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Published:
2020-08-31
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2020-09-06
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Puzzle

Summary:

The first time Regina kisses Emma and Neal.

Notes:

This is a post s3 AU that keeps pretty much everything that happened during the season, except Regina and Robin aren't soulmates, they were just in love. Forget s4, if you've watched it, Marian here is really Marian, Emma and Hook have a one-night stand rather than entering a relationship, and there's no Elsa/Frozen plot.
This was written for this anon on Tumblr asking for a Swanfirequeen getting-together fic: I would have liked to write something longer for these three but I would have left the poor anon waiting for ages, so no LOL. I hope it's enjoyable anyway!
Also, many thanks to that anon that gave me the final push, because I've been meaning to write something for them since forever. Hopefully we are not the only two people shipping this!

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: Emma

Chapter Text

Kissing Emma, when it finally happens, feels kind of inevitable.

They have been leaning on each other since after Zelena, both lonely and miserable, with a child in-between them and in need of a drinking buddy. Regina’s anger over Emma bringing Marian back quickly subdued in favour of bitter disappointment, something in her snarling at the nerve she had when she seriously thought she could have something with Robin, and it was easy to open the door to Emma, for Henry, to sit side by side and talk about their bad decisions and their bad luck and feel a little less alone.

Emma moved in with them in a matter of weeks. It makes sense: sharing a loft with a screaming child is unpleasant, and she wants to tug Henry close even if she has given up on any plans to run back to New York with him.

Each morning, Emma wakes up with only one alarm, but she grumbles all the way down the stairs and looks half-dead until she’s drowned her cup of coffee. Regina has learned to have it ready for her, and every time she fights off a smile at the sight, warmth filling up her chest.

Emma helps her with dinner, but she is never to be left in charge of it, or she will try to spring on them one of those ‘pick whatever you have in the fridge and cook it up in five minutes’ recipes that she mastered as a single mom, and Regina is categorically refusing to allow it. The bickering that ensues makes her forget that she’s ever felt lonely.

Emma looks at her with half-hidden smiles and affectionate eyes, and for a second Regina goes tense, wanting to show her hands in surrender, to prove somehow that she means no harm and she is a better person now, or she’s trying to be, then she remembers that she doesn’t have to, that Emma knows who she is and what she has done and she still was right by her side when she claimed not to have cast the curse this time around—she’s learned that being seen and being accepted rarely go hand in hand, yet it seems that she’s finally had some luck.

Emma says goodbye in the morning with a kiss on Henry’s temple and one to Regina’s cheek, like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She presses herself against Regina’s side when they are watching a movie with Henry, she pulls her into tight hugs when they stay awake beyond a reasonable hour, drinks at hand and the words coming out even more easily with only a dim light on.

It feels natural when one of those nights they sit a little too close, stare a little too much, and both set down their drinks within a few seconds of each other. Regina’s hands rest uneasily on her lap, her eyes darting away as she presses her lips together and dares wondering if maybe—

Emma is the one to rush forward and press their lips together, just for a moment, short enough that if they wanted to they could write it off as a momentary lapse of judgement, surely to be blamed on the alcohol. But they are both hardly even tipsy, Regina’s cheeks are heating up for reasons entirely unrelated to what she’s been drinking, and Emma is still hovering way too close for her to even consider putting a stop to it.

Regina is the one to close the distance this time, only taking a shuddering breath before clasping her shirt to pull them back together. Emma melts into it after merely a moment, one hand cupping the back of Regina’s head as she shifts to come closer, pressing her body harder against hers as she makes her way between Regina’s legs.

It’s easy, like they were meant to be doing this. And perhaps it was just a long time coming, perhaps Regina just hadn’t realized how deep her affections ran before she was tasting her, but she feels a little dizzy and her eyes sting.

Emma pulls back just enough to look at her in the eye and smile, almost childlike, lighter than she’s seen her being most of the time since—ah.

For a moment, Regina debates not saying anything, pulling her in for another kiss and forgetting about tomorrow. But they have a kid upstairs, a kid whom they both love very much and who doesn’t need them unable to look at each other in the eye. For him, she’d sacrifice just about anything.

“Are you sure this time?” Regina asks, pulling back only slightly, because Emma’s fingers are still buried in her hair and she loathes to shake them off.

As anticipated, Emma’s smile twists to a frown. Confusion clouds her face for a moment, then comes the understanding, until she eventually settles on a more serious, almost solemn expression.

“Yeah—yeah, I’m sure,” she says, softly. She sounds honest, but Regina is hesitant to believe her.

“We have Henry,” she reminds her, as stern as she can manage to be. “We can’t afford a falling out.”

“I know.” Perhaps the fact that Emma has yet to pull away is to be read as a good sign. “I promise that I mean this, I am not just trying to—to feel something. I promise.”

One of their main topics of conversation that first night they spent drinking together had been Emma’s very poor decision to jump in bed with Hook. It was all good and fun while it lasted, but it was little more than an attempt at a distraction, at feeling something good and not thinking about everything else going on in her life.

Running from grief and unhealthy coping mechanisms were kind of a recurring topic even afterwards, and they joked that at least Emma didn’t turn to murdering or cursing people. It could always be worse.

Regina tries to imagine if she could have been ready, so soon after Daniel, to start something with anybody else, and—and she isn’t sure she could have. There was just too much, it was a wound too fresh, a new relationship would always be too tainted—yet, for Emma it’s different. She’s said it herself that Neal being gone is an ache that she’s had to get used to already, so maybe—maybe it’s real.

Maybe, Regina dares hoping, letting herself be drawn into another kiss, closing her eyes and melting into the newfound warmth. Maybe.

 

Or maybe not.

 

Rumple brings him back. He finds a backdoor to the Dark One’s vault and he pulls Neal right out, since he was apparently never really lost.

Regina bitterly thinks that death never seems as permanent as it’s supposed to be these days, and that probably doesn’t say good things about her character, but at the moment she is not interested in bettering herself.

She watches as Emma wraps her arms around Neal and buries her face in his shoulder, Henry squeezed between them, and they look like the perfect little family. There’s no vacant space, no need for her to intrude.

Regina supposes it makes sense: Robin’s whole being lit up as soon as he had Marian back, so he went back to her—the same could be said for Emma as she laid eyes on Neal, and Regina gets it, she does, truly, how could she not, after the hours they’ve spent reminiscing?

She knows that Emma thinks Neal might have been – might be – her True Love, on account of Henry’s magic heart and a very durable keychain, and because it feels true, somehow. Regina isn’t going to stand in the way of that, of course she isn’t.

After all, if she could have Daniel back—well, no, maybe she isn’t so sure it would work for her. Daniel fell in love with a young woman longing for her freedom, gentle and bright and so blissfully hopeful, and there is so little of her left in Regina now. She isn’t sure she’d know how to be herself around Daniel. She wonders if she’d long for Emma and her acceptance.

Still, no use in crying over it.

Regina understands, and if she wants to burn the whole world down at the moment—well, she’s learning how to be better than that. Maybe one day it will be enough for her to deserve some happiness.

 

Emma comes home.

Henry is with Neal, she says, and there’s a smile still lingering on her face. It’s beautiful, and it makes Regina’s chest ache.

It doesn’t take Emma long to notice her discomfort, to ask what is wrong. Regina almost spits out that if she is looking for the right words to let her know that she is a consolation prize and she’s overstayed her welcome, there’s no need, she already knows. The door is over there.

Instead, she says: “You can go to him, I understand.” Progress.

Emma frowns. “I think he and Henry should have some time alone together right now,” she answers, slowly. “Though I get the feeling that is not what you meant.” She steps forward, brushes her fingers against Regina’s wrist and frowns more deeply when she steps back. “Come on, talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“You have the one you truly want back, so—you can go.” Regina’s tone is surprisingly even for someone whose very bones are shaking. “I won’t keep you. As I’ve said, I get it.”

“What are you talking about?” Emma sounds genuinely exasperated. “I told you that I wasn’t just looking for a rebound, I—I am not going to leave you just because Neal is back! I’m with you! Me and Neal can be friends, it’s fine.”

“I don’t need your pity,” Regina snaps, almost a snarl. “I know you don’t want that.”

“Oh, so you know all about what I want now?” Emma snorts, a bitter challenge. She almost rises to it, because blowing them both up in a fight – metaphorically or not, she hasn’t decided – feels like exactly what she needs, yet—Henry. There’s Henry to consider.

So Regina takes a breath, shakes her head, squares her shoulders.

“You can’t tell me that you don’t love him,” she says, slowly. She wants it to be even, it comes out bitter. “I am not going to get in the way of True Love and have you resent me in a few months, and since I don’t think he’d be willing to share—”

“Wait, wait, hold up,” Emma suddenly interrupts, her increasingly frustrated face turning somehow expectant.

Regina chokes on her own words, feeling like she has missed a step and fallen to the ground, unsure how to get back up. She pushes back a wave of tears, somehow getting out a quick: “What?”

“Share?” Emma echoes, a weird inflection in her tone. “Is that—is that a thing people usually do, in the Enchanted Forest?”

Regina wonders if she’s reading her right when she thinks that there’s hopefulness creeping up on Emma’s face, and her stomach shrinks a little. “It’s—not uncommon,” she says, carefully.

“Oh,” Emma breathes out, her lips twitching into a quick smile. “Oh. Okay, so, putting a pin for a second on the fact that I don’t want to leave you, you are not my consolation prize and me and Neal have been not-together for a decade already, it’s complicated and we don’t have to give it another try—would you be okay with something like that?”

Regina stares, her mouth dry and her head feeling a little too light. She can’t seem to take a satisfying breath, and she has no idea if it’s because she can’t believe Emma’s claim that she’d choose her or because she’s letting the hope that she can keep her anyway get to her.

“I mean…” she manages to choke out, her voice thin. “Yeah…”

 

And she is.

She is okay with it.

Yet, when she finds out that Neal is on board too, when they have to establish some ground rules and she has to tame the beast snarling in her at the thought of sharing not only Henry but the entirety of the family that she’s built, she is just as disappointed as she is relieved.

This way, she won’t lose Emma: there is no choice to be made, so she can’t be left behind when she’s recognized as second-best, again.

At the same time, part of her almost wanted to test Emma, to see if she would actually make good on her promise to stick by Regina’s side and keep at it, for the next month, year, forever. Because part of her, the somehow ever hopeful part, believes that Emma is different, that she just needs a chance to prove that she loves her as more than a consolation prize.

This way, instead, Emma gets to keep both the person she actually wants and the rebound. Regina will never have to know.

(Half of her rejoices, the other half hates it. Still, she’ll take what she can get.)

Chapter 2: Neal

Notes:

Here comes the Firequeen part! Thank you very much for the support on the first chapter, I hope you will enjoy this one as well <3

Chapter Text

Kissing Neal just kind of—happens.

 

It starts with him taking her out on a date. Sort of.

They share a son and a girlfriend, he’s always in and out of her house and eventually he comes to her with flowers, of all things, and offers a sheepish smile alongside a night out to get to know each other a little better. After all, up until now, they’ve shared a few spaces but always with Emma or Henry or both between them, it makes sense to try a little harder, doesn’t it?

(Regina wants to say no, something in her screaming intruder and wanting to keep him as far away from her as possible, but Emma is grinning in evident amusement and she knows it’d make her happy; besides, getting to know your enemy is always smart, isn’t it?)

It goes surprisingly well.

Conversation is a bit awkward in the beginning, but it helps that he’s too much of a dork for the whole thing to feel too serious: he takes out the chair for her with an exaggerated bow as soon as they have their table, even if it’s a barely passable restaurant with people yelling their lungs out in lieu of conversation, and it’s easy to snort at that. It also helps that he immediately seizes the opportunity to ask about stories of Henry, since Regina could go all day talking about him, and that apparently they are both big fans of pies.

(If he tries to insist that pumpkin pie is better than apple pie, she can forgive him, he just hasn’t tried hers yet.)

After dinner, when they are taking a walk and her chest is shaken by laughter, her steps falter when she catches sight of Robin and Marian, with Roland between them, all clearly so happy—Regina is mostly over it, she loves Emma, she doesn’t want to run back into his arms anymore, but she still feels a little sick, the disappointment and hurt and not good enough hitting her at full force, stealing her breath away.

Neal grabs her arm, pulls her in the opposite direction. “There’s ice-cream!” he all but yells, enthusiastic. “Let’s get some, we can take it home, Emma and Henry will love us forever!”

She follows, a little thunderstruck for the few seconds that it takes her to realize that the sudden turn is probably not a coincidence, that they weren’t noticed and that she’s grateful.

She feels something in her softening, and she realizes that for pretty much the whole night she has forgotten to be resentful of him.

 

It doesn’t take too long before Neal becomes a permanent presence into their house, not when they have enough room and Henry asks her with big hopeful eyes. What need is there to make him find a place to stay – because his father and his new wife make for awkward roommates, it would seem – when they have the perfect spot for him?

Regina is not even as annoyed as she should be, not when Henry seems so happy to be with him, completely enamoured with his dad who, it’s clear, loves him back just as fiercely.

When she sees them together, she sometimes forgets how to be jealous.

 

Neal doesn’t know her well. He has had to deal with a not too pleasant version of her, when he first stepped into Storybrooke, and although they didn’t have any particularly harsh direct confrontation that would make it too personal, she’s pretty sure he doesn’t trust her.

He has a right to be wary, of course, she puts effort into reminding herself to be understanding of that, but it still tugs unpleasantly at her stomach, maybe because she has gotten too used to Emma and Henry and their vibrant love even in the face of everything she has done, to them and to everyone else.

When there’s an out of control dark fairy in town, mindlessly bringing destruction in her wake, she happens to be with Neal. As soon as she realizes the danger, she moves a step forward, fire already building up in her to counter attack and her mouth moving to tell him to stay back, that she’ll handle it.

She’s under the impression that he’ll need reminding – convincing – for him to trust her with his life.

Instead, before she can even say a word, he utters a curse and cowers behind her, like he knows that she will protect him. She doesn’t know how to name the feeling that blossoms in her chest and brings a smile to her face.

 

She is fine with sharing.

Henry can use all the love that he can get, he deserves it, and Emma—Emma, to her credit, does her best not to play favourites, and they all get along.

That doesn’t mean that Regina doesn’t still feel like she’s the odd one out, sometimes.

She’s living with two people bound by True Love and their biological child, and though she raised him, though Emma sleeps in her bed most nights, it’s easy to feel like they are letting her intrude out of pity, when she sees the three of them together or Emma and Neal talk like two people who understand each other better than anyone else in the entire world.

Emma loves her, wants her, she says, but sometimes Regina can’t help thinking that they’d be so perfect without her, and that they are bound to realize it too, someday.

When Neal frantically waves her over, bent over a laptop and frowning a little at the screen, announcing that he’s planning a vacation, she just knows he doesn’t mean her.

“I thought it’d be nice, all going to Tallahassee together—I mean, I’m keeping that promise more than a decade too late, but still—I’m going to tell Emma too before actually doing anything, but I wanted to look everything up and I’m quickly realizing that I have never actually planned a vacation before.” He interrupts his rambling to throw a nervous smile her way. “Help?”

Regina knows the meaning behind that vacation, Emma told her about Tallahassee one night like many others, and she remembers how she stayed there for a couple of years, way back when. She isn’t sure how she feels about it. “Of course,” she says anyway, getting out a chair for herself and settling next to him.

“Oh, thank god—” he breathes out, gladly pushing the laptop in her direction. “So, like—someplace that is fairly close to a beach but gives out rooms for four without asking for our kidneys in exchange would be nice.”

She turns to him, realizing a few moments too late what he just said. “Four?” she echoes, her stomach leaping in unrestrainable expectation.

He opens his mouth, only to close it again, frowning. “I mean…” he says, shrugging. “I figured you’d want to come with? If not it’s fine, I just thought it’d be nice to, you know, take the whole family and all.”

Oh.

He meant her too.

He hadn’t even considered that she should have stayed behind, and the relief squeezes her lungs tight, her eyes burning. “No, it’s—I’d like to come, yes,” she manages to say, her voice quivering just a little.

He gives her a bright smile, and she dares thinking that it looks a little bit like the ones he reserves for Emma and Henry.

 

One day, Emma and Henry are gone, busy on a vacation with the Charmings, who wanted some bonding time with their grandson and children. That leaves Regina and Neal alone in the house, for ten days, and it’s—well, it’s fine, actually.

Living together is nothing new, and they don’t spend the entirety of their day moping around the house – if anything, they are swiftly avoiding each other during working hours, for the most part, she isn’t sure if accidentally or not. They are pretty decent at making conversation at dinner, in spite of the empty seats, and sometimes they even catch a break when they facetime Emma and Henry together.

It's fine, they get along, they respect each other’s space—yet, somehow, things are as goddamn awkward as when they first agreed to this sharing business in the first place.

It’s almost like they’ve forgotten how to be around each other, hyperaware that they don’t have Emma or Henry as a buffer anymore. It’s absurd, because they obviously spent time alone together before as well, and she can freely admit, at least to herself, that she’s come to appreciate his company, but—but things are weirdly tense and she isn’t sure how to make them better.

And to add to that, Regina can’t for the life of her get some decent sleep.

Perhaps agreeing that he should go back to the guest room, the one that he’d sleep in at first, before Regina decided to get a bigger bed to share so that Emma wouldn’t have to keep moving around between two bedrooms, was not the best idea. They thought it’d be too weird, without Emma, but as a matter of fact Regina is not used to sleeping alone anymore, and she hates it.

The house is too empty, and it’s impossible not to remember in the dead of night, not when her bed is too.

She wakes up on Sunday morning at the time her alarm clock would usually be going off, and her pounding headache is almost enough to make her roll over and close her eyes once again. But she can already feel sleep eluding her, everything in her stepping back into awareness and readying her to get up, and it’s not like she’d probably be any more successful if she tried to rest now, so she sighs and thinks that perhaps relaxing in front of the tv for a while would do her some good. Neal is not going to be up before eleven anyway.

Much to her shock, when she makes her way downstairs she finds that Neal is, in fact, up. In the kitchen. Surrounded by a mess of kitchen supplies and flour and—

“Oh—shit, you’re up,” he starts, when he turns to find her staring. “You gave me a heart attack—uh, good morning.” He throws a quick smile her way, very unsubtly kicking away a big spoon at his feet, as if that could keep her from seeing it.

“What are you doing?”

“Uhm—pie?” he offers, glancing at the oven.

She throws a look in the direction of the clock, just to make sure that it is, in fact, six in the morning. She considers briefly the possibility that she’s faced with a doppelganger and the man up and about at such hour is not Neal at all, or that maybe he went insane—that wouldn’t make neither Emma nor Henry particularly happy.

“Why?” she resolves to ask, a touch too exasperated. Or better, just the right amount of exasperated for someone who feels like she hasn’t slept a wink.

He shrugs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. There’s flour plastered all over his shirt, and she doesn’t think she wants to take a closer look at the floor.

“I’ve noticed you haven’t exactly been sleeping great these past few days, and since I have no idea what to do about that I figured I’d, uh—try to bribe your mood into improving? With food? Sugar’s good for the mood, right?”

Regina blinks at him.

Did he just—did he just say that he’s up at six in the morning because he wanted to improve her mood?

“You can’t bake,” is what she ends up saying. It’s probably one of the worst things that she could have come up with and she wants to smack herself in the back of head afterwards, but to be fair she’s a little—thunderstruck, standing very still, her skin prickling, her mouth awfully dry and something stuck in her throat.

Neal snorts. “Oh, believe me, I know. My search history at this point is half very detailed baking instructions for dummies, and you don’t want to know how many alarms I had to set to be sure to wake up—I’m pretty sure my phone was judging me. Speaking of which, I’m not going to tell you at what hour I set them, but you should know that you are morally obligated to say that it’s good, even if tastes like—”

Next thing she knows, she’s crossed the distance between them, grabbed his shirt and all but smashed their mouths together. Her bones vibrate with the force of all the thank yous that she’d need to say, so maybe it’s only natural that her body found another way to express how much she loves him for this.

He's ridiculous and sweet and he immediately leans towards her, wraps his arms around her middle to pull her closer, and it’s stupid how much a simple – attempted – pie is making her want to cry. She blames the sleep deprivation.

He pulls back first, though he rests his forehead against hers, their noses brushing. “Hmm—I should bake more often,” he grins.

She attempts a glare, though given their current position it wouldn’t have worked even if she hadn’t been fighting off a smile. “Do not,” she says, sternly. “And don’t touch my kitchenware.”

“You’re rude and ungrateful, you know that?”

“Well, you didn’t have to kiss me back.”

He snorts. “Have you met Emma? I like rude.”

She hums, fidgeting with his shirt, still clasped between her fingers. The lump in her throat has terrible timing, and she’d like nothing better than to enjoy the moment and suffocate how badly she needs to ask this, but— “Does this mean you can come back to our room?”

“Sure, if you like.” He gives her a peck on the lips, probably not feeling the relief coming off her in waves and the way her shoulders relax. “It also means that Emma is going to kill us. She’s been dropping hints that we’d make a cute couple for weeks.”

Regina frowns. “Has she?”

“Oh, yeah. I didn’t think you were interested, but—” He grins, giving her another peck on the lips, which makes her roll her eyes and bury her fingers in his hair, pushing him forward to deepen the kiss.

It feels like the final piece of a puzzle she didn’t know she was trying to solve finally decided to slide into its rightful place and, even as she chews barely decent apple pie and helps cleaning up the mess that’s become of their kitchen, she feels at peace.

Notes:

This story is part of the LLF Comment Project, which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates comments, including:

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