Notes: I decided not to wait for a beta. I've self-edited everything else I've written, why not this? YOLO! =D Anyway, hope y'all enjoy. Next one will land sometime this week for sure. Let me know what you think.
Standard Disclaimer: The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Also, please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately so I can correct them; you will be doing me a great service!
Chapter 1 – A Late Girlfriend...
3 Years Later
It was almost 2 pm on a crisp Friday afternoon in Storybrooke, Maine, and even though it was sunny and clear outdoors, it was also quite cold. Being in New England, such weather was all too typical of late autumn, but unfortunately for Regina Mills, it was a bit too perfectly aligned with her current temperament to be to her liking. All alone in the living room of her home, perched and waiting upon the edge of her plush leather couch, she had been reduced to waiting for Ruby to come home, and the more she waited, the more her mood chilled.
Between nervous tics of picking at the blue oxford button-up she had worn to work that day, she glanced between her watch and the expensively draped window that overlooked the front of her home. Each time she repeated the gesture, she hoped to catch a glimpse of a red Camaro pulling into the driveway that would indicate her long time partner was finally home. It was a bit strange for her to think that the sight of that blasted car had become a welcome one considering that she had once hated Ruby's beloved 'baby', professing it to be little better of a vehicular monstrosity than Emma Swan's hideous yellow Beetle. But over the years she had actually come to anticipate the sight of the Camaro rather than to loathe it.
When they first started dating, Regina often complained about the offensively inefficient car, reasoning that since she was admittedly partial to her exquisitely manufactured BMW, she could never understand Ruby's love of such an inelegant and cheaply made example of mass production. The times she tended to be most vocal in her disapproval of Ruby's vehicle were the semi-rare indulgences she allowed (which normally involved much sweet talking from Ruby) in which they took the Camaro to go on a date or to a social function or some other such mundane task. It didn't happen regularly but when it did, Regina always got a startling reminder of the audacious side her significant other sometimes liked to let out.
As it just so happened, Ruby was a speed demon who took every opportunity to extoll the virtues of the 5.7 liter V8 under the hood of her car. Along with commenting on her love for what she referred to as "the sexy purr of pure American engineering", she also enjoyed showing said engine off to an excessively inappropriate and exceedingly dangerous degree. More than once Regina had been reduced to gripping the arm rest and center console while gritting her teeth and cursing as Ruby sped through town hooping and hollering with a devilish glint in her eyes. Aside from the fact that she loved Ruby, Regina really couldn't adequately explain why she kept getting in the damned thing knowing what was going to happen, but like a true masochist, she subjected herself over and over again to her perpetually youthful girlfriend's exuberant and borderline reckless – albeit admittedly impressive – driving skills.
Over time, though, she had developed a thick enough skin to at least marginally relax when Ruby was behind the wheel, and once she did, she actually grew to enjoy an occasional drive together, particularly when Ruby was feeling casual and relaxed. While Regina sometimes had to question the wisdom of enabling Ruby whenever her lead foot got a little extra heavy, just a glimpse of one of Ruby's infectious grins would remind her of why she did so in the first place. Anything that made the woman she loved so happy was worth a temporary sacrifice of her own comfort, and besides, it was not as if she did not have a little fun of her own. Sometimes even Regina felt the need for some excitement.
Every now and then, when feeling bold and daring, she would emulate Ruby by gunning the engine of her Mercedes at the intersection near the diner in order to spin the tires, knowing how much Granny hated that. The uncharacteristic shows of immaturity always made Ruby howl with delight, and as for Ruby's grandmother, well, upon her next visit to the diner, Granny would jokingly scold her, saying in that famously dry manner that Ruby was a bad influence. Mostly, Regina just shrugged Granny's quip off with a twinkle in her eye, telling the elder Lucas that there were far worse influences in the world than Ruby Lucas.
Once, however, she had admitted in confidence to Granny that such displays of her own wild side made her feel like she was young and carefree again, a sentiment Granny as a werewolf far past her prime well understood.
And yet, no matter how exciting it was to 'let her hair down' for a moment or two, the rush of adrenaline such acts produced could never rival the feeling she got when the Camaro pulled into the driveway. It was hard to accurately describe the domestic sense of happiness that came to be associated with seeing that flash of red paint through the window which meant Ruby was home. After all, how could words express something that even she could not quite completely understand?
All Regina knew was that the awesome gravity that along came with those feelings regularly caught her off-guard, and whenever that happened, she would just sit back and revel in endless appreciation for being granted the experience. Such moments served as a stark emphasis as to how very blessed she was. Having spent so many years fruitlessly searching for her happy ending, she had finally found it, and to beat it all, it just so happened to come home every day wrapped up in an all-American muscle car package. Fate could certainly be strange, yet at the same time it could also be wonderful beyond all comprehension.
But today there was no sign of Ruby's beloved Camaro even though she was supposed to have been home from work two hours ago, and when also considering that Regina had heard neither hide nor hair from Ruby all day – which was unusual to say the least – she began to grow concerned and more than a little bit frustrated. Her frustration was mainly due to Ruby's ridiculous work load of late. Regina still didn't understand why Ruby had unnecessarily and completely by choice taken a second job. There was simply no rational reason for it. Money was not an issue for them, never had been, but Ruby had insisted she required the extra income for some mysterious reason, and though Regina had disapproved, the earnest appeals from Ruby for trust and patience were so effective that she acted against every instinct to refuse.
It was almost 2 months ago to the day since Ruby had started her second job as a Deputy with the Storybrooke Sheriff's Department, and since that day, Regina had seen frustratingly little of her. For in addition to Ruby's regular workload at her grandmother's diner, she was also working shifts at the Station during weekdays, sometimes accruing up to 18 hours worth of labor each day. So besides the obvious toll that working so much was taking on Ruby personally, her absence was beginning to strain things at home in ways they never had been before.
The distance and tension that had built up between them was becoming unbearable, and from Regina's perspective it was growing evermore critical to repair the cracks that were forming within their relationship lest something irreparably break. Hating the situation as it stood, she decided to take action by scheduling today for a half day so she could be home when Ruby arrived. The hope was that some quality time together might be just the balm they needed to get back on track as a couple, and with how overworked and tired Ruby had been lately, she figured the surprise would be a welcome one.
Needing to restore her girlfriend to some semblance of her typically perky self, Regina had not only planned to spend quality time together, but fully intended on pampering Ruby, even going so far as to procure the supplies with which to give her partner a relaxing oil massage. As a person not accustomed to serving others, such selfless acts did not come easily to Regina, yet she was more than willing to humble herself if it would help to bridge the frighteningly wide gap that had so suddenly sprung into existence between her and the woman she loved. But with Ruby so glaringly missing at the moment, it seemed as if those plans were all blown to hell.
Sighing, Regina pinched the bridge of her nose in a vain attempt to relieve the stress headache that had plagued her since she left the house early that morning. For some strange reason, she had been nagged all day long by an uncomfortable feeling she just couldn't shake no matter how hard she tried. As she trudged through her half day schedule at work, she had struggled to brush it off along with the pressure building behind her eyes that made her brain feel like it might pop at any second, but unfortunately, nothing she tried helped. And as the minutes wore interminably on, she found herself being besieged by both a pounding migraine and an irrational, itching desire to check on Ruby.
Although the headache had persisted, she managed to refrain from calling the Sheriff's station like an over-worried mother hen, though only by considering the enormous amount of stress Ruby was currently under. She hadn't wanted to add to that stress by being overbearing, yet no matter how much control she was able to exert over her impulses, she was never quite able to rid herself of that uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. To her dismay, it persisted throughout the day until finally distracting her beyond the ability to accomplish much of anything in the way of meaningful work.
With that feeling gnawing at her like a corrosive acid, time seemed to drag on at a snail's pace, making it feel like she was at the office for much longer than the four hours she actually was. Mercifully, noon eventually rolled around and when it did, she wasted no time in packing up her things to head home. Without bothering to even tidy up her desk, she rushed out of the office, certain she startled everyone else in the building with such atypical behavior, and did not give anything else a second thought as she made her way to her car.
The drive home was accomplished with her typical expeditiousness, and upon opening the front door, Regina was met by the sounds of an empty house. The quietness was so disturbingly eerie and wholly unwelcome that it suddenly struck her that her house had not been so quiet since before Ruby moved in.
Being a vivacious person, Ruby loved to sing and dance and talk up a storm to anyone who would listen, and though her girlfriend's boisterous nature had initially disconcerted Regina, she had long since grown to appreciate it. Ruby made her house feel like a home in a way it hadn't since Henry was very little, and thus it was to her very odd disappointment that there was only the sound of silence to greet her when she arrived. The almost deafening nature of it set her even more on edge than she already was.
After venturing to her home office, Regina plopped down with a heavy sigh into the chair at her desk and then set about attempting to distracting herself for a while as she waited. Picking up a nearby file, she read over a project proposal the town council was considering funding in the near future that included further development along the fringes of town to accommodate Storybrooke's growing population. But every time she got halfway interested in the information that pesky feeling of apprehension she'd dealt with all day would return.
Whenever this happened, she would compulsively go through a routine of picking up her cell phone, hovering her thumb indecisively over Ruby's name, and then finally tossing it away onto the desk in disgust. She knew she was being silly worrying over nothing, yet didn't seem to be able to stop herself, which only furthered her irritation. Regina did not want to regress into old habits.
By that point, the woman she once was would have fallen headlong into the distasteful stereotype of the overbearing partner: the kind who felt compelled to intrude if anything was even remotely askew with her lover. But she was not that person anymore. In the years since the curse broke, she had broken free of that identity, had shed the skin of the distrustful and suspicious Queen who gleefully terrorized the Enchant Forest. Now Regina was a much more simple woman with much more simple sources of fulfillment, primarily through being a mother to a brilliant and strong young man, a friend to people who against all odds believed in her, as good a mayor as she could be, and most recently, a partner to the most amazing person she had ever known.
Although she had changed significantly in the decades since casting the Curse, Regina was under no illusions as to who she was. After all, it was a rather pointless endeavor to deny reality, for no matter how much she had improved as a person, deep down she was still much the same: deeply flawed, proud to a fault, and an admitted control freak whose battle against that obsessive need for dominance over her life – up to and including the people she loved—was an incessant one.
Henry's adoption had been the initial impetus for learning to overcome some of those compulsions, most predominately her domineering nature. Becoming a parent had required her to accept that there were things beyond her ability to control or manipulate, and although it made her uncomfortable to practice humility and patience, she loved her son more than her own pride, so she had forced herself to adapt to her new situation. And while she had maintained more than a few character defects through the years she raised Henry, she had at least been putting forth an honest effort.
The only problem was that no one was aware enough to appreciate the strides she was making in her life because everyone was cursed. And then to make matters worse, once the Curse was broken she learned the hard way that for most, no matter how much she changed, it would never be enough, and unfortunately it was a general attitude which persisted even into the present. While she certainly had many supporters currently in her corner, she also knew that there were others who were simply biding their time until her inevitable fall from grace.
Try as she might, on bad days when Regina was feeling vulnerable, she would stew on the rampant mistrust that persisted among the populace. When considering that most of the town she had risked her life for on multiple occasions would never accept or forgive her despite the great lengths she had gone to in order to redeem herself, she often felt bitter and resentful to that point that she often wondered why she even bothered at all. Were it not for Henry in those early days post-Curse, she surely would have given up, would have surrendered to her dark impulses to damn them all to hell with a rain of fire, but her need to prove herself to her son was too strong to deny, and as Henry slowly came around to believing in her once more, it got more and more easy to ignore the distrustful way people would look at her.
However, there was a time in which she came frightfully close to falling, and that was after Robin found out about Marian. When Zelena had come back from the past with Emma Swan, Regina's spiteful sister proceeded to not only confess to murdering the Marian of that timeline but also purposefully let it slip that Marian had been executed in the current timeline on Regina's orders. It was a reality that Robin could not cope with. When she watched her lover walk across the town line with Roland to leave Storybrooke (and her) behind for good, she had felt like a porcelain doll floating through the air, awaiting an inevitable impact with the ground that would shatter her into a thousand irretrievable pieces.
The days after that were some of the lowest of her life. Having lost her True Love already, the second loss – this time of her supposed soul mate – left Regina reeling and desperate for anything to numb the pain. In her sorrow, the darkness began calling out to her, offering its seductive comfort and power as a means of assuaging her grief. The potency of its sway nearly caused her to backslide more than once during the worst of those dark days, but somehow her restraint managed to persist if only by a tether of frayed and fragile cord.
During that trying time it was particularly difficult to fight off the feelings of hopelessness whenever she remembered things about Robin that she loved the most, such as his smile, the way he smelled of fresh pine needles, the prickling of his beard against her face when they kissed, or the rough texture of his hand in hers. It was only by sheer force of will and a desire to not disappoint Henry that she had been able to make it through that dreadful test of her redemption without slipping, and in doing so, wrecking all that she had labored so diligently to build.
It took time, but thanks to her unwavering support system (namely Henry and Ruby, who became her friend shortly after Robin's departure) she eventually emerged from that period of darkness like a butterfly from chrysalis. Free from all of that gloominess and depression she had been so mired in, she felt an enormous sense of release, and after that she stopped caring whether or not others accepted her change because Henry and Ruby believed in her, and most importantly, at long last she had learned to believe in herself.
That belief was tested about a month later when she overheard Little John talking to Robin on the phone and learned that Robin was seeing someone in New York. Hearing that news struck a blow to her heart which was disconcerting enough that she was illuminated to a subconscious sliver of hope she had been clinging to that Robin might somehow come back to her. The phone call had forever dashed that hope. Yet, even though it made her want to launch a fireball at the nearest appealing victim she could find, she did not give in to temptation. Instead, she scrambled home and locked herself in her room where she wept until she was spent, finally allowing herself to mourn for the life with Robin that she might have had if only circumstances different or if she had made different choices in the past.
After a few hours of cathartic crying, she came out of her room to find Henry worriedly waiting, sitting cross-legged on the floor in the hallway. Sinking down beside him, she told him about what had happened. Regina would never forget how good it felt to unburden herself under Henry's gentle concern. Her son was so considerate and thoughtful and made such a good sounding board that she found herself feeling better by the minute, and by the time the next day rolled around, she once again felt like a woman capable of standing under her own strength.
Things went back to what passed for normal in Storybrooke after that, and so life sailed along smoothly for a brief time, at least until she started dating Ruby. During those early weeks and months of their courtship, Regina had been forced to relearn some of her hard bought lessons all over again. Somehow she had failed to anticipate how much of a threat Ruby would pose to her newly gained stability, for in a completely unexpected turn of events, she fell so hard and so fast that she was thrown almost totally off-kilter, losing her precious sense of balance for a brief moment in time.
In the 28 years since the curse was cast, Regina had not once entertained a scenario in which she could develop genuinely romantic feelings for Ruby Lucas, particularly when considering what a provocative person the young woman could be. That was not to say that she hadn't always been somewhat attracted to Storybrooke's most famous flirt, because she was, though she justified that attraction by reassuring herself that a person would have to be blind to not desire such an exemplary specimen of human beauty. Such justifications allowed her to remain blissful in her ignorance, and as such she was able to write off any attraction to Ruby as meaningless.
Knowing what she did now, if she had been capable of honesty with herself at the time, she would have been forced to acknowledge that she had been drawn to the girl from the very moment they met in the Enchanted Forest, and that coming to a new world had done little to change that. Those two truths, however, were incompatible to the reality she was building for herself under the Curse, and thus she buried those pesky proclivities under mountains of ice cold armor. For the most part, she passed the years without incident, but thinking back now, Regina could remember having slipped for just a moment the very first time she saw Ruby in Storybrooke.
It had been her first day in this new world and she was so giddy with victory that she had strutted through town like a preening peacock with an obnoxiously satisfied smile plastered across her face. As she had passed the diner, she came across Ruby and Granny arguing outside. Since she had been lenient towards Red in the Curse out of grudging respect, she had expected the girl to remain largely the same as Regina had known her to be. Instead, she was met by the sight of the werewolf in her now-(in)famous waitress uniform, replete with ridiculously high stilettos and a pair of inappropriately tiny red shorts that left her remarkable legs on full display. Seeing Red like that had admittedly stirred up a reaction in Regina, though she expertly hid it behind a wicked smirk.
Still, even had she been incapable of compartmentalizing the attraction she felt, in those days she had all but given up on ever attaining love romantically. Had she not, there would have been no need for the Curse in the first place, for in order to effectively cast it, she had to banish all thoughts of love from her mind, which wasn't hard considering how consumed she was by the unquenchable thirst for vengeance that had so long driven her actions. Besides all of that, she was once a Queen and Red had been of a far lower station, and as such, she had thought it unlikely they would have anything in common with which to build a relationship beyond slaking carnal thirst. And though indulging in those forbidden fruits would eventually prove enjoyable beyond compare, at the time the not-so-insignificant fact that Red was also Snow White's best friend and most loyal supporter was ample deterrent to stay any untoward thoughts of the young werewolf from popping up again.
Back in the Enchanted Forest, Red had been responsible for killing scores of Regina's very best soldiers in defense of Snow, her mortal enemy, and had saved said woman's life on many occasions by thwarting painstakingly crafted plans. Anyone who aided the outlaw princess back then was counted by Regina as a traitor worthy of death, but Red's impudence in destroying some of her best men made her an even bigger target of the Queen's wrath.
Yet even so, for a split second as Regina had walked past the diner that day, she glanced back with unbidden intrigue. Treated as she was by an eyeful of enticingly pale flesh and a flawless figure worthy of being thoroughly appreciated, she had been unable to suppress the reflexive considerations of how delightfully fun it would be to have Red wrapped around her for a night or two or ten. But the moment passed as quickly as it came, so she continued on to bask in her ostensible victory.
Shelving all thoughts of Ruby Lucas, she proceeded to establish her daily routine about town, ruling Storybrooke from her cushioned throne in the Mayor's office and going for walks about town to observe with glee as her former subjects milled about her mired in misery and completely ignorant of all that had happened to them. The ritualistic enjoyment she derived from the Curse quickly became a singular delight for Regina that occupied her attention for quite some time.
Years passed during which she reveled in her superior position of knowledge and power over the people she hated with every fiber of her being, but eventually as with all things, she grew bored and lonely and realized that perhaps her ultimate victory was more hollow than she had imagined it would be. The thrill of receiving tentative looks of fear and awe as she passed by began to loose its luster as she walked around town searching for anything to fill her time and sate her increasing boredom.
It wasn't long terribly long afterward that the whole Kurt and Owen Flynn debacle happened, and for the briefest of moments after that, she considered approaching Ruby to dull the sting from that particular affair, even if just to draw a temporary sense of comfort. But then she remembered that she was supposed to hate the girl who had once so openly stood in opposition to her goals. In order to distract her from Owen's rejection and her equally dangerous thoughts about Ruby, she turned to Graham.
Being with the huntsman was an old habit that was easy to fall into, for theirs was a relationship through which Regina could reassert control over her life. That the relationship, however unhealthy it was, made her feel better about herself also made it easy to justify what she was doing to him. Taking advantage of the foolish huntsman might have made her feel guilty had he not defied her in such a way or if she'd possessed a heart capable of feeling remorse, but he had and she didn't, so without an ounce of contrition that he would be unable to resist her advances, she seduced him back into her bed. And just like that, Ruby simply passed from her thoughts once again, just as she had so many years ago, and not once in the decades that followed did Regina allow such weakness to enter her heart again.
That all began to change when Robin ended their relationship for good. That day she found herself wandering through town only to end up in the diner, she had hardly even been aware of why she headed there in the first place. Confused by her own actions, she slunk through the front doors and then made her way to the back where she sat by herself in a secluded booth to mope.
But she had not been permitted to dwell on her own misery for long, for with a boldness that befitted the person Regina had once heard Red to be, Ruby approached and asked to sit. Tired from lack of sleep and oppressively lonely, Regina agreed and before long they were talking like old friends. The conversation was so natural and engaging that she came back the next day at the same time, and once again Ruby sat across from her to keep her company. On that second day they didn't speak many words, but they hadn't needed to. Somehow without being told Ruby instinctively understood that she had needed silence as well as the company and obliged without requiring any explanation.
While Regina hadn't been looking for a friend when she came to the diner that first day, she gained one nonetheless. In Ruby, she found someone loyal and dependable that she felt safe enough with to actually trust. Every day after that she came to the diner for a milkshake, and every day Ruby was there for her, whether to offer a comforting presence or to lift her spirits with a smile and a funny story about herself or Granny. Eventually, those lunch conversations lead to invitations for dinner, and as they grew ever closer, Regina discovered that they had much more in common than she would have guessed.
Ruby, as it turned out, had a dark and painful past nearly as tragic as her own, yet as terrible as it had been she still found a way to be hopeful and positive, which was both an annoyance and an inspiration for Regina. Added to that, Ruby was so patient and understanding that she quickly established herself as a second anchor in Regina's storm of heartbreak, which allowed her to develop a reliance on the younger woman for more than just companionship without fearing she would up and disappear like everyone else did. That she was able to unreservedly trust Ruby made their friendship effortless, and so it quickly flourished into something beautiful and precious, a positive camaraderie that Regina had never experienced before with another woman.
Of course, there was always a fear in the back of her mind that she would ruin it all, whether by her own actions or by consequence of what others thought of her past. Surprisingly, though, most of the townsfolk seemed to accept her friendship with Ruby, if only for the fact that it kept her from having a meltdown.
Still, Regina understood how it looked to those who doubted whether or not her redemption was genuine. Though painful to admit, they had every reason to be skeptical since she was the very person who had cursed them to another world without their permission in order to take away all happy endings. And while that was true, there was also the fact that Ruby was a heroic young woman who had risked her life on a daily basis for Snow White – the woman most of Storybrooke still considered their rightful monarch. Considering that, Regina ingratiating herself to yet another another heroic figure was unacceptable, and those who felt that way were the type of people who tended to stare suspiciously whenever she spent time with Ruby in public. There were also a few particularly unpleasant miscreants among them who started rumors around town that eventually got back to her.
"Intelligence wins wars," her mother had taught her long ago, "and not just the kind in your mind, but the kind that knows the minds of others." Perhaps more than anything else Cora had taught her, that lesson stuck with Regina over the years. It was why she invested so much time and effort into developing an extensive network of spies as the Queen. Intelligence gained when people were relaxed and not under duress was the most accurate kind and thus the efficiency of subterfuge.
Back in the Enchanted Forest her spies had served her well on many occasions. In fact, she had even carefully placed individuals in villages she knew to be fostering rebellious sentiments. The reason for the tactic was simple: as feared and hated as she was, she appreciated the likelihood that people would be exceptionally secretive and equivocating unless they were in a place of comfortable familiarity. No matter how afraid of her they were and even under pain of death, most people brave enough to work against her would not betray their loved ones or principles they believed in with all of their hearts. But if they didn't know they were confessing to treason, if they thought they were speaking to a friend of a like mind, a person was much more likely to be open with their subversive beliefs.
The tactic paid off in spades, delivering actionable intelligence that prevented more than one open revolt and even one assassination attempt. In the end, the network proved so efficient and advantageous in general that even as Mayor and extending on into the present, Regina never allowed herself to grow so lax as to not have eyes and ears in every corner of her town.
As such, she was never far out of touch with the well-oiled machinery of the town's gossip mill, which provided her with reliable information as to the rumors going about town regarding her relationship with Ruby. There had been a few nasty ones that absolutely infuriated her, the worst of which asserted that she had forced Ruby into her bed in the same way she had Graham, by taking her heart. While it certainly stung that people still believed her capable of such a heinous crime, Regina had taken that one on the chin because she recognized how much she deserved that particular reputation. Her treatment of Graham was a stain on her heart she would never be able to wash out and which would haunt her until her dying day.
Her anger, however, was never for her own sake, but for Ruby's. Regina had feared Ruby might become tainted by association, which was ironic considering her own regard for Ruby vis-à-vis Snow once upon a time. And even though the speculation and rumors did not seem to bother Ruby at all, Regina still hated the thought that the harmless and innocent friendship between them was causing such aspersions to fall on Ruby's character. More than once, she had contemplated severing the friendship to save her friend's reputation, but could never bring herself to do so. At the time, she had simply needed Ruby too much to walk away, even when she knew her presence to be detrimental. Regina had always been selfish and as far as Ruby was concerned, she probably always would be.
Not every rumor was so vicious, though, as most believed her to be using Ruby as a pawn in her secret and continuing machinations against Snow, which had been a source of wry amusement. It seemed things always fell back to Snow in her life, even so far distant from that fateful day the girl rode into her life on a runaway horse, and while it would have once infuriated her to be inextricably linked with her former nemesis, she had long since moved past that hatred to settle, at the very least, into tolerance. Still, it gave her no small amount of pride to think that the epic feud between them would never fully leave the public consciousness. If so, in at least one way she was likely to live on forever, however shamefully it was for dedicating her life to destroying a kind and innocent albeit painfully naive young girl.
As for Snow herself, the way she reacted to the friendship was the most difficult to interpret, which was surprising considering the way the diminutive woman had once worn her emotions on her sleeves. But somehow while Regina wasn't paying attention Snow had grown frighteningly adept at masking her thoughts, and to the point that it was difficult to gauge her feelings when she wanted them to remain concealed, and as far as Ruby becoming friends with Regina, she did so to great effect.
Whenever Snow was present with them, the former bandit always acted with her uniquely nauseating blend of cheerfulness and relentless optimism, going so far as to actively encourage the friendship on more than one occasion. But eventually, she slipped up enough that Regina was able to witness to a wary look cross her features when she thought she wasn't being watched. By that point, though, Regina was too invested in Ruby to care about what anyone thought of their evolving relationship, even Snow.
For a long time she fought against the growing intensity of her feelings for Ruby, trying to reconcile where things were going with where they were, weighing the risks should things move beyond their current status into something more intimate. Having been burned by love more times than she cared to consider should have been motivation enough for the friendship she had built with Ruby to satisfy her, but it just wasn't. More and more she found herself thinking about Ruby at all hours of the day, from daydreaming in her office about what it would feel like to hold her hand in public to fantasizing at night in dreams so intensely erotic that she awakened sweaty and blushing with a deliciously pulsing ache between her legs.
But as much as she had come to desire more with her incredible friend, she was still unwilling to risk herself and equally unwilling to go upsetting the apple cart in her own life or in Ruby's, so she valiantly attempted to be content with the situation as it was. Those efforts proved futile, though, for as much as her mind wanted to keep a distance from Ruby in order to protect them both, her heart was not in agreement. Rather, the traitorous organ had, quite without permission, allowed Ruby to mosey around the walls she had once painstakingly erected to protect herself and with such frightening ease that before she could even fully process it, Regina realized she had fallen in love.
For weeks after that realization, she secretly agonized over what to do. On one hand, she recognized the fact that she would never be able to maintain the friendship as it was. The attraction to Ruby became too intense to ignore, particularly once she gave it relevance by acknowledging that it went beyond the physical. Something, she decided, was going to have to change, which left her with only two options: she could either give in to her feelings for Ruby or she would have to give Ruby up altogether, forever severing all ties between them. After nearly a week of wrestling with what to do, she finally abandoned the latter as untenable, for as she contemplated her choice, she came to the conclusion that losing Ruby from her life was simply too much to bear.
Having finally acknowledged the inescapable depth of her feelings, she then had to weigh the risks of moving forward because of how much she had to lose. If she chose to pursue Ruby, not only was her hard earned progress as a person at risk, but also the relationships she had built with Snow, David, and Emma (who were all Ruby's friends as well) would be forever altered. As the weight of those consequences dawned on her one night, she laid in bed in such distress that it felt like the walls were closing in on her.
But then her phone rang, and as if having heard Regina's heart crying out for her over the distance between them, it was Ruby who called, saying she had suddenly felt an undeniable need to hear Regina's voice. It was yet another exhibition of Ruby's eerie instinct to know when she was needed.
As that conversation wore on well past midnight, the comforting melody of Ruby's voice soothed away every last doubt and fear that had plagued Regina, something only two one other people had been able to accomplish: her father and Daniel. An hour later, the phone call ended with Regina working up enough nerve to bashfully ask Ruby out on their first date, to which Ruby quite enthusiastically agreed.
Despite having somewhat come to terms with her feelings, during that first tentative month of their nascent relationship, Regina still felt a need to be in control however she could. As seemed to be a habit, Ruby intuitively understand her motivations and was graciously willing to endure the forced secrecy and halting progress without complaint.
The internal war Regina waged against herself in those early days of dating was an exhausting one. A part of her wanted to surrender to the onslaught of emotions Ruby produced in her but there was another much more cynical part that wanted to hold back, not quite able to believe things could actually work out between them. In an almost disastrous turn of events, that internal conflict eventually spilled out, and in dramatic fashion.
It all happened one night about a month into the relationship and at the worst possible time: in the middle of a date. The only thing that could have made it worse was if they had been in public, but thankfully Regina had invited Ruby to her house for dinner, having wanted to prepare an intimate meal for her new lover. After eating, they were comfortably chatting about a variety of subjects and up until that point, the date had been going very well. But then the conversation turned to the next day.
With Regina having laid out her own schedule, Ruby then mentioned she planned to meet Victor Whale for drinks that afternoon. For some reason, the thought of Ruby spending time socially with someone other than her – particularly with the likes of Dr. Frankenstein – triggered a flare up of insecurity along with a large helping of jealousy, which in turn activated Regina's default coping mechanism of being domineering. In a domino effect, things quickly spun out of control.
Having an elephant-like memory and having played the consequent conversation on a loop for days afterward enabled Regina to easily recall every word spoken that night.
"No, I forbid it!" she had suddenly exclaimed in anger, and the way she spoke to Ruby almost made her wince, although her indignation immediately drove such a reaction off.
Leaning forward in disbelief, Ruby's perfectly arched eyebrows raised in a mix of shock and objection. Having never before spoken to Ruby in such a way, Regina knew that her young paramour was unprepared for the outburst and hadn't quite known how to deal with the situation. So, for a moment she just sat there with a stunned expression of hurt in her eyes, but then her forehead furrowed with the onset of her own more righteous indignation.
"Excuse me?" Ruby then retorted hotly. "Did I just hear you right? You forbid me to have drinks with Victor?"
"That's correct," Regina sternly replied, nodding sharply with a hard, edgy expression on her face. "I'm glad to see that your enhanced lupine hearing isn't going to waste on you." In her irrational state, she was unable to restrain herself from making the dig at Ruby's condition. While she was just lashing out – her anger was less about Ruby than it was about Victor and her own petty insecurities – Ruby was not privy to that information. "I know Victor Whale and I don't trust him. Nor should you. He's probably trying to take advantage of you as per his modus operandi."
Ruby scoffed in response. "Relax, Regina. Victor's not trying to take advantage of me. Even if he were, it's not like I'm some helpless damsel in distress. I'm not weak and I'm not a child, so I can take care of myself. Besides, this is nothing new. We've been meeting monthly for drinks for a while now."
"Not anymore, you're not," Regina declared imperiously from her chair with her legs crossed and her hands gripping the edges of the armrests, very much like she would have as Queen while passing judgment on some poor soul who had affronted her. "And if you want to be with me, you will abide by my decision."
In unconcealed disbelief, Ruby sat back in her chair, flinging her napkin on the table. She then glared pointedly at Regina.
"Listen, Regina, I care about you," she said, her tone somewhat reassuring but being counteracted by her blazing eyes. "I love being with you. I'm in this 100%. I know you have a past with Victor, but no offense, you have a past with just about everybody in this town, including me.
"But having said that, Victor is my friend. He's been there for me more than just about anyone else has. When everybody else got so wrapped up in their own problems that they forgot about me, he at least tried. So, respectfully, no. I'm not going to stop being his friend just because you say so."
That response really set Regina off. Feeling her face turn red at the strain of her molten fury, she stood from her seat, her hands slamming onto the table with such terrific force that the plates and silverware caught air, clinking and rattling as they fell back to the surface. Ruby visibly flinched at the unexpected violence of the action, which satisfied Regina greatly.
Leaning forward over the table towards her shocked, wide-eyed girlfriend, Regina snarled ferociously.
"You listen to me...every time I've risked my heart, it's come back to bite me in the ass. But not this time and never again. You won't see Victor again because I...for...bid...it."
As soon as the words left her mouth, she blanched, having realized how much she sounded like a petty and jealous bitch, but at the same time was too caught up in her pride and anger to retract the statement. Her stomach roiled as she considered the possibility that she had just ruined their relationship. As she waited on Ruby to respond from where she sat in bewildered silence, Regina felt dread claw its way up her throat.
In what amounted to little more than instinctive reflex, she prepared herself to watch Ruby to walk out of her life forever, and at the very prospect of losing the woman for whom she had come to harbor such intense need and desire, her heart begin to crack. It was, she thought, an experience so horrible that she would never forget it.
But instead of blowing up as she expected and quite honestly deserved, after a moment of suffocating silence Ruby's green eyes softened and all traces of hurt and anger were washed away only to be replaced by something that awed Regina: understanding. Without a word, Ruby then stood from her chair, crossed to the other side of the table, and gathered Regina up in her arms.
"What are you doing?" Regina almost numbly inquired, both her body and voice equally tense as she grasped to process what had just happened.
"Supporting you," Ruby replied as she nuzzled her cheek affectionately against Regina's own. "Not walking out on you like you want me to and like you expect me to."
"Why?" was the whispered reply Regina gave as she tentatively relaxed into Ruby's embrace. "Everybody else leaves. Why not you as well?"
After pulling back to place a gentle kiss on Regina's forehead, Ruby rested her own against it and then gave Regina a smile filled with such devotion that Regina was almost ashamed at having doubted her fidelity even a little. The only reason she did not feel overwhelmed by guilt was because she was so warm with a bubbling affection of her own that it drowned out those negative feelings.
"Because I care," was Ruby's plain yet heartfelt response. "Because I'm committed to you. Because I'm not everybody else. Because I know who you are and I'm not scared or repulsed. Because I want you and need you in my life. Because seeing your face is the highlight of my day. Because I've waited for so long to have you that I'm not about to give you up now that I do. There are a thousand different reasons you can take your pick from, but the point is: I'm not leaving you."
Biting her lip, Regina had fought against tears as Ruby's profound sentiments brought her down from the dizzying effects of her anger. Only as she calmed did the guilt begin to set in. Just like she had feared, her controlling nature had risen to the surface at a most inopportune moment, nearly derailing a perfectly lovely date in the process. But just as she would do time and again in the future, Ruby managed to salvage what might have been a disastrous misstep and make it into something beautiful by demonstrating a remarkable amount of patience, insight, and understanding into Regina Mills the woman behind the facade of the Mayor and Queen.
Though the night actually ended with her feeling closer to Ruby than ever, it didn't change the fact that she had hurt the one person other than Henry she most cared for in the world. Almost 3 years had passed since that night and she could still see the hurt and anger in Ruby's green eyes as she had spewed that possessive vitriol. Even now, it honestly astonished Regina that it hadn't been the end of their relationship, because for most people it would have been.
But Ruby was not most people. Unlike most everyone else in Regina's life, she could see past the walls, fronts, and masks that were presented to the world every single day, and which had remained unbroken and impenetrable until that fateful night. Ruby knew her simply because she had been concerned enough to probe beyond the surface that most people stopped at in their judgments, and because she was never satisfied until she dug deep down into the dark recesses of Regina's heart where those ugly parts of herself were kept hidden away. Having become aware of every deeply rooted flaw that lurked there and having borne witness to some of Regina's most spectacular failures in the past, it would have been logical for Ruby to have run for the hills. And yet the girl's devotion did not once waver.
In Regina's experience such acceptance typically came with a price, namely an obligation, whether spoken or unspoken, that she should conform to the social and moral mores of others, as was the case with the Charming brood. Of course, she really did try to be better, if only because her son wanted her to be one of the 'good guys', and though it was a difficult journey, over time she had learned to walk the fine line that enabled her to remain 'good' while allowing the less savory side of her personality to breathe just enough so as to not perish. However, doing so came at the cost of denying an inherent part of her character which was predisposed to darkness, and thus the depth of her struggle to remain 'heroic' in the eyes of others. Being a hero just didn't come naturally for Regina.
Sometimes, it honestly felt like the obligations she was under to remain on the side of good (from the town, the Charmings, and to some degree, Henry) were an elephant sitting on her chest, suffocating her under its oppressive weight. But there were no such obligations where Ruby was concerned. Ruby did not ask or expect or need for her to be anyone but herself, rather she chose to accept Regina and love her not only in spite of who she was but also because of who she was, and that was something Regina could confidently declare was not true for anyone else in her life.
Still, that didn't mean that she was deluded enough to believe herself to be fully reformed. Though much improved from the hateful and vindictive woman she once was, she was a far cry from perfect and had major character flaws that were not conducive to long-term relationships. She was demanding and imperious and could be overly critical and snarky with the best of them. Most people could barely stand to be in her presence overly long in an official or a casual setting, and yet every morning for the past 3 years, Regina was blessed to awaken to the intimate sight of a gorgeous smile and the loving eyes of her steadfastly devoted partner.
Somehow with each and every day Ruby managed to find something in Regina worth praising – worth loving even – things that she had never been able to see in herself and which in turn inspired her to want to live up to the person Ruby saw in her. If it were possible for her to one day reward that faith by becoming such an individual, she would be able to consider her life a success.
Today, however, was most certainly not that day. With impatience setting in, her self-control was beginning to be taxed to the point of breaking and was increasingly being usurped by illogical anxiety. If Ruby did not get in contact with her soon, she was not going to be held liable for her actions.
After a dramatic sigh, she looked over at her phone on the end table and contemplated for a fourth time whether or not to pick it up in order to call Ruby or Emma. Shaking her head with annoyance, she dismissed the idea again, knowing that someone would have contacted her if something had happened she need to know about.
"Where are you, Ruby?" she asked rhetorically, her voice cutting harshly through the emptiness of the living room, and with the unanswered question hanging in the air, her gut twisted. She didn't know where Ruby was, but she couldn't help but feel that something was very, very wrong.