A/N- Thanks for reading, have a kick ass Monday
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"Justice could be as blind as love."
― Toba Beta, My Ancestor Was an Ancient Astronaut
...
The first time Regina seeks comfort is the next morning.
She drags herself out of bed when the sun still hasn't risen, pulls on a pair of running pants and t-shirt as best as she can without jostling her hands too much. Her bandages have blushed pink in the middle of the night.
Daniel still isn't home by the time she pulls on her trainers and begins running. She makes it to the corner overlooking the toll bridge where she first ran into Emma, and she waits. She leans against a tree, and revels in the burn of the cold air rushing in and out of her lungs.
When she had retired to bed after Emma left, Regina checked out her leg. It was (thankfully) just a couple more cuts from glass, one particularly bad one ran approximately three inches in a jagged line down the outside of her left thigh. She was able to clean and bandage those on her own, and now she presses her hand to her left side gingerly, glad to see at least for now it comes away from her running pants not streaked with red.
Regina is drawn from her contemplation of her body by a wheezing. It's Emma sprinting towards her from the opposite direction.
Regina can't help the greeting that tumbles past her lips upon seeing Emma, "You look like shit."
The blonde smiles, she knows how true this statement must be considering she's not slept all night, she hardly had enough time to get home, grab a banana that functioned as both her dinner for the night before and breakfast, check that Henry was still tucked in securely (Ruby was passed out on the couch) and change clothes, running back out the door in hopes of catching Regina at this very spot. She smiles because she knows that between the two of them, she should not be looking the worst right now.
"Thanks, you're looking pretty swell yourself."
Regina feels herself giving into the urge to smile like she always does with Emma.
They kind of stand in silence for a while until Emma nods her head towards the path that she came from, "Want to run?"
Regina follows her lead.
They don't say anything as they run. Not until Regina pulls her sleeves down over her hands to protect against the cold and she lets out an involuntary wince of pain at the movement against her palms.
Emma bites her tongue for a second, trying to silence herself, but she can't help it, "Why don't you leave him?"
Regina rolls the question around her mind for a minute before answering. It's the same thing she's been asking herself since the first time he laid a hand on her, and she still isn't quite sure she knows how to explain this.
"Do you believe that there's multiple sides to every person?"
"Yeah, but-" Emma begins, trying to reason Regina out of this.
"Just listen for a minute." Regina smiles teasingly, "There's this side of Daniel, this wonderfully kind, loving, side. The side that made me mix tapes in college, and burned toast when he tried to surprise me by making breakfast. The side I fell in love with, and sometimes that side shows and I just-" She falters.
Emma gets the sense that Regina Mills is not a woman who often falters in her words.
"I'm still in love with him."
