A/N- Good guesses some of you on the phone call. A couple of you got your time reference off. Remember, when Regina overdosed on the Aspirin it was at the beginning of their junior year, now the women are in the final weeks of their junior year.
Usual warnings apply!
Emma should be afraid. She knows that logically, she should be terrified.
Her heart should be beating out of her chest, she should be running around her dorm, gathering things haphazardly, pulling on a sweater inside out. But she isn't.
She wonders momentarily if it's because Kathryn sounded so calm on the other end of the phone or maybe it's because she's been waiting for this moment for the past year so the fact that it's finally come really isn't that shocking.
Either way, Emma's hands aren't shaking as she ends the call, and drops her phone into her lap for a moment, "I need to go." She says.
Maura watches as Emma moves around the room, pulls on a sweater (right way out), grabs her phone, wallet, and room key.
She sits back down on the edge of her bed for a second, and runs her fingers over the soft plane of Maura's cheek before pressing a soft kiss to her lips, "I'm sorry."
Maura recognizes the ache in Emma's eyes, and already knows that this will be the end when she smiles reassuringly, "It's alright, I'll be here when you get back."
Emma exits her dorm room and quickly makes it down to street level. She calls a cab, and when it arrives she tells the driver quite clearly, "Duke University Hospital."
He sends her a sympathetic smile and drives quickly but carefully. He knows that nobody goes to a hospital at two in the morning for a good reason.
As he drives, Emma replays the conversation she had with Kathryn. The blonde had sounded exhausted, and if Emma didn't know better, she would think almost bored as she had narrated the events of the evening.
Emma recalls the conversation in snippets, saving only the most important bits Kathryn had relayed to her; no answer, door unlocked, unconscious, empty bottles, shoved my fingers down her throat, told campus PO it was alcohol poisoning, overdose.
By the time the cab pulls up outside the hospital, Emma's lost her cold numb, and now she's furious.
Regina almost left her.
She hardly registers the cab driver telling her not to worry about the fare. Emma finds Regina's room easily enough, inside the brunette is lying in bed unconscious, Kathryn is sitting beside her.
"She hasn't woken up since I brought her in. The doctor said she was fine and that she just needed to sleep it off."
The other blonde stands to welcome her, their hug is short and tense, two people thrown together by mutual tragedy. When they part, Emma takes a moment to just regard Regina. She looks so undisturbed with only a scattering of tubes dripping fluid steadily into her veins.
Emma tries not to think about how the last time she saw Regina, she was leaving her broken in a dorm room because she didn't think she was strong enough. She can't help but drop heavily into the chair beside the one Kathryn had been occupying.
It's stiff and unforgiving, though Emma may have spent her summer in and out of the hospital volunteering, she is not yet part of the frequent flier club of rotating faces which occupy these chairs.
"I told you." Kathryn says softly, dropping back into her chair.
"What?"
"That you shouldn't have come back."
"You were right." Emma agrees with a dry laugh, "It's too late now."
Both blondes just watch the steady rise and fall of Regina's chest for a moment. Emma has never found something so much solace in something that ought to be so predictable. But each time the air slips from Regina's lips, Emma finds herself holding her own breath until she is sure that Regina has taken in another lungful.
The worry is exhausting.
"Tell me again what happened."
Kathryn is playing with her fingers. It's more of a knotting than Regina's normal pinching, but the similarity is clear to Emma nonetheless, "One of her freshmen wanted to talk, when he knocked, she didn't answer, but the door was unlocked." Kathryn stops her knotting and lays her hand expertly over Regina's to avoid the monitor clipped onto her finger, "He found her passed out with an empty baggie."
"Like the role model every RA hopes to be." Emma isn't sure where the boldness for her sudden cynical streak is coming from, but she blames Regina (which she knows is ridiculous).
Kathryn allows her a tight grin, "Luckily, I was on the floor and I managed to get her to throw up most of the pills before campus PO got there."
"What did she take?"
"My guess is Klonopin. I told them it was alcohol poisoning."
Emma nods, staring critically at the dark circles under Regina's eyes, even unconscious she can't manage to look peaceful. It makes Emma sick.
Almost as sick as when she realizes how rehearsed Kathryn's procedure was. Emma hadn't noticed until now that they weren't in the psych ward. She knows that this cannot be Kathryn's first time here with Regina like this.
"Considering how empty the bourbon bottle was, it's probably not that far from the truth."
They're both quiet for a while, regarding this fleeting creature who so nearly left them.
"How many times has she done this?" Emma's voice is quiet, and she's almost sure that she doesn't want to hear the answer.
"She's been in therapy, I don't understand. She was doing so much better."
"Kathryn."
"This is the second time she's tried to overdose and I've brought her to the hospital."
"Kathryn." Emma says again, this time she can feel the defeat in her voice, "How many times has she tried to do this."
The blonde heaves a sigh, "I don't know, four that I've caught her, but I know she's tried more."
Emma has no words, she doesn't think that she will ever quite find the words for this.
"I should have gone home with her." Kathryn says, shaking her head, "She asked me to come with her because her mother is always easier to handle with company, but I had exams and I said no."
"This isn't your fault." Emma insists. She doesn't know if she wants this to be true for Kathryn's sake or her own.
They sit in silence for a while until a redhead pauses in the open doorway. Emma watches her bring a hand up to cover her mouth as her face distorts in distress. The woman visibly shrinks in on herself, tears blooming like flowers in the corners of her eyes, and though the only resemblance Emma can find between her and the brunette lying in the bed is their strong jaw lines, she knows instinctively that this woman must be Regina's sister.
Her suspicion is confirmed when Kathryn stands, "Zelena."
The older woman chokes out a sob. She takes one step inside the room before leaning back against the wall for support. She makes no move to approach Regina, and her hand never strays from covering her distraught mouth. With Zelena moved from blocking the doorway, Emma sees a tall man trail her inside, wrapping an arm around Zelena as if that can keep her from falling apart before his eyes.
Emma knows that this must be the fiance, and with the way his brows are knitted together in concern, he cares deeply for both Mills women.
Kathryn gives the redhead a quick update on Regina's status which Zelena listens to with a blank expression. The four of them remain quietly watching the rise and fall of Regina's chest while the sun rises outside of her window. It brings warm reds and oranges washing across the unconscious woman's cheeks, and Emma can almost pretend that she was flushing with life.
When Emma can stand it no longer, she leaves the room, pacing up and down the hallway with determined strides. She doesn't know how long she had been pacing, but she is sure she must be wearing a track in the linoleum. Emma only pauses when the sun was fully risen and she hears shouting coming from the direction of Regina's room.
Emma follows the voices, and pauses in the doorway.
"What in the hell were you thinking, Regina?!" Zelena shouts. Emma watches Robin wrap an arm around her to try and calm her down.
Regina is finally awake, and though her eyes are still bleary, she has a distinct look of fury on her face when she responds, "I was thinking-"
"No, you weren't fucking thinking, were you?"
The women glare at each other a moment before Robin jumps in, "Come on, Zelena. Let's take a walk."
Zelena shoots her sister one final hard look before turning from the room. Robin gives Regina's hand a quick reassuring squeeze before following her.
Emma is bewildered.
Or rather, she is amazed that she isn't entirely caught off guard by the furious encounter between the two women. Regina apparently isn't too surprised either, "Why did you call her?"
"She was in town, and she wanted to have lunch with the two of us tomorrow." Kathryn says gently, "I thought that might be difficult for her to do with you in the hospital."
Regina levels her friend with a look.
"I'm going to tell the nurse you're up. She wanted to speak with you, in case you forgot, you drank a bottle of bourbon." With that, Kathryn follows in Robin and Zelena's track out of the room.
Emma hovers uncertainly near the door. She waits until Regina locks eyes with her to move further into the room and drop into the empty seat by the brunette's bed.
"So is it your turn to berate me?"
Emma takes in the defeated look in the brunette's eyes before deflating, "I'm not going to berate you." She rubs a hand down over her face, "Honestly, I was pissed the whole way over here."
"And now?"
"I don't know."
"Why are you here?"
"I don't know."
Regina's features soften ever so slightly. She still is full of sharp corners and harsh angles, she still lives in a glass house, but maybe just for this moment she's stopped throwing stones from inside.
"What do you know?"
Emma smiles this little self deprecating smile that she's perfected over the years, "Not much." This earns her a slight quirk at the corners of Regina's lips, the same quirk that Emma used to be able to kiss into a full blown smile.
She doesn't.
"I know that you almost left me."
Regina's eyes crinkle the smallest bit, and Emma plows on, "I know it's been nearly a year since I walked away, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about you."
"Emma-"
"No, Regina, just listen. I moved on, I've been dating this woman for almost five months now, and she's amazing. She doesn't scare me like you do. I know that I could love her so easily, but I can't because she isn't you."
Emma pauses, her breath shaking slightly as she tries to reign in her emotions.
"I tried so hard to love her." She whispers, admitting defeat.
"I'm so sorry." Regina says, and finally the tears do slip out, small graceful droplets that run down Regina's cheeks before getting wiped away by Emma's thumb.
Emma doesn't think twice before she moves from her chair to sit in the bed beside Regina, holding the strong brunette tight as her tears soak through Emma's sweater.
"It's alright, everything is going to be alright."
Emma leaves later that afternoon when Zelena has returned with tears in her eyes to apologize to her sister. She shares a brief, understanding look with the fiance before she exits the room.
Emma and Maura break up that evening.
She does not call Regina, she gets a text from Kathryn that they are releasing Regina with pamphlets on Alcoholics Anonymous groups. She does not reply.
Emma climbs the fire escape of her dorm building that night. She sits on the rooftop and thinks of how the ancient peoples used to explain their existence through the constellations. How they could orient themselves through the desert just by the use of stars. She wonders if they ever realized that some stars are so far away that they've been burned out for years, but their light is still traveling through space.
She wonders how far through space Regina's light will travel, she's positive that if the brunette burned out, she would know.
A/N- Thank you for reading.