◦ a minute

❝a minute❞

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word count ✗1,558

tags ✗ #curatorreview

read author’s note at the end!!

━━━━━━。゜✿ฺ✿ฺ゜。━━━━━━

━━━━━━。゜✿ฺ✿ฺ゜。━━━━━━

Regina woke up to the sun peeking it’s way through the shutters and the other side of the bed cold. She turned her head towards the bathroom, certain that that’s where her partner was; she was mistaken. Events of the previous evening flashed through her mind, reminding her of where did the soreness of her eyes come from and also the bags under them. The day before was the day when she revealed to her parents her true self. Revelation was long overdue, ten years or so, however, not only did she come out to them but she introduced her soon-to-be-wife as well, or so she planned. Needless to say, it did not go well at all. With a sigh, she got up and put on her robe. She was, after all, an over thirty year old woman, she could handle rejection even if it came from her own parents... right? Once she reached the bedroom door she could hear the music playing, most likely from their radio in the kitchen, and Emma humming softly to the rhythm.

The brunette stood in the kitchen entrance, leaning against the doorframe and looking at the blonde curiously as she was in the process of making breakfast swaying her hips to the rhythm. Emma was making breakfast. That was definitely something new to see. It was cute, or it would be if it wasn’t for the events of the previous night and the fact that Emma, once again, had to be the strong one and the brunette. Not that Regina didn’t appreciate it, she did, but she hated feeling so weak even more. Finally Emma turned around, as she made the movement to put another pancake on the plate.

“Regina! You’re awake!” Clear surprise in her voice was quite understandable. Normally, Regina would sleep in longer, the only reason why she didn’t this time was the sun that interrupted her and perhaps the fact that she truly didn’t sleep much throughout the night anyway and about two hours was apparently all she could manage.

“And good morning to you too.”

“Uh- sorry.” Emma put the pancake on it’s right place on the plate and, putting the pan away, approached Regina to give her a morning kiss, she hesitated however, and instead decided upon kissing her in the cheek. “Good morning.”

Regina, of course, noticed the hesitation. She made her way to the table and took her place on one of the chairs.

“Seeing you making breakfast is not a common sight, I must it.” Emma slid a plate with three pancakes on it in front of the brunette, then rubbed on her neck nervously.

“Yeah, I- uh- are you alright?”

“Emma, can we just enjoy this breakfast for now please?” The blonde smiled, she wanted this, what looked like a nice moment between the two of them, to go just as well as it was appearing to be for now.

“Yeah, that’s a good idea.” Hearing those words Regina looked down at her plate and after a lot of Emma’s encouraging, tasted the first bite of their breakfast. She had to it, those pancakes, although unnecessarily too sweet, were quite good. She looked up however as she felt Emma’s eyes on her. The blonde, who was sitting across the table, stared at her with a soft smile on her face and green eyes wide open.

“What is it?” Regina asked, popping another piece of the pancake into her mouth.

“Nothing.” The blonde smiled even more.

“Then why are you staring?”

“You’re beautiful so of course I’m staring.” Emma put a hand under her chin, never breaking the eye with Regina. The brunette blushed, as she always did when the other woman complimented her. Frankly, Emma didn’t understand why it still affected her that way, she was giving her compliments very often. One would think Regina should get used to it by now, yet she’d always turn red and be embarrassed, Emma thought it was cute though.

“Oh, smooth, Miss Swan, really.” The brunette offered as a response with a little chuckle.

•••

They were both almost done eating, well, Emma was at least. She didn’t want to interrupt Regina this silent moment of being lost in thought. This breakfast went pretty nice, there was no mention of the previous night and Regina’s parents’ disappointing, and rather aggressive from her mother’s, reaction to her revelation. But Emma had to talk about yesterday, had to make sure Regina was okay, or as much of “okay” as she could be at least. She had to do it or otherwise she felt as if she would go insane out of worry.

“Regina, I wanted to talk about yesterday. I’m sorry, okay, I understand if you don’t want to talk about it but I have to make sure you know that you can talk to me.” The brunette looked up, but didn’t say anything nor did she stop what she was doing at the moment. Emma took it as a sign to continue.

“I know that you hoped for yesterday’s evening to go better, I did too. And I can’t begin to imagine how it must feel... but I love you, Regina, do you hear me? I- I just have to make sure you that, no matter what. I heard you cry during the night and I know you feel terrible now and I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help but I will, whatever you need, I will do it. Just don’t forget that yesterday’s events don’t change the fact that you’re loved, I love you.”

Regina put her fork down on the plate and brought both of her hands to her head, resting it in them.

“I- I’m so sorry Emma. God, I’m so sorry, I should be able to handle this- but these are my parents. I knew it won’t be easy for them to accept, but I didn’t- I didn’t think- and I certainly didn’t expect it-“ Her hand traveled to her cheek which was still a little swollen and slightly red despite the time that ed. She sobbed then quietly, but enough for Emma to pick up on.

The blonde stood up at once and approached the brunette, kneeling next to her chair and pushing it away from the table so slightly just so that Regina was facing her. Emma brought her hands to the brunette’s, interwinding them and bringing down to Regina’s lap.

“It’s okay. Hey, it’s going to be okay. It doesn’t look like it now, yeah, but it will hurt less eventually... I promise. Or I can go and kick your mom’s ass, hm? How about that?” She grinned trying to lighten up the mood. Regina couldn’t help a little chuckle that escaped her lips, but it was quickly followed by yet another portion of tears, one of which managed to leave her eye and was sliding down the brunette’s face. Emma brought her right hand up to wipe away the single tear drop and cup her cheek.

“You need a minute?” Regina nodded in response, not trusting herself enough to actually say anything. Emma put her head on Regina’s lap, holding brunette’s hands in her own and giving them a little squeeze, she hummed a soft “okay”.

•••

Once they both calmed down, they worked together on washing the dishes. They were still quite emotional, but managed to lighten up the mood at least a bit. Emma humming some songs all the time and bumping her hips “accidentally” in Regina’s. The brunette on the other hand kept teasing her and laughed at the blonde’s jokes, regardless of them being not truly funny.

After a moment of silence Regina had to ask a question that had been haunting her ever since the previous evening.

“So, did you see and hear all of it?” She asked innocently drying the last plate. Emma stayed in a different room while Regina talked to her parents the other day, the brunette knew that her fiancé had been trying to hear as much of the conversation as she could, at the time believing it would go well, but she didn’t know just how much Emma actually had heard.

“Uh- almost all of it. Sorry, I shouldn’t have, but once I realised what’s going on I wanted to stay, ya know just in case? Clearly I didn’t do the best job at protecting you though.” Emma answered having dried her hands and turned to the brunette’s direction. Her eyes fixed on the smaller woman’s cheek.

“It’s quite alright. You couldn’t have predicted it. I’m glad you were there with me regardless.”

“Of course. You can always count on me, I’m not leaving anytime soon. I’d prefer to stay here with you till the end of the world rather than have free burgers in all locals in this country, and that says a lot, doesn’t it?” The blonde smiled widely and winked as she approached Regina, embracing the woman and sliding her arms down the flat stomach to catch the brunette’s hands, now free from any more washing-up work. She rested her chin on Regina’s shoulder and left several kisses on the smooth, olive skin of her neck.

“I love you.” Emma whispered, remaining in the same position on the other woman’s shoulder.

“Good, because I love you too.”

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Author’s Note:

Hey! So this was originally a piece of ff actually that I wrote and never finished. I decided to rewrite it, quite a lot. I left the names the same though. Anyways... this is very simple, I’m aware. I kinda didn’t want to do anything super deep or smth, idk, I decided to go with a snippet of daily life with a little addition of angst(?). I know a lot of LGBTQ+ people deal with rejection experienced from their family, I myself am still in the closet because I know that my family would never who I am. To all of you out there, you are brave, you are beautiful, you are strong, and you ARE loved. Never forget that.

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