A/N: So, this chapter - which is officially the middle point of this story (titled the Middle) - got away from me. As such, I split it into two parts instead of having one massive chapter. I'll try to get it to you before next Friday's episode.
This part of the story starts in the THEN but will bring us to the NOW eventually (not in this half). The BEFORE is over (there will be THE IN-BETWEEN meant to fill in many of the missing scenes, but that won't be introduced until we get back to Storybrooke).
Warnings: Please take these very seriously - extreme physical violence of the domestic nature, psychological abuse, allusions to marital rape and dub-con situations. This chapter is dark, intense and terrible, but necessary for us to get where we're going.
As always, let me know your thoughts.
then.
They choose National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation even though it's nowhere close to Christmas. Elizabeth admits she's never seen it before, and Henry smiles tightly at her, and then disappears into the kitchen for several minutes. When he returns, he's holding a tray with several mugs on it, but it's the bite-marks on his right hand that Emma notices first.
Thankfully, all she does is squeeze his elbow because she gets it; a little over a decade ago, she has a rather vibrant memory of being curled up in front of the couch in Regina's living room, resting against one of Regina's legs as the three of them had watched this movie (and now that she thinks about it, she wonders how on earth they failed to recognize that they had fallen into an almost weirdly-domestic comfortableness in the days before Henry went off to college).
It's one of Regina's favorites because "these people are all fucking idiots".
And by that she had meant, "hilarious fucking idiots".
As it had turned out, one of Regina's best kept secrets is that she has a thing for slapstick.
"I can see you doing something like this, Swan," Regina had pointed out between not at all dainty bites of excessively buttered and salted popcorn after one particularly 'idiotic' scene.
"So can I," Henry had echoed with a cheeky grin, which earned him an elbow in the shin as Emma had yanked him down to sit next to her, both of them leaning back against Regina's legs.
Until Regina had moved down, too.
It'd been a wonderful night for them all.
Two weeks later, they had taken Henry to school, and everything had fallen apart from there.
But this movie, well it's one Henry's watched at least once a month for ten years now, and so hearing Elizabeth say that she's never seen it…he thinks bite-marks on a hand aren't much.
Emma knows, though, and her grip on his elbow is gentle even if her eyes are worried.
About what, he wonders, and then immediately thinks "everything".
"Dad," Lucy says. "Are you going to watch with us or –"
"– be a door, Kid?" Emma adds on.
Henry scowls at them both, and then offers Elizabeth a smile. "I apologize for them."
"Don't," she says, and shifts around anxiously. "It's…nice."
"You in front of the TV isn't," Lucy sighs indignantly from her place curled up next to Elizabeth.
Henry had considered trying to keep Lucy from sitting there, wondering if perhaps it might not be a good night for close contact considering all the things likely going through Elizabeth's mind, given how otherwise jumpy she's been. But before he'd even been able to get the words out, Elizabeth was moving over on the couch, and after the briefest of pauses – likely trying to figure out if this was something she'd be welcome to do, and God that upsets Henry to see this – Elizabeth offered Lucy half of the blanket which had been strewn across her legs.
"Henry, sit," Emma says, squeezing his elbow again.
With a grunt meant to sound indignant, he drops down to the ground in front of Emma.
Which Elizabeth immediately notices, rushing to apologize with, "Oh, this is your couch; I can –"
"I'm fine," he assures her. Then points to the screen and grins, "You're going to love this part."
Lucy falls asleep halfway through the movie, her head rested gently atop the half of the blanket that is still on Elizabeth's lap. Which is what Elizabeth spends the rest of the movie looking at instead of the actual movie; seems Elizabeth doesn't find it nearly as humorous as Regina had.
"They're not the same," Emma reminds Henry when Elizabeth steps into the bathroom, Emma's voice barely louder than a just audible whisper. She won't risk Elizabeth overhearing something which might alarm or frighten her. Or make her feel like she's unwelcome or unwanted here. "I know it's easy to forget because they have some…nightmares in common, but they don't share the same sense of humor because they haven't survived the same stuff. They're different."
"I know," Henry admits. "I'm just…still trying to wrap my mind around that."
"Kid, trust me, I get it."
He smiles at her in open affection – even now struck by how much he has missed her (missed both of his mothers terribly), before sighing, and asking, "So, what happens next?"
"Isn't that my question?" Elizabeth queries, stepping up from behind them, startling both of them with her silent approach (Emma then remembers something from a very long time ago when she'd been helping out another woman in a situation similar to Elizabeth's; how that woman had told her that walking softly had been the best way to be forgotten, and in her marriage, forgotten was always better than remembered). Thankfully, Elizabeth appears to have just arrived and doesn't seem at all bothered by them or their conversation; at least not any more than she has been the rest of the night. She's shivering a little, clutching her dark windbreaker tightly around her thin frame as she joins them in the kitchen. "So – do we sleep now?"
"If you're tired," Emma tells her. "If you're not, we can throw on another movie."
"I…I'm always tired," Elizabeth admits, and then forces a thin smile. "But I don't want to sleep."
"So, another movie, then?"
"This is your home. Whatever you'd like to do is…fine. I don't want to –"
"You're not imposing," Emma assures her. "And it's technically his home, not mine." She adds a soft smile onto the end of her words, but Henry can see the pain lurking there. Ten years ago, they had all had a home of their own – a place that was theirs. And yes, Emma's life had been about turn upside down as her marriage went down in flames, but she'd still had a home.
Now, she's staying with her grown son as they…try to protect his other mother.
Some days, it's too much madness even for a young man who has spent years hoping for this.
Well, not this, obviously.
But family. His. Together again.
They're not, though.
Not yet.
Not until they can figure out how to get Regina back.
Which feels like an awful thing to be thinking about considering how scared Elizabeth is.
"No one is imposing," Henry tells them both, trying to put some emphasis into his words, yet realizing that he doesn't entirely know how to speak to two women who have been through as much as his mothers have. Emma has been staying with him for weeks now, and of course he's noticed her struggling in almost everything she does, but this seems even more intense, and he finds himself wondering if the weight of finally being this close to saving Regina – even if she's still Elizabeth – is starting to crush her. "Put on another movie, or I can grab Scrabble. Whatever you'd like. But I do need to get this little one back into bed. She has school in a few hours."
"I'm sorry," Elizabeth offers.
"For giving my daughter a pillow? Please," Henry chuckles as he bends and lifts Lucy into his arms, bringing her against his chest. "I should be apologizing to you; she's a blanket thief."
"That she is," Elizabeth replies, her smile genuine as she regards the little girl in Henry's arms.
And tries to once again not think about how cruel fate had been in refusing her motherhood.
Though, perhaps, Trev had been right about how ill-suited she was for such a thing, considering all that's gone wrong with her life and with their marriage. Were there a child involved – an actual innocent in need of protection – in the middle of this mess of pathetic weakness and simpering worthlessness, it would be more complicated. Escaping it most certainly would be.
Or maybe she would have left years ago.
Maybe, she would have been able to find the strength to –
"You can fall down some pretty dark rabbit holes if you let yourself," Emma notes, sitting next to her on the couch. Not shoulder-to-shoulder (and Elizabeth has the strangest sense that it's odd that they're not shoulder-to-shoulder). "Trust me," she continues as she extends a heated-up mug which smells heavily of warmed whiskey to her. "I've been down almost all of them."
"I believe you." Elizabeth lifts up the mug and sips from it, and then drops it down, wrapping her palms around the warmth of it. "I guess I just keep thinking that I've made a terrible mistake."
"In leaving your husband?" Off Elizabeth's nod, she asks, "Do you think you have?"
"If I knew the answers to that, it would be easier," Elizabeth admits. "The story of my life."
"Mine, too," Emma states, and then doesn't say more than that. Elizabeth finds that she appreciates that about the blonde woman sitting next to her on Henry's couch (Henry's back in the bedroom with Lucy, presumably getting her tucked back into bed yet again) – that Emma doesn't just offer her a lot of cheap platitudes that might sound good but are otherwise empty.
She doesn't make promises that might help the night pass but can't survive the morning.
"I haven't spent a night away from him since I married him," Elizabeth tells her. She smiles, then, feeling uncertain and afraid, is deeply humiliated that she's so blatantly these things.
"I spent ten years in a prison cell," Emma allows, eyes on the far wall for a long few seconds. Though she tries to keep herself from it – knowing that it's desperately unfair to Elizabeth – she finds herself dreadfully missing Regina as she tries to dig down deep into herself to find a way to help Elizabeth mentally survive the night. Regina – for better or usually for worse – had survived so very much darkness and pain in her life that it often became almost easy (that feels like both the right and the wrong word for such a thought) for everyone to forget just how much life had hurt her. Because she always rebounded with glittering eyes and a defiant sneer.
But this isn't Regina sitting with her, and Elizabeth doesn't know how to rebound.
Not yet, anyway.
That understanding will take time and patience.
Right now, though, all there is for both of them is the whole 'one day at a time' thing.
Or more correctly, one hour at a time, as she tries to help Elizabeth get through this first night.
"For…killing your husband?" Elizabeth prompts, tentative and unsure how her words will be received. For all of the conversations that she's had with Emma over the last few weeks – and for all of the bizarre comfort that they seem to have with one another – she still doesn't really know this savior of hers (the word is bitter on her tongue, acidic in a way she doesn't entirely understand considering how often in her life she has needed to count on others for safety).
"Yeah," Emma confirms, lifting her own mug to her lips. Her eyes flicker over to the gun on the kitchen counter, one Emma had been all too happy to hand back over to Henry once again.
"Was he…did he…" Elizabeth shakes her head and murmurs a quiet deferring apology. She's offered quite a few of them since she'd stepped into this apartment, and without even thinking about it, she knows that before this night is over, she'll likely offer at least a dozen more.
It's what happens when you're used to everything being your fault. Even when you're the one bleeding.
Perhaps especially when you're the one bleeding.
"For what?" Emma asks, her head tilted. It's a slightly disingenuous question, but Elizabeth sees it for the gentle conversation opener that it is; a way to deflect her away from the much darker thoughts that are making their way through her churning mind. "For your natural curiosity?"
"I'm not sure how that natural curiosity has ever worked out for me," Elizabeth replies.
"I feel that. But…in answer to your question, no, my husband didn't…he wasn't like yours." She winces a bit when she says this, tasting the poison of accepting that for the last decade, Regina has been married. Against her will, of course, and Emma assures herself that it's not jealousy she feels (and hates herself a little for even considering the possibility she's jealous because could there be a more inappropriate emotion right now?) but rather deep worry and concern for a woman who had become far more than a best friend. "Not when he was in his right mind, anyway."
Elizabeth nods, sifting through her own thoughts and feelings from just moments before – the ones about how easily apologies tend to come from her no matter the obvious fault of the other person (not just Trev, she realizes, but almost every other person whom she has ever encountered). It's strange, because when it's someone else making an unwarranted apology, everything seems so clear and obvious. "I…might be somewhat new to this whole understanding when you're making excuses for someone hurting you –" she swallows hard at that, a dozen quick emotions rushing across her face. Shame, recognition, pride, fear, anger; all that and more.
"But you think that's what I'm doing," Emma finishes for her. "You're not exactly wrong, but Killian…he wasn't Trev. He had a temper, and he could be a real son of a bitch, but I did love him, and he loved me. We just…we weren't meant to end up together." She's sighs. "It's all just really complicated and maybe eventually, I'll tell you the whole sad pathetic tale, but not tonight, okay? The last thing you need right now is my fucked-up story."
"Can it be all that much worse than my story," Elizabeth murmurs.
"Mine ended with a gunshot in an alley."
Elizabeth turns her head, eyes narrowing for a moment as a memory scratches the back of her mind. "An alley," she repeats. "I know…and you don't have to…when did it happen?"
"About a decade ago. Why?" Emma queries. She takes a sip from her own mug, trying to act like she's not bothered by this conversation, but one of her hands is fisted against her jean clad leg, and there's a strange new tension showing. It's enough to make Elizabeth back off.
"Just…like, I said, curious."
"Okay. So…another movie or Scrabble?"
"Neither?" Elizabeth suggests. And then starts to apologize.
"Hey, no," Emma tells her, and a hand goes out as if to touch Elizabeth. It stops halfway, and then Emma is folding both of her hands back into her lap. "I'm a touchy person," she notes.
"I wouldn't have guessed that for you," Elizabeth tells her. "You come off as…closed off."
"Ten years in a box will do that to you," Emma replies. "Not a lot of people to talk to. I got pretty used to keeping to myself to stay out of trouble. It's how I survived in there. Stay out of everyone else's business and do whatever you can to not make unnecessary enemies."
"And yet you came charging into my life and made one hell of an enemy of Trev."
"I never said I was the smartest person in the world," Emma jokes.
"You're hardly an idiot, Miss Swan."
"Oh, if you only knew, and hey, Emma, okay?"
"Because after you rescue me from my awful marriage, we should be on a first name basis?"
Emma cringes, thinking about the past and their last day in Storybrooke, and a different marriage crumbling. No, that one (the real one, anyhow) hadn't been abusive, but it had been somewhat a lie by the end. Not quite awful like Elizabeth and Trev's marriage, but also not quite good given how genuinely unhappy she had been in it. "Nah, I was thinking more because we're sharing a hot toddy together?" She gestures towards their quickly cooling mugs.
"Fair enough," Elizabeth says. And then she exhales, running her hand through her hair, the length of it jarring to Emma; she's seen Regina with much lengthier than her usual short hair, of course, but not this long, and certainly never this lifeless and dull. "You remember – no, you probably don't – about those weird dreams I've been having? The ones about a different life?"
"I remember," Emma assures her, finishing off the mug and scowling at its emptiness. "That was when you called me a curious one." She grins, then, "See, curiosity isn't always bad."
"You remember that?" Elizabeth asks, her brow furrowing, a stray comment from Trev stealing its way across her mind, a seed of doubt well-planted suddenly poking above ground. "Why?"
"Because you needed me to listen," Emma answers, growing serious. "I know you don't trust me – not entirely, anyway – and that's justified. I'm some weird lady who came into your life all of a sudden, and you can't figure out why I care. I can tell you it's because I saw someone I could help, and that's just who I am, but I don't think that's something that you believe in."
"I just ran away from the only other person in my life who has ever helped me."
"And you think it was the wrong choice?" Emma queries, deciding that this is neither the time nor the place to contest Elizabeth's understanding of what Trev had been offering in her life.
That realization will come to her later – not everything has to be clear tonight.
Elizabeth doesn't answer, but just stares at her, like she's trying to make sense of her, like she's trying to figure out her angle. It goes on for so long that Emma starts to shift anxiously, but before she can move too far, Elizabeth is moving towards her, and there's a hand on her face.
"What are you –"
Elizabeth leans in and kisses her, her lips dry and tasting like the remnants of cheap cherry chapstick. The kiss is passionless, but not chaste – a strange kind of almost obligatory seduction.
Emma thinks she should enjoy being kissed by Regina– the last time had been ten years ago in the hotel room in Boston, and they obviously did a lot more than just kiss – but she doesn't, because this isn't Regina kissing her, and her tired heartbroken mind knows what this is.
It's the kind of test that a woman who trusts no one puts everyone she encounters through.
Expecting them to fail as much as she assumes that she herself will fail.
Emma's been there a time too many.
"No, hey, wait," Emma says, and then she's putting a hand on both of Elizabeth's shoulders, and gently holds her at arm's length. The lock of horror registers on Elizabeth's face immediately, and then there's deep and obvious shame, her cheeks reddening as she pulls back and away, retreating and wrapping her arms around herself, looking both more like Regina than she has before and somehow less like her. "I know he told you that all I want from you is sex, right?"
"He said that you…he…I shouldn't have done that."
"It's okay. I get it. But he's wrong. I think…you're beautiful–" she stops herself before saying Regina's name and softly adds, "Elizabeth. You are. But my interest in you is friendship."
"You started to kiss me back," Elizabeth notes.
"I reacted; it's been a long time since anyone kissed me with – well it's been a long time." Her face shades red for a moment before she shoves past it, refusing to be ashamed of surviving however she'd needed to in her life. "But no matter what you think, I wouldn't take advantage of you like that. I wouldn't do that to you," Emma insists. Oh, there had been about half a second or so when old instinct (and isn't it strange that after only night together, the instinct of kissing Regina is still deep within her) had started to kick in, but then she'd tasted the cherry chapstick and felt the trained-in mechanical nature of the kiss, and she had remembered.
Remembered that Elizabeth isn't Regina, and she won't hurt either one of them again.
Elizabeth nods, and starts to stand, seeming even more like Regina in her retreat. "I should –"
"Please, don't," Emma blurts, reaching out and catching her wrist. The touch is electric and strangely familiar, and Elizabeth looks up sharply at her, her eyes narrowing for half a moment.
She says, her words coming out in an exhale, "Emma?"
And Emma wonders if it could be that easy.
Of course not, and the familiarity fades as quickly as it had come, her eyes growing dull.
"Please don't go," Emma tells her, attempting to wallpaper over the awkwardness of the moment. "I know that you don't believe in any of this. In me. And to be honest, there's really no reason why you should. I know most of you wants to go back to him because it's what you know and think you can control. And…and I know that you still think that I must have some kind of agenda because the idea of kindness for kindness sake…unbelievable. But if you knew me, if you knew who I was before I was in that prison, you would know that this is me. And you'd know that there is nothing I won't do to help you survive this. I promise you that."
"But you still can't tell me why you care so much. Not the whole truth," she presses.
"One day, I hope you'll realize why. And it's not just because I want to have sex with you."
Elizabeth is about to answer – perhaps about the question the word 'just' – but there's a thump from behind her, and it's enough to make her wrench away from Emma, stumbling backwards.
"Sorry! Sorry!" Henry exclaims, hands up and out in order to insist that he's no threat to either woman (because even Emma looks spooked). "I was just…making sure Lucy is tucked in, and I was just checking something on my laptop –" he looks at Emma meaningfully. "And I…I didn't mean to startle you, I'm sorry. I…I think I came in on something I shouldn't have, though, so –"
"I need a cigarette," Elizabeth cuts him off, and then she's fishing through her pockets, her head bowed, tears of humiliation in her eyes and then on her cheeks. She's feeling too much right now, and all of its confusing and frightening; she doesn't know what to make of any of it.
But most especially of Emma Swan. Emma Swan, who says, "I'll go with you."
Elizabeth is about to protest, perhaps about to say that she needs a moment away from the other woman, but then Emma is standing, and before she's even half an inch up, she's crying out, her hand jerking backwards and splaying against her spine, her face a sharp grimace as she tumbles to her knees, her head bowed and her blonde hair curtaining her obvious anguish.
Henry says, "Mo – Emma?"
It's strange (it almost sounds like he was about to call Emma "mom"), but then Elizabeth's attention is on Emma as she's doubled over in pain, her eyes tightly screwed together.
She wants to move forward and try to help, wants to do…something.
She doesn't, though, because she'll just make it worse.
She always makes it worse.
"I've got you," Henry says softly, an arm around Emma as he lifts her back to the couch. He puts her gently down against it, his hand gripping her and Elizabeth finds herself wondering about their relationship again. Clearly not sexual, but not exactly just platonic friendship, either.
She wonders about the madness of her sad pathetic life, and she needs a cigarette even more.
"I'm okay," Emma grits out. "I just need to…I need to breathe."
"You want some aspirin?" Henry queries, looking over towards the kitchen.
"Not yet. It's just a spasm. It'll release. Take her out for a cigarette."
"Emma –"
"He doesn't have to. I can wait," Elizabeth tells her, her fingers twitching with need. She never considered herself a nicotine addict – not like those people she sees who can't go even an hour without one – but as of late, it has become something of an escape for her hands and her mind.
Right now, she desperately need that kind of escape.
"Go," Emma urges. "I need to scream into a pillow, and I'd prefer no one here for that." Her words are raw, and she hates admitting to them, but it's the only way to get them to go.
Go so both of them can have time to collect themselves.
Emma's not sure how much more her nerves or her heart can take tonight. Maybe, if Elizabeth can get her smoke, and Emma can calm the pain in her back, they can all manage some sleep.
Not a lot, most likely, but enough to give them the strength to figure out what comes next.
How to get Elizabeth to safety while she and Henry figure out what the next step is.
Where that next step takes them.
"Okay," Henry reluctantly agrees, standing up from the couch, his hand straying long enough to squeeze Emma's hand. She squeezes back and whispers that she's going to be just fine.
That they all will.
If Elizabeth hears, she doesn't let on, just shifts in the doorway, her whole hand trembling now.
"Go," Emma presses again. "But take that." She points towards the gun. "Just to be safe."
"Sure," he agrees, and doesn't ask why.
Because statistics are still statistics, and no one has to talk about them, because they know that the most dangerous time for Elizabeth is right after breaking away from her abusive husband.
"But later tonight, I want to show you something I saw on the laptop," Henry tells her pointedly, making sure that their eyes connect for at least a moment. "You need to see it."
"If it's still there when I can stand up, I'll go look," she promises. "Take care of her."
"I'm right here," Elizabeth murmurs.
"I know," Emma answers, wincing through the words. "And I'll be here when you get back."
It's a strange thing to say, but somehow, it does exactly what Elizabeth suspects that it was meant to do – it calms her nerves at least a little, and reminds her that she's not alone tonight.
"Okay," Elizabeth agrees, taking a step towards the door. She stops, then, not looking back because of the fierce uncertainty she feels at even making a suggestion to Emma. Trev seldom welcomed her telling him what he should do unless she positioned it as submissive caretaking. "People always want to try heat at first, but you should start with ice. That…might help."
"Thank you," Emma tells her, and she lets out a breath and nods sharply, stepping out into the hallway. Henry exchanges one last worried look with Emma, grabs his gun and follows after.
Henry notices how her hands have changed from slightly trembling to fiercely shaking, and even though it shouldn't by now, seeing her like this still catches him off-guard. This woman looks and sounds so much like his mother, but Elizabeth is absolutely not Regina, and he keeps having to remind himself of this, and remind himself that she needs his protection now.
"Help," she says softly, suddenly, and it's the echoing of his own thoughts that makes Henry look up sharply. His jerkiness startles her (he scolds himself for this – it's the second time it's happened in the last hour and that's unacceptable considering all that she's going through; he has to better, he tells himself), and he sees the way her shoulders tighten, like she's all of a sudden wary and on-guard, perhaps worried that he's going to be angry at her. He is angry, but not at her. So, he forces a smile, and steps closer to her. She lifts up her hands – the same hands that always felt so strong and safe to him for 18 years– and holds out the cigarette and lighter.
"You need me to –"
"I can't hold it steady enough to light it," she tells him, and then shakes her head, her self-loathing painted across her face. This isn't exactly new to him – he'd seen these same shades of hatred on Regina's face for years, but this is different. This self-loathing is about believing herself to be without value whereas Regina had always seen herself as not having value to anyone else. Elizabeth can't imagine why anyone would care about her while Regina has always believed that no one does. "This can't possibly be the heroic rescue you had in mind when you decided I needed to be saved. I'm sure you were thinking more white horse and less nicotine."
"I think whatever you need is how I want to help," Henry tells her, and then hunches over slightly and flicks the lighter, offering her the flame. It takes several seconds of chasing the tip of the cigarette before it's lit, and then she inhales deeply, a surreal visual for him as he sees the white ashy plumes of smoke rise up in front of his extremely frail and tired looking mother.
No, not his mother he reminds himself over and over again as they stand in the middle of the long dark alley behind his apartment building; it smells better than most alleys (he supposes) but there's still the stench of rainwater and unnoticed life out here. It's dim, and the bricks are faded and soaked with stains, his writer mind dwelling on the stories behind those bricks.
Just as it dwells on his pistol in the back of his jeans.
One day, Henry thinks, maybe this will all make sense for all of them.
Probably not today, and he wonders if it's okay to take an anti-anxiety pill in the middle of all of this. He thinks maybe…but then decides that he doesn't dare dull any of his thinking right now.
Because the image on the laptop had been blinking in and out when he looked at it an hour ago, Storybrooke rapidly appearing and then disappearing and then appearing again.
Like something is changing.
Like everything is.
Like maybe now that Regina – even currently as Elizabeth – is with them, maybe everything is coming back into focus, and the pipe dream of getting back to Storybrooke might not be one.
"So, you and Emma," Elizabeth asks suddenly, looking over at him. "What's your…thing?"
"Hm? Oh. Uh, we go back to when I was a kid," Henry tells her, allowing his mind to fully imagine Storybrooke again as he thinks back to growing up there with his family full of fairytale superheroes and villains and everything in-between. Things hadn't always been great, and sometimes they had been downright awful, but Storybrooke had been still been their home.
He might be a grown man now, but he desperately misses his home.
"She's what? Ten years older than you?"
"Give or take."
"And there's nothing –"
"No," Henry tells her quickly. He laughs, then. "God, no. She's not my type."
"But you were married, right? To Lucy's mother?"
"Yeah." He smiles at her, and thinks that one day – hopefully soon – he'll be having this conversation with Regina. About her once daughter-in-law. "She passed away a few years ago."
"Not something you like to talk about," Elizabeth observes.
"I still miss her. Sometimes too much to talk about her."
"Oh, that must be nice," Elizabeth says, and then her eyes widen. "I mean not that you lost her or that Lucy did. I meant just that she was loved so…I'm sorry, I –"
"It's fine, and you don't have to apologize to me. You really don't. I get it."
"Do you? Why?" She shakes her head. "I don't understand either one of you. You or Emma."
"I know, but I meant what I promised you earlier – we're not abandoning you."
"Be careful what you promise," Elizabeth tells him gravely. "Everyone is a liar eventually."
"I'm –"
There's a loud crash of bottles from somewhere ahead of them, swallowing up his denial, and causing both of them to jerk to the side in surprise. Elizabeth's hand reaches out to grab at his wrist, squeezing tightly, nails digging in and even scratching him ever so slightly. After a few seconds of this, she notices what she is doing, and her face turns bright red as she murmurs yet another apology. "Jumpy," she explains, pulling her hands away and tucking them close again.
"No worries. It's probably just a cat," Henry assures her, but then he has the gun out (she notices that he doesn't look entirely comfortable with the weapon – unlike Emma – and guesses that at some point, someone had talked him into getting it so he could protect his daughter). Frowning, every part of him coiled and anxious, Henry looks around, noticing that even though the alley is dark compared to the rest of the street, where they're standing has at least some dim yellow illuminating the corridor. "Stay here," Henry suggests to her.'
"What?"
"I'm just going to go check it out. Stay here where there's light."
She thinks to protest, thinks to request to go with him, but stops herself.
Because God, hasn't she looked weak and pathetic enough for one night? Does she really need to make it all that much worse by clinging to the big strong man like a damsel in distress?
"Okay," she agrees, barely managing to stop herself from pleading with him to hurry back.
"Hey," Henry tells her, flashing her a brilliant smile that makes her smile - almost as if on instinct - back. Like she knows him and trusts him (she doesn't know him all that well, though, and she thinks she might be going a little mad because he and Emma have somehow wormed their way in) "It's going to be okay. I don't make promises I don't intend to keep. I promise, it'll be okay."
She doesn't reply, just nods dumbly at him, watching as he disappears down the dark alley.
"You know a whole lot about broken promises, don't you, Lizzie," she hears from behind her.
Her eyes close.
It occurs to her that this is the first time tonight she hasn't jumped in response.
Maybe because she's been expecting him to show up all night long.
She turns to face him, taking in his indigo blue jeans and faded gray hoodie, his hair rumpled and uncombed. He looks as though he's just woken up, but she she's seen that look in his eyes before. She thinks that before came here, he'd taken something for his own back pain.
Probably something illegal.
The kind of stuff which tends to amp his aggressive and mean tendencies up to twenty.
Usually during those nights, she'd try to coax him to sleep, and if that hadn't worked, she'd let him have his way with her, because better that than experiencing the full force of his rage.
But they're well past any kind of pacifying measures now.
He steps towards her. "You made me a promise. For better or for worse."
"Trev, please," she says in a frightened exhale of breath. She looks down the alley, catching the back of Henry's jacket as he steps down one of the off-shoots; it's a fairly long alley, but she thinks if she called out for him – maybe even screamed loud enough to get his attention – then he could be back here within a few seconds and –
Trev doesn't give a chance to scream, lurching forward suddenly and slamming her against the wall; she grunts in pain, her already sore body protesting the harsh vibration that ripples through her frame. "I don't understand," he hisses, and she can smell the sour taint of alcohol on his breath. She tries not to think of evenings spent beneath him (or why it is that sometimes when she thinks about him like this, she sees another man above her – an older man whom she's pretty sure she's never met before, his eyes staring down at her like he barely sees her as he moves atop her), her nails in his back as she tried to keep him pleased and not angry.
He has two states when drunk: violently angry or melancholy and needy.
She has always been able to deal with the far more common, if uncomfortable, latter.
She hopes to hell that it's the latter now, even as she knows that it's not.
"You were hurting me," she tells him, her voice soft. "You're hurting me now."
"You're my wife," he reminds her, and then leans in and kisses her possessively, harshly.
She allows it, tears in her eyes, trying to figure out how to survive long enough for –
For what? One man to save her from another?
To what end? There has to be an end, right? A point where this doesn't all keep hurting?
"We're going to go home now," he tells her when he breaks the kiss, his hand reaching up to rest against her throat, a clear threat in the posture and motion. "We're going to go home, and you're going to get on your fucking hands and knees and beg for forgiveness, and then –"
"No, we're not," she replies. "I'm not."
"Excuse me?" he pulls back and stares at her, his red-rimmed eyes blown wide with fury.
"You're drunk, and you're angry, and I'm not…I'm not. I don't want to go with you. I don't…I don't want to be afraid anymore, Trev. I don't want to be hurt. I want…I just want to be free." She swallows when she says this, her body corded with equal parts fear and exhilaration.
Desperately wondering where this sudden bravery had come from.
"You sound like you think you're my prisoner. That Swan bitch put that in your head?"
"She didn't need to. You're here. You didn't even let me have one night to myself."
He reels back, surprised by her words. His head tilts. "Baby, I'm here to take care of you."
"No, you're here because you don't want to let me go."
"Of course not. I love you," he reminds her. "No one ever will ever love you like I do, Lizzie."
"No, they probably won't," she agrees. "But I don't think this is love, either."
"You're just scared, that's all. I get it. She's put so much crazy in your head, and you don't know if you're coming or going or who you are." He reaches out, and almost lovingly brushes hair from her eyes, smiling benevolently. "But I can take care of you. I can make this all better. We just, we just need to go home and spend some time together. Get away from all this madness."
"Trev–"
"I know everything is frightening right now," he says. "But I always make you stronger."
"I feel weaker," she counters.
He smiles at her, "You're beautiful, baby."
Sweet words which have worked before, words meant to touch the part of her which can't imagine how anyone could ever see her as beautiful. But then, Emma had said it as well.
Thing is, she realizes now that she'd believed Emma when she'd said it; she doesn't believe Trev. She shakes her head, looking around for Henry again, but not seeing him. "Trev, please."
"That's a good start," he says with a watery smile, and then leans in to kiss her once more, almost sweetly. Like everything for them is about to return to what it had been before.
But it can't.
Because if she stays with him, he really will kill her one of these days.
She reacts, then, and she can't exactly call it instinct because she's never dared to raise a hand to him before, and she most certainly has never thought to use her knee, but suddenly she is, and it's jamming upwards and into his groin, and he's shrieking and falling away from her.
Were this something she had done before, perhaps she'd know what to do next.
Something like run.
Instead, she freezes, staring in amazed horror, and then he's up on her, and he's hitting her with the back of his hand, the ring on his finger cutting a vicious jagged gash into her cheek.
She falls, a hand over her bloody cheek, her eyes wide in fear. She screams, "Henry!"
"Henry?" he growls out as he grabs her by the lapels of her windbreaker and hauls her up. "So, it's not just that whore you're fucking?" With brutal force, he slams her against the brick wall, her body shuddering. One hand closes around her throat as the other strikes aimlessly at her.
It's the alcohol and the fury, and he's ranting, but the words are nonsensical, hysterical.
He might even be crying, but it's hard to focus on much besides bones breaking.
She feels blood in her mouth, and tastes the iron; she tries to say his name, tries to beg.
Emma's name comes out instead.
She has no idea why, but it wrenches free of her lips, a desperate cry.
That's apparently a step too far; he throws her to the ground, his foot colliding with her ribs.
She hears a shout, hears Henry screaming, "Get the fuck off of my mother!"
Which is strange, she thinks, but then everything is fading to nothing for her.
As it usually does.
About ten minutes after Henry and Elizabeth leave the apartment together, Emma takes several deep almost shuddering breaths, centers herself, and then shakily forces herself back to her feet, whimpering as the intense pain in her back – far worse than she admitted to – screams at her. She reminds herself that this isn't the first or the last time she felt this kind of pain, and she had to survive in prison with this awful injury. She can handle getting up and crossing a room.
Nerves steeled to handle the pain she feels, she walks gingerly into the kitchen and behind the counter. She quickly digs up a bottle of aspirin hidden in the back behind the Tums, downs eight hundred milligrams of it with water, and then makes her way over to Henry's laptop.
Where Storybrooke is now rapidly blinking in and out.
There for ten seconds, gone again for another.
"Almost," she murmurs.
She reaches out and touches the screen, fingers on the town sign.
Somewhere outside, something crashes; she looks towards the window, eyes narrowing.
She's about to look out when she sees a shimmer from the laptop screen. Looking over, she notices that Storybrooke has disappeared again. She counts to ten, and waits for it to return.
It doesn't come back, and then there's shouting coming from outside as well.
From somewhere down below.
She hears, "Emma!"
She snaps towards the window, her eyes widening in horror as she watches Elizabeth's husband slamming her against the brick wall of the alley, her thin frail frame shuddering on each impact.
She's about to yell when she hears, "Get the fuck away from my mother!"
After that, back injury be damned, Emma Swan just moves.
Henry slams into Trev's body with every bit of fury he has within him, their bodies colliding in a thunderous crunch. They spin away from Elizabeth's bloodied, unconscious form, rolling away.
And then Henry's hitting.
Punching and punching and letting ten years of loss and heartbreak out on this terrible man.
Trev isn't the only boogeyman in this story, but right now, he's the biggest one in front of him.
Trev is in front of him, and Elizabeth is to his side, and he can see cuts and bruises, and all Henry can think of as he throws another punch is that she's still Regina, and she's been terribly hurt.
Again.
He'd let her be hurt again.
He'd promised her that it would be okay and…it's not okay.
It's not okay, and all of this is his fault.
He pulls back his arm to swing again, but then Trev catches it, and throws his own punch.
He might be drunk, high or both, but he's bigger than Henry, and has been in a lot more fights and so when he throws Henry off of him, there's an unsettling ease to the motion, and landing hard, Henry thinks he's in trouble. Remembering the gun in the back of his jeans, he reaches for it, his stomach sinking as he realizes that it must have fallen out when he'd rushed Trev.
Henry supposes he should be thankful he hadn't shot himself in the ass with it.
Levity later, he grimly reminds himself, thinking only about getting his unconscious mom to safety. All the while understanding that he's somehow got to get himself to safety first.
"I'm going to break every bone in you," Trev growls, reaching out for him, both hands coming to the side of Henry's face like he's thinking that he might start this off by crushing his skull in.
Henry thinks about his mothers, thinks about his grandparents, and thinks about his wife.
And then he thinks about Lucy, and how she will wake up to–
Trev falls backwards with a howl, and this time its Emma throwing herself into him; it seems impossible considering how she'd barely been able to stand a few moments ago, but Henry doesn't dwell on this, instead he scampers towards Elizabeth. Reaching down, he pulls her into his arms, checks for a pulse, and then, rocking her against him, whispers "It's going to be okay."
So many lies and broken promises, he thinks, tears on his cheeks.
Yesterday, today…but he doesn't know what else to say to make any of this better.
He hears a softly whispered, "Henry," and looks down to see Elizabeth staring up at him, her eyes glassy and unfocused, blood trickling down from a wound in her scalp. She lifts her hand up, her fingers softly touching his face and leaving smears of red to mix with the tears. "I don't want to die," she murmurs (the words come out garbled, but he still understands them).
"You won't," he says, "You're going to be okay."
There's another crash ahead, the sound of glass breaking; he looks up and sees Trev throw Emma back, sees her hit the boxes, a loud scream ripping from her lips as her back vibrates.
And then there's a gunshot.
Loud and echoing.
The sound reverberates through his brain, digging in deep and reminding him of something terrible he'd seen during one of his author hazes (as the typewriter clipped away on its own).
He remembers watching Emma shoot Hook almost ten years ago.
In an alley – with the sound of the gunshot echoing off the walls.
He remembers watching Killian Jones die alone, his blue eyes on the dark night above him.
There's a wet thud, and then Trev is falling, blood splattering against the ground.
"Henry," he hears. She repeats herself twice before he turns, seeing her kneeling over Trev.
"Is he –"
"He's alive," she manages, pale and clearly afraid. "I think he'll live." She looks up, then, as if hearing sirens, and yet certainly someone has called the police by now; this neighborhood isn't great but it's hardly the kind to let the sound of an attack and gunshots go by. She moves over to Elizabeth, tenderly checking for a pulse and exhaling. And then she says, "We have to go."
"What? Mom –" he looks down at Elizabeth, noticing that she's passed out again.
"Sirens, Henry. I just shot a man. And maybe eventually they figure it all out, and you'll be okay, but I won't be. I'm on parole, Kid. I'm not allowed to touch a gun. I will go back to prison."
"I won't –"
"We have to go." She shoves the gun into the back of her jeans. "Right now, Henry."
"Okay, just let me –" he starts to bend to pick up Elizabeth, wincing at the pain he feels, signs of the beat-down Trev had been laying on him before Emma put a bullet in him.
"No, Kid, we can't. We have to get Lucy. You have to get her," she says. "We don't have time."
"Time for – wait? You want us to leave her? No. We're not just going to leave Mom," he snaps.
"Of course not, but she's hurt. We don't know how bad. She needs help we can't give her."
"Emma, what the fuck are you saying?" he demands.
"I'm saying there are people coming out, and they're going to see both of us, and then neither one of us is going to be able to help Regina like this. If we try to move her, we're going to harm her more. She needs to see a doctor, and e need to get out of here while we can –"
"He'll hurt her –"
"He's not going to be hurting anyone for a very long time," Emma says quietly, looking over at Trev as he bleeds out; if the ambulance gets here quickly, they might be able to save him.
Or they won't, and she'll have two dead men on her hands.
She thinks she's about to vomit, and wonders how she manages not to.
"We're not just going to leave her," Henry repeats, his voice cracking with desperation.
"I promise you, we're not. We'll go back for her. As soon as we can, we will go back for her. But we have to go." She reaches out and touches his face. "If the cops get here, and we're still here, they'll see a man with a bullet in him and a badly beaten woman and the two of us. Me, a parolee who killed my husband, and you a guy who everyone at her job saw coming around constantly…they will take Lucy from you, and we'll never be able to help Regina. Kid –"
"We have to go," he finishes dully. Then, "Promise me we're not letting her go again."
"On my life," she answers without hesitation. She offers him a smile, but it doesn't quite meet her eyes – not because she doesn't mean it, but because her faith in herself has been badly broken over the years and all she has left are her failures. But this, this is something she can't fail at and won't. She lifts her head and looks at him head-on. "The rescues is not over, Henry."
Henry nods, and then bends down and presses a kiss to Elizabeth's forehead. Had they been in Storybrooke, perhaps there would have been bright lights everywhere, but out here, the magic is dented and broken, twisted around by the lack of hope that seems to exist in the real world.
He's a long way from the boy who had convinced New Yorker's that a fountain could be magical. "Hang on. Emma made me a promise, and I made you one. We'll keep them."
He looks up at Emma and she nods her head, sharply, her eyes blurred with tears.
He sees her opening and closing the hand that isn't still holding his just-fired gun.
"I'll make this right," she promises him, wanting so desperately to change her mind.
Knowing that they have no chance of an escape if they try to carry Elizabeth's broken frame.
Realizing that they don't know how badly she's hurt, and might only end up hurting her more.
She's done more than enough of that, Emma thinks grimly.
"I believe you," Henry tells her.
Down at the end of the alley, two cop cars flashing their lights pull up, greeting neighbors who have come out; the time for dwelling is over – if they don't go now, they won't be able to go.
Reluctantly, he stands up, and then after one shared last look back, Emma's grabbing his arm, and together, they're racing down the alley and up the fire escape back to his apartment.
Both of them understanding that they're on the clock, and if it runs out, everything is lost.
For all of them.
:D