Intro Notes: Hello again, folks. I'm back with a two shot, and this one was a bit of a change of pace for me. One I wrote it in present tense, but second, it's kinda heavy on the angst. I apologize in advance for what you're about to read, but I couldn't help it. It came out of nowhere to possess me and distract me from my other works! In any case, part two tomorrow. Hope you guys don't tar and feather me.
Standard Disclaimer: The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.
Chapter 1 - Discovery
Ruby is exhausted. Letting out a prolonged groan, she stretches and then rubs at the weary muscles in her back in an effort to relieve the ever-present ache that has been there for the past three hours. Having almost completed yet another excruciating 12-hour shift, she is wishing for nothing more than to simply get off her feet for a few minutes, but as she watches another handful of customers filter through the door of the diner, she knows her wish is just not possible. Sighing, she picks up her order pad and mentally prepares herself to do her job, thankful at least that her day is almost over. Only an hour and half to go.
As the customers settle in to their respective choice of tables, Ruby allows herself another moment of indulgence. Lifting her eyes to the ceiling, they slide shut as she begins to fantasize about what she'll do once she gets back home. Per usual, her first priority will be to run a steaming hot bath and then sink into it for at least a good half hour, and although she will have to be very careful to not allow her hair to get wet, it is highly likely that she will fall asleep in the tub. It is not unusual at all for her to do so. Ever since moving in with Regina some seven years ago, Ruby has found it difficult not to doze in the luxuriously roomy tub. There is just something about basking in the delicious warmth of the water that lulls her under as it soothes the discomfort of the day away, and she is particularly susceptible to the effect in cases like today when the diner has been super busy and she's had to deal with a combination of high stress and near constant movement.
Once her bath is over – however long it takes – all that will remain is to dry off as quickly as possible, throw on some panties and comfortable t-shirt and then to crawl into bed. Ruby is quite certain that the noises she will make as she settles into the cool silken sheets will be provocatively sinful in nature and loud enough to wake Regina up, but with the way her entire body is aching and her eyes are burning from a general fatigue and lack of sleep, she doesn't believe she'll be able to help herself.
Seeing that she is already way behind on her beauty rest from working so much of late, she has no intention of setting an alarm for the morning. Dealing with a grumpy grandmother and more customers than she can keep track of during an insanely busy week has left her drained and quite mentally discombobulated, so she is in dire need of a lengthy recharge. She figures that since she is due the much needed catch-up it will be okay to slumber until her body is ready to rise, even if it is till noon. Hopefully Regina will understand. Ruby is pretty sure she will judging by the way her wife has continually chastised her for taxing her body to the limit.
If there were any other choice, Ruby would have gladly shrugged off her duties at the Diner, but because Granny has been short-staffed all week due an outbreak of flu in town, Ruby was roped into working double shifts every day, even on her scheduled days off. The absurdly long hours she's been putting in at the Diner means that she has been absent from home much more than she is used to or is comfortable with really, which not only has made for an irritable wife whose leash on her anger was getting all too short of late, but it also has left Ruby frustrated in more ways than one. Thinking back, she realizes that it has been almost two weeks since she has made love with her wife. Doing the math, she quickly calculates that it is the longest dry spell in their seven years together, five of which they have been married, and upon that realization she begins to ache almost painfully for the deeply intimate connection they share.
To be honest, Ruby is more than a little worried about Regina, and not just because their sex life has been lacking of late. For the vast majority of their relationship they have been happy together, or at least Ruby had thought so, but apparently her confidence is not congruent with reality anymore. Regina has been snapping at her, acting distant and cold one second and running red hot with a need for proximity the next, and the vicious mood swings are beginning to take a toll on Ruby, making her wonder what she did so wrong to make Regina act that way. It is hard to figure things out, though, when her head is almost always swirling from vertigo induced by the emotional rollercoaster she's been on the past month.
The only explanation Ruby is able to come up with is that Regina is punishing her for the intense argument they got into right around the time their troubles began. But seeing as she had swallowed her pride in order to grovel rather shamelessly (even though they were both to blame for the fight, Ruby had said something hurtful that she really didn't mean so she thought she owed her wife the profuse apology) and also with the fact that Regina caved pretty quickly, Ruby had thought she was forgiven. Perhaps she had been wrong. It would not be the first time. If that is indeed the case, with three consecutive days off as a reward for her hard work this week, Ruby plans to do whatever is necessary to relieve the strain on her marriage before the problem becomes fatal, and if there is anything she is sure of, it's that she wants to save her marriage.
For her, nothing has changed. She is still as madly in love with Regina as she was the day she walked down the aisle. Hell, if anything, she is more essentially entangled with her wife than she has ever been, for after so many years together, the bond between them has become so essential to her that if the unthinkable were to happen, she was not sure how she would cope. To Ruby, Regina is the counterbalance that she'd lacked for nearly all of her life, a unique person of strength who is confident enough to be the mate of a werewolf, and whose fierce passion can sate that wild animalistic hunger that is always gnawing in the pit of Ruby's stomach. Regina is a partner who is both bold enough to take what she wants, yet is giving with equal fervency, satisfying both wolf and woman in a way no one ever has. So if she were to lose Regina, she isn't sure she could ever find that kind of compatibility again, and the thought is terrifying.
Shaking herself from such discouraging considerations, Ruby plasters a smile on her face and proceeds to trudge through the remainder of her final shift. By the time midnight rolls around, she is dead on her feet, bleary eyed, and slurring her words, so Amalie, the only other waitress available to work that night, kindly volunteers to take over the nightly routine of stacking the chairs, wiping down the counters one last time, and then folding up enough napkins with forks, spoons, and knives to get started with on the following morning. With a grateful wave to the saintly woman, Ruby makes her way to the door, yelling a goodbye to her grandmother as a refreshing spike of energy hits her. Soon she will be home with her wife, and though she harbors a bit of trepidation at the work they have before them to mend their strained relationship, Ruby can hardly wait to see Regina's beautiful face once more.
Smiling wistfully, she grasps the handle to push the door open but is stopped by Granny's voice calling her name. She turns to see her gracefully aging grandmother moving out from the kitchen to stand behind the counter, a grim look on her face. Ruby's gut twists for some unexplainable reason, feeling kind of like she is being summoned to the principal's office for a paddling or as if Granny was about to give her yet another lecture about propriety because she had been flirting shamelessly with Regina when she came in for a few minutes earlier that evening.
"Come here," Granny waves her over, holding a small pile of freshly laundered towels in her hands.
When Ruby reaches the counter after having taken slow steps to delay the inevitable, she looks at Granny through slightly worried eyes. "What's up?" she asks, trying to hide her nervousness behind casual indifference. It doesn't work.
With raised brows indicating she has sensed Ruby's anxiety, Granny extends the towels out toward her, the foreboding expression still firmly in place. "I need you to take these to room 17."
Unable to help herself, Ruby whines petulantly at the request. Here she'd been all worried about Granny chewing her up one side and down the other for exchanging overtly obvious "sex-eyes" with Regina while working when all Granny wants is for her to deliver some towels to a room in the B&B. With how excessively eager Ruby is to get home, the trivial task seems as demeaning as it is aggravating.
"Seriously?" she responds, her frustration coloring her words as she pushes the towels back towards her grandmother. "Can't Amalie do that? It'll take two damn minutes. All I want to do right now is go home and take a bath then curl up in bed with Regina."
Sighing in a longsuffering yet almost sorrowful manner, Granny extends the towels back out. "You didn't hear me, girl," she says once more, this time more forcefully. "I need you to take these to room 17." When Ruby begins to object again, Granny emphatically implores, "please, Ruby, for once in your life just do as I ask!"
From the vexed look on Granny's face when she spoke, Ruby can tell that something is very wrong. The demand was far too pointed and deliberate for it to be work related, yet too vague to be personal. It is clear to Ruby that there is something Granny wants her to know but is unwilling to give voice to, something that she seems almost afraid for her to find out. As she contemplates what that might be, she nods without a word, takes the towels from her grandmother, and then begins to turn to walk toward the back of the diner where the partition separating the restaurant from the B&B is located.
But before she is halfway around, Granny grabs her forearm, clasping it almost painfully in order to stop her progress. Ruby looks back at her grandmother with startled, questioning eyes. "Gran?"
"I just...I want you to remember something, okay?" Granny says with more emotion than Ruby has seen from her in months. The way she trails off and furls her brow as if in pain scares the hell out of Ruby. Granny then gives Ruby's arm a gentle squeeze, her blue eyes glistening. "No matter what happens, no matter how much I complain, I love you and I'm proud of you. So don't ever let anyone or anything change you, 'cause no one is worth losing yourself for. Okay?"
Taken aback, Ruby is not quite sure how to respond for a moment. Granny has never been the kind of woman to be so open with her affection, and while Ruby appreciates the words more than she can say, even basks in them for just a moment, the warmth they elicit flees as quickly as it comes on. To have Granny baring her heart like that, without preamble or prompting, is extremely disconcerting.
Still, even though she feels slightly awkward and quite troubled, Ruby slides her arm out of Granny's grasp to take her strong, weathered hand. "I love you, too," she replies, returning the words of affection because she means them, and that despite her not understanding why her grandmother is behaving so strangely. "And I won't. I promise. I'll always be the same old Ruby you love to gripe at."
Granny chuckles slightly, though not enough to lift her dampened spirits, and after squeezing Ruby's hand, she releases it and then gives a dismissive nod. Her expression is tempered almost sadly by a weak smile. "Call me if you need me," she says, and then departs from the counter back into the kitchen.
Perplexed by the encounter, Ruby is unable to move for a minute. She stares toward the kitchen with worry for her grandmother, her stomach suddenly in knots as she wonders whether or not it is possible that Granny is sick and trying to hide it. As much as she would like to dismiss the notion as ludicrous, she would not put it past the stubborn old woman to conceal matters of her heath even when they are potentially life-threatening. Granny has always hated people fretting over her and hates doctors even more, so it is not beyond the realm of possibility that something is wrong with her. But surely if it was, Ruby would have picked up on it, and Granny has not shown any signs of illness at all. She is, Ruby thinks, as spry, quick witted, and ornery as ever.
Even if she is being delusional, Ruby is able to convince herself that her grandmother is okay, which helps the momentary paralysis to pass. With a shake of her head to clear it of any such thoughts that might be lingering, she then begins to walk to the rear of the diner. As she does so, her mind begins to whirl yet again concerning Granny's unspoken message, though this time it searches for alternative explanations.
None of the scenarios she concocts as plausible are good, ranging from some nefarious crime being perpetrated that she needs to intervene in to the equally terrible possibility that one of her acquaintances that was either married or in a committed relationship was on a secret rendezvous with their lover. Whatever the cause for Granny's request, Ruby finds herself dreading what she'll discover upon arriving at room 17.
After making her way into the B&B and then up the staircase leading to the upstairs suites, Ruby begins to walk down the hallway, her legs more like lead than flesh and bone as she passes rooms 11, 12, and 13. The closer she gets to room 17, the more her chest uncomfortably tightens and the bigger the lump in her throat grows so that it becomes harder for her to breathe. What if I arrive there to find someone being murdered? she thinks, not liking the way her insides flip-flop like a Mexican jumping bean, further disturbing her already queasy stomach.
With her heart beating audibly in her ears, she finally reaches her objective and stops cold. With her sensitive ears, she is able to hear in vivid detail what is going on inside the room. It is impossible to misconstrue the tell-tale sounds of two lovers in the throes of passion for anything else, and from the sounds of it, they are both women and both thoroughly enjoying their tryst. As the panting from the inside the room grows louder and louder, Ruby hears the bed begin to protest against the overzealous exertions going on atop it.
Feeling a flush of embarrassment color her skin, she curses Granny for asking her to walk into this situation and then backs away from the door to lean against the far wall, still able to hear clearly since her ears are tuned to the fervent activities of the occupants of the room. Abashed at being an auditory witness to such an intimate moment, she begins to turn back down the hallway, but again is seized by immobility when ecstatic moaning ensues along with the frantic rustling of sheets which soon climaxes into throaty groans and shouts of rapture. In a split second of recognition, Ruby's whole world starts to spin violently off its axis. Mortification forgotten, her whole body coils up tight as a drum and her heart lurches in her chest as if it is about to burst and spill its lifeblood onto the floor.
Unable to hold on to the towels due to the way her hands are now quivering, they slide from her fingers and drop to the ground where they miraculously land in a perfectly vertical pile. It is an astonishing piece of luck, but Ruby is far too distressed to marvel at it.
Pressing her back against the wall as tightly as she can, she cannot help but listen intently to the aftermath of the lovemaking in room 17, for once her hearing is tuned in to a certain source, it picks up sounds that normal human ears cannot. As such, she is easily able to discern every word that is spoken between two of the four women she has trusted enough to implicitly allow access to her heart. As the women converse, Ruby feels so stricken by a surreal sense of disbelief that she slides down the wall to curl up into a ball at the base of it.
"Damn," she hears the first woman say, still breathing heavily from her exertions. "As always, that was incredible! I wish that I could take you home with me to Killian sometime, 'cause it wouldn't matter to him if he was watching or participating. He'd be in heaven."
Hearing Hook's name only cements what Ruby already knows: one of the women is Emma. She shudders against the need to sob but heroically holds it in.
"Don't be crass," the second woman replies, her voice deeper and more husky. When Ruby hears her speak, her whole body begins to tremble, and try as she might she cannot stop it. "I wouldn't touch your pirate with a ten foot pole. Come to think of it, I don't really know why I let you touch me."
Ruby hears a bit of laughter from Emma. "It's because I'm irresistible."
"Hardly," the second woman retorts.
"And yet you're here."
At that, there is no response for a moment, and during that silent space, Ruby holds her breath to keep from emitting a half-hysterical moan that would surely alert the women inside to her presence.
The second woman then says, "And as we've already established, I don't know why I'm here either."
"It's 'cause you're bored," Emma supplies, and as Ruby bites her bottom lip so hard it hurts, she hears the other woman scoff. "Look, I get it. You love her, and believe me, I care about her, too. But there's a reason you're here, and if it's not because you're bored then maybe it's because there's something between us that's always been there and we were too afraid to explore it until now."
"Don't be ridiculous," protests the second woman, and Ruby can clearly hear that she is in complete disagreement with that statement. "There is nothing between us of that nature and never will be. I don't love you, nor do you love me. I came to you because I was hurt and angry and idiotically lashing out, and I keep coming back because I'm a despicable person. This relationship serves only one purpose, Emma, don't make the mistake of reading more into it."
Ruby hears the sound of someone flopping back onto the bed with a sigh. She assumes it is Emma.
"While I disagree that you're a despicable person," Emma then replies, and Ruby hears more shuffling of sheets, "you're right about one thing. I mean, obviously I'm attracted to you. That's nothing new, but besides the sex, which is fantastic by the way," Ruby hears the other woman give a throaty chuckle and she has to clasp hand over her mouth to refrain from crying out, "we're just not compatible. It took me a long time to come to terms with that, especially when you fell in love with someone else. But we would have been a disaster in the end."
"We are one right now," the second woman retorts, now sounding frustrated and very guilty, "and an unmitigated one at that. Or have you forgotten what we're doing? Who we're hurting?"
"I haven't forgotten," says Emma with utmost certainty, and the way her voice shifts and strains as she talks suggests that she is standing and beginning to dress. "But unlike you, my spouse is aware of what's going on. As the Dark One, he had an affair that I forgave, so this is his penance for that indiscretion."
"I see," growls the other woman. "So that's what this is for you. Payback."
Emma scoffs as she maneuvers across the room toward the door, the sound of her boots clopping on the floor indicating she is now fully dressed. "Oh, don't even," she says, sounding very close now, as if right on the other side of the door. "It wasn't me who initiated this...whatever this is? You approached me that night after you guys fought. So don't get all pissy at me now."
"I'm not," sighs the second woman, who pauses and then says after a moment, "I just...I'm not this person anymore, Emma. I hate what I'm doing, but I don't seem to be able to stop." She then begins moving, the clicking sound her steps create telling Ruby that she is wearing heels, which she'd already known.
"Well, that's something I can't help you with," Emma replies, not unkindly. It's clear she's sympathetic to the plight of her lover but not enough to feel bad about what's going on. "Earth shattering orgasms I can do, but life advice is sadly beyond my purview."
Ruby hears the sound of a forlorn sigh as one of them runs a hand through their hair. Clicking heels reveal the second woman is drawing near to the door as well. "Believe me, I'm aware of your strengths as well as your deficiencies," she says, "but I suppose you are helping in a way with the orgasms." Her frustration seems to have passed as her last words are spoken with good humor, which tears at Ruby's heart. "It is, after all, an area that has been lacking in my marriage of late."
Emma then chuckles with amusement, and since Ruby is already on the verge of weeping from what she has just heard, she is utterly helpless to defend herself against what comes next. The sounds of a gentle, almost affectionate goodbye kiss find her ears a moment later, and soon after she hears the smacking of lips parting. The kiss...the way it seemed so intimate and tender, hits her square in the chest, wrecking her already fragile heart like a sledgehammer pulverizing a brick. Unable to stop herself from reacting, she clutches at the shirt of her uniform as a shuddering gasp tears out of her mouth.
"What was that?" Emma asks rhetorically having heard Ruby, and she swings the door open just in time to see Ruby scramble to her feet.
Feeling like her head and her heart are about to split in half, Ruby stands on shaky legs and then lifts her eyes to meet the shocked green ones of her long time friend. As Emma gapes in the doorway, Ruby watches with tears flooding her eyes as Regina shoulders her way past the shell-shocked Sheriff.
"Don't dawdle, Miss Swan, we mustn't be seen together and I'm already late getting home," she chastises as she steps out of the room, dressed in the same clothes she'd worn to the diner earlier.
It was all very clear now to Ruby that when Regina came in for coffee it wasn't her she was coming to visit but Emma. The realization causes her to falter, but she catches herself by bracing a hand against the wall and returns her focus to the women in the opened doorway of room 17 just in time to watch familiar brown eyes meet hers.
When Regina notices Ruby at last, she stops in place as if she has been frozen solid. All of the color rushes out out of her face, leaving her normally olive-toned skin pale and waxy. Like Emma, she too gapes as if dumbstruck at actually being caught.
Too devastated to speak, Ruby just stands there and stares, the supreme nature of the betrayal flooding her with shame and anger and a burning, aching, stabbing hurt that permeates her entire being. As she feels her body begin to tremble in earnest once more, a tiny droplet of water splashes against her leg which has been left bare by the skirt she'd worn to work, and she realizes vaguely that it is because of the way her knees are slightly bent as she holds herself up via the wall. A second teardrop then hits her skin, and immediately another follows it, and then another after that, and another and another and another, and as she at last becomes somewhat more aware of herself, she realizes that she's crying. Well, not crying really, for that would be a distortion of reality inadequate to describe the river of tears streaming down her face only to drip from her chin like a badly leaking faucet.
"R-Ruby..." Regina stutters, looking as out of sorts and unsure of what to do or say as Ruby feels.
"How long have you been out here?" Emma then asks, not giving Ruby time to respond and having somewhat recovered from the shock of being caught. Ruby notices that her eyes are narrowed and that there is a tension to her posture as if she is poised to strike. "Were you spying on us?"
That Emma actually has the gall to sound affronted right now angers Ruby so greatly that her face twists in barely restrained fury. "Was I…?" She trails off in disbelief, unable to process that one of her closest friends, a woman she has come to love as a sister, is standing in front of her having slept with her wife and is questioning her about her actions as if she were in the wrong. "How dare you!" she begins, tone landing somewhere between threatening and anguished. "You're my friend! How could you do this to me?"
The words have an instant effect on Emma, who cringes and then stands there like a useless lump of flesh. She does not answer Ruby, which is much to her credit as well as her benefit, for had Ruby been provoked any more, she might have lost her temper, and with it, what little control she has over her alter ego. At the moment, her boiling mix of grief and rage is so profound that the wolf is crawling just beneath her skin, prowling the length and breadth of her host for a way out. It takes all of Ruby's self-control not to succumb to her inviting whispers as she promises to take care of everything if Ruby will just surrender for a moment. But Ruby knows what that means.
Clamping down on her lupine counterpart, she turns her attention to her adulterous wife. "And you," she growls, the wolf coming out in spite of Ruby's efforts to re-cage her. She watches with some measure of satisfaction as her wife flinches back like the words were a physical slap to her face. "I don't understand. Why? Do our vows mean nothing to you?"
When Regina says nothing, just stands there as Emma had like a statue devoid of the ability to speak or hear or feel, Ruby loses her head of steam. Deflating, she wraps her arms around herself, trying to stuff the pain back inside as she inquires miserably, "What did I do wrong? Was it something I said? Did I hurt you in some way that drove you away? Or am I just not enough anymore?" Again, Regina remains speechless.
"Answer me, damn you!" Ruby then explodes, barely able to see due to the moisture obscuring her vision. "Do you even want to be married to me anymore? Tell me!" Again Regina flinches but does not respond. Now on the verge of a breakdown, Ruby grasps at straws as to why her wife of five years would ruin their marriage in such a callous way. The only conclusion she can draw leaves her nearly breathless with dejection. Dreading the response the second the words pass her lips, Ruby asks, "Do you still love me?"
After waiting for at least ten seconds with no response, Ruby takes the silence as an admission that at the very least Regina is questioning her feelings. Ruby's legs give out and this time she cannot stop herself from falling. Dropping to her knees, she lays her face into her hands and sobs, her chest constricting so painfully that for a second she is afraid she might pass out. She realizes through the haze of her grief that what she is experiencing is the shattering of her heart as if it were comprised of a thousand glass panes and was being reduced into so much dust.
She isn't sure how long she weeps out her despair in the hallway, only that eventually she feels a feather-light touch on her shoulder.
"Ruby," Regina hesitantly says her name, having apparently found her voice and gathered enough courage to actually approach.
The physical contact from her wife, which once Ruby would have invited and cherished, instead prompts her to spring up to her feet. Using one hand to guide herself along the wall, she backs down the hallway in a rather reckless, stumbling manner.
"Don't. Just don't," she warns around another sob, holding out her other hand as a physical barrier to prevent Regina, who is tentatively following her, from getting too close.
Because all of the walls Ruby has taken down to let Regina into her heart were currently in the process of being frantically reassembled by her subconscious mind, she is left defenseless for the moment. With the wild gamut of feelings bombarding her, she feels as though she is one giant, raw nerve that has been left exposed and vulnerable to Regina's every facial tic and gesture, and it is why she feels the urgent need to get the hell out of there.
When Regina looks unwilling to heed the warning, Ruby feels she has no choice but to flee. Turning swiftly, she scurries over the short distance to the stairs and then bolts down them all the while ignoring the panicked cries of her name coming from her wife's crimson stained lips...lips that had been on Emma's, that had been on Emma in places that Ruby did not want to acknowledge or even think about lest she lose her grip on reality.
With another strangled cry, she reaches the bottom of the stairs and then sprints for the front door of the B&B. Shucking off her shoes the instant she is outside, she begins to pant as the reality of what has just happened begins to catch up with her. She has to stop for a moment to in order to prevent hyperventilation. But her reprieve is short lived, for not five seconds later she hears the sounds of Regina's heels as she descends the stairs at a frantic pace. Ruby knows that she has to move. Digging her bare feet into the rough concrete of the sidewalk, she does what she does best: she runs.