A/N: If you're not a fan of poetry, maybe this little one-shot isn't for you. But if you're diving in anyway, I really do hope you enjoy it! This is my little head canon that Emma is secretly a poetry lover. This is also established Swan Queen, but it's not linked to anything else that I've written. Reviews are highly appreciated as always! I have an idea for a little additional chapter for this, so if the response is good, I will post it when my exams finish!

Disclaimers: I don't own the characters in this piece, nor do I own any of the poetry that is featured. This was written out of fun and is completely profitless. All credit goes to their rightful owners.

On the Sea:

Emma had just finished up her Friday shift at the sheriff's station when she received the phone call that demanded her presence at the mayor's office in the Town Hall immediately.

According to Regina's secretary, the mayor had gone through hell and back to actually survive her day, so Emma knew all too well that her girlfriend would either burst into a series of frustrated tears on their date tonight or she would tell Emma to order take-out just so she could shut down completely and have a restless sleep that night, like she would on any other day that she had a tough time at the office. Deciding that neither were an option for her, Emma grabbed her red leather jacket and sprinted towards the Town Hall to retrieve an incredibly overworked mayor.

"Prepare yourself, Sheriff Swan," Rebecca, Regina's secretary, warned as the blonde slowly and quietly opened the door to the mayor's elegant office.

Emma had been on the wrong side of Regina's wrath often enough to know all too well that she needed to approach the woman with as much caution as she could. Regina Mills was not a woman to approach lightly, no matter who you were.

"Mr. Evans, as I have already informed you three times today: I cannot grant you planning permission to build on Mr. MacDonald's farmland without sufficient reasoning for your request." Regina chided down the phone.

From where Emma was standing, she could see the exhaustion in her lover's eyes and the paling of her knuckles as she tugged roughly at the roots of perfect brunette locks on the top of her head. Even Regina's usually perfectly applied make-up had been smeared around her eyes and mouth from her obvious frustrated self grapples that had probably only recently occurred. The woman's stress levels were actually visible.

"Of course wanting to build an elaborate castle that resembled your own in the Enchanted Forest isn't a good enough reason! We don't have enough funds to fix certain things at the school, let alone afford to build you a lavish home in the middle of the town." Regina was now almost shouting down the phone as she seethed behind her glasses that were gently perched on the end of her nose. Fortunately enough, she had yet to notice the blonde in her office, otherwise Emma would undoubtably have been on the receiving end of one of her infamous death glares. Instead, Regina's desk seemed to be receiving a look that was likely to set the damn thing on fire. "My home is no where near a castle nor a palace, Mr. Evans. That was the home given to me by the curse, not my own hand! If you dislike what you were given in such an unfortunate event, please bring this conversation up with Mr. Gold rather than myself."

From her hidden spot in the office, Emma rolled her eyes at what she was hearing. She herself had received, on a daily basis, several calls informing her that the homes some of Storybrooke's citizens had been given under the curse were inadequate compared to what they had lived in in the Enchanted Forest. The majority of those calls were reverted straight to the man in question: Rumplestiltskin.

"When you have come up with an adequate reason for wanting to build on said land with the sufficient funds, do give me a call back. But until then, I want to hear nothing more of this. Am I understood, Mr. Evans?" Even Emma felt slightly afraid of Regina's tone of voice, even if she did have a bigger bark than bite these days. "Good, I'm glad that we have come to an agreement. Do have a pleasant evening."

And with that, Regina threw down the phone so hard it made Emma cringe at the thought of the plastic possibly shattering into hundreds of pieces. Not wanting to let Regina wallow in her anger and annoyance any longer, Emma stepped out of her hiding spot and cleared her throat gently enough to not startle the brunette into another angry rage. That had happened only once and to this day, Emma swore that she would never allow it to happen again. Even the thought of it terrified her.

"Hey," The blonde muttered lightly, earning the brunette's attention immediately. "So I heard you've had a rough day."

"Thats an understatement if ever I heard one." Regina bit, not realising how harsh her voice still sounded. "Miss Swan, what is it that you wanted? You know that I finish in an hour; can you really not entertain yourself for that long? I have stacks of work to complete, so I don't have time for the idle chit-chat that we can have at home, dear."

"Come on, get your coat," Emma held out her hand to Regina before continuing, completely ignoring the glare on her girlfriend's face. "You've done enough today and whatever hasn't been done, Rebecca can do it, or I can help you do it on Sunday, okay?"

Regina rolled her eyes and pressed her lips into a firm line of irritation. "You may abandon your sheriff paperwork on a weekly basis, but I for one, will always refuse to abandon my mayoral duties to make life easier."

Emma simply laughed before turning towards the door and shouting: "Rebecca!" Within seconds, the timid little red-head had raced into the mayor's office. "All of the stuff Regina needs to complete today, do you know what to do with it?"

"Yeah, of course, why?"

"Could you do me the world's biggest favour?" The red-head nodded and Emma ignored her lover's warning use of her name. "I need you to complete as much of that paperwork as you can because Regina is about to have a mental breakdown if she doesn't get out of this damn office."

Without giving Regina a second to protest, Rebecca quickly grabbed the paperwork off the desk and left the room as fast as she could, leaving an irritated brunette and a gracious blonde in her wake.

"Emma Swan, you are insufferable." Regina huffed, accepting her defeat since all of her work had been taken.

"Please, tell me again why you hate that little perk of my personality." Emma winked before taking Regina's coat from the stand and draping it over the brunette's shoulders. "We're going for a walk and you're going to calm down and actually enjoy your weekend freedom, okay?"

"You may physically wear the pants on a daily basis, Miss Swan, but in our relationship I metaphorically wear the pants and I would much rather go home and enjoy a cold glass of cider in front of a movie for our date night without having to worry about anything." Regina said after she finally stood and put her coat on properly.

"No way," Emma chuckled, taking Regina's hand in her own and pulling the brunette away from her desk. "You never sleep after you do that to yourself, so we're going for a walk to the dock and then, when we get home, you're going to get dressed into something comfortable and we're going to our dinner reservations, okay?"

"Fine, but the minute I get cold, we're going home." Regina pulled herself into Emma's side and let her head fall into the crook of the blonde's slender neck. "Hey," She whispered with a slight pout, raising that she hadn't even greeted her girlfriend, but reprimanded her instead.

"Hey, yourself," Emma laughed at Regina's sudden change of attitude.

The two left the Town Hall hand-in-hand and snuggled into each other's side as they walked towards the bench at the docks that they had deemed their own at the beginning of their relationship.

The docks were surprisingly empty and the sound of the crashing waves were the only noises that could be heard around them as they sat in silence. Regina was never really one to sit and actually enjoy the sounds of nature at play; Emma believed it had something to do with her memories of the Enchanted Forest, but today was different. Today she actually let herself get caught up in the peaceful noises of the ocean. She even allowed her head to drop onto the blonde's chest while her legs curled up on the bench beside her. The peaceful and tranquil world around them calmed her more than anything else in this would could.

"Thank you," Regina mused, never letting her eyes drift from the violence of the waves as they crashed together.

"Its what I'm here for," Emma smirked before giving the top of Regina's head a light kiss. "When I was younger, I would always find myself near the shore, just so I could listen to the sea when life got too much. The sea has always been my way out. Sometimes it was easier than running."

Regina knew better than most that Emma Swan hated to discuss her youth with anybody and would attempt to avoid that topic of conversation at all costs, so whenever she did finally open up about it, Regina was always grateful to hear of her past. Showing her understanding and gratitude, the brunette traced patterns on Emma's skin tight jeans with her index finger. She knew that the blonde often sought comfort in such a gesture, so she continued until the other woman began talking again.

"It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice then thousand Caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves the their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be moved for days from where it sometime fell
When the last winds of Heaven were unbound." Emma recited, partially under her breath, but loud and clear enough for Regina to catch every word with bated breath.

"Did you just quote John Keats?" Regina quizzed as she readjusted her position on the bench so she was looking up at the blonde above her.

"I might have…" Emma trailed off out of embarrassment and refused to make eye contact with the woman now in her lap.

"Oh, ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh, ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar and rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody…
Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth and brood," Regina continued from where Emma left off and stalled on the final line, refusing to admit that she had forgotten it.

"Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs chord!" Emma finished for her, grinning at the fact that Regina actually had an unspoken love for poetry, much like herself.

"You've surprised me, Miss Swan," Regina finally said with a grin that matched Emma's perfectly. "I never thought you would have been a closet poet, Em."

"I'm not. Not anymore, anyway." Emma admitted as she watched her fingers drag through Regina's silky hair. "When I was in the system, I wrote a lot of my own stuff and ended up stealing a couple of poetry books from one of my homes and I've never really been able to part with the damn things. All the other kids would pick on me whenever I wrote or read so when I dropped out of school I stopped reading and writing for a while."

"Maybe you can show them to me one day," Regina suggested, taking Emma's free hand in one of her own. "When we first arrived here, I was intrigued to learn as much about this world as I possibly could and this world's range of literature stunned me. I completely fell in love with some of its poetry and eventually filled the better half of the mansion's study with books filled with poetry from all eras."

"Who's your favourite poet?" Emma curiously asked, no longer feeling embarrassed of her little quirk, but feeling slightly determined to venture into the study for a gander.

"Emily Dickinson," She replied almost immediately. "She lost people she loved and became fascinated by death. I saw a lot of truth in some of her pieces. There was so many that I was able to relate to that it scared me sometimes."

"A death-blow is a life-blow to some
Who, till they died, did not alive become;
Who, had they lived, had died, but when
They died, vitality begun." Emma recited once more and gave her lover's hand a tight squeeze of understanding. "I get it. I read some of her stuff in prison and wanted nothing more than to live in one of those poems - for one of the unfortunate deaths she wrote about to be my own. I also remember reading a lot of stuff by Wordsworth and Robert Frost when I was being tossed around in the system. They wrote about nature, which was basically the only constant thing in my life."

Regina hummed at Emma's admission, but let her mind focus solely on the wording of the blonde's confession, which was spoken only about the past, sending a glimmer of hope and relief through the brunette. The thought of Emma wishing her life away truly hurt, but it would be a lie for her to say that those thoughts never crossed her own mind at one point in her life.

"You said nature was the only constant thing in your life," Regina begun, testing the waters and hoping that her girlfriend wouldn't take her next question as a plea. "What's the constant thing in your life now?"

"Henry and you." Emma simply replied with a smile as she watched the sun begin to set along the shoreline. "The two of you are all I want and all I need."

"I love you," Regina whispered with a faint smile gracing her lips.

"I love you, too." Loving Regina was the one thing Emma believed came natural to her; not being a mother – no that took time and effort. Loving Regina as if she was the only person that could ever bring her happiness was the easiest thing Emma have ever done. "'I love thee to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach.'"

Between kisses and childish giggles, Emma recited a few of her favourite lines or stanzas from poems and entertained the brunette in her lap with a few stories from her youth about her adolescent romantic poetry era. Regina had always known that Emma was a lover of romance, but she had never considered that the blonde felt such passion on the subject of both poetry and classical romantic gestures.

"Tell me," Regina started after Emma had cracked some joke about overenthusiastic poets that spent hours at bars attending poetry slams. "When we first started dating, what was the first poem that came to your mind about me or our relationship."

"I am not answering that one," Emma stifled a laugh and tried to hide the blush that was slowly rising up her neck and to her cheeks.

"Oh, now you have to tell me, Swan." The brunette said with a wicked smile and began to poke the blonde playfully in the ribs, making her squirm and laugh loudly. "I'm not exactly going to judge you about it, darling."

"You're not going to be very impressed though," Emma mumbled, making Regina even more curious. When the brunette raised an impatient brow, Emma caved immediately. "Sonnet CXXX."

"William Shakespeare's poem about his mistress?!" Regina shrieked, pulling herself out of the blonde's lap and glaring at her.

"I told you that you wouldn't be impressed," Emma pulled Regina back into her lap with a laugh and held the woman close to her chest. "But, what you don't understand is the meaning of it."

"Oh really? I'm pretty sure it opens with the words:

'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips' red,
If snow be white, why then hear breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grown on her head:
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.'

"How kind of you, dear." Regina scoffed in spite of herself.

"True, but its the last part of the poem that means the most.

'I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go -
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.'

"Its a parody. At the time, poets compared women to goddesses and Shakespeare realised that women aren't goddesses, but people that should be loved no matter what they looked like. He loved his mistress for who she was, not what she looked like; and at the time I had fallen in love with who you are beneath the mask and snarky comments."

Emma paused and waited for Regina to speak, who was instead attempting to mull things over in her mind. "And now?"

"Well, now I've seen you naked, so I think those two are on parr." Emma replied with a cocky smile, earning herself a light pinch from Regina. "I'm serious; I've always been attracted to the way you look, but I fell in love with the beautiful personality you're always so determined to hide and then you got naked and I'm positive I kinda fell in love all over again. So technically, you made me fall in love with you three times."

"You're an idiot," Regina kissed the blonde's collar bone and pulled her closer, enjoying the shared body heat in the freezing Maine winter breeze.

"All yours." Emma kissed the top of Regina's head and cradled the woman to her chest. "Your turn. What was the first poem that came to mind when we first got together?"

"At Last by Elizabeth Akers Allen." Emma raised her eyebrows at the unfamiliar title in the hope that Regina would recite as much as she could remember. "Technically, that's the first poem that came to mind when you told me you loved me for the first time. Do you know it?"

Emma merely shook her head and allowed Regina the silence to share the poem.

"'At last, when all the summer shine
That warmed life's early hours is past,
Your loving fingers seek for mine
And hold them close—at last—at last!
Not oft the robin comes to build
Its nest upon the leafless bough
By autumn robbed, by winter chilled,—
But you, dear heart, you love me now.

Though there are shadows on my brow
And furrows on my cheek, in truth,—
The marks where Time's remorseless plough
Broke up the blooming sward of Youth,—
Though fled is every girlish grace
Might win or hold a lover's vow,
Despite my sad and faded face,
And darkened heart, you love me now!'

"It reminded me that after everything I have done, you still managed to fall in love with me."

"Your heart is no longer darkened and your face isn't faded or sad, but you were right to believe that I love you for you." The honesty and adoration in Emma's voice made Regina want to melt into this very moment and that was when Emma knew it was the right time to make the plunge, forgetting her plans for later that evening.

"'I've always known that marriage was for me.
When I was young, I'd dream the day away;
I would imagine earnestly my wedding day.
But what a fuzzy picture-
the guests I could not see nor make out any details of my bride to be.

Only my face was clear,
and never could I say rightly who it was that stole my heart away-
the dream remained that self-same shade of murky.
But then, by chance, one day I met you,
and since then my dreams have taken shape.'" Beneath Regina, Emma rustled in her pocket for a moment, pulling out what Regina saw to be a velvet box, making her jolt to an upright position with a baffled stare on her face. "'My bride's filled in- her eyes of brown, her hair of black that frames her smiling face.
I know now who my dream bride is- it's you.'"

Before Regina could even open her mouth to question exactly what was going on before her, Emma dropped to one knee in front of the bench, presenting the most beautiful ring Regina had ever seen with a dazzling smile on her face.

"'So as I fall beside you on one bended knee, please- make real now that bride that's in my dreams!"

As Emma held out the engagement ring, Regina's jaw comically dropped. On the outside, she appeared in a barely obvious state of shock, whereas her insides were going insane. Her heart raced to a speed where she believed it would soon be able to pop directly out of her chest, her mind constantly screamed a single, three letter word and her blood began to heat to an almost boiling point. In that very moment, Regina believed she was going to implode. Every muscle in her being had frozen and her ability of speech was lost within a second.

With Emma still kneeling before her, Regina knew she had to fight it and give the blonde her answer.

Her body put up a worthy fight, but Regina was finally able to frantically nod her head without allowing her tears to spill. The grin on Emma's face merely grew as she tugged Regina into an embrace so tight that neither could move. That was when Regina finally let her tears free. In the strong and comforting embrace that Emma offered, Regina openly weeped with joy.

"Yes..." She breathed into the blonde's neck through her tears, "a thousand times, yes."