Singing the Same Line All Over Again (1/?)

Fandom: Once Upon a Time

Rating: T

Pairings: Swan Queen

Disclaimers: Don't own the characters or anything else from the show. Just borrowing for a bit.

Summary: Emma finds herself stuck reliving the same horrible day.

A/N: I blame the tropes thing. That's really the only thing I can blame for this. WARNING, character death. Also lesbians at some point, but you knew that already didn't you? ;)

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The blaring of an alarm clock was truly the worst sound in the world. Seven in the morning. Emma longed desperately to roll back over and let sleep claim her once more but gone were the days when she could give in to self indulgence. She was the sheriff now. Respectable. Responsible.

God, how had that happened? Damned kid and his face, giving her grand ideas of permanance and stability.

Mary Margret was rushing around the kitchen when Emma, dressed but still bedraggled, stumbled down the stairs. The woman looked ready to head out, already dressed in coat and hat, and Emma frowned at the wall clock. It was early yet, well ahead of the teacher's typical schedule.

"Oh, hey Emma!" Mary Margaret said, smiling at the blonde's tussled appearance. "Sorry can't stick around for breakfast, I'm running late. The kids have this science fair thing- See you for dinner later?"

"Sure. Should be back by then." The great thing about working in a near crimeless town was she rarely had to stay late at the office. She was always on call technically, being a team of one plus a handful of volunteers, but she could always get away with ducking out early.

Mary Margaret was gone almost before Emma had finished her response and the sheriff waved at the slamming door. "Have a nice day then."

It was a cold morning, like most every other she'd experienced in jolly old Main, and Emma pulled on her own fuzzy bobble topped knit cap before stepping out into the crisp morning air.

Her timing was perfect, the routine already ingrained after such a short amount of time. She arrived at the street corner past Granny's just as Henry did, backpack slung about his tiny shoulders and face stretched in a grin, and walked him the rest of the way to school while he chatted animatedly along side her. Then she doubled back to the diner for her morning bear claw and coffee (Though she'd already had a mug prior to leaving the apartment and would probably have another from the pot at the office when she arrived; It was a vice and she knew it but damned if it wasn't worth it.)

She arrived just as a black Mercedes pulled up to the curb, and that may have been intentional as well though she would never admit it; If she knew the Mayor's schedule as well as her own it was only because she felt safer being aware at all times of the volatile woman's whereabouts.

"Miss Swan."

"Morning, Regina."

And if she ogled the Mayor's ass a little as she followed the other woman inside, well, she had put Emma through enough hell that the sheriff had earned the right to look every now and again.

"Donuts, Sheriff, really?"

"A skirt in twenty degree weather, Madam Mayor, really?"

"That's hardly comparable."

"You're judging my breakfast. I reserve the right to judge your legs."

"Judge or leer, Sheriff? There's a difference."

Emma turned red to her ears, though they were blessedly hidden beneath hat and curls. "I don't leer. Self absorbed much?"

"Eye. Stare. Ogle. Gaze at longingly. Take your pick."

"Some-body's got word of the day toilet paper."

Regina rolled her eyes as Granny handed over her espresso. "No, just a vocabulary broader than a neanderthal's."

"Such sweet things you say."

Watching the Mayor walk away from the counter with a smirk and a cocky sway in her step, Emma supposed the woman's legs got the last word after all. There was some definite 'eyeing' going on.

It was as she was accepting the powder pink pastry box that she heard it, the unmistakable crack of a gun.

Emma thought she must be mistaken, it must have been a car backfiring because things like that just didn't happen in Storybrooke, but then there were screams and the box of donuts splattered on the floor as she rushed to pull her own sidearm and see what all the commotion was about.

Sydney was the last person she expected to see, muttering something about the bitch who wouldn't get out of his head as his hands trembled around a silver revolver.

"Drop it! Hands where I can see them!"

He complied almost immediately, dark eyes almost looking surprised as the gun clattered to the ground. "I just had to make it stop. I had to get her out of my head." He said in a small, dazed voice.

"Her?"

It was only then Emma saw the body crumpled on the sidewalk, so much red against a black trench coat.

"Oh god."

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Twelve hours. Twelve long hours of pacing the waiting room floor and wringing her hands while Mary Margret and a pale faced Henry looked on and when Dr. Whale finally emerged, lips set in a hard grim line, Emma put her fist through a wall.

In the end it was decided the boy would go home with Emma and his teacher, at least temporarily. Regina didn't have any family and evidently hadn't put enough stock in her own mortality to have any sort of safety net in place.

He was stony through the ride home and the dinner neither of them touched but the tears came later, when sleep failed him and he crawled into bed with her. Emma's heart shattered into a thousand tiny pieces as she held his trembling little body in her arms.

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Emma awoke ten minutes before her alarm was set to go off, finally conceding defeat to her scattered, unpleasant dreams. She felt as though a great weight had settled onto her chest, compressing heart and lungs and bringing an almost physical pain with each breath she took. Her hand, at least, felt better. She'd expected the wall bruised knuckles to smart and throb for days. She'd been lucky, really, not to have broken anything.

When she rolled over she saw that Henry was no longer there. Indeed, there was no trace of his presence anywhere in the room, the discarded sneakers and his backpack gone. The boy had probably been even less able to sleep than she had; He must have risen early and prepared for the day already. She could smell coffee brewing, maybe he was having breakfast with Mary Margaret.

She swung her legs over the mattress, toes curling as they came into contact with the cold hardwood floor. "Here's hoping for another banner day..."

When she got downstairs however she was greeted only by the sight of Mary Margaret, running around the kitchen in a state of dishevelment, one shoe on and in the middle of draping her scarf around her neck. "Oh hey Emma!" She said when she saw her roommate hovering at the bottom of the stairs, and Emma was struck with a sudden overwhelming sense of deja vu. "Sorry can't stick around for breakfast, I'm running late. The kids have this science fair thing- See you for dinner later?"

"Um-What? Wasn't that yesterday? Where's Henry?"

Mary Margaret frowned at her in a concerned sort of way as she pulled on the missing shoe. "On his way to school himself, I suppose? Emma are you feeling alright?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Considering."

The feeling of strangeness lingered as she watched her roommate rush out the door as though everything was perfectly normal. She couldn't believe that Henry had just left, and that Mary Margaret had let him go alone, but then the kid was hurting so maybe he had just wanted some time to himself. She resolved to stop in and make sure he'd made it to school in one piece on her way to work and set about getting ready for the day ahead of her. The sheriff's office was the last place she wanted to be but something needed to be done with the man sitting in lockup and while she felt ill equipped to handle it she was the only law enforcement the town had. Until she handed him off to the state for trial the responsibility fell squarely on Emma's shoulders.

It was as she was walking by Granny's, hands shoved in her pockets against the cold and chin tucked snug in the collar of her jacket, that her deja vu took a turn to the truly insane.

She didn't think anything of the mayor's sleek black Mercedes being parked out front other than experiencing a brief spasm of pain at the sight of it; Who would have moved it, after all? It had certainly never crossed her mind to do so, though she supposed someone would have to take care of it eventually.

When the driver's side door swung open, however, emitting a familiar head of brown hair, she froze in place as surely as though her feet had sunken into the sidewalk beneath them.

"Regina?!"

"Miss Swan. Can I help you with something?" She was dressed as she had been the day before, pinstriped skirt and trench-coat and the black scarf draped around her neck, lips starkly red in the grey of the morning air. Emma couldn't help but reach out to touch her, fingers shaking as they came into contact with a solid shoulder. Then she pulled the suddenly stiff backed mayor into a full on hug, delighted half crazed laughter spilling from trembling lips.

"What the hell-"

"You're alive! You're- You're alive!"

"Miss Swan, have you lost your mind? Of course I'm alive. Now unhand me this instant."

Emma drew back, though she maintained her grip on the other woman's shoulders- And it was notable, perhaps, that Regina permitted it. "Is- Was it all some kind of joke? Because I have to tell you, Madame Mayor, that's sick as hell. Henry- Oh god. How could you-"

"Whatever are you rambling about?" Brown eyes searched Emma's, looking for a moment almost concerned. "Are you ill?"

Regina was honestly clueless, that much Emma could tell from the worried knit of the woman's dark brows and the confused line of her lips. Emma thought she might just kiss them, such was the relief flipping and swooping in her belly.

What the hell was going on?