Roni

Chapter Four

The blaring sound of eighties rock music pumping violently through the walls is what woke Emma up from her deep slumber. She groans to nobody, but her drool soaked pillow and blindly searches for her phone buried somewhere between her crumpled sheets. She only allows one eye to pry open to discover the ungodly time illuminating from her phone. Seven in the morning.

Why is she up so early?!

The music suddenly beats louder against the walls that are apparently made up of paper, when the chorus begins and that's that moment Emma Swan is frozen from utter shock. Regina Mills is belting out the chorus on the top of her lungs and to the sleepy blonde's surprise, her new roomie is actually a pretty damn good singer. However, Emma can't even appreciate the sultry voice swimming through the apartment right now because she is too stunned by the choice of rock music.

It seems as though the rock show won't be dying down anytime soon so the sleepy blonde might as well get up and face the mayhem that's sure to come. There's a few things she needs to do to keep up her appearance and one of them would be finding a part time job.

Emma hazardously throws the comforter off her tired limbs and climbs out of bed. She's about to walk right out the door, but something whispers, more of a nagging familiar voice in the back of her mind. The real Regina would want her to make that bed...

Emma sighs heavily and rolls her eyes at the stupidity of it all, yet she still finds herself neatly arranging the duvet and pillows as best to her ability. After that chore is complete she slowly pads through the hallways, the music growing increasingly louder until she finds herself lingering near the kitchen.

"Mornin!" Roni calls out with her head stuffed inside the oven.

Emma's eyes immediately rake across the woman's smaller frame, assessing her black leggings, a skimpy cami tank top and her hair peeking out of the oven in a messy bun. There's no way in Hell, Emma will ever grow accustomed to this new Regina, as fun as she may seem.

"Why are you up so early?"

"I don't know. Always been a morning person. Some internal clock, always waking me up," she shrugs and continues her task at hand, never truly comprehending the meaning behind her words. That's because you're usually running a town, not a bar and raising our son, Emma all but screams in her mind. Instead of making a complete ass of herself, the blonde slowly steps closer and leans on the wall to really take in this moment. "Thanks for not murdering me in my sleep," Roni cheerfully praises, catching the inspecting blonde off guard and generating an awfully loud bark of laughter.

Emma shakes her head and tries to stop the carefree chuckle tumbling out of her mouth. "Well it's the least I could do for you letting me crash here. How about we go grab some breakfast? My treat," she kindly offers as Roni clambers out of the oven.

"You're on blondie," Roni breathes out, throwing down her sponge in the sink and Emma's willing to bet that oven was never even dirty to begin with. "Let me shower real quick and we can head out. I should only be twenty minutes tops."

It's so hard not to laugh for the poor sheriff, because she knows damn well that Madam Mayor always took forever to get ready if she wasn't flicking her wrists full of magic.

"Great I'll go get ready. Maybe after you can point me in the direction to buy some new clothes?" Emma timidly asks, not wanting to impose any further on her new roommate.

"Of course!" Roni flashes her most flirtatious smile and heads to the bathroom, leaving a gaping Emma Swan behind.

~~~~~~~~

Regina leads Emma to a quiet little diner close to her apartment...and bar. This new place resembles Granny's back in Storybrooke and for a brief moment the sheriff feels that gut wrenching pang of being home sick. She hasn't called home in two days now and the thought alone sends a wave of guilt to wash over her. However, before Emma can fix the mistake she made, on cue, her phone rings.