Archive of Our Own ^beta

Emma was late home. Again. Not that she wanted to be. She liked being home on time for dinner, but it's not like she could just drop the toddler she was rescuing from a tree on its head as soon as her shift ended. She stayed until she wasn’t needed, and when she wasn’t needed, she went home to where she was. 

It was annoying sometimes, being home after everything had happened. When dinner was already eaten, the dishes already put away by her wonderful wife, and the house was sorted out. She felt like she wasn’t really contributing anything, besides her paycheck - which, let's be honest, they didn’t really need after 28 years of Regina’s rigorous budgeting with her own wages from her mayoral work. She was mainly working for the town, which seemed to have become the centre of everything ever since she had set foot on its soil those years ago. 

The centre of her life, however, was reserved for her family. Regina and Henry, Snow and David if she was feeling especially amicable. But the people she surrounded herself with had suddenly become very important to her, and whether she was thriving or not.

She used to think that she could survive off of late night drinking and teenage angst alone, especially after she had been released from prison and had to spend months trying to get herself together again. SHe had thought that it was a miracle being sent her way when she was accepted to that bail bonds job. She didn’t even really know what it meant, but she got pretty good at it once she started applying herself.She sometimes found herself wishing that someone would jump bail so that she had an excuse to potentially beat someone up in her heels. Highlight of her week, really.

But then Henry had arrived on her birthday, and brought his own miracle - magic. Well, as much of a miracle that magic can be, but he made it better. Talking to him that night felt like the first proper conversation that she had had in months, and maybe he was crazy, with all these claims of being her son, but at least he was crazy too. There was a weird sort of kinship in possibly psychosis.

Regardless, she felt useless at home. But coming home at all was a blessing in itself, so she thanked whatever was out there for what she had. Just because she didn’t believe in God, doesn’t mean that she can’t thank Him sometimes. Hell, she used to pray to Him, too, when she was in the foster system.

Poor little Emma, in her foster home at night, praying to a concept up there that this family wanted her. That this family needed her as much as she needed them. She wasn’t naive, of course. When nothing changed and nobody answered, she eventually gave up the faith, no matter how many church sessions she was brought along to. God wasn’t real (probably), and there was nothing wrong with that.

When she unlocked the front door and pushed it open at 10pm on a Thursday evening, she expected silence. She expected her wife in bed, and her son the same. Whether said wife was actually sleeping or not was a different thing, but normally they were both upstairs.

What she was greeted with, however, was the sound of the TV - muffled from the foyer where she was standing, but louder when she approached the lounge after taking off her shoes and jacket.

When she pushed the door pen, she was blasted with the strong heat that could only mean Regina had set the fireplace going, and she relished in it as she shut the door behind her. It was October, with the sort of chill that makes even David shiver, so the fire was a nice reprieve from the outside air.

Her wife looked up to her when she walked in, with that soft smile on her face that only spoke of calm, and contentment. She had their son draped across the sofa with her, head resting on her lap, completely knocked out. He was snoring slightly, though it wasn’t loud enough to disturb the sound of the TV, which was playing some sort of action movie that Emma had never seen before. The scene was so amazingly domestic, it just made the little orphan in Emma’s heart sing. 

“Nice to see you looking so cozy.” Emma quipped playfully as she looked around the room once again, and then noticed their kitten, Salem, curled up near the fire, looking blissed out at the warmth. She gently scooped the tiny thing up into her arms and cradled her, smiling as she realised that she hadn’t even stirred. She looked at Regina pointedly, and then the rest of the sofa, as if asking, “where are we supposed to sit?” 

Regina just laughed as she watched her wife pick up their kitten and stare at her with the look of a golden retriever who felt underappreciated. She rolled her eyes at the petty display of using Salem to make herself look more vulnerable, and sighed in playful exasperation.

“Come here. I saved you a seat.” she completely lies, and widens the gap between her legs so that they were spread a decent way open.

Emma just rolled her eyes, and sat on the floor in front of them, before scooting backwards to nestle her back against the sofa and between Regina’s legs, resting her cheek against her wife’s knee. She curled her knees up to her chest, and then set Salem on top of them - the kitten was small enough to rest comfortably, like she was on a little platformed bed. The kitten stretched, and then curled up again, content to reston the blonde's knees. 

Almost automatically, Regina began to thread her hands through her wife’s hair, carefully pulling out the hair tie that had kept it in that tight ponytail all day, and began to gently massage her wife’s scalp, all but ignoring the pained whimpers that escaped the blonde’s lips. She knew all too well the pain of an uncomfortable hairstyle - she was almost embarrassed of half the ways she had tied it up back when she was a Queen.

For now, she used her expertise to hit all the right spots on her wife’s head, releasing the tension like it owed her money, and relaxed into the warmth of the moment. Son on her lap, wife and cat at her feet, and the weight lifted off her shoulders.