Work Text:
When people ask, Emma will say that it was a whim, a drunken thought that seemed like a good idea. She’ll laugh it off and remind people that her hair will grow back. It doesn’t look bad anyway, and her curls nearly touch her shoulders, so no harm no foul, right?
Emma is bad at lying. She’s bad at pretending not to care and bad at pretending she’s fine and bad at pretending she isn’t worried about being loved. Anyone who knows her knows she can be an open book unless she’s actively trying to keep it shut. Anyone who knows her knows her fears and her history.
There’s one fear and secret and desire and part of her that no one knows. When she was young, seven years old and in a foster home made entirely of boys, Emma asked her foster mother when she would become a boy. She already likes sports and she wears boys clothes and her hair is a short mop of blonde curls after an unfortunate incident with an entire pack of gum. Is she already a boy?
It was the first time that foster mother hit her, and the first time she’d been forced to wear a skirt. She thinks that being a boy must be a bad thing, if you weren’t born with boy parts anyway. At seven, she doesn’t really care. Sure, having short hair is more convenient than managing her curls and sure it’s harder to run fast in a skirt, but she doesn’t really care about being a girl. So, she drops it.
She drops it for a long time, but when she has control over her body again, Emma goes back to wearing pants and boxer briefs and tying her hair up out of her face. She rarely wears make-up or jewelry. She doesn’t like girls. Boys like girls and Emma isn’t a boy. She’s a girl, which means she skips class to make out with boys that taste like stale beer and she learns that a lower cut shirt gets her free cigarettes and she doesn’t care that she’s only allowed to do half of what she wants to be.
When she has a baby, Emma becomes a mother. It’s a very girl thing to do. She’s put in women’s prison and gives up her kid and becomes a bail bondsperson who uses her feminine wiles to catch bad guys. She doesn’t think of herself as a mother even as she reminds herself that being a mother means she’s definitely a woman.
In Storybrooke (once she accepts it), Emma becomes the Savior. She got sent away as a baby (not a little girl) and now she’s a savior (not a girl savior), but she’s still Henry’s Other Mother. Emma prefers the term “co-parent.” She grows out her hair and wears eyeliner and wears women’s button downs and skinny jeans. She’s a woman and a mother, but also a savior.
She’s Snow White and Prince Charming’s daughter. She’s Ma. She’s Miss Swan.
She’s a woman and women have long hair. At least, they do until Emma gets drunk and thinks about the fact that her mother has a pixie cut and Regina’s hair used to be above her shoulders. She thinks about how her breasts disappear in a tight enough sports bra and a loose t-shirt hides the curve of her waist and she likes that she can see the muscle of her thighs in tight pants.
As she stares into the dirty bathroom mirror, hair damp from the shower and pulled forward over her shoulders, she reminds herself that she doesn’t dislike being a girl. What she dislikes is pretty dresses and only kissing men and painting her nails and only shopping in the women’s section. What she dislikes isn’t being a girl, it’s not being a boy.
Maybe she’s too selfish. She’s always wanted too much and been too much and somehow also never quite being enough. Maybe it’s too arrogant to think that she’s a girl and a boy and maybe both and maybe neither. She’s the savior, she reminds herself, and that’s a gender neutral term. It’s not like she’s going to shave her head. It’s just a haircut. It’s just trimming dead ends and maybe a few inches more than that.
A haircut won’t magically turn her into a boy. She snorts and takes another long drink from a too-empty bottle of rum that Hook left at her place before he died. Hook wore eyeliner and jewelry and boots with heels even though he wasn’t a girl. He also called her lass and my lady and loved the fact that she had a woman’s body. Emma takes another drink and then a deep breath.
Regina calls Emma Miss. She uses that less now that they’re friends. Close friends. Mostly, Regina calls her Emma and Sheriff Swan and Dear. Sheriff is another gender neutral term, Emma thinks dimly as her fingers twitch over the scissors she dug out of her desk drawer an hour ago when she first had this idea. First had this idea tonight. Emma has thought about cutting her hair since it started regrowing from the Gum Incident. Sheriff is gender neutral and so is savior and so is dear and Emma… Emma is her name. She doesn’t mind it. It’s her name, and when Regina says it, it makes her feel real.
So, Emma is going to cut her hair. She worries for a moment that she’ll look too butch if she cuts it too short, but then her stomach clenches and she thinks about it again. Maybe, if she cuts her hair short enough, she’ll look Butch. She’s not naive, and she’s old enough now to know that sexuality isn’t tied to gender and she definitely likes girls as much as (more than) boys. Women more than men.
It’s still taking a stance, though. If Emma cuts her hair and wears a too tight sports bra and finally pulls the thick boots she bought years ago out of the back of her closet, then she’ll be A Butch. She won’t just be a girl anymore, but a type of girl. What type of girl does she want to be? The kind of girl that’s kind of not a girl? The kind of woman that’s a mother and not a girl?
Emma cuts her hair before she can doubt herself anymore. It’s a big chunk she realizes as soon as it’s on the floor instead of in her hand. There’s a part of her hair that ends a couple inches past her shoulder instead of nearly a foot past it. When it dries and curls, she thinks it may not touch her shoulder at all. The realization makes her eyes widen. She’ll have short hair.
The rest of her hair goes the same way, and suddenly Emma is digging under her sink for a hairdryer she’s sure she owns. Her house is mostly empty, her things mostly moved into Regina and Henry’s house (which Emma does not think too hard about), but she’s been a girl for a long time and girls own things like hairdryers. This means Emma probably owns one, even if she doesn’t use it. Regina has a hairdryer, Emma thinks distantly before shouting when her hand closes around a clunky purple handle that was definitely made in the early 2000s.
It takes her a bit to dry her hair, the brush getting tangled in curls as they form, but eventually, her hair is no longer damp. It’s also no longer hanging past her shoulders. Instead, it lands in the nebulous space between her jaw and her shoulders, and Emma isn’t sure how she feels about it.
Her hair is definitely not cut straight, and the hasty dry job has made it frizzier than it should be. Emma’s hands clench into fists and unclench and re-clench. Then she ties her hair up into a bun, finishes the rum, and falls asleep on her bed as she pretends not to worry about her mother’s reaction.
She’s too old to allow someone to hit her, and she buys her own clothes, and it’s not like Snow and David can kick her out. There’s also Henry to think about, but his hair is getting a little too long for a boy recently and he doesn’t seem to care about assigning gender to inches of hair.
There’s also Regina.
Regina who has had short hair and still managed to be dangerously feminine. Regina who wears women’s suits and never seems uncomfortable in make-up and has mastered tasteful jewelry. Regina who has had an endless amount of terrible experiences because she’s a girl, but never seemed uneasy with being one. Regina who has always understood Emma better than she’s understood herself, but still calls her Miss Swan. Regina who also calls her Sheriff and Dear and sometimes kisses her cheek like she wishes she could do more.
Emma wakes up with a hangover.
She rolls out of bed in her lacy underwear and an ex-boyfriend’s t-shirt and makes her way to the kitchen. She makes herself coffee, eats a breakfast of scrambled eggs, takes down her hair, puts on her Sheriff’s uniform, and heads to Granny’s for second breakfast. This one is with her family (her parents, her son, her co-parent). It happens nearly every morning.
When she gets into her car and checks her mirrors, Emma freezes. Something was different when she took her hair down earlier and her sleep-addled, hungover brain has only just caught up. Taking a deep breath, Emma runs her hands through her hair and gasps when they fall free well before they should.
She cut her hair last night. The memories come back, making her jump back out of her car and slam her door shut. Looking at herself in her side mirror, she can’t stop the grin that spreads across her face. It’s still feminine, still longer than she’d like, but it’s short. It’s shorter than it’s been in nearly 15 years, and she can’t stop smiling.
The smile lasts all the way to Granny’s. It lasts as she parks and as she locks the bug and as she strides across the street in a uniform she’d once claimed would make her look like a man. It lasts as she opens the door and the bell tinkles and her family looks up to greet her.
It lasts until her mother frowns.
“Emma?” Snow asks, sliding out of the booth and approaching her with hands outstretched. “What did you do to your hair?”
She touches the ends with careful hands and looks mournful. There’s no hitting or sudden shopping or firm instructions to stop playing with boys, but there’s something even worse. There’s disappointment.
It’s now that Emma remembers something she forgot. She’s a Sheriff and Savior, but she’s also a Princess. Mother. Daughter. Sister. Princess. Only Sheriff and Savior and Co-parent. The scale tips in favor of girl, and Emma has made a mistake.
“I drank a little too much last night,” she says with what she hopes is a self-deprecating laugh. “Don’t worry. It’ll grow back.”
“It’s just…” Sighing, Snow shakes her head. “Your hair is so pretty.”
Emma doesn’t know what to say. She’s bad at pretending to be fine. So, she just shrugs awkwardly and glances at the table where the rest of her family sits. David seems thoughtful, Henry is looking between Emma and Snow, and Regina is frowning. Like Snow, she’s frowning.
It’s enough to make Emma’s heart sink. She thought Regina would understand that short hair can be a girl thing, or that she would understand that Emma isn’t a girl thing. Maybe she thought Regina would like the haircut, that she would smile and wink and tease Emma in the way she always does when Emma does something dumb-but-not-bad. Instead, Regina is frowning.
“Well,” Snow says with another sigh, “I suppose you could have shaved your head. Come on, let’s eat.”
Emma isn’t hungry anymore. The collar of her Sheriff’s uniform feels like it’s choking her and the boots feel too clunky and masculine and her hair is too damn short. For all her inability to hide, she was hiding her girl-not-girl feelings until now. Now, her hair is a foot shorter and it doesn’t touch her shoulders and no one has said it looks good.
Breakfast passes without any talk of her hair, and she thinks that maybe she’s being silly. It’s a haircut, not a gender reveal. She hasn’t come out as anything (because she isn’t anything) and so there’s no need to make a big deal. It’s just a haircut.
For some reason, the diminishment makes her feel worse.
When the family is done eating, Emma gets ready to hide at the station all day. As long as there are no phone calls, she doesn’t have to go out. She doesn’t have to listen to the town’s opinion. She doesn’t have to face that no one has noticed a change at all. Before she can leave, a hand on her elbow stops her.
“Miss- Emma.”
It’s Regina, of course. It’s Regina using her name, and Emma can never resist the mayor when she says Emma’s name like she’s real. With a deep, shaking breath, Emma smiles and turns toward her best friend.
“What’s up?”
Regina is still frowning, but it’s thoughtful now. It’s soft and understanding, and her eyes are dark and wide and knowing. “Your hair…” She rolls her eyes affectionately. “It’s very uneven. Come over for dinner tonight, and I can fix it for you.”
“Fix…it?” It’s not what she expected, and she doesn’t know how to take the offer. “You can’t make it longer again.”
“I could,” Regina reminds her, sending a jolt of fear through Emma’s body, “but I wouldn’t do that unless you wanted me to.” She tilts her head. “Do you want me to?”
Emma shakes her head before she can stop herself. “No. I don’t.”
Smiling now, Regina nods and squeezes Emma’s arm. “I didn’t think so. I just meant that I can straighten out the ends. Of course, I may need to shorten it more to make it even.”
She’s meeting Emma’s eyes now, stepping closer with a soft smile. It’s like she knows, Emma thinks. It’s like Regina has seen right through her and understands that Emma has made a choice, that she wants more, that she needs support. Emma finds herself nodding again, her eyelashes fluttering, and she offers Regina her own small smile.
“Okay. That’s… I don’t mind. If you need to cut it shorter.”
“Dinner. 7 pm.” She reaches up to trail her fingers through Emma’s hair and sighs. It isn’t the same sigh that Snow had given her. It makes Emma’s smile grow. “Wear what you’d like.”
She wears what she likes. It’s not too different. An oversized button down tucked into jeans tucked into boots. It’s fall, barely chilly at all, and she’s folded her sleeves up. It’s comfortable and it’s easy and she’s wearing a sports bra and her favorite boxer briefs and a watch with a thick band that she told the cashier was for her boyfriend.
Emma has a key to Regina and Henry’s house. It seemed right after Hell and Emma is there more than her own house and, sometimes, Regina is too busy cooking to get the door. There are plenty of reasons for Emma to have a key to a house she doesn’t live in, but everyone knows the biggest reason is simply because Emma and Regina are co-parents. They’re friends.
So, Emma lets herself inside.
The entry way used to be barren. It used to be perfect white walls, gleaming floors, four steps up to an empty foyer. There were no signs of life or a child or anything that could prove humans inhabited it.
Now, there’s a coat rack that Emma installed a year ago and a couple shelves for shoes. In the winter, the shelves are traded for a long rubber mat that protects the hardwood. There is a table with a bowl for keys and a box for items left in pockets by a boy and a girl-not-girl. There’s a mirror for final checks and a small whiteboard so the three people who spend most of their time in this house can leave messages and reminders and to-dos and requests. The house feels lived in the moment the door is opened, and Emma thinks it feels more loved, too.
She pulls off her boots and puts them in a spot that has become Her Spot, and glances at herself in the mirror. She’s still not used to the shorter hair, which is expected after only a day of shorter hair. After only a lifetime of longer. Before driving to Regina’s, she tied it back into a french braid and it feels familiar, but not. Tied back, she can’t see it at all, and it feels like maybe she should have cut more.
With a sigh, she heads further into the house, careful not to slip on the steps in her socks. The smell of tomato sauce and warm bread makes her turn left into the kitchen. When she sees Regina, wearing dress clothes and a floral apron and humming as she cooks, Emma is filled with such affection that she’s more sure than ever she’s a not-woman who likes women.
“Hey,” she murmurs, leaning against a counter. “What’s for dinner?”
Regina glances over her shoulder and she’s smiling. “Lasagna. Rolls. Wine.” She shuts off the stove and turns full toward Emma. For a moment, her eyes drag over Emma’s choice in clothing, taking in the slightly different shirt and the way it sits. Her gaze lingers on the way Emma’s hair is tucked away. “Do you want to talk before dinner? Or after? Henry is upstairs, if you’d like him to be here, too.”
“Talk?” Emma shakes her head, brow drawing down. “About what?”
“About… Well. I won’t make you.”
She’s turning toward the counter and picking up her oven mitts and Emma isn’t sure what she’s missed or why Regina’s mouth has turned down in disappointment. She stands in the kitchen, wearing what she wants with her hair tied back, and watches as Regina pulls the lasagna from the oven and sets it on a heating pad. There are vegetables in a pan on the stove and fresh dinner rolls in a bowl and Regina is pulling off her oven mitts now.
“Please.” Emma hates how desperate she sounds, but she’s bad at pretending to be fine. “I want to talk about whatever it is. I just don’t…” She meets dark eyes with her own and shrugs weakly. “I don’t know what you want.”
There’s another sigh that’s fond and frustrated at once, and Regina is tossing her mitts aside. “You may have told your mother that your haircut was a drunken whim, but it’s clearly not.” She closes the distance between them, hands resting on Emma’s bare forearms. “I know all about dramatic haircuts, and the act may have been impulsive but the desire rarely is.”
Regina’s hands are warm on her forearms and her eyes are warm on Emma’s face. “I’m not-” She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, tells herself that Regina will stay. She will understand. “I have a habit of trying to be what other people want me to be.” Regina snorts, and Emma smiles weakly with her eyes closed. “There are a lot of people who want me to be…a girl.”
She stops there, not sure how else to say it. She takes a deep breath, feels Regina’s thumbs brush over her skin, and then finds herself talking again.
“I don’t mind it. Being a girl. A woman, I mean. Dressing up is fun and it can be useful, but it always just feels like that. Like playing dress up. I don’t want- I think I’m ready to be who I want to be, and, yeah, sometimes that’s a girl, but sometimes it’s not.” She takes another deep breath, and squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m gay. And I’m not a girl. Not a boy, either, but… I want to stop having to try so hard to be a woman.”
It’s silent for a moment. It’s quiet for far too long, and Emma can only hear her own heart pounding and her blood rushing in her ears. She’s said it out loud now and she can’t unsay it and it’s true, but it’s so much, and Emma has always been too much.
Regina releases her, but a moment later, arms wrap around her waist. Emma’s eyes flutter open to see Regina smiling at her. She’s beaming and her eyes are shining, and Emma thinks that maybe they’re going to be okay. Forcing herself to lift her arms, she hugs Regina’s shoulders and presses their foreheads together.
“Thank you for telling me,” Regina murmurs, eyes dark and full of affection. “You deserve to choose who you are and to be comfortable with whoever you decide to be. God knows you’ve certainly given me all the time and space I need to choose. I’m happy to be here for you now.”
“I was so worried.”
Emma chokes on her emotion, chokes on her fear, chokes on the support. It feels like weakness to let tears escape and let Regina see them and be happy that she’s just thrown her life into chaos. She isn’t going to leave this small town or her family, so if they don’t accept her, then she’s resigning herself to long, lonely years. At least she’ll always have Regina on her side.
“Uh…” Henry’s voice pulls them apart and Emma quickly wipes her face. When she turns, he looks every bit the suspicious 13-year-old. “Were you guys kissing?”
Both of Henry’s parents blush, their faces turning a deep red. Despite the question, Regina doesn’t pull away. Instead, she rests her face on Emma’s shoulder and lets her answer their son.
“Not kissing,” she replies sheepishly, “but… We might? In the future?”
Henry just shrugs and looks skeptical. “Sure. Whatever. Is dinner ready yet?”
It doesn’t feel like enough of a reaction, but Emma is relieved. Unlike the way no one cared about her haircut, this dismissal feels like acceptance. The way Regina kisses her neck before pulling away and smiling at Henry feels like acceptance, too.
They eat together at the dining table, Henry across from his parents. It’s easy, like always, and Emma scarfs down Regina’s cooking, like always. What’s new is the way Regina casually rests her hand on Emma’s thigh, the way she tells Henry to listen to Emma and not ‘his mother,’ the way Regina calls her Sheriff Swan and Emma and Dear and no one says the word ‘Miss.’ It’s easy and nice and Emma feels like a person-not-a-girl.
After dinner, Henry gives her a hug and asks if he can call her dad and Emma wrinkles her nose. She’s not a girl, but she’s still a mother. She tells him to keep calling her Ma and she’s still his mother and she just cares that he knows what she means. He does. Apparently there are kids at his school who talk about things like transgender and non-binary and genderqueer. She isn’t sure she’s ready for all that, but she’s glad he understands her and loves her anyway.
He goes to his room while Regina opens a bottle of wine, picks up two glasses, and leads Emma into her bedroom. There are boxes on her bed that Emma tries to peek at, but Regina pulls her into her bathroom instead. Emma sits backward on the toilet and pours them both a large helping of pinot noir and watches Regina set out a hair salon’s worth of tools.
“How short would you like it?” Regina asks before taking a sip of wine. “I can just fix the chop job you did or shorten it dramatically.”
“Chop job.” Snorting, Emma toasts her glass and drinks. “Thanks.”
She doesn’t answer immediately. Yesterday, she needed to get drunk to be bold enough to cut her hair. She’s spent years wanting short hair, wanting to be a girl-not-girl, wanting to fight back against all the things she was told to be. In the bright light of Regina’s large bathroom, only a little alcohol in her stomach, she isn’t sure what she wants or what she’s bold enough for.
Blinking, she takes another sip of wine and sets it on the floor out of the way. If she’s going to choose who she is, who she wants to be, who she wants other people to see her as, then she needs to do this with a clear mind. It’s her body, her hair, her wardrobe, her future.
“I don’t want to look like Mary Margaret.” She shoots an appraising glance at Regina. “I don’t want to look like my father, either. Short is…good. But.” Sighing, Emma drops her face in her hands. “I don’t know, Regina. I just want to look like me.”
Careful hands pull the tie from her braid and start unraveling it. “I have an idea. If you trust me.”
Emma rolls her eyes. “I would trust you even if you weren’t the most stylish, beautiful person in the world.”
“Emma…” Chuckling, Regina presses a quick kiss to Emma’s temple. “You flatter me.”
They fall into silence, and this time, Emma just closes her eyes, crosses her arms on the toilet tank, and trusts Regina. The soft shick of scissors is barely audible over the air conditioning. This time, Emma doesn’t feel scared as her hair falls to the floor. She doesn’t feel panicked or breathless or worried. She feels safe in Regina’s hands.
Even though she and Regina haven’t kissed, haven’t talked about a relationship, haven’t changed anything about who they are to each other, Emma feels better. Regina always makes her feel real and like a person and more than a daughter-sister-mother-girl. She hopes Regina will cut her hair in a way that makes Emma feel like herself, but also in a way that makes her look like someone Regina will want. She hopes Regina is shaping her into a person and a partner.
When it’s done, Emma stands and looks in the mirror. Her hair is truly short now, too short to be pulled back or tied up. She looks butch, like A Butch, like a member of a 90s boy band. Her hair still curls slightly, and it’ll probably always look slightly messy, but that feels natural.
She looks at herself in the mirror and sees someone she recognizes looking back. A sharp sob pushes its way out of her chest. Immediately, she’s turned and wrapped in soft arms. Emma can only cry into Regina’s neck, but neither of them mind.
Emma can breathe after a while, but she doesn’t pull away. She’s not sure she can ever properly thank Regina for her kindness, for her undeniable acceptance. There was a time when any hint of weakness would have been taken advantage of and pulled apart. Emma can imagine what the mayor would have done when she first arrived in Storybrooke if she’d known that Emma wasn’t the woman she portrayed herself to be. Now, though, years and crises and apologies later, Regina just holds her.
“Thank you,” Emma murmurs into the curve of Regina’s neck. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”
Regina smiles against Emma’s temple, slowly trails her hands along Emma’s back. “I know.” With another kiss, Regina pulls back. “Shower. I have a few things for you to look at when you’re ready.”
Nodding, Emma starts to undress as Regina gathers her supplies. It isn’t until she’s standing in only her boxer briefs, muscles and breasts bare, that she remembers she’s not alone in the room. Flushing, she looks up to find Regina looking her over with dark eyes, her lip between her teeth. Emma grins, standing tall and raising an eyebrow.
“See something you like?”
Regina meets her eyes, cheeks pink, and nods. “Yes. I knew you were beautiful, but…” She steps forward and runs a hand over the back of Emma’s head, teasing the short hair she finds. “You’re very handsome,” she purrs as her free hand spreads over Emma’s stomach. “So…strong.”
A whimper escapes Emma at the same time her smugness does. Accepting herself has already made her feel more confident, but the hungry look in Regina’s eyes has turned her into mush. She shivers and wraps her hands around Regina’s waist.
“Yeah? And you like that?”
Emma doesn’t want to sound needy or pathetic, not when Regina is being so clear, but this is new to her. She’s never seduced someone without curled hair and make-up and feminine wiles. Emma hasn’t learned how to use her masculinity in the same way.
Regina seems to understand, and Emma’s nervousness only makes her press closer. “Yes, Sheriff. I’ve always enjoyed a gentleman, and to find one as beautiful as you?” Her smile spreads across her face, making the room seem twice as bright. “I’m the luckiest woman in the world.”
“Wait until you see me in a suit,” Emma jokes, confidence returning. She tugs Regina closer and grins at the happy sigh she receives. “God, we’re going to look so good together.”
Regina’s lips are on hers in an instant, and Emma groans. She ends up showering with company. They don’t bother drying off before falling into bed, Regina’s gifts shoved to the side. Regina moans terms of endearment like baby and dear and Emma. When they finally fall asleep, Emma curls up in the circle of Regina’s arms and falls asleep to the feel of fingers in her short hair.
In the morning, Emma will open Regina's gifts to find a binder and new boots and a few new shirts to hold her over until they go shopping in Boston. She’ll make Regina and Henry breakfast, argue with Snow about her love life, be assured that she is still David’s daughter-not-daughter. She will have to tell everyone in town that yes, she still goes by Emma and yes, you can still use she/her pronouns and yes, it’s a good thing The Savior is a gender neutral term.