I decided to write a little Christmas fic for you guys :) Now, it doesn't start in Christmas but it will get there and will be filled with the things that make Christmas important like bringing everyone together and appreciating the people you have in your life. All that fluffy goodness :) It has a sad start and Robin will not be playing the part of Regina's other half in this story just for the sake of Evil Charming but this story picks up right after Zelena tries and fails to enact her time travel spell. I hope you enjoy it and stick around for the rest! :)
David was so happy, Regina could have been sick. He was grinning like a damned fool as she trailed behind him to assure he and the baby got back to Snow safely. Happy and giggly and talking in a voice that ground on her nerves. Snow would find it endearing, she knew she would. But Regina could only managed to resist rolling her eyes. She could barely handle the Charmings on a good day and now they were going to be talking baby talk for months on end. She may have to leave Storybrooke lest she strangle every one of her citizens residing in it.
To be entirely honest, she didn't know why she followed him in to the hospital. Especially when she had gotten more than her fill of obnoxious baby talk in her car on the drive over. She just had an odd feeling. A tug of sorts on her heart that made her follow. David had told her it was unnecessary that she come in and she retorted with a comment on how he ended up in a coma the last time he had a baby in his arms. They left it at that.
The tug was unsettling though. Unnerving. She felt like something was wrong when she knew very well that everything was fine. Her heart was back in her chest, the baby back in David's arms, Zelena locked away, and Rumple distracted. And yet the further she walked in to the hospital, the more potent that sickly feeling of unease became. She found herself tense and constantly looking around and over her shoulder as she quietly followed David's excited steps to Snow's room.
The hairs on her neck were raised and her spine was tingling and sending goosebumps to raise her smooth skin. It all felt wrong and she felt like she could burst in to tears at any moment which was an incredibly odd thing to feel. Especially for her. So she kept looking around her, she kept looking for the threat, she kept her magic at her fingertips ready and poised to be unleashed at the smallest provocation.
David was stopped by Whale before he even made it to the hall where Snow's room was located which meant she stopped a few paces behind him but she didn't really think anything of it. She listened to what the doctor had to say but her attention was split between her magic and her surroundings as well. Until Whale finished speaking. She had heard the words that left the man's mouth but they didn't make any sense. It felt like her ears were ringing and her goosebumps and wariness were traded for a racing heart and a stone in her gut. So as David stared at him, Regina quietly demanded clarification, "what?"
"Snow White is dead," he repeated gently and David flinched while Regina blinked and started shaking her head in complete and utter denial.
"I-...no. No she's not," she argued as her throat started to tighten and David started to spiral in to despair.
"We don't know what happened. We did everything we could to save her but...it wasn't enough."
"You didn't think to call either of us?! You didn't think to call me?! David was just on the phone with her!" Regina shouted as every possible emotion under the sun filled her body and made it ache. She felt like she was going to be sick.
"She was fine when I left her! She was fine when I hung up the phone!" David yelled and his son started to fuss and whimper in his arms, "what happened?! How could she possibly be-!" His voice wouldn't dare say the word. Instead it caught in his throat with a sob that practically choked him. She couldn't be dead. It was impossible.
"When did this happen?!" Regina shouted, her voice unsteady and panicked with just the idea that she would never see Snow again. She had known Snow longer than anyone. She had been her dearest friend and most treasured enemy. She couldn't be dead, she didn't kill her.
"We had her on the operating table an hour ago. She died not ten minutes in," Whale explained as gently as he could and frowned when David's balance wavered as tears started rolling down his cheeks. Regina was at his side in a mere two steps and carefully took the crying infant from his arms and held it to her chest as she allowed David to fall to his knees, "the nurse was tending to her while she was on the phone with you. She said Snow was utterly relieved that the baby was safe and she was crying tears of joy when she hung up," he told them gently and managed to catch the queen's teary eyes as she pressed her hushing lips to the whimpering infant's temple, "she knew the baby was safe along with the rest of those she loved. She didn't die in a state of distress or mourning. I know it is very little consolation, but her last thoughts were happy ones."
Regina cried as she hushed and bounced the crying baby in her arms and felt her heart lodge itself in her throat with utter empathy for the strong prince who crumbled to nothing before her very eyes. She crouched down beside him in an uncharacteristic act of support and pressed her face to the back of his shaking shoulder blade as her free hand settled on the back of his neck. Still holding the whimpering baby against her chest, Regina let her tears soak the prince's shirt as he cried in to his fists upon the cold hospital floor.
"I am so sorry, David," she breathed and his shoulders shook with another heartbroken sob that she wished she couldn't relate to.
...
His whole world had just fallen apart. He didn't recall ever feeling so completely empty, so completely devoid of any reason to live. Even as he stared down at the sleeping baby in his arms. He could barely find the strength of the will to hold him as Regina drove. He looked like Snow. Jet black hair, her nose, her brow. It hurt.
He didn't think he had anymore tears to cry until he looked to Regina. Her grip was so tight on the steering wheel her knuckles were a pale white and she still had tears rolling down her cheeks. She hadn't stopped crying since they heard the news. Not once. She looked as bad as he felt. His whole world had vanished, pulled out from beneath his feet like a rug. He didn't even bother with wiping his tears away when they fell down his cheeks. His hands were occupied by his son anyway.
The car was absolutely silent. What the hell was he supposed to do now? He felt so helpless and broken and he could do nothing but lift his son a little higher and press a soft kiss to his tiny forehead while his tears continued down his heartbroken face.
His wife, his true love, his best friend, was gone. She was there and then she was gone. Without a word, without a warning, she vanished. He could not grasp the fact that he was never going to see her again, that he was never going to hear her voice again or feel her touch. He was never going to see her smile or feel her love, he was never going to hear her laugh or wrap his arms around her again. She was gone.
He fell in to hopeless and painful sobs under his breath once more and the sound was followed by a stressed exhale from beside him. Regina trying to keep herself together enough to get them to the apartment in one piece. A hopeless task for they had both just been crushed in to a million.
...
Regina walked in to her home strictly on muscle memory. She drove there in the same manner it would seem for she didn't quite recall how she had made it to her front door. She knew what had happened, she knew Snow was gone, she knew she was never going to see her again, she knew it all. But that didn't mean she understood it. It didn't mean she accepted it or that she knew how to process such a thing. Snow White didn't die. It was the one damn thing the idiot was good at. Avoiding death no matter the circumstance. No one had even been trying to kill her this time. She just...slipped through their fingers without warning.
Her heart broke all over again when she heard the sound of laughter in her home once the front door had been opened. The laughter of the incorrigible Miss Swan and their darling son Henry. She had forgotten they would be there. How could she remember though when her mind was filled with such misery and distress. The one person she had always been able to count on to be present in her life was gone. Dead. Never to be seen again. And as Emma and Henry skipped to the foyer from the kitchen with wide smiles, playful banter, and laughter, Regina felt sick to her stomach. She couldn't move.
"Hey Regina, you were taking too long so we started making dinner. We haven't gotten far though which is probably a good thing," she laughed and Henry rolled his eyes with his own laughter. However, once Emma really took the time to actually look at Regina, her laughter was quickly cut off. "Regina?" She started in worry as the proud and bold woman remained slumped and nearly crying with her back against her front door. She had never seen Regina look so small, "Regina, what is it?" She asked as she stepped down the stairs from the foyer to the entryway and watched in fascination and horror as glittering tears rolled down the woman's cheeks. And then she breathed her name in the most dreadful way.
"Emma."