Hi, and a big thanks to every wonderful reader who are still with me!
This one will be mostly from Regina's point of view, a little sad I must admit, but still, this is one of the chapters that I waited to post the most.
If you're enjoying this story, please leave me a short review, it would help so much to know what you liked or what I should improve on. I would be inexpressibly grateful!
She lay at the feet of the traffic sign that said „Leaving Storybrooke".The branch that had hit her head lay beside her, broken and perfectly still, as if it knew what it had done and regretted it. She was unconscious, and frostwork adorned her right cheek. He knelt beside her. Was it just the poor light, or was her hair a darker shade of brown than it used to be?
Gently, he pulled her away from the town line, then pressed a fistful of snow on the bump on her head, laying her in his lap so she wouldn't freeze on the icy ground.
Were they in the Enchanted Forest, they would have been doomed. But this was Storybrooke, a world where they had already invented a wonderful equipment: moblie phones. Shivering even at the thought of it, he pulled off his gloves so he could use it, and called the first person who plopped into his mind: Regina.
She was sitting in her dark living room, sipping red wine from an elegant glass. Henry was sleeping upstairs, and this knowledge was the only thing that kept the pieces of her shattered substance together. Rest was avoiding her of late, so instead of futile efforts to fall asleep she just sat in the dark, dreaming awake of the past. Occaisonally, a teardrop would glide down her cheek in a perfect arch, leaving a cool trail behind, and she didn't wipe them away for fear that the motion might open her tear ducts and then she woudn't stop crying all night.
She hardly moved a muscle; she was staring outside, examining the stars as if there was something about them that could help her find out where she went wrong, a question she'd been asking herself over and over, night after night.
When she saved Snow's life? When she fell in love with Daniel? When she ordered the slaughter of a whole village? When she started learning magic? When she gave up freedom and married the king? When she murdered him?
When she was born?
Or was it when she turned her hate upon Snow White and gave in to her rage? I should have let her die on that horse, she had said. She swallowed. Perhaps that was that.
The stars provided no answer, but as she studied them she couldn't help but feel a little hopeful, and somehow she believed the beauty of the world again.
Some said that the stars only mocked them with their unreachable perfection, but she couldn't even imagine feeling that way. To her, they have always been providers of hope and strength, reminders that there was some light even on the darkest nights. They never interfered an individual's life; they never helped anyone, but neither did they work against them, the way other people sometimes – or, in her case, always – seemed to. They were always there on the night sky for those who cared to look to them for strength, no matter who they were and what they had done; no matter if they were a queen or an evil queen or just a girl in love, no matter to which world they fared. She trusted the stars.
So when was it? Could there really be a point in her life where she had spoilt eveything, an action that had turned the course of events the way no other had? If there was, she figured, trying to approach the problem from a different point of view, it would be something she regretted.
And then she knew. Her mind displayed the memory of the closing door of a village pub and the shape of a certain tattoo. You didn't just ruin your life, Tinkerbell had said, you ruined his.
So there it was.
She was going to fall down on the floor and cry her eyes out till she fell asleep, and Henry was going to find her there in the morning and be terrified… She clutched the back of the couch so it couldn't happen. Every last part of her was hurt, but most of all her lungs that struggled so desperately for breath.
She grabbed her glass and downed the rest of the wine in three mighty gulps. It helped.
Her cell phone, which she had left in the kitchen table, rang out, disturbing the flow of painful memories and unwelcome tears. She was happy for the distraction, but only until she saw who was calling. Robin Hood.
She was not going to pick it up. She had more pride than that. Besides, she was sure that whatever he said would hurt even more than her current thoughts. Furious about his arrogance and afraid of getting hurt, she fled from the room, but then she changed her mind as she realised that she wanted to hear his voice too much to miss the opportunity. She hurried back into the kitchen, feeling foolish. She would pick it up and if she didn't like what he had to say, she could always disconnect.
She took the phone in her hand and hesitated for yet another moment before she finally picked it up and held it to her ear. 'Robin?' she said, somewhat coolly.
'REGINA!' he exclaimed, so loudly that she almost dropped the phone in fright. 'I'm at the town line!' he bellowed. She held the phone furhter from her ear. 'With Belle! I think she tried to cross it!' What the hell? Still jumpy beacause of his loud greeting, her mind struggled to process the information uselessly. 'She is unconscious, and ice cold! I don't know what happened to her but I think it might have something to do with Elsa!' Elsa?! Her heart squeezed nervously. She could hear a constant whizzling, and she realised why Robin had been so loud – he was trying to outshout the wind! She glanced outside, but everything was perfectly still.
Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong.
'God, it's so cold here. I'm not sure I could-'
The line broke.
She freaked out.
She lowered the phone and stared at it in panic. Robin was in danger! She had to go to him, to save him, to help! But how was she going to do that if she didn't even know where he was exactly?! And Elsa, was she there with them?! If she was, Regina couldn't be of much help on her own. The girl had covered the whole town in snow in one night, who knows what else she was capable of? What the hell was she going to do?!
Call help.
Yes, that was it.
Robin needed help, and so did she. Who to call, though? Her first thought was the Charmings and the second that they were useless.
Gold. Gold knew Elsa. And damn it, Belle was there with Robin, too, he had the right to know about it.
While she waited for him to answer her call, she drummed her fingers nervously on the back of a chair, and she didn't even realise that she was playing the rhythm of a half-forgotten melody.
'Regina.' His voice seemed to calm for such a situation.
'Listen, Gold,' she snapped as if it was all his fault 'Robin just phoned me-'
'And why does that conern me?' he mocked. She rolled her eyes in frustration. Not for the first time in her life, she wanted to strangle the know-a-lot. 'Because,' she stressed, 'he's stuck in a blizzard at the town line with Belle, and if we don't help them, they might freeze to death or worse.'
'What exactly do you mean by "worse"?' his voice was so tense that she half expected the phone to explode in her hand. 'Robin said that Belle was unconscious and that…' she tried to rephrase what he had said in a more sensible way, but she didn't manage, so she simply repeated his words. '…that he didn't know what happened but it might have something to do with the Ice Queen.'
'Elsa? Are you sure?' To hear how worried he was wasn't too comforting.
'Well, that's what he said, ' she snapped impatiently. She had had enough of his overthinking everything. There was no time to waste! Didn't he want to save Belle just as much as she wanted Robin? She waited for him to say something, to come up with an overcomplicated plan that would still work out in the end, but there was only silence. Her heart left out a beat. 'Gold?!' she called. Could the line have broken again?! 'Gold, are you still there?!'
'Yes, yes, I'm here, I'm thinking!' he hissed. Great, he was motivated.
'Should I alert someone else while you do your little thinking?'
'No, there's no time,' he informed her. As if she didn't know! Some moments later he went on, 'Get Zelena's necklace- I trust you still have it… Do you?' Zelena's necklace? What the hell was it for? '…Regina?'
'Yes, but-'
'Which road are they on?'
'I don't know, he didn't say! Just that they were at the-'
'Alright, then I'll check everywhere and leave you a message when I find out,' he cut her off. 'Get the necklace!'
'But-'
He disconnected. How polite.
