Chapter Text
“Half a mile out, the city builds back up along the margin. / Country songs cut in and out of static on the radio. Lord, most of what I love / mistakes itself for nothing.”
- “Transubstantiation” by Molly McCully Brown
“Madame Mayor,” her secretary’s voice crackles through the speakers. “Your four o’clock is late. Should I try to reschedule?”
Regina puts a thumb on the intercom. ““That won’t be necessary. Ms. Swan will be here soon.”
Though time continues to tick, Regina doesn’t check her watch or even glances at her schedule. She doesn’t hold a very high opinion of Emma Swan, but she knows when she can trust a person on their word.
Just as expected, three minutes later there is the familiar slam of a car door.
Regina promptly presses the intercom. “Ms. Lewis, you can take your break now.”
“Thank you, Madame Mayor.”
Standing, Regina checks-in with her reflection in the oval mirror positioned opposite of her. Her hair is still neatly coifed though curlier now by the ends, and her lips are a little faded. With a slight pucker, she reapplies a darker shade of lipstick, tests her appearance with a coat and then without it and then finally decides to leave it hanging over a chair. All in that time, Ms. Swan has made it to the stairs.
Walking to the small couch, Regina pours both her and Emma a coffee and sits down. Crossing her legs, she checks her watch.
Finally, a firm knock of knuckles.
“Come in, Ms. Swan.”
When the door opens, it is like the flourish of curtains. A spotlight rounds the stage and finds its best actress. The performance begins.
“Ms. Swan,” Regina smiles warmly, and extends a hand toward the couch. “Would you sit down?”
Her plan is simple. Crush the Savior’s heart.
With a huff, Emma Swan eases her weight uneasily from the palm on the doorframe to step into the office.
“You didn’t specify what you’d like to talk about, so I didn’t bring any work with me.”
Don’t snap. Keep your smile.
“That’s alright, Ms. Swan. This isn’t for work,” Regina says and gestures once more towards the couch. “Please. Sit.”
After a beat, the Savior sinks into the cushions of her expensive couch as if it were her own. She slaps her thighs once and folds her hands over her stomach.
“So... what is it you want to talk to me about?”
Regina keeps her smile. Obviously, crushing the Savior’s heart won’t be as simple or as clean as it might have been in her old realm. Back there, it would have been only a matter of seconds, pressurized by a closing fist. A mercy, really, when considering the lasting damage a broken heart may do.
“Henry, actually.” Regina offers plaintively. “I’d like to talk about our options, and whether it’s possible to make…a slight shift of approach.”
“Uh-uh.”
“I’m sure that you’ve noticed that Henry’s…fascination with fairy tales hasn’t at all abated.” Regina begins.
“Yeah, well. That probably wasn’t helped with you and I batting out our issues in front of him,” Emma lazily stretches out her legs and splays an arm out on the back of her couch. “Or the fact that you keep stomping around like some tyrannical queen in this little town that you think you own.”
“Right,” Regina’s smile sharpens. Her fingers tighten. “Obviously, none of that helped.”
There are three stages to this plan. All three stages should be complete in roughly three months. Maybe more, if there are any unforeseen complications, though Regina doubts there will be.
- Step One: Gain the Savior’s trust.
- Step Two: Win the Savior’s heart.
- Step Three: Crush the Savior’s heart so completely that she runs far away from Storybrooke and never returns.
Simple.
Regina takes a deep breath. When she meets Emma’s eyes, she makes sure to soften a little, not so much for the contact to raise any alarms, but just enough so that it doesn’t prickle with challenge.
“I know that I have made some very poor choices when it comes to how I engage with my son’s little…” Regina’s lips curl. Despite the practice, the word still sticks to her tongue like dry ice. “Invention.”
“Some poor choices--?”
“-- so,” Regina suffers another smile. “I’ve come to the conclusion that I have to change. I know I do, if I ever want my son to trust me again.”
Emma blinks. Then she scoffs.
“Well, you’ve got a long way to go, that’s for sure.”
Regina bites the inside of her cheek. Hard.
“Yes,” she manages. “I know...I know I do.” Drawing in a shaky breath, she meets Emma’s eye again. “Which is why I want to start at once.”
A wary slip of emotion passes over Emma’s expression.
“Right ..." she shifts uncomfortably, huffs. "Can we just get to the evil scheme part, already?”
Ah. She’d always known gaining the Savior’s trust would be the most difficult step to accomplish, of the three, but she hadn’t quite imagined how tedious.
“Ms Swan,” After a pause, she wills her voice to go softer. Nervous and a little desperate. “I...I wanted to suggest that maybe…you and I could somehow work together?”
“Work together?” Emma echoes dumbly.
“Yes.” Keep it soft, she rebukes herself. “I... if you think that’s possible. I know I haven’t made it easy for you and I to build any sort of trust but Henry-" her voice hitches unexpectedly, surprising them both. “-but Henry clearly needs…stability right now. And I think if we appear as a united front, it will really benefit him.”
Something opens inside Emma’s flat eyes, turning their surface into something lively and green like pond water.
“What do you suggest we do?” Emma musters finally.
Oh. Hook, line, and sinker.
“Well...” Regina leans forward, folding her hands over her knees. “I think we should spend more time with him. Together. I think that if he saw you and I together amicably, some of this …fantasy …would dissolve.”
Emma looks up tentatively. The gaze holds, though she is beginning to fidget again like she did in those early days in town when she seemed to flicker with the nervous life of a candle. Back when it seemed a simple word could have blown her out of their lives forever.
But the gaze holds.
One corner of her mouth tucks up wobbly. “Uh...yeah. Sure. We could try.”
“Great,” Regina clasps her hands together and stands. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning at Granny’s for coffee. 7 am.”
Emma’s eyes bulge. “Coffee?”
“Yes, Ms. Swan,” she chuckles. “If we’re going to be united front for Henry, we have to at least get to know each other first.”
::
The first coffee date is awkward, which is to be expected. Once the safety pin of animosity is pulled away, Emma’s whole banter strategy falls apart. Though they only stay for an hour, the whole time Emma acts like a stiff body that has been fished from the sea and set opposite of the mayor to carry out a stiff interview about the life she lived before her death. The only time Emma seems to move at all is to protest when Regina moves for the check, which, in its deflection, makes her bristle and go silent.
The second coffee date goes slightly better, though not entirely in Regina’s benefit.
In the spend of a day, Emma decides to shift into workshop mode. She spends almost the entirety of their time together trying to come up with solutions on how best to help Henry, which of course comes in the form of the wheedling question: when can I see him?
Finally, after carefully maneuvering around several movie dates and dinner plans, Regina finally agrees that they could all go out for ice cream after school on Wednesday.
With a time set, Emma finally softens towards her. The rest of the date Emma is loose and warm eyed which, Regina supposes, rounds the date out as a success, though her own friendliness is a little icy, a little forced.
Allowing Henry and Emma time together is an inevitable concession she is prepared to make. Preferably, when Emma is wrapped around her finger.
She’s not stupid. She knows this game of hers could backfire. Their arrangement is like a triangle made up of disconnected lines. Should she try to close these lines too quickly, before Emma is really hers, she may find that her son and his birth mother make a shape just fine without her.
The rest of her Sunday is spent anxiously reworking her plan, stressing about her next move.
Would it seem too calculating to show up to the Sheriff’s station with flowers? No, too fast. It would scare her off. Flowers are too much.
To Regina’s surprise though, the very next morning Emma shows up to her office with coffee.
On a corner table hidden in the far side of her office, a bouquet of flowers sits in a vase that Regina does not recognize as her own.
“I know we didn’t make plans,” Emma says with a lovely little blush on her cheeks. “But uh, I thought I’d buy you a coffee this time.”
Two heartbeats span the time it takes for Regina to smile and another three before she steps forward to accept the gift.
“Wow.” she says at last. “Thank you, Emma.”
The familiarity of the first name prickles on Regina’s tongue, but it warms up her otherwise cool response, passing as friendly at least. Enough to make Emma blush and dip her head.
“I actually wanted to thank you.” Emma adds. She doesn’t point out the flowers.
“Really?”
“Yeah, uh. For reaching out,” Emma hooks her thumbs over the lid of her coffee cup and beats out a nervous rhythm. “I know it couldn’t have been easy, after everything that’s happened between us. I know I didn’t make it easy. But you did, anyway. To make things better for Henry.”
Regina keeps her smile as she waits through the urge to snipe back : Of course, I did, he’s my son.
“I’m glad too,” she manages, roughly, “I want things to be different.”
It’s not a very romantic declaration. Regina should have slipped in between the couch and her desk where Emma now stands. She should have wrapped her arms around Emma’s neck and made something more with those words. But the thought of her son has weathered her and left her only with a hard scrap of truth: she wants things to be different.
Emma, however, is evidently a sap. She looks on Regina now with an expression so bright her face wobbles as if unable to contain the intensity of it all.
“I just hope that uh, this,” Emma gestures between the two of them with a jerk of her hand. “Actually sticks.”
Regina hums and takes a sip of her very sweet coffee to tuck the wicked curl of her smile.
“That’s the plan, dear.” She says once she’s made her mouth soft again. “Would you like to sit down and keep me company for a little while?”
Emma practically melts. “Yeah. I would.”
::
Later, after Emma leaves, Regina looks at the flowers. Tucked away in the corner, previously hidden by the open door as if Emma hoped the flowers would stay unnoticed until she left and closed the door behind her.
After a moment, Regina stands and walks to the small corner desk. Pink peach colored and purple flowers. All bright, and freshly dewed. Unmistakably expensive.
Beneath the leaves, a card.
- Thanks again
Simple and clear. Earnest. Regina touches a petal with her fingertip very carefully. The mid-morning light slants through her window, leaving beams of blue light in thin parallel rows. In that moment, Regina finds herself oddly touched.
Then her satisfaction crinkles.
Somehow, without any kind of ulterior motive, Emma has gone ahead and become a better and more successful courter than Regina. If Emma were the type of person to play a game with someone’s heart, she’d be winning. Regina will have to up her game.
::