hunnyfresh - Letters from War

Regina mulled over her words, a little unnerved at Emma's outright bluntness of the consequences of her job before conceding. "Just this once."

"Did you make this from your Honey Crisp apples?" Emma asked taking a sip of cider, nodding appreciatively at the taste.

"Yes." Regina sat opposite Emma in her study and drank from her own glass. "The tree is planted just outside Town Hall."

A silence encompassed them as they seemed to be studying one another's features. When their eyes met, Emma let out a breathy laugh at being caught but took another large gulp and leaned back on her couch. "You're different than what I imagined."

Regina cocked an eyebrow. "What kind of different?"

"The kind of different that shows its difference to only certain people."

"Well," Regina began crossing her legs daintily, "that's what being a politician is."

"I didn't say it was bad. It's just, it's just really nice to put a face to the name."

"I admit, I imagined you more..."

"Butch?" Emma provided for her, smirking at Regina's blush. "If you imagined me doing chin ups for hours on end and spitting tobacco, then yeah, that's me, minus the tobacco."

"I guess we are all full of surprises." Regina toasted her glass to which Emma returned the gesture. Once she had settled her glass down, Regina looked intently at the young woman across from her, her voice softer than Emma had yet to hear. "How are you?"

Emma ran a hand through her hair and let out a dry laugh. "Good. Really, I'm- it's just good to be back."

Regina nodded, allowing the answer for the time being. "How long are you here for?"

"A month."

"That's all?" Regina asked baffled. "You've been gone for a year."

"Yeah," Emma let out another dry laugh. "Part of the job."

"Are you going back to Iraq?" Regina questioned, worry etched onto the lines of her face.

Emma shrugged. "I go where they tell me."

"And you're okay with that?"

Emma almost wanted to say she didn't have a choice, but she did, and at the end of the day, wearing the uniform, representing an entire country, meaning something , it was worth it. She nodded. "Yeah. Yeah I am."

Regina took a moment to soak in Emma's words before nodding almost imperceptibly.

"What?" Emma asked catching the action.

"Perhaps our first meeting may not have gone exactly as we imagined, but I was correct in one aspect."

"What's that?"

"I tell Henry about you, and I say you're away because you are very brave fighting dragons like the white knights in his books," Regina explained.

"I'm no knight," Emma shrugged bashfully.

"To him, you are. And you are quite brave."

Regina and Emma talked for the better part of an hour as if they were old friends catching each other up before the soft pattering of Henry's feet as he climbed down the stairs travelled down into the study. Regina had asked about Emma's plans for the month, and when the blonde was at a loss for words since in all technicality she had been kicked out of August's, Regina found herself offering to give Emma a tour of the town for the rest of the week before the party. Emma, after voicing her concerns about imposing her presence on the family, soon conceded and eventually, she found herself sitting in the living room after a ridiculously good home cooked dinner, Henry on the floor at her feet while Regina had left the room to take a business call.

Emma watched as Henry played with a horse and knights figurine set before she stood suddenly and walked to the entrance of the room where she had placed her rucksack earlier. She kneeled and carefully withdrew the letters and drawings she had accumulated, separating the drawings specifically before returning to Henry. "Do you want to see something?"

"Yeah!" Henry abandoned his toys and crawled into Emma's lap. She wrapped her arms around him as they sat cross-legged on the floor and held the drawings in front of them.

"Do you remember drawing me pictures?"

"Yeah!" Henry giggled pointing at his most recent one of himself, Regina, and a dog at the park. "That's Pongo."

"I have all your pictures that you gave me." Emma went through them, one-by-one, the boy disbelieving that he could ever draw something like a bunch of scribbles, but Emma insisted it was a rainbow tornado. When they got to the farm picture, Henry recounted a tale, to which Emma nodded and agreed enthusiastically about the facts, of how Henry caught a big fat pig and got to bring him home but his Mommy was "'llergic."

"Was I?" Regina chimed in from the hallway. Judging by her relaxed stance against the door frame, she had been standing there for a while.

"Yeah!" Henry agreed, leaping from Emma's lap and jumping up and down in his toddler excitement. "You like achoo! Achoo! Achoo!"

Both women laughed at Henry's silliness before Regina finally shook her head and crouched to Henry's level. "It's time to say good night to Emma."

Henry ran to Emma who was just righting herself, colliding into her legs for a hug. "Night night, Emma. You come too?"

This time Emma received the puppy dog eyes in full force, and Emma pulled one of her own to Regina either to concede or to save her. Regina rolled her eyes playfully before agreeing to the former. "Very well."

Emma placed the drawings on the coffee table before lifting Henry into her arms and following Regina up the stairs and into the boy's room. The dark blue paint was soothing, and the glow in the dark stars and planets on the ceiling was a nice tough to the solar system that hung from the ceiling. No doubt it was Regina's attempt to encourage an interest of science in her son.

When Emma set Henry down, mother and son went through their nightly routine of getting him into his pyjamas and brushing his teeth. Emma lingered in the space between his room and the hallway before she found something in the room to be much more enticing. There were pictures all over his room from the walls to the dressers. The picture on his nightstand was one of Regina and Henry, and from the looks of the boy it was quite recent, as mother hugged her son from behind, Henry's arm reaching behind him to return the gesture. She continued her search, walking along the walls opposite the bed when her eyes became trained on a picture of Henry at his first birthday, clinging to his mother for dear life. Emma laughed when she remembered the clown incident, but the laugh was cut off when she saw a smaller frame that held just the sliver of a corner of paper. It was the drawing Emma attempted of Henry blowing out his candles. The butterflies in her stomach were back, but it wasn't from nerves or anxiety. It was a good fluttering. Like the butterflies were trapped for so long and seeing home for the first time type of fluttering. They moved from her stomach and pounded rapidly in her heart as a smile overwhelmed her face.

"Emma?" Regina called as she sat on Henry's bed.

Emma turned to see both brunettes waiting for her and hastily apologized before strutting over to the bed, stuffing her hands in her pocket at a loss for what to do. Henry flipped open a large book that boasted the title "Once Upon a Time" before he settled onto a story and looked expectantly at his mother and Emma.

Emma nodded her understanding and moved to the other side of the bed effectively sandwiching Henry in.

"Once upon a time in the Enchanted Forest, there lived a Queen and a Knight..."

"Sorry for keeping you up so late," Emma said as they lingered by the door after Henry had fallen asleep. "And for knocking into you this morning. And for inviting myself to your house."

Regina shook her head dismissing the apologies before she gasped suddenly. "Oh dear, I forgot about your car."

"It's cool, everything is in walking distance. The waitress at the diner said her grandma owned a B&B, so I'll just head over there."