So Does This Make Us Both The Other Woman?

22. An Exercise In Self-Control (Trust A Charming To Be This Bad At It)

"You're here!" David announces when he opens the door, relief on his face. "She's here!" he calls out toward the stairs and Regina watches, bemused, as there's a parade of feet down the stairs from Emma's bedroom to the door of the loft.

"Oh, thank god." Snow balances Leo on her hip and takes Regina's hand to tug her to the steps. "We've been- well, you'll see."

What they've been doing is attempting to bring Emma's bed downstairs in one piece, with typical Charming bullheaded impatience. And naturally, now it's on its side and threatening to slide down onto all of them while Henry and Hook and Emma stand below, pushing desperately at it.

She quirks a brow. "It's been a half-hour since you said you'd start moving Emma out, and you've already managed this disaster?"

"Shh. I can handle this." Emma's eyes are closed, her focus on the bed, and it lurches forward toward Henry as he shrieks and nearly falls down the stairs.

"You will not manhandle our son!" Regina says sharply, raising her hand to lift the bed. It soars through the air, separating into frame and box spring and mattress, and lands neatly on its side next to her.

Henry flashes her a grin while Emma pouts. "I was doing fine!"

"You were one magically powered shove from breaking Henry's leg!"

But Emma is smiling again, following Henry down the stairs to greet her. "Thanks for coming." It's almost shy, and then she swipes her tongue over her lips and Regina knows exactly what she's thinking about.

She bites her own lip and Emma watches it for a moment before she tears her gaze away. "Yes, well, someone has to make sure you idiots don't kill our son." She's been dragging her feet all morning, reluctant to come here and watch Emma with Killian all day. It had never hurt quite this much before when Emma had been reluctant and Regina had been distracted, and now she finds herself scowling at every light touch of his against Emma's arm, every time she tosses him a grin and every time he kisses her. It feels like...

It feels like Emma's been lying to one of them all along like she's said things she'd never meant and reconsidered them all, and Regina loathes her a tiny bit for it.

But then she'd thought about Emma lying facedown on her bed and her first choices for an apartment and how alone she'd feel after pushing her parents away, and she hadn't been able to stay at home and let Emma go through that alone.

It's strange, caring more about Emma than about what Emma can do for her. She wonders if this is what it's like to be a Charming, annoyingly simpering and always giving, giving, giving to the people they'd taken so much from in the past. If this is how she makes amends. You don't need to keep trying to die for us to prove you're enough.

And maybe she has nothing to prove anymore to them, but Emma needs her.

She follows the other woman up the staircase to where there are three large boxes piled up in Emma's now-bare room. "You've already moved everything else?"

Emma shakes her head. "Henry's stuff is mostly at your place, anyway, so he only had a box. The rest of this is mine."

"This is it?" Regina says, eyeing the two boxes marked with Emma's name.

Emma shrugs, suddenly self-conscious. "Mary Margaret folds things really well. And I don't have much more than clothes. There are a few things from New York and my laptop but I travel light. The apartment is fully furnished aside from the second bed."

It just seems sad, somehow, that this is all Emma has from years spent in this town, from shaking so many people's lives to their roots and getting nothing in return. There should be at least a few keepsakes. Maybe a sword.