Lady In The Mirror

Chapter 16: Road back home.

"Everything looks fine back there", the blonde said, leaning over the driver's window where Regina was sitting. The brunette was igniting the engine so that Emma could check if everything were working correctly, "Please open the trunk. I need to see if my stuff is still in there".

Emma walked to the front of the car, thinking she only cared to find one of her belongings there. The rest did not matter in the least. The belonging she really cared about was something that had been with her throughout her entire life, and she couldn't conceive of losing.

After opening a few boxes in the trunk, she found it, her baby blanket. For some reason, she pulled it out and hugged it tightly as she had always done when she was a child and had been separated from it for a long span of time.

"Did you find what you were looking for?" Regina asked, approaching her side, and suddenly she felt the need to hide the object she was hugging so tightly behind her back. However, the brunette noticed her action right away and snatched the blanket from her hands to inspect it."This is your mother's handwriting. She must have embroidered this before you were born. Emma, you don't need to hide it from me. I know you still don't believe in the curse or the enchanted forest, and this object must be very important to you because it is everything you have from your parents, so it is important to me too. Although I must admit, I should have forced your mother to get better embroidery classes as a child. This lacks in the perfection department, certainly not a blanket designed for a Princess".

"Would you have done it better?" Emma asked, taking the blanket from Regina's hands and placing it back in the trunk.

"If you were my child Emma, everything would have been majestic in your wardrobe and nursery, including your baby blankets and custom-made diapers", Regina smiled, thinking back to her dark castle and which would have been the perfect room to fit in a nursery.

"I didn't think a queen would sew custom-made diapers for her child", Emma laughs.

"We have servants for that, Emma, but your mother had dwarfs instead", Regina rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, let's get back to the part where you are not actually my mother. I'm really glad for that part", Emma said, observing how pain instantly settled down on Regina's features as the words left her lips and she shut the trunk.

"Yeah, of course, the Evil Queen doesn't sound much as mother material", Regina replied hastily, trying to blink away the few tears forming in her eyes before Emma could see them.

"If you asked five-year-old me, she would prefer the Evil Queen over Snow White any day", Emma shrugged, taking Regina's hand and walking her to the driver's door again. She pulled the handle in the seat to make it tilt forward and slide to the front, allowing space for someone to get in the backseat, "your majesty", She bowed a little, offering Regina to go in first.

"Why are we getting in the backseat?" The brunette asked warily, looking at the rather reduced space Emma wanted her to crawl in.

"We need to check it's safe to transport Henry", Emma replied innocently, and Regina quickly slid in because when it comes to Henry's safety, she was the first to jump into action.

"And if I asked YOU?" Regina asked when Emma followed her into the yellow bug.

"If you asked me what? Which mother would I pick nowadays?" Emma questioned, and Regina nodded her head in response.

"Snow White any day", Emma responds, watching tears welling up in Regina's eyes quicker than she could finish her sentence. "You see, your majesty, there are some things I would rather do with the Evil Queen that I couldn't do if she were my mother".