hunnyfresh - Letters from War

He brought her in a hug again, more gently this time, and she rested her head against his shoulder with a content sigh. "You're not going back there."

"Well, I don't know…" Emma teased in his arms.

He shook his head with a firm command. "You're staying, soldier."

She grinned up at him. "Yes, sir."

It had been a day. That was all Emma could think. One wonderful, surreal, yet very real day. This morning Emma was in Boston getting discharged from rehab, and now she was in Storybrooke, with Regina, and even August now. She had touched Regina. They had talked. They had fought. They had cried. But she was here. She was home.

Emma sat around the kitchen island with Regina's hand in hers on the counter as August whipped around the kitchen making them dinner. An Italian aria blared from a counter radio as he sang loudly and strangely in-tune, and for all his fluttering around in the kitchen, all he had made were chicken burgers and fries. Watching as he moved so freely around the kitchen without Regina having to lift a finger made the blonde ache for the time she had missed. Regina had mentioned August had lived with them for a spell, but seeing the evidence of their comfortableness made it all the more real. But she had now. She had the future. And it was all worth it.

That night after she bid August goodbye with a tight-gripped hug and a few kisses to his cheek, she followed Regina back up the stairs. Like earlier that day, Regina had led Emma by the hand; constantly looking back to make sure she was following. As they entered the master suite, the thickness in the air was different. It wasn't charged with sexual desire or wrought with awkward tension. The undercurrent electricity between them let them know, once again, that this was real. All their waiting had been for this moment. Without words, their lips instinctively sought one another in the moonlight as their fingers slid against flesh. Every wound between them had been ripped open, raw for the world to see, but it was just them, nursing each other back to health, bracing each other as their clothes fell and their moans mingled. Their bodies touched. Their sweat mixed. And as they found release, falling into the pleasure the other was bringing, they fell into the knowledge that this wouldn't be the last time. This was their beginning.

For a population of less than three thousand people, it was bizarre to see how much changed in three years. The structures within the town remained as timeless as the small hamlet itself, but the next afternoon when Emma and Regina slid into the Benz and began the short journey into town, Emma almost forgot that the people weren't as stagnant.

She wasn't surprised to find people out and about enjoying the cool May weather, but when she saw Mary Margaret and David Nolan, of all people, holding hands so freely as they walked down the street, her eyes snapped open and her lips parted in shock. Emma sat up in her seat and strained her neck to get a better look, but Regina just scoffed and said, "Kat deserved better."

They were gone before Emma could question it, and then they found themselves in the downtown core. Granny's Diner was getting busy with the lunch rush. She wondered if they still sold apple pancakes? She smirked when she saw Ruby out on the patio. The waitress, still as leggy as ever, was already taking advantage of the warmer weather sporting her cutoffs and was grinning at a family as she bent down to pick up a toddler reaching her stout arms up at her.

"Hey," Emma said in wonder. "That's—that's Ashley and—Jesus is that her kid?"

"Alexandra," Regina nodded. "She has a tiny crush on Henry. It's adorable."

And though she had seen him hours earlier, Emma's eyes were drawn to the Volkswagen she hadn't seen in years as August stepped out of it, clasping the back of an older man who met him outside the shop. "That's Marco?"

Regina nodded again as she slowed the vehicle and turned left. "He also heads the support group I attend."

"You think it's safe out there?" Emma joked as Regina pulled up into the empty parking lot where the Boy Scout troop was set to arrive. The tease was meant to be light-hearted, but in the bubble they had created in the past 36 hours, somewhere deep inside Emma was worried that it was going to pop. It was Sunday. Emma was discharged. Regina didn't have to work. Henry was coming home soon. But people change; she'd seen that first hand, and sure Regina had spent the better part of the last twelve hours convincing her that she was still very much a part of their lives, but anxiety couldn't be overruled in one night. She took a breath and continued navigating the slowly filling parking lot.

Regina made a show of looking out the windshield from under her visor curiously. "I see the Martians have decided to hold off on their attack for today."

Emma rolled her eyes and flicked at Regina's waist. The brunette turned and squeezed Emma's forearm encouragingly. "I know what you mean. But I know of one little boy who's been missing you something fierce."

Emma bit her lip, shifting in her seat in worry. "What if he's scared of me?"

"Why would he be scared?"

Emma scoffed and motioned to herself. She had opted on her hand-prosthetic for the trip rather than the steel mechanical one. Ease the kid into her return one limb at a time.

"He has me for a mother and August for an Uncle. You are like the Tooth Fairy to him."

"The Tooth Fairy is scary," the blonde muttered.

"It'll be fine," Regina promised with a kiss.

At the first sight of a yellow bus turning a corner, Regina motioned her head for Emma to step out of the Benz. Emma followed suit, ducking her head and shoving her arms deep into her sweater pocket. The blonde was used to blending in fairly well, keeping to herself when it was absolutely dire, but for whatever reason, she felt as if everyone's eyes were on her. It took her a full minute from when the bus approached and pulled into the parking lot to realize that the parents gathered there paid her no mind as they waved to their sons on the bus. She and Regina leaned against the passenger side of the car, waiting in the back for the Troop Leader to get off the bus first and help the driver retrieve the boys' duffels and bags from the underside storage. Every boy hopping off the bus was either blurry-eyed from staying up too late or energetic from the experience.

Emma felt Regina lean against her, silently supporting her as her eyes whipped over the heads of every boy descending. Her mind told her to look for a shaggy hair little boy with bangs in his eyes and rounded cheeks, but when she spotted him with her own eyes, her breath caught in her throat. Henry, his chocolate brown hair kissed by the sun and standing in all directions, followed his friend off the bus and walked to the growing mountain of duffels off to the side. His sweater was baggy for his lean frame, and his cheeks had thinned out over the years, but that dimple on the corner of his mouth was the same one that smiled up at Emma whenever she played soldier with him.

"Oh my god," Emma breathed, pushing off the car an inch to get a better look.

"I know." Regina grinned beside her. "I almost can't believe it myself."

"You let him go camping?" Emma asked genuinely surprised.

Regina glared at her, as if Emma's sudden input would have been helpful the day before, but Emma was too preoccupied with watching Henry dig through luggage to find his own. He was momentarily distracted by his friend waving goodbye to him before he finally found the overstuffed duffel that was two times his size. Regina squeezed Emma's wrist and pushed off from the car, walking forward to wave to Henry who had been looking around for his mother. He smiled and almost ran to her but remembered last second to keep his cool. The brunette mother stopped a distance away and crouched to the ground with her arms outstretched, and that was all the incentive needed for Henry to pick up his pace and nearly galloped into her arms.