Niggles In Paris 2 (Patreon)

It was a day that began with T, so magic worked outside of Storybrooke. And the promised necklace was, as with all things Regina, effortlessly elegant. It hung down to Emma’s breasts, studded with diamonds, falling underneath Emma’s high-cut neckline, an enticement to look through the sheer dress to where the necklace nestled between her bustier’d boobs. Regina, the big artiste.

She, of course, looked stunning herself. Emma had thought, as the pink smoke transported them to France, that she’d be simply wearing the power suit she’d favored in the office. It made them look a bit like a queenpin and her gangland floozy going to lunch, but that kinda worked for Emma.

But when the smoke cleared and they were in Gay Paree, Regina was wearing a flowing red dress, lace neckline cutting across her ample bosom, embroidered hem splitting at her long legs, black gloves, black Manolos, smoky eyeliner and a ruby necklace that still couldn’t compete with her chest.

Emma gawked at her more than at the City of Lights.

“Come along,” Regina told her, clearly enjoying how she’d stunned Emma, the witch. “You can’t just stare at me all night.”

“What’s the over-under on that?” Emma retorted.

“Emma, please, let me get some wine in me before we start getting over and under things.”

That was a sex joke. Emma knew it was a sex joke. And she knew Regina was something of a seductress, or at least liked to play at being one, or felt she had to present herself as one because she had this reputation that she played to even though she hated it—complicated woman.

Still, Emma was so used to PTA, soccer mom, ‘my son cannot eat glutens’ Regina that it took her back to have sexy Regina in the building—even if her own fantasies were not about Regina forbidding glutens.

Except for that one weird dream which had made her swear off smoking anything with caterpillars ever again.

It reminded her that, as used as she was to being the most messed up person in a relationship… even when she’d spent the last half-decade pretty much exclusively interacting with fairy tale characters… Regina was not what you’d call drama-free. She liked to project being the most put-together person ever, but deep down… not even that deep down… a lot of her was a disaster zone. The storm gone, the rebuilding in process, but still a long way from being back to normal.

Emma didn’t like that, of course. She hated the awful hand that Regina had been dealt and how it had literally trained her to lash out, holding onto her anger because it was the only thing that made her feel safe. But she did like the thought of being there for Regina, of being able to… not fix her, but help put in new windows and replant uprooted trees. Take care of her.

Regina looked askew, like her little show-offy move had backfired. Now that she’d bribed the maître d' and a table was being sought out on the cobblestone café Regina had picked out for them, she put her attention on Emma.

“You’re quiet,” Regina noted. “Which, as a rule, you’re not.”

“How can I spoil the way you look with words?” Emma asked.

“You’ve seen me wear a fancy dress before,” Regina said dismissively. Then, she added airily: “Even if it is a revelation every time.”

“I saw the Evil Queen wear a dress,” Emma corrected. “Not you.”

“And I’m her,” Regina corrected back. “It’s not like one of Henry’s comic books where I’m possessed by an alien costume or replaced with a mutant shapeshifter. I did those things. I regret them, but I can’t take them back—“

Emma sighed. “Mills, I know. Believe me, I know. You think—“

The maître d' interrupted them. Their table was ready. At least, that’s what Emma thought he was saying. Maybe as Queen, Regina had been expected to negotiate a good dowry as she married her cousin off to a viscount in the Gallic part of Fantasyland, but for Emma, French had just been a class for her to cut so she could go behind the bleachers and do things Henry would never, ever know about.

They strolled to a table under the stars. The boulevard, shining with a recent rain, led down to a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower. Emma wondered what magazine Regina had read about this place in. Maybe she should be as old-fashioned as Lady Enoch and read a few glossies herself instead of going to websites like a normal person. She was on a date with a sorceress in France and thirty minutes ago, she’d been unclogging a toilet in Maine. Normal was a nonrenewable resource for her.

Emma looked at the menu. A quick jigger of pink smoke and Regina had turned it to English, with dictionary definitions under each menu item.

“Show-off,” Emma said again.

“I just don’t want you to order an appetizer as your main course.”

“Yes, I’d never recover from that.”

Regina set her watch. “Alright, I’m giving them fifteen minutes to bring us our drinks, thirty minutes to bring out appetizers, and forty-five for our meal. Sixty minutes for dessert, if we’re getting that. If they miss one deadline, I’m taking it out of their tip. Two and we’re leaving. No excuses for poor service.”

“Is your pocket watch in the shop?” Emma asked.

Regina glanced at her the same way a cold front came in.

“Sorry, the wristwatch just doesn’t seem to fit your motif.”

“It was a gift from Tinkerbell.”

“And you’re wearing it?”

“You said to let people be nice to me. And it tells the time.”

“So does a smartphone. So does the grandfather clock in your office.”

Regina sighed and shook her head. “That thing’s been fast since the seventies. I can’t figure out how to fix it and there are some things even magic can’t do.”

Emma grinned in triumph. “Then it’s only there for the aesthetic!?”

“Yes, Emma, I like the way it looks. Sue me.”

“You are such a… what’s the word?”

“Aesthete.”

“Thank you. I knew it started with an A.”

“Sheriff,” Regina said icily.

“Wait, you were wrong, it was artiste. The Frenchy kind.”

“I don’t take that as an insult.”

“I mean, you can a little.”

The conversation lulled. A long, surpassingly comfortable silence while Emma drank in the scenery and the pleasant languor of the Parisian conversation surrounding them and how good Regina looked and how good she looked and how she was going straight from cereal for breakfast to French cuisine for lunch.

“What did you mean before?” Regina asked after the waiter brought them their wine.

“You’ll have to be more specific there,” Emma said. “Half the time I don’t know what I’m talking about right now, so if we’re going into the past…”

“When you said you’d seen the Evil Queen in a fancy dress, but not me. Usually, your family’s the first to rake me over the coals for what I’ve done. Are you letting me off the hook just because you want to sleep with me?”

Emma had taken a quick sip of wine to fortify herself for this conversation. She snorted on it after that last sentence. “Jesus, Regina! I thought I was the blunt one.”

“I don’t find dancing around the real topics of conversation to be exceedingly polite. Not when it’s something important to you.”

Emma set her wine down. “Okay, first off, I’ll admit my family can be a little… ungenerous when it comes to you. But you’ve hurt them a lot. I know we’ve all forgiven each other and forgiven each other and forgiven each other, but as long as we’re being blunt, I don’t appreciate you getting defensive and acting like my parents are monsters because they get upset with you from time to time.”

“I’m not—“ Regina took a deep breath. “I could’ve phrased that better. You’re right. It is a bit ridiculous for me, of all people, to call someone out on holding a grudge.”

“Even if it would be a lot easier on me if they didn’t,” Emma said.

Regina smiled gratefully. “Yes, well, even I can’t be perfect.”

“Try taking the dress off,” Emma muttered.

Regina’s cheeks flushed. Oh my God, Emma thought. I made her blush.

“Second?” Regina pressed, swirling her wine.

“Buh?” Emma replied, still stuck on how cute Regina looked with a bit of a blush.

“You said ‘first off,’ implying a—“

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Second part,” Regina concluded.

“Secondly,” Emma gratified her, getting an appreciative nod from Regina. “I’ve spent a lot of time thinking through what you did and who you are now and what happened to make you the way you were and are and—shit, Regina, you’re my kid’s mom. And even if you didn’t mean to, even if you were… drafted into it, you hurt me. Made me an orphan. Robbed me of a childhood and normalcy and just about everything I could’ve had that I wanted. It takes a long time to process that. But I have. Don’t tell me that you’ve hurt people like it hasn’t occurred to me. It has. I know you’re not that person anymore.”

Regina was literally taken aback, sagging against the wrought-iron of her chair. “Emma… all that because I’m wearing a dress?”

“Well… yeah. Thatwoman might look like you, but she’s so far off from being you. A lifetime away. You without Henry or this town or all we’ve been through together—I don’t recognize her. And seeing you wearing that, but knowing that it’s you… this—huge nerd that likes reading bedtime stories to our kid and watching the McLaughlin Group…”

“I don’t like watching the McLaughlin Group, but it’s my responsibility as a citizen to have an informed opinion on current events.”

“Yeah, like I said, huge nerd.” Emma drained her wine flute. “Next time the waiter comes, tell him to leave the bottle.”

Regina pushed her own glass over to Emma. “Wishing you’d held back on the pocket watch crack so the conversation didn’t die?”

“I promised myself I wouldn’t bring up the McLaughlin Group, but goddamn, Regina, you have the body of a sorority girl and you watch TV like a grandparent. You made me turn off Scandal.”

Regina’s eyebrows went as arch as her voice. “Apologies for thinking they don’t have to simulate coitus so accurately to convey their plotline.”

Emma grinned. “You’re totally playing up the mommy dommy thing, aren’t you?”

“I have no idea what that is,” Regina said innocently. “But if I did, I also know you like it.”

“Oh, we are not talking about that on a first date.”

“Wise decision when you’re wearing a see-through dress.”

“Mills!” Emma hissed under her breath.

“I knew I shouldn’t have made the panties white. You can’t control yourself.”

“You’d better hope I can’t.”

Regina smirked. “Thinking about kicking my ass?”

“Right body part, wrong verb.”

Their appetizers arrived. Smoked salmon canapes for Emma and an Alsatian cheese tart for Regina, which Emma instantly sampled. Regina also checked her watch. Of course, the woman really did want to know if the café of their romantic Parisian date had met her deadline.

“What do you want to talk about?” Regina asked. “Now that we’ve exhausted my sordid past and my wristwatch, which was a gift from a friend?”

Emma rested her head on her hand and stared at Regina. It was such a seismic shift realizing that she could just look at her without getting embarrassed or trying to hide it. She’d asked Regina out. She was allowed to stare at her. All of the dress and the jewels and the make-up was Regina giving her permission to stare.

“You choose,” she said. “I’ll just put my foot in my mouth.”

“Right verb, wrong body part,” Regina told her. “What would make for pleasant lunch, or possibly dinner, conversation? Hmm… When did you first realize you were attracted to me?”

Emma dropped her hand from her chin to slap on the tabletop. “Wow.”

“Egocentric?”

“A little.”

“I’ve spent a long time on self-loathing. As much as you hated me, I’ve been an old hand at it—“

“Hey.” Emma rattled her fingernail on the pine table. “I never hated you. I was just angry with you. There’s a difference.”

“Well, I hated me. And as much time as it took you to sort out how you should feel about me, it took me an eternity to forgive myself for… all that. So now I’m ready to talk about how great I am.”

“That’s fair,” Emma allowed, even if she did steal some more of Regina’s cheese tart as punishment.

“Why did I even pay for your canapes?”

“Because you make money appear out of thin air?”

“The cook still put in an effort. You shouldn’t let it go to waste.”

“I think here they’re called the chef,” Emma informed her. “Wait, aren’t they called a chef in America too? Is there a difference?”

“Yes, but we’re getting off-topic.”

“Thanks for warning me off before I could stop talking about you.”

Regina stole one of her canapes.

“Day one,” Emma said.

“If we’re going to keep a running tally of who eats whose food, I think you should trust me to do it. I can swear to keep my recordings fair and accurate.”

“I was attracted to you the first day,” Emma said. “Tiny, tiny child knocks on my door, leads me to a small town, and the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen is there waiting for me. Probably why I was so pissed off with you that first month. You were running some goddamn racket or another and you had to look so damn… you.”

“You weren’t totally horrendous yourself that first month,” Regina said.

“Stop trying to butter me up with flattery, Reg, you’re embarrassing yourself.”

Regina’s hand fluttered up into the air. “You grew more attractive.”

Emma’s lips parted in a gaping smile. “You fell for me!”

“No, Storybrooke is a much healthier environment than that hellhole you were staying in.”

“Boston.”

“Less processed foods, less pollution, no NFTs…”

“What’s an NFT?” Emma asked.

“Banned in Storybrooke, that’s what they are. You’re welcome.”

Emma pursed her lips, sure that no amount of make-up could help the furrow in her brow from consternation. “So your contention is that, instead of you falling for me, I grew more attractive from living in the town that you run?”

“I think you also got more exercise,” Regina said. “Remember those first few weeks? You were always running around somewhere. I got exhausted just looking at you.”

“I got exhausted seeing you in those heels.”

“They were meant to make you want to go to bed.”

“Right place, wrong ve—wait…”

“No, keep going,” Regina encouraged. “You’re just about being witty.”

“You’re witty,” Emma retorted.

“And well-bred. Eloquent. Charming. Mannered.”

“Hasn’t taken you long to get good at loving yourself.”

“Can I help how lovable I am?”

“You’re lovable? I’m wearing a see-through dress. Which you put me in.”

“You see what I mean about living in Storybrooke improving your looks?” Regina’s watch beeped. “Forty-five minutes, no meal. Let’s go.”

“I thought a missed deadline just meant you left them a bad tip,” Emma teased.

Regina stood, tossing some Euros on the table. “I have a bad tip for them. Put your date in a see-through dress before you wait an hour to eat.”

“You’re that eager to see the haircut you gave me?”

Regina bit her lip a little guiltily. “…yes.”

“You should be. I’ve had enough Brazilians to know I look spectacular.”

“Emma, you’re going to ruin the mood if you keep bringing up your exes.”