Trigger Warnings: suicide, character death, child abuse.
"Oh God," Emma groans, and she can't hide the dismay. "I knew the mania was back, but there was no clue you were seeing things. You didn't tell me you'd been seeing Henry. Regina, he's been dead eighteen years. Regina, listen to me?"
"Fuck this," Snow announces, tears running down her face. She's rough when she pushes past to get out of the room, and Regina feels the air leak from her in a steady burst; she doesn't remember how to breathe in again, until her body does it for her.
"No," Regina shakes her head. She looks up, and Henry is gone. "No, don't take him from me again."
"I thought you were taking your meds," Emma says, crying hard now, making her words less distinct.
"I was, for a while."
"And now?"
"Let's just say the septic tank won't be experiencing anxiety any time soon."
"Shit, Regina. You were getting better. They were working."
"No, they weren't. Not really."
"Then we'll go back to Archie. Get something to treat the hallucinations," Emma is grabbing on to the plan like it's the last functioning rope on a parachute. "Delusions, I mean."
"I'm not a delusion," Henry says, back again and sitting at the head of the table. But Emma ignores him, as usual.
"We will fix this, Regina. I know it's hard," Emma says.
"Do you?" Regina rounds on her, the shame and the anger bursting in her chest like flames. "What the hell do you know about it, Emma? Little Miss Perfect, everyone's Savior? You don't know the first thing about how this feels."
"You don't think all of this happened to me, too?" Emma snarls. "You don't think I'm still hurting?"
"Not so it shows."
"Oh, right. I forgot. There's only one way to express your feelings. If you're not screaming from the roof, you're just not suffering enough."
"Nice."
"Shit, Regina. I'm sorry. I didn't mean-"
"Yes, you did," Regina sighs. "You'd think by now we could at least be honest about that. You're frustrated with all this. Angry that I never seem to get better and stay better. You don't think I want that?"
"Sometimes it seems like you'd rather be angry than get over it," Emma admits, hands on her hips. "That all you want is to keep lashing out, keep dragging everyone else down with you."
"You think I've been enjoying it?" Regina feels her hands grasping, she needs to grab on to something or she's going to fall over. The blood is pounding in her head and her throat is already raw from shouting while it's so tight. "Waking up most mornings and wishing I'd died along with him? Knowing that if I stop, even for a minute, and really think about it and how much I miss him, that I might never get up again?"
"It's been eighteen years!"
"I don't care how long it's been. I don't care. And clearly you've given up on missing him. You're 'over it'."
"Like I haven't gone through every day of this with you?" Emma grips the back of a chair, on the opposite side of the table now. They both hear footsteps above them, Snow and David no doubt retreating to her bedroom. At least she hasn't run off this time. "You honestly don't think anyone hurts but you?"
Regina grabs at the tablecloth, and with the frustration of the day coming to a head, she yanks it towards herself, plates and cutlery scattering loudly in all directions.
"Regina!" Emma yells, moving towards her, hands outstretched to hold her, to hold her down no doubt. Regina flinches away, moving towards the corner where Henry waits, leaning against the wall and balling his hands into fists over and over again, like this is just another family drama. "You're scared of me, now?"
"No," Regina denies it, shaking her head but that only makes fresh tears fall. She braces herself with one palm flat against the wall, keeping her back turned towards Emma.
"No, please. Tell me exactly what the hell you're scared of? Because you're acting like I did this to you, like I'm trying to hurt you. Will you even let me touch you right now?"
Regina tries not to, but the pressure of Emma's fingers on her shoulder makes her shudder.
"Great. Just great. I thought… I thought we were fine, Regina. And usually I see it coming, you know? I thought the sandwiches were just a sign you needed to get back on some meds. But it's all of it, isn't it? The decorating, the cleaning, the whole nine yards…"
"I felt better when I came off them," Regina admits. "I talked about it with… well, I felt better."
"You talked about it with Henry, you mean? Regina, you can't take medical advice from a delusion."
"Don't you call him that! Don't you dare do it!" Regina rounds on her wife then, the urge to attack crackling under her skin. "He's been my one comfort."
"And I haven't? I've been here for you. Every crash, the fire, the freakouts in the grocery store, all of it. Holding your hand when the lithium made you throw up. Taking Snow to school when you couldn't get off the floor of the shower. I did it, Regina. And I'm not asking for praise. But fuck, I could at least get some credit for trying."
"I'm not appreciative enough?"
"No," Emma sighs. "No, I don't mean it like that. It's just… I stayed because I love you, Regina. I've always loved you, and I would give anything for you not to have suffered like that. You know that much, surely?"
"You just want me to be normal. You want me to pretend that it didn't happen."
"I never asked that," Emma insists. "I just wanted you to try, like I've been trying. And I'm sorry for all the times I've failed you, I really am. But I'm just doing my best. I don't know what else I can do. I'm not some kind of hero. I don't know how to save you from all of this."
"You don't need to be saved," Henry snarls, moving closer to Regina now, and she lets him wrap his arms around her, because even if it isn't real it feels so much better than anything that is. "Why can't you just accept that I'm still here, Emma?"
Emma's crying into her sleeve now, but of course she doesn't respond; she never does.
"Is it being with me that makes you this unhappy?" Emma asks after a while, pulling a chair out from the table and sinking onto it. "Do you want to leave me?"
Regina shakes her head, not trusting herself to speak. Loving Emma is easy, most of the time. Loving Emma is safe and real and tangible, a constance that doesn't exist anywhere else.
"It's just sometimes…" Regina can't quite summon the words. "It feels like you don't give a damn, so long as I seem okay. You know, on the surface."
"Tell her, Mom," Henry chimes in.
"You're telling me I don't give a damn?" Emma laughs at that, but it's hollow and rattles in her throat like broken glass. "It's like you don't know who I am anymore. At all."
"I just don't see it in you," Regina confesses.
"I can't always tell, Regina. I'm not a fucking mind-reader! There are no cuts. You don't look bruised, there's no broken bone to put a cast on. I feel the same way and I know it doesn't show. Does that even matter to you?"
"Yes. Of course it does."
"Then tell me what you need me to do," Emma is crying harder now, her words harder to make out. "Tell me what kind of person you need me to be. Because I have tried and tried to be a good person, and it doesn't seem to make a damn bit of difference."
"Maybe if you acknowledged me once in a while," Henry tries, but Regina shushes him.
"You're doing everything right," Regina tells her. "I don't know if there's anything else that anyone can do. Maybe this is just as good as it gets. Or maybe we don't know each other as well as we thought. I'm tired. So tired."
"Go take a nap," Emma says, pulling herself together with visible struggle. "I'll bring you up a plate, if you want."
"I'm not hungry," Regina answers, and for a moment she feels the impulse to go to Emma, to pull her close and beg her not to give up on them, not now. Instead she leans into the comfort of Henry, before backing out of the dining room and heading for the stairs.
Grunge music is blasting from Snow's closed bedroom door as Regina passes. How she misses the day of rebellion through Shostakovich. It would be wiser, perhaps, to keep walking, but the sound of raised voices over the music is enough to make her pause. Another explanation, another laying bare of the Swan-Mills family traumas. There's a possessive part of Regina that wants the story never to be told again, for no new person to hear and fail to understand. Each telling diminishes it somehow, makes Henry a little less hers.
"Leave it," Henry warns as she puts her hand on the doorknob. "You know she's gonna take your head off."
"Maybe it's time for my beheading," Regina tells him. "You stay out of it. You've caused enough trouble for one day."
"Get out!" Snow yells as soon as the door moves. "Ma, I don't want-oh, it's you."
"Turn that down!" Regina yells back, and when Snow makes no move, Regina takes it on herself to step over David where he sits on the floor and yank the stereo's plug from the socket. The sudden silence is overwhelming.
"If you're here to apologize, don't bother," Snow grumbles, sitting on the edge of her bed without disturbing the neat piles of books and homework all over it. "Damage is done. Yet again."
"You and David should go eat," Regina says. "The food will go to waste otherwise."
"No thanks. Not while you still expect me to set a place for him."
"For who?"
"For Superboy, who else?"
"Don't talk about him that way, Snow. I'm warning you." Regina watches David pick himself up off the floor, clearly beside himself with embarrassment.
"Right. I'll just go back to being invisible," Snow snaps, taking David's hand when he offers it. If she weren't so angry, Regina realizes, she would never allow that simple act of affection to be witnessed. There's something so very wrong with that. "And I already told you to get out."
"You know I love you, darling," Regina tries. Her voice sounds high and strange. "You're our pride and joy, so much more than we ever planned or hoped for."
"Right," Snow snorts.
"I do love you," Regina insists. "I love you as much as I can."
"That," Snow replies. "Is the problem. It's not supposed to come with limits, Mom. Now go spend some time with your prince, since you'd much rather he showed up than spend another minute with me. It's not like you're really here, either."
"Snow," David tries to interrupt, but she waves him off.
"My Mom needs to go and lie down," Snow says, her voice a monotone now.
Regina holds up her hands in defeat, making her way back towards the door. A little sleep will make the difference, hopefully. That, at least, she still has a pill for.
"Why are we leaving so early?" Regina grouses, wrapping a cream-colored scarf around her neck and buttoning her gray trenchcoat. She doesn't remember buying it, but it's hanging there in the hall closet anyway.
"Because we're not going to Archie," Emma explains, and Regina remembers now, which makes it at least the third or fourth time Emma's explained. "This guy comes highly recommended. The support group on Facebook said finding a therapist is a lot like dating sometimes: you gotta shop around. And Gold is apparently some kind of rockstar."
"Archie's been treating me for years."
"And maybe that's the problem. Come on, I've left time to get some of that chai latte you like so much on the way."
"Thank you," Regina says, and maybe it's just about time, after a week of fragile repairing, but she pulls Emma into a slightly desperate hug. "Other people would have bailed a long time ago, with me being this nuts."
"I stopped running away the day I married you," Emma reminds her, but she's hugging back like maybe, just maybe she's missed this too. "And you're not that crazy, Regina. We just need to find the right solution."
"You're infuriatingly optimistic, you know that?"
"Only when it comes to you. And Snow."
"Let's go get that chai, since it's rightfully mine."
"You're on," Emma says, opening the front door and leading the way to her car.
"Fill out these forms," the receptionist is cheery, with startling blue eyes and bright auburn hair that's offset perfectly by her pale green blouse. "And if you take a seat, we'll call you when Dr. Gold is ready."
"Thanks," Emma says, apparently unable to keep herself from smiling back. Regina feels a pang of jealousy in the pit of her stomach, snatching the clipboard away and stalking across the waiting room. It would be more effective if she'd also thought to grab the pen, and so she waits for a bemused Emma to join her after all.
"I can write my own name," Regina says by way of explanation, taking the pen that Emma's still holding. "And everything else, for that matter."
"Fine," Emma sighs. "I suppose you remember the dates and dosages and everything, too?"
"I'll ask if I don't. You can go back to flirting with the receptionist."
"Hey now. You know I'm not into Aussies."
"Is that what that ridiculous accent is?" Regina sniffs, staring at the form and starting to fill in the basics. "What's our insurance number?"
"It would be quicker to just let me do it, you know. Archie already sent your notes over, so if Gold calls you, you can head straight in without worrying about this paperwork."
"How did Archie take the news?" Regina can't quite hide the malicious spike of glee at his failure being thrust in his face. She only wishes she'd thought to deliver the news herself.
"He wants what's best for you. Said to let him know if he could assist any further, the usual."
"Oh." Regina is deflated by his boring, predictable goodness. One of these days, someone will live down to her expectations. "How nice."
"Mrs Swan-Mills?" The receptionist calls out. "Right this way," she says, and Regina follows her down the hallway.
"Ah, Regina," Gold greets her. "I've been expecting you."
"You have?"
"Since Dr Hopper sent your files over, yes. You're an interesting read. Take a seat, please."
He walks with a cane, leaning heavily on it as he crosses the office to take his seat. The room is straight out of the seventies, the conversation space sunken slightly below the level of the rest of the floor, and that's where Gold takes his position on one of the two large leather chairs that sit on opposite sides of a glass coffee table. No magazines litter the surface of this one, it's clear and under the soft lighting it seems as reflective as a mirror from where Regina stands, still unbuttoning her coat.
"No need to be scared, Regina," Gold says, indicating the other seat. Clearly the use of her first name so soon is intended to put her at ease, but Regina is nothing if not contrary.
"I'd prefer we stuck to titles for now, Dr. Gold. Until we know each other a little better."
She crosses the room in measured steps, ensuring her nerves don't show. Sitting down is a careful production, as she folds her coat over her arms and crosses her legs.
"Very well, Mrs Swan," he amends, and Regina clears her throat loudly.
"It's Swan-Mills," she corrects. "Swan is my wife's name. We've always used both."
"Duly noted," Gold scribbles something on the legal pad on his lap. Regina hopes it's annoyance at her rigidity. She has no intention of making this any easier than it should be.
She looks away for a second, blinking a few times to compose herself, but when she looks back Gold has transformed entirely. His hair is windswept and wild, and his somber gray suit has been replaced by a leather jumpsuit that wouldn't look out of place on a heavy metal guitarist. It makes Regina's breath catch in her throat, but then she blinks once more and the sober psychiatrist is in front of her once more.
"I'm sorry, what?" She asks.
"I said, let's get started," Gold repeats. "Are you nervous, dearie? You seem a little out of sorts."
"I am," Regina admits. "Your accent is… strange. You're not from around here, are you?"
"From far across the sea," Gold confirms.
"But not Australian, like your receptionist."
"Does that matter?"
"No. I just noticed, that's all. When you don't notice things as often as I do… well, details become so important."
"I'm sure they do. How are you feeling, generally?"
"Fine," Regina puts her coat down on the chair next to her, it's making her hands too hot to be wrapped up in it. The silence stretches out between them. "It's your turn, now," she nudges Gold. "You ask the questions, remember?"
"Fair enough," he says, a hint of a chuckle creeping into his words. "Let's get to know each other first. Your notes say you're resistant to the idea of new medication, is that right?"
"I'm not being difficult. It doesn't work."
"Well, talk therapy and medication usually work best in tandem," Gold warns, his posture straightening and both hands resting on his cane where it stands between his knees. "But if you're willing to work with me, we can try psychotherapy alone, at first."
"This isn't some kind of trick?" Regina can't help but be wary. How many times had Archie offered something for a week or two, only for months to pass and the dosage to creep up? Nothing at all seems too good to be true.
"Why would it be? But like I said, let's get to know each other a bit better. Tell me… tell me about the last time you were truly happy."
"Really?"
"Really."
Regina closes her eyes, and searches for the feeling. She feels fragments tugging at her memory, hears ghosts of laughs and sees flashes of smiles. But no one solid memory forms for her.
"Were you happy when you got married?" Gold suggests, prodding gently.
"Oh, I thought so," Regina says, breathing out in relief at having a subject to latch on to. "I really thought so, you know?"
"And you say that like it's different," Gold remarks. "That thinking you're happy and being happy aren't necessarily the same thing?"
"Of course not," Regina scoffs. "Most people who think they're happy just haven't thought about it long enough. Honestly, most people who think they're happy seem kind of… simple, to me."
"And you're not simple, are you? No, you're a complicated woman, Regina."
She lets it slide this time, leaning into the conversation at the first glimmer of someone who might finally understand.
"I don't think I'm any more complicated than anyone else," she lies. She sees them every day, these simple people for whom happiness is attainable, a near permanent state of affairs. They sleep at night and feel calm during the day, and they only see the things they're supposed to.
"Well, let's leave your wedding alone for now," Gold suggests. "Were you happy the day you met your son for the first time?"
"My son?"
"You adopted him when he was just a few weeks old, is that right?"
"You want me to talk about my son?"
"Of course," Gold insists. "Particularly why he's still around."
"He was just a baby," Regina goes back to the familiar, to the part of the story that doesn't hurt quite so badly. "I had fallen asleep in my office working late. I woke up just after dawn, to the sound of a baby crying. Someone had left him right there on the steps of City Hall."
"So you took him in? That's generous of you." Gold is scribbling intently now, his eyes flicking up to her every few moments.
"I had no choice," Regina breathes. "I saw him and… I just knew. I was meant to find him. I went to the Sheriff's office, filed a missing person's report. The Deputy helped me, but Storybrooke has no real facility for abandoned children. It was send him to Boston, or…"
"Take him in. I'm looking at the dates here, you must have been quite young yourself."
"I was old enough to be Mayor. My mother… she wasn't happy. It's what finally made her move out, in fact. She said she was too old to be subjected to a screaming baby every night."
"You did this all by yourself?"
"No," Regina corrects. "The Deputy I mentioned… she's the Sheriff now. That's my wife, Emma. We were dating then. Well, fooling around to be more accurate. I thought telling her I'd filed paperwork to adopt would send her running for the hills… she proposed, instead."
"Because she loved you."
"Yes. I suppose. I always wondered if partly…"
"Go on," Gold urges.
"It seems disloyal. And God knows my paranoia is usually a symptom of something else, with no basis at all. But there were times I think if she did fall in love with me, it was because of Henry."
"Why? She wanted to be a parent?"
"No," Regina says. "Quite the opposite. She put the 'free' in 'free spirit' back then. Always disappearing, and Storybrooke was the only place she'd ever stayed for more than six months. But she was a foster child, I don't think the system was very kind to her. I think she saw what I was doing as 'saving' Henry from that life. So I wonder sometimes if it wasn't more about him, than about us."
"You're being very honest with me," Gold observes, putting his cane to one side but continuing to scratch his pen across the paper. "I thought you'd be more resistant."
"Isn't honesty the point?" Regina sighs, leaning back in her chair. "I haven't talked about any of this in a long time."
"You liked me better as a baby," Henry teases, from somewhere behind her. Regina steels herself and doesn't turn around. "So you found another headshrinker to tell you I'm just a ghost, huh?"
"I think we're going to work very well together," Gold announces. "I'm going to recommend we see each other three times a week, at first. Will that be a problem?"
"Not if the insurance covers it," Regina fires back. "You're a bit of a drive, but we'll think of something."
She's making dinner when she hears Emma's car pull into the driveway. Snow is avoiding Regina, reading on the porch, and so Regina steps out into the hallway to overhear the daily report trading between them. They're not even careful enough to check if she's around first.
"How is she?" Emma asks, keys jangling in her hand the way she does when she's impatient.
"Cooking," Snow reports back. "I haven't heard any screams or smelled burning yet."
"Don't be an asshole," Emma warns, and Regina frowns at her wife's worst habit. "Can you take her to her appointment on Friday if I give you the keys to her car?"
"Seriously?" Snow's voice changes entirely, genuine excitement there now. "Is that why you taught me how to drive stick all last week?"
"Maybe," Emma admits. "I just can't take the morning is all, not when I've been out yesterday and tomorrow as well."
"Three times a week. Isn't that a lot?" Snow asks, while Regina fumes at the thought of her beloved car being blithely handed over to their daughter without even the pretense of asking her first. Unless they discussed it and she just doesn't remember, but the surge in her blood pressure right now suggests she would have.
"It's what this new doctor recommends." Emma sounds so weary that guilt gnaws at Regina again, and she starts moving back towards the kitchen before they catch her eavesdropping.
"Is she ever going to be okay?" Snow asks, stopping Regina in her tracks. "We're just never going to get rid of him, are we? And PS, this is one of those times where it's fine to be like all the other grown-ups, and lie your ass off."
"I don't know," Emma admits, and Regina walks away once more.
"Two weeks," Gold sighs. "This is your seventh appointment, and we're still no closer to the root of your depression. I'm going to assume that's by design."
"I don't know what you mean," Regina replies, folding her hands in her lap.
"We need to address the reason your son is still around," Gold reminds her. "That is why your wife brought you to me in the first place, isn't it?"
"I suppose."
"I'd like to try something different," Gold leans in, his eyes gleaming at the prospect of shaking things up a little. Regina can't decide whether she hates him or not, but this morning feels a lot further from 'not'. "When discussing such… sensitive matters, the brain can form a lot of defenses to prevent you talking. I've found hypnosis works a particular kind of magic."
"You mean you want to cure me with a cheap party trick? Clucking like a chicken is the answer to all my problems?" Regina is scornful, and for once it feels utterly justified.
"In a medical setting, hypnosis is far more powerful. But I can throw in the clucking if you'd like."
"Even if I didn't find it ludicrous," Regina argues. "I don't think I can be hypnotized. I'm not the type, really. You have to be susceptible, right?"
"No harm in trying, then," Gold snaps, before regaining his cool with a forced smile. "Put both feet flat on the floor for me, dearie. And unfold those hands, place your palms flat, one on each knee."
"If you insist," Regina concedes, following the instructions. She wishes she'd worn something different, it feels odd to be acting like a puppet while dressed in clothes that would have worked in her Mayoral wardrobe: a stiff black skirt that skims her knees, with patent boots beneath it. Her blouse is almost new, a brilliant white that took just a little too much starch on its last trip to the dry cleaners. It all feels too stiff for such a stupid exercise.
"Now close your eyes," Gold continues. "And breathe. Ah, ah-slower. Deeper… like that, yes." Regina, despite herself, feels relaxation creeping in. It's rare that she gets time like this, to do nothing more than sit and breathe. Of course, Gold's voice interrupts the calm, but it's so much softer than usual.
"I want you to picture yourself walking down a hallway," Gold tells her, and the image of the hallway here pops into Regina's head unbidden.
"Walking," Regina confirms, no small amount of snark in the single word.
"Now at the end of the hallway you come to some stairs. Walk down, straight down, step by step by step," comes Gold's slow instruction.
"Stairs?" Regina is amused now, no denying it. She mimics the motion of someone walking downstairs, but doesn't move her feet.
"Now at the bottom of the stairs is darkness, but I want you to keep walking. Approach that darkness, even as you feel yourself resisting it.
"What about turning on a light?" Regina can't resist, cracking one eyelid to watch for a reaction. The frown is pronounced, and she enjoys it. "You know, safety first with all this darkness."
"Again," Gold keeps the edge from his voice, soft and insistent again. "You're walking down a hallway again, and you come to a door. You've never seen this door before." He pauses, Regina waits. "Open the door, Regina."
The image forms so clearly that she forgets to breathe for a moment, and all of a sudden she's not in his wood-panelled office anymore, and the lights are cool and blue instead of the yellow glow she's been used to. Regina's all alone in a room, facing another set of doors that are spread out over all of the walls, each door a different bright color or elaborate shape.
"Can you hear me?" Comes Gold's voice, from somewhere off in the distance.
"Yes," she whispers.
"Are you scared?"
"No."
"Good, now let's begin, Regina. Make up your mind for me, right now, that you're going to explore yourself and your history. Tell me what you see."
"More doors. Lots of them."
"Behind each of them is a memory, Regina. Some of them are your favorites, warm and happy. Others you've locked away, to protect yourself. We're going to unlock one today, and you'll be perfectly safe."
"I don't think I want to."
"Pick one, Regina. Tell me your story."
"The blue one," Regina says, although he isn't there with her to see it. "Well, it's what they call duck egg blue. We had drapes in that color, when I was a child. I thought it was cold, but Mother insisted it looked classic. Appropriate."
"Is your mother behind that door, Regina?"
"Yes."
"Tell me about her."
"She's angry with me," Regina feels herself trembling as the room shifts and becomes the sitting room back at her house. Mother had commandeered this room as her personal kingdom, but for years Regina has left it untouched apart from a bi-weekly dusting of the furniture. "Over prom, of all things."
"You got drunk?"
"Yes, but that's not why," Regina mutters. "She wanted me to go with the son of one of her friends. It's a society thing, you know? The most eligible sons of the most important families. I went with Daniel instead. We drank some Zima, and we left after three dances to… well. That hardly matters, now."
"Did you love him?"
"Infatuation," Regina confesses. "I didn't know I was attracted to women, not then. So I worked very hard on finding even one boy that I could try having a crush on. Daniel was the only one."
"You didn't stay together?"
"Mother saw to that. She just wanted the best for me, I know that now. There was a robbery, at the jewelry store. She was the only witness, and she saw Daniel do it. He must have, because he gave me a beautiful bracelet for going to prom with him. He couldn't have afforded it, and I suppose I knew that."
"He got in trouble?"
"He was eighteen. He went to prison."
"And by the time he got out?" Gold presses, and Regina feels her chest tighten.
"He didn't. There was a fight, while he was in there. Not a riot, exactly, but some of the inmates… he was trying to help a guard who'd been attacked, and someone stabbed him. He didn't survive the surgery."
"I'm sorry," Gold says, and in the echoes he sounds quite genuine.
"I'd like to come back now," Regina pleads.
"Of course." She feels a hand on her shoulder, squeezing gently. "All you have to do is wake up."
She blinks, and the office is there, Gold standing over her with concern in his eyes.
"You did very well. We'll pick this up next time."
"Regina," Emma knocks on the doorframe of their bedroom. "You're coming home from these sessions in tears, every time now. Is this helping, or…?"
Regina nods. "I don't think it's supposed to be easy."
"I never could stand watching you cry," Emma says, sitting beside her on the bed, plucking the hand cream from Regina's nightstand and applying some to her own, more calloused hands. "You think you'll make Snow's recital next week?"
"Of course," Regina says, taking Emma's hand and rubbing the rest of the lotion in for her.
"Another door, Regina," Gold instructs.
"Aren't you getting bored of this by now?" Regina asks the disembodied voice. "My angsty teenage memories aren't the stuff of thrillers, Doctor."
"Tell yourself you're strong enough, and tell me another story," Gold says. "It's your past, Regina. You have to own it."
She opens the red door, with the holly wreath on it. It's their first house, where Emma had decorated the whole thing as an engagement present. Mother had protested so furiously, but Regina packed her things and left with Henry in the middle of the night. He hadn't cried, even once. Like he'd known.
"We lived there six months until Mother passed. Then it seemed silly to live in three rooms when we'd inherited a mansion. But I still miss this house. When I go walking in the woods, sometimes, I always feel better when I see it."
"Who lives there now?"
"No one. We rented it out over the years, but never quite had the heart to sell it."
"You're not moving on," Gold accuses. "Are you seeing the theme here, Regina? Holding onto the past can hurt you."
"The things that are supposed to heal me hurt just as much," Regina protests.
"Sometimes it does hurt to be healed. But you can withstand it."
"Apologies for the switch to afternoons," Gold says as Regina walks in. "I know you have a routine, but I've had some family issues this week."
"Need to talk?" Regina teases.
"No, my son and his troubles are less than riveting. Now, we were really getting somewhere last time. Let's pick up where we left off."
Once more Regina goes through the simple routine, still expecting it to fail and gasping as once again she feels herself fall into the trance.
"Which door today, Regina?"
She picks the varnished wood and glass of a hospital swing door, and there's an eagerness in Gold's response when she tells him, but it's not that hospital, not yet.
"We had already filled out the paperwork for Snow, when it happened. We knew it would take a few more months because she hadn't been abandoned. And with everything… Emma thought it might help, to still go ahead. The adoption agency were wary, but she convinced them. I almost blew it, picking her up at the hospital. I couldn't hold her. I couldn't bring myself to hold her. And I think she knows that, even now."
"That's the first time you've mentioned Snow in weeks of therapy," Gold points out. "I saw her name in your notes and I wondered how long it would take."
"Huh," Regina answers. "I didn't realize."
"You need clarity, Regina. Snow is your daughter. Your living, breathing daughter. From what I understand she's a bright girl. These visions of yours… they're no more than a defense. And Henry doesn't need you the way Snow does. Can you see that now?"
"So he says," Henry snorts. He's taken to sitting on the desk in the corner of Gold's office lately, but he hasn't followed her through the doors before now.
"You have to realize that the temporary comfort of a son you miss is harmful for you, and your family. After all, he'd be eighteen by now. Isn't that the time he should be off to college, or moving out?"
"Snow's going to college in the fall," Regina replies. "She thinks I've forgotten that, too."
"Unresolved loss causes depression," Gold states. "You know this. And fearing further loss causes anxiety. You know how fragile your memories are, and so you hold on too tight. But that only makes the fear of the day you'll lose them so much worse. Do you see?"
"Yes," Regina whispers. "But how do I let go?"
"Go home," Gold instructs. "Clean out his room. You said last week that you kept his room exactly as it was. Give his things away, to another family who needs them. And spend some time with your daughter. Ask her to help, if you think she'll want to."
"That will work?"
"It's the best advice I have right now," Gold says. "Wake up, Regina."
"I have to go home," Regina says, blinking in the light.
"Yes. It's time."
"Hey Ma," Snow accepts Emma's hug with less reluctance than usual. "Where's Mom?"
"Uh, she's meeting me out front," Emma says, hoping her smile isn't too fake. "She wanted to go pick out a new scarf, and you know how she is about accessories."
"I was worried her therapy appointment would run long or something," Snow says, violin case still firmly in hand. "I have to go warm up, okay?"
"We'll cheer extra loud," Emma promises.
She walks out of the gymnasium door, back around the front of the school where the last of the proud parental crowd is trickling in. Regina had insisted on being dropped at the house, promising to meet Emma in time for the recital, claiming the hour of peace and the walk would be good for her. As the clock ticks closer to 7.30, Emma feels the familiar sinking sensation of disappointment.
Another round of excuses. Emma leaves the second ticket with one of the kids playing usher for the night and goes to take her seat. Snow should know she has at least one proud parent tonight.
She should have told Emma about this, Regina realizes as she opens the door to the old nursery. The abundance of rooms made it possible to give Snow her own without ever touching this one, and Emma has been the one to keep on top of it, although everything but the crib has been packed away. It's dusty, unlike anywhere else in the house, but Regina doesn't want to disturb even that, at first.
"Mom?" He asks, and when she turns around he's standing over his own crib. "Hard to believe I ever fit in here, huh?"
"You should go, sweetheart," she says. "I have some tidying to do."
But he stays. And he watches.
Watches her open the drawers and take out the remaining clothes, mostly white and pale, pale blue, because they weren't particularly strident about gender roles, not back then. There's a box already half-filled with unused cloth diapers and onesies, so Regina adds these until the box is full. One by one, she gathers the boxes Emma never quite finished and piles them up by the door, ready to be taken to Goodwill or wherever someone else decides. That part, Regina will not face.
She goes to the window, watching the sun begin to set. She isn't late, yet. There's still plenty of time to walk to the school and catch the whole recital. On the window sill a stuffed elephant has been abandoned, a varnished wooden box his only companion. Regina can't place it, doesn't remember ever buying it, but when she lifts the lid the tinkling music is as familiar as her own name.
Brahm's Lullaby, or the 'da-da-da song' as Emma used to call it, became the only thing that would soothe him after a while. At first Regina had played it for him on the piano, the vibrations through his carry seat helping as much as the music. But as the sleepless nights had dragged on she'd been too tired, and Emma's gift of the music box had been thoughtful enough to provoke another flood of tears; Henry had been fascinated by it.
"You never hum that under your breath anymore," he says from the corner. "You used to, at first."
"When you were younger," Regina remembers. "Or, you appeared younger. That's what the doctor would say."
"You've put everything away this time, huh?"
"Everything but this," Regina says, putting the box on the floor and letting it play. "And your blanket," she says, noticing it sticking out through the bars of the crib. She walks over to pick it up, holding the soft wool to her nose and inhaling deeply. "It doesn't smell like you anymore."
His name is sewn through the wool in purple ribbon on one corner, a gift from Granny Lucas who ran the diner for so many years. She'd knitted a blanket like this for every child born in Storybrooke for thirty years, she'd said. Henry being adopted shouldn't make him any different to the other children.
"You should have grown up," Regina whispers, and she knows he understands even though the words are muffled by the blanket. "You should have had your prom, and gone to college, just like Snow is about to. You would have met a lovely girl, and I would have hated her at first. But then the grandchildren would have come, and we'd give him or her this blanket, sew their name right into it next to yours. That was how it was supposed to go, Henry."
"I would have skipped prom," Henry teases. "Gone drinking with my friends instead."
"I can see you in your tuxedo," Regina sighs, and when she pulls the blanket away, he's suitable transformed. The jacket is white, the pants black, and the flower in his buttonhole is a rose from their garden, red as blood.
"Well, maybe I'd dance with you in the house, just one time. Then totally blow off the actual prom."
"You have to give your mom a dance," Regina agrees, nodding along as the lullaby starts again. "I think that's a rule."
"Then dance with me," Henry says, taking her hand when she lets go of the blanket. She folds into him, the simple shuffling steps easy to follow. "See? Isn't this better than all those people telling you I'm not real?"
"Yes," Regina says, and when did she start crying, exactly? She can feel the rest of the memories bubbling under the surface, the unavoidable tug of what comes next, after all this happiness and the perfect room for their perfect little boy. "I wish I could stay in a world that has you in it, Henry. But I have to get better."
"But you'd be happy, in a world with me," Henry turns her own words back on her, muffled against the top of her head, his lips moving against her hair. "Don't you ever want to come with me, Mom? I always come to you."
"I don't know how," Regina admits, and the music box must need cranking again, because the notes are slowing down and spacing out, adagio to lento, to larghissimo and then only silence.
"Sure you do," Henry whispers. "You know just how to come with me, Mommy. Don't you think it's about time?"
"Regina!" Emma yells as she storms through the front door. Snow has run off somewhere with David, because noticing Regina's absence apparently triggered some sort of meltdown, three notes into her performance. The whole school is buzzing with gossip once more, and in pushing her way out into the night, Emma overheard more than one faux-sympathetic 'well, with the mother she has' and 'it's to be expected'. Only a desire to keep her Sheriff's badge stopped her from silencing the bitches with her fists.
Silence echoes back at her, and Emma makes her way up the stairs without kicking her shoes off first. When Regina retreats, it's almost always to the bedroom, and so Emma starts there but finds it undisturbed from when they left that afternoon. Snow's room, less likely but not impossible if Regina's feeling guilty about skipping the recital, comes up empty too. Great. A game of hide and seek to go with the inevitable fight. There are days when Emma honestly doesn't know why she hasn't run screaming from this goddamned house.
She wouldn't even think to try the old nursery, but for the unexpected light showing through the crack at the bottom of the door. If Emma had turned the overhead light on like a calm, responsible person, she might not even have noticed it.
She takes a deep breath, and swallows a couple of times. Weird is when something doesn't usually happen. Regina going into a room she hasn't touched in over a decade, like one of the tragic heroines in those classic novels she loves so much, that's downright red alert status. Something is wrong, and Emma's the only one here to deal with it.
It would be so nice to be wrong. Wrong would be embarrassing, but then the relief would come and Emma could hide it all in a bottle of beer or a shouting match. She pushes the door open, inch by creaking inch, and it's not until it stops making noise that Emma realizes her eyes are closed.
The smell isn't quite overpowering, in fact it's almost sweet until the coppery notes hit her nose. Emma forces herself to open her eyes and the red, deep and swirling like a decent Merlot is the first thing she sees.
Phone. She needs her phone. Fumbling, she almost drops it but no, God, no not there, don't in Regina's… "This is Sheriff Swan, I need an ambulance at my house immediately."
"Sheriff-"
"108 Mifflin. Get an ambulance here. Now!"
She hangs up, and pulls the blanket with its creamy wool turned red out of Regina's limp hands.
"Oh Regina," Emma says through the first surge of tears. "What did you do?"
A cruel place to leave it? Perhaps. But I felt like we needed to pause here and reflect, and worry, before the events that close out Act One. Your reviews have been generous and amazing, I'm so lucky to get to read all your thoughts.