A/N: The past week I've had a lot of trouble sleeping. It's nothing new to me, honestly, but in the midst of my recent struggles, I got this little idea of Regina having a bout of insomnia and taking it poorly. And of course, Ruby is there to see her through her troubles. This is the result.
Standard Disclaimer: These lovely characters ain't mine, I just play with them gently. Please don't sue me. The mistakes are mine, though.
Somewhere She is Singing And Her Song is Meant for Me
Regina hovers at the threshold of the living room. For the tenth time in the past five minutes, she wonders what the hell she's doing standing here like a tentative teenager afraid to face her parents after staying out too late. It's not like her to be so indecisive. When she needs something this badly, she usually goes after it with both barrels blazing. Yet here she is, back pressed against the wall, just inches from the objective that drew her here in the first place, and utterly incapable of making her feet shuffle forward even an inch.
From inside the living room, she can hear Ruby and Henry arguing over the manager's decision to replace the starting pitcher. It's the bottom of the ninth inning and apparently the Red Sox are on the verge of punching a ticket to the World Series for first time in years.
"Dude, Kimbrel is lights out!" Henry says, and Regina can almost see her son animatedly gesturing at the ridiculously large widescreen television he and Ruby went in on together after persistently sweet talking her into allowing it. "Why wouldn't you put him in with the game on the line? Plus the Yankees have three straight righties coming up that have terrible numbers against him. It just makes sense."
Ruby scoffs in disagreement. "Yeah, sure, but Sale has been in this exact situation like three times already tonight and got out of it every time. Twelve strikeouts, two hits, no earned runs in eight and a third? He deserves to see this through!"
Henry counters that with a plethora of statistics that go in one ear and out of the other. Regina has never understood their love of sports, something they tragically have in common with Emma Swan. The three of them travel to Boston as often as they are able during the summers to catch a weekend series at Fenway. Sometimes Regina will tag along, though she only is able to relax and enjoy herself when she sees how much fun her weird little family has.
It's been three years since Henry ran away from home and brought his birth mother back to Storybrooke. What an unholy shit storm that had kicked off. Being a self-destructive, impulsive idiot, Regina almost wrecked the life she had so carefully constructed for herself within the confines of the Curse. The blonde bombshell had a unique flair for provoking the worst parts of her. Like when she shamelessly flirted with Ruby that entire first month, even after Regina confronted her one day in the diner and made it perfectly clear the sexiest woman in town was spoken for.
"Coulda fooled me," Emma had said, staring Regina down with the same challenge in those green eyes she gets to this day whenever they butt heads. "I don't see a ring on her finger and she's not said anything to me about being in a relationship. And believe me, I asked her directly."
There was something important Emma deliberately left out. That super power of hers that told her whenever people were lying would have detected Ruby's deceit about the two decade affair with the emotionally unavailable mayor she had been secretly embroiled in. And it had. Emma was just manipulating the situation to get a rise out of her. Pretty much standard fare for their interactions back then. That didn't mean Regina didn't get the message loud and clear. Emma was interested in taking her friendship with Ruby to the next level, and that had been her way of telling Regina it was time to shit or get off the pot, so to speak.
For twenty-five years, seven months, and thirteen days, the status quo of having her cake and eating it too was more than adequate. Or at least she thought so. Her itches were getting regularly scratched by someone with a particular set of talents unrivaled in their little town, which meant she didn't have to drag Graham to bed once a week to satisfy her carnal needs. Not that Graham was a bad lover, just that he never could understand her. Ruby did, though, and far better than Regina ever imagined a backwards country bumpkin turned chic goth vixen could.
Amazingly enough, Ruby seemed to have a sixth sense as to when Regina needed it rough and when it was alright to be tender for a change. Ruby didn't once complain about getting kicked out of bed at five am once she adopted Henry. Ruby didn't try to steal touches in public or expect that their arrangement afforded her special privileges outside the strict confines of her apartment or Regina's bedroom. Every morning at the diner, Ruby greeted her the same as any other patron, with a wink and a smile, and if those undeniably alluring salutations were more brilliant for Regina than everyone else, no one in town would have been the wiser. If Ashley Boyd couldn't figure out why she was nine months pregnant for twenty-eight years, no one was going to notice if the so-rumored town slut was a little more attentive to the hardass mayor. Furthermore, on nights when Regina wanted to be alone, Ruby didn't call. And when Regina did call, Ruby showed up on schedule, ready for action and seemingly as happy to sleep over as to leave when they were done.
Regina had been wrong about that last part. So wrong. She found that out when she declined to stake any claim on Ruby during that exchange with the blonde interloper she had been laser focused on ridding herself of. It had been two months since they'd had a tryst and Ruby showed no signs of interest in taking up with anyone else. Regina got complacent and she almost paid for it. A week later she stepped into a rude awakening when she caught Ruby kissing the newly minted Sheriff in her office.
Quite unexpectedly, or at least to her, Regina lost it. More on Ruby than Emma. Seeing them together in an intimate embrace made it crystal clear that Ruby needed more than she was letting on. At the time, Regina couldn't really be bothered to delicately suss out whether it was the Curse losing effectiveness that prompted the change or Ruby had been keeping her desires hidden for longer than she wanted to contemplate. All she knew was that Emma was trying to take something else away from her, and she wouldn't abide it. She lost all sense of decorum as she roughly dragged Ruby out of the station by her arm, shoved her into the Mercedes, and sped away before Emma could stop her.
She would find out soon enough that Ruby didn't put up a fight because she'd been hoping for that exact outcome. Much later on, Emma confessed to partially operating under a similar motive. The Savior had been playing both sides of the game. While genuinely interested in Ruby, she had also recognized an opportunity to get Regina off her case by manipulating her into tipping her hand where Ruby was concerned.
There always was something about Ruby that made people gravitate to her rather than the other way around. Even as a Queen in her own right, Snow worshiped the ground her best friend trod upon and often looked to Red for guidance before taking her problems to her council. Like lesser celestial bodies around enormous stars, people in Ruby's orbit warped and shifted and changed the closer they got to her. Emma was no different, and what's more, she had bore witness to glimpses of a flesh and blood heart in Regina any time she interacted with Ruby. Ruby's undeniable moon eyes for Regina only confirmed to Emma that they were carrying on an affair that was less one sided than either Ruby or Regina had known at the time. The damnable woman had figured out before she had that their relationship ceased being casual a long time ago.
"Had you not taken the bait," Emma would tell her years later, "well...all the better for me. Ruby is no consolation prize. I would have been perfectly happy to take her off your hands. Truth be told, I still would. I'd keep her, too. Forever. And I think you know why."
Regina did know why, which is the only reason she didn't roast Emma right there on the spot. The truth was, and still is, that Ruby's love is the second greatest gift she's ever been given, with the first obviously being her son.
Anyway, after she got back to the mansion with Ruby, the proceeding screaming match got a lot of things out into the open. Some of those things were feelings Regina hadn't even been aware flared back to life inside her sometime between then and that first time she seduced Ruby after hours at the diner. Ruby's confession that she was head-over-heels in love with Regina was not nearly as surprising as Regina's own similar admission. She hadn't said the words, of course, but the sentiment was there as she described how irrational she'd felt at the idea of losing Ruby. That it was to Emma was merely the highly volatile catalyst for self-examination and the unthinkable variable that prompted her to finish out calculating the equation her heart had been scribbling over the past twenty-five years. The sum total was that she was, indeed, in love with her leggy brunette waitress.
Regrettably it took a long time for her to work up the courage to tell Ruby that in so many words. Between Emma breaking the Curse after Henry accidentally ingested the tainted apple she'd had Jefferson fetch from the past for future security and the fallout that resulted in her mother's infiltration of Storybrooke, there wasn't a lot of time for grand romantic gestures. Thankfully Ruby didn't make a fuss over Regina's emotional retardation. She was happy as a lark just being publicly acknowledged as her girlfriend.
That wasn't enough for Regina, though. Strangely, she found herself yearning for more. And every time she thought about how patient Ruby had been with her, she couldn't help but conclude that Ruby deserved more. And that thought inevitably led her down a path fraught with bitter, traumatizing memories.
Marriage was a touchy subject for her after enduring Leopold's unforgivable ignorance of her daily suffering. To get over her jaded opinion of that particular institution, she'd spent a lot of time in counseling with Archie. That, and she found a best friend in Emma that all the powers of a seer's prognostication could not have predicted. Emma provided a surprisingly adept sounding board that got her through a lot of the prickly issues with commitment that kept her from proposing. Also, Emma's occasional reminders she was waiting in the wings to scoop Ruby up should Regina fuck it all up were a kick in the ass to take therapy all the more seriously.
Two years ago next month she popped the question. On Christmas morning of all things. The only thing brighter than the tree topper she was shamelessly manipulated into buying by two sets of pleading eyes – one brown and one emerald – was Ruby's incandescent smile. She'll never forget it, or how good it made her feel to have made the woman she loves so happy. They were married in an intimate July ceremony on the beach with a few select handfuls of friends and family. The location was Ruby's idea, and it was a wonderful one. The sun had shone more brilliant than ever and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Feeling the warm sand between her toes as they shared their first dance only emphasized the idyllic nature of that most sacred day. It was one of the best of her life, ranking up there with the day she brought Henry home. Six months later, she can't imagine ever going back to way things were. Being a wife to someone who truly loves and cherishes her is a night and day difference to what it was like with her former husband.
Their relationship isn't perfect by any means, but it is perfect for them. Their separate cogs may seem mismatched from an outside perspective, but when fitted together they work in astonishing harmony. The result is that Regina is more fulfilled and at peace than at any other time in her life.
If only that extended to her annoying bouts of insomnia.
Bottom lip tucked beneath her teeth, Regina argues with herself whether or not to give in to the very appealing temptation to seek out her wife's comfort. That's why she came downstairs, after all. Tossing and turning for an hour and a half with no reprieve in sight from her overactive brain left her on the verge of screaming, so she'd thrown the covers off, annoyed at herself, and tip-toed downstairs still in her pajamas in search of relief.
That there is an alternative method of curing her ill rather than disturb Ruby and Henry has occurred to her. It's just she can't seem to convince her legs to move toward the kitchen to fetch the newly refilled bottle of pills she neglected to take upstairs. There hadn't seemed a need to resort to such drastic measures with Ruby back home. Only Henry surprised them by coming home a day early, and now that he is enjoying his ritual bonding time with his step-mother, she feels wretched at the prospect of cutting it short.
Whether playing video games, watching sports or cheesy movies that rot the brain, or chit chatting about various topics of mutual interest, the hours between Regina retiring upstairs – where she would power through a bit of paperwork in her office or read in bed a while – and the clock striking midnight belong to Ruby and Henry. Their special connection is important to her. In a lot of ways, Ruby is Henry's best friend. He values her counsel in ways he doesn't his mothers, which hurts somewhat until she reminds herself that he needs someone to confide in who has never changed his poopy diapers. Out of respect for that, she tries not to intrude on their bonding time unless invited, which to be fair happens often enough that she never feels left out. Like tonight.
Sadly, she hadn't felt like watching more than two innings of the baseball playoffs, so she excused herself during a commercial break. An hour of reading affordable housing proposals later, she was having so much trouble distinguishing individual words that she gave up and decided to go to bed early. Unfortunately, her brain did not get the memo. By the time she was done brushing her teeth, washing her face, and changing clothes, she was wide awake again. Never one to surrender without a fight, she forced herself to crawl under the covers. The battle was lost before it even began.
It was one of those nights where she replayed her worst moments over and over again. When the reel of her every childhood tragedy came around to Daniel's death, it got maddeningly stuck. As if that were not bad enough, the more times that singular trauma replayed in her head, the less Daniel looked like Daniel. Eventually, as if keying in to some subconscious fear, she started envisioning her mother ripping Ruby's heart out and crushing it right in front of her face. And she was helpless to stop it all over again.
Normally when she's like this, she takes a sleeping pill and grabs a book to numb her brain with until it turns off enough for her to mercifully pass out. Tonight, though, she doesn't think she can hold out for the medication to take effect. The subject matter tormenting her every time she closes her eyes is too much for her to deal with, and that this has been happening way too much lately only serves to complicate matters.
This current bout of insomnia started when Ruby took a week long trip to New York with Emma. Storybrooke is rapidly modernizing now that the barrier was permanently passable for citizens, and thus it has become necessary for the Sheriff's Department to keep up. Emma finally had the excuse she had been looking for to call up an old friend of hers in the FBI and arrange some specialized training in computer forensics. She then had the gall to sweet talk Ruby into going with her. Something about a road trip being a required rite of passage for every American that Ruby should not be denied just because, quote, her wife is a boring old stick in the mud.
It wasn't ideal that Ruby would be away so long so soon after their marriage, but Regina tried to be understanding. Ruby had been really excited about the opportunity to see more of the world they now called home. Like a puppy who'd been given a new chew toy, she just couldn't get enough information about the Big Apple. She devoured more articles on New York's various historical sites and underworld attractions over the span of three weeks than most full residents were aware existed after a lifetime living there.
There was no reason to nix Emma's request to train at the New York Office of the FBI that housed Kurt Weller's esteemed task force. But how could she deny Ruby the chance to stretch her traveling legs again and to indulge that nomadic, adventurous side that she had so long suppressed to be a good friend and even better wife? To do so would not only confirm the worst assessments of her character by her detractors, that she was a possessive, controlling bitch who didn't care about anyone else's dreams but her own. And that wasn't true. Ruby's dreams mattered to her, she was just irrationally resistant to change. Even a temporary one. But because she loved Ruby too damn much to say no even if she wanted to, she extended her full support, much to Ruby's joy. Her reward that memorable night was almost enough to stave off the dread of the coming week long separation. Almost.
There was no one to keep her company while Ruby was gone with Henry on campus finishing up finals and Granny busy with her own hectic personal life juggling the Diner, B&B, and a burgeoning romance with Marco. As brave as she wanted to be and as good as it made her feel to do something selfless for her wife, that first night alone was utter hell. She didn't sleep a wink, just laid there so frustrated that tears wet her cheeks until she gave up trying around three am. The endless streams of tedious paperwork that accompany being mayor didn't help batter her mind into submission either. Nothing did. Not even a double dose of her prescribed insomnia medication. The second night went much the same. By the third night, she was almost manically desperate, so she finally caved and called Ruby the second she curled up under the covers.
Thankfully her wife is as patient as she is compassionate. Each night over the rest of that week was spent exactly the same way, on the phone with Ruby until she fell asleep with the line still open. The problem is that the insomnia is still flaring up even a month after Ruby came back home. The issue at hand is that normally Ruby is by her side to help her through the frustration that accompanies being unable to sleep like a normal, functioning human being.
"Something wrong out there?" Ruby asks, startling Regina so much that she squeaks like a pathetic field mouse. She knows very well that even though her wife being unable to see her from her perch on the couch doesn't mean she can't smell her. Sadly her current crisis made her forget that important tidbit. "You've been standing there for ten minutes, babe. Might as well come tell me what's bothering you."
Regina deflates a bit more than she already was before showing herself. Ruby and Henry's worried gazes boring into her are perfectly mirrored.
"I just...I can't..." She cuts herself short to suck in an exasperated breath. She's being ridiculous right now, and that only makes her angry. "You know what? Never mind. I'll take care of it." She starts to leave but is stopped cold by a pair of hands suddenly finding purchase on her upper arms. For a wolf, Ruby sure can move with the grace and stealth of a cat.
"Hey, no!" Ruby says, keeping her from fleeing. "There's no need for that. This can wait. Right, bud?" She glances at Henry, who nods in understanding.
"Yep. Already got it recording. Behold the wonders of the DVR. We can pick back up tomorrow night."
Regina flushes with embarrassment, not only that she's having to humiliate herself with her wife, but that her son has a front row seat to her weakness. She hates being vulnerable at any time, but more so around Henry. It was that same prideful refusal to be anything but impervious that nearly cost her his trust forever. It was fear of losing him that made her act so rashly when he got hold of the storybook and then again when Emma waltzed up to her front door pretty as she pleased with her stupid princess curls and ridiculous cheek bones and her obnoxious Snow White jawline.
Most of the poor decisions Regina made since the Curse broke have been related to hiding her troubles from Henry, which is why she isn't so quick to deny she is having them anymore when that is exactly what she wants to do. Archie has helped her to see, with his saintly patience, that not only is it unhealthy for her and for her relationship with her son to refrain from letting him see her softer underbelly, but she's learned the hard way for herself these past few years that Henry can handle just about anything that gets thrown his way. The boy is nothing if not resilient.
"See," Ruby says, as though Henry has just ended the discussion. "Nothing to worry about. Now c'mon. Let's go upstairs and get you all tucked in."
Regina wrenches away from her, snarling. In spite of all that hard work in therapy, she is still susceptible to reverting to form. "I'm not a child. I don't need to be tucked in."
Ruby's responding smile would be beatific if not for the fact Regina knows her too well. She can see the lines at the corners of her eyes and the sharp glint in her eyes that says she's getting close to her own limit.
"Of course not, hon," she says, tone too sweet to be sincere, even to Henry's unfamiliar ears. "What I meant to say was, 'Let's go curl up in bed because I love snuggle time with my girl.'"
Regina rolls her eyes, unable to help herself now. "That isn't much better. Care to condescend some more?"
This time Ruby doesn't bother to disguise her annoyance. "Whatever. Stop being difficult, woman, and come to bed with me."
Regina's obstinance doesn't last long with both Ruby and Henry staring at her expectantly. "Fine. Lead the way, Miss Bossy Pants."
"That's Mrs. Bossy Pants to you," Ruby sasses back.
Scrubbing a hand over his five o'clock shadow, Henry groans at their antics. "Why don't you both go upstairs so I can play some Xbox in peace."
"Alright, alright." Regina holds her hands up in surrender. "Just don't stay up too late, young man." That earns her a droll look.
"I'm a college kid on summer break. It's in the unwritten rules that I have to stay up late. Otherwise I lose all credibility."
"That's true," says Ruby with a chuckle that uncharacteristically grates on Regina's nerves. Ruby already spoils Henry rotten, the last thing he needs is her encouraging such bohemian behavior.
"What would you know about it?" she says every bit as harshly as she's feeling at the moment. "Last I checked you didn't go to college."
Wounded by the jagged barb, Ruby subconsciously shifts away from her. It's the second sign Regina catches that tells her she needs to tread cautiously. In all her years, she's come across precious few individuals in any world that she does not scare. Ruby is one of them. Like with the first warning, though, she ignores it. She's too far gone now to give an inch.
"Who's fault is that, huh?" Ruby says, lips in a tight line. "Guess all I'm worth in your estimation is a lackluster GPA that barely skated by requirements for a high school diploma and a dead end job making less in a year than you do a month."
Regina bristles with offense, not caring at all that their verbal altercation has a captive audience. Riled up as she is, she pays no attention to Henry's deer in the headlights expression. This isn't the first time he's seen them argue in front of him, but it's never been so raw or vicious. She's built up a full head of steam, though, and won't be deterred, even if that means her son has to witness the resurrection of the nasty side of her he so loathes.
Normally when she and Ruby fight, they keep it behind closed doors and out of earshot. Aside from her intensely private nature, the problems in their relationship – few yet significant as they are – are no one's business besides their own. Imagine how the always active Storybrooke rumor mill would churn up a frothing torrent of gossip if they found out the First Couple bickered as regularly about their income disparity as they do about Regina's continual refusal to let Snow White off the hook for getting Daniel killed.
Ruby is as strong willed and opinionated a woman as she is, and unlike most of the simpletons who still cower at the sight of her shadow, is utterly fearless when standing up to her. Which happens more than Regina would prefer if she is being honest with herself. She hasn't murdered anyone since Graham, but her temper is still just as volcanic and her tongue every bit a sharpened double-edged sword. One night she'll be wielding it to wrench orgasms out of Ruby until she's reduced to nothing but a quivering, incoherent mess, while the next she'll be biting Ruby's head off for tracking mud through the kitchen because she forgot to shift back to two legs before coming in from her Wolf's Time run.
The problem isn't that Ruby is unaware of what she signed up for getting involved with a woman more apt to burn bridges than admit she is in the wrong. It's that she does. In fact, by her own admission, Regina's combative attitude is a turn on. Tirades that used to send servants scurrying to the four corners of the Dark Palace tend to make Ruby's pretty green eyes dilate with lust. When Regina picks a fight on purpose, needing to ventilate her rage lest she explode, Ruby doesn't run or back away a single step. Oh, no. She stands tall and imposing, right up in Regina's face, daring her to lash out physically because for anyone short of Hercules, it is virtually impossible to overpower Ruby. She takes the slaps to her jaw with a relish that spurs Regina's aggression from a violent track straight over to a passionate one.
Theirs is a tempestuous partnership whose mountainous highs are matched by its abyssal lows. They both thrive on extremes, and it makes for a relationship without a dull moment.
"Don't you dare blame me for your lack of ambition," she seethes, feeling that old anger well up high enough to spill out of its container. "If I recall correctly, several times I have expressed willingness to pay for you to attend the institution of your choice. You declined each offer with as much venom as you're using right now."
Ruby scoffs derisively as her hands find purchase on her hips. Stance widening as if in preparation for battle, her eyes flash with lupine danger that sends a thrill down Regina's spine.
"For good reason!" Ruby spits out. "Do you want to give everyone more ammunition than they already have to criticize us? I sure as hell don't. We've been together thirty fucking years, and half the town still thinks I'm only with you for the money."
The unexpressed part of that admittedly accurate diatribe is that the other half of the citizenry remains split between opinions.
On one side are the folks to whom magic – especially the dark variant – is a boogeyman they wished had never been let back into their lives. People like Albert Spencer, aka King George, who still hatefully glares at Regina and Rumple as if imaging them tied to a stake atop a raging inferno. The puritanical sort also occupy this position, led ironically enough by Mother Superior, that winged bastion of preachy hypocrisy whose position of moral superiority is spurious at best and at worst practically nonexistent considering her own nefarious deeds. In general, these sorts of people either believe the Evil Queen they are convinced she still is has Ruby under some sort of spell, or the other way round, namely that Ruby's wolf has somehow vexed the town's mayor with her ancient, elemental magicks. They can't see that both of those possibilities are...well...impossible. A person can't be made to love someone else, no matter what this world's fairy tales like to profess.
The other side of the rift are the sane individuals Regina wishes all the rest would listen to. This side is one that has fully integrated into modern American society, having left behind the outdated socioeconomic and cultural mores of the old world, and only sees them as two women who fell in love and want to spend the rest of their lives together as they see fit. Amazingly enough, Snow spearheads that faction of Storybrooke, and that alone presented reason enough for Regina to rescind her vendetta not long after the Curse was broken. While she will never forgive Snow for the role she played in Daniel's death, the way she's championed Regina's relationship with Ruby has earned her at least tolerance, and at best a modicum of respect.
Unfortunately, that there are so many who question their reasons for being a couple at every turn is a thorn in Ruby's side. Being a hero has its pitfalls. Regina stopped caring a long time ago what people thought of her and her associations. Ruby is not immune like she is, though, to the bigotry and condescension. One of the quickest ways to get her lanky werewolf's blood pressure up is to mention their relationship in a hostile or negative context. That's why it's Regina's go to tactic when she's itching for some conversational combat. It never fails to provoke Ruby into giving her what she wants. Tonight is no exception.
"Don't use them as a crutch, Ruby. It's beneath you," she says, staring down her nose through narrow eyes at her wife, whose complexion is flushed with an irritation that borders on fury. "Honestly, that you expected anything different is astonishing to me when this town is mostly populated by slavering morons. Three years the Curse has been lifted and still you refuse to acknowledge that. It's time to wake up. They'll never accept us. And if you can't accept that, I have to wonder what the hell you're doing here!"
When Ruby flinches then stutters backwards as if Regina has punched her in the gut, she knows she's gone too far. Henry, it seems, thinks so too.
"Alright, that's enough!" he shouts, bursting off the couch to get between them. To her hurt, he favors Ruby by compassionately grasping her shoulder while holding his other hand out to prevent his mother from physically comforting the spouse she's just verbally eviscerated. "Just stop this bullshit right now."
Reeling at her mistake as much as at Henry's betrayal, Regina defensively crosses her arms over her chest. She'd been willing to let Ruby's crass swearing slide as it is a bit more characteristic. Henry wielding it is another story altogether.
"Language, young man," she says, haughty and judgmental just like she'd been when he was a boy. "I raised you better than to speak to your mother that way."
Henry breathes deeply as if to calm some internal monster rearing it's ugly head. "Listen, Mom, I love you, but no offense, fuck that. You did teach me that my choice of words matter, but you know what else I learned from you?" Regina shakes her head hesitantly, lacking the strength to voice a response in the face of her son's ire. "Hurting the people you love to make yourself feel better is selfish and cowardly. Villains do that, Mom. Is that what you are again?"
Tears prick at her lids, burning her eyes with as much intensity as the shame that immediately sears through her chest. How had everything gone so wrong so quickly?
"I'm sorry," she breathes out, eyes flitting frantically between Ruby and Henry. Both are watching her warily, and with good reason. "I don't want to be a villain ever again, Henry, so I won't lie. I have no legitimate excuse for what I said. You're right. I...I messed up. I let myself slip back into old habits. I'm just…I'm just so...so tired."
"Tired of what, Mom?" Henry asks.
Ruby doesn't let her answer. Sniffling as she wipes tears of her own from ruddy cheeks, she shuffles past her step-son and into Regina's personal space.
"Is this about you not sleeping?" she asks. When Regina nods numbly, Ruby's expression melts from that of a wounded puppy to a deeply concerned wife. She reaches for Regina's hands, and even though Regina doesn't feel worthy of accepting the comfort, she does so anyway. She needs it right now with a desperation she can hardly fathom. "Baby. I knew you were struggling, but why didn't you tell me it was this bad?"
"I don't know," Regina says, and that is the God's honest truth. Ruby has never judged her, and never will, for foibles that include a chronic inability to sleep soundly stemming from another lifetime she'd rather forget.
Years spent lying in bed next to her much older husband, shivering with dreadful anticipation that he might be in the mood to exert his oppressive authority over her unreceptive body, locked her in this maddening pattern of not being able sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. The most she gets on a good night is five hours. Over the decades she has become accustomed to the less than optimal amount of rest, but that doesn't mean she wishes that could change. Therapy hasn't helped the problem, and while the drugs she's been prescribed help her fall asleep, they don't keep her under any longer. And the way they make her feel the next day is worse a condition than if she didn't take them all. So she avoids the little white ovular sledgehammers unless she is at her absolute wit's end.
Thankfully her routine inability to sleep like a normal person has not really ever been a problem with Ruby, seeing as her wife's impeccable internal clock has her up at the crack of dawn. Damn werewolf privilege. The fact that Regina can join that exclusive club at any time she chooses is not an inconsequential consideration. The only thing stopping her is herself. For a variety of reasons she has discussed at length with Ruby, she isn't ready to take that step yet, and isn't sure when she will be other than to say she is giving it more and more thought of late. Running side-by-side with Ruby on her Wolf's Time jaunts through the forests of Storybrooke certainly has it's appeal, as do the other fringe benefits of becoming a lycanthrope.
That isn't the point, though. The point is that being a werewolf gives Ruby a lot of advantages over lesser humans, one of those being that she doesn't require more than a two or three hours sleep per night to adequately function. During Wolf's Time, when her alter ego's activity is at peak levels, she will go days without sleeping at all and not see a single drop in cognitive function or experience the troubling mood swings that would affect ordinary people. Another advantage is that, while Ruby doesn't sleep a lot, when she does, she is totally out of it. Like, dead to the world, jackhammers operating inside the bedroom won't wake her, out of commission.
Needless to say, five is a luxury to Ruby, whereas it is quite necessary for Regina. When she doesn't get at least five, she is intolerable the next day. String together several weeks of poor sleep habits and this is what happens. Although, she hasn't been as mean to Ruby as she has tonight in a long, long time. And that is concerning in and of itself. Maybe it's time to give the lycanthropic solution to her insomnia a bit more thorough examination.
"Well, whatever is going on, we'll figure out a solution. Together. I promise. We can start tomorrow, okay?" Ruby says, now soothingly rubbing the back of Regina's left hand with her thumb. Regina nods her acceptance, and after a sweet smile, Ruby tugs at their joined hands and starts to pull her slowly toward the staircase. "Come on, let's go to bed." They pause beneath the cased opening of the living room so Ruby can spares a glance to Henry over her shoulder. "G'night, kiddo. See you in the morning."
"Sure, Rubes," he says, still visibly uncomfortable at what he just witnessed.
Regina's shoulders hunch with shame. She had once sworn she would never put him that sort of position again, having to referee between two people he loves. God knows he had done it a hundred times when she was out for Emma's hide. Hell, the Savior gets on her last nerve every now and then, putting them on an unavoidable collision course. Friends they may be, but Emma still knows how to push her buttons, and does so a little bit often and with far too much enjoyment for her own good. Usually Ruby is around to de-escalate the situation, but there have been a dozen or so instances where Henry had to arbitrate between his mothers until cooler heads prevailed.
Regina hasn't felt any worse those times than she does right now. "Good night, son," she says, voice low and rough with regret. "And again, I'm so sorry for what I said." She'd offered the apology as much for her wife's benefit as for her son's, and is grateful that Ruby indicates her acceptance by gently squeezing her hands.
To his credit, Henry brushes off his irritation at her in lieu of offering a warm smile she doesn't deserve. "I know you are, Mom. I'm not mad anymore, just worried."
"Me, too, bud," Ruby says, then adds more hopefully, "but your Mom is gonna be alright. She's the toughest lady ever, and I'm not going to let her go through this alone."
"Me either," he adds, and Regina's emotions are so all over the place right now that she can only bite her lip and nod to keep from sobbing at her family's outpouring of love and support.
Not much more is said as Ruby leads them up the winding stairs to the second story, down the hallway, and through the door of their bedroom. Once inside, she guides them over to the front corner of the bed and carefully maneuvers Regina down onto the mattress by the shoulders.
"So," she says as she departs momentarily to step over to the dresser. "Would you like for me to read to you tonight like I did while I was in New York?"
The offer, while unexpected, is one Regina cannot turn away. How Ruby knew what she needed would be miraculous if she didn't do so all the time. It's as if there is some sort of sixth sense in her that keeps her tuned to the slightest changes in Regina's mood. Ruby theorizes it has something to do with her wolf, that Regina being her mate has somehow connected them magically in addition to their soul-deep emotional ties. They can't prove the hypothesis because no test exists capable of detecting such a phenomenon, and there is very little information about werewolf biology outside of internal mythology that is, according to Granny, spotty at best.
Still, it's nice to think that what they have is more than just what exists on the outside, or even in their hearts, but is cosmic in way that would suggest they share True Love. There is a way to test that hypothesis, but there is less than a zero percent chance she ever gives it a try. The very thought of Ruby under a sleeping curse is enough to give her nightmares.
Anxiously worrying at the sheets beside her thighs, Regina softly replies to her wife's characteristically charitable overture. "If it's not too much trouble..."
Ruby waves away her hesitation with sympathetic, encouraging earnestness. "Of course it isn't. You know I'll do anything for you."
The statement hangs in the air over a pregnant pause. It's one Ruby has verified with her actions so many times that Regina can't explain why she still has the occasional doubt. It's totally irrational of her to question Ruby's devotion for even a second when she has sacrificed so much and more than once braved the scorn of her friends in the name of her devoted fidelity. Without needing to be asked, Ruby had stood between her and the lynch mob that formed to kill her after the Curse was broken. She proudly stood beside her when everyone else was accusing her of murdering Archie because of her mother's schemes, even when Snow had the audacity to make her supposed best friend choose between Regina's love and their friendship. Applying every ounce of her dogged stubbornness, Ruby refused to be left behind when Henry was abducted to Neverland, and then nearly died saving Regina's life from a rogue arrow shot at them by a startled member of Tiger Lilly's tribe. And when Zelena showed up after Pan's Curse landing them back in the Enchanted Forest and threatened to undo all of Regina's hard-earned progress? Well, Ruby refused to let her give up and fought like hell to save her.
Regina can still remember the terror that gripped her as Ruby took to her fur to confront her crazy-ass half-sister. Paralyzed by a spell she could not break, she had to watch the duel between werewolf and witch. Powerless to intervene and with a desperation she never before felt, she begged her sister to show mercy when Ruby was finally subdued by a deadly accurate bolt of green flame. She is still beyond thankful that Zelena suffers from the same original sin as she does. Her sister's pride stayed the hand set to deliver a fatal blow. Months later, and like it always does to Regina, that pride blew up in Zelena's face.
When Regina gave True Love's kiss to her son who didn't remember her, she woke up from the third Curse that had afflicted them in as many years to her life turned upside down. Not only did she find herself dating Robin of Locksley, who is a kind and handsome enough man, but she also discovered the kind midwife who had seduced her 'friend' Ruby was instead the same pernicious witch that stripped away several years worth of memories. Memories that were highlighted by falling in love with Ruby against a background of misery that was the first Dark Curse, of their struggle to stay together when it seemed like fate itself was determined to tear them apart once her supposed Happily Ever After came to a screeching halt, of the ups and downs of their relationship navigating a life that was already complicated enough with fairy tale villains crawling out of the woodwork every other week, and of their idyllic marriage ceremony on the quaint strip of beach far on the southeast corner of Storybrooke's territorial limits where they had once made love on a hot summer night while the sun dipped down behind a sea-framed horizon.
Frankly, if Rumple hadn't killed Zelena for what she did to his son, Regina would have solely for the capital crime of daring to touch what belongs to her. Like with Snow, she will never forgive her sister for so grotesquely violating her wife. Not even Ruby's impossible puppy eyes imploring her to mend fences with her only living blood relative can fix that damage.
"So," Ruby picks up after a moment holding Regina's eyes, both lost in their thoughts of one another, "we finished The Silmarillion before I came home. Wanna start The Lord of the Rings? Or The Hobbit?"
"No, thank you," Regina replies, watching her wife fetch her sleeping clothes – Regina had earlier slipped into a purple silk set featuring pants and long sleeves to ward off the winter chill, but Ruby selects an old, thinning gray t-shirt with a faded Van Halen logo and skimpy, well-worn navy blue gyms shorts since her preternatural warmth does that job for her. "I was thinking The Riryia Revelations. Henry recommended the series and he's yet to lead me wrong with fantasy novels."
When Ruby turns back round, she's wearing one of her famous grins. "Sounds great! Why don't you get under the covers and I'll be right back. 'Kay?" Without further fanfare, she scampers off to the bathroom, hips swaying to a tune she's humming that is rather befitting her choice in attire.
Bottom lip tucked between her teeth, Regina follows Ruby's progress intently until she disappears behind the bathroom door. There are few sights more enticing than watching Ruby saunter away in those painted on jeans.
Once Ruby is out of view, she slides up and into position on her side of the bed. She waits there, back resting against the headboard, for five minutes until Ruby at last emerges from the bathroom in her sleeping clothes. Face scrubbed free of her typically underscored makeup and with her hair tied up into a high ponytail, Regina thinks she is even more attractive than when she's dressed to the nines. Especially since her shirt hangs loose around one of her lovely toned shoulders and those shorts leave most of her creamy, mile long legs exposed.
Salivating in spite of her current state of exhaustion, Regina has to fight the urge to, as Ruby would say, make Olivia Newton John circa September 1981 proud. It's a common reaction that isn't wholly unwelcome when one has a spouse as absurdly attractive as hers. But tonight is not the night for getting physical. Especially after the things Regina said downstairs. Soothing the hurt of her callous words with sex would be the way the old her would deal with the situation. She doesn't want to regress into that old pattern after she's already done so in other avenues she is already regretting. Best to keep things PG until tomorrow. Then, with a long stretch of highway behind them and their argument a dim dot in the rearview mirror, they can love themselves back into a healthy rhythm.
With all the grace of her alter ego chasing down a rabbit, Ruby leaps into bed like a kid, grinning just the same with a twinkle in her eyes. Regina laughs under her breath, then yawns loudly as Ruby settles in on her back. Ignorant of Regina's previous internal conflict with unbidden desires, she invitingly pats the space beside her.
Regina wastes no time scooting closer. Shifting onto her side, she rests her head on Ruby's chest, ear right over her heart, and heaves a sigh of bone-deep satisfaction. A kiss is pressed to her head as Ruby wraps her right arm tight around her shoulder. A beat of pleasant companionship passes before she feels Ruby stretch her right arm out toward the book she had laid on the nightstand.
As Ruby starts to read, her eyes slide shut and she sighs in pure contentment. This is her own private heaven. At home, curled up in a bed unsullied by an entitled brute of a husband and hallowed by the love of a young woman with an indomitable spirit, with a strong arm protectively around her shoulders and those long nimble fingers idly threading through her hair. The sound of a honeyed feminine voice wraps around the clever words of a master storyteller, the secret ambrosia she'd discovered when Ruby was out of town, a medication that worked without fail to lull her into the exquisite, welcoming arms of repose.
As it turns out, Ruby's voice is the cure she's been searching almost four decades for. She has never figured out what possessed her to ask Ruby to read to her over the fuzzy cell connection that third night, except for the thought that she'd needed an excuse to keep her talking as long as possible. When she woke up the next morning, shockingly refreshed, all thoughts of how silly it was vanished into so much vapor.
Why, then, had she let herself regress when Ruby got back home? Perhaps it was embarrassment over my neediness, she thinks. Or maybe I just figured having her physically close would suffice? She isn't sure if either is the case, or some other factor she isn't aware of at the moment, nor does she care.
"'You were right, Royce,' Hadrian said in resignation," Ruby reads, beginning what will unfurl into a captivating tale of two paradoxically noble thieves who become so much more. "He unclasped his cloak and laid it across the rear of his saddle. 'We should have left the road, but honestly – I mean, we are in the middle of nowhere. What are the odds?'"
She chuckles at Royce's wry response and at Ruby's humorous attempt at a male timbre, feeling the first coaxing pulls of unconsciousness. This is all she needs, right here. Everything else is irrelevant so long as her son is safe and sound downstairs and she has the sanctuary of Ruby's embrace, of her warmth that seeps down into her skin, and the melodic, hypnotic sound of her voice to banish every doubt, fear, and frustration that plague her waking hours.
More calm and serene than she has in months, Regina succumbs to exhaustion before Ruby can even reach page ten.
Oh well, she thinks as she fades into blissful slumber. There's always tomorrow. And the smile that spreads across her lips is still there in the morning.