Note: This is just a kind of fluffy, dopey, nonsensical thing I put together during the Tumblr outage today, and as catharsis for my other fic, which is filled with angst and sadness and has zero fluff whatsoever. There's some political talk in here, and I tried to be as even-handed as I can with my personal biases. In case it's not clear from the summary/the fic itself, this is an AU involving no magic, no FTL, nothing. I hope you enjoy it!
"For someone so intelligent, Emma, you're remarkably short-sighted," Regina said. "How is it possibly acceptable that ten percent of America's income earners pay seventy percent of America's income tax? A tall salted caramel hot chocolate, please." The barista on the other side of the counter nodded.
"Jesus Christ," Emma said, "have you ever considered maybe they pay so much tax because they can freaking afford it? I'll have the same - I mean, a tall-salted-caramel-hot-chocolate-please -" she strung together the words like they were a foreign language. "Oh, and can I have, uh, one of those?" She jabbed her finger at the slabs of gingerbread, winningly displayed under glass. "Besides, where are you even coming up with that number - seventy percent - did you get that from one of those conservative fundie magazines you've always got lying around? You know that's not an unbiased source, right?"
"Emma, don't be ridiculous," Regina said. "I'm perfectly capable of fact-checking. And I would appreciate it if you didn't refer to my interests as 'fundie.' I am many things but a fundamentalist is not one of them. We're together," she told the cashier. "I'm paying."
"Regina, you don't have to do that," Emma said immediately, "I can -"
"You're always going on about how everything here is so expensive," Regina sniffed. "It's not generosity, I'm just trying to make you shut up."
"I'll split my gingerbread with you," Emma replied.
"Since I'm paying for it, technically it's my gingerbread," Regina said. "But I'll let that one slide."
At their favorite bench by the docks, Emma crossed her legs under her and opened the paper bag in her lap, taking out the thick wad of gingerbread. "Look, it's got frosting," she said gleefully. "I'm a genius."
"A genius for purchasing gingerbread someone else made," Regina said. "Quite. I'm going to study for my Latino Politics in the U.S. class."
"Ooh, good," Emma said, waggling her eyebrows. "I like my women spicy."
Regina made a threatening gesture with her notebook. "You are such a mass of unexamined privilege, Emma," she said. "You make that joke every time I say 'Latino' and it's never gotten any funnier."
"You're the whitest Hispanic person I know, Regina," Emma said. "It's an ironic joke."
"Oh, God," Regina said, rolling her eyes, and opened her notebook.
Emma and Regina had met in an astronomy lecture neither of them was particularly interested in. "Gotta get those GER requirements," Emma had said, yawning hugely, bumping the side of Regina's head as she stretched her arms.
"'GER requirements' is redundant," Regina said.
"Is what now?" Emma said, and yawned again, eyeing Regina speculatively. "Want some of my bagel?" She held out a foil-covered thing to her, and Regina delicately refused.
Over several more of these exchanges - Emma offering Regina some item of food, Regina refusing - Regina learned that Emma was a psychology major, because she didn't know what else to major in; that she worked nights during the dinner rush at the local diner; that she had no idea what she was going to do with her life. "I thought about being a cop, but..." Emma shrugged, unwrapping her bagel and brandishing a piece at Regina. The mayonnaise in the tuna salad slathered onto the bagel could have killed at fifty paces. Regina said thank you but no thank you.
"What about you?" Emma asked one day, planting her elbows on the desk and putting her chin in her hands, looking hard at Regina. "What are you gonna do?"
"I'm a political science major," Regina said.
"Are you gonna go to law school?"
"I'm going to be President," Regina replied.
"Of the United States?"
"That's the plan." Regina sipped her coffee; when she looked at Emma again, she saw the blonde girl was grinning at her hugely.
"Are you and the First Dude gonna have inaugural sex in the Oval Office?" Emma asked.
Regina turned a little pink and cleared her throat. "There will be no First Dude," she said snippily. Not after Daniel.
"Awesome," Emma replied, still grinning, though heaven only knew why she looked so excited.
When they started spending more time together - "hanging out," as Emma called it, as in "I've got an hour and a half until my next class, want to hang out?" or "My shift ends at eleven tonight, want to hang out?" - Regina knew she would have to tell her mother. She already made phone calls to New York every Sunday to report on the pertinent details: her classes, professors, and grades; her upcoming papers, her upcoming tests, the dates of all her finals. She'd also told her mother about the other people she spent time with at school, the "people of a certain class" that her mother insisted she befriend.
Emma was not a person of a certain class. Emma couldn't afford her education without financial aid and student loans ("Hey, when you're President, can you work on that? The rates on student loans?"); Yale, Brown, and Harvard had not been options for Emma; Emma shopped at thrift stores, wore knockoff boots, and was absent of any manners whatsoever. The last thing Regina wanted to do was tell her mother about Emma.
She knew she had to anyway. Her mother would find out, as she always did, and Cora hated surprises. It would be better if Regina did it herself and talked her mother down from whatever cruelty might follow.
When Cora said, "Ah, yes, Emma," when her name came up for the first time, Regina felt herself go numb with fear. "I was wondering when you were going to tell me about her. Andrea Beekman's daughter says you turned down an invitation to some get-together with her because you had plans with... Emma."
Regina swallowed. She knew exactly the rejection Cora was talking about - Emma had caught some bug going around the small school and Regina decided to bring her a surprise, Emma's favorite wonton soup from Storybrooke's one Chinese takeout place. When Madison Beekman asked her to come to a party, she'd refused, saying unthinkingly that her friend Emma needed her. It was an amateur's mistake. Of course Madison would report back to her mother.
"We've been... We're friendly," Regina managed to say, pushing the words out; they were pitched higher with the fear she couldn't completely control.
"I hope you're not allowing this... Friendship to get in the way of what's really important, Regina," Cora's voice purred in her ear. "Heaven knows you do get romantic about people like her -" was Cora talking about Daniel? Regina just bit back a shut up, one of Emma's preferred phrases - "but certainly there are more important relationships to cultivate than one with a stray like her."
"Yes," Regina said. "Yes, you're right, of course, Mother."
When she hung up, Regina looked at the neat row of textbooks awaiting her, then at the time on her phone. She was shrugging on her coat and halfway out the door when her roommate returned, an insouciant flirt named Ruby. "Hey, where're you headed? Kinda late for you, isn't it?" Ruby asked, giving her a grin.
"I'm going to the diner," Regina said. "Don't wait up for me."
The benefits of going to school in such a tiny town were few, but what Regina did appreciate was that everything was within walking distance of everything else. It was a brisk, short walk in the Maine nighttime chill to the diner, where Emma had an hour and a half left on her shift.
Stepping into the heat and the smell of greasy french fries, Regina exhaled heavily, caught Emma's eye, and nodded towards their preferred table, in a corner by the front window. After a few minutes, Emma joined her there.
"I only got five minutes," Emma warned her, then - "Hey. Hey, are you okay? Regina?"
Regina found that somewhere between the diner's front door and her favorite table, the fear and anger of her mother's phone call had risen in her again, and, frustrated, afraid, she began to cry.
"Holy shit," Emma said. "Um." She reached into the pocket of her uniform apron and took out a wad of napkins. Then she picked up her chair and drew it around to Regina's side of the table and put an arm around her. "Hey, talk to me," she urged her. "What's wrong?"
Regina, still crying in jagged sobs, picked up one of the napkins to wipe her face; she stared in abject misery at the makeup-streaked result in her hand. "I'm a mess," she said thickly. "I can't believe I'm crying in public. I must look so ridiculous."
"That's what you're worrying about right now?" Emma said. "Jesus. I'm gonna ask for the rest of my shift off."
Somehow, Emma managed to not only make the request but actually get it, and she took off her nametag and sat with Regina at their corner table, rubbing her back, stroking her hair out of her face, making appropriately sympathetic noises, managing to work out from the few other words Regina could eke out that it was her mother's fault.
"That bitch," Emma said, which made Regina want to get angry but also want to cheer. "She treats you like shit. You deserve so much better, Regina."
"She said I shouldn't see you anymore," Regina told her, sniffling, wiping her eyes again. "She said I had more important relationships to cultivate."
Emma took Regina tightly into her arms, and Regina's first response was to stiffen; then, breathing in the smell of Emma's cheap shampoo, the fragrance of the fabric softener on her uniform, the scent underneath that was unquestionably Emma's warm, soft skin, she relaxed. "I'm not gonna let her keep us apart, okay?" Emma said. "She's not gonna take you away from me."
The next day, after Emma had seen Regina back to her dorm room, they met up again to get coffee late in the morning.
"I don't really like coffee," Emma confessed as they stood in line. "And everything's so expensive here, you know? Not like at the diner. I don't think I'm going to get anything."
"Don't be ridiculous," Regina said, eyeing the menu over the counter speculatively. "Look, they sell hot chocolate."
"Can you get that with whipped cream on?" Emma immediately asked; her cheeks, already pink from the cold outside, turned a brighter color, and she adjusted her knit winter hat, pulling the ear flaps down a little further.
"Two tall hot chocolates, please," Regina said to the barista. "With whipped cream on both of them. Thank you."
They went down to the docks, where Emma had sworn she'd found the perfect bench, guarded against the harsh ocean wind and everything. Regina gave the wood of the bench a suspicious look but sat, warming her gloved fingers against her drink.
"Are you feeling okay?" Emma repeated the question she'd tried to ask when they first met up that morning. Regina had ignored it; there were too many people there for her to discuss personal matters, not that she cared to discuss what had happened at all. "You were, um. You were pretty torn up last night."
"I'm much better, thank you," Regina said.
"No, come on, that's not an answer," Emma said. "You cried mascara all over my top."
Regina blew out a frustrated breath and sipped her hot chocolate. "My mother has a very unique effect on me," she said. "She - pushes my buttons."
"Yeah?" Emma said encouragingly, shifting a little closer on the bench.
Regina felt the pressure to tell at the back of her throat, as though she might choke on it; she also felt the weight of her fear, as though from across state lines Cora might hear, Cora might know she told. "There was... Someone," Regina said. "He worked at our home upstate, where we kept horses." The memory of Daniel clutched at her. She felt as a trellis had to feel when wrapped in climbing thorns, strangled and slashed all at once. "He and I - we - cared very much for each other. When she found out, she sent him away. She ensured we would not see each other again. She sent me here."
"I was wondering what you were doing in this craphole of a town," Emma muttered.
Regina smiled faintly. "It's where people like my mother send their problem children. It was here or a religious all-girl's school in the Midwest."
"Fuck that," Emma said immediately. "Look, I'm sorry about your guy." Regina felt Emma's arm around her, and thought for a moment that she should shake it off. Then she decided that she felt better with it there. "But I'm not going anywhere. Your mom's not kicking me out of here. I'm here, Regina, and I'm with you."
Emma pulled her closer, and Regina gradually leaned into her, her head on Emma's shoulder. For once, Regina forgot to pick her words carefully, murmuring, "I just want someone to be on my side."
"I'm on your side," Emma swore. "I'll always be on your side, Regina."
They sat there like that until their hot chocolates went cold and Regina realized she had a political theory class in less than fifteen minutes. They scrambled apart, gathering their bags, discarding the chilly drinks in a garbage can marked all over with signs that said "Keep Our Beaches Clean," and they parted ways at the campus, both of them smiling, catching the other's glance over their shoulder as they walked away.
"I am totally decimating this gingerbread," Emma warned her, "you better get in on it before it's all gone."
Regina, not looking up from her notes, held out a hand; Emma slapped a piece of the gingerbread into it. "Did you check how many calories this has?" Regina asked. Emma snorted. "Of course you didn't."
Regina was chewing speculatively on the last crumbs of her gingerbread when Emma insinuated herself into her personal space, putting her head on Regina's notebook where it lay open in her lap. "Hey," Emma said, looking up into Regina's face. "I want you to meet my family."
"Your family's in town?" Regina said, surprised.
"They live in town, Regina," she said. "Why d'you think I'm not in student housing? Pete and Rita live with Rita's sister on Oldbough. Did you not catch the whole conversation about how they were moving up here so that's why I applied to this expensive-ass school and got in by the skin of my freaking teeth, so I could live with them and help out because Rita's sister is sick?"
"No," Regina said.
"Of course you didn't," Emma sighed in a mockery of Regina's long-suffering tone.
"You always try to talk to me when I'm studying!" Regina said. "How am I supposed to pay attention to half the ridiculous things you say?"
"Did you at least hear how I want you to meet my family?" she said. "Pete? Rita? My family? Hello?"
"When? I have a test to study for. Two tests."
"You could be more romantic about it," Emma said. "It's a big deal. This Friday night. It's my first Friday off in, like, my entire life, so maybe you could come along for the ride, Miss Weekly Allowance From Her Moneybags Parents."
"Friday night," she said. "Fine. Are you going to pick me up?"
"Yeah," Emma said. "It's a fifteen-minute walk from your place." She closed her eyes and said, "You know, this would be a lot more comfortable if you moved your notes."
When the week circled around to Friday night, Regina spent more time than she should have trying to decide on her outfit, turning everything she knew about the mysterious Pete and Rita over in her head. Emma had been less than forthcoming on all the details of her childhood life, making vague references to being "in the system" and moving around quite a lot, with her only long-term placement being with the same Pete and Rita, starting when she was sixteen and ending when she graduated high school and aged out of foster care. Apparently they were "good, but tough;" Rita was Irish-Italian and cooked like it; Pete had a bad knee that put him out of work. Who knew what Emma had told them about her? She wanted to look like the sort of person Emma should be spending time with. Someone who wasn't her mother's daughter.
In a respectable knee-length dress, demure stockings, and a pair of heels that weren't too high, Regina put on her favorite wool coat and went to meet Emma for the walk. She wouldn't have recognized her if she hadn't known that luminous blonde ponytail.
"Are you wearing glasses?" Regina said incredulously.
Emma fingered the horn-rimmed frames nervously, responding with obvious bravado, "Just go with it, okay?"
"Do Pete and Rita think you're still a schoolgirl?" Regina asked, smiling a little, taking Emma's arm as they started to walk.
"Yeah, and they think I'm still a virgin, too," Emma said. "Look, for some reason, whatever, they like me. They liked me enough to keep me - through everything. Just play nice, okay?"
"I'm always nice," Regina replied, miffed.
"Yeah, sure," Emma said. "And don't talk about politics with Pete, okay? He's not as bad as me - I know you think I'm a hardcore crazy liberal out to destroy America and stuff - but he's right in the bracket for your tax hikes, Madame President, and he'll start yelling if you work him up too bad."
"I'll keep it in mind," Regina said, pleased by the title, moving in a little closer to Emma to guard against the cold.
The house on Oldbough was small, but respectable. Regina could feel Emma's eyes on her as she met Pete and Rita and Rita's sister Angela, waiting for her to say something casually mean; instead, she praised everything to the skies: she complimented the furnishings, told Rita that Emma'd said so many wonderful things about her, expressed deep jealousy over Angela's dressy brooch (though who but ailing middle-aged women still wore brooches Regina didn't know).
Except when she could contribute a glittering generality or two, Regina stayed relatively quiet over the dinner, watching Emma with her foster family. There was a tension in Emma's expression that she'd never seen there before, a strain at the corners of her eyes and mouth, and Regina - who wanted to be a politician, after all - recognized it gradually as some level of dishonesty. Emma, for the first time since Regina'd known her, was straining to pass herself off as something she wasn't, and Regina knew what that something was: a happy student, a willing learner, someone who knew what they wanted to do with their life. Emma wasn't that type, no matter how much she wanted her foster parents to think she was. She was a Kerouac; she was more suited to the open road than to academia.
"Regina," Pete said across the table, "Emma tells me you're a political science major." His gaze on her was appraising and a little too knowing; Emma, hiding her expression behind her glass, had no doubt told him all about Regina's personal politics.
Two could play at that game. Regina smiled winningly and replied, "Yes. Emma told me I shouldn't talk about politics with you, though, Mr. Logan, because we'd fight."
Emma choked on her drink; Pete laughed good-naturedly. "We probably would," he agreed. "Emma didsay you were pretty smart. For a Republican." He winked broadly.
"Pete," Rita said admonishingly.
Regina, still smiling, cut her eyes across the table at Emma and picked up her fork again.
After dinner, Regina narrowly avoided having to talk about football by taking Emma's hand and asking to be walked back to her dorm. "I have a paper to write," she explained to Rita.
"You see your lady home safe, Ems," Pete said, and gave them another wink. Regina didn't have time to think about the import of the phrase "your lady" before Emma was urging her out of the room to get her coat on and get out the door.
"You know, you were the one who invited me," Regina said on the doorstep. "You could be a little less desperate to kick me out."
"I was scared Rita was going to start asking about your family," Emma said quickly, making excuses. "You're kind of always in the danger zone around them. They always want to know everything and they don't stop to think they shouldn't ask."
"Sounds like someone I know," Regina replied.
"Ha ha," Emma said. "Let's get walking before your knees freeze off."
They were a few blocks down before Regina said, "So I'm smart 'for a Republican'?"
Emma sighed heavily. "That was totally out of context. Just so you know."
"Was it?" Regina narrowed her eyes at her a little.
"I just -" Emma ran a hand through her hair, forgetting she was wearing a ponytail; she made a frustrated noise and took the tie out of her hair to redo it, pausing on the corner of the street. "You know, I really think you'll be a good President, Regina, but I kind of can't get over some of the stuff you say. Like your whole gay marriage thing."
"It's not a Constitutional right, Emma," Regina said, standing with her. "The right for homosexuals to marry is something that should be determined by the state -"
"Jesus Christ, how do you even fucking reconcile that, Regina?" Emma demanded, her ponytail half-done and forgotten, her hands dropping. "I mean, not just with the whole being a good person and not calling gay people 'homosexuals' like they're lab specimens. I mean with us."
"Us?" Regina said, confused.
"Yeah, you know..." Emma trailed off, looking hard at Regina's expression. "You don't know," she realized. "Oh my God, how do you not fucking know that we're dating?"
Regina went very cold all over, and then very hot. Her face red, she managed to say, "What?"
"Oh my God," repeated Emma. "Oh my God, oh my God." She did a little dance of frustration, stomping her cold feet in a circle. "Regina! We spend every second of every day together. I took you home to meet my family! Your mom tried to break us up!"
"But we haven't..." Regina's voice was feeble. "You and I have never... We haven't even kissed."
"Yeah, I was trying to be considerate because you're so freaking uptight," Emma said.
"I am not uptight!" To prove it, Regina moved forward, seized the lapels of Emma's cheap leather jacket, pulled her in, and kissed her. And immediately wondered why they hadn't been doing this since day one, because if there was anything in the world better than kissing Emma, she didn't know what it was.
Emma gave a moaning little noise when their lips parted and Regina felt the sound shudder through her like a heatwave. "Pretty, uh..." Emma, stalling for time, trying to recover her bravado, touched her fingers to her mouth, which had Regina's lipstick smeared all over it. "Pretty intense for someone I'm not dating."
"Shut up," Regina said. "I can't believe I'm dating a liberal."
"Uptight conservative fundie," Emma taunted without malice, allowing Regina to gently wipe away the smears of lipstick on her mouth.
"Let's get hot chocolate before you take me home," Regina ordered her. "We're dating now, so you can pay." Her hand slipped down and into Emma's.
"Yes, Madame President," Emma said, and, hand in hand, they turned to go.