Miles To Go

Chapter Twenty-Six

Every following weekend since the wedding, they had met halfway in Boston, only they opted on going to a small, reclusive bed and breakfast an hour out of the city. They never missed another weekend apart, not wanting to go through it ever again. Five days was already long enough and this week was different, they only had to spend a few days apart before Regina would drive down to New York City to spend the next five days with Emma and Henry for Thanksgiving.

Regina had been waiting for this trip to New York City since Emma put the offer out there for her to join them there for Thanksgiving and to stay for the entire weekend as well. Of course she said yes in a heartbeat, her own mother wasn't in the country since she was off vacationing in the French Riviera and wouldn't return until the holiday was over. She couldn't even remember the last time she had actually celebrated Thanksgiving since her mother never had since before her father had passed away.

Regina was fully looking forward to this trip, so much in fact that she had woken up at three in the morning on Wednesday and was in the car not even an hour later. Emma wasn't expecting her until the very next day, but she wanted to surprise her and if she made good time driving down, she's be there around noon or shortly after. Her excitement in surprising Emma was almost too much to contain as she drove down the interstate. She was itching to call Emma like they always did when they made the drive to Boston together just to pass the time a little quicker. She didn't want to call her because she didn't want to ruin the surprise.

That made the very long drive to the city feel so much longer. It gave her a lot of time to think, however, and no matter what direction her thoughts took, they all came back down to one thing. To that morning after the wedding, Henry's freak out because they had heard them, her words calming him down and then Emma telling her that she would be a wonderful mother. One day. She would be a wonderful mother one day and it just tore at her heart because if she had only just listened to Emma years ago, she could've already been that wonderful other mother to Henry.

Every time that thought came to her mind, she had to fight back the tears because there was absolutely nothing she could do now about that. She didn't have the power to turn back time, to do everything in her life far differently that would have led her on a much different path and one that likely wasn't a life in Storybrooke as a Mayor and closeted lesbian who was in a serious, longing distance relationship with the woman she had fallen for many, many years ago.

The rumours that had been circulating had continued after the wedding, murmurs of a blonde woman being the current object of the Mayor's affection didn't die down for weeks and Regina was just so relieved that her mother had gone off to vacation in the French Riviera for her usual two months like she did every year. She had no idea how she would've dealt with her mother and the silence she had given during the height of the rumours that were circulating sent a very clear message to the people that were talking about her and Emma.

She had tried to figure out ways to tell her mother without the repercussions she knew would come afterwards. She had tried to overcome her fear completely, but she couldn't get past that cowardice that clung to her like a second skin, especially not when it came to her mother. She just wanted to go through with it just because she hated the side of her that hid her true self, not just from her mother but from most of her town, colleagues and friends. The wedding had been a huge step for her, to be with Emma in such a public way, to kiss her even if they were chaste and quick kisses that looked nothing more than a friendly peck. The people who had attended the wedding were not the ones spreading the rumours either because they were people she was told she could trust and they had proven that much.

She had tried and failed to find anything they had done during Emma's time in Storybrooke to elicit such rumours to even begin in the first place, and nothing came to mind because they had been so private during those months. Unless there had been someone purposely spying on them, Regina had no idea how those rumours even started and it still bothered her that she didn't know. Maybe she would never know, but that didn't mean she didn't want to get to the bottom of things.