Here it is: the final chapter. Ah!
Chapter 11
Regina's heart beats in tandem with the metrical humming of the machine. Beep beep beep beep beep. She closes her eyes; a lullaby of reassurance as sleep drowns her senses. Beep beep beep beep beep-
He eyes rip open and collide with the thin red line. There is neither her heart beat nor the steady hum- just a heavy silence. And then- beep beep beep beep beep.
The past hours have consisted of Regina drifting to sleep and then awakening to the loud cacophony of nothingness, before drifting back to tranquillity. Never once has her hand loosened its grip on Emma's. She squeezes it in regular pulses, as if the blonde's limp fingers are the bursting red organ that doesn't burst anymore. She looks like a puppet: drips and wires are her security, her prison, and death is the puppeteer. It toys with her, fluctuating in its attacks as Emma remains still. So very still.
It had taken Regina mere seconds to gather her power and magic herself and the lifeless saviour to the hospital. She had screamed for Whale until her voice had shrunk in to a scratchy wheeze.
"Regina. Regina, its okay. I'm here. You need to tell me what happened, okay?" Whale had urged, as his hand became dead weight on Regina's shoulders.
"TO HELL WITH WHAT HAPPENED! JUST SAVE HER!"
She felt so helpless. So afraid. And so angry.
Emma was lifted on to a hospital bed, a web of leads injecting life in to her veins. But magic doesn't work like that. Regina found her hand and refused to let go.
"Regina we need to know what happened!" Whale cried, as a swarm of nurses began working on the lifeless body like indoctrinated robots.
"I don—SHE WAS KILLED!" She was shaking with rage, sequestered in the corner of the room like a herded animal.
"KILLED!?" Whale screamed back at her in disbelief.
"By Rumplestiltskin. We travelled back in time to the Enchanted Forest and he stabbed her with his dagger and NONE OF THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN! WHY DIDN'T SHE WAKE UP?"
They had done it. They had travelled back at a pivotal moment. Emma had fully transformed. Rumplestiltskin had killed her and they had returned. Emma's darkness had gone. Her old dagger lost. She was meant to be awake. She was meant to be alive.
Whale came to stand in front of the quivering brunette. "There is nothing we can do but keep her hooked up and… and wait. She seems to be in an unidentifiable state. Not quite dead but not quite alive. Her heartbeat is weak but it's there. It is impossible to say how long she will be in this state for."
"What will happen when she does come out of it?" Regina whispered, defeated.
"I don't know. I'm sorry. Her preserved state is preventing her mind from formulating a decision. When and if the state breaks she will either awaken or… die."
He left her after that. All the nurses dissipated too, leaving Regina alone with the beating machine that portrayed the beating heart. The papery skin had lost its translucency, instead eradicated by a solid shade of chalk white. Her eyelids were like stone, if they had fluttered, even momentarily, Regina had imagined it. She stroked Emma's thumb and began to whisper:
"Emma Swan, why do you always have to be so dramatic? You can wake up now. You had me fooled, okay. I'll admit that. But it's getting tedious now and Henry will be missing you… Emma if not for me then for Henry? Please. I don't know why you always have to be so reckless? Stealing the Queen! Well, I can't fault your determination but talk about tampering with the past."
Oh Emma what have we done.
The Queen… oh no, THE QUEEN! The darkness. It went in to her. It left Emma and went in to herself. But… she didn't feel any different. Still Regina. Still in Storybrooke. Oh.
"Oh Emma you are an idiot," Regina smiled sadly, pressing a soft kiss to Emma's forehead.
"EMMA! EMMA!" Snow screeched, racing towards her lifeless daughter. Regina dodged the petite women as she threw herself on top of the blonde in an agonizing wail. David followed swiftly behind, the baby Neal in his arms. Regina bit her lip as tears leaked from her eyes.
"David… David… what have we done? I should have saved Regina. Not Emma. Anybody but my baby girl," sobbed the figure clutching her daughter's body. Yet she received no pressure in return.
Regina placed a tentative hand on Snow's shoulder. "Emma… she… she chose to save me. I still don't understand why she did it, but she did. And it was the most poignant of sacrifices. She will wake up. I promise you. Emma Swan is not dying."
The three adults sat in silence for an hour, afraid that Emma might evaporate if they even so much as blinked. It was only after Neal began crying hysterically that their trance had broken and the Charming's regretfully slipped out.
Then Henry came in.
"Mom?"
Regina tried to suppress her fear. She really did. But upon hearing her son she exploded, a mess of emotions. She felt his arms wrap around her shoulders. She breathed in his smell: lemon scented shampoo (the kind that Henry denies he likes to use), cinnamon and a scent of forest (similar to Roland's). She had missed him so much. She had missed him mostly because she hadn't had him. Or even known of him. Her younger self had been devoid of the happiest aspect of her life: Henry.
"Will Ma ever wake up? I don't want to live without her. Without you and her." Henry had begun to accumulate his own trail of child-sized tears. Except he wasn't her little boy anymore. He was their big, brave boy.
Henry is at the Charming's now, the perfect family nursing their tears and praying for their beloved daughter/mother. Regina somehow manages to find sleep amongst the myriad of thoughts that tighten around her senses before-
"Regina? Wake up, it's me."
Robin's warm eyes are magnified as they near to her face, his lips leaving an indentation on hers. She shivers. He notices.
"Regina, come home. You are making yourself ill. Please." He crouches down beside her, pulling her hands towards his chest, embracing her, loving her. He strokes her cheek and whispers, "I'm so relieved to have you back and safe. Only an hour has passed since you left but it was agony."
She is crying again. He wipes away her tears, as if they're not important, as if they're not about him. He kisses her again tenderly, his face scratching against hers. They don't match. They're a disjointed puzzle forced together by the prison sentence of Soul Mates. And she wants to love him. She does love him. But—
"I'm not in love you," she blurts, shaking with relief at the admittance.
"What?"
"I thought that you were my only happy ending; that I had to be with you to be happy. You're my Soul Mate. That seemed more dominating than any other fantasy I had wanted to host. You can't say no to a Soul Mate."
Robins face is unreadable so she carries on: "And I think I did love you. I do love you. I will never understand why you love me. But you do, and it hurts too much." Her voice breaks and she inhales rapidly, "I am so sorry, Robin. I can't do this anymore. I think I'm happy but I'm not. Not really. I don't know!"
"I do."
"What?"
"I know why, Regina. You're in love with someone else. I've tried to ignore it too but… Regina, you're in love with Emma."
"Wait, no! You've got completely the wro—"
Robin smiles sadly, "No I haven't. You've loved Emma Swan for far longer than you've ever known me. Think about it Regina. She understands you. You would die for her, in a heartbeat, I know. You're so free when you're around her. You've both denied it for so long that you've forgotten that you deserve true happiness. I'm sorry I haven't been the one to give you that. I really am." He glances down at Emma then back up at the brunette's pained face, "Go get your happiness, Regina. You deserve it. More than anyone. Both of you do."
And then he leaves.
Her heart begins to proliferate; her stomach erupts in to an exuberance of fluttering insects; a smile morphs her features because he is right. Emma Swan, you're an idiot. We both are.
Yet she realises all too soon the sad truth. Yes her happiness is right in front of her, but it is also dying on a hospital bed.
…
Henry calls it Operation Happiness. It is written in his best script on Snow's teaching blackboard with two stick figures scrawled underneath: Emma and a slightly shorter Regina. Upon Robin's departure and experiencing a harrowing moment of pure despondency, Regina had sought hope in the form of the Truest Believer: their son. Henry had hugged his mother with ferocity and said four of the most potent words in Regina's life…
"We will save her."
Regina is sitting amongst the Charming's now, watching in amazement as Henry draws up a large mind map with a million words and phrases projecting off it in all directions.
"There are loads of possibilities to wake her up," he begins, like a teacher addressing his class. "Obviously there's true love's kiss but it wasn't a curse so it's unlikely that will work. There is also a spell which can be cast BUT it could have the opposite effect. Ermmmm… well I suppose we could always take out a heart and split it in two like grandma and grandpa did?"
"That would require someone that could fuel their own life as well as Emma's. Only true love can do that," David says gently.
"I can do it! Emma loves me and I love her so it will work," her little boy yelps, excitedly. Regina can practically see his heart glowing in determination.
"No, Henry. It is too dangerous. Being a child, it would be unlikely you could survive. Emma wouldn't want that," Regina responds firmly, squandering Henry's hope.
The family grow quiet in their ponderings. Regina opens her mouth to speak then clamps it shut again. No. Who am I to assume that?
"REGINA!" Snow exclaims, jumping off her seat to grab Regina's hand. "You can do it!"
"Snow? Regina isn't Emma's true love?" David stumbles over his words in disbelief.
"Yes she is! Don't you see it?" She turns towards her former oppressor, "You'll do this won't you? For Emma?"
Regina swallows thickly. And nods.
…
The beeping is diminishing now. Great pauses can be heard in between hums. Her heart beat slows as her face only grows whiter: a harsh correlation. Regina has left the Charming's and her son outside the room. Concentration is required, not Snow's urgent whimpers.
She gazes down at the blonde. "You're going to kill me for this, Emma Swan," Regina chuckles bitterly. She extends her hand towards the woman's chest and plunges in, clasping around the organ. Carefully, she begins to extract her hand, tightening her grip on the beating shell as it emerges from the torso into the open….
An iridescent light erupts from Emma's chest, causing Regina to topple backwards in its velocity. The heart is no longer in her grasp but visibly beating, casting red shadows on the walls from its residence inside the saviour. The saviour, of course.
Emma's organ is screaming from inside her ribcage; demanding attention and rejoicing in its sudden influx of life. Regina straightens and walks shakily over to the blonde.
"What did you do?" croaks the small voice, cowering behind the blinding light.
Regina chokes and laughs giddily at the other woman. "Nothing!" she softens, "Nothing. I was going to split my heart in two for you…So that we could be enough for the both of us."
"You would really do that for me?" Emma's eyes widen.
"Erm… yes… it was your mother's idea actually. True love and finding each other and-"
"Regina?"
"Yes?"
"Can I be your happy ending?"
And it's so blunt. And so undoubtedly Emma Swan that Regina's eyes blur with tears of the future and family and everything she has ever wanted. Everything her former self has ever wanted.
"You're an idiot," she replies through laughter and tears.
Emma's eyes twinkle. "Probably. But you can have an idiotic happy ending right?"
Regina deflates a little. "What if you're not meant to be my happy ending? Every other happy ending has been wrong…"
"It's simple."
"…"
"It's not the happy ending that changes, Regina. It's the people you find it with. You and I, it's your happy ending: the same happy ending. Just with a different name."
"A different engraving," Regina muses.
Their walls have crumbled, yet they're still standing. Their wounds have ripped open, have bled dry with truths once repressed, yet blood still courses through their veins. Their endings are the same, yet the engraving has changed.
"A different engraving," and Emma traces her name with a finger on Regina's palm.
The saviour smiles at the Evil Queen. Except they're not defined by labels anymore… They're just Emma and Regina. Regina and Emma. Two people imprisoned by their past, emancipated by their future. And it's liberating to finally choose.
A/N: I really hope I gave you all the ending you wanted. I spent ages agonizing over that last line. I think, for Regina, everyone has always been mapped out for her. She's been the product of Rumplestiltskin and her mother for so many years that she has never truly experienced freedom. Any other choice she has ever made has been denied. Robin wasn't a choice. Robin was predestined, chosen by fairy dust and a lion tattoo. The only person Regina has ever chosen is Emma. And that is why I wanted to end with that line.
I am so proud of this story. It was hard. Sometimes I wanted to give up, other times I just wanted to write and write and write. I am sure this won't be my only fanfiction : ) I would appreciate it IMMENSELY if you could take the time to review. Let me know what you liked, whether you want more, what I could improve on, ANYTHING to encourage me. Thank you to everyone that has followed, favourited and reviewed so far. I hope to keep this story alive through its expanding readership, so if you did enjoy it then please share it on social media etc.
Much love,
wavesketcher