Archive of Our Own ^beta

Soulmates

Emma unlocks the front door of Gold & Associates Ascertainment Agency and locks it again behind her. She likes the feel of the shop. The counter is wooden and the cash register is old. They sell all the usual soulmate finding stuff: luck charms, guides, some really old fashioned brooches that tell people they're still looking but like, in a classy way. She likes it, despite knowing it's all bullshit. She doesn't mind giving people a bit of hope.

She walks through the shop to the back room. It's kind of a staff room/work area. She puts the coffee on and opens her laptop. Gold gave her one for work but it's old and takes a few minutes to warm up.

She heads up the wooden stairs, which give a respectable creak under the weight of each foot, to the consultation rooms. They remind her of old style doctors offices. Big wooden desk, leather chairs, tall mahogany bookcases full of field research on finding soulmates. She likes the tradition of it, but she knows people just find someone they like that fits their description and kid themselves into thinking they can see “colour”. Everyone agrees the sky is “blue” and grass is “green”. Some people pay ridiculous amounts of money for “coloured” clothing. It's silly but she gets a good job out of it and they seem happy enough.

She opens the window at the top of the stairs and looks down at the street below. It’s a bright, wintery morning and she's excited to start her day.

She takes the “out” tray files downstairs with her and starts digging. Her job, while she slurps coffee that steams up her glasses, is to find and contact potential soulmates. Gold runs the place and the consultants interview and test clients and their candidates. It's a pretty good system and most days Emma doesn't mind that she doesn't have an office. Her feet rest on the coffee table and the laptop on her lap. Tamara Young arrives next and stalks into the staff room.

“Did you clean this before you made coffee?” She asks, hand on her hip.

“Yeah with loads of bleach” Emma says “I left some in there actually just to make sure it's really, really clean.”

Tamara scowls. “You'll never get anywhere talking to your superiors like that.” She snaps as she pours a cup for herself.

“I'll remember that if I come across any.” Emma says without looking up from her screen.

Tamara hates her because she doesn't believe, which means she thinks Tamara and the other consultants are lying about “seeing colour”. She also thinks it's bullshit because if Tamara was with her “soulmate” how come Emma catches her checking her out when she has to do things like change the light bulbs in her office?

Tamara makes a noise of general disgust and heads upstairs. Emma's making good headway on her first file. There are lots of hits on the database and she scours the free online dating services. She's so into it she doesn't see the message from Mulan saying she won't be in to run the front of the shop today. The shop door opens and closes with a jingle.

“Hello?”

Emma jumps. When she rushes into the reception a woman stands at the counter, looking through the glass tops at antique locating devices. Her coat has a faux fur trim collar and her heels would be intimidating at the best of times, let alone a Monday morning.

“Hi” Emma says, walking to the other side of the counter. She’s glad she wore a button down today. It’s one of the smarter things she owns and she knows she looks cute in it.

The woman doesn't look at her, like she doesn't really want to be here. It's not what Emma's used to, people are usually excited. Maybe she doesn't believe either, but that's not the kind of thing you can ask when you're in the business of matchmaking.

“I have an appointment with Ms Young.” The woman says.

“Of course.” Emma says, recognising her face from her profile despite the avoided eye contact. “Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thank you.”

“Ok” Emma picks up the shop phone and dials 667. Every time she laments that Tamara’s office number is one off a joke that would have a lot of mileage. “Your client is here.”

“Get them coffee then but don't keep me waiting. Where's Mulan?” Tamara demands.

“Ok, thank you.” Emma says and hangs up, partly because she enjoys pissing Tamara off but also because she doesn't want a client to hear her say “I don't know” because it sounds unprofessional, and she is professional about this stuff she doesn't believe in.

“Ok then. Follow me, I'll take you to Tamara’s office. If I can get you anything please let me know.” Emma says, keen to provide something useful to earn anything from this woman.

They walk up the stairs, Emma first and she tries to remember what this woman's profile said. She remembers it was sparse, bordering on reluctant, but it's so taboo not to believe, all respectable people have a profile.

When they get to the door Emma pauses. “If you change your mind about the coffee, or you want anything else, let Tamara know and I'll be right up. My name is Emma, by the way, Emma Swan.” she says.

The woman looks up briefly and Emma smiles. She's pretty. Really pretty, in a distant, unattainable way.

“Thank you, Emma” she says as she enters the office and closes the door.

When she's back downstairs and has sent Mulan some abuse for not showing up, she opens the shared calendar to find the client name. Regina Mills. She remembers pulling her profile up as a potential match for a client but she hadn't flagged it as high potential, it was in the medium range, which Tamara never usually bothers with. Emma pulls up the primary client’s info, the one who’s paying for this work to be done.

“Nooooo” she says seeing his profile. It's a professional public profile, staged photo and everything. He's the son of a lord in England or something but in his pictures he seems to go for like, the countryside rogue vibe. She’s never seen a guy seriously wear a bandana around his neck before, at least not outside of Oliver Twist adaptations. She looks him up on their internal database to find his questionnaire answers. It’s all shallow environmentalism and liberalism, which clashes awkwardly with his stance on (and profit from) land ownership. He spent a summer “living off the land” as in, foraging for food on the estate of a family friend. It’s hilarious, there’s no way this guy is her match.

She finds Regina Mills’ profile. Tamara likes to enter data as she collects it, so Emma can see it being updated. They're not up to core beliefs yet, they're just in interests. Puerto Rican cooking, equestrian sports, literature (note: Ann Brontë over Charlotte or Emily).

Emma snorts. “Nice! Who doesn’t love a niche Brontë?” she says to herself.

She gets distracted looking up more about Regina Mills and can't believe it's time for her to go when she hears her heels clip down the stairs. She throws her computer on the sofa and meets Regina in the shop.

“Hello” Emma smiles because there's no harm in being nice to beautiful, sad looking women. “How did it go?”

“Fine, thank you. I have another appointment tomorrow.” she says

“Great I'll see you then.”

Regina hesitates. “When do I pay?”

“Oh, you don't.”

“I don't?”

“No, Tamara should have explained how it works. We have our clients and we try to find their soulmates. We invite potential matches here for interviews and we see how we go from there. You're a candidate so you don't pay.”

“I see.”

“I think she doesn't explain enough so people will buy her book on the way out.” Emma laughs

“She has a book?” Emma pulls one off the shelf. “Does it explain how all of this works?”

“Uh, it's an ‘essential guide’ so it has what you need to know about uh--” Emma’s brain stalls.

“You haven't read it.” The corner of Regina's mouth twitches.

“Yeah, no, sorry. It's popular though. But if you want to know how we work you're better off just asking your questions.”

Regina checks her watch. “I don't really have time. I'll take a book and perhaps we can discuss more tomorrow?”

“Sure!” Emma says with a bit too much enthusiasm. The woman smirks and Emma avoids looking at her while she rings up and bags the book. Regina Mills might almost consider smiling at her on the way out.

“Damn” Emma says as the door closes. She has a bad feeling about this.

-

Mulan isn’t in the next day either. Emma wonders if she is actually sick and not just hungover like she assumed. The abuse she sends today is nicer, less vice-focussed. The middle finger Mulan sends back doesn’t have the energy she’s used to. Maybe she’ll send her a fruit basket, she’d hate that. The doorbell jingles.

“Good morning, Miss Swan.”

“Ms Mills,” Emma straightens up and puts her phone down “how are you today?”

“Can’t complain.” She says and Emma doesn’t believe her.

“I’m glad to hear it.” She says anyway. “Tamara is with a client still, would you like some coffee or tea?” She tries the tea angle today since she was so sure she didn’t want coffee yesterday.

“What do you have?” Regina asks.

“I was actually going to run across the street and get it from Mamie’s, there’s a burst pipe down the block but it only affected this side of the street. We don’t have any water, but they do.”

Regina watches her and nods slowly. Emma guesses she doesn’t know this part of town and she’s guessing Mamie’s in a coffee shop. It’s so much more though. It used to be Granny’s until Granny herself went to France to learn patisserie baking and everyone called her Mamie (including the grandson of Marco, her Italian boyfriend) and it stuck. She reopened the store with a little European make-over and it’s done incredibly well since. Tamara says it’s overrated because white people give more prestige to “Euro-centric crap” which sounds legit. Emma likes the cakes though.

“I’m not expecting another client for thirty minutes.” Emma says “Would you like to come and see what they have?”

“That sounds fine.” Regina says and Emma grins. She’s spot on. Regina has no idea what’s in the area. Emma hadn’t looked up where she lives on her profile so she gives herself an internal high-five for her detective skills.

The cafe is bright inside owing to the huge windows and brass counter. The tables are all small and round with marble tops. She thinks Regina will like it.

“Bonjour!” Emma says as she sees Ruby on entering.

“Hey girl, get a seat” Ruby replies in a not-very-french manner.

“The window is the best” Emma says to Regina as she leads them over “from here you can see the florist and I think--”

“Game of Thorns?” Regina interrupts. “That’s funny” she says although she doesn’t laugh or even smile. Emma thinks she’s hilarious.

Seemingly by some upper class instinct Regina locates a coat stand and hangs hers up. Emma hadn’t expected the dress she’s wearing underneath it. She tries really, really hard not to look but there are goddamn curves everywhere. She grabs a menu and buries her face in it.

“So” she says from behind it, trying to control the gay that threatens to overwhelm her, “coffee, what do you like the look of?”

“It might help if you shared the menu.” Regina says.

“Oh, there’s only one? You can have it.” Emma practically throws it across the table, unable to handle the idea of Regina leaning across the table, a hand on her arm. And thank god “colour” doesn’t exist because from descriptions she’s heard it sounds like blush is some kind of embarrassment early warning system and that’s where she is right now. Her face grows hot and she looks out of the window.

She actually watches Regina’s reflection in the window until she realises Belle, the florist, is waving at her and she waves back.

“So, you were telling me that the window is the best seat.” Regina says, placing the menu back on the table.

“Yeah, Ruby and Belle have a thing going on and this is the best place to watch from.”

Regina raises an eyebrow like she doesn’t at all buy it and Ruby appears at their table. “Hey guys,” she fixes her hair “how are you today?”

“Good, thanks Ruby, you?” Emma says.

“I’m good, I’m good.” She glances out of the window. “So what can I get you?” she fixes her hair again.

Ruby is not looking at them. Emma is watching Regina watch her and she seems thoroughly tickled.

“Single espresso, please” Regina says with the first real smile Emma has seen on her. Her eyes dance with amusement and Ruby writes it in her notepad.

“Em?”

“Six maids a-milking, please.”

“Sure” Ruby says and goes to write on her pad again “wait, what?”

“Coffee with milk in, please”

“Right” Ruby laughs and flicks the pad with her pen “Gotcha, anything sweet?”

Emma glances at Regina whose cheeks are sucked in and her eyes are cast down.

“Sure, two of whatever’s good.”

“I mean, everything’s good, Emma” Ruby says. Emma clears her throat and glances at Regina who’s still not looking. “Guinevere’s doing some amazing little eclairs this morning actually, loads of interesting flavours with fresh rose and thyme from Belle.”

“They sounds great.”

“Cool” Ruby glances out of the window and Emma looks too. Belle is pulling together a bouquet from the flowers outside and talking to a customer. She waves at Ruby who leans over the table to wave back. Regina’s eyes are still down and her nose crinkles in her effort not to laugh.

“Thanks Ruby.” Emma says, barely able to keep her own laughter contained.

“No worries” Ruby bounces back to the kitchen.

“You ok?” Emma asks

Regina nods and presses her lips together. Emma laughs “you sure?”

“Mmhm” Regina nods again. She looks up and when she catches Emma’s eye bursts out laughing. Emma laughs too, but it's at Regina, not Ruby. Her nose wrinkles and her eyes sparkle and Emma feels like she never wants her to stop. She’s still grinning when their coffee and eclairs arrive.

Before they leave Regina uses the restroom and Ruby clears their table.

“So does Tamara know you’re on a date while you’re supposed to be working?” Ruby waggles her eyebrows suggestively.

“It’s not a date, she’s a client!” Emma laughs.

Ruby’s face falls. “What?”

“She’s a client of Gold’s. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Um. Ok, forget I said anything.” Ruby gives the table a quick wipe and leaves.

She can't forget it and it's annoying. As if Ruby of all people is going to get on at her about dating when she’s clearly been in love with Belle since the beginning of time and not done shit about it.

-

Regina goes for her second appointment with Tamara and Emma realises they didn’t actually talk about the agency at all. It’s a pretty quick turnaround considering their match percentage was only sixty something the last time Emma checked TINK, their software system. She logs in again to check Regina’s profile out of curiosity. There’s a lot more data for Regina, some of which was added by a user called Admin5, not Tamara and not Emma. It’s weird but it’s not alarming. What is alarming is that her match percentage is now 92 with the client. Emma’s seen big jumps like that before but this one creeps her out. The client seems like such a douche and Regina doesn’t seem like the type to be into poverty-tourism and those useless skinny scarves that don’t even keep your neck warm. The bell above the door breaks her reverie.

“Mr Gold” she says, looking up from her work.

“Miss Swan” He says “you’re holding the fort while Mulan is ill, I take it?”

“That’s right” she says

“Very good, how’s it going?”

“It’s fine, there’s something weird about this match percentage on TINK though. Has it ever glitched before?”

He has a silent laugh to himself. It's condescending. “TINK is the most reliable, most finely tuned ascertainment software available, Miss Swan, it’s never wrong.”

She doesn’t like his answer. She doesn’t like that he doesn’t even want to hear the issue or look any further.

“Yeah but, sometimes software has bugs.”

He laughs aloud this time, as if he's in on her joke. “It’s not for you to be concerned about, Emma. Are you looking for something to do?”

“No” she says quickly. She has loads to do, way too much to be taking clients for coffee for half an hour, but it had been extremely worth it just to watch Regina wipe tears of laughter from her eyes without smudging her make up.

“Very well.” he says and heads up the stairs.

Hey, computer nerd, have you ever heard something go wrong with TINK? Emma texts Mulan

Yeah there’s a Reddit thread about how you get a life, it’s mostly filled with things to avoid like ‘getting too into your work like Emma Swan, notorious no-life-havver’. That thread is FULL of TINK queries. Mulan replies.

Emma responds with 25 middle finger emojis of varying skin shades and googles it instead. She’s pretty sure Gold is right, the only people talking about TINK errors sound extremely agitated. She lets it go, or at least, she tells herself she does.

-

“So there’s kind of five steps and you’re at step 3.” Emma explains, drawing on a napkin in Mamie’s later that week. “Step 1 is running the search, step 2 is screening, step 3 is more intensive interview stuff, data collection”

Ruby puts an espresso and an americano down at the table, she doesn’t say anything but she does glance out of the window. Regina smiles without looking away from the napkin and Emma continues.

“Step 4 is when you meet your match. Rainbows, fireworks, other colourful things happen and step 5 is completion. What happens after that is up to you.”

“I see.” Regina says “It’s a long process”

No one has ever complained about how long it takes to find a soulmate through the agency before, and Regina does not seem excited about it.

“I guess. We have to make sure nobody is going to sue the pants off us though.”

“For someone who’s in the business of love, you’re quite the cynic, Miss Swan.”

Emma shrugs. Regina’s a client but she feels like she can be real with her. She’s not going to say it out loud but Regina’s eyebrows bob up briefly and she knows she understands. It's all crap.

“You’re actually going through the steps really quickly, it usually takes a few weeks to collect all the data. Your background stuff came through really quickly.”

“What ‘background stuff’?”

She hasn’t read Regina’s data set, the only reason being that she’s been too busy.

“Your like, family history, values, dreams, aspirations, life stories. I don’t know, whatever you sent through.”

Regina looks concerned for a moment and Emma watches the confusion cloud her expression. Her eyes close and she breathes out through her nose.

“I have to go.”

“What about your appointment?” Emma asks

“As you said, there’s no need to rush things.”

She’s collecting her coat and Emma really, really doesn’t want her to go but she leaves without a backwards glance.

She goes back to the shop and drops into the sofa in the staff room. She clicks onto her profile (which she has to have, company policy), hers is sparse to say the least although her data set is complete up to screening. She doesn’t believe in this stupid ass soulmate crap, especially when she runs her profile against Regina’s and it’s 35%.

-

Tamara’s in a state about this client and about Regina being unavailable for the next two weeks.

“Who doesn’t want to meet their soulmate? It’s sick!” Tamara says to Gold.

‘What’s sick is how keen you are to superglue people together when they’re clearly uncomfortable with the whole process.’ Emma thinks but doesn’t say. She’s locking the upstairs landing window, getting ready to close. Tamara storms past her and Gold follows.

“It’ll happen” he says and Emma hopes not. He turns on the stair as if he hears her thoughts. “Emma, have you cashed up already?”

“Yeah, everything is done, just need to lock up.”

“Great, see you tomorrow.”

Tamara is already gone, Gold is half way out of the door and Emma does something she absolutely hates herself for. Neither Gold or Tamara locked their offices.

“I am such an asshole” she whispers as she opens the file for Tamara’s top client. There are no profiles other than Regina’s. There are asterisks at the top of the page around an “ASAP!”.

“This sucks” Emma whispers and she opens another client file to compare. There are multiple candidate profiles in them. “Fuck” she whispers as she puts the files back. What does this mean?

She opens Gold’s computer and can't believe he doesn't even have a password on it. She opens TINK and goes to the section that tracks what each user does. She takes a note of the IP address for Admin5 because on tv that seems like an important piece of information.

-

When Mulan is back, she does not give a fuck about Emma’s conspiracy theories. To shut her up she tracks the IP address of Admin5. It matches Regina’s details and Emma deflates.

“Why would she have access? We don’t give clients access!” Emma says

“Emma, who fucking cares?”

“I do! Something’s not right”

“Is it because you’ve got a crush on a candidate and you don’t want them to find a match with someone else? You have a thing for unavailable women.” Mulan gives her one of those sympathetic smiles that's like a shrug for your mouth and makes her want to scream.

“No I don’t!”

“What about Lily?”

“That was different, she was a con artist” Emma scowls

“What about that thing with Gold’s wife?”

“Milah came onto me!” Emma practically yells.

“Emma” Mulan sighs

“Why won’t you take this seriously? This is someone’s life!”

“Why do you care? You usually hate clients.”

“She’s different.” Emma says. It's cliche and she hates it but it's true. She's never met anyone like Regina Mills before.

“Why?”

“Because I think she hates this too” Mulan looks back at her with the same look of sympathy that she imagines people do at children, though no one ever did it to her. “And I don’t think she believes in soulmates either.”

Mulan rolls her eyes. “You do believe in it, you're just being an asshole.”

“How am I being an asshole?” Emma shouts as the door opens.

“Good afternoon!” Mulan shouts over Emma’s obscenities. Regina looks at her with raised eyebrows.

“Good afternoon. Regina Mills for Tamara Young.” she says to Mulan, though she glances at Emma at the far side of the room. Emma raises her hand to wave a hello but doesn’t speak.

“Tamara is still in with a client, would you like to take a seat? We don’t have coffee I’m afraid.” Mulan gestures to a large cabriole sofa near the front of the shop that Emma hates. She thinks it’s tacky but Regina moves towards it.

“Actually, you know, I think I’ll come back. I’m a little early.” Regina says and glances at Emma again.

“Sure” Mulan smiles easily. “There’s a coffee place across the street.”

“Thank you, Miss..?”

“Fa, Mulan Fa.”

“Thank you, Miss Fa” Regina nods and leaves.

For a moment it’s quiet in the shop and Emma doesn’t speak. She pretends to be working, but her caseload is light enough when she’s not covering Mulan’s job too.

“Emma...” Mulan says, her voice low.

“What?”

“It sucks you like her so much, I’m sorry this is happening.”

Emma runs her words through her mind a few more times to make sure she hasn't misunderstood.

“What?”

Mulan shrugs and Emma leaves it. She wants to be in Mamie’s with Regina and that makes her feel like absolute crap. Maybe she does have a thing for unavailable women, and she doesn’t want to think about why that is.

She’s upstairs filing when Regina returns. She recognises the sound of her heels on the stairs. She knows what her walk sounds like on wooden floors. She hears a muffled greeting with Tamara and then the close of a door. She’s done filing but she just give herself a second in the records room before she heads back downstairs.

“You know we really should be trying to go paperless. The records room is a waste of space, it could be another office.”

“Gold is never going to give you an office, Em. This is for you.”

Emma looks up and sees a coffee cup in Mulan’s outstretched hand. “It's creeping me out that you're being nice to me. Stop it.”

“It’s not from me. Cheers” She bumps her own into Emma’s and takes a sip.

Regina brought them back coffee. She turns and marches into the back room and closes the door. There’s no reason for anyone to come in since the coffee machine is broken and she knows Mulan won’t follow her. She feels like screaming. Regina brought her coffee, brought them both coffee. It’s almost better than if it was just for her. She’s thoughtful and giving and Emma’s mind reels with everything she wants. What is wrong with her?

-

She feels a knock knock vibration through the coffee table that her feet rest on. She jumps and pulls her headphones off.

Regina suppresses a smile. “Sorry to scare you, I did try speaking first.”

“No that’s ok, you just took two years off my life. Can I help with something?”

Regina takes a breath, seeming to steel herself and Emma’s internal panic alarm sets to standby.

“I just wanted to apologise for running out on you the other day. You were very helpful and you’ve been very kind to explain all of this. You didn’t deserve that behaviour from me, so I apologise.”

“Oh” Emma relaxes a little knowing she's not in trouble, but she still stares. Regina watches her with intensity she hasn’t seen before. “It’s fine, I mean, I wish you hadn’t, I mean--” Emma closes her eyes. She can’t concentrate under such scrutiny. “I accept your apology.” She opens her eyes. “And thanks for the hot chocolate. How did you know to add cinnamon?”

“An educated guess.” Regina lies.

“Uhuh. Well I’ll thank Ruby next time I see her.”

Regina’s smile grows slowly, first in her lips, then her cheeks, then her eyes and Emma feels it like sunrise over the horizon.

She wishes things were different, she wants them to be different. She knows if she were anywhere else, a coffee shop or a bar she would definitely take this as a pick-up. She would definitely give as good as she got. She would make it her mission to make Regina laugh and smile like that for as long as humanly possible. It makes her feel like no one else exists. But their match percentage is 35 and TINK is never wrong.

“Can I ask you something?” Regina asks

“Sure. Do you want to sit down?” Emma moves her pile of files from the sofa and Regina seems to defy gravity by sitting right on the edge of it with her legs crossed.

“How can you do this if you don’t believe in it?” Regina asks and twists a ring on her finger. Emma sighs. “You’re not obliged to answer, it’s a very personal question, I shouldn’t have asked.” She moves to get up.

“No,” Emma reaches out without thinking and then her hand is on Regina’s arm and her face is really, really close when she turns around. “I don’t mind”

If she had any sense whatsoever she might pull back. If she could think about anything other than the proximity of Regina’s lips she might notice she’s holding her breath.

“You don’t believe in colour?” Regina’s voice is just above a whisper and her eyes search Emma’s. She wishes she knew what she wanted because she’d give it up in a heartbeat. “In love?”

“I do believe in love, I think people focus too hard on soulmates and they forget what’s important. Love is what’s… important” Emma’s words drift out of her mouth and onto Regina’s lips. They’re closer, somehow and she can’t breathe.

35% is all she can think about. Mulan’s words. Unavailable women and how it never works out because it’s doomed from the start and she can never be to blame, it’s never because she’s not good enough. And Regina has a match. Regina has a match. Regina‘s nose can’t brush against the side of hers because Regina has a match.

“What if you thought you'd found yours but it doesn't work out? What if your soulmate is handed to you but you don’t want them?” Regina asks. “What if you want someone else?”

Emma’s hand can’t touch Regina’s cheek and tilt her lips up to hers and slide into her hair because Regina has a match. And Regina can’t give in to it, and kiss her back and sigh when she does. Electricity can’t shoot down Emma’s spine until she tingles everywhere and she can’t feel Regina’s hand on her leg, keeping her steady because Regina has a match.

The doorbell jingles and Emma jumps back.

“You have to go.” She whispers

“What?”

Emma’s up and opens the back door “Please!” She says as she hears Tamara stomping around in the shop. She'll have her head for this.

Regina stares back open mouthed for a moment and Emma pleads with her eyes. Then she’s gone, as quick as anything, just as Tamara opens the staff room door. Emma wipes her mouth with her sleeve while she has her back to the room. Regina’s lipstick is a dark smudge on her sweater but she doesn't care.

“What are you doing?” Tamara demands.

“Smoking.” Emma says quickly.

“I didn’t know you smoked.” Tamara says.

Emma turns back to her, head spinning with what just happened, and what she decided to do in the moment of panic. As clear as crystal her retort presents itself in her mind.

“Only when I know I’m going to have to deal with you.”

Tamara’s face twists in hatred. “Gold wanted me to tell you that you won’t be working on the Locksley case anymore.”

“Why not?” She demands

“Probably the same reason you ran a match comparison between yourself and his top candidate.”

Oh fuck. Tamara's eyebrow arches and she stares back.

“His only candidate” She says before she can stop herself.

“What did you say?”

“I’m going home.”

“We don’t close for another hour!”

Emma doesn't reply, she's just gone and the door swings closed behind her.

Tamara is fuming, what the fuck did you do? Mulan texts.

She doesn’t reply. She spends the first 20 minutes just walking, barely even thinking. She completely forgets about her car, she just walks. She needs to talk to Regina but she doesn’t have any of her details and she left her laptop at work.

Is it about Ms Mills? Mulan tries

She doesn’t know what to say. She’s panicking, she can’t think. She decides to get on a bus home but misses her stop and has to get another in the opposite direction. She doesn’t answer when Mulan calls.

-

She pretty much sleeps the entire weekend except for Sunday night when the thought of going to work makes her want to throw up. She thinks a drink will help, but five drinks down (she’d guess, from where she thinks the line on the bottle was before) it seems to be counter productive. She sleeps well past her alarm on Monday and wakes up to a text from Mulan.

Hey Asshole, hope you get better from the flu soon. Tamara is glad you at least didn’t bring it in and get her sick.

She falls asleep again until much later, when she wakes up and understands the message on the third read.

She just about manages to get to work on Tuesday. She can’t face Mamie’s and Ruby and Belle so she gets coffee from the ice cream place where the woman always looks at her in a way that creeps her out a bit. The coffee is ok, but it’s not the liquid life that Ruby makes.

“‘Sup” Mulan says when she walks in late.

“Hey” She croaks

“Ew, are you actually sick?” Mulan grimaces.

“Yeah, sick of your shit.” Emma replies. Mulan grins and she slinks to the room at the back.

She doesn’t open the calendar, she’s not working on the Locksley case so she works on piles of other cases instead, headphones on.

The door opens and Mulan makes coffee. Emma ignores her and looks through the open door into the shop to see a woman in a very expensive looking coat (fur but probably not faux) and the look of a cat with cornered prey. Except not a cat, more like a lion. Something about her makes Emma stare and when the woman catches her she smirks and stares back. Mulan closes the door on her way out but Emma continues to stare at it. Something about that look was chilling. She knows something.

She opens the shared calendar and sees Gold has an appointment with CM. She bites the inside of her lip. She shouldn’t open the Locksley file. She shouldn’t check for related people with those initials. She does anyway, but credit where it’s due, she does at least feel bad about it. She finds a guy in the client folder called Cormorant Moseley but she would bet her life that is not the name of the woman upstairs. She tries Regina’s file and it doesn’t take long to find a more likely answer. Cora Mills, Mother, 108 Mifflin Street. There’s no picture but it has to be her. The smirk was too much. Emma closes all the documents she had opened. She’s not working on it so it doesn’t matter.

She works so quickly all afternoon that she almost burns through all of her cases for that week. She works so that she doesn’t have to think about Cora Mills, same address as Regina, possibly uploading falsified information about her daughter to force a match with some random member of the English gentry, like 700th in line for the throne. She just can’t see Regina being into all that imperialist bullshit. She believes in reparations for fucks sake.

She realises she's stopped working and gets her head stuck into another file. She just got a ridiculously high hit on a Samoan actor and a Canadian-Belizean philanthropist who are so beautiful she kind of wants to marry them herself.

A pillow hits her in the face and scares the life out of her.

“What?!” she shouts at Mulan and throws it back.

“Gold wants to see you upstairs” Mulan says, catching the pillow with ease.

“Oh my god, am I fired?”

“I hope so, asshole”

Emma smiles and heads upstairs.

“Hi boss” she says on entering.

“Miss Swan, I trust you’re feeling better?”

“Yep, thanks for asking”

“Please sit down”

She hesitates “Am I fired?”

He smiles but it’s not really comforting. She doesn’t like seeing his shiny tooth.

“No, please sit.” She does and she doesn’t feel much reassured. “I don't want to keep you, Miss Swan, I know you have lots to do.” Emma nods appreciatively. “Would you like to tell me why you ran a comparison against yourself and one of our candidates?”

She guesses she should have seen that coming. “I was just interested, I guess?”

“I see. And would your interest go so far as to be a threat to the interests of our client?” He asks in that way that's quiet but unmistakably threatening.

“Uh” Emma considers asking whose interests matter to him, but that’s obvious, the client who’s paying.

“Miss Swan, I need to be very clear with you that the people who curate these relationships are experts. There is no room for error or intervention, no matter how well intentioned. These are people’s lives.” She nods. “If I hear of any other worrying behaviour I will have to fire you. I don’t want to because you’re very good at what you do. But I will do whatever is necessary. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Mr Gold.” She says

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes, I quit.” She says before her brain even has time to catch up with her. She’s already out of the door and ignoring his calls to come back.

“What was tha-- woah, where are you going?” Mulan says

“I quit, I’m going to see if Regina wants to go on a date with me”

“What?!”

“I think like, she might be it” Emma pauses for a second just to let her words sink in. She feels the smile stretching across her face and doesn't try to curb it.

Mulan’s face is mixed admiration and disbelief. “Oh shit, Emma!”

“Yeah, I’ll text you or something.”

“Oh my god!”

Emma grabs her coat and is out of the back door before anyone can call her back. She knows Regina’s address but she has to find directions on her phone and get there. Regina might not even be home, but it’s kind of the only thing she has to go on.

When she does get there she kind of wishes she wasn’t so committed to this plan. The house is a mansion and the hedges outside alone are intimidating. She’s powered by nervous energy and practically runs down the path. When the door opens she’s greeted by an old man she thinks might be the butler.

“Can I help you?” He asks

“I’m here to see Regina.” She says and wipes her hands on her jeans.

“You name?”

“Emma Swan”

She sees through the house and out of the kitchen windows and there’s some kind of party going on.

“Ah,” the man says and her attention comes back to him. He smiles like he knows her. “You might be just in time, Miss Swan. Straight through the kitchen, please hurry.”

That’s weird but she doesn’t have time to think about it. She just goes and right enough, there’s a garden party in full swing. She sees Regina and the client, Robin Locksley. Regina’s smiling but it doesn’t reach her eyes and Emma doesn’t buy it. Locksley’s face seems to always look like it just got slapped.

She sees Cora from the corner of her eye and knows that if she doesn’t get to Regina right now, she never will. She marches across the grass until she’s right next to her.

“Regina can I talk to you for a second?” She says

“Emma?” She looks like she’s seen a ghost “I-- what are you doing here?”

“Please?” Cora approaches like a homing missile.

“Darling--” Locksley tries to interrupt.

“Ok.” Regina talks over him and gestures to an area slightly away from the guests. Cora seems to risk assess the situation and decides to distract the client instead of tear Emma limb from limb.

“Sorry to interrupt your party,” she says, and notices a number of guests looking at them. “I just needed to talk to you.”

“Well now’s your chance, Miss Swan.” Regina crosses her arms.

“I… Uh… I don’t think he’s your soulmate” Emma says. She thinks things have been manipulated to make it that way. She thinks there’s something going on with Gold and Cora but she doesn’t know why, she just knows. Regina is smart, she thinks she knows too, why would she go along with it?

“What makes you think that? What could possibly make you think that you know better than I do in this situation?”

She doesn’t have answer. “Doesn’t it matter to you?” Emma asks, she hadn't counted on this.

“No.” Regina looks away from her and her jaw tightens.

“But-- you believe! You told me--”

“You don't believe in soulmates, Miss Swan. Why is it so imperative to you that I do?”

Regina looks back at her so hard she wants to look away. ‘Because you’re mine’ is what she wants to say, but it’s stuck in her throat and won’t come out. Regina looks like every second of this hurts. She sets her jaw and turns away.

“Regina, please!” but she doesn’t wait and Emma’s about to lose this forever. The shape of Regina's shoulders as she turns her back, the silhouette she makes walking away from her burns into her mind forever.

“Your eyes are brown!” Emma shouts. Regina freezes. The garden is silent and she has no choice but to lay all of her cards down. She can’t leave anything to chance. “Not dull like chocolate, like the colour of espresso caught in the light, like amber and gold, so deep you can only imagine.” Regina turns on the spot. The look on her face is somewhere between sadness and disbelief. “Your lips are the colour roses wish they were, everything else pales in comparison.” Regina swallows and a tear grazes her cheek as it drops. “My eyes are blue” Emma continues, voice catching in her throat a little as she does, “and it’s cruel that I learned that when I felt like I was drowning without you.” So many people can hear her and she sounds like an idiot but she doesn’t care, she needs Regina to hear it even if it doesn't work. She finally understands, making an idiot out of herself doesn't matter, nothing matters but this. “Like I was held down by an undercurrent and I felt more alone than I have ever been in my life. I’ve never seen the blue of the ocean but I bet they match--”

“They don’t.” Regina says quickly. “That’s not the colour of your eyes.”

So that’s it. Regina can't see colour. She's not her soulmate, she's a crush that got out of hand. She must have lost her mind now she’s “seeing” colours. She’s no better than the fools that leave the shop arm-in-arm, kidding themselves into love. She’s worse because she’s alone. Her eyes close and she feels like her chest is caving in. The only thing keeping her standing upright is the people around them. She has to stay on her feet so that when she can bring herself to leave Regina for the last time, she can walk out of there without help.

“They’re the colour of the sky, but not just any sky.” Emma’s eyes snap open. There’s a blush on Regina’s cheeks like she’s embarrassed to speak like this in front of people too, but she’s defiant. “They’re the colour of the sky on those cold winter mornings when the sun shines so brightly it’s impossible not to be imbued with lightness and energy too. It’s the colour of possibility. That's the colour of your eyes.” Regina finishes, barely above a whisper, hands clasped in front of her.

The world around them is bright technicolour growing more intense by the second. Green she’s never seen before surrounds them, but she’s not at all interested in anything but Regina. She walks and Regina meets her halfway. The feel of Regina’s arms around her shoulders makes her certain she will never need anything else, like Regina’s been carrying around a piece of her and now she has it back.

“That was so close, you idiot.” Regina says into her hair.

“You were about to go home with a gilded pine cone, and I’m the idiot?”

Regina’s arms tighten around her and she lifts her off the ground.

“I think that’s quite enough of that.” Comes a voice from nearby.

Emma puts Regina down. Mainly because she wants to tell this person to fuck off and she's filled with reverence at being able to touch Regina, she couldn't sully it with aggression while she holds her.

“Regina, forget this silliness, you’re embarrassing yourself!” Cora snaps.

“No, what’s embarrassing this is sham that nobody but you believes.” Regina says. Cora raises her hand, seemingly to fix her hair but Regina flinches.

Emma takes Regina's hand. She's taller than her and much taller than Cora. She's dealt with meaner looking bad guys than this one and the idea that Regina is scared of her sets her on fire.

“Excuse me.” Emma leads Regina back towards the house. Everyone in the garden (possibly in the world) is looking at them.

“Henry!” Cora screeches “Do something!”

The man who Emma had confused for the butler opens his arms and Regina falls into them.

“I'm so proud of you, mija.” He says with tears in his eyes.

Regina kisses him on the cheek and takes Emma's hand again. Walking through the house the open front door feels like the finish line, like they'll be safe if they make it. Regina walks quickly and they cross the threshold, stopping on the porch. Emma breathes out and looks at Regina, still holding her hand tight.

“What now?” Regina asks

“Coffee?”

Regina smirks. “Espresso?”

“Shut up.” Emma rolls her eyes

“No, it was so romantic.” Regina mocks

“I was desperate! You turned away from me!”

“You wouldn't just say it! How could I trust someone who can't even say what they want?”

“Oh please, you were just being an asshole.”

“I think we should get that coffee.” Regina looks away.

“Why?”

“Because if we don't end this conversation it might turn into our first fight.”

Emma grins. “How exciting.” Regina sucks her cheeks in and Emma laughs. “Come on, let me take you on our first date.” Emma says.

Regina follows her down the steps, holding tight onto her hand. “Really, Miss Swan, this is at least our third.”

Emma's about to make a smartass comment until she sees her car.

“Woah”

“That is an obscenely yellow car, Miss Swan.”

They stand by the side of the bug, momentarily shocked to inaction.

“I like it.” Emma says after a moment. “It's yellow. My car is yellow!” She says with a smile, barely able to believe she has the privilege of knowing that, of seeing it with her own eyes.

She turns to Regina expecting her to be looking at the car but she's watching Emma, as if she's having the same thought, and smiles back.

Regina leans in to kiss her and this time Emma doesn’t hesitate.