"Emma, darling, we need to leave, now. Can you please hurry up?" Regina called up the stairs to her blonde wife.

"I'm coming! I just need to find my good luck charm!" Emma called from the top level, Regina assumed she was still in their bedroom. Regina slowly made her way up the stairs, trying to be patient. She entered their bedroom and saw Emma poking through the top drawer of their dresser.

"Emma, please, we can do without it for one weekend. We have dinner with Henry at five and if we don't leave now we won't have time to clean up before dinner."

"I can't go on a road trip without my lucky rabbit's foot! It's blasphemy."

"My dear, you're 40 years old, I think that you can manage."

"Exactly, I'm 40 years old and in my entire life of driving, I have never taken a road trip without it. I need it, Regina."

Regina rolled her eyes and walked to the closet. She pulled the side of her black trench coat out from its seclusion behind her other coats and reached into the pocket to pull out the rabbit's foot. She sighed and brought it back into the main part of the bedroom, handing it to Emma.

"Where was it?"

"In my jacket."

"Were you hiding it from me?"

"No, darling, I was not hiding it from you. Can we go now?"

"Ok. Where's Livvie?"

"Olivia is in the car already, waiting for you to hurry up."

"Oh, ok," Emma blushed lightly. "I just have to grab something from the kitchen and I'll be right out, I promise." The women descended the stairs and Regina headed toward the door as Emma headed toward the kitchen. She grabbed a bunch of road trip food and threw it into one of Regina's tote bags and headed to their beautiful, new, red SUV. Regina was taking the first leg of the drive and Emma would take the second since she dealt better with real world traffic. Anytime they left Storybrooke, Regina's nerves bothered her while driving. Regina looked into the tote bag as Emma slid in and rolled her eyes.

"Are you quite serious, Emma? Junk food was what you needed to get from the kitchen?"

"Yes. You can't have a road trip without junk food." She looked into the back seat to see their 7 year old, Olivia, smiling brightly."

"Mama! Can I have a cookie?"

Emma looked at Regina and saw a disapproving look. "No no, Livvie, we'll wait until we drive for an hour so your breakfast can settle, ok?"

"No fair! You only said no because mommy gave you the look."

"What look was that, Olivia?" Regina asked.

"Your 'don't do it' look that you give mama when me or Henry want something you don't want us to have."

"Livvie-bear, mommy was right, anyway. It's still too early for cookies. But how about a juice box?"

Olivia nodded, her bright green eyes that matched Emma and Henry's lighting up happily. Regina had put the little girl's dark hair into French braided pigtails and she was still in her pajamas for the road trip. Emma put on a CD that had a mixture of Disney movie songs on it and the little girl happily sang along.

"So Regina, want to tell me why you had my rabbit's foot if you weren't hiding it from me?" Regina looked with contempt at the rabbit's foot that was now dangling from the rear view mirror.

"No I do not."

"Why not?"

"It doesn't matter, dear."

Emma just shrugged it off, knowing that the other woman would get testy if she kept pushing the subject. Instead, she pulled her t-shirt off, revealing a black tank top and kicked off her sandals. She rolled the window down and enjoyed the warm sun and air hitting her skin. She loved spring, especially this year, when it was so warm and beautiful.

"Mama! Mommy! Why aren't you guys singing along?"

"Sorry Livvie-bear!" Emma cooed. She and Regina began singing along to "Under the Sea" and Olivia giggled wildly in the back seat. Regina pulled a truffle from the tote Emma had filled and snuck it into her mouth before their daughter could notice. Emma, however, had noticed and was grinning knowingly at her wife. Regina just looked back toward the road and tried not to smile.

An hour and a half into the drive had Olivia complaining in the back seat about needing to go to the bathroom.

"There's a stop at the next exit, sweetheart. Can you wait a couple more minutes?"

"Yes, mommy. Thank you!"

"Regiiiinaaa. I need to go, too," Emma whined.

"Do you have to do that, dear?"

"Yes. Road-tripping with a 7 year old makes me want to act like one."

"Well at least she keeps one of us young. I'm far too close to 50 and exhausted all the time."

"You have 4 years to go before you're 50. Stop." Regina gave her a side-glance. "Well, if it makes you feel better, you look the same as you did when we met."

"Shut up, I do not. But I love you for saying that."

The exit they were waiting on was in a small town and the only stops were a fast food place and a filthy looking gas station. Regina chose the fast food place because, at least as a food establishment they were held to somewhat higher cleanliness standards. Emma and Olivia made their way inside and when they came back out, Emma had two cups and Olivia had a kid's meal of some sort.

"You bought her food from there?" Regina asked, incredulous.

"Come on, Regina, relax, it's a road trip. Here, I got you a coffee," she said, handing one steaming cup to her wife.

"And I assume you got hot chocolate."

"Of course." Emma beamed.

"And what are we going to eat, dear?"

"I packed some granola bars for you, and I grabbed a salad from the house for you and a sandwich for me. If you're hungry now, I can take over driving."

"No, I can wait. You go ahead and eat." Emma nodded and pulled her peanut butter and jelly sandwich out of the bag, eating it quickly. Regina snuck another truffle from the bag, which had Emma laughing at her.

After another hour, Olivia was fast asleep. Emma changed the music over to a CD she made specifically of songs that were very significant to her and Regina's relationship. Emma sang along easily with the first song on the CD.

I never thought that you would be the one to hold my heart

But you came around and you knocked me off the ground from the start

You put your arms around me and

I believed that it was easier for you to let me go

You put your arms around me and I'm home.

Regina smiled at Emma and took a slender hand into her own and brought the clasped pair to her own thigh. Regina sang along lightly, though Emma had the more melodic singing voice, Regina's wasn't bad either.

"You know, this song has struck a chord in my heart since the first day I heard it on your ipod. Remember that day that I borrowed yours for my run?" Emma asked.

Regina nodded. "I heard it on a preview for a movie and I remember thinking it was so beautiful and the lyrics were so fitting for us. I never understood how you could love me so fully and beautifully."

"I could say the same thing about you, Regina. But I'm glad."

"So what do you think that Henry wants to tell us at dinner?"

"You want me to be honest?"

"Of course I do."

"I think he's going to introduce us to his girlfriend because I think he wants to ask her to marry him."

"Why do you say that? I know he's serious about her, I can tell from our conversations, but I didn't realize they were that serious."

"You know Henry, Regina. He's like us, he gives his entire heart to the people he loves. I asked him how they were doing and he asked me if I remembered when I told him I was in love with you. When I asked him why, he told me that he feels the same way toward her as he could tell I felt for you."

"Yes, and I understand that, but we took a long time after that to get married."

"Regina, I knew I wanted to marry you long before we admitted our relationship to Henry."

Regina gave Emma a shocked look. "You did?"

"I did."

"Oh." When Emma peeked at Regina, she saw that her wife was looking quite amused and smiling one of her 1000 watt smiles that Emma loved so much.

"Can you believe our baby is graduating college already?" Regina asked.

"Ugh, no, don't remind me."

"That's what this whole weekend is about, dear, how could you even try to forget?"

"Because I'm still imagining the 10 year old boy that showed up at my doorstep."

"I know. It seems like yesterday that he pulled that stunt and started everything."

"You raised him so well, Regina."

"Hey now, you can't say that anymore, Emma. He's more than twice the age he was when he found you. You've been around for more than half of his life, I think it's fair to say that we raised him well."

Emma nodded and winked at her beautiful wife. "We did."

Only an hour outside of Boston and Emma had been driving for a little while. The traffic was terrible since they were heading toward Boston during rush hour. Emma looked in the rearview mirror and saw that their daughter was still quietly asleep. She reached a hand up and stroked her lucky rabbit's foot and smiled easily.

"Why does that thing mean so much to you, Emma? I don't think I've ever asked you that."

"In one of the homes I lived in for a year I had a really decent time. It was when I was 12. The dad was really great, kind and loving. The mom, however, was really just a drunk. One night when she got particularly drunk, she backhanded me across the face. The dad, though he was kind, was sort of weak and didn't do much to stand up to her. But that night he forced her to go to bed. When she was in bed he came into my room and he gave me the rabbit's foot. He told me it would give me good dreams and that it was lucky, so wherever I would go, whatever I would do, if I had it on me I would be safe. Even if bad things happened, I would be ok, it would give me strength."

"What happened at that home? Did the mom get too violent so you had to leave?"

"No, he died and one of the neighbors ended up reporting her for alcoholism and child abuse so we were taken away. But I've had it ever since. I wasn't very sentimental back then, but it became important to me."

Regina nodded and they were silent for nearly half an hour.

"Do you remember when Livvie was really sick and she was in the hospital for a week?"

"Of course. I will never be able to forget that week, it was one of the hardest I've ever had to deal with."

"Well, you refused to leave the hospital, even though Livvie wanted some of her things and I was a little better off than you so I went to get what she asked for."

"Yes."

"Well, since it was cold that week, I wore my trench coat. I saw your lucky rabbit's foot on the dresser after I took my shower and dressed before heading to the hospital. I took it and put it in my pocket. Even if I didn't necessarily believe it was lucky, you put so much faith into it and valued it so much that I couldn't help myself but hope that if I brought it to the hospital, it would help us."

Emma looked at Regina with tear-filled eyes. "Really? That's why you had it in your jacket?"

"Indeed it is."

"God, Regina. I love you more and more each day."

"I love you too, my darling."

The women had their hands clasped together and they were listening to Chasing Pavements as they pulled into the hotel parking lot. They sat for a couple of minutes in the car, Regina's care for freshening up before dinner was gone and Emma didn't want to remove her head from the shoulder she had leaned it on after parking.

"Mama, mommy, I have to pee!" came a tiny voice from the backseat.

"Road trip's over," Emma said with a light chuckle.

"It is. At least just until Sunday when we head back home," Regina added with a beaming smile. But she knew that her whole life with Emma would always be a road trip.