A/N: I've split this chapter in two, because it just makes sense thematically and length-wise. Big thanks to all of you who have continued to read on; shout out to corasqueen, wickedcleavage, onellabella, and bassthetortoise for being an audience to my behind-the-scenes slaughter of emotions.
Nowadays everything is a surprise –– and Zelena, she who has calculated every step of her life since she had run away, doesn't know how to feel about it.
She does know, however, that when Regina suffers like this, when she looks and sounds like her entire world has gone dark, a dull pain starts in her chest. There is no place for elation, pleasure, or even for apathy, responses that were just instinct for such a long time.
She isn't used to it. She didn't think she was capable of it anymore, and part of it makes her feel sick; carelessness and cruelty was easier, then, when she had no real reasons to be otherwise and with all the motivation to be in control. The rest of it just makes her feel afraid and vulnerable.
The day's barely begun and she already wants to say fuck it.
Perhaps not the best state of mind to be in right now, going about without supervision and in a car she can barely maneuver. Zelena hasn't even left the driveway yet and she feels like driving off into nowhere, ceasing to exist, nobody marking her. She should, could, and definitely would, but then she remembers Regina the night before and how they both had barely slept a wink and how all this time, she's been so kind, truly kind; how she is so full of love and Zelena doesn't understand how but someone –– someone tried to take that from her.
And not long ago, she had worked to do it herself.
The guilt weighs down like something is pulling at her ribs, and then Zelena shakes it off; she has a task at hand and it's heavy with emotional baggage as it is.
The car rumbles as she wheels onto the street with a deliberate caution –– all this head knowledge about this world, yet little to no application, a tricky thing it was –– and perhaps she receives an odd look from one or two people walking along. Arguably, it is absurd to come past the former wicked witch driving her sister's Mercedes like an old woman. And arguably, this town has seen stranger, so who really gives a shit, they're all lucky her desire to run them all over comes second to Regina.
(She is growing on her. It's obvious and has been so, but it is ever apparent if she's able to get her to do these ridiculous things on her behalf.)
Zelena reaches the apartment, and when the anxiety of being seen or worse looked at or worse approached and talked to subsides with the relief of being indoors again, she redirects her negativity to the woman who answers the door.
Emma wordlessly opens the door, cradling baby Neal to her shoulder with the other arm, perhaps using him to occupy herself and fidget with. Snow White and David are not inside, and maybe they're too ashamed to be –– who knew.
"That's his luggage right there," she says, like it shouldn't be painful. She tilts her head in its direction by the sofa, making no eye contact. Emma moves away slowly and deliberately behind the kitchen counter, bouncing slightly to keep Neal relaxed.
She makes it so easy to want to push buttons. "Using your little brother as a kind of shield," Zelena starts, pulling up the luggage handle with a sharp upward motion. "Rather pathetic, don't you think?"
Emma frowns, still refuses to look at her. "You need to take that and go already. I don't want to fight with you."
"What, cause I'm 'not too bad'?" Zelena echoes from yesterday. "You should've thought about what fights you'd start when you tried to take my sister's son away."
It becomes clear, then, that baby Neal is Zelena's shield, not Emma's, because when she turns slightly to keep Zelena out of her line of sight, her jaws are clenched so hard that if she weren't holding him, she'd hop across the counter just to choke the life out of her.
Perhaps she sees a twinkle of a tear in the corner of Emma's eye, and perhaps she should be feeling sympathy. But modest waterworks only anger her; no amount of crying on Emma's part could wash away the disturbing memory of Regina shaking and wailing beside her.
"Why did you do it, then?" she asks, hardness not quite there as it used to.
"Please go," Emma insists, bounces and sways even more as her distress manifests itself; Neal starts to whimper.
"Because if I had did it, no one would be surprised. Regina wouldn't be surprised. But you?" Zelena scoffs, "People trust you. They expect you to ––"
"Don't you fucking dare talk to me about what is expected of me," Emma finally snaps, and Neal squirms and cries in her arms.
It's like a bird is pecking at her temples with the irritation she suddenly feels, one that quickly turns into indignation. She doesn't really think about what she says next, or if she's even in a place to say them.
"So expectations are your problem? What?" she shouts, and it's cacophonous with the baby's screams ripping through and Emma's attempts to quiet him in vain. "You –– you and your ilk, for some arbitrary reason, are meant to be good. And those like us, like Regina and me, we're expected to be evil, wicked, vile. And that means people like you, seeing yourselves fit to do whatever you think we deserve. Your so-called problems are fucking nothing, Emma Swan. Don't you dare think your crying will earn anything from me but disgust."
Zelena doesn't stick around to survey any damage she'd done, even though she wants to (gods does she want to; there is something about tearing someone apart that she has missed so greatly).
Neal, still crying, can be heard from downstairs; the ringing of his shrill voice is still present in her ears as she lifts the luggage into the trunk. She gets in the car and thinks she should've killed that baby when she had the chance –– maybe then she'd be unforgivable and she would rot away instead of having to deal with all of this bullshit.
Henry is playing video games downstairs as Zelena helps Regina unpack his things. He's been through so much already that they both think he deserves a break, that he should still enjoy the privilege of not having to think about chaos through the hours of the day.
"Thank you," Regina says, placing folded sweaters into Henry's drawer.
"All I'm doing is sitting down and passing things along to you, it's really nothing ––"
"I meant," she interrupts, "for getting this in the first place."
"Oh." Zelena hands Regina a stack of Henry's jeans from the open luggage. "No problem."
"I shouldn't have asked that of you."
"I said it was not a problem."
"I think it was."
Zelena looks up at Regina, giving her those eyes full of knowing and understanding and she still doesn't know how she can manage to look at her like that after everything, how many times she must've given Emma that same gaze only to be disappointed again and again.
"I'm angry on your behalf," she says, breaking eye contact, removing socks from the pocket. "Shocker, isn't it? Oh, dear, these need to be washed."
"Most things don't surprise me anymore," Regina replies, "And preteen boy feet. I should probably be investing in Gold Bond." She breathes out like it's meant to be a laugh, but it dies the moment it is exhaled.
She's going to tell her. Perhaps her smile would reach her eyes, maybe she'd be given extra thanks for saying what she'd always wanted to say.
"Emma was there, when I came in," she starts.
Regina puts in the last of clothes in his closet and begins putting away the luggage. "I don't think I'd like to know any more, please."
"I told her," she presses, and the satisfaction of reliving it should scare her, but it doesn't, "I told her what she did was –– that whatever her problems were, they were nothing compared to yours. That they were nothing."
Regina's staring wide-eyed at her now, and it makes Zelena feel uneasy over her excitement. The astonishment takes a turn in the exact opposite direction that she had wanted it to make.
"You said what to her?"
Everything shatters and Zelena is thinking about driving away into nothingness again.
"What –– Why," Zelena blunders, then collects herself, "She deserved to hear the truth. Why are you upset?"
Regina shakes her head, and she's not yelling, not yet anyway, "That's not the truth, Zelena. We don't tell someone that their pain doesn't matter and call it the truth. We don't do that in this family."
Nowadays everything is a surprise.
"And she's still family," Zelena scoffs, pointing with her hand to the invisible presence that was Emma.
"Yes!"
"You spent the whole night, crying. Because of her!"
And then Regina is looking at her like she's missed a giant sign, like something has completely flown over her head and now she's bringing it back to hit her in the face with it.
"If simply hurting one another was grounds for not being family anymore," Regina says, so strong, wanting so much to be heard, voice rising like it might take off, "we wouldn't be here! None of us would be here. We would all be alone!"
It's unspoken: "You would be alone."
There is no room for thinking like a rational person. That was never the kind of person Zelena was, anyway, in retrospect. "Well maybe that's right for me then," she chokes out, blinded stupid by anger and humiliation and just not understanding. "Maybe I should just be alone forever!"
Regina's stupefied again, she seriously literally gasps like she's taken aback, and then shouts with equal volume: "Fine!"
Zelena stomps forward to Henry's door and instinctively flings her arm outward. It doesn't swing open, and after a moment of confusion, it occurs to the both of them what she just tried and failed to do.
She growls in frustration, takes the knob, twists it, and doesn't even close it when she storms out. She does, however, punctuate the argument by banging her own door shut.
The picture of Regina's father stares blankly back at her on top of the dresser, and she has to flip it downward; she doesn't need his judgment either. She hears Regina enter her own room, hears her knock something down.
Fuck today. Really, truly, fuck it.
She's been reduced to sulking on the floor beside the bed. Perhaps she could just roll under it and die there and everyone's problems would be solved.
She's sure it's done. That soon Regina will come in to tell her that she needs to pack up and leave, that she is going to be locked up in a cell for sure this time because she's fucked it up. Henry has already knocked on her door to ask if he could see her, only for Regina to pull him away and say that now's not the time.
She's ruined it again. Just like she did in Oz. Nobody changes. She can't change. This isn't her destiny.
It all bubbles up in her stomach, collects in her chest and then she has to let it out; she cries and cries because she's so unhappy and she doesn't know how to do this and things used to be so much easier when the most fulfilling thing was trying to have Regina's life rather than be a part of it.
Regina told her they could be real sisters and idea was so absurd that she laughed her out of the room. Now the very thing can be taken away from her, and now she's pounding her fist on the floor like an absolute fucking baby.
Pathetic.
She hears the knob jiggle and she holds her breath, like she'll be able to fool Regina that she's not here. She should've opened the window, let her think that she'd jumped out and escaped, but she's breathing too heavily. You could hear her sob from across the street, maybe.
"Zelena?" Regina says softly. All the anger has dissipated, it should be safe to sit up and meet eyes with her but Zelena lies still.
She hears a sigh, the click of the door closing, and the squeak of the mattress as Regina sits on it. The floor Zelena lies on becomes dark with her shadow.
"Zelena."
Zelena hiccups in response, sniffles, and Regina rises briefly and then soon a hand is descending from above to place the tissue box beside Zelena's head. It's almost half empty.
She grumbles, but takes a one anyway and dries her face.
"I'm sorry for yelling," Regina says, just above a whisper, and her voice is warm and secure and doesn't sound like she'll be giving her the boot.
"You're not sending me away then," Zelena replies, interrupted only by a hiccup, "are you?"
"No." It's said like it would never be "yes."
She sits up and leans against the opposite wall, and Regina lowers her head against a propped up elbow, facing her.
"I can't do it, Regina," Zelena says after a period of silence, voice jagged like broken glass, or peeled shells off a hard boiled egg. "How could I be good when I don't really know what it is? I can only be wicked. That's all I ever was, what I ever will be, and I can't escape it."
Regina shakes her head so slightly that Zelena's sure she's imagined it, but her eyes are also wet and she's climbing off the bed to sit down next to her, taking her hand. "But you have. You have."
"I don't know why you try with me," Zelena breathes out, and more tears are collecting at the rims of her eyes and on her eyelashes, then rolling down and down. "I don't know why you want me to keep trying. I'm so tired. I'm so scared––"
The last word is drowned out by the lump in her throat that makes it through in the form of a strangled sob, and once she's started she can't stop and Regina's still holding her hand and being this person that Zelena doesn't understand and then –– and then –– to top it all off, Regina starts singing.
"Chiquitita, tell me what's wrong… You're enchained by your own sorrow…"
It's enough to silence Zelena, though the flow of tears continues on. "What?"
"In your eyes there is no hope for tomorrow." Regina has a stupid smile on, like she might laugh and cry at the same time. She runs a thumb over Zelena's hand. "How I hate to see you like this… come on, sing along –– There is no way you can deny it…"
"You sound ridiculous." Zelena laughs, and just like that, she's not crying anymore, and she understands what Regina is trying to do; she is almost touched (really, incredibly, like her heart may burst) that she had remembered. "My mother was a better singer. What song was that anyway?"
"If you had listened to the ABBA album like I said you should, you'd know."
Zelena laughs, but it dies quickly under the weight of a sigh when she feels the dried tears crack in the lines of her face. "Look at me. All I ever do is weep."
Regina takes back her hand and leans her head back to the wall. "We share that. Maybe we got it from Cora. Funny thing, she never seemed to cry."
"Maybe it's recessive."
"Maybe we just have a lot to cry about."
"Fair enough," Zelena huffs. Then, more solemnly, her eyes looking straight on into nothing. "Listen… I never really apologized."
"You thought you were doing right by me."
"No. No, not that. I mean, that too, but I'm talking about all the things I'd said to you before we, you know. Started being better."
Regina doesn't respond, and Zelena thinks perhaps she's hurt her by way of reminding her.
"What I did to Emma, that's what I essentially did to you, wasn't it?"
"Might've been," Regina replies so, so quietly.
"I was so jealous of you and what you had that I thought –– it wasn't –– what you felt was so irrelevant to me and I treated you like they didn't matter, like you had no real reasons for feeling pain and we do all this talking but we never got to talk about that and I'm just –– I'm sorry."
Regina turns to her abruptly and Zelena thinks she might yell at her, but her eyes are filmy glossy again, and she says: "You absolute idiot. You're forgiven. You were forgiven the moment you called me hermanita."
Henry's face when he sees Zelena join them for dinner lights up so much that she thinks she might die if this ever stops; the last time anyone's ever looked so truly happy to see her with no manipulative glint in their eye was her mother.
It's impressive that he even smiles at all, though –– he is in the middle of a tear in the fabric of his already poorly sewn family, but to be fair, he's probably seen worse and has remained optimistic this whole time.
Except when the phone rings and Regina has to excuse herself briefly, Henry frowns slightly, looks at Zelena. "She usually lets it go to the machine."
"Maybe it's just Robin," Zelena says dismissively, because there's this heaviness in his voice and they're having dinner and she's been doing emotional acrobatics for too many consecutive days. "You know how disgusting those enamored with each other are."
Henry shrugs, pokes around chunks of potato with his fork. "He wouldn't call during dinner. He knows it's rude."
"Ah, shoots arrows at people's heads but still has manners. Who knew."
It's enough to make Henry chuckle, but when it dies down, he's still somber, like it's his equilibrium. "I don't want to choose between my moms. I've done it enough times."
Zelena wishes she could empathize with the struggle of being pulled in multiple directions. She really does; maybe she'd have something useful to say to him. But she only knows pushing and being pushed. "Then don't."
Henry looks at her like maybe she doesn't understand the degree of damage that's been done. (But she does. She can't forget it, how shattered Regina sounded as cried, "I don't want to lose him.")
"If I know anything about Regina," Zelena starts after his silence stretches, "she would never put you in a position where you had to choose."
The face he makes and the way his grip on his fork loosens just a bit has her feeling uneasy and she wishes Regina would get back from whatever phone call she is having. His body is an echo of the night he had ran from Emma and to the front door.
"If she loves me at all, I think she'll have to."
She doesn't know what that means.
This time it's Zelena who knocks on Regina's bedroom door.
"Let me apologize to Emma tomorrow."
Regina looks like she was afraid she'd ask that. "I can't let you do that. That was her on the phone earlier. She's leaving in the morning to New York."
There's something in her voice and the way she wrings her hands together on her lap that reveals layers and layers of doubt. It clicks like locks becoming undone in Zelena's mind.
"For good, and Henry doesn't know," she says slowly, and it's not a question seeking affirmation. And then she's remembering Henry and his voice is echoing so much that it comes out of her own mouth. "If you love him at all, you will tell him."
Regina brings her hands up to her chest and she's shaking her head and rocking back and forth and the tears are falling and falling. So much to cry about, so many hours in the day. "I can't do that to him, I can't, I can't."
