Miles To Go

Chapter Sixty

Emma drove the cruiser to Cora Mills' house at promptly three in the afternoon with a slightly nervous Regina fidgeting in the seat next to her. Emma smoothed a sweaty palm over her black dress pants and glanced down at the crisp white button down shirt she wore, the top three buttons left undone, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She felt like it was too much, but Regina had urged her to dress nicely for dinner with Cora, not just because Cora would expect them to, but because it showed they were both willing to try and give her another chance as well.

Regina had taken great care in what she wore, first selecting a summery dress but quickly discarding it, claiming for it to be too summery and too casual. The second outfit was something she normally wore to the office, a charcoal grey pantsuit. She determined after wearing it for a full five minutes that the jacket wasn't a good choice as the weather was still quite warm and she stripped it off and tossed it on top of the summery dress on the bed and began to unbutton her shirt, worrying aloud that it was far too similar to the one Emma had chosen to wear.

In the end, four shirt changes later, she'd settled on a deep purple blouse, one of her more modest ones and they were off. They dropped Henry off at Granny's cottage before making the drive to the other side of town where Cora lived in her sprawling mansion Emma had only ever seen on that security footage they couldn't even use to connect her to Vinnie and him to being the trigger man when Emma was shot.

She hadn't stopped thinking about the things that Cora had done to her since she woke up that morning. It left a sour taste in her mouth and her stomach twisting with deeply woven anger and revolt. But she bit the bullet, determined to keep her wife happy even if she had far too many reservations about having dinner with the woman who had reached the point at stopping at nothing to get her out of her daughter's life.

"It'll be fine, darling," Regina whispered, offering a comforting smile before checking her pocket mirror to make sure her hair and makeup were fine. "Come on. She hates to be kept waiting and we're already late."

"I can think of a lot of things your mother hates, Regina."

"Emma...please," she sighed and shook her head. "I know how incredibly hard this is for you. It is for I as well, but she's willing to give us a chance."

"Makes you wonder why the sudden change of heart, hmm?"

"Emma, she came to our wedding. Perhaps what she saw that day was the start of something, the start of her willing to try to accept us together."

Emma rolled her eyes, thankful that Regina was already climbing out of the car and hadn't seen her reaction. With a quick glance in the review mirror, Emma climbed out of the car and joined her with at the walkway, taking a deep breath while she reached for her hand. Regina smiled at her and she couldn't resist leaning over to kiss her wife lovingly as they intertwined their fingers.

They walked up to the front door and Emma twitched the second Regina jabbed the doorbell with her finger. Moments later the door swung open and Cora appeared in front of them, her lips pressed tightly into what looked more like a scowl than a smile. She said not a word, motioning for them to enter the house and Emma let Regina lead her inside the enormous foyer. The first thing Emma noticed wasn't the decor but rather how the house smelled clean, like freshly washed linen. It wasn't at all what she imagined.

"Sorry we're late, Mother," Regina said, not taking her hand out of Emma's while Cora shut the big white door quickly. "We had to drop Henry off at—"

"Of course, it's no problem, dear," Cora cut her off, waving dismissively at her. "Sheriff Swan."

"You can call her Emma," Regina said and Emma felt her clench her hand a little tighter while Cora breezed through the foyer and into the first room to the left.