Foregoing the snack, Regina tested her own culinary skills, sniffing and tasting spices, rifling through cupboards to find pots and pans, and was blessed when she found vegetables in the chiller. By the time she heard the inevitable argument in the washroom with Henry's "I can't go! The squid captured me!" followed by Emma's wry "I'm pretty sure you're just helping the squid by splashing me." Regina had brown rice cooked, a beef bouillon base sauce simmering, and vegetables seared in the frying pan. Intending to open up the bottle of wine from yesterday, Regina was certain date number three would go off without a hitch.

Just as she was pouring the sauce over the rice, the washroom door opened and a soaking wet Emma stepped out with a towel-wrapped Henry in her arms.

"I thought it was Henry's bath time," Regina quipped turning back to garnish the rice with veggies.

"Henry thought otherwise." With that, the wet pair disappeared into the bedroom where Henry's giggles resonated throughout the apartment.

As she plated the food on two bowls and began to rinse the used dishes, Regina could hear hurried footsteps on the other side of the closed door. No doubt Henry was giving Emma a run for her money, evading changing into his pyjamas and hopping from bed to floor to bed again faster than any jack rabbit. Usually he was a sweet tempered, good-natured child, but when excitement, or worse, sugar caught up with him, Regina considered chasing after him to be her exercise for the day. Just as she was setting the clean dishes on a rack, a heavy weight collided into the back of her legs, and Figaro, who had been weaving himself in and around her ankles, screeched in surprise before darting back to his couch of safety.

Regina glanced down to see Henry, pyjama-clad and hair sticking up every which way with Rexy tucked under his arm. He lifted his hands in a gesture to be picked up, and wiping her hands, Regina crouched down and lifted him under his arms. "Did you give Emma a hard time?" She asked in a near whisper.

He grinned with an innocent mischievous smile before Regina smirked and high-fived him. She carried him into the bedroom and stopped at the threshold where Emma, with her back turned to the Mills, was pulling off her soaked t-shirt, presenting a defined bare back and the beginnings of a pink bra. Henry ducked his head into his mother's neck instinctively with a loud "ew!" causing the blonde to turn her head and smirk at his childish response.

Regina usually would have noticed the raised amused eyebrow coming from the younger woman who had successfully stripped off her shirt, but her eyes were drawn to the faded bruises lining pale sides that disappeared to Emma's front just under her ribs. The hazards of Emma's job had always been some far off myth that only truly showed itself in calloused hands and intense nightmares, but seeing evidence on her body made Regina hurt and angry and sad.

"See something you like?" Emma teased, unaware of the thoughts running through Regina's mind.

"You're naked!" Henry giggled into his mother's neck, sufficient enough to make her pull her eyes up to Emma's face and see that she had donned a fresh shirt and a pair of running shorts at that.

"Yes I do," Regina said sincerely in a way that threw the blonde off enough for her to look down and hide her smile. She stepped further into the room and placed Henry on the bed where he crawled to the head and shimmied under the blankets right in the middle. "And you have to sleep, mister."

"But I get a bedtime story," he reminded her then looked to Emma. "You tell me one please?"

"A bedtime story," she repeated, coming to sit on the edge of the bed beside him. She smiled and nodded knowingly before holding her hand out for Regina to take and encouraged the older woman to sit with her as they both looked upon Henry tucked in for the night. "Once upon a time, there was a White Knight and an Evil Queen. . ."


Like their phone calls, Henry jumped in to fill in gaps of the story, but sometimes his excitement got the best of him, and for a few solid minutes, Sir Henry was jumping and galloping around the room fighting off Rexy the dragon, but he eventually tired himself out, and by the end of the story, as the White Knight broke the Evil Queen's curse with True Love's kiss, Henry fell sound asleep.

"I saw your present," Regina said as they exited the bedroom hand in hand once Henry was sound asleep.

Emma frowned. "No you didn't."

"Well it wasn't a very good hiding spot." Regina led her to the fridge and pulled out the rose and card, playing with the stem between her fingers and smiling shyly before leaning up and pecking Emma on the cheek in a chaste kiss. "Thank you."

Emma grinned, weaving an arm around Regina's waist to hold her close. "I was gonna get you those earrings you were looking at in that store today."

"I'm glad you didn't," Regina said sincerely, bringing her arms and rose up Emma's shoulders and around her neck to dangle lazily there. "I'm just happy you're here," she said honestly.

"My presence is your present?" Emma sassed earning a groan and an eyeroll from the brunette who peeled herself away.

"I made–" Dinner died on Regina's lip, or rather it was currently residing in Figaro's belly as the plates were bare save for the few stray vegetables lying on the plates. The feline had no shame as he licked his paws clean on the table, gave the plates one final sniff, and sauntered to the edge where he leaped from the table and washed down his helpings from his water bowl.

"I told you," Emma guffawed. "He's a fatty."

Regina scowled, her jaw tensing as she crossed her arms and leered at the cat. "This is why I don't have animals in my house."

Emma snorted and steered Regina away from glaring holes on Figaro back to the couch. "You love animals."

"Not that one."

"Just like how you don't like Pongo?"

"Pongo has never eaten food off any of my dishes."

"Right," the blonde dismissed quickly but knowingly, lounging in the corner of the couch and tucking an unsuspecting Regina into her.

The brunette toppled gracelessly onto the soldier and huffed out of surprise more than annoyance before suddenly lifting herself over Emma, hovering on her arms with an expression of concern on her face. "Did that hurt you?"

She wrinkled her brow. "No?"

"It's just that I saw your back."

"You must have liked it a lot," she laughed, trying to get Regina to rest against her, but the brunette wouldn't budge.

"You have bruises," the older woman stated simply.

Emma's laugh quieted as she frowned in understanding, but it was the green eyes that darkened in memory that had Regina all the more worried. "Yeah," Emma said finally, though her voice was quiet.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Nails digging into Regina's waist and a lip tugged furiously between her teeth, Emma frowned before nodding so minutely Regina wasn't even sure she was answering her question. But Emma did. She talked about Spencer and those two prisoners–one dead and the other, well she wondered if his fate was worse. She talked about how she found herself doing the grunt work or the most dangerous jobs even if there were better qualified people around. Sometimes she got leers. Most times she heard whispers. She wasn't sure which was worse.

By the end of her story, Emma's vision had clouded over, and it took a warm hand to her cheek, thumb caressing the familiar groove there for her eyes to flutter shut in relief from her own mind. Regina studied her. She would think the blonde's face would scrunch up in memory, but it was the exact opposite. Her face was plain and stoic recounting the events, as if she were distancing herself from it, as if she was summarizing a book she had read and not giving much indication it was her own life. So Regina kept her thumb steady until the rising and falling chest beneath her levelled out in a slow rhythm.

Growing up in Storybrooke, Regina never really considered herself blessed. Small towns had their problems after all what with the rumour mill and the lack of adventure, but what made the town a close knit community kept it unusually progressive as well. Sure, residents would gossip about one another about who fell into bed with whom, but once the excitement was over and done with, the town would find their next scandal, so to speak. Being in a relationship with Emma held no backlash or scorn by the majority. In fact, the soldier's mere presence was enough to excite the folk, and throwing in the Mayor and her son to create a happy family just added fodder to the chatter, but the general consensus was a well-earned I told you so, particularly from one Ruby Lucas.

But hearing of the real world, where outside their bubble, outside this haven of happiness where they found peace, contentment, and love for one another, was hatred and disgust, it made Regina sick to her stomach. Maybe she was too absorbed in the paradise she, Henry, and Emma had created to notice anything on their day out today, but Emma clearly felt it in the army, and it frustrated Regina that she was the one paying the price.

So Regina kissed her softly, a silent thank you for letting her in and a firm promise that she'd make Emma forget – forget all the wrong in the world and lose herself in this bubble of happiness she so rarely got to live in. She kissed her for every hand that wrongfully laid claim to her, for every word spat at her in hate, but more importantly, Regina kissed Emma because she wanted to, because she could, because what she felt for Emma was bursting out the seams and needed to release in the form of pale lips moving along with her own.

Regina hadn't realized she had been laying fully on top of the soldier until they paused for a breath of air, but Emma's arms were travelling up and down Regina's spine, their chests flushed hotly together, and Regina's thumb still stroking that path along Emma's cheek. "Can't you stay?" She asked in quiet desperation.

Green eyes disappeared from sight briefly when Emma shut them in pained distress. "I want to."

And Regina knew she did. Never before had she trusted someone's word so entirely that even though it wasn't the answer she wanted to hear, she knew without a doubt that if Emma could, she'd stay. She'd stay in Boston or Storybrooke, hell, even Tallahassee, just to be with Regina and Henry.

"Sometimes I think about leaving tomorrow, and I just–" Emma shook her head and held Regina tighter. "Can we just pretend? Pretend that it's any other night?"

Nodding sharply, Regina did just that, indulging in a heated and passionate kiss. Emma wasn't leaving to go back to the Middle East tomorrow. August wasn't in the hospital preparing to go through rehab all over again. She wasn't the Mayor where every move was watched and talked about by the town folk. They were Regina and Emma, with Henry asleep in his room, as they hid away from the world in this tiny apartment they all shared together. It was simply an average Thursday night where Regina would have work at the office in the morning, and Emma would be dropping Henry off at the little old lady three doors down before hurrying for that police training she was usually late for because that little old lady would always make her stay for at least one cup of coffee, and Emma couldn't say no, not when Henry was sitting in her living room playing with the two other neighbourhood children the lady watched.

They kissed feverishly, every kiss more desperate than the last. Neither knew when they would get to be together again like this, so they poured everything they had into each other with every touch, every upward twitch of their lips, and every flick of their tongue.

Regina exhaled hotly into Emma's mouth when she felt the barest fingertips disappear under her tank top, whisper soft touches trailed along the curve of her spine, and she shuddered against Emma as the blonde grinned at her reaction.

"Beautiful," Emma whispered just before claiming red lips once more, and though Regina had heard it a million times, coming from Emma, she felt it inside and out. "So beautiful."

Tongue darting out to meet Emma's, Regina reared up on her knees straddling the blonde and pulling her up with her as she pressed herself even closer to the younger woman. Then suddenly Emma's mouth left hers and was firmly sucking at the base of Regina's neck, and the unrestrained moan couldn't be helped as the heat between their bodies only moved to simmer in Regina's core.

"God, I've missed you," Regina sighed for the nth time in so many days as Emma nipped a path along her neck. She weaved her fingers in lightly damp hair and held her close.