Shared Pain

Chapter 18

"You smell like vomit," Regina said right before their lips touched, causing Emma to chuckle and she moved back.

She briefly glanced at the still dirty carpet and couch and swallowed. "I should probably go wash myself then," she said. "And after that I'm going to Mr. Hopper to get the papers for a divorce."

Regina nodded. "That sounds like a plan. Isn't it quite easy to get a divorce in Storybrooke? That's what I heard," she said and Emma nodded.

"Yeah, Mr. Hopper is the marriage counselor, but he also takes care of divorces. He's made divorce as easy as possible as he gets a lot of money for it, but not many people get divorced here. Everyone's got this fairy tale love, a partner with whom they really do want to spend the rest of their lives. That's probably because you can't just get married for fun here, you have to have been two years together with your partner before you can apply for marriage."

Regina raised her eyebrows. "Really? Why are the laws concerning marriage and divorce so different here?"

Emma shrugged. "I have absolutely no idea. A divorce here is literally just filling out some papers. Since Storybrooke doesn't have a court, we don't even have to get a lawyer, but I really have to get some aspirin now," Emma said and turned around before she left the living room.

The brunette kneeled down to continue cleaning everything up.

She regretted not kissing Emma, but as the divorce wasn't final yet, she didn't want to kiss Emma. Well, she wanted to kiss Emma, but she knew it would have been wrong.

It took some time but eventually all that was left in the room was the empty bottle of vodka and the horrible smell. The couch and carpet were clean and Regina looked satisfied at her work.

"Alright, this'll do. I'll just open some windows to make the smell go away," she said out loud to herself.

"That sounds great," Emma replied and Regina immediately turned around. "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you."

Regina exhaled relieved and chuckled. "It's alright. You look better," she said as she studied the blonde's face. "Are you ready to go?"

Emma inhaled deeply but nodded. She held a faint smile on her lips. She was more than ready to do this.

Nothing could repair the relationship she had with Killian. He screwed up. He'd handled things poorly and really, she didn't blame anything on herself as she hadn't done anything wrong.

Well, she didn't want to blame herself for their ruined relationship, but somewhere, deep down, Emma did blame herself.

She wondered what would have happened if she'd listened more to him, if she'd seen how he felt and if she'd tried to make him feel better.

But all those thoughts were useless now as there was no chance in the world that they'd work out anymore.

Together with Regina, Emma left the house. She was glad that Regina was by her side no matter how horrible she'd been to her.

Frankly, she didn't know why she lashed out on the brunette that night. Regina hadn't deserved that and Emma knew that, but in the moment she'd been so angry and mad at everyone.

"How are you two going to handle the custody of the kids?" Regina inquired as they walked to her car.

"I get the kids. He's not allowed to get anywhere near them or I'll literally cut off his hand," Emma blankly said and looked outside the window.

"What if he doesn't agree?"

"He does," she muttered. "He thinks taking care of the kids is too hard. And I don't disagree, it's hard taking care of kids, but not if you do I together with someone. But with or without me, he doesn't want to raise them."