Miles To Go

Chapter Seventy-Nine

Life took off in a series of moments, both big and small. Thanksgiving rolled around quickly and they spent it with everyone they considered as a part of their family, Granny, Ruby, Kathryn, and the Nolan's. It had been uneventful until the turkey started to burn in the oven and the smoke detector started blaring before anyone could make the dash to the kitchen to extinguish the bird. Not even Granny had been able to salvage it enough for it to be edible.

It'd became the first Thanksgiving without a turkey and after a quick trip to the diner, Granny returned with hamburgers and fresh cut french friends for everyone. In the end it hadn't mattered what they had for dinner, it was the fact that they spent the holiday with family and shared laughter and tears and everything else in between that day.

Their first Christmas with Rachel proved to be a very special time for their family. Like at Thanksgiving, they spent it at the house together while snow gently fell outside. Granny spent the afternoon in the kitchen with Ruby and Kathryn, cooking up a feast. Emma and Regina spent that time curled up on the chair together in the den, watching their children and the Nolan baby play with the toys they'd gotten from Santa together.

That year, Cora Mills couldn't ruin their Christmas, but it hadn't meant that nobody was thinking of her and what had happened just a year before. After they'd ate the feast Granny, Ruby and Kathryn had prepared and the kids were tucked away in bed, the alcohol began flowing freely between the adults. The music was on, kept low enough not to wake the kids, and with the burn of the alcohol flowing in their veins, everyone started dancing with each other, Mary Margaret opting out while David took Granny in his arms and danced with her instead.

Regina and Emma fell asleep that night, late and long after the others had left, talking about plans to buy a summer vacation home somewhere in Vermont. Emma thought it'd been the alcohol talking, but the very next morning she woke up not in her wife's arms, but to the sound of the keyboard clicking as Regina sat in bed with her laptop and looked at some properties that were for sale in Vermont.

New Years Eve turned out to be twice as spectacular as the year before, the house filled with hundreds of guests, happy, joyful laughter flowing just under the loud music that played. It was just after midnight when something amazing had happened and it wasn't for them, but for Ruby and Kathryn.

In the middle of the crowded foyer, Ruby yelled at the DJ to turn the music off and she got down on one knee and proposed to Kathryn in front of almost everyone that was at the party. Regina was overcome with emotion at the sight of the two women, both her and her wife's best friends, finally finding their own happy ending together. When the music turned back on, couples paired off, dancing the rest of the night away.

They made the trip to Vermont as a family in the middle of January to look at a few vacation houses there. With every place they looked at, Henry and Rachel loved each one, but Regina was picky and Emma wasn't sure if Vermont was the right place for them to spend their summers when it was always cooler by the coast. After they spent four days in Vermont, they returned home and Regina called their old Agent, Robyn LeBell and asked for her to find them a summer vacation home either in Maine or Massachusetts. It'd only taken Robyn a week before she was sending over faxes of properties to Regina's office and at the end of January, they started making trips in both states up and down the coastline.

It was the cute little blue summer cottage just north of Camden, Maine that stole their hearts and it was perfect for their family, right on their very own rocky beach, tucked back far from the road with no neighbours in sight. Emma knew what really sold them on the little blue cottage. It was the small stables and lush forest with riding trails that had made Regina and Henry both fall in love with the property.