Apologies in advance if this ending is not a happy one for you, or if it's different to your own imaginings of what comes next. This is the story that feels right for all of our characters, and I hope you'll indulge me.

Emma tugs at the blazer one more time, frowning at herself in the full-length mirror that takes up one corner of the bedroom. It's still not decorated entirely to her taste, but it's nearer than anywhere else has been. A 'fixer-upper', the realtor had called it; one hernia, two broken toes and a busted chainsaw later, Emma's filing that description as an understatement.

They say the light's different down here in Boston, and she's inclined to agree. Her hair looks a little more blonde than silver again, without the need for the six-weekly appointments alongside Ruby, chatting about Storybrooke's weirder residents side by side in their foils.

She should call, Emma realizes. Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow there'll be something to tell.

The front door opens and slams shut a moment later, and Emma's heart sinks. She checked three times that Snow wouldn't be home this weekend, and the demands of sophomore year were supposed to keep her on campus.

"Hey," Snow gasps a moment later, popping her head around the doorframe as though she's scared to commit any more of her body to the firing line. "Don't get pissed, okay? Me being here doesn't change your plans. I just wanted to see you off, I guess. Give you my blessing, since you're too damn stubborn to ask for it."

"I don't need your blessing. It's dinner. It's—"

"I know what it is. And I'm proud of you. Did I ever tell you that?"

"Maybe," Emma mumbles, staring at the stripped wooden floorboards. "Although it's kinda nice to hear it again."

"You should get going. Traffic's a little bitchy over the bridge. A few minutes late is fine, shows you're not desperate. But more than ten and you're just an inconsiderate ass."

"Says the girl who no doubt has a car trunk full of laundry for me to do tomorrow," Emma groans, but when she glances at the mirror again, she feels good about the starched white shirt, the black blazer and the dress pants that she hasn't worn since her FBI interviews. It's smart enough for a restaurant, but not so much that she'll choke on it. She looks… like herself, and that's something she hasn't always been able to say.

"Go check the restaurant name one more time for me? It's on the fridge," Emma asks, silently pleading for a moment alone that she won't have to explain.

"Fine," Snow grumbles. "But I'm still seeing you off."

Emma nods, and Snow disappears in a flurry of footsteps; she's never been one to walk when she can run instead.

"Kid?" Emma whispers. "Kid? I mean…Henry?"

Nothing. Not even the stirring of a breeze through her open bedroom window. Emma shoves her hands in her pockets, closes her eyes and waits. She counts to ten, then ten all over again, imagining the 'Mississippi's between each number. It's been months, now. But if ever he were to make a reappearance, it would be tonight.

"Okay," Emma says to herself after two seemingly endless minutes elapse. She opens her eyes and a quick scan confirms she's as alone as she was before Snow arrived.

"Ready?" Snow asks, post-it clutched firmly in her hand as she waits at the foot of the stairs. "No one is gonna blame you if you're not."

"I'm ready," Emma decides, taking the steps two at a time and sure of the gripping soles on her low-slung ankle boots. Snow is dressed in a college uniform of sorts: mismatched sweats that also don't match the beanie hat pulled down over her currently spiky hair. "Gimme that."

"Call me," Snow says quietly as they meet up for one of their brief but heartfelt hugs. "At some point tonight? Even a text, just so I know it's going okay."

"I'm not going to get murdered on a dinner date, kid. Trust me, I'm a Fed now, remember?"

"It's a desk job, so don't get all Dirty Harry on me, Mom."

"You sticking around until morning?"

"Until Tuesday, actually."

"Right. Well…"

"Mom," Snow sighs, grabbing Emma's arm and steering her towards the front door. "Go. You can't move on if you don't actually move."

"I hate it when you're right."

"You should. You're paying like, 30 grand a year to make me this right."

"Don't remind me," Emma chuckles. "I'll call you when I'm heading home."

The restaurant is just the right side of pretentious for Emma's liking. She doesn't mind that they leave the prices off the menu, just so long as she can pronounce more than one of the beers on tap.

"Swan?" Emma mutters at the maître'd, quiet enough to only be ignored. She tries again, a little louder and forcing some politeness "I mean, I booked a table for two. Name's Swan."

"Ah, of course," the man says, like he's only just noticed her. "Your guest has already arrived, we've seated her."

"She has?" Emma squeaks, her plan to steady her nerves with a glass of water and practicing small talk on some breadsticks evaporating before her eyes. "Oh, I uh…"

"Right this way," the shorter man insists, just a hint of edge in his voice. Emma can't blame him for wanting to move it along, the line for this place is already spilling out onto the street and halfway down the block. If she lets him get any further away, she won't be able to hear him over the din of the super trendy music.

Thankfully, it's quieter out on the restaurant floor, the music centered on the bar area where Emma realizes too late that she should have started this particular encounter; nothing like a couple of margaritas that cost as much as her jacket to set the mood after all.

The waiter has stopped, hovering impatiently by an empty seat. Despite his earlier assurance, there's nobody sitting opposite.

"You said—"

"Perhaps she stepped out for a moment," he suggests, already rocking on the balls of his feet and ready to dart off to the next request for a second bottle or extra bread. "But please, do sit."

He pushes Emma's chair half an inch as soon as she sits on it, before disappearing into the throng of tables with practiced ease. She drags herself the rest of the way into position, almost knocking the water glasses over in the process.

"I should be glad I didn't order red," a female voice breaks through the hubbub over Emma's shoulder. For a moment, the entire restaurant fades out, and all Emma can hear is the pounding of her heart in her chest and the rasp of her suddenly uncatchable breath. "Because you'd be wearing it right now if I had."

Emma starts, but somewhere in the conflicting signals to stand or remain seated, to offer a hand or go for a kiss on the cheek (too European, too far outside her comfort zone, too forward?) she ends up staring mutely instead.

"I can do both sides of the conversation if you like," Regina sighs, taking her own seat and hanging her purse on the back of her chair. "God knows I've been practicing that since I called."

"You look…I mean, wow. You look..."

"Tired? Haggard? Crazy? Much the same as ever, I guess," Regina supplies, blushing as she fusses with putting the napkin in her lap, over a tight dark blue dress that's definitely new. Two days new or two years new, Emma can't be sure, but she didn't miss the curves concealed and revealed by it in turn. There's nothing tired about Regina, no hint of sleeplessness under her eyes, though her makeup is flawless as ever. The dark red on her lips draws Emma's eyes like a magnet, and she realizes she's as much of a goner as she ever was.

"Regina," Emma whispers, summoning her bravery and reaching across the small table for one of Regina's hands. "I was so sure I'd walk in here and be surprisingly cool with this."

"You're not?"

"No, I am. I think." Emma squeezes Regina's fingers between her own, glowing as the gesture is reciprocated. "I mean, it doesn't feel weird at all. Like maybe I just saw you yesterday."

"Boston suits you," Regina announces, withdrawing her hand as another waiter approaches. "I always planned to carry on to New York, but it works for me too."

"It does?" Emma warns the waiter off with the briefest of glances, and he makes another circuit without missing a beat. "You're in, uh… I mean, what are you trying these days? You have a good doc here?"

"Well, one thing I'm trying is not being defined by my illness," Regina answers, though not unkindly. "I've been carrying around a lot of labels for a long time. Now I'm trying to make that just one part of my life. But yes, things are managed. Pretty well. Although there have been some rough patches. No doubt there will be again."

"You're working?"

"Mmm," Regina flags the waiter down this time, and they spend a couple of pleasant minutes discussing wine before Regina goes ahead and orders them a bottle of red, fruitier than Emma might like, but she's trying to be open to new things.

"I wanted to ask you—" Emma begins when they're alone again, but Regina is already plowing ahead. Her hair is longer, and despite the careful curls styled into it, it mostly hangs loose around her face. She looks more like the brassy young Mayor Emma first knew, more than she has in a long time.

"How's Snow?"

"She gave this little meeting her blessing," Emma starts with the important part. "Even came home this weekend to wave me off. But I think that's more to do with how much laundry she's hauling back with her. There can't be a clean hoody left on campus for her to be putting in an appearance before finals."

"I emailed. I guess she told you? I wanted to know about school."

"She's acing it like the horrible little genius she's always been," Emma sighs. "I'm glad, don't get me wrong. I didn't think David Nolan would still be sniffing around her at this stage, but sure enough they've still got something going on. He's around her more often than he's not."

"Good." Regina seems genuinely pleased at that news. "She deserves to feel loved, Emma. God knows I never gave her that."

"Hey," Emma warns. "I'll talk about anything you need to talk about, but no blaming yourself, okay? I refuse to believe that helps anyone."

"Always protecting me," Regina teases. "Always my knight in shining armor. Even after I walked out on you."

"We both needed it," Emma admits, something she hasn't been able to do anywhere but in her twice-monthly therapy sessions. "It was rough, at first. Got it into my head that he… you know, that he would hang around with me instead. Scared the crap out of myself, pretty much."

"You'll be pleased to hear he hasn't gone anywhere with me. The occasional dream, once in a while. Nothing more than that."

"That is good to hear."

"Listen, I know we're just having dinner. I know it's just a catch up on two years of nothing, and how much of that is my doing. But is there any chance-" Regina begins, toying with her fork until she's stabbing it into the tablecloth.

"That I want to say 'fuck dinner' and get the hell out of here?" Emma finishes, meeting the gleam in Regina's eye with what has to be the same in her own. "I thought you'd never ask."

"Is it a good idea?"

"Is anything, really?" Emma stands, throwing some loose bills on the table to cover their wine order, and extends a hand to her wife. Still her wife, always her wife; no paperwork filed, no change made permanent.

"Your place?"

"That might be asking for trouble," Emma warns. "In the morning, maybe. If you wanted to see Snow, check out the new digs."

"There's a really nice hotel four blocks from here," Regina tells her in a low voice as they collect their coats, not entirely necessary on a spring evening that's mild for their corner of the world. "If that's too ridiculous…"

"It's just ridiculous enough," Emma decides. "And this way, no traumatizing the undergrad, right?"

"Right."

They walk in companionable silence for the first block, and when they cross the street, Regina grabs Emma's arm, pulling her towards the shelter of the nearest building. In the doorway of a closed-up office, her dark eyes search Emma's face, and it's too late for her to put up any new defenses.

"It's really this simple? After all I've done, after all you've put up with? A few conversations, a glass of wine—"

"Two glasses," Emma corrects.

"And you're ready to sneak off to some hotel with me? It wasn't supposed to be this easy. I didn't know if you'd ever forgive me."

"You say that like I should blame you for wanting to be well."

"I'm not cured, Emma. You know that. This is a good spell, there's been some real progress. But the undamaged Regina is never coming back."

A couple of drunk guys veer towards them, bumping shoulders and laughing at what is no doubt about to become an amateur seduction. Emma considers her options in a split second, before pulling her badge and warrant card from the pocket of her blazer.

"Move it along, fellas," she warns, and they have the sense to correct course, stumbling on into the night.

"Did you hear what I said?" Regina takes her by the upper arms now, staring her down. "This isn't some magical do-over."

"I wouldn't want that," Emma tells her, not even blinking in case Regina doubts the sincerity. "Did I hate you for walking out? Okay, maybe at first. But it gave me the time and space I'd never had before, To, well, fall apart. That's okay, though. In the end, it's let me deal with some stuff I put off for way too long."

"What stuff?"

"You know. My own feelings over what happened… to our son. My own past. The things I gave up and the ways we both suffered. I actually talked about it all instead of hiding in making packed lunches and chasing down small town drunks. And let's face it, Regina. Neither one of us was undamaged when we met. Your mom did a real number on you."

"Just like never having parents did a number on you." Regina isn't smug when she counters, instead she rubs her thumbs on Emma's arms in a gesture that's something like comfort. "I've missed you, Emma Swan. Every day."

"It's still Swan-Mills, remember? And so maybe a week from now the yelling starts," Emma concedes. "Maybe we'll say some more things we wish we could take back. Plus, if this turns out to be an issue for Snow, you know she has to come first."

"I do know that."

"Then let's go, woman. It's not gonna be nice out forever. And unlike me, you're not dressed for anything worse."

"Emma—"

She ends the conversation with a kiss. At first, Emma doesn't land quite right with her lips on Regina's, but the slightest movement of their heads rectifies that. It's two old dance partners straightening up for the first dance of the night, and if the ferocity in Regina's mouth is any indication, she's ready to skip straight to the outright sexiness of the tango.

"Sure?" Regina gasps when they finally part, nudging her smeared lipstick with her thumb. "I'm only asking this one last time, because I won't be able to stop myself if this goes any further. You should know, I suppose, that I have no intention of breaking your heart. Not again."

"You came back, Regina. My whole life, people walked out. But you came back. That's more than enough for now. I swear. Right hand up to God, whatever you need to hear."

"Well, then," Regina smiles and for the first time all night there's nothing guarded about it. She takes Emma's hand, tentatively at first, but squeezing more firmly as they begin walking the rest of the way to the hotel. "I'm really glad I came back."

Emma doesn't have to say it, but she thinks it all the same.

Me too.