Another huge thank you to Britt! We were on a major Evil Charming buzz the last few days. Absolutely love writing this story and would love to here what you think! Enjoy!
Waking up the second time is nowhere near as unpleasant. She's still in pain, but at least she knows where she is and what happened. It's late though; the sun is gone, leaving only darkness outside her window.
She begins to ponder what might have woken her up at such an awkward time, but the face of a boy appears suddenly, startling her with a perky, "Hello."
"Uh…" she blinks madly at him, confused. It could be a dream, induced by the many pain medications pumping through her system, but she welcomes the visit, dream or not. "Hello."
He can't be any more than ten years old, and he's donning the same fashionable hospital gown that she is, so he must be a patient here as well. "What's your name?" he asks. He's pretty sprightly.
She chuckles at him a little. He's a ball of energy that she wasn't expecting. "My name's Regina," she introduces herself. "What's yours?"
"I'm Henry," he says proudly, wandering around her bed as he starts poking at the large cast on her leg. Once, twice, three times before reaching for her chart.
It's amusing to watch him attempt to read it, she can't help but grin at the serious face he pulls, but all amusement dissolves when he starts reading off her injuries perfectly, "Lots of broken bones... femur, wrist... Ouch. At least they're giving you morphine."
She's amazed. "How can you read that?"
Henry shrugs and brings her the chart, showing her that it actually isn't rocket science. "I'm ten. I know how to read," he states. "Plus, I pretty much live in the hospital, and I've read all the books in the library… this is all I have left to entertain myself with."
"Oh," she breathes softly, eagerly taking her chart from his hands and welcoming his small bounce to sit next to her on the twin mattress. "Are you supposed to be here?" she asks, raising an eyebrow cheekily over the large clipboard. "It's late."
He shrugs again and swings his legs back and forth a few times. "Dr Whale doesn't like when I walk around. He says I pester the patients…"
Regina chuckles lightly at the young boy's strategic use of air quotes and mocking voice, "Well, I don't think you're a pest."
"Thanks," he grins. "How long are you trapped here?"
Sighing, she shakes her head unknowingly. The doctors weren't very specific about her recovery time. She tips her chart back toward Henry and says, "Your guess is as good as mine."
He laughs, a little airy thing, before hopping off the bed with her information in his hands. His lips twitch down into a frown as he slips the clipboard back, muttering, "You'll be out of here before me at least."
"When are you leaving?" she asks, curious to his change in demeanour. The perky smile and skip in his step have completely dissolved away.
"It doesn't matter," he shrugs solemnly. "I always end up coming right back."
"Oh."
Unsure what to say, she lets them succumb to silence for a short while before he coughs to clear his throat and makes his way to the dimly lit hallway of the hospital.
"I should probably go before the nurses realise I'm gone," he smiles unconvincingly, but he waves, "Goodnight, Regina."
He's out of sight when she whispers her own goodnight before lying back against her pillow and losing herself to sleep again.
Regina likes her nurse, Ruby. She's excellent at her job but also knows how to unwind a bit; she's more than happy to be spouting off some embarrassing story about her Friday night while poking and prodding at Regina's injuries. It doesn't take away the pain, but at the very least, it makes the time go faster.
The most Regina has gathered so far is that the little town of Storybrooke that she's stumbled upon has a very tight knit community. Ruby knows a little bit about everybody and a lot about certain people. And it would appear she knows David very well.
"He's that one guy who will always have a smile on his face," she notes happily, pulling back the dressing on Regina's head wound. She fails to conceal the hissed wincing through her teeth as a reaction, and Regina's eyes widen. "Oh, I'm just being dramatic," she brushes off. "But your head certainly had quite the collision with your window."
"I hear that can happen in car accidents," Regina smirks, running her nails up and down the hard cast on her wrist.
"Patient humour," Ruby smiles widely, "I like that." She continues to dress the wound carefully, and Regina stares out the large glass windows of her hospital, chuckling softly when Henry runs by, quickly followed by a doctor and a nurse or two chasing him. "If you are competing for most comedic patient, I hate to tell you that your biggest competitor just ran by."
"Henry?" Regina asks, darting her eyes upward to Ruby who is still carefully concentrating on the final touches of the bandaging.
"He's a brilliant kid." Ruby presses down the edges of the bandage and stands up straight. "And hilarious. Especially when he gets to Whale."
"What's his story?" Regina asks curiously, sharing a laugh with Ruby when Henry sprints by the window one more time, even throwing a wave in their direction this time.
Clearing away the packaging from Regina's side table, Ruby tells her, "Henry is the heart of this town, but he was dealt an awful hand by the universe."
"He snuck into my room last night," Regina confesses, confident that Ruby is hardly the type that would reprimand him for something so silly. "It was hard to believe he's sick."
"You see through his brave face after a while. Every so often you'll catch him without a smile or without that adorable skip in his step," Ruby frowns tightly. "He overcompensates a bit with his humour, I mean, ever since David was admitted, he's been quite the devil with the doctors. Luckily, we all know that's how he copes."
"He and David are close?"
"That would be an understatement."
Regina feels a sudden pang of guilt in her chest. Ruby goes on about David, listing off the number of people who care for him and a plethora of alluring qualities: his kindness, his selflessness, and how strong he is, both mentally and physically. He's a carpenter, apparently, and a reliable one from the sounds of it. He's essentially the town's big brother, and the more Ruby speaks, the more Regina feels responsible for taking away someone so important from this family.
Ruby's rambling seems to trail off, probably once she noticed how Regina is desperately trying to keep from letting a tear fall, and she huffs out a big breath, perching her hands on her shoulders. "How about we get you some fresh air? I can give you the grand tour of the hospital."
Nodding her head, she sniffs through her nose and clears the lump in her throat with a cough. "Sure." She shrugs, "It's not as if I have anything better to do."
Transferring into the wheelchair was a challenge. There were a number of close calls as Ruby tried to help her from the bed, but after a number of moans, groans, and the odd curse here and there, she planted her ass so firmly in that chair she might have to sleep in it.
Ruby walked her around the brightly lit hallways all the way to the small garden out back. It was oddly serene and calming. The sun was shining brightly and warming her skin gently as families wandered around with their loved ones.
This little adventure outside isn't doing very much to assuage her guilt. The man who very bravely and graciously saved her life is lying in a hospital bed just beyond the windows she keeps catching her reflection in.
"Can I see him?" she asks. Ruby is mid sentence of some eccentric story about a patient they'd had years ago, but somewhere in the middle Regina had stopped listening. She can tell when someone is trying to distract her, and, as usual, she's tuned it out and latched on to what she should have been avoiding in the first place: the blame she's placed on herself.
Ruby smiles sadly. "Of course you can."
She's wheeled inside and pushed right past her own room towards the Intensive Care Unit. Ruby had mentioned something about her not having a lot of time since she's not family, but Regina doesn't mind that. She's hoping that seeing him might make her feel a little better, or at the very least, if she sees him take a breath or hear the beeping of his heart monitor, she might stop feeling like she's responsible for taking him away from so many people.
Seeing him again is strange. Ruby sets Regina's chair right by the edge of his bed, and she looks him over, instantly feeling washed over by uneasiness. Instead of feeling any solace at hearing the rhythmic beating of his heart or the inhale and exhale of his lungs, she realises that he's trapped somewhere. All because of her.
"Can I have a minute with him?" Regina asks quietly, not once taking her eyes from his chest rising up and down, even as they start to glisten with unshed tears that are welling up quickly. "Please?" she breathes. Ruby silently exits the room, though not without the gentlest squeeze of Regina's shoulder.
As she looks at David's face, she slumps forward in her chair through every ache and pain in her body and reaches for his limp hand. He's warm, and his skin has a rough feel to it, not that she's surprised, he's a handyman after all. She gives him a squeeze, whispering a very sincere, "I'm sorry," before looking up to his face, wondering if maybe, just maybe, his eyes might just flutter open and all of this will be okay.
She lingers for a moment, just waiting, but she abandons any sliver of hope when he doesn't even so much as twitch. Instead, she memorises his face. She'd only had flashes of their encounter before and remembering the sound of his voice keeping her calm, but now she can really see him, chiselled chin and all.
He's extremely handsome. It'd be criminal not to note that right off the bat. He has a jawline that even she would kill for, and there's no way that those resting lips don't have the ability to leave someone breathless with a smile. The worst part of it all is that she can't remember what colour his eyes are; are they the kind of blue someone could get lost in, a mysterious green that would always keep them guessing, or a warm shade of brown that would make them melt?
"You must be Regina?"
The voice comes very softly from the doorway, and Regina pulls away from David immediately, completely caught off guard as she turns to catch a glimpse of the tall blonde who startled her.
"Yes," she says softly, immediately apologising. "I was just leaving."
"Nah," the blonde waves it off, taking the seat on the other side of David's bed. "I'm sure he'd love the company," she smiles. "I'm Emma. David's sister. I was happy to hear that you were awake."
Emma takes David's free hand, pressing a kiss to the top of it, and Regina slyly tries to pry her hand from his other one. It's hardly her place, or at least so she thought. Emma picks up on her bad attempt at being sneaky and chuckles softly. "He has that effect on people," she says, looking back to David. "Whale mentioned that guilt was practically falling from your eyes," Emma side eyes her a bit. "You have no reason to. Nothing could have stopped him from going back to your car. There's no blame."
She feels a bit of relief having Emma tell her that, but not enough to lift her spirits quite yet. "I'll feel much better once he wakes up."
"I think we all will," Emma sighs into his hand. "But in the meantime, we just need to keep our spirits high for him."
"Of course," Regina agrees. She starts to try and wheel back her chair with her good hand, struggling immensely. Emma is standing to help her immediately - compassion must radiate from the core of that family.
"You're welcome to stay," Emma assures her, but Regina shakes her head. She's done enough, and Regina even tells her that, but Emma deserts the chair, bringing it to a halt and kneels down right in front of Regina with the softest look, but with a very stern voice, she says, "Enough. You have enough healing to do on your own," she gestures to all of Regina's casts and bandages, "to be sitting on a mountain of guilt that you don't deserve to feel. The reality is, when David wakes up, you are probably going to be the first person he asks about. You are welcome here. There are no hard feelings." Regina is rendered speechless, her eyes welling up again, but, dammit, she doesn't want to cry in front of someone she barely knows. "Hey, do you like to read?"
Regina sighs into the smallest of smiles, nodding as she answers, "I do."
"Okay," Emma claps her hands together brightly before reaching to the bottom of David's bed and lifting back the comforter slightly. A book has been tucked in underneath, one she's never seen before - it's brown leather cover inscribed with golden words Once Upon a Time. "Read to him."
"What?"
Emma repeats her words plainly. "Read to him. It was his favourite growing up and Whale said that talking to him could be beneficial. You can be here more often than I can. And, who knows, maybe the stories in there will keep your mind off of all of the madness." Emma puts the book in Regina's lap and pushes her wheelchair right up next to David's bedside, a little closer than before. "I need to speak with Whale, anyway."
"Uh…" Regina follows Emma with her head as she leaves her alone once again with this large, heavy book on her legs. "Okay…" She opens the book to the first page. It's definitely a unique book, the parchment is rough and the text is beautiful, almost handwritten. But it all feels so silly, reading to him like this, so she closes it again firmly. "This is stupid," she whispers to herself as she slumps back in her chair.
David's breathing is still as it was before, a hauntingly consistent in and out. Maybe it's not stupid, she thinks. If he's trapped anywhere because of her, the least she can do is read from his favourite childhood book, so she flips it open again, runs her smooth fingertips over the coarseness of the paper and begins.
"Once upon a time…"
