Swanqueen One Shots

Time

Still grinning, and squinting from the sun, Robyn says, "Alice said she was spending the day with Hope, so I figured you had quite the night by yourself." She wore a dark green beanie over her dirty blonde braided pigtails. That and the large round glasses on her face made her look younger than 23, but to Emma, she would always be the little six year old who called her Aunt Emmy, but her time in the other realms had turned her into an adult in the blink of an eye.

"Bold of you to assume I was alone," Emma defends with an eyebrow raised. She was very alone with a bottle of wine. Or maybe two. She remembers a lot of crying. She pops the two Advil offered to her into her mouth and takes a very large gulp of her coffee.

Robyn is opening the door to the driver's seat when she says, "Well I know you weren't with a woman. You're holding out for you know who." The grin hasn't disappeared and Emma is once again regretting this.

"Listen kid," Emma climbs into the passenger seat and puts on her seatbelt. "I don't know what you think is going on, but there's nothing. I can promise you that." Not anymore. Or ever, really.

After taking her own large gulp of coffee, Robyn puts her seatbelt on and confidently pushes on the clutch with the toe of her boot and puts the clunker into reverse, and then in first gear. She knows how to drive an automatic, but she wants to impress Alice, even though she's already got the girl. Emma gets it. She really does.

It's only when they've driven down Maine Street and they turn towards the suburbs of Storybrooke, or at least what Emma refers to as the suburbs, that Robyn speaks again. "Aunt Regina told me, ya know."

Emma freezes. The fingers of her left hand stilling from tapping to the music on the radio. "Told you what?"

"You know," Robyn sing songs. "Your dirty little secret."

Emma really likes that song, but that's not the point. She shakes her head. As far as she knows, the only person that knows her secret is herself. And Ruby. Someone else she hasn't seen in what feels like forever. "What secret?" She asks.

Robyn is slowly creeping the bug along Mifflin street, still in first gear, not daring to even go into second, even though she knows that she could. "That you guys slept together," she says casually with a shrug of her shoulders.

Emma practically spits out the coffee in her mouth, but she manages to hold it in, because well, it's really good coffee. It's actually giving her life, at the moment. "We never-" she shrieks. Only in her dreams and fantasies.

Robyn is giggling now and Emma realizes that she's joking. "You should have seen her face! I'm telling Alice about this later."

They come to a stop sign and Emma is laughing with the teenager. Until she starts to sob. They're only a block from Regina's house. Or, what used to be Regina's house. Sometimes Henry uses it on the rare occasion he's in town, and it's currently being used by Robyn and Alice for the time being. Fuck, Emma misses Regina so damn much.

"Whoa, Emma. I... I'm sorry. I was joking."

"I've tried," Emma sobs. "I've tried so fucking hard." Her aviators are on top of her head now, and her hands are shaking as she tries to hold her head in her hands.

"Tried what?" Robyn asks. Her voice is softer now, like when she talks to Hope, and it makes Emma cry harder.

Emma sniffles and thinks for a long while. Is she really going to come clean about all of this? To Regina's niece, of all people? Her son's cousin? "Can we go to the park?"

Robyn doesn't say anything as she shifts the car back into first gear, then second, and finally third. Emma smiles and she can see that Robyn is smiling, too. Their loose strands of hair are flying around their faces as they drive, laughing in the wind. Emma has never been more grateful for the girl next to her. Robyn is a strange mix of her parents, but she got all the right bits and pieces.