[I wrote this because I'm super frustrated with canon, so I'll call it a one-chapter wonder and keep adding to other non-canon critiques in the form of erotica all summer. Cheers!]

Life in Storybrooke gets weirder before it takes on even a semblance of normalcy.

There's Captain Hook to worry about now, and the Wicked Witch of the West (East?) and Robin Hood…

Ugh. At least that's what Emma thinks of him.

In this parallel time loop, it's Emma who interrupts Robin and Regina.

They're making out like idiots and she barely registers the swoop of nausea and absolute shocking despair, at the sound of Regina's quiet moaning, before she snaps.

"Enough. All right? We've got a fucking green woman on a broom chasing us, Henry keeps sneaking off, and you two assholes are…are…" Oh god, she's going to cry? What the hell is wrong with her?

"I beg your pardon?" Robin's face makes Emma's fist itch. He's not a bad guy, from the sounds of it, but just then and there, she wants to smack his smarmy little goddamn smile right off his mouth…

Regina steps between them, her voice strangled. "Ok, that'll be all." She adds quietly, "let's just go talk to your parents, all right?"

But Emma walks right past her, past her room where Mary Margaret and David wait, and then she imagines the one place she feels like being right now.

Oddly enough, it's the bridge she ends up at.

"Don't be like that…Please…I'm sorry if I've done something…"

Regina's voice. She stands just beyond the point where she'd stood when Emma had fallen and then saved herself with magic.

"No, I'm sorry." Emma backs up against a tree, staring blankly at the precipice before them. She feels a wave of shame at her words and says, "It's none of my business and you don't have to justify yourself to me or to anyone. You have every right." There is that choking feeling again, like her throat is tightening up around a giant knot. "Every right to pursue who you please."

But Regina turns to look at her, walks over, interrupts the rambling apology. "No, you know what? It's too much, right now. It's too—we have too much going on…I mean we have to…" She's making very little sense and seems to need to cling to Emma for some reason.

"Regina!" Emma cringes at the hand that digs into her arm. "It's ok."

"Is it? I mean…we have to…work, I mean we have so much work to do, there's my sister but there's also this, all of this…" Regina looks weirdly like she might throw up. Or faint. "Please don't take him." She suddenly blurts out.

Dammit. Emma scowls. "I wouldn't do that. I wouldn't take Henry to punish you for chasing after some idiot." Emma realizes that it's true now, but she worries that the thought might have flitted through her mind when she saw Robin practically eating half of Regina's face off. "You don't owe me anything." She says, actually meaning it. It's none of her business.

But Regina steps closer still and replies, "No, I owe you. I owe you everything. I don't want either of you to leave."

Why they're suddenly hugging, Emma can't quite understand. One moment, Regina feels like ten feet from her, so distant because she's with him and Emma wants to run even further away—and the next, they're really, really close. Since when do they hug.

What the hell?

"Well you made a good start. You gave me that year." Why the hell she's suddenly burying her nose in Regina's hair is an even bigger mystery. But Regina smells so damned good. Emma wonders if it's magic. Magic used to keep her in place, to keep Henry in place. "Hey. You don't have to do this." Emma grumbles, suddenly very, very cranky again. She frowns and growls again but she keeps her nose buried in Regina's hair for a moment longer, because it smells like nutmeg and cinnamon and clove and it's making Emma dizzy.

"Yes I do have to do this." Regina holds on tighter when Emma tries to push her away. "I'm not doing this just to keep Henry here. I'm doing it to keep both of you."

"Then stop kissing people I don't trust." Emma takes the leap. Right into the unknown. Right off the edge of the cliff.

Boom!

Her eyes widen, as do Regina's.

"You probably won't trust anybody I try to kiss. Anybody who isn't you, I'm assuming." Regina speaks slowly and deliberately, scanning Emma's blushing face for clues.

Damn Regina, cutting right to the chase. But still, Emma has to add, "none of my business. I shouldn't have said that." She tries to take a step back and growls angrily when her head smacks into the tree behind her.

Regina steps right into her personal space again, soothing the soreness with her fingertips. They tingle as they thread through Emma's hair. She mutters, "Better?" and Emma nods.

But then Regina just keeps yammering. "Funny. I could be back there with a person who speaks politely to me and addresses me directly and brings me flowers, but I'd rather be here, trying to undo your sulking. Why do you suppose that is?"

"Because I'm prettier than that guy version of…well, of me?" Emma just cannot keep the snideness from her tone. She's trying. Sort of.

There is dawning realization.

Regina speaks dazedly, "So that's why you're so angry. Well you're the one who got engaged to a rabid ape!"

"A rabid monkey," Emma corrects, "who sort of reminded me of you."

Now it's Regina's who's pissy, but for all the wrong reasons, which kind of makes Emma feel better even though it also makes her feel like she's acting like an overgrown child. But when Regina gets in a mood, she has a tendency to just poof away and stuff. So Emma takes emergency measures and yanks on her elbows.

One small strategically placed kiss against Regina's jaw, close to her chin, and her sudden snit dissipates almost before it began. Note to self, Emma thinks. She tries again. Other side. Just to even things out. This time, Regina gasps. Another, right in the middle of Regina's chin, makes her lips and hands tremble. When Emma's arms circle Regina's waist, her whole body starts to shake.

"We should stop." Emma mutters. "We should get back. You have a boyfriend now, this isn't all that nice of me." She scowls but really, it isn't cool, doing this when someone is already into someone else. They're not nineteen goddammit. "Hey, I'm not going anywhere." She feels the need to add this when Regina's shaking hands start tearing at her clothes. "You don't have to do this." She says again.

"I know." Regina gasps and lunges anyway, her lips finding Emma's neck, her teeth scraping roughly over Emma's collarbone.

"Ugh, you were just kissing that person…" For the second time, Emma's head thumps back against the tree, but Regina's hand is there, holding Emma still while her lips trail up and down Emma's exposed throat.

"Don't be like that." Regina mutters. "Don't be upset." Her head dips lower and suddenly Emma can feel her chest being nipped at by those full lips and dangerous teeth. It feels…

Perfect. Amazing. Like what she'd been straining to feel whenever she let anybody else do this in the past year. Like what she'd yearned for when she'd dreamt of some mysterious, dark-haired woman, standing in her kitchen…

"I used to dream that you were crying about your apple tree and I'd try to comfort you but you'd disappear." Emma talks fast, gasping in between the moans that threaten to escape her lips as Regina exposes one breast and starts kissing all around it. She leans over and buries her face in Regina's hair.

In between kisses, each one moving closer to her aching nipple, Regina said, "You. Dreamt. Of. Me."

"Yeah." Emma fumbles then with her shirt, unbuttoning it further just as Regina's mouth closes warmly around her breast. She cups the back of Regina's head and moves her to the other, then back again, then back and forth until she can't see straight much less think about how they're both now tearing at her jeans and this is happening omigod…

"Fuck." Regina swears uncharacteristically as she reaches behind herself for the zipper on her dress.

"Wait." Emma can't—won't—do this against a tree for the first goddamn time.

They end up on top of a pile of their clothing, which seems absurdly comfortable, until Emma realizes that they're also on a bed of moss of some sort, the likes of which she's never seen before. "Hey, what…" She starts to ask, but Regina, with her arms tight around Emma's neck and her legs spread for her, begs her to stop talking about the forest floor.

"Can't…do this…if….you're…yammering about silly things…" Regina gasps and rocks her hips harder against the hand that thrusts inside of her. They both keep looking down to where Emma's palm rubs and grinds against her pussy, where two fingers slide in and out.

She's not claiming Regina, Emma decides. She's loving her. For however long. And she hopes, against all odds, that this will be enough. That Regina won't go back to him or to anybody else.

It doesn't take long. And Emma doesn't let herself entertain any nonsensical notion that it's because of Robin Hood, because she knows that it's all for her and it's really none of her business anyhow. She says some of this out loud and Regina hushes her again, kissing her soundly as she cums in a quiet, heated wave. There's a sheen of sweat over Regina's belly, despite the sudden coolness of the air around them. Emma rolls atop her, covering the now shivering woman from the breeze.

"Can you please use magic to get us into your bed?" Emma asks politely. She feels much, much better. Far less grumpy than before. Far less. In fact she feels a little giddy and goofy and she lays a sloppy kiss on Regina's shoulder to emphasize it.

Moments later, they're beneath sheets and a nice thick duvet as Regina finally stops shivering beneath Emma.

"You could have done this sooner." Emma says unnecessarily.

"I liked what we were doing where we were doing it." Regina sighs sleepily, her hands moving in firm circles over Emma's back and shoulders and then lower to squeeze her butt. "I like this." She adds unnecessarily. It's obvious she likes Emma's ass. She's spending a sudden amount of time there. "I stared at this…watched you when you left rooms…"

"Cheeky monkey!" Emma laughs and moans as those hands pull her close and as Regina's hips rock against hers.

"Don't call me that." Regina huffs. "Besides, I'm not the monkey in this equation, your ex is." And then, she launches into a completely childish mockery of Emma's ex-fiancé's name, his occupation, his real occupation, and basically just about anything she's heard about him. By the end of it, Emma is laughing at her as much as with her, and she's also squirming around because dammit if teasing Regina isn't a bit of a turn on. She's flipped onto her back and her legs wrap easily around Regina's waist and she kisses her again and again, reminding them both of what exactly they could be up to instead of arguing.

When Regina reaches behind Emma to spread her wide, they can almost touch, and Emma can definitely feel the faintest sensation of Regina's labia brushing against her own. She nearly cums from that alone but it takes more pressure, so Regina shoves her knees up to her chest and strokes her more directly. The whole time, they just stare and stare at one another, neither still quite believing that this is what they're up to. When they're supposed to be talking about this latest pile of bullshit from Oz, but instead, Regina is flipping Emma around and onto all fours so that she can lick her and fuck her from behind.

Afterward, they take a quick shower together. Regina keeps grabbing Emma and laying deep, sloppy kisses on her, like she's afraid she'll bolt if she doesn't periodically stick her tongue inside her mouth. Emma keeps laughing and kissing her back, loving every part of it, every taste and texture and smell. She kneels suddenly and swiftly, and takes Regina in her mouth, thoroughly enjoying the new scents and smells between her carefully thrusting thighs.

And then they both calm down a little. Finally.

When they climb out of the shower, Regina takes Emma's hand and leads her back to the bedroom where their clothes magically appear as though they'd also been laundered in the trip. Regina mutters something about finding Henry as they dress, shakily and tiredly. They both need a nap or something. But instead, they finish what they're doing and they redo their makeup and hair before using magic to transport to the back room of Granny's.

"Ready to see people again?" Regina yawns, actually yawns, and stares dazedly at Emma's face. They hear Robin Hood's voice, calling out to Granny about something, and she looks guilty for a millisecond. Then she stares hard at Emma's face and says, "I didn't do all of that to keep you around, ok? But I am happy that you look a lot less grumpy."

"Yeah. Sorr…I mean…yeah." Emma almost says 'thanks' but then she feels her cheeks coloring the shade of Regina's favourite apples and she rolls her eyes instead at Regina's now rapidly departing back.

Just before they both find their way back upstairs, Regina turns to her again, and adds, "We're doing that again very soon." Without waiting for a reply she gives Emma her back. Then turns yet again and says, "All of it. And more," before rushing the rest of the way to Mary Margaret and David and the rest of their absurd adventure.