Apologies for the delay in getting this to you. My muse apparently got drunk and passed out beside the road, so I had to go drag her belligerent ass home and stick my fingers down her throat. Flaky little bitch.

As always, a heartfelt thank you for the reviews. I eagerly anticipate your thoughts and appreciate each one of them.

Enjoy!

Song: A Real Life Fairy Tale by Plumb

"Good morning, Stacy," Regina chirped as she breezed past her assistant's desk. She retained the same brisk pace as always, but something felt lighter, hopeful.

"Good morning, Madame Mayor," Stacy returned enthusiastically. Her natural perkiness caught fire beneath the renewed energy rolling from her boss. She smiled and followed the glowing woman into her office as she always had.

"My agenda, Miss Cochran?" Regina asked when Stacy only stared at her, deciphering the new emotions and hesitant smile upon her plum-colored lips.

The redhead startled, "Oh, of course. Mr. Gold just called and requested a meeting this morning. I scheduled him for nine because you have a meeting with the homeowner's association at nine-thirty. I know how much you hate meeting with him."

Regina hummed and slipped out of her coat. "Remind me to issue you a bonus," she half-joked. Stacy blushed and averted her gaze to the stack of papers in her hands.

"These are the minutes from the last meeting and the new forms your asked me to draw up in collaboration with their secretary. Apparently, there is an exponential increase of applications for low-income mortgage assistance," she explained and laid them on Regina's desk.

"Ungrateful degenerates," Regina sniped. She'd given everyone everything they'd needed. No one lived in squalor or extreme poverty thanks to the curse.

"At one, the Beautification Society. I believe they're harping on the lack of flower beds in the park."

"Again?" Regina bit weakly, not actually upset. How could she have been? Emma wanted her, possibly loved her, and Snow White sat behind bars. No matter how temporary, those two things lifted the veil of grief and hatred surrounding her heart.

"Unfortunately," Stacy smirked and glanced at the agenda once more. "At four, you have the Board of Education. A few of the parents have begun petitioning for updated facilities and equipment - computers, gym equipment, that sort of thing. They are probably asking for a bigger budget."

Regina nodded. "Finally, a project my frugality admires," she quipped. Stacy wrinkled her nose, a permanent grin on her lips. "Why are you grinning like a fool, Stacy?"

The grin spread wider. Regina rarely called her by her given name and had already done so twice that morning. "You seem happy. That's all. You deserve it."

Breath caught in Regina's throat. She deserved happiness? Someone else thought so? She cleared her throat and then hid behind a sip of coffee. Stacy's cheeks flushed instantly, and she lowered her gaze. Her assistant was one of a handful of people who slipped by with such comments.

"Is there anything else, Miss Cochran?" Regina asked easily. Stacy shook her head. "Very well. I'll take my lunch at 11:30. Schedule me an entire hour today since I'll be late with The Board of Education."

The buzzing of Regina's cell phone disrupted their flow, and the mayor glanced at the screen before deciding to ignore or answer. Emma's name appeared, and a genuine smile split open her face. Stacy's brow furrowed in further confusion. Regina answered the phone, unaware of the other woman's presence as a flushed heat of her own spread over her body.

"Hello Darling," she greeted huskily, turning from her assistant.

"Regina, I need a deputy," Emma whined. "Thanks for the coffee," she added a moment later, the petulant child-like voice gone.

"You're quite welcome," Regina answered and sipped her own. "Why do you require a deputy?" She asked.

Stacy inhaled a silent breath, lowering her gaze though Regina's back faced her. She clasped her hands in front of her hips tritely and debated which would be worst, alerting Regina to her presence at that moment or brazenly eavesdropping. She decided to wait. If Regina wanted privacy, she'd have asked her to leave. Not to mention, the mayor knew that she'd never have betrayed the knowledge she'd just learned. One: Regina was gay. Two: apparently the sheriff was, too. Three: they obviously made each other happy, and that could only be a good thing. Perhaps she'd start getting more than one day off a week.

On the other end of the line, Emma navigated the cruiser and explained her thoughts to Regina. "Because right now I'm heading towards a creepy ass abandoned Toll Bridge that I seriously doubt the trolls from Billy Goat Gruff would live under. I have no back up. No one but Mary Margaret, my prisoner, knows where I'm going. What if Kathryn's abductor is lying in wait? I mean, I'm crazy, not stupid."

Regina sobered. Emma made excellent points. "Would you like me to meet you out there?"

Emma scoffed on the other end. "Hardly. I like you safe and sound in your office. I just wanted someone to know where I am and what I'm doing," she explained. Who else would she have called? Ruby?

"What exactly are you doing?"

"Ruby was super freaked yesterday, so I'm taking another look around to see if she… What the hell?" A few faint thumps met Regina's ear. Fear seized her heart. Something was wrong.

"Emma? Are you alright?"

"I don't have any fucking brakes!" Emma yelled into the phone. Regina's eyelids fluttered, and her mouth parted without producing sound. "Regina, he cut my brakes!" Another thump like the phone hit the floor. Faint cursing. Regina pressed the phone tighter to her ear.

A roaring of metal bending and shattering glass jarred her into motion. "Call 911," she ordered Stacy and grabbed her keys. "Sheriff Swan has been in an accident on the road leading to the Toll Bridge."

During the frantic drive, she dialed Emma repeatedly, receiving her voicemail each time. Her hands shook uncontrollably by the time she reached the dirt road at the edge of the forest, and she gripped the steering wheel tighter to maintain control. Every second sliced at her sanity like tiny little razor blades of fate. If Emma laid in a ditch dead somewhere, the fault fell on her shoulders. She'd made the deal after all. She plotted with Sydney to deceive Rumpelstiltskin to avoid actually murdering the poor woman still held captive in an old cellar.

Finally, near the top of the incline leading to the dilapidated bridge, skid marks appeared in the dirt and gravel at a sharp turn. Regina's stomach lurched violently, heart dropping with a nauseating thud to the pit of her belly. Why hadn't she created guide rails for this treacherous road? Everyone knew how dangerous it was to travel. Had Emma gone over the cliff?

She followed the marks around the curve. Relief flooded her veins only to be immediately replaced with dread. The cruiser sat with a huge Oak tree denting the driver's side door. She sped up and then slid to a stop beside the damaged car. Pure terror dictated her actions as she jumped from her car and ripped open the passenger door to Emma's city issued vehicle.

"Emma!" Regina screamed at the semi-conscious sheriff. Blood dripped from a wound buried somewhere the hair stained brown from the liquid.

Emma groaned, acknowledging her but said nothing else for the moment. Regina switched killed the ignition and wrenched the keys out of the hole. It took her only a moment to retrieve the first aid kit from the trunk, but those few seconds felt like an eternity. Holding it on her lap, she fished out several large gauze pads, ripped them open, and pressed them to the wound on Emma's head. The blonde winced, another sign of life.

"I'm sorry if it hurts, but I must apply pressure. Stay still, Emma. Help is coming," she whispered into the sheriff's ear.

"The swan pecked me," Emma mumbled incoherently. Regina's face contorted into a combined expression of confusion and fear.

"Oh wait," Emma giggled. "I'm the Swan." She squawked in what Regina assumed should have been a bird of some sort. Emma giggled again.

"Emma, you have a concussion. Do you understand?" Regina asked in a low, controlled voice.

"Don't have to yell," Emma whined and tried to lift her hand to the one covering her wound. It flailed wildly, unable to coordinate with the commands of her brain, hit the bark of the tree pushed against her, and fell back to her lap. "Head go bang," she murmured.

Regina bit her lip against the tears burning the back of her throat. She feared this outcome. Sydney was clearly crazed and determined to remove all obstacles between him and the object of his obsession. The distant wail of a siren soothed her minutely. Help was close.

Emma whimpered and attempted to lift her hand again. Regina snagged it in her free one and pressed a kiss to the scraped knuckles. "You're okay, Emma. Stay still for a few more minutes. Can you do that for me, Sweetheart?"

Green eyes cracked and blinked stupidly up at her, completely unfocused. Regina wanted to smile at the slightly comical rolling of the ocular organs. Were it not for the warm blood soaking through the gauze and onto her hand, she might have even laughed. Emma sniffed and held back tears when the siren blared only ten feet from them. A fire engine kicked up dust, and an ambulance appeared through it.

Two solemn-looking women hopped from the bus and pulled supplies from the back while the men from the fire truck assessed the situation. Hopefully, Emma wasn't stuck in the dented metal of the door.

"Madame Mayor," one of the women greeted curtly, but Regina understood the implication perfectly. What she'd meant to say was, 'get the hell out of my way.'

The second woman with short blonde hair and a permanent scowl climbed into the back. A gloved hand took over pressure on Emma's wound a moment later, and Regina reluctantly switched places with the dark-skinned brunette impatiently waiting with a neck brace in hand.

"Emma, I'm right outside," she called when the other woman slipped the brace around her neck.

"Dawnson, the emergency brake pulled?" One of the guys called.

The paramedic yanked the stick in front of the console and gave him a thumbs up through the windshield. A few moments later, a back board appeared across the bucket seat. They leaned Emma onto her side and stabilized her spine while two of the firefighters nudge Regina out of the way and positioned her on the board. Too nauseous to feel anger at their crude actions, Regina merely stepped beside the board and took Emma's hand as they moved her to the gurney.

Nearly everyone glanced around, baffled by the mayor's actions but remained quiet as long as the bitchy ice queen focused on the injured sheriff instead of ripping their heads off. Dawson climbed into the back with Emma, and Regina grabbed her arm.

"I'm riding with her," Regina informed the paramedic who only swallowed and nodded.

"Chief, have one of your crew to drive my car to the hospital," Regina ordered the fire chief who also nodded, unwilling to burn the favor they'd earned by assisting the sheriff, whom the mayor supposedly hated.

Regina ignored the curious stares and sat on the bench opposite the paramedic. "Shay, hit it," she called after closing the doors and plopping onto the bench seat closest to Emma's head injury.

Regina fervently ignored the other woman and took Emma's hand as she leaned forward and touched her forehead to the sheriff's shoulder. The paramedic kept one eye on the woman while working down her checklist, covering all possible bases while in the field. Turbulence from the rough road jarred a groan from the sheriff, and mayor's head jerked up, searching desperately for the source of the pain.

"I'm Gabriela," the paramedic offered the distraught woman as she pulled on a fresh set of gloves.

"Regina Mills," the former royal answered automatically, eyes riveted to Emma's face.

Gabriela chuckled and checked Emma's pulse. "I know who you are," she said, paused, wrote something down. Regina ignored her, so she moved on to blood pressure.

"Is she going to be okay?" Regina blurted, her voice reaching for demanding but barely breeching concerned, close-to-hysterical loved one. What was she exactly to the sheriff besides a pain in the ass?

"I'm not a doctor, Mayor Mills. Head injuries can be tricky, and hers is pretty nasty. Dr. Shepherd will let you know what the next step is after she's taken some brain scans." She answered as truthfully as possible, not desiring to incur the wrath of the woman who made this entire town quake with fear when she strode down the street on a mission to rip someone's limbs from their body with only her cold glare.

"Thank you for being honest," Regina answered. The paramedic released her held breath.

When they arrived at the hospital, Whale promptly removed her from Emma's side and disappeared behind double doors. Regina wrung her hands, tempted to ignore every single protocol in existence. A sliver of conscience berated her selfishness. If she barged in, every single person focused on her wasn't focused on Emma, which where they should have been. Ignoring the stares, she retrieved her phone from a blazer pocket.

The tremble in her hands surprised her, and she stared at the traitorous limbs. Noticing the peripheral stares of nearly everyone in the room, she tucked them close to her body and held the phone with both as she dialed her assistant. What else was she to do?

The phone pressed painfully to her ear, an attempt to hide the tremors of adrenaline and fear snaking through her body. The other wrapped around her ribs, hidden safely beneath her elbow. Her heart throbbed against the fingertips digging harshly into her flesh. Stacy answered on the second ring, ever ready for her next move.

"Miss Cochran, I need you to cancel all of my appointments today and tomorrow. Reschedule them for next week, except for the Board of Education. Please fit them in as soon as possible. I believe Sheriff Swan will require assistance for several days." Regina's voice quivered, and her spine straightened to compensate. She never quivered. She never showed fear, but she'd been here before. She'd lost this before. Lost love. Lost everything. Her eyes rolled towards the ceiling when tears blurred her vision.

"Is she okay?"

"She will be," Regina answered hoarsely, her voice belying the internal struggling with external representation of her fear and grief. "Please call Miss Lucas and inform her of the situation. I'm sure she'd want to know."

Regina ended the call without awaiting a response. She paced. She glared. She gritted her teeth. Regina Mills had never been mistaken for a patient person. Finally, a nurse emerged and made a bee line for the huffy mayor. Regina crossed her arms and met the woman halfway.

"Mayor Mills, the doctor hasn't read any of the scans yet, but Sheriff Swan is now back in triage if you'd like to see her," the nurse explained the situation efficiently and quietly. Anxiety over speaking to the woman shone brightly on her sweaty forehead and clammy palms.

Without a word, Regina brushed past the woman, expecting her to keep up. She did and immediately showed her to Emma's bay before scurrying away like the filthy, cowardly rodent. Emma rolled her head towards the small clicks of her pumps, and Regina forced a smile despite the paleness of Emma's skin and the red staining the gauze upon her head.

"Hey Queen Mills," Emma joked, referencing Henry's fantasy.

Regina clicked her tongue and took Emma's hand. "I cannot leave you unsupervised for one moment, can I?" The words were intended as snippy and backhanded, but Regina's voice broke along with her resolve to hold back her tears.

"Hey," Emma said and pulled slightly on her hand. Regina's head dropped to her chest, and Emma held her hip with all of the strength and coordination her hand possessed. "I'm okay."

"I was so scared when I heard your car hit that tree, Emma," Regina confessed quietly. Her hand slipped over Emma's hip, and the blonde winced.

"It's just bruised," Emma assured her. "They did a CT to make sure I didn't have any ruptured anythings and a ton of X-rays to make sure nothing was broken. Dr. Whale already told me I was good on both of those. I think everyone is pushing me through because they're afraid of you." Humor slipped into Emma's tone, and Regina finally raised her head.

"Indeed, we are. It's always nice to keep the leader happy, even if she's a bitch," a short woman with black hair, and dark puppy-dog eyes clipped. "Hello Regina."

"Emma, this is Dr. Shepherd," Regina introduced the crude woman with a hint of respect. Respect? That woman never stopped surprising her.

"Howdy Sheriff," she greeted nonchalantly. "I've looked over your MRI scans and X-rays. There's a tiny bit of bleeding, which is pretty common for injuries like yours. No skull fracture, nothing to get too excited about for the moment." The pretty surgeon smiled and glanced between the other two women.

"How can you tell us to remain calm when her brain is bleeding?" Regina's voice raised in octave and decibel. Emma winced and shut her eyes against the invasion of pain.

"Madame Mayor, I assure you that everything is fine," she said before directing her attention to Emma. "I'm going to have you admitted today and probably keep you until tomorrow afternoon. We're going to take scans every couple of hours to monitor that bleed. More than likely, it will resolve itself, but we're not taking any chances."

"And if it doesn't resolve itself?" Emma asked, clamping tightly onto Regina's hand.

"If it doesn't clear up by tomorrow afternoon, I'll perform a craniotomy. Which means, I'll remove a small piece of your skull, drain the fluid to relieve pressure and then find the bleed and repair it. I really don't think it will come to that, but the body does what it wants. For now, just try to feel better and get some rest because someone will be waking you up every two hours until tomorrow afternoon."

Emma groaned and set her face into a pout. Regina rolled her eyes, and the doctor smiled at the two.

"One more thing. We noticed that you don't have an emergency contact or a medical power of attorney. In the event you could not be woken, you will need someone to advocate for you. Do you have someone in mind?"

Emma's face dropped dramatically. She had no one. The surgeon nodded, understanding her fear. "Think about it, and I'll have someone come in after you get stitched up. If there are no more questions, I'll leave you alone." She paused, waited, nodded. "Okay, be around this evening to check on you before I head home."

"See?" Emma drew out the word. "I told you I was fine."

"You are not fine. You might need brain surgery, you imbecile," Regina volleyed.

Emma shrugged. "If it comes to that, I don't really have anyone else. Will you, ya know?"

Regina blinked rapidly as the question settled into her heart. The start of a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Does this make me your girlfriend?"

"If you must label it," Emma threw her own words from the previous night up at her.

Regina smiled.