Disclaimer: All characters belong to ABC's Once Upon a Time.

Pairing: Regina Mills/Emma Swan

Rating: T

Summary: Being unable to cope with Emma's death and constantly breaking down with the visions of her wife, Regina seeks help in hopes of getting better.

Note: Based on Nemo's post (parrrilla|tumblr - post/39241370594). I tried to check for spelling and grammar mistakes, but I'm sorry for any you may find. It's a three part story; and think of it as alternative for no magic – and other obvious reasons. If you have time, feel free to drop a review, I'd love to know what you think. Thanks!

DEEP AND DYING BREATH

PART ONE

If facing the light yellow painting of the front door was supposed to give her some determination, it was failing miserably.

Taking one step at a time, and wondering if she had made the right call going down there or if she should just turn back and drown her sorrows in alcohol every few feet, she made her way from the car to the porch in record time – even a turtle would out run her.

Regina Mills was asking for help. It hadn't been easy to accept even that she needed someone to help her with household chores. Forcing herself to admit that she needed help from a man she held little respect for to deal with how someone was so abruptly taken from her life was something that was just outside her capacity.

Willing to swallow the pride she was left with, she did get herself as close to knocking on the door as she felt capable of – so close she could notice the tiny cracks on the old painting, tracing weird patterns she might stare at just to avoid actually knocking, so close she could see herself reflected on the peephole.

That reflection had been what made her turn around, tempted to leave.

Puffy reddened eyes did not go well on a mayor. Regina had tried and hid them behind several layers of makeup, got her hair done in a quite believable way and managed to drive and arrive without receiving any weird glances. But knocking on the door and being stared at by some detail freak shrink that would probably guess how many hours she has been crying for was more than she could deal with.

Releasing the breath she didn't know she was holding, Regina looked around the porch. It was painted in the same sickening yellow hue from the door and she had to grab the door jamb for balance. She felt sick to her stomach and the urge to throw up made her taste bile. Swallowing didn't help much, but it was best if she managed to keep her tiny lunch inside.

A nearby bench, also painted in soft yellow, made the perfect excuse for her to drag herself from the door that could either save her or bury her. She dropped herself on the bench, rather than sitting on it with her usual grace, and put her head between her knees, what only helped the nausea to get stronger. But she stuck with that position, taking breaths as deep as she could.

Years of pretending to listen to commoners talk about their silly lives and their silly problems had taught her how to clear her mind better than any meditation instructor could, and she usually recurred to this technique to avoid conflicts with herself – but lately, her mind had been so full of thoughts she had no control over and cleaning her mind didn't work anymore. Until the nausea gave her pause and she had a few seconds of nothing – for a few moments, she thought about nothing, worried about nothing, felt nothing.

But when she looked up, she saw her.

Passing in front of the house, behind the bushes that grew wild, thick and high in the garden, she saw blonde hair. She saw red leather jacket and a playful smile that always had gotten her to do anything, hands going through blond curls and she could swear she heard a "Kid!" echoing through the air. She held her breath, as she constantly does nowadays, but the faint scent that always came with that sight hit her, as if being within her – a light reminder of the perfume that used to wake her up in the morning mixed with that skin smell that used to rock her to sleep.

Regina held on to that sight for dear life, trying not to blink, trying not to move, trying to freeze that moment in time.

But just as suddenly as she appeared, Emma was gone.

"Saving cats in the woods again?" Emma had barely stepped into the kitchen when a sharp voice cut into her mind, reminding her she forgot to clean her boots. Regina was a clean freak and she knew that when she moved in, but even after years of living together, she just couldn't pick up her habits. Or bend to her will, anyway.

"… Huh?"

Pretending she had no idea what Regina was talking about was probably not her brightest moment, but she knew she never really had many of those when it came to the sight of her wife wearing an apron – made by hand, with lace on the edges.

Emma averted her eyes from Regina's skirt back to her eyes, trying to smile innocently, but Regina's frowning and pouting her lips made it clear that guilt was printed all over her face, "You left muddy footprints all over my living room."

"How can you possibly know that?!" Emma glanced at the floor behind her, looking for big splashes of mud giving it away, but all she could find was a few stains of light brown sand, "You can't even notice them! Do you have some kind of super power I'm not aware of or…?"

Her voice trailed off when a guttural laugh reached her ears, "You can tell when people are lying. I can tell when a certain blonde enters the house in such a rush there is no way she could have stopped on the entrance and properly cleaned her shoes," Regina bends over to open the oven wearing mittens and a fork being loosely held, "That noisy bug of yours gave you away. And you are not known for being very neat, now are you, Miss Swan?"

Emma made a point to argue every time the brunette called her "Miss Swan" – unless it was used in the bedroom, because truth be told, two "Mrs. Mills" was a little confusing – but the smell coming from the oven was just too good to not let this one go.

"Gods, it smells good." Emma stood on her tiptoes to see what Regina was reaching for in the over, trying not to stare at how her too revealing pencil skirt folded around her hips and failing miserably. Licking her lips with the tip of her tongue seemed perverted even to her, but Emma couldn't avoid noticing how great her wife looked in a power suit before turning her attention back to the cooking, "What are you baking?"

"Apple strudel," Regina barely had time to turn and put the pan on the counter before Emma had made her way through the kitchen, grabbed a fork and a knife and was standing right next to her with a 'can I please get some?' face that was a clear copy of Henry's, "You are not getting any of it until you clean the floor, Sheriff."

Emma pouted as Regina took her knife away and slid the pan away from her reach, covering it with a cloth, "Good point, I am the Sheriff. Don't you think I work hard enough protecting this town to deserve some of this piece of heaven you baked?" knowing how Regina reacted to unexpected physical contact, Emma put a hand on her wife's waist, right when her skirt began, and squeezed it softly.

It was low, but she really wanted to taste that strudel and really did not want to clean the floor.

"You do deserve a serving of it. When it's cold enough to not make you sick, and that gives you enough time to clean your trail." Her voice oscillated from really shaky to unbelievably steady between two sentences, her heart fluttering ridiculously the moment she felt the warmth of her wife's hand squeeze her flesh. She cupped Emma's cheek, making the blonde close her eyes for a moment, enjoying the sudden display of affection, "And I am mayor of this town you protect, I clean enough messes on my daily routine. You can clean yours just fine."

At this point, none of them was really bothered by the stains on the floor or the lack of food being chewed. Emma pressed her body against Regina's, making the brunette turn her back to the counter, sliding her arms from a blackmailer grip to a loving hug. Feeling the hand on her cheek pulling a few loose hair strings behind her ear while being engulfed in a one-arm hug made her lips turn into a smile on their own accord, being reflected on the face standing inches away from her.

"Can I kiss my way out of it?" Emma whispered, willingly drowning herself in those hazel eyes, knowing she would have to clean the floor and eat more apple strudel than her wife and their son together.

The blind certainty of spending the rest of the afternoon with Regina until Henry got home and dragged them to play with one of his new action figures or watch a movie, made her warm inside and comfortable enough to play for a few more moments – comfortable because she knew they had gotten past the point of getting into a fight every time Emma left her mess laying somewhere or Regina tried to boss her around.

Instead of shouting at Emma's attempt to buy her with kisses, pretending it bothered her when it was nothing but amusing, Regina smirked a bit and replied in a whisper just as soft, "You can try…"

Emma grinned like a twelve-year old before closing the distance between their lips, holding Regina's lower lip between hers for a second before asking for passage that was happily granted, deepening the kiss and forgetting all of their surroundings.

The longer she stared at the green leaves swaying as the wind hit them, the bigger the lump in her throat got.

Part of her, the rational part of her being that had been shrunk each day a bit more for the past months, was screaming to her to get back to that door, cover the peephole to not see her reflection, knock as hard as she could and beg for help – because she needed it. Her pride wouldn't get her anywhere, and being so self-assured in her mental balance would knock her feet off the ground in no time.

But the emotional part of her, that one part that was fed by these moments when her brain lacked the ability, or more likely energy, to not give up to her most secret desires, believed that it was true. Even when her nature told her to ignore it, to pretend it wasn't there because it wasn't anything more than a product of her too tired mind, she held on to golden curls flashing through windows, or a too familiar silhouette rushing from one room to another.

She held on to those insane moments as if she needed them to live. And maybe, she really did.

The smallest part of her tried to convince her not to, but her body was no longer obeying her mind – it would obey only her heart. Her legs carried her towards the sidewalk, hand clutching her perfectly ironed shirt in the spot where her heart was beating so violently against, lips twisted in a thin line, chin trembling, fluttering eyes trying to hold back tears that stubbornly burned her eyelids.

And then, after walking down the entrance and getting to the sidewalk, feeling like she had just ran five miles, she was standing in the very same spot where she had seen Emma merely seconds ago.

She felt irrational. She felt ridiculously insane the moment she found herself falling apart in the middle of the town she was known for running. But feeling it didn't keep her from looking around, running to the corner of the street, searching for blonde curls that had always been so striking in the middle of the crowd – Regina tried more than anything make herself believe that she would be able to hold her wife once again and let go of all worries when Emma held her back, both of them drowning on the feeling of each other.

Regina didn't care if she went mental – she just wanted to feel safe again.

Then the realization came – slowly at first, just a tingling feeling on the tip of her fingers; and then all at once, with a void being punched through her chest, like someone had taken her heart away.

She would never hold her wife again. She would not ever feel Emma's fingers digging into her skin, spreading warmth through her entire body with just as much as a kiss on her forehead. She wouldn't sneak into the living room to stare at how peacefully the woman that would grow old with her was sleeping – she would spend the nights alone, sitting in the couch with a glass of wine and heartache.

All Regina could manage was to stumble her way back to the porch, hot salty tears finally making their way down her cheek, staining her makeup and the shirt she used to share with her wife. It burned her eyes to let them fall, so taken aback by the sharp pain of suddenly knowing.

Dead.

Emma was dead.

For the past few months, Regina had been punched in the face by this awareness – over and over again. It felt like a never ending nightmare. The woman who had taught her about hope was haunting her in her sleep, making her believe she would wake up to sluggish eyes gazing at her instead of being pulled from unconsciousness with her wife buried six feet underground.

She could barely deal with seeing her in her sleep, but she was being haunted by a companion she loved to have. Emma was at her work, bossing her to solve a security related issue; at their house, asking for yet another serving of whatever she had made while watching cartoons with their five year old son; at their bedroom, whispering good night with a not forthcoming kiss.

Before her painfully silent cry turned into the desperate sob it always did, Regina gathered all of the strength she had been left with to finally knock on Archie Hopper's door – three slow knocks that no one other than a shrink would hear.

Hugging herself, trying to squeeze her rib cage back to being whole, as if she could mend her heart by enfolding it hard enough, not trying to wipe her tears away or hold them back, without making the tiniest effort to recompose herself, Regina waited until the door opened with a soft click.

Archie's face changed from professionally sympathetic to legitimately worried in the half a second it took her face to sink into his sight. He waited.

She breathed out a single sob, before crying out, "I'm seeing her".