Shared Pain

Chapter 6

Emma cleared her throat and looked gratefully at the waiter who set down two glasses of wine. She whispered a soft thank you before she averted her eyes back to the brunette.

"Ruby, a friend from school at that time, perhaps you remember her, she's the receptionist at the spa." Regina nodded before Emma continued. "She was like the biggest gossip in the entire town. She knew literally everything about everyone, she'd find out your darkest secrets before anyone else would."

The blonde took a sip of her wine before she continued. "She told me about you and Neal. She said she'd heard him talk to his friends about meeting "Regina" in two days at the docks and pushed me to go confront him. When I saw you slapping him in the face, I figured that I'd be extra kind to him the next time I saw him, so that he would know who to choose.How could I know there wouldn't be a next time?"

Regina swallowed thickly and brought her glass to her lips. "Neither of us did," she said before she drank some of her wine.

"It was silly and childish to spy on you two," Emma muttered and sighed softly. "And I've had a hard time recovering."

She didn't want to talk about that moment anymore, that much was clear to Regina, but she had one more question that had been bugging her for years.

"Why didn't you go to the funeral?"

A waiter came walking to their table and looked at the two women. "Have you figured on what to eat yet?" He asked and Emma nodded.

"The lasagna," she replied. She hadn't taken a good look at the menu yet, but she remembered the lasagna from the previous time she ate dinner here and figured that would be alright.

The waiter scribbled something down and looked at Regina. "And you, ma'am?" He inquired politely.

"The same, please." The waiter left again and Emma pretended as though she had forgotten what Regina just asked her.

"Why weren't you at the funeral? Honestly, I would have loved to meet you there."

"Why?"

"To explain everything back then. You may have thought of me as some girl with no feelings, I mean, who's so cruel to be with someone while that person is in a relationship? I wanted to tell you everything and.. frankly, this is going to sound selfish, to make myself feel better," she confessed and looked down at the table.

"How?"

"Everyone glanced at me with a dirty look on their face, some people literally told me I was a slut, or worse. At a funeral, for fuck's sake. Everyone knew Neal had had an affair with me and I hoped that you would listen to my story and understand that I didn't want to harm anyone, since everyone kept telling me how much I'd hurt you, in particular. You two were the couple of the school and town, weren't you?"

Emma smiled vaguely and nodded. "Yeah, we were. At least, I thought we were."

She wasn't going to admit it, but Emma started to enjoy talking to Regina. She wasn't fond of the woman yet, but she wasn't sitting there reluctantly anymore. She was actually quite content that they had this moment.

"Why did you move to Storybrooke? After everything that has happened here," Emma inquired softly and sipped her wine.

Regina shrugged. "Frankly, I don't know. Even though a lot of bad things happened here, the town appealed me. And I'm glad I did move here. Even though I know you're still not happy talking to me here, I am glad we have this moment. It does help me the slightest."

"Honestly, me too," Emma confessed. "I think I should apologize for how I behaved earlier, I now see that this all has been hard on you too. Especially since you got a picture of you two with some friends together," Emma apologized and tapped with her fingers on the table. "The reason I didn't go to his funeral is mainly because it was too hard on me. There were just too many emotions, I loved him, but I hated him. I did visit his grave a couple of times since then."

"I understand," Regina softly said.

Emma was surprised by the amount of things she'd confessed to Regina today. Apparently, the brunette had managed to wrap her around her finger.

"I also didn't want to face you. I figured you'd be there and the least thing I wanted was to hear some petty excuse as to why you hadn't done anything wrong. If you've told me this eighteen years ago, I wouldn't have cared for it at all."

"What makes it different now?"

"You know, I'm not even sure," Emma admitted with a chuckle and drank some wine. "I've moved on from Neal. I've got amazing children and I love them, back then I felt like I'd lost everything and if you'd come to me it wouldn't have made it better."

Regina nodded slowly. It didn't go unnoticed to her that Emma hadn't mentioned her husband. She'd only said she loved her kids, but apparently her husband wasn't worth mentioning.

She still felt something was off in their marriage, but as she was happy Emma started warming up to her, she didn't comment.

"You still didn't tell me the names of your children," Regina said, changing the subject. She felt like they had covered Neal's passing enough for the day. She had said everything to Emma she wanted - even before they'd gotten their food - and she hoped Emma had too.

The same waitress as earlier set down two plates of lasagna and offered them a sincere smile. "Enjoy your meal," she said kindly and walked away.

"Perhaps I can tell you, I trust you're not going to run away with my husband and become their stepmom."

Regina chuckled. "If I were to become their stepmom it wouldn't be because I married their father," she joked and winked, causing a red hue to erupt on Emma's cheeks. "Just kidding. But really, Emma, I'm not going to run away with your husband. He's not my type anyway."

"I assume you got the job?"

The brunette nodded. "Yes, I did. But I don't want you to think-"

"I was just kidding, Regina. Don't worry, I know you wouldn't do that and I believe that you didn't know Neal was in a relationship in the past. He was in the wrong. Anyway, their names are Lola, Eva and Henry. You've talked to Henry on the phone."

Regina chuckled softly. "I was so worried that you'd bailed because you saw the picture of me and Neal. That was not funny," she said sternly, but her sparkling eyes gave her away and Emma laughed.

"I hope Killian's doing alright with them," she blurted out and quickly shook her head. "Sorry."

"What are you apologizing for? Are you afraid he's going to do something wrong? I assume he's not home that much due to his job," she said.

She figured Killian had to put a lot of effort and time in his job and wondered if that was one of the things that wasn't going so well in his and Emma's marriage.

Emma nodded curtly. "Running your own business is - even in a town as small as Storybrooke - a lot of work. He's not home that often and this morning.." the woman sighed and rubbed her temples. "I'm sorry, I don't want to bother you. We should probably eat, otherwise our dinner will get cold."

Regina knew that Emma wasn't afraid to bother her with her problems, but that she simply didn't want to talk about them.

The brunette didn't want to push her to talk about it. She could see Emma wasn't completely happy in her marriage, especially the way she'd stiffened when Regina told Emma was in a happy marriage.

She just hoped he wasn't abusing her, but as she was wearing a dress, which left her arms and a big part of her back bare, the woman didn't notice any bruises.

Perhaps one day Emma would tell her what was wrong in her and Killian's marriage.