“I am going to kill her,” Regina grumbles, falling gracefully next to Killian in one of the library’s couches.
“You can’t kill a pregnant lady,” he whispers madly. “That’s low, even for you.”
Regina snorts uncharacteristically loud and throws an arm over her eyes. “Well, I probably wouldn’t be the first-“
“What’d she do this time?” Killian interrupts before he has reason to call the cops.
She mumbles unintelligently, turning red under her arm. Killian drops the book he’s reading and turns an amused smile to his friend.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that,” he nearly giggles.
“I said, we’re learning Shakespeare, for the tenth time in my four godforsaken years here,” Regina burrows deeper into the couch.
“Oh, no,” Killian’s smile widens.
“And we have to write a sonnet.”
“Oh, no.”
“And guess who’s my partner.”
“A love poem?” He laughs.
“She’s not even being subtle anymore, my god.” Regina throws her arms out and groans.
“Maybe it’s her hormones. Mrs. Nolan probably just wants to spread the love she’s feeling and make you impregnate your new partner.”
Regina throws a book at him.
*
“She’s fucking crazy! This is the tenth,” Emma holds ten fingers dangerously close to Ruby’s nose, “tenth time, Rubes! I swear she’s doing it on purpose.” The blonde huffs and slams her head on the table in front of her.
“There, there,” Ruby pats her blonde head, used to Emma’s dramatics.
“It’s not fair,” she whines into the table. “Regina doesn’t even have a heart, she can’t write a love poem!”
“Woah, back up.” Ruby stops eating and regards the whimpering blonde. “A love poem?”
“We have to write a sonnet in groups, right?” Emma props her head on her hand. “But of fucking course, there’s not enough kids to make groups of four in the class, something Mrs. Nolan knows, and we’re the last two she paired.”
Ruby bites the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing.
“Can I just write, ‘Regina Mills is probably not gay please stop trying this is awkward for everybody’?” Emma whines.
“That’s not in sonnet format.” Ruby points at her with her fork.
“You’re not in sonnet format.”
Ruby snickers and Emma slams her head on the table again.
*
“No, I don’t know the difference between the english sonnet and the petratachan so-“ Emma flays her arms around ,early hitting the brunette across the face.
“Petrarchan, there’s a missing ‘r’.” Regina corrects, sniffing daintily.
“Whatever, I don’t know the friggin difference, for the hundredth time.” Emma crosses her arms and leans as far away from Regina.
A paper lays between the two of them in the table in front of them, both girls sitting on the same side, both growing infuriated with every second of the assignment.
It’s blank except for the response Emma wrote when Regina had suggested to write the first thing she thought of when thinking of a boy she liked.
In all caps, Emma has scribbled down,
I’m gay.
Regina had flushed red and stumbled through the next part, trying to write down the sequence. When Emma had tried correcting her, she had launched into the difference between sonnets.
Pinching the bridge of her nose, Regina sighed deeply.
“Okay. Let’s just do the typical, describe a beautiful woman sonnet, hm? What do you suggest?”
Emma, being fed up of being in a study room with Regina for over forty minutes without results, blurts out the first thing that comes to mind.
“I don’t know, write about how your hair is always shiny!” She rubs a hand down the side of her face.
“You- my hair’s always shiny?” A ghost of a smile appears on Regina’s smile, a hand unconsciously going up to touch her hair.
“I guess, unless it’s cause you don’t shower.” Emma shrugs and Regina’s scowl returns.
“Fine.” She writes down a quick line about swaying hair, her eyes flicking to Emma’s curls. Emma leans in closer to see what she’s writing.
“Oh, something about like, eyes glistening and crap.”
“Like that?” Regina mumbles, jotting a line down.
Emma takes the pencil and adds a couple of words, making the whole couplet rhyme. Soon they have their heads pressed together, writing lovely lines on beautiful girls.
*
“Emma, Regina. Team up.” Coach Frederick booms into the gym and Regina growls lowly, her eyes sending a quick glare to Killian who’s trying not to laugh.
She makes her way to Emma who’s tying her laces together.
“Funny how there’s never any other people available, huh?” Emma grumbles, not bothering to look up. Regina rolls her eyes, and kicks at the blonde’s shoes.
“Hurry up.”
Emma glares but finishes quickly. Holding out one of the rubber bands wrapped around her wrist, Regina taps her foot impatiently. Emma smiles sheepishly and takes the offered band, tying her hair back with ease.
Emma always forgets to put her hair up for gym.
Regina lowers herself to her knees, sweeps the floor of any dirt and lays her palms flat against it.
She extends her body until she’s planking, Emma keeping time on the stopwatch. Once the minute mark hits, Emma splays a hand on her lower back and presses down gently.
“You’re popping your butt out,” she explains lazily, her hand warm against her back.
Regina nearly falls flat to her face at her touch.
*
“She’s infuriating, always fighting me on everything! The other day, she told me I was holding my pencil wrong!” Emma falls on her bed and screams into a pillow.
“Awe, come on Ems. We all know you like her.” David says from his place at the foot of her bed.
Emma whips her head to glare at him and kicks him off. Mary Margaret nods along to his words, frowning when she kicks her boyfriend roughly.
“I don’t.” She turns on her back and stares at the ceiling, hugging a pillow to her chest.
“But you do,” Ruby hums, spinning in her desk chair. “It’s so obvious, Emma.”
She flips her the bird and hopes she doesn’t have another assignment with Regina any time soon.
*
“You’ll be working with partners on this project. I haven’t decided if I’ll be pairing you or let you choose your partners, so let’s vote on it, hm?” Miss. French announces Monday morning and Emma nearly falls out of her chair with surprise.
She turns to see Regina with a similar expression of surprise on her face.
“Those in favor of choosing partners?” Miss French asks, and Emma’s hand is the first one to shoot up. Nearly the whole class raises their hands and Emma squirms in excitement. Maybe this time she can work with Ruby.
“Well, I guess that settles it. Although I do think…” She tapers off, looking over some notes in her desk and Emma’s heart plummets. “No, I think it’s best if I partner you off.”
The class groans and she swears she hears Regina cry a little.
The list is read off and Emma’s already scooting her backpack to Regina’s desk, when Miss French pairs the two of the together.
“What a lovely surprise, Miss Swan.” Regina says, rolling her eyes. Still, there’s a hint of a smile and Emma snorts, amused.
“I forgot you were secretly a sixty year old trapped inside a teenagers body, with the way you talk.” She takes out her notebook, blowing hair out of her face.
“I’d rather have manners than be a five year old trapped in a teenager’s body,” she throws right back, already going over the rubric Miss French passed earlier.
The project is simple enough, talk about how a certain history event personally affected their families, but Emma’s stomach had twisted painfully at that last part. They have to make a video with just the two of them reenacting and explaining the events, and she’s hoping Regina will just take lead and choose her family.
The bell rings and Emma writes down Regina’s phone number and address, having decided to meet tomorrow to brainstorm.
*
Ruby bumps shoulders with her as they’re exiting the class.
“Bummer,” she says, a smile spread wide on her face.
“Oh, shut up.” Emma grumbles, staring at Regina making her way through the throng of students, her dark hair shining in the luminescent light.
*
“She’s coming over to my house.”
“Miss French?” Killian says, peering through the bookshelf to where Regina’s standing.
“No, idiot, Emma.” She places the book back and blocks Killian’s grinning face.
“Did you ask her on a date?” he gasps from the opposite side of the bookshelf and Regina closes her eyes in annoyance.
“No, we have another project together.”
“You don’t sound so annoyed.” She can hear the smile on his face.
“Don’t be ridiculous, of course I am. She’s insufferable.” She inspects the books in front of her with distaste, ignoring the effect of his words on her burning cheeks.
*
Mr. Mills opens the door to the giant fucking white house, and if Emma weren’t a girl built on pride, she would have fled at the sight of it.
“Hello, Emma, is it?” His accent isn’t thick at all, but it makes his words warmer and softer.
“Hi,” she waves, “sir.” She adds as an afterthought, her eyes roaming the huge house again.
“Oh, Henry will do,” he says and she sighs in relief.
She’s led in and almost immediately, an older version of Regina walks out of one of the many doors.
“Miss Swan,” she purrs and Emma’s pretty sure she’s not sixty years old, “how pleasant to see you. Regina’s told us much about you.” There’s something twinkling in her eyes and Emma’s eyes go wide at the implication.
“Mother,” Regina says frantically, coming out of the same door.
“Uh-“ Emma starts, “nice you meet you, too.” She sticks her hand out and Regina’s mother’s eyes dance even more.
“Right- let’s go.” She’s hauled up the stairs after that by a quick Regina. She barely has time to thank the two adults at the base of the stairs for their hospitality before she’s thrown into a spacious room.
“Woah.” She says, taking in the queen bed and large vanity. “You’re like, rich.” She blurts.
“I- sort of.” Regina shrugs, uncomfortable and sits by the bed. Immediately, Emma swallows hard. “You can put your backpack down. I thought we could just talk about our ideas.”
We couldn’t have done that over the phone? almost comes out of her mouth, but she goes to sit on the opposite end of the bed.
“Sure.” She shrugs, taking out her notebook.
“Did you-“ Regina clears her throat. “Did you want to do the project on your family?”
She freezes as she’s pulling out her pens and swallows painfully.
“Oh. No, it’s cool if you want to do yours.” She hopes Regina leaves it at that but she’s aways such a pain.
“I have no problem focusing the project on yours, really.” And god damn it, she’s just being nice.
“Okay, well. I don’t actually have like, a family. So like, grandparents, and all that fun stuff.” She shakes her head. “Unless you count the people I’m staying with, like I’m sure Mrs. Robinson has grandparents but she’s never really there, so…”
She trails off, suddenly aware that she’s shared more than she intended. Regina’s staring at her with a blank face, and she nods once she stopped talking.
“I didn’t know,” she says softly. “We’ll do mine, then.” And that’s the end of that uncomfortable conversation. She doesn't know what Regina thinks of her now, but she tries focusing on what she’s saying.
“I was thinking we could film how my parents met.” The brunette looks shyly down at her lap, “They met very young while there was a war going on in my father’s village. My mother’s father traveled with the military and that’s how they met, as children first, and then they fell in love in the middle of the battles.”
Emma smiles faintly, “So like a forbidden love?”
“Exactly,” Regina pipes up, smiling back at her.
Soon they’re strewn on the bed, notebooks all around them as they scribble out a script and follow Miss French’s rubric.
*
Emma comes over nearly every day that week, staying for dinner and sometimes even after. Regina insists on her staying for a movie, for a night cap, anything now that she knows she’s mostly alone in her home.
She hates Emma Swan, but sometimes Regina does have a heart.
She stops listening to Killian’s teasing because it’s starting to sound a lot like truths, and merely focuses on the project. They decide that Emma will dress up as soldiers and recreate a one woman show on the battles before moving on to her parents fateful meeting. Regina plays Cora and Mother lends her one of her dresses, along with a fake mustache for Emma and they film quickly enough.
Too quickly, if she’s being honest, so she asks Emma to help with editing the video on the night before it’s due.
It’s simple really, they add the clips together, add music and her parents even come in, laughing madly at Emma’s crooked mustache and the way she flung a broom around as a rifle. They have to wait a full hour before the entire project loads in her slow computer.
Emma shuffles awkwardly by the foot of the bed and Regina, inexplicably fond over the blonde, says,
“We could study for Mrs. Nolan’s test while it loads.”
Emma’s shoulders sag as she gives her a bright smile and plops down on the bed, obnoxiously comfortable in Regina’s house now.
It should grate on her, the blonde’s actions, but now she’s just holding back a smile.
They’re twenty minutes into Emma’s butchering of every character’s name in the books they’re reading, Regina biting her cheek to keep from laughing as Emma reads passages with a dramatic flair, when Regina scoots closer.
They’re lying on their stomachs, shoulders brushing now but Emma doesn’t notice. It takes another ten minutes of Regina staring as Emma’s lips wrap around her pen for Regina to admit that the blonde isn’t so insufferable, especially with how attractive she looks sprawled awkwardly over her bed.
She’s reading silently, her lips moving around her pen as she mouths the words, when she looks up, green eyes easily finding hers.
And suddenly the air is too thin and there’s too much space between them.
Emma’s eyes flicker down to where Regina’s licking hers and that’s all it takes for Regina to close the small gap between them. Emma gasps slowly as their lips are pressed together, and it takes a beat of awkward pressing for Regina to move her lips languidly, enjoying the way Emma’s lower lip trembles against hers.
She feels Emma shift closer and move her lips a little more frantically, until they’re both out of breath and their elbows are crinkling their notes around them.
They separate and Regina isn’t sure if it’s her who sighs, or Emma, just knows that Emma’s smile is wide and bright enough to match hers.
*
“Emma, Regina, lovely sonnet.” Mrs. Nolan smiles down at them placing a perfectly scored paper in front of them.
“Thank you,” Emma chirps, elbowing Regina sitting next to her.
“Yes, thank you,” Regina mumbles begrudgingly, enjoying the way Emma’s fingers feel intertwined with hers under the table.