Miles To Go

Chapter Fifty-Eight

The sound of the front door to the station being slammed shut was what lulled Emma out of the nap she had not intended to falling into. Two days. Two days after their mini-honeymoon and Cora Mills had shown up at the station with a purpose that was that of her own. Emma tiredly wiped at her eyes as she stood behind her desk while Ruby tried to tell Cora she would need an appointment, a lie that didn't pass at all.

"Sheriff Swan," Cora said when she appeared in the doorway of her office.

"Ms. Mills," Emma replied in a clipped tone.

"Now that's no way to great your mother-in-law, is it, dear?"

"What are you doing here?" Emma asked, glaring the woman down, not for one second forgetting all the ways she had interfered in her life and her love with Regina. "What do you want?"

Cora smiled, moving from where she had been lingering in the doorway of her office and held up the box she held in her hand. "I've come bearing a peace offering, of at the very least, the start of one," she said and she snapped her fingers at August who was on his feet in an instant. "Be a dear and set these pastries down somewhere for me, will you? Thank you."

"A peace offering?" Emma scoffed, unmoving from where she sat behind her desk. "You really are on a different level of crazy, aren't you? If you think a box of donuts is the start of a peace offering—"

"I know we've had our differences, dear," Cora said evenly, walking over to one of the chairs and sitting down on the opposite side of her desk, "yet I was hoping to settle them. You are, after all, married to my daughter now, Sheriff Swan."

"Settle our differences?" Emma couldn't help but laugh. "You think I don't know what you've done, Cora? You ruined my life, you tried to have me killed! You'd do anything to keep me from being with Regina! How the hell do I know this isn't another one of your attempts at coming between us?"

"Believe what you will, dear, but as I said, I've come here with a peace offering. It is entirely up to you whether you take it or not," Cora said, her tone unchanging. "While it is still increasingly impossible for me to accept the nature of your relationship with my dear daughter, I cannot deny that she is happier than I ever remember her being. A big part of her happiness, I suspect, is because of you."

Emma bit her tongue and laced her fingers together behind her head as she leaned back in her chair. She tried in vain to stifle a yawn, but Regina had kept her up til the early hours of the morning and she had no doubt her wife was fighting sleep in her own office at that very moment as well. She smirked despite her resolve to stay neutral in front of Cora. Regina had opened up on a whole different level after their weekend away in Boston and the sex had been different and far more intense than ever before.

"I'm sure you would never believe me when I tell you that I am trying to accept your...relationship with Regina," Cora said after a few heavy minutes of silence between them. "It is quite difficult, dear. It is not how I raised her."

"You can't help who you fall in love with," Emma replied easily. "Man or woman, it is the way it is. It shouldn't make any difference, Cora. Regina is happy with me. Isn't your daughter's happiness the only thing you should care about?"

"Quite," Cora said tightly. "I do want my daughter to be happy."

Her gaze wandered from Emma, moving to stare at the pictures that hung on the wall behind her and then to the one on her desk that she turned around to examine more closely, a picture of her and Regina, her with her arms around her, both of them laughing as Henry poked half his head into the frame when Ruby had snapped the picture. It'd been taken shortly before she had been shot and there was no doubt concerning the happiness of all three of them in that picture, especially Regina since her smile said it all.