet, she had somehow convinced Snow that she had finally and absolutely forgiven her. Snow, not being one to hold grudges herself, or more likely that she was just plain gullible and stupid, relented and let Regina keep her life. She was currently living peacefully in the solitude of the forest.

Regina, (that lucky bitch) also convinced them that the whole 'ordeal' (aka curse) was Rumpelstiltskin's fault (aka Mr. Gold) and he was currently taking up residence in the cozy palace dungeon. And yes- it really was cozy, Snow had spent her fair share of time in dungeons and jail cells and she liked to spruce it up a bit and add a personal touch for her guests/prisoners. Emma knew it was bad when even that bastard didn't have it too shabby in Fairy tale land. Everyone was all about their happy endings-except her. Guess you could say Emma was slightly bitter, but that's the price you pay for being the white knight/savior and breaking the curse freeing all the fairytale characters you ever knew or loved.

As for the matter of Regina and Henry, well- adoption wasn't recognized as legit here. All human orphans were raised by roving packs of wild jungle animals. It was weird. Not that Henry would go back to Regina; he probably would have went with the animals if given the choice. His reasoning was that Huntsman Graham was raised by wolves and he turned out okay, (well, not so much okay, okay,) but anyway…

No one would tell Emma where Regina was, and this whole stupid place had so many different rules- not just in customs and culture, but in actual physics she couldn't figure anything out on her own. Emma had never paid attention in science class, but in the practicality of the everyday she could feel that distance and time didn't measure out like she was used to. Her body in the space around her felt different, making it difficult and frightening to try and travel far on her own.

Emma liked nature well-enough, but spending the day with Snow and identifying various bird calls, was not her idea of a rousing weekend activity. Her horseback riding skills were remedial at best and no one would even ride with her anymore. Citing that it wasn't fun for them to wait up for her while she plodded slowly along the castle grounds. So when she wasn't learning about tea time, or being 'fitted' (aka tortured) into a new gown- (each one bigger and more fabulous than the previous-gag me) she stared out the window and thought about home…and pants…mostly home though, and sometimes nachos.

She thought about Regina too…(a lot, yeah, she couldn't help it.)

Maybe it was the aforementioned second adolescence that riled up a streak of rebellion in her, or maybe it was sheer frustration at feeling so alone and misunderstood that did it, but she began to seriously consider finding Regina. Sure they had never gotten on so well in Storybrooke, but she missed their stimulating conversations aka: arguments. Mostly, she was curious to see how she appeared here. Was her hair long again? Was her voice and demeanor different? Without a town to run or a kingdom to rule had she finally chilled the fuck out? Everyone had retained the essence of themselves, but a slightly changed version (exception being Archie, who was now an insect, but he could still talk so it wasn't that weird for Emma, right.)

Emma being a creature obsessed with her 'modern' conveniences, (she really missed TV- God, Castle and Beckett, why!) She couldn't just whip out her cell phone and rattle off a text or send a call to Regina to check up on her. Apparently, Verizon's 3G coverage didn't extend to imaginary realms. Emma checked out the "FTL postal service" but upon seeing all the bird shit from the carrier pigeons she turned right back around. There was no way. Besides a note would be too impersonal for all the things she wanted to talk to Regina about. Well, mainly she knew she couldn't hold a decent sexually charged argument through the mail. She just had to see her, even though the prospect that Regina might not feel the same frightened her, it really wouldn't be any different than their usual dynamic, so she spent her time trying to figure out a way to find her.