Here ye be, lovelies. Thanks for all the reviews and excitement. I'm not certain my heart is prepared for the level of angst this story requires.
Song: Memories by Within Temptation
Emma shivered again, but this one kept going, vibrating her entire body. She watched Henry laugh again through the partially closed blinds at the front of the diner. A glob of whipped cream from his cocoa stuck to the side of his mouth, unnoticed as he smiled at whatever story Belle spun. Gone were the world-weary lines and sadness Mason carried. She knew now that giving him up had been the best possible thing for him. Though she knew that choice would eat at her for the rest of her life, she'd protected Henry's innocence – and apparently herself from a slow death from drugs and prostitution. Her body convulsed from the cold, and she turned away from the happy scene. Long strides took her towards her apartment as quickly as the stiff joints in her legs allowed. She wanted to go inside the diner. She wanted to spend time with her son and friends, but she also wanted a drink, to forget that she'd loved other versions of them.
She'd never forget. If she forgot them, that meant she'd forgotten The Queen. The phantom pains of yearning, she never wanted to let go of that feeling. Some people never got one chance to feel that way, but she had found it, she'd felt it. The loneliness of slipping into a cold, empty bed almost made her want to forget. The longer she flopped and tossed, the stronger the urge to forget became. She could have slung back another shot or two until she felt nothing.
"I love you."
The bed dipped as Regina lowered herself behind Emma a moment before the weight of an arm pressed on her ribs. Emma closed her eyes, spilling hot droplets onto the bridge of her nose. She'd gone to bed hours ago, but no amount of drink could have made her sleep that night. It had been a bad day. That kid hadn't deserved to be treated like a street thug, and David had expressed concern because he loved her. They all loved her, but none of them could have helped her.
"Emma, Darling, talk to me," Regina whispered into her ear. Wet lips brushed the shell, sending a shiver down her spine.
"I can't do this tonight," Emma answered the delusion. The spicy scent of whiskey followed the desperate plea. She hoped Regina couldn't smell it. The lunacy of the thought worried a tiny voice of reason in the back of her mind. She'd lost it, gone completely mad.
"I don't understand, Emma. Please help me understand, so I can help you." Her mind conjured the words easily. The Queen sought so often to understand her emotions, her reactions, her kindness.
"Regina, not tonight. I'm seeing Henry tomorrow. I can't do this anymore. You're gone. Everyone from that timeline is gone. I watched you die. I watched Belle die," Emma stated firmly. In convincing Regina, she knew somewhere in the back of her mind that she actually convinced herself, her subconscious. Regina hadn't touched her like that since she'd crushed her own heart.
Regina pressed a kiss to her shoulder. "I'm right here, Darling."
Emma nodded but held everything else perfectly still. She never turned around anymore. Regina never stayed if she turned around. "I love you."
"I know," The Queen whispered. "Sleep now. I'll not let go." She pressed her palm tightly against Emma's chest, securing The Savior in an embrace she'd never really feel again.
"You should have let me die, Regina." Grief and regret cracked her voice, spilled more tears onto the bridge of her nose.
"I couldn't," The Queen whispered and nuzzled the back of her ear. "Not after I knew what it felt like to love you, to love anything. You'll recover, Emma. If I'd lost you, I'd have become a monster again, and the peace you fought for would have been lost for eternity in the new curse."
"But I'm The Savior."
"Shh." Another kiss on her shoulder. "Sleep, Emma."
"Will you stay until morning?"
"You know I can't," Regina responded with a tone as forlorn as the grief in Emma's heart.
"Lie to me," The Savior begged.
"Sleep, Emma. I'll be here when you wake."
She wasn't. Emma knew she couldn't stay. Once her mind slept and reset the exhaustion barely kept under control, Regina always disappeared. Sometimes she managed to go days without needing to hear her voice, to smell that earthiness that always clung to her. But, two or three nights every week, she pretended. She allowed her mind to pretend. She tried not to because it confused her actual reality. It confused the Regina she wanted with the Regina who knew nothing of how deeply they'd fallen in love. She confused the tortured woman with the woman who now smiled more than she scowled. She confused the woman who loved her with the woman who loved Robin Hood. She looked for that spark in her eyes, that undeniable, unshakable force of True Love that she'd seen in The Queen's eyes. She wanted Regina to look at Robin that way. When she gazed at him the way Regina had looked at her in unguarded moments, then all hope became futile.
She might have found closure, if she'd just once see those eyes look at someone else. Regina never looked at him that way. She saw fondness and love, yes, but not True Love. He made Regina happy, though, and Henry like him well enough. The Robin from the other timeline surely hadn't possessed his own heart. Plus, she never saw Roland anywhere, perhaps he turned evil from grief if his son and wife had both died. Either way, the man she saw now was not the same man who had slit Belle's throat, who had destroyed all chances of them winning the war against Rumplestiltskin.
He wasn't, was he? She drove herself nuts with theories, but the truth eluded her, probably for the rest of her life.
Emma set the coffee pot and stared at the trickling brown liquid. She didn't even want it, really, but habits dictated her actions since her return. Habits kept her focused and functioning. No one could have coped with what she'd gone through, right? Not even The Savior. She'd been tortured, nearly died, discovered secrets that would blow even this timeline apart. She needed more time. Time and distance eased all pain, she knew from experience. Could time erase the memories of the only time and place where she'd ever truly been happy in her miserable existence? Could distance erase what it felt like to truly belong somewhere, to be who she wanted to be without societal expectations?
Stormy green eyes glanced around the empty apartment. David and Mary Margaret had moved out shortly after Neal was born. She enjoyed the solitude, and no longer felt the need to lay perfectly still while the memory of Regina whispered gently into her ear, sang to her. Emma knew only she heard the ghost of her dead lover, but if she'd responded in any way, her parents probably would have heard her. They barely slept at all the final weeks in the apartment with her baby brother up all hours screaming for her mother's tit. It made the constant state of hungover almost unbearable, all the screaming and shushing and singing.
A quiet tap at the door cut through the circular thoughts, and Emma rolled her eyes. "Go away," she muttered, not loud enough for the person on the other side to hear her.
"No," Ruby's voice called through the wood. Fucking wolves and their supersonic hearing.
"Why are you banging on my door so damn early?" Emma grouched, still not moving from the spot directly in front of the coffee pot.
Metal scraped metal a moment before the tumble and click of the lock being disengaged. The door swung open, but Ruby remained on the other side. "It's 10 o'clock," she informed the grumpy sheriff.
"Why are you here?" Emma snapped, still not turning completely to look at her.
"Belle told me that you called last night, and that you sounded really upset. I'm worried about you, Emma. We all are," she explained and finally crossed the threshold since her friend hadn't screamed or thrown anything at her. She closed the door and leaned against it to study the hunched shoulders and thin frame of the once-vibrant woman who had breathed hope back into their lives. "You're not eating, the circles under your eyes tell me that you're not sleeping. I haven't even been near you in the past couple months, but I can smell the whiskey on you at a distance, so I know that people are starting to notice that their sheriff and savior is also moonlighting as the new town drunk."
"People should mind their own business," Emma murmured, still mesmerized by the trickle-spurt of coffee.
"Emma." Something in Ruby's voice caught her off guard. Something deep and painful and wanting touched the woman she used to be, and she turned around to find large, chocolate eyes shimmering with unshed tears. "Emma, something is happening. Since that night at the diner when you clocked Gold. It's okay if you don't want to talk about it, but don't shut me out."
She looked like Regina. Emma saw it now, she saw everything now. The thin, defined nose and dark, smoky brown eyes. Ruby's eyes held far more innocence than Regina's, but if their secret ever surfaced in this timeline, everyone could have seen the similarities… even Mrs. Ginger with her huge bottle cap glasses. The hair, especially, shared genetics. Ruby's hair looked silky and fine, like Regina's.
Emma touched it.
Ruby stood perfectly still, save the wrinkling of her forehead.
Stormy green eyes slipped shut, blocking out the face, as soft strands slipped through her fingers. Her stomach lurched. A hot brand of pain constricted her chest, and a strangled sob tore at her throat. Grief, kept so close, surfaced – an unrelenting hunger that could never be sated. A soft, warm hand touched her wrist as a tear dripped onto her cheek. Red-rimmed green eyes opened, but the brown that met them was too dark, just a shade. Just enough to recognize the person who touched her. Ruby's own eyes shimmered slowly, feeling the pain without knowing the cause.
"Emma, talk to…"
"Don't," she begged. Her wet, breathy voice filled the small space between them with palpable sorrow. "Please don't ask me what's wrong, Ruby."
"Why?" The wolf whispered, afraid to break the enchantment that brought her friend home for just a moment.
"Because I'll tell you," Emma answered honestly. Another tear trickled onto her face, but neither moved to wipe it away. A flash of Ruby's face puffed up from chimera venom exploded behind her eyes, and she closed them quickly. If she connected the two timelines, Ruby would have remembered that pain, that near-death experience. She'd have remembered the betrayal of her husband and those she trusted most. She'd have felt Belle's blood on her hands while the love of her life died in her arms.
It was selfish of Emma to want them to remember, and she felt selfish shutting them out when they knew nothing of what she'd been through.
"Will you eat breakfast with me?" Emma asked, stopping her thoughts in their tracks. "I don't want to talk. I just… I just want to eat breakfast with someone." She missed that. She missed eating meals with a family, even with Cora's treachery ever-present.
Ruby nodded once. "Okay. Bacon and eggs and silence, it is."
Emma gave a snort that almost turned into a grin.
Ruby sat her on a stool at the island and then poured a cup of coffee for both of them. Emma watched her move around the familiar kitchen. She stared into the pan as bacon sizzled and popped, intentionally keeping her back The Savior. She slid two plates onto the island and stood across from Emma with her eyes on the food, ever true to her word.
"Can I ask one question? Not about what's going," Ruby amended quickly. She reached out to touch Emma's forearm, stopped, gripped the edge of the island. "Well, kinda, but not really." A sheepish grin spread on the insecure wolf's lips until she pulled the lower one between her teeth.
"Go ahead, I guess." She followed the permission with a violent stab into the yolk of an egg. Metal scraped porcelain, and Ruby winced at the sound scraping her sensitive ears.
"Have you been avoiding me because you don't want to talk, and if I promise not to ask, will you stop avoiding me? I know that's technically two questions, but they're linked."
A deep sigh pulled on Emma's shoulders as she stared up at her best friend. "I can't talk about it. I don't want to talk about it. And honestly, I don't know about the last part. I'm just trying to figure out how to keep moving. I'm tired of people asking if I want to talk about it."
Ruby made a zipping motion across her lips. "I won't ask again, and neither will Belle. Ya know, if you ever don't want to be alone. You don't even have to talk. You can just, ya know, sit there and scowl at the T.V. or something."
Emma nodded as she turned puffy green eyes back to food she no longer wanted. She needed to move on, and reconnecting with Ruby and Belle felt like the best place to start. They'd never asked her to be anything more than just Emma, not their Savior or princess, just the broken woman who fit snuggly into a friendship with two other broken women.
"Can I ask you a question?"
Ruby shrugged as she brought coffee to her mouth. "Sure," she chirped into the mug.
"Do you think things would have been different for Regina if she'd had a sister growing up?" Emma watched the mug freeze, just a microsecond, and the skin around her eyes tightened. This Ruby knew about her heritage.
The wolf lowered her mug with extra grace and control, the only indication that Emma rattled her. She sucked air through her teeth and winced. "A sister like Zelena? Probably would have been worse."
"Maybe a little sister. Someone to teach horseback riding and how to braid hair. That kind of stuff without the magic," Emma pushed, and Ruby nibbled her lip, eyes everywhere but the sheriff's.
"Like, someone to confide in who was always on her side, you mean?" Emma nodded and took a bite of bacon, calculating every unspoken response to the scenario. "I mean, I guess things could have been different, but what good is it wonder what could have been different now? We're in Storybrooke and the war is over and Regina isn't evil anymore, so…" She shrugged one shoulder and poked at an egg with the other hand. Ruby still felt guilty for turning her back on Regina in this timeline.
"Yeah," Emma responded and dropped the issue for the moment.
They ate in silence. The sheriff choked down the food, washing every bite with coffee. She hadn't experienced hunger since returning. She missed being hungry, joking around with Ruby over a burger while Belle scowled at both of them and daintily chewed a salad or chicken breast. Royals loved to obsess over their food, Regina always had in both timelines. Emma wondered if this Regina named her meals, probably not since she'd never had house servants in this world.
Despondent green eyes glanced up to find Ruby studying her, maybe waiting on comment about the taste of the food. "It's good," Emma murmured, waited until the insecurity in Ruby's eyes slipped away, and dropped her gaze back to the yellow goop covering the mostly full plate.
It wasn't a queen's breakfast, but she wasn't alone.