Someone Will Remember Us - Swanqueen

Chapter 5

Ever since the moment in the cab, Emma hadn't been able to think about anything else. The scene had been replayed in her mind so many times that it had started to turn technicolour.

Any time Mary Margaret left for class, Emma dove beneath the sheets and replayed the moment when Regina's lips had touched her cheek over and over again until she came with a cry that was muffled by her arm or her pillow or by her teeth digging into her bottom lip. Regina had smiled at her so gently, and Emma wasn't sure she'd been on the receiving end of a look like that before. She couldn't remember anyone ever watching her like they wanted to dive into her heart and set up camp there for a while.

She was alight with the thought that maybe Regina liked her after all. So, whatever she had been expecting from that next class, it hadn't been this.

Emma walked through the door to their seminar room at two o'clock on the dot, determined not to be early or late for once in her life. When she stepped into the room, most of the other students were already there. So was Regina.

Their professor glanced up the second a new presence appeared in the doorway. Emma felt her pounding heart lift until it was throbbing somewhere in her throat. Regina's eyes were as soft and dark and as interested as ever, and when they settled on Emma, they crinkled at the corners. Just slightly.

But then something seemed to wash over her, and she looked away again. Her lips were pursed as she stared down at her laptop like it was the most important thing in the world.

Emma faltered, coming to a complete standstill. The heartbeat in her throat was replaced by a hard lump that felt like coal.

When Regina didn't look up at her again, she forced herself to walk across the room and settle down in her normal seat. She was directly in Regina's eye line there, and normally it was impossible for Regina to not look over the top of her laptop screen and meet Emma's gaze.

But somehow, she managed not to. She kept typing on her computer and, once a full minute had passed, lifted her chin and directed her gaze at the rest of the room instead of at the blonde girl who was sitting six feet away from her.

Regina didn't look at her once during that class, and Emma left feeling a little bit like her heart had been broken. She knew what had happened – really, she should have seen it coming. Regina had gone home on Saturday night and realized what she'd done – taking a student out for a drink and then kissing her in the back of a cab that she'd insisted on paying for – and the panic had set in. She'd told herself she needed to stop. She'd told herself she wouldn't look at Emma again.

Emma realized all that in a flash of clarity, but even the knowledge that her professor obviously liked her enough to have to tell herself not to did absolutely nothing to make her chest stop hurting.

The following week, Emma turned up to class early just in case Regina would feel more comfortable talking to her when no one else was there yet. She'd spent most of the week working on her term paper, and she brought a first draft with her as a prop to distract Regina's attention with. Professor Mills, I'm sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if I could ask you a question about my opening paragraph?

Of course, Miss Swan, and the fact that you even care enough makes me want to bend you over this table right here, right now.

Somehow, Regina managed to outmanoeuvre her. She wasn't even in the classroom yet, and by the time she showed up at 1:59pm, the rest of the class had already arrived.

By the following week, all hope had drained from Emma's body. She skulked into the seminar room on Thursday afternoon, not even bothering to glance up at her professor, and instead of walking over to her normal seat, she headed for the row at the very back.