Sleepwalking

Happily Ever After?

A/N: Well, here it is. The final chapter of Sleepwalking. I really hope you enjoy it!

There's a few little notes I want to add before you start reading.

First: There is a flashback sequence, that runs in someone's mind. It'll be in italics to indicate the memory.

Second: There is a very very brief trigger warning for a very brief discussion of past domestic violence.

"Is that when they lived 'Happily Ever After' Daddy?" Lucy asked.

Ten year old Lucy Mills sat at the edge of her seat, as she listened intently as her father told her the story of how her grandmothers fell in love.

"Hardly. It took them months to finally admit their feelings for each other. Instead, they fought like cats and dogs almost every day." Henry answered. "But they weren't fooling anyone. Every night, when GrandmaEmma thought I was asleep, I heard her creeping down the hallway. She forgot that I had spent the past year listening for the sounds of her walking around at night. I caught her sneaking into GrandmaRegina's room. Every night, no matter what they fought about that day, GrandmaEmma always crawled into bed with GrandmaRegina and held her close. They thought I didn't know, but I did." Henry winked.

"Is that true, GrandmaEmma? Why did you keep going back to GrandmaGina's room?" Lucy asked.

"Because I missed her. Even though we had been fighting all day long, at night I really missed her. And I knew she missed me too." Emma said, draping her arm around her wife's shoulders.

"Did you, GrandmaGina? Did you miss GrandmaEmma too?"

"Very much so." Regina smiled.

"Then why did you guys fight so much?" A confused Lucy asked.

"That's because your GrandmaRegina hated me when we first met." Emma laughed.

"Hate is such a strong word, Dear ." Regina said, a little ashamed of how she acted when Emma first arrived to Storybrooke. "But there was a small amount of anger associated with your GrandmaEmma."

"Why were you so angry with GrandmaEmma?"

"I wasn't really angry with GrandmaEmma. I was more angry with myself because I was afraid of the way I felt about her. I just took it out on her." Regina explained.

"So why didn't you tell GrandmaEmma that?" Lucy asked.

"I think I was afraid of that too. Things happened when I was younger that made it very hard for me to express myself." Regina explained, once again ashamed of how she acted.

"And all it took was a massive snow storm for your GrandmaRegina to finally open up to me." Emma smiled.

"What happened?" Lucy asked, turning her focus back to her grandmothers, eager to hear the rest of their story.

"It was a Saturday in January. Your dad was spending time with his grandparents, your great-grandparents, and eventually decided to stay the night, since it was snowing pretty bad. Your GrandmaRegina and I were fighting all morning, and I finally got tired of being yelled at, so I decided to go to work for a few hours. There wasn't really anything that needed my immediate attention, I just needed to get out of the house for a few hours." Emma started to explain.

"You were running away from your problems, admit it." Regina laughed.

"Ok, I was running away from the problem." Emma laughed. "Anyway, as the day progressed the storm picked up and suddenly it was a full blown blizzard. When I finally decided to go home, my trusty Bug decided to take that moment to not start. It was probably for the best, since the roads were really bad and the plows weren't scheduled to start cleaning for a few hours. Of course, to add insult to injury, I had left my cell phone at home in my rush to leave. It was the trifecta of disaster: dead car battery, missing cell phone and massive blizzard. So, in my infinite wisdom..."