Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Emma thinks it’s hilarious that one of Commander Mills’ ornaments spontaneously combusts and blasts a hole in the wall of her rooms.

Of course, it’s not so funny when Regina decides to take over her quarters.

Commander Mills has a fondness for old artifacts, books and knick-knacks. Emma supposes that it was only a matter of time before they found that one of them was dangerous.

The device was something Regina had picked up in a market somewhere, and the engineers hadn’t worked out that it would explode in the right circumstances.

It was actually kind of funny, the first security breach that damages the ship and it’s partially the Commander’s fault. However, it hadn’t been very amusing at first, when the alarms had blared, and Emma had realised that the section that needed repair was where Regina’s rooms were located.

She’d heaved a sigh of relief when she had come across the brunette while running to the emergency.

Now, though, she was rethinking her attitude to the whole incident, as Regina has decided to commandeer her quarters.

“Seriously? Doesn’t someone else have a nicer place?”

“Obviously,” the Commander sneers, looking around Emma’s room with a wrinkled nose. “But the device damaged some of the systems and the whole section is being sealed off until it’s fixed, so anyone who lives there-”

“Is being placed somewhere else.”

“Correct. And I am not sharing rooms with the Nolans.”

Emma has to agree with her on that one. She loves David and Mary Margaret, even if they do sometimes act like her parents, but living with Mary Margaret for one year was enough. “Well, I guess it could be worse. I’m not moving, though.”

“Major Swan can’t put her soldiers out of their rooms or share with them for morale issues. David said.”

“Alright,” Emma says. “What can go wrong?”

Everything could go wrong.

Regina actually put down a line of tape dividing the room into areas with passages of common use between them for each of them. Half of her clothes get chucked out of the wardrobe to make room for Regina’s many suits. She makes a schedule of time for the bathroom, for god’s sake. And Emma’s a spontaneous kind of person. When she needs to use the toilet, she needs to use it, and she is not asking to use Dr Hopper’s again.

Regina has the king sized bed replaced with two singles because neither of them will sleep on the couch, but Emma finds herself on the floor on the first morning, and on the second, and the third, so, on the fourth evening, Emma returns after a hard day of training the newest recruits ready to fall asleep on the floor just so she doesn't get bruises on top of bruises on top of bruises, only to find another bed folded out from the sofa.

She falls onto it gratefully, finding that it's not even too uncomfortable, and pulls out her phone, dialling up Regina.

“What is it, Major?” she hears as soon as Regina's face appears in front of her.

“Thanks for the bed.”

“Well, you do need to be fit for emergencies,” Regina says. “Was that all?”

“Yeah,” Emma says, relaxing into the mattress. “Sleeping now.”

“Goodnight, then, Major.”

Emma waves the call closed and immediately drifts off.

Things get much better with the addition of the folding bed, which they can turn back into a sofa during the day, and Emma no longer falls out of bed in the middle of the night, while Regina once again has the larger, proper bed, but she is the Commander and Emma supposes that she can't really begrudge her that.

One night it's late and she'd spent half the day running away from native fauna on the planet they'd touched down on, and the sofa was currently folded as a sofa, and she was so tired...

Regina was still working, and surely she wouldn't mind Emma borrowing her bed back for just a couple of hours until she could be bothered to unfold the sofa.

Emma is asleep before her head hits the pillow.

Regina opens the door to their quarters to find them dark, and knowing that Emma's day was even longer than hers, she doesn't turn the lights on, just creeps through the darkness to the bedroom and strips down to her underwear before crawling beneath the covers.

At least the bed is warm, she thinks as she drifts off.

There’s something under Emma’s arm, she realises as consciousness returns. She’s face down in a pillow, and a warm body is next to her, her hand resting on a curvy hip. Confusion reigns, for a moment, until she remembers the circumstances in which she fell asleep. In Regina’s bed.

She is so dead.

She tries to breathe a quietly as possible and stay completely still as she considers her options. She can attempt to sneak out of the bed and hope that Regina doesn’t catch her, or stay where she is and savour the moment before she is murdered.

Admittedly, it probably isn’t the best time to give in to her crush on her commander.

She slowly lifts her arm from around Regina, attempting to slide out from beneath the blanket without disturbing the other woman.

She moves too far, however, and manages to fall out of the bed.

Ow, elbows, wrist, head-

“What the-” She hears the rustle of bedsheets and then Regina’s lovely face appears over the side of the bed. “Swan, what are you doing?”

“I fell off the bed?” she tries weakly.

“This is my bed now, remember, Major?”

Emma groans. “I was super tired and the couch was folded. I only meant to have a nap.”

Regina rolls her eyes. “You’re ridiculous.” She reaches an arm down to her. “Need a hand?”

“Thanks.” With the brunette’s help Emma pulls herself into a kneeling position and finds her face an inch away from Regina’s. She doesn’t know how long she stares into her dark eyes, heart stuttering, their hands clasped together, but eventually they let go and Emma stands.

“I can’t believe I didn’t smell you,” Regina says. “You fell asleep, in my bed, in your exercise gear?”

“Hey, my clothes were covered in muck from the expedition so I had to put on these until I could change, and then you called that meeting and I had to submit a report to Dr French, and-”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Regina says, halting her. “Go have a shower.”

Emma is surprised that she is being left off that easy, and… “What about your bathroom schedule?”

Her words are met with narrowed eyes. “You have ten minutes. Meeting at 0800.”

Emma flees.

Emma is back in on the foldout that night, and the next week, but then the afternoon before they’re due to touch down on Sherwood, Regina catches her arm in a corridor.

“You should have the bed tonight. There will be a lot to do tomorrow.”

She is nothing if not surprised at the offer. “That’s kind, but you’ll have just as much to do. I do not envy you having to meet the governor. I’ll be fine on the couch.”

Regina wrinkles her nose. “I really do not like that man, but I’ve seen the way you have to stretch after sleeping on that thing. You should take the bed, just in case we get some trouble.”

“Look, I’m not going to chuck you out of the bed,” Emma tells her before they end up talking in circles. “You think you can stand to share it with me?”

She waits with bated breath for the Commander’s answer, a long few moments as she watches her thoughtful face.

“I suppose so,” Regina says finally.

“Great!” Emma says before she can stop herself. “I mean, it makes more sense than one of us being uncomfortable.”

“Right.”

She can’t help feeling a little awkward as they get ready for bed, and she opts to get changed in the bathroom. Regina smirks and asks if they’re five years old.

But then when Emma gets under the covers she’s warm and Regina slides in next to her moments later and everything is good.

Chapter Text

This Robin Hood guy is seriously pissing Emma off.

She’d caught him trying to steal some of their supplies, and promptly taken him prisoner, of course. He’d apologised, like that made any difference, and explained that the governor had implemented unfair rationing upon everyone but the very rich, and he had thought that they were government supplies.

She had begun to understand, even believed him, from what she knew of the governor, but now she is just annoyed.

Regina had come back, and talked to him, and now he was out of cuffs and sitting with Regina at the main meeting table, telling her how things were apparently so terrible for the inhabitants of Sherwood, and Regina was lapping it up, nodding with a frown on her face.

Plus, she’s pretty sure he’s trying to flirt with Regina.

Douchebag.

Her communicator comes to life, Lieutenant Lucas’ voice saying, “Major Swan?”

She sighs and brings the device to her mouth. “Go ahead, Ruby.”

“We have a situation. An old friend of ours, to be exact, come for a visit. We’re in the loading bay.”

Part of her wants to stay and keep an eye on Hood, but another doesn’t want to stick around any longer and watch him get closer to Regina. “Will you be okay here, Commander?” she asks.

“I’ll be fine, Swan,” Regina says, barely looking away from the bandit.

Emma nods and leaves the room swiftly, jogging as soon as she’s out of sight. She doesn’t know who the old friend that Ruby talked of is, but it can’t be good.

It’s Killian fucking Jones, pirate and pain in Emma’s ass, that is sitting on a crate while Ruby watches over him.

She almost turns around and walk straight back out the door, but Regina will want to know what he wants - and Regina is entertaining a fugitive of her own - so Emma has to put up with him for now.

“Swan,” Killian says, letting his eyes drift over her lazily. “I heard you were around, so I thought I’d drop by.”

“There’s a warrant out on you, Jones. Just because you helped us out last time doesn’t mean we’ll let you go free again.”

“Worried about me, love?” he asks, and Ruby sniggers until Emma glares at her.

“No, it’s a warning. Tell me whatever it is you wanted to say, and I might let you get back to your ship without having you detained.”

He shakes his hook at her for a moment before it separates into five fingers. “You just want to keep me around-”

“You have ten seconds.”

“Alright, alright! I heard you might be investigating how things are run here on Sherwood. Thought you might want some help.”

Emma groans. “Wow, news really does travel fast in criminal circles, doesn’t it.”

“You’ve got Robin. Now, we’re not exactly friends, but we did a little business before he realised it just meant most of the people got even less than before. The hunting ground here isn’t so rich as it used to be.”

She raises an eyebrow at him. “So you admit that you only want to help us decrease the difference in circumstances here so that you can steal more stuff.”

Jones shrugs. “Basically. But I know things. I can help.”

“I’m going to regret even considering this, aren’t I.”

Ruby nods at her. “Yep.”

Regina is most definitely not pleased when Emma tells her of Hook’s presence on the ship.

“It was bad enough last time,” she tells her. “He’s so irritating.”

“He says he has information. If you want to do anything about the situation here, we might need him.”

Mr ‘I’m a swell guy who steals from the rich to give to the poor’ breaks in with, “I know him. He’s stopped enough ships going to and fro around here to know quite a bit.”

For the first time Emma sees her turn and frown at Hood for a moment before facing Emma again. “Fine,” she says with a sigh. “He can help us.”

Regina refuses to let Jones further onto the ship than he already is, so their plans are hatched over and empty supply box.

Emma almost wishes that Killian didn’t have any worthwhile information, so that she had reason to kick him out, but it turns out that what he knows is important, so she has to put up with his flirting comments for a while yet.

It begins to get late and they agree to meet again the next day.

Jones asks Emma out for a drink, and she looks to Regina but, the brunette is already turned away, talking to Hood, her hand on his arm, so in a fit of pique she accepts his invitation.

It doesn’t take long to regret her decision, but she’s already in a bar with Hook and Regina is back at the ship, dining with Hood.

She drinks to try and forget her thoughts of Regina, but it doesn’t work, and Jones is only slightly more tolerable with quite a bit of booze, and he continues to flirt, so the night is mostly a dead loss.

She gets back to the ship somehow, and makes it halfway to the room that Regina is still sharing before being struck by a horrible thought. What if Robin has stayed the night? And in the bed that she shared with Regina only the night before? The tightness in her chest grows as she considers it, and she changes direction, heading to the military quarters, where she finds a spare bunk and manages to pass out.

Regina frowns as she views the sitting room. When Emma had not returned the previous evening from her drink with the pirate, she had unfolded the couch before going to bed. But now it’s the morning, and a time at which she should certainly be back by, if only to fulfil her duties as Major, but the room is exactly as she had left it, everything untouched.

Either Emma had found somewhere else on the ship to sleep, for some reason, or… Regina’s eyes narrow. She could still be with Hook, that bastard.

As she gets dressed, still fuming, she checks her messages.

There’s one from the governor, inviting her to a gathering at his house. It could be the perfect opportunity to search for conclusive evidence to request a change of control over the planet. She wouldn’t be able to do it, though, being too well known to sneak around without attracting notice.

“Damn,” she swears, as she realises who would need to go.

There’s a knock at the door, and Regina stands up, thinking it could be Emma, but when the door opens it only reveals Lieutenant Lucas, looking embarrassed.

“Sorry, ma’am,” the younger woman says. “But Major Swan is passed out on a spare bunk and I knew you would be busy today so I thought I’d bring her a change of clothes.”

“She got drunk?”

“I believe so.”

Regina sighs. “Go ahead, then. Her things are in the left hand cupboards.” Ruby quickly collects some garments and just as she is about to leave Regina says, “Tell her I want to see her in and hour.”

“Of course.”

Regina is talking to Robin, explaining her idea, when Emma arrives in the meeting room. She’s pale, with dark circles beneath her eyes, certainly the worse for wear thanks to her alcohol consumption. “Are you quite alright, dear?” Regina asks teasingly.

Emma grunts, and helps herself to a glass of water.

“Anyway, as I was just explaining to Robin here, there’s a party at the Governor’s mansion tonight.”

Emma’s eyes lock with hers in understanding. “A chance to find proof.”

Regina nods. “Indeed. Unfortunately, I’ll be required to speak to people all night long, and Robin is already known to the security, so you and Jones will have to do the sneaking around.”

Emma groans and lets her head fall forward to hit the table.

How interesting.

The party is one of the most boring events that Regina has been to in a long while, but Emma and Jones didn’t seem to arouse much suspicion. Only now they’ve been gone for what seems like hours, and Regina is fluctuating between being worried that they were caught and thinking that they mgit be getting up to something in an empty room.

Even though there is no reason why she should be worried, because Emma is a grown woman and can do what she likes.

Just then she catches a glimpse of red silk and blonde hair out of the corner of her eye, and while appearing to still be listening to her conversation partner, she slowly turns to look at her.

Emma and Jones have entered the ballroom once again, Emma apparently annoyed with the pirate, though Regina doesn’t blame her. As she watches, Jones bows to Emma and kisses her hand before striding off through the crowd.

Emma shakes her head, then catches Regina’s eye and begins to walk in her direction.

Regina quickly looks back toward the man standing in front of her, but a minute later, Emma is at her side.

“Lady Mills,” she says, with a half bow. “May I have this dance?”

Regina raises her eyebrows at her but she wants to get away from these insufferable bores, so she takes her hand. “You may, Miss Swan.”

Emma sweeps her onto the dance floor. “How’s my dancing?” she asks.

“Adequate, Major.” Regina answers. “Why are you putting me through this?”

“As I see it, I’m saving you from being bored to death. Plus,” she says, voice dropping to a whisper, “We got what we needed. Plenty of incriminating data.”

“Good. I notice that Jones left?”

“Yeah, I told him to get lost after he kissed me.”

“He kissed you?”

“Yeah, apparently so that this guy would think we were sneaking out to bang.”

“Poor you.”

Emma makes a face. “Yes, poor me. I’m going to head back to the ship and wash my mouth out with disinfectant, then go through the files with Kathryn. You coming?”

Regina shakes her head. “No, I’ll have to stay for the rest of the party.”

“Sorry,” Emma says. “Want to finish the dance, or should I release you to the nobles?”

“Anything but talking to them again,” Regina says smiling, so they dance for the rest of the tune, after which Emma escorts her to a more interesting group of people before departing.

Okay, so Emma can admit to herself that dancing with Regina probably wasn’t the best idea, but she looked so bored, and Emma knew she should report their success - and let’s face it, she gave into her jealousy.

Now, though, she knows what whirling around the dance floor in with Regina in her arms feels like, and it was glorious.

She forces herself to go back to their rooms and sleep on the sofa.

In the morning she watches as Regina delivers a report to the overseers of this system, recommending that the Governor be replaced with an elected body. She is calm and gorgeous, stating the facts and presenting the evidence with efficiency, condemning the current ways of the planet.

Nobody can do anything but agree with her, of course, and a military group is already being sent to deal with it.

Regina pulls her aside after the conference call has ended and tells her, quite frankly, “You look terrible, will you please just sleep in the actual bed?” and Emma knows that dancing hasn’t quite ruined things.

The next day the governor has been ousted and the city is preparing for an election. They can’t find any trace of Hook or his ship, the Jolly Roger, which annoys Emma, because there’s nothing she would like more than to clap him in irons and throw him in a horrible Sherwood jail forever.

Even more annoying is the fact that she and Regina are currently speaking to Robin, or rather, Regina speaks to Robin about the elections while Emma fumes.

She notices a dark skinned woman approaching them, and then Robin does too, breaking into a grin.

“Marian,” he calls, and she smiles back.

“You’re Regina Mills,” she says as she stops in front of them. “Commander of the Rocinante?”

“Yes,” Regina shaking her hand. “Robin has told me a lot about you, about your plans for the city.”

Emma thinks she sees Marian blushing. “It’s so wonderful to meet you, you’re rather famous. And an inspiration for a lot of young women around here.”

“Well, if you get elected you will be.”

“Of course she’ll get elected,” Robin cuts in, sliding an arm around the woman’s waist and kissing her on the cheek. “I have a brilliant and lovely wife, and who wouldn’t vote for her?”

His wife. Marian is Robin’s wife. And by Regina’s words and her attitude it seems that she was aware of this the entire time, and Robin wasn’t flirting with her.

Emma has been jealous for no reason at all.

Chapter Text

The world explodes around her.

One minute she is running towards Regina, shoving her away, and the next everything is bright and painful.

They’d found a stowaway a couple of days before, just a kid, maybe ten years old. Nobody had really known what to do with him, and he’d sort of latched onto Regina and Emma, only speaking to them on the rare occasions that he opens his mouth, not even telling them his name.

Emma got it, she thought. She’d been a foster kid, and more than once she had run away, and even your first name got you back at the home pretty quickly.

The boy had followed her to an observation deck, where he told her that he wanted to show her something. He brought out a small device, pressing the button in the centre.

“I need your help.”

“What-”

“There you are,” Regina calls out to them from the doorway.

The kid looks panicked, even more so as Regina hurries over to him.

“Sweetheart,” Emma hears her say, “I told you stay in the room. A ship like this isn’t safe.” She brushes some stray hairs away from his face, and takes him by the shoulders.

Regina is looking at the kid like a mother, Emma realises, but the kid is scared and is trying to wriggle out of her grip, dropping the device he’d been holding behind him pushing it away-

“Regina!” Emma hears her voice as though it is someone else’s, and the kid uses the Commander’s momentary distraction to slip away, run to the device, now emitting and awful sound, and Emma pushes Regina hard, away from her.

Her head is aching when she wakes, and she opens her eyes to find the kid staring down at her with huge, worried eyes.

“What the hell did you do?” she asks.

“I didn’t mean for her to be there,” he tells her. “It was supposed to be just you.”

Emma pushes herself up, away from this child. “Where am I?” she asks, looking around. Plain metal walls, uncomfortable floors - this could be anywhere in the galaxy.

“It’s not the where that matters,” he says, looking sly. “But I need to introduce myself first. I’m Henry.”

“Great,” she tells him. “Now I know what name to put on the report I’m going to file as soon as we get back.”

“I meant to explain first,” he begins, but then there are footsteps and a young man enters the room.

“Emma!” he says, breaking into a smile. “It’s so good to see you- you look so young, it’s weird-”

“I haven’t told her yet,” Henry says. “Regina was there, she almost came instead-”

“WHO ARE YOU?” Emma shouts. “Tell me what’s going on, who you are. What do you want?”

The man sighs. “I’ll explain. We just want your help.”

“Help with what?”

“Correcting the time stream,” Henry says happily. “Things are off in our universe.”

“Okay,” Emma says. “You’re both crazy.”

“It’s true,” the man says. “I’m from the future. I’m- I’m Henry, too.”

Emma’s headache is just getting worse. She can see the resemblance, it’s true, but they’re just brothers, probably. “Yeah? Prove it.”

The older ‘Henry’ shrugs. “Try your communicator.”

She pulls out the device, willing to go along until she gets out of this mess, but it isn’t working. Or rather, the only functions that are working the clock and the emergency beacon. “So? You’ve taken me out of range?”

“No, it’s that all but the most basic of functions were upgraded too much to work with networks and technology that had been around for more than five years.”

She looks back at the clock. The date must be wrong. It had to be. “I am not ten years in the past.”

“I’m afraid you are,” the man says.

“You asked who we were,” Henry reminds her.

“Yeah? Got an answer other than that you’re the same guy?”

“You gave away a baby for adoption ten years before the time we came from,” Henry says.

“How did you-”

“I was that baby,” he tells her, and Emma is grateful that she isn’t standing. “You can’t-”

“I am,” he says, and she can’t find it in herself to doubt him.

“So, you brought me back to the day I gave you up, somehow time travelling even though that’s not entirely possible yet, to what? Stop me? What’s wrong with this time stream?”

The older Henry - her son? - shakes his head. “No, if you had never given us up the world would be completely different.”

“Then what? I wanted you to have a better chance at life than I did-”

“And I did,” he tells her. “But in your universe- your Henry was supposed to be adopted, have the wonderful life that I did. But somebody took his Mom’s name from the adoption list, so he never went to her, and she never got to be a mother.”

“It’s as much for her as it is for you, isn’t it,” Emma says to the young Henry, and he nods.

“He said that she needed me as much as I needed her,” he tells her, gesturing to his older counterpart.

She exchanges a look with the young man and then nods. They’re telling the truth. “How can I help? And who is it, your mom?”

“Regina.”

The more that Emma thinks about it, that Regina is supposed to raise the boy that she gave birth to, the more that it seems right, seems like destiny.

Regina had told her once, after a few too many drinks, how much she had wanted a child, how her mother had prevented her from adopting. Emma had caught her looking longingly at parents and their children, at babies, even when they were crying, and she thinks she understands how this could help her.

“Will it change everything? What she does, will that change, won’t it have huge consequences?” she asks older Henry.

“As far as I know, everything is the same. She simply has Henry, too. And she is happier.”

“How can you be sure? How can you know that it is what she would want?”

“I asked her,” he says simply. “In both your world and mine. And if it isn’t right then it won’t work out.”

Emma sighs. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

It’s easy to slip Regina’s name back onto the adoption register, get her first on the list for Henry’s adoption.

They keep an eye on her, and Emma realises exactly how young Regina is, in this time. Well, she’s twenty five, but it’s younger than Emma has ever known her, and when she looks lovingly down at her baby she is a far cry from the stern commander that Emma knows.

She runs into her by accident in a coffee shop, and she strokes the babe’s head and asks for his name - she called him Henry, after all - and when she tells her that she looks like a natural mother Regina flushes with pride.

The elder Henry decides that they’ve done enough, after that, and she hugs him goodbye. She might never see him so grown, in her universe, and she can’t help but be proud of him, though she’s only his mother by birth.

“You’ll both remember your current past, and this time here,” he tells her and young Henry. “But you’ll also have the memories that everyone else will now have, of the new past.”

“I hope it works,” young Henry says, and his hand slips into hers.

“Everything is going to be fine, kid,” she tells him, and then older Henry presses the device into their hands.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Emma shares a glance with her son and together they push the button.

They fall to the floor and Regina is there, kneeling beside them, her hands cupping Henry’s face as she checks him for injury. Emma suddenly sees them, remembers meeting Regina, and meeting Henry and Regina, there are all these dual memories, almost the same, only Henry is making Regina smile.

“What on earth were you doing?” Regina asks. “What happened? You’ve been gone for an hour!”

“I don’t know,” Emma admits.

“We’re fine, Mom,” Henry says.

“The doctors are going to have to judge that,” Regina says firmly, and gestures, which is when Emma realises that the room is full of personnel.

“See, you worried your Mom,” Emma tells Henry, and he smiles back.

“You both did,” Regina corrects, and Emma thinks her heart has never felt so full.

Chapter Text

One of Ruby’s favourite things in the world - other than annoying Dr French - is listening to new recruits gossip about Commander Mills and Emma.

And okay, maybe she fuels the flames a little, but it’s not like they need much help. Especially since Henry and Regina had to move into Emma’s rooms when their own were damaged.

It’s the first lot of new soldiers they’ve had since the weird portal thing that Emma wouldn’t explain to her, and it’s only a few of them, but the very first time they meet Major Swan, the Commander is passing by in the corridor outside the room.

And Regina is legendary, see. She is technically part of the military, but she’s brilliant, skilled at diplomacy, a true leader, and she never actually went higher than lieutenant before she was promoted to second in command, and then given Captaincy of Rocinante. She’s called ‘Commander’ by courtesy, because she is truly in command, and Ruby suspects that she could easily lead a whole fleet.

So these recruits are getting their first close up looks of the famous Regina Mills, respected throughout the galaxy, nevermind her gender and heritage, and they’re scared out of their minds - but Emma’s just standing there, grinning at Regina, not even saluting.

And then Regina opens her mouth and says, “How many times have I told you to pick your terrible excuses for clothes off the floor?”

The recruits faces are priceless. Jaws practically at their boots, wide eyed, they gape at their major, whose expression hasn’t budged an inch. And Regina’s tone was scathing and irritated, and her eyes are narrowed, and honestly if she was looking at Ruby like that she’d be on her knees, begging for forgiveness.

But Emma shrugs. She shrugs, and her voice is light, like Regina’s words don’t even bother her when she says, “I was in a rush this morning, I’ll pick them up tonight.”

“No, you won’t, because you always forget to or you’re exhausted. It’s our room, Emma, and you need to be tidier. Henry is tidier than you are.”

Of course the revelation that the Commander and Major Swan share a room is almost too much for the newbies to handle, and one of them looks a little wobbly.

“Okay, firstly, Henry is just creepily tidy for a child of ten, alright? I’m pretty sure you actually brainwash him to be that way just so that you can tell me how messy I am. And secondly you already put them away, didn’t you.”

There’s a beat of silence before Regina speaks again. “If I have to do so again, I will murder you.”

All of them watch as she walks away, a swing in her step.

“Permission to speak?” one of the girls asks.

“Of course,” Emma says. “We’re not too formal about all that here.”

“I think you’re the bravest person in the known galaxy, Major,” she tells her.

Emma looks adorably confused for a moment. “Why? Wait, not because of Regina? She’s not that scary.”

Later, when they probably think that she can’t hear them, Ruby listens as they come to the conclusion that only someone in love with Commander Mills could say that she wasn’t absolutely terrifying.

“Plus,” one of them says, “She must love her back, or she probably would have killed her right there for speaking to her like that.”

Ruby thinks that that’s going a little too far, but it’s still hilarious.

Emma does have a tendency to talk back to Regina though, which is probably how all these ‘Commander Mills and Major Swan are secretly banging/dating/married’ theories arose in the first place.

It’s probably a good thing that Emma does, of course, because Regina is more likely to listen to her than anyone else, unless they’re an expert in their particular field. People even go to Emma now to ask that she bring up certain topics with the Commander.

But even about the most trivial of things Emma will get into a debate or make a joke, and somehow it always seems to make Regina exactly what she needs to be at that moment.

They’re not exactly affectionate, but Regina only shows her love for her son Henry, and Emma gets along with him well. A couple of times people have even asked Ruby how long they’ve been together, and she has to tell them that they’re not, actually (well, they haven’t admitted that they’re in a relationship,) and she always says the last with an eyebrow waggle or a wink, or particular emphasis on the ‘admitted’ part.

“Why didn’t Major Swan take the Commander’s last name?” she overhears someone saying in the corridor.

“Too many ‘m’s, probably,” comes the reply. “Major Emma Mills sounds weird. And the Commander has too much of a reputations to change hers.”

People are amazing.

Precisely one week after Emma and the Mills’ begin sharing rooms, Kathryn Midas summons Ruby to her office. She’s a little bit worried at first, but then her fears are put to rest when the lawyer asks, “How long do you think it will be before Regina and Emma are together?”

“I don’t know if they will. Emma has a massive crush on Regina, but she’ll never admit to it.”

“And I’m fairly sure that Regina is into Emma, but she’s the commanding officer and she’d probably see it as taking advantage if she made the first move. But nobody else is sure of that,” Kathryn says with a sly smile.

Ruby is intrigued. “What does that mean, exactly?”

“I found a loophole in the ship’s code. I’m quite sure that if we go about it the right way, betting on their relationship wouldn’t be entirely illegal.”

“Are you proposing that we take bets on when they get together or when they admit to doing so?” Ruby asks with a grin of admiration.

“I am indeed,” Kathryn says.

“You’re incredible.”

Once word spreads - to everyone but Regina and Emma, of course - the bets come in fast, outrageous in both size and time frame. They make a rule that anyone discovered to be interfering with the subjects will have right to any winnings voided, including those discovered to be conspiring.

Ruby thinks that almost everybody on the ship has some kind of stake in the pot, whether large or small. Even Lacey puts in fifty credits on a public admission between six and eight weeks after they reveal their feelings towards each other, and Ruby doesn’t even bug her too much before she does so.

But weeks pass, and there is no indication of a blossoming relationship.

They’re stopped to resupply on a planet they haven’t been before and the Governor sends an invitation for some of them to dine with him.

Regina apparently decides that Emma, David and Mary Margaret Nolan, Kathryn and Dr Hopper will accompany her, leaving Ruby to look after Henry - not that she minds, of course, because he’s a good kid, and they hang out with her grandmother in the mess hall.

“Lieutenant Lucas!”

It’s late in the evening, and Kathryn is striding into the kitchen. “You’ll never guess what happened at dinner,” she tells her, and then without waiting for her or Henry to even try, says, “The governor totally thought Regina and Emma were a couple. She asked how long they’d been together, it was amazing.”

“What did they say?” Henry pipes up while Ruby laughs.

“Sort of stammered and denied everything. Your mom was mostly calm about it but Emma went bright red.”

Henry laughs, and Ruby catches Kathryn’s eye. “This is going to get interesting.”

Chapter Text

“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man…”

Regina has loved space since she was a child. As a teenager she would go to the observatory with Daniel, look at all the stars and planets.

They had their first kiss there, surrounded by the celestial bodies they both love, and she supposes that it was appropriate. A stolen kiss on stolen time, under the illusion of freedom.

At university she studies politics like her mother wants, while Daniel joins the Galactic Exploration Force, and they manage to keep in contact at least a little.

She takes a class in Politics and the Beginning of Space Research, which focuses in particular on the 1950s and 60s, and though it was so long ago, and some of it is definitely laughable, she understands the desire to go out into the unknown, to explore where no human has seen, to be a pioneer.

Then Daniel asks her to marry him, and is killed on his next mission, and all that her mother says is; “Ships and space are no place for you, honey. It’s too dangerous.”

Regina wants to rip out her own heart just so that she doesn’t have to feel any more. She barely makes it through the next year, and at her graduation she feels like crying, because Daniel should be there, and suddenly she hears his voice.

“You’re Regina Mills, and you can do anything. I love you. And one day, we’re going to make it to those most distant of stars.”

The very next day, she joins the GEF.

Regina likes the discipline in the military, even if she’s not the most brilliant at the fighting, but her studies give her a leg up into command fairly quickly. She finds that she’s good with diplomacy, settling differences both internal military matters and those with outsiders.

She has some friends, like Kathryn, whose dry sense of humour is refreshing compared to the men’s terrible jokes, but there’s something missing. It’s not a lover, there’s no one who she thinks of in that way, no one that could compare to Daniel, but there’s still some part of her that yearns for something.

It doesn’t take long for her to realise that she wants a child.

She doesn’t consider using a sperm donor, there’s enough horror in the world that there are too many children without parents. She puts herself on an adoption list and goes through all of the checks into her background and interviews, and then waits.

She’s a good candidate, she thinks. She might not be old, only twenty five, and it’s true that she’s single, but she was tertiary education and a good job. At the moment she’s not even travelling, she’s temporarily settled on New Arizona as a liaison between their government and the GEF.

The first time she calls to check her status they simply haven’t got to her on the very long list of prospective parents, and the second time is the same, but her third call only gets her a confused administration staffer who tells her that her application was withdrawn.

Regina is perplexed, too, at first, but then she recalls the conversation she’d had with her mother about the whole thing, which hadn’t seemed that strange at the time because none of their phone calls were particularly cordial anymore, and she realises what has happened.

Her mother is a bitch, but she is not going to let that stop her.

She starts all over again, with the forms and interviews, but one morning, before the process is even halfway finished for the second time, she gets a call.

There’s a boy that has been given up, only a couple of weeks old, and apparently her name has been put back on the list already and when she sees him, tiny and with the tiniest dusting of dark hair on his head, she almost can’t bear to touch him. But then he opens his eyes and smiles and reaches out to her with one tiny pudgy hand, and she falls in love.

She names him Henry.

“The exploration of space will go ahead, whether we join in it or not, and it is one of the great adventures of all time.”

Henry is the best thing to ever happen to Regina, she likes to tell people. And it’s true. She adores him, and her friends dote on him, but still she can’t bear to be away from him for long.

And he grows up far too fast, kind and precocious and sweet, and they sit together and look at books on space and search the sky from a planet or from the window of a ship, and he loves the universe as much as she does.

He’s five when she gets promoted to Leopold Blanchard’s second in command, which makes things trickier, because she’s going to have to be on ship all the time and she’ll be busy, but she is promised that it won’t be any more dangerous for Henry than living on an outer planet, and they have people to take care of kids and an onboard school, so she leaves what she does up to him.

And Henry is simply excited, as the thought of travelling through space, seeing a different sky, different stars, is exactly the kind of thing that a kid his age dreams of.

Blanchard is controlling, but he does delegate a fair amount of responsibility to her, and he expects her to take care of things personally, because what else is she there for, which would be fine except that Regina doesn’t get to spend nearly as much time with Henry as she would like. She takes as much of it as she can back to their quarters just so that she can be near him while he reads or watches cartoons.

She gets a designated security team with which she can do whatever she wishes, but she doesn’t need security, and it’s rare that she needs something investigated when they dock somewhere.

They’re lead by a woman named, Emma Swan, a lieutenant, and she’s brash and irreverent and so, so, irritating.

She talks back to Regina with alarming regularity for a soldier of inferior rank, jokes and smirks and is completely informal. But she’s an excellent fighter, with good instincts, Regina finds when Kathryn borrows the team to look into something for her. (Which only happened because Swan complained that they had nothing to do, and Regina told Kathryn to do whatever she wanted with them.)

Regina does have to admit, though, that she’s pretty, and her smile is always cheerful and her laughter is infectious, and she has knack for cheering Regina up. Plus, she’s good with Henry, plays sports with him down in the gym, chases him around the corridors, and she even sits with him, listening intently, while he tells her all about the known stars and planets, the Ursulan asteroid belt and the legends of the Neverland system.

“We meet in an hour of change and challenge, in a decade of hope and fear, in an age of both knowledge and ignorance. The greater our knowledge increases, the greater our ignorance unfolds.”

Emma becomes her friend.

Regina isn’t sure how it happens, but it does, somewhere between the dinners with her and Henry and the young Lucas girl, and the planet excursions, and the week Henry had a fever and she and Emma took turns watching over him.

She’s not at all the kind of friend that Regina ever expected to have, a penniless orphan who rose through the ranks and has boundless potential, a woman who watches crappy old movies and regularly eats more unhealthily than Regina ever did in her life.

But she is the friend she makes, and for all their bickering and snide comments, she is one of the people that Regina trusts most in the world.

So when she is given her own command, she takes it with the condition that Emma is promoted and given a place on her ship, which the higher ups are only too happy to give her, because Emma has shown excellence in her field - and Regina has the most luck with ordering her about, apparently. Emma is also the first person that she tells of her new status, after Henry, of course.

Emma smiles and hugs her and tells her congratulations, but there’s a note of something that she can’t quite identify in her voice, so she says, “Don’t look so happy, Captain, you’re coming with me.”

Emma smiles again, properly, this time, a wide grin, and she sweeps Henry up even though he protests that he’s nine now and he’s too big to picked up - he is and even Emma’s powerful arms are awkward holding him - and she dances around.

“It’s going to be great, kid,” Emma tells him. “You, me, and your mom, exploring the universe, ‘boldly going where no man has gone before’ because we’re women and a kid and therefore way cooler than dudes.”

Henry, Emma, and her.

Regina thinks absently that she likes the sound of that.

Commanding a whole ship is difficult, certainly, but she has good people, and an excellent military force, lead by Colonel Nolan, Emma as his second in command.

Nolan’s wife, Mary Margaret, runs classes for the families that live on board, and Henry likes the woman, which is good because she and Emma are far busier than before, although of course they each manage to find time to spend with him.

And then that ridiculous little ornament she found explodes and though neither of them are hurt, they do have to find new quarters and Henry begs to stay with Emma, so they do.

There’s the great bed debacle, and finally Regina just lets Emma sleep in the double bed with her, while Henry gets the couch, which he says he likes but Regina’s not so sure.

She enjoys meeting new people, and when they’re on Sherwood they find out that there’s clearly problems with the society and Robin is nice and clever and he talks a lot about his wife who sounds like she’s doing wonderful things, but there’s also danger and that damned pirate turns up and keeps hanging around Emma.

And there’s the dance…

Henry finds a strange device and some kind of portal opens, and Emma pushes her away from it and is pulled in with Henry and Regina is frantic. Where they were is just an empty space, and her son is gone and there is no trace of where he could be and the person that she trusts most in the world is gone too and at least, she thinks, they can look out for each other, but she’s stuck there, panicking.

They reappear, though, just as suddenly as they went, but they were going for a whole fucking hour and there is nothing that she wants to do more than pull them both into her arms and then smack them over their ridiculous, lovely heads, but Henry is looking at her almost uncertainly and she has to embrace him first.

When she thinks how close she was to falling apart with them gone, she realises how much she cares. Far, far too much.

“This is a breathtaking pace, and such a pace cannot help but create new ills as it dispels old, new ignorance, new problems, new dangers. Surely the opening vistas of space promise high costs and hardships, as well as high reward.”

Regina and Emma are walking back to their rooms after the governor’s dinner, the others all having gone their separate ways.

Regina is afraid to speak. The governor’s question, so casually asked, as if it were obvious that she and Emma were in a relationship, had been a surprise. She had brushed it away at the time, but over dinner and the shuttle ride back to the ship she hadn’t been able to force it from her mind.

She had examined herself, her thoughts and feelings, the last years with Emma by her side. And no matter way she looked at it, there was no way she could deny that she appreciated her as more than a friend or colleague.

Emma was important to her, she had known that for a while. She was a companion through troubled times, a friend who questioned her when needed but never failed to back her up. It was true that she was beautiful, and Regina admired her looks more than she might do objectively, but she was also strong, and brave to the point of foolhardiness, and most importantly she adored Henry.

She was a light that shone brighter than the hottest of stars.

And only now was Regina realising the exact depth of her… affection.

Shit.

Neither of them speak, all the way to their rooms, but as soon as the door closes behind them, Emma says, “Regina-”

“Henry’s not in bed,” Regina says, temporarily distracted from her problems by the facts that her son’s bed is made and he is not inside, nor anywhere to be seen.

“Ruby probably let him stay up a little later than usual. He doesn’t have any classes tomorrow.”

“That girl,” Regina says, shaking her head, but then she turns back to Emma who is staring at her. “Why are you looking so serious, Emma?”

“I want to ask you something,” the younger woman says, and Regina is thrown back into that pit of fear, and she forces her face to be still.

“Go ahead.”

“You know what the governor said?” Emma asks, scratching the back of her neck awkwardly. “It made me think…”

Regina partly wants to tell her the same thing, or shut her down before she can reject her, but she can’t decide, so she stays silent.

“Well, I know we’re good friends-” great, a rejection, Regina thinks, but then “- but y’know, we get along well, and no one seemed surprised, and, oh, I don’t know,” she says.

Regina’s heart thumps in her chest, a little bit of hope rising. “Major Swan, are you trying to tell me that you like me?”

“Uh-” Emma begins, “I guess? Yeah. I am.”

“I think-” Regina says, and the words catch in her throat. “I think I might like you too? I mean, you’re very-” she can’t find the word. “Wonderful.”

“Seriously?” Emma asks, expression brightening. “You think I’m wonderful?”

Regina nods, and Emma’s mouth opens again, but then the door is sliding open and they hear Henry’s voice, so Regina tears her gaze away from Emma to look at her son.

“Did you have fun at the party, Mom?”

She thinks she hears Ruby snicker from behind him, but she simply smiles and tells him that it was fine. “Did you have a good time with Ruby?”

“Yeah, Granny made me- um, very healthy food.”

Regina rolls her eyes. “Well, it’s your bedtime, so you can tell me about your evening in the morning. And brush your teeth!” she calls after him as he heads toward the bathroom.

She thanks Ruby for taking care of Henry for the evening and then shuts the door in her nosy face.

Regina kisses her son goodnight on the forehead, and Emma hugs him, and they leave him to sleep.

Once inside their room with the door shut, Regina turns to Emma once again. The blonde is grinning again.

“You think I’m wonderful,” she sings softly.

“You’re also an idiot,” Regina snaps, but she means it fondly.

“I know, I know,” Emma says, still smiling. “But you kind of like me, don’t you? So I could potentially ask you out without fearing grievous bodily harm?”

Regina sighs. “If we ever find time to get away from everybody.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” She can’t help but smile at Emma, but then she sees her yawn. “You need to sleep.”

Emma makes a disgruntled frown. “Yeah, but-”

Regina narrows her eyes. “Nothing is going to happen until we’ve talked more. In the morning. So get any other ideas out of your head.”

Emma sticks her tongue out at Regina but turns around and begins to get changed, so she does the same, and within a few minutes they’re both in the warm bed, facing each other for once, their feet touching gently.

“Regina?” Emma says softly in the darkness.

“Yes?”

“I used to think that joining the GEF and exploring the universe would be my greatest adventure.”

“Used to?” Regina asks, wondering if she regrets joining.

As if Emma can tell what she’s thinking, she suddenly feels fingers lace with her own.

“Now I’m pretty sure that it’s you.”

“As we set sail we ask God's blessing on the most hazardous and dangerous and greatest adventure on which man has ever embarked.”

Chapter Text

They are assigned to look into some problems on Ruethea, as the planet has no formal justice department of their own.

It's quite a nice planet, aside from the occasional meteor shower, the town council want to talk to Regina and thank her for their help, so she travels down with Emma and her team.

They’re minor things that they do, really, and it’s boring as hell, but it’s their job and evidently the people here need help. They’ve just about run out of thieves to take and other ridiculous jobs by the time the planet’s midday has come around, and their days are four hours shorter than the Universal Standard.

The town council seem hesitant to voice the last problem.

"There's this kid. Well, a teenager," one of them says, and Emma groans internally. She is not cut out to deal with teenage problems.

"He's a thief, which isn't so much as a problem as the fact that he's recruited some of the boys to his cause," the woman continues. "And now they've disappeared."

"We know they haven't got caught in a shower," another says. "There's still been things going missing, the same sort of things they stole before they left. But we don't have the technology or manpower to find them."

"They're probably in the caves," the first woman says. "And they're not bad boys, just... Lost."

"Major?" Ruby says quietly once they've promised to look for them. "Could I take point on this one?"

"You really want to?"

She rolls her eyes. "I think I can handle a couple of kids. You and the commander could go sightseeing, or something."

"I'm not sure how much sightseeing there is to do around here," Emma replies, but already the idea is taking a hold in her mind. Ruby leading missions will give her points toward a promotion, and Emma will be able to spend some time alone with Regina.

"We'll have to clear it with Mills, first."

Regina says yes in a long suffering tone, but Emma catches the upward quirk of her lips and grins in response.

The rest of the afternoon alone with Regina? She sure as hell isn’t turning that down.

They borrow a speeder and head out to one of the crater sites from the semi-regular meteor showers, Regina’s arms wrapped around Emma’s waist as she drives.

As soon as they’re out of sight of the township, Emma turns to grin at Regina.

“Keep your eyes to the front!” the brunette scolds, but smiles back.

They stop near the edge of one of the larger craters and Regina slips off the speeder. “It’s good to be out of the ship, on firm earth,” she says.

“And with no one around?” Emma replies, shutting the vehicle down, and raising her eyebrows at her commander.

“It is nice to be alone, it’s true,” Regina admits, and beckons Emma closer.

Emma threads her arms around Regina’s waist and pulls her in until their noses are almost touching. Her eyes flick from Regina’s dark irises to her lovely lips, but resists the temptation of kissing her.

They’ve only been this close a few times since they confessed their feelings to each other a few weeks ago, too busy to find much time alone. Even in their quarters they have to be careful in case of interruptions, and to keep Henry from seeing. They’d decided to keep it a secret even from him until they were sure of what was happening, and while Emma rather likes the clandestine nature of their relationship, she doesn’t want to leave Regina’s son out of it all.

So in their bedroom they can hold each other and share tentative kisses in the dark, but they’re so exhausted most of the time that it never goes any further.

“Oh, just kiss me already,” Regina cuts into her thoughts, and Emma complies happily.

They wander down into the crater hand in hand, exchanging kisses and complaining about the crew.

They’re sitting on a boulder near the crater rim, making out like teenagers, when Emma's communicator buzzes to life and they break apart. "Major? We're detecting a meteor shower heading in your direction. You'll need to get to a shelter."

“I thought there wasn’t supposed to be one for another couple of days,” Regina says.

“Are you sure?” Emma says into her communicator.

“Positive, Major.”

“Shit.” She motions Regina up and grabs her wrist, pulling her towards the speeder. “Ruby? Did you get that?”

“Affirmative, Major. We’re out by the mountains, though. I don’t think we’ll be able to get back.”

Regina echoes Emma’s curses as they near their vehicle.

“Get to safety, if you can,” Emma tells her lieutenant. “There are caves, right?”

“Yeah. Those kids must have survived the showers in them before, so I don’t see why we can’t. Will you be able to get the commander back?”

“Yeah. I’ll check in with you guys again once we’re back in town,” she says, and climbs onto the speeder. “Hold tight,” she says to Regina, and hits the ignition.

As the ground becomes a blur beneath them, Emma can’t help but berate herself. She can’t do anything about the shower, but Regina should have still been in the town, safe in a shelter, and Emma - she was the commanding officer down here. Her team are in danger, and she should have been with them. She should have been with them.

“It wouldn’t have done any good,” Regina says loudly into her ear, and Emma realises that she had spoken out loud. “You can’t do anything.”

“I know,” Emma replies. “I know.”

The township nears in sight, and Emma steers in the direction of the meteorite shelter she knows is on the outskirts of the town. As they draw near, Emma notices that the doorway is smaller than usual, and realises with horror that the blast doors are already closing.

If she stops and they get off, they probably won’t have enough time to get in, but she can’t just go straight in on the speeder or she’ll kill everyone inside.

The only way to guarantee entrance is…

“Regina?” she calls.

“Yes?”

“When I say so, I need you to let go of me.”

“What?”

“The doors are closing, and we’re going to have to leap off the speeder. It’s the only way to get in.”

“Oh, for- Okay.”

“You’re going to come off the right hand side, alright?”

“Got it,” Regina yells.

Emma prepares for the riskiest maneuver of her life.

The doors are nearing, the gap closing, and as she yells, “Now!” she swerves the speeder to a stop just inches from the doors, catapulting Regina through them.

Through the space only big enough for one.

The last thing Emma sees before the doors close is Regina’s eyes as she realises what Emma has done.

She pulls out her communicator. “Ruby? You guys safe?”

There’s a moment of silence before her reply comes. “Yeah, we’re heading to the caves. Are you inside the shelter?”

“Commander Mills made it, just in time.” Emma lets what she doesn’t say tell Ruby the rest.

“Good luck, Major.”

“You too, Ruby.”

Regina is furious, and terrified.

Emma got her into the shelter at the expense of her own safety, and if she dies then Regina is never going to forgive her. They had just begun to be happy together, and then Emma does something stupid and noble like save her life and Regina is so, so… in love with her.

But she is still never going to forgive her.

The wait inside the shelter is torturous, especially as she has no way of knowing when they’ll be able to leave. One of the townspeople offers her a cup of tea, but how can tea help at a time like this? Alcohol might, she thinks, and for the first time in her life she wishes that Leroy were in the same room as her, as he always carries a flask of some kind of liquor.

It is almost an hour that she is stuck in there before the blast doors slowly begin to creak open.

She runs outside - but the sky is clear and Emma is nowhere to be seen.

Emma finds the sturdiest building in the town and possibly breaks in, pushing a couple of tables over to form a barrier in case there’s a shockwave.

She sees lights brightening the sky again and again, and while there is the occasional shockwave, they’re never strong enough to break the windows, and then the frequency of lights slows and stops.

It’s over.

“Lieutenant Lucas, are all of you alright?” Silence. “Lieutenant? Ruby? Any of you?”

There’s a short crackle of static, and then someone says,”Major Swan? The Lieutenant has been injured, I don’t know how bad-”

“Where are you?” Emma interrupts. “I’ll be right there.”

She takes the speeder, pausing briefly to consider the still-closed blast doors, but she doesn’t know how long until they’ll be open, and Regina will be safe, whatever happens. And Ruby is hurt, her lieutenant, one of the people under her care as Major, which makes it her fault and her responsibility.

She finds them out by the hills, the ground bumpy with potholes from the smaller meteorites, a couple of privates standing guard while another kneels by a body.

“She’s breathing,” the woman says. “But a meteorite landed just over there-” she points to a small crater nearby, “-and I think she was hit by parts of it.”

Emma kneels beside her unconscious friend and checks her pulse; steady, but slow, and there’s blood congealing down the side of her neck. “We need to get her back to the ship.”

“But how?” the private asks, and Emma is wondering that herself when she suddenly hears Regina’s voice.

It’s emanating from her communicator, and Regina sounds panicked, calling her name.

“I’m fine, Regina,” Emma says into the device.

“I’m going to kill you,” is what she gets as the reply. “How dare you-”

“Ruby is hurt, Commander,” Emma interrupts.

As she had hoped, the use of Regina’s title effects a change. “What do you need?”

“Can you pilot the shuttle? I don’t want to try and move her on a speeder.”

“Of course I can, Major,” Regina replies. “Give me your coordinates.”

The private relays their position to her on their own communicator while Emma checks over the rest of Ruby, noticing a hole burnt in her uniform just below the right side of her ribs. Underneath where material should be is the same grey as the cloth, smeared with dirt as the rest of the uniform is, which explains why she hadn’t seen it before. She touches it tentatively, finding a cold hard surface, slightly pockmarked.

“Shit,” she breathes. “Part of it is still on her.”

Regina arrives within a few minutes, and as they load Ruby onto a bench seat carefully, Regina catches Emma’s arm. “I’m glad that you’re okay,” she says. “But I haven’t forgiven you.”

“I know,” Emma replies. “But I couldn’t have forgiven myself if I hadn’t.”

Chapter Text

“Oh my god,” Ruby says. “I’m fine.”

Of course, she’s not really fine, as the doctors haven’t yet figured out the best way to detach the chunk of meteorite on her abdomen, but she’s awake and talking and rolling her eyes every time Emma asks if she needs anything.

“Okay,” Regina tells her. “We get it. You’re fine.”

“But-” Emma begins.

“You both have stuff to do. Stop bothering me, I want to use this time to get Lacey to be nice to me.”

“You do remember that I’m right here, don’t you?” the woman in question asks from the chair on the other side of the infirmary room, where she is reading.

“How could I forget?” Ruby asks, and then mouths ‘Go away’ to Emma and Regina.

Emma is about to protest when Regina sighs and grabs her arm, pulling her towards the door. “We’ll be back after the evening meal, barring no emergencies,” the commander calls back behind them.

“See you then.”

As soon as they’re out of the door Regina lets go of her arm, a loss that Emma misses immediately.

“You can’t just hang around, bothering her and the infirmary staff, Emma. I know that blame yourself for what happened, but there is literally nothing you could have done. Lieutenant Lucas said so herself, as soon as she heard you.”

This again. She doesn’t understand why Regina keeps bringing it up.

“But I should have been there,” she says as they enter the elevator and begin to descend.

“Ruby deserved the chance to lead the team, and it was one of the least dangerous opportunities to do so.”

“Yeah, well-” Emma's retort, which she hasn't even thought out, is cut off with a curse as the elevator jolts to a stop. “What the hell?”

“It’s not moving,” Regina says.

“Obviously,” Emma replies. “But the doors haven’t opened and we’re obviously not on the right floor.”

Regina pushes the door open button several times before sighing and flicking open a panel next to the floor menu. She punches in a code and presses the button next to the keypad, but nothing happens.

Emma reaches out and presses the call button instead.

“You think that’s going to work when I can’t get it movi-”

“Hello?” a voice says from the speaker grill.

“This is Major Swan-”

“And Commander Mills,” Regina interrupts. “The elevator has stopped and my override code isn’t working.”

“Shit,” whoever it is in control says. “I’ll get the engineers onto it right away.”

“Thanks,” Emma says.

“This is ridiculous,” Regina says. “Is there anything else wrong with the ship?” she asks control.

“Not that we can see. Hang on, we’ll look into it.”

Regina snorts and Emma releases the call button.

“Well, that’s good, I guess,” Emma ventures.

“Except that for some reason only this elevator isn’t working. You don’t find that suspicious?”

Emma does, now that it’s been pointed out. “Maybe they think you need a break. Which you do.”

Regina rolls her eyes. “I literally just took a day off.”

“Yeah, which ended in the planet we were on getting pounded with meteoroids and Ruby badly injured. Not particularly relaxing.”

“It was alright before that happened,” Regina mutters. “Besides, I would have been more relaxed about it if you’d been in the bunker with me.”

“I told you, there wasn’t enough time-”

“You made me think that you were going to be able to get in too!” Regina’s voice cracks, rising in pitch, and Emma stares at her in surprise. “We. You told me what we were going to do.”

“Would you have done it if I had said only you would make it?”

“Of course I wouldn’t,” Regina says, and Emma realises with horror that her girlfriend’s eyes are growing wet.

“But I needed you to be safe! I couldn’t bear it if you had stayed out there because of me, if I’d gotten you hurt-”

“And you think I could?”

Emma sighs, and takes Regina’s hands in her own. “I never meant to hurt you. But I needed you to be okay. And you’re so much more important to the world than I am. The people on this ship need you. Henry needs you.”

“And I need you, Emma,” Regina says, glaring at her. “I love you, and if you think I would be anything but devastated if something happened to you, you’re more idiotic than I thought you were.”

“I know, but it was in my power and I couldn’t keep you from safety, or let you refuse it, so-” she breaks off as part of Regina’s speech penetrates her really quite thick skull. Regina- she- “You love me?”

“Did I say that?” Regina asks. “You must have misheard. I said that I loathe you.”

“No, you didn’t,” Emma says, beginning to smile. “Can we call a truce about this for now? I have a great desire to kiss the woman that I love.”

“Emma,” Regina groans, but the corners of her lips are turning upwards, and she squeezes Emma’s hands gently before slipping them out of her grip. “A truce, then,” she says.

Emma slips her now free hands around Regina’s waist and kisses her with everything she has.

Tink is called to the elevator when it breaks down with the commander inside.

She has her suspicions as to the cause, and when she checks she finds that it is indeed a problem with the programming, probably by someone who has money on the ship’s favourite ‘will they/won’t they’ couple getting together sometime in the near future. (Tink’s own bet has long past.)

It’s going to take a while to override the computers and get the doors open, but she can do it.

They’ve relocated to the floor, Emma leaning against the elevator wall with Regina in her lap. Their kisses are slow now, more tender, and Emma hadn’t realised how much she needed them, needed Regina’s arms around her, the comfort of someone she trusts.

It’s strange how simple thing like Regina’s fingers stroking softly at the nape of her neck feels like so much.

The kiss ends and Emma presses her forehead to Regina’s, unwilling to let go of even a little contact.

“Can you promise me that you won’t do something like you did again?” Regina asks her, tone serious.

Emma considers lying, saying that she wouldn’t risk her life again; but if it’s for Regina or Henry, or one of the people that she considers family, she would do anything in her power to help them, and they both know that. “No,” she says honestly. “Can you?”

Regina smiles rather ruefully. “I don’t think I could let you go into danger alone again.”

“Then we’re square?”

“Yes. But I want to tell Henry. About us.”

Which means that Regina is serious about her love, not that Emma really doubted it, but Regina loves Henry more than anything and would do anything to protect him.

“I’d like that too,” she replies, and pulls Regina in for another kiss.

Just as their lips meet, the elevator jolts, and something whirrs.

Regina jerks away and turns, and Emma looks past her to see the doors half open and the tiny blonde engineer smirking at them. Worse, Astrid is there, mouth gaping and a pile of books on the floor.

The elevator is offset by a couple of feet, but Regina manages look graceful as she stands, brushing off her skirt like she hadn’t just been caught kissing her subordinate in a broken down elevator, and crosses to the doors before lowering herself gently to the floor.

“Not a word,” she warns the other two women in a dangerous voice, as Emma makes her own way to the corridor. “Not until I’ve told my son.”

Astrid stammers something and Tink salutes Regina. “Got it, Commander.”

Regina turns to Emma, every inch the mission commander that she is. “Come on, we need to find Henry.”

Henry is with the other kids, being taught about bird diversity by Mary Margaret (what’s with that obsession of hers?) and Regina steals him from the class so that they can talk to him in the relative privacy of the corridor.

“We have something to tell you, Henry,” Regina says, bending down to match her son’s height.

“What is it?” he asks, looking worried. “Did something happen?”

“No, it’s not anything bad, darling. Something good, I think.” She glances back at Emma, who returns the look with an encouraging smile.

Henry’s eyes widen. “Did you- are you guys together?”

They’re both taken back for a moment. Regina gathers herself faster than Emma. “Yes, we are.” She reaches out a hand to Emma, which she takes gladly.

“That’s awesome!” Henry launches himself forward, hugging them tightly.

“Henry, how did you know?” Emma asks curiously.

“Um, Ruby may have talked about you two.”

"Lucas," Regina says through gritted teeth. "I should have known."

Ruby is pretty sure that Lacey is low key flirting with her. She had put down her book - Lacey! Not reading! - a minute after Regina and Emma had left and moved her chair to Ruby's bedside to talk to her. Nothing like an injury to bring out tenderheartedness.

Now, after half an hour, Lacey's arms are resting on the edge of the mattress, and Ruby is planning to accidentally let her hand fall onto one of Lacey's.

Until the door opens, and Lacey is as far away from the bed as she can be without moving the chair.

Ruby glares at the intruder. "What do you want, Green?"

“I'm just here to wish you a speedy recovery. And I told you not to call me that.”

“Well, consider me wished,” Ruby replies, trying to convey her annoyance through her eyes.

“She means thank you, Tink,” Lacey says to the engineer, and flicks Ruby on the arm. “Just because you're injured doesn't mean you can be rude.”

“It's all right,” the blonde says. She moves as if to leave the room, then turns back. “By the way, who was it that bet on today?”

“I'm not-” Realisation hits a second later and Ruby jerks upright, only to be felled by a spike of pain in her abdomen. “Oh for- today? They fucking announced that they're together today?”

“Oh no,” Green says with glinting eyes. “They got stuck in an elevator, and I opened the doors on them.”

“This isn't fair,” Ruby moans.

“The commander was on your Major's lap.”

“That sounds pretty hot,” Lacey says, and Ruby can't help but silently agree.

“They were just kissing, though. And I'm not supposed to tell anybody until they've informed Henry.”

“But you’re telling us?”

“It’s not as if you can go anywhere,” Green scoffs, and while Ruby knows its true she is always up for a challenge.

“I might not be able to move, but I can still call their communicators,” she says, and Lacey hands her the phone beside the bed with a smile.

The blonde curses at her, but Ruby is already punching in Emma’s code.

It connects.

“I can’t believe fucking Tink knew before I did,” she tells her friend.

Only the voice that replies isn’t Emma’s.

“You told my son of your suspicions, Lieutenant,” the commander says in a scathing tone. “I don’t care how badly you’re injured, I will-”

Something muffles Regina’s voice, and then Emma comes on. “She’s pretty pissed, Ruby. Telling Henry was kind of low, though. We’re coming up there.”

“And you, Tink,” comes Regina’s distant shout. “No one. Isn’t that what I said?”

The phone disconnects.

“Shit,” Tink says quietly, and disappears from the room.

“Come on, Regina, she’s injured,” Emma says as they get back in the elevator once again. “What are you going to do?”

“Yell at her mostly,” she admits. “I can’t believe she actually told Henry she thought that we should be together.”

They’d let Henry go back to his class just before Ruby’s call, and Regina was still fuming about it.

“It’s nice to know that people are fine with it, though. And at least it meant Henry has had some time to get used to the thought.”

“That’s true,” Regina say, anger abating. Henry was the most important person in the world, to her at least, but he’d always like Emma anyway, so it was doubtful he would have protested their relationship.

She smiles at Emma, and reaches out to take her hand, when she feels a horrible jolting for the second time that day.

The elevator has stopped yet again.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she groans.

“Sorry, ladies,” Tink’s disembodied voice says. “But you could probably do with some calming down time.”

“This is unbelievable,” Regina tells Emma, only to find her girlfriend smiling softly. “What’s got you so happy?”

“Well, we’re alone again, which is a rare occurrence. Plus,” she says with a sly smile, pulling Regina in by the waist. “We were kissing when we got out the first time. Might as well give it a go, right?”

Regina can hardly be annoyed at that. “Well, I suppose it can’t hurt to try.”