Title: Long Live the Queen
Fandom: OUAT
Pairing: FairyQueen/SwanQueen
Rating: T
Warnings: Character Death
Author's Note: Yeah, I don't really have an excuse for this one. It's a darker take on how David could have been healed.
Long Live the Queen
In the end, Regina reflected, she had never been able to truly deny Henry anything. Oh she had banned pre-dinner treats and horrifically violent video games, but she had known that Emma had been secretly giving him those things anyway. She would have caved eventually, though. She always had. She simply did not have it in her heart to say "No" to her baby boy.
So when he looked at her, eyes wide and begged her to save his grandfather, she nodded without hesitation. She saw the wary expressions, perfect mother-daughter replication, on Snow and Emma's faces but paid them no mind. She knelt by David Nolan, Prince Charming, and held her hands, palms down, over the black and festering cut on his side. "This will sting a bit, Dear." She said more to herself than to the fever-ridden and barely conscious shepherd-prince.
Sting was an understatement. Pulling the poison out of Charming and into herself was so incredibly painful that she had nothing to compare it to. Even absorbing the death curse from the well in Storybrooke paled in comparison. The corrosive black venom entered her body through her fingertips in a rush, like floodgates thrown open to accept a tsunami wave. She had thought she'd known pain, it had been her constant and only life companion since she had been a child. This pain, though, was all-encompassing, wild, sharp and endless. She was not simply experiencing the pain, she was pain and it was she.
The flow of magic sputtered to a stop as the last of the infectious ooze left Charming's wound. His chest suddenly filled with air and his eyes snapped open, focused and alert for the first time in hours. Snow all but shoved her out of the way to get to her beloved prince. Henry and Emma quickly followed suit. She rocked back on her heels and, somehow, stood up. It was over, it was finally over. The image, the perfect family embracing before her, burned into her retinas and her memory. Henry had wanted a real family and she had never been able to tell him no.
She stumbled back a step, her legs suddenly made of rubber instead of flesh, and then another. Five steps, ten steps, her backwards momentum was slowly dragging her back to the vine and leaf-strewn ground. Pain jolted through her with every beat of her heart as the toxins raced through her body, destroying everything that she was. She didn't even feel herself fall. The ground was cold, slick, slimy and hard, but she couldn't seem to care. She stared up, unable to do anything more than blink, and wished she could see the sky. The thick canopy of the Dark Jungle blocked the sky completely so instead of the brilliant blue she craved, all she saw was green. A sickly green sky above her. No clouds, no sun, no invisible stars, just green. She was trapped in the jungle, caged in by thick verdant leaves, never free. Not even at her end. A tear, one small and solitary drop, trickled of her eye. She was to die as she had lived: alone and in the dark, cold because the sun's rays would never truly touch one so damaged as her.
Time slowed down, sped up, and became meaningless altogether. Pain was now her compass and death her only destination. Wasn't it funny, her thoughts were becoming less and less coherent, twisted and shaped by agony instead of logic, that she had given her life to ensure the two people she had spent a lifetime trying to separate could be together? Wasn't it ironic that she had given her life up so Snow White, the woman who had taken everything from her, could have everything? Everything that she had wanted but could never have. Wasn't it hilarious that she could save David with a flick of her fingers when she hadn't been able to save Daniel? Her life had been one excruciating feast and the darkness had finally had its fill of her.
Minutes, hours, days, maybe only seconds, passed and Regina wondered how much longer. The pain only grew more powerful and she felt herself weakening.
"Regina."
The voice was distorted, stretched but compressed, garbled yet clear. Was it male? Was it female? Was it from the world of the living or of the dead? She truly could not tell.
"What did you do?"
A face, blurry and far out of focus, floated above her.
Female. Gold. Green. Emma.
"She cured Charming, Dearie."
Ah, that voice she knew. Regina was not sure if it was real or only in her head but she could never mistake Rumpelstiltskin's voice for anyone or anything else.
"No."
Warm hands, Emma's strong and slender hands, touched her face. "No because that would mean that she-no."
"You" Rumpelstiltskin spoke softly, "of all people know that helping someone always comes with a high cost."
Arms, Emma's arms that had wrapped around Henry to pull him out of the mine and climbed a beanstalk to come home to him, pulled her close, surrounding her, holding her, supporting her.
A voice, still indistinct and distant but it had to be Emma because no one else seemed to care, sounded in her ear. "She's not dying!" Regina wanted to smile because the last time she'd heard that Emma had stayed true to her word.
"She is dying, Dearie. The same way as her mother died only a handful of days ago."
Heat rushed through her body, igniting her blood and making her skin flush. Was it her legendary temper flaring up in defiance of the Imp's callous words? No, she hadn't allowed his words to hurt her for many years. Was it the heat that she always felt when Emma was near? The powerful rush of want, need and love? Or was it only the nightshade fever attacking her already weak system? She wanted to say that it was Emma, but knew that it was the poison. Perhaps it was both. Both wouldn't be so bad.
"No." Emma's voice warbled and cut in and out, like a poorly tuned radio. Her senses were failing. A particularly nasty wave of pain went through her and she went stiff, her muscles locking against the sheer amount of torture she was going through. She was so tired of pain.
"Fight it, Regina. Fight it. I believe in you. I believe. Please, please, I believe in you completely and utterly. I always have. Even when-"Her voice hitched, "even when you sent me away. I never stopped caring, worrying, or thinking about you."
Really? She thought she felt her lips curl into a small smile. Emma had cared. She had cared about her. Maybe, another bolt of pain washed over her and she gasped as her thoughts dimmed to nothingness for a moment. Maybe Mother had been right, maybe she could have really been enough.
Warm, soft lips pressed against hers and for a moment her heart stopped aching. For a moment the alternating fire and ice in her blood leveled out to a delicious warmth. For that one single moment she felt loved. Truly and completely loved in a way that not even Daniel had loved her. The kiss broke and Emma hovered above her, more vague and fuzzy shape and color than face now. Fingertips caressed her face and momentarily chased the pain out of every inch of flesh they brushed over.
"She was wrong. So so wrong, Love. You are like your beautiful heart, surrounded by darkness but still strong and true. You are the light that burns in the endless night. Your love, your passion, your strength and please-" Emma's words, more beautiful than she could have ever imagined the woman saying made her want nothing more than for this moment to stretch into eternity. "Please don't go. You are my guiding light, the one person in all the worlds that can remind me that I am good."
The lips left hers and though Regina desperately wanted to look into Emma's eyes and see the love there, her eyesight had faded to black in the small fraction of time between the opening and closing of her eyelids – her vision gone in a literal blink of an eye. She felt the weight of the other woman's forehead against her own and the cool splash of a tear on her overheated skin.
"I love you, Regina."
Light, pure and brilliant, took over the black and Regina's vision and suddenly the pain was gone, a distant memory that seemed so very small and insignificant compared to what she was feeling. All she had ever wanted was to love and be loved in return. Emma, the prophesized savior, had finally saved her. She reached up and cupped the sweet cheek of the blonde that loved her.
"I love you too, Emma."
The words were a whisper and as they left her lips she felt all the weight of her life: the pain, loneliness, fear and anger lift from her chest and she floated free and blissfully happy for the first time in her life. Only one last thing- Regina licked her very dry lips, "Henry-" Like that, with one last word of concern for her son floating on her labored breath, Regina went still, quiet and slipped between the realms of the living and the dead.
Two anguished screams cut through Neverland's Dark Jungle. Henry, tears tracking two clean streaks down his face, sobbed and screamed for his Mommy not to leave him. He fought against his grandparents' grasp, begging for them, for anyone, to help. His young voice cracked and hitched and when he fell to his knees all he could mumble was that he was sorry.
"I promise, I promise Mom, I'll never be mean again. I won't call you evil and I'll clean my room every day and I won't leave my shoes on the stairs and I'll eat apples again. Anything, anything you want. Please I love you. You're my mommy." Snow wrapped her arms around him and pulled his face into her shoulder but that did little to muffle his wail of "Mom!"
Tinker Bell's scream was not a word, it was the soul-shattering roar of a wounded animal and violently breaking glass. It was pure agony that echoed endlessly through the trees as she rocked the still body of a woman who had been a queen, mother, friend, ally and almost lover only seconds before against her chest. The loss: hope, belief, love and every dream of what might have been showed plainly on her face. She had Regina's lolling head tucked under her chin, unwilling or maybe unable, to let go.
Emma's screams were silent. They echoed in her mind and heart, they ricocheted through her soul and shredded it until only ragged scraps fluttered in her body. She couldn't breathe, couldn't fully process what had happened. One thing, one phrase, five little words, sounded in her ears over and over again.
"I Love you too, Emma."
She had-Regina had loved her. The woman who had raised their son and risked her life again and again for people that she didn't even like that much, the woman who had just signed her own death warrant at her son's request, had loved her. Regina, the picture perfect mayor, the wounded ex-queen, the brilliant mother, the powerful sorceress had loved her. She felt her knees hit the ground but didn't register the physical pain.
Why? Why? Why?
Why had Regina loved her? She had only hurt her. She had hurt Regina in big and small ways over and over again since the very first day they had met. Why would she love her? If anything Regina should hate her. Hadn't she hated her? Emma had been so sure that Regina had nothing but hate for her. She should have hated her at least as much as Emma hated herself right now.
Neal's hand descended on her shoulder and she batted it away from her. She didn't want him. She didn't want a silly childhood crush. She wanted the complex, bittersweet and amazing woman that was lying dead in a fairy's arms. She wanted Regina. She had always wanted Regina. She had fallen in love with the brunette and she wasn't even sure when it had started or why, it had just happened. Somewhere along the way, between fighting and making magic together, she had fallen in love with Regina. It had been like a thrill ride, a long creaking rise to the top of a hill, and for a glorious second Emma had seen everything that she could have, the entire world at their disposal, all the time in the world and every twist and turn, as scary as they were, would eventually lead them home. Then everything fell down. The plunge was sudden, unexpected, and violent and Regina hadn't stayed with her. She was-Emma choked on her emotions, drowned in her own tears and felt her heart crack and splinter in her chest. She opened her mouth to say so but knew that the words were too late. Far too late.
She was no savior. It was just like she had told Snow. She didn't feel like some fairytale princess and savior. She felt like a coward and a fool, she felt like her world had abruptly come to a screeching halt as another chance at love, happiness and family slipped through her fingers. She had pushed Regina away when she should have pulled her closer. She had taken it for granted. She had imagined that Regina would always be there, a permanent pain in her ass. A permanent pull on her heart strings. Someone that, no matter what, would challenge her to step up. Someone who looked at her not as a lost daughter, a savior or a princess. Regina had always told her the truth, she had always looked at her and seen just Emma. Just like Emma had always looked at her and saw only Regina.
Her Regina.
Her Everything.
Her Nothing.
Her True Love.
Her Almost Happy Ending.
Tinker Bell's voice broke and went horse before the woman fell silent and her wild howling stopped. Emma immediately missed it. The sound had been the closest thing to what she was feeling. It had been audible devastation and Emma had needed it.
In that moment, in the sudden and oppressive silence of the thick jungle that had taken her soul mate from her, Emma realized that Cora had been right. Love was weakness. Her weakness, because if it was strength, she would have been able to save Regina or at least have taken her place.
If love was strength then she would have been brave enough to say those three little words. Love was weakness and she was a coward. The reality of her new world quickly settled onto her shoulders. A world without Regina. A world without a dry wit that secretly made her crack up. A world without sassily quirked eyebrows and ridiculously prim and proper designer suits. A world without her son's mother, the woman who had sang him to sleep and taught him to walk and talk. A world without her Madam Mayor. A world full of fairy tales, magic, princes and dragons that was suddenly without its Queen. A world without her True Love in it. A world without Regina. How was she ever going to survive?