A/N: Just a simple chapter for my readers. Still, I hope everyone likes it.
"Mary Margaret? Mary Margaret, can you hear me?"
The voice was faint, rustling like dry leaves skittering across cold cement in fall. Her ears strained to catch it again, but it was gone. Stomach cramping. Eyelids heavy—her eyes refused to open.
All she wanted was to slip back into sleep. So, she did.
It must have been hours later that she awoke to a room of white. Or had it only been minutes? It was so bright; it hurt to try to open her eyes to it. Oh, God…had she somehow died? Was this what people so often saw when hanging on death's door?
The white started to dissipate and her heart settled with it. No, she wasn't dead. It was okay. She was in a hospital room. Yes, the smell of the crisp, sterile sheets and antiseptic were clogging her nostrils. But why? Why was she here?
Slowly, fuzzily, the pieces flowed back to her. The pear…biting into it…pain in her belly…blood…Oh, God, there's blood everywhere…
"Mary Margaret?"
A familiar voice called to her from the foot of the hospital bed. Emma. Oh, she must have been a nervous wreck, though she'd be too stubborn to admit to it. How long had she been sitting here, waiting for her to wake up? Hours? Days?
Blinking, Mary Margaret forced her eyes to seek out Emma, hunched over the rail at the end of the bed.
Relief visibly passed over her face, a thin smile on her lips. It didn't even come close to her eyes, eyes that were oddly as green as Mary Margaret's. Circles darkened her lower eyelids—Emma had probably seen worse days, but this must have been a contender.
"How are you feeling?" Concern filtered through her normally hard-edged voice. Mary Margaret opened her mouth to answer with 'fine', but she knew it would be a lie. Resting her head back on the pillow, she concentrated on her body's signals.
How did she feel?
A deep ache purged her belly and it felt chillingly hollow, like she'd been fasting for the past two weeks. Tingling sensations shot through her toes and fingers as she urged them to move. Her throat was sore and it was an effort to lift her head from the pillow.
"I feel like…I've been hit by a truck," she croaked. Raw and raspy. Emma walked over to the right side of her bed and held out a glass of water for her. It had a bendy straw in it. Mary Margaret sucked the water down gratefully and swished it around her gums.
"You weren't hit by a truck," Emma assured her with little humor. She sounded tired, worn out. Underneath that: regretful. Sad. "It's hard to explain. We…were worried about you."
She paused to set the glass of water down on the bedside table. Even so, it was hard to miss the way Emma's eyes glared at something on Mary Margaret's left.
"We?" Her head gradually shifted on the pillow to meet the eyes of the person lingering by her bedside. A pair of rich brown eyes that she had on more than one occasion fallen into.
Mr. Gold. She hadn't seen him since their argument in his shop. Last she heard, Emma had slapped him. Hard.
"Did you expect I would not come, dearie? Or worse…that I would not care?" Her heart ached as she gazed longingly at him. Those brown eyes were captivating her again. And he was here…sitting by her bedside? There was a greater reason for his presence, wasn't there?
"What happened?" Instinctively, her arm dragged across the breezy hospital gown to her stomach. Her aching, hollow stomach. No. "What happened…to the baby?"
"Mary Margaret," Emma tried catching her attention. Possibly to explain why she was lying in a horribly bare hospital gown and how there wasn't even the slightest weight in her abdomen to suggest another human being stretching and growing in her womb.
But Emma didn't need to explain—it was not the Sheriff that Mary Margaret turned to for the answer. Her eyes latched onto Gold, searching his face for the slightest inkling of news. He averted his gaze, but she already read the pain etched there. The air was trapped inside her lungs, she couldn't breathe…
"No," she whispered, begging for it to be anything but the truth. It had to be a mistake. Anything but that. Anything. "No, please. The baby…"
"…is gone," he muttered.
His voice was almost inaudible. And yet the words bounced off the walls and repeated louder and louder until her eardrums wanted to explode. Gone. The baby…is gone. Something inside her crumbled and suddenly she was choking back a wave of sobs into her pillow. A gentle hand—Emma's—rubbed her trembling back.
"I'm so sorry, Mary. We don't even know what happened in the apartment. Whale thinks you might have fallen the wrong way—" Mary Margaret swallowed her wracking sobs and jerked up in the bed. Furiously, she wiped away the tears from her reddened cheeks.
"I never fell! That's not what caused it," Mary Margaret protested through the sobs. She sniffed and rubbed her face with the back of her hand. Gold still wasn't looking at her, as if it were too difficult. Or was he afraid of the torment he'd find?
"Did you talk to Henry?" Henry knew the truth. Of course he did.
Little pieces of their conversation ebbed across her mind. Emma frowned, her hands gripping the rail of the hospital bed.
"He came running to the station. He talked so fast—all I caught was the fact that you needed help. I dropped him off at his house before checking on you. He kept repeating something about a pear. What ever happened to poisoned apples?"
Mary Margaret's heart soared and she almost lurched straight up in bed as the rest of the conversation hit her. Yes, how could she forget? Henry's panic-filled voice haunted her. Don't eat that! Mary Margaret!
"The pear," she hissed as she clamped onto Emma's arm, frantically shaking it. "The pear! It's still in the apartment! It's what caused…this!" She couldn't bring herself to accept that term yet. Miscarriage. Even in her mind, it sent a shiver down her spine.
In the periphery of her vision, Gold's head lifted. She was certain the wheels were spinning in his head. He had to know, he had to understand. And now Emma's brow was furrowed with serious thought.
"Mary, there was no pear," she said almost hesitantly. Her voice was tainted with confusion. Mary Margaret stiffened and frowned. Her grip loosened on Emma's arm. What was she talking about? Of course it was there! It had to be!
"No, it is! The pear rolled out of my hand after I bit it, after the pain started." Emma wasn't listening; she was shaking her head negatively. Why was she doing that? "Emma, it was on my doormat. I took it because I thought it was from Henry—"
"Mary," Emma sighed, but Mary Margaret was on a roll. The emotions were building, a wave too powerful to intercept.
"And I bit it. I talked to Henry on the walkie-talkie, but he said he never left it for me—"
"Mary."
"And then the pain started and Emma, it hurt so much. Henry heard what happened, you can ask him—"
"Mary Margaret!" Emma snapped and Mary Margaret fell quiet. Why wasn't Emma listening? Didn't she see that this wasn't just a coincidence? "Mary, I found you on the kitchen floor. Alone. There was you and the walkie-talkie. There was no pear. There was nothing else!"
Emma's eyes were gleaming like diamonds, or maybe more like the surface of a clear river about to be disrupted by a pebble. Her hand trembled violently as she squeezed Mary Margaret's hand in a forced show of comfort. As the meaning sunk in, Mary Margaret fell back against the bed.
Nothing else. No pear.
"But…but she…" She. The magic word.
Both pairs of eyes burned into her at that moment and Emma's face regained its hard quality. Her lips thinned unpleasantly and anger flushed her neck. Red almost the shade of her infamous leather jacket.
"She?" It was bitter and distasteful…and it came from Gold.
Mary Margaret glanced over at him and noticed the rage simmering just beneath the brown surface. A cold feeling seeped into her bones as she realized what she'd just done. Oh, God, he was going to kill Regina. Slowly. Then again, if he didn't get to her first, Emma would.
She didn't know which fate would be worse for the Mayor.
"Mary—" Emma's tone was raw and unforgiving. She didn't need to look to know that Emma would be dealing with a brutal onslaught of anger. To kill Regina or not kill Regina…that was the question. "Did you bolt the door after I left?"
The deadbolt.
The one that August had installed on their apartment door to keep Regina from gaining entrance.
After Emma had left…she had found the pear and had been too surprised by it to double-check the door before biting into it. It had been unlocked, which meant Regina only needed one of her fabled skeleton keys that Emma had mentioned in order to step inside. A vampire given its invitation.
Emma inclined her head. The silence had given her the answer.
"Emma, could you give us a minute?" Mary Margaret tilted her head toward Gold.
Her cheeks were still warm, but the tears had slowed. Was she in shock? It was so hard to wrap her mind around this trauma. She and Gold had things to discuss. As expected, Emma's eyes narrowed distrustfully.
"Please," Mary Margaret practically begged. Emma looked like she wanted to argue, but she nodded and slipped from the room. Out to shop for a pitchfork, no doubt. Or maybe to reacquaint herself with that chainsaw.
A tense silence settled between them as the door closed. It seemed neither of them had the courage or the wisdom enough to break it. Every now and then, Mary Margaret's chest would abruptly rise with a sob.
Where did she even begin? It was so much easier to talk to him before their fallout.
"You could have protected me." Gold's head rose and he uneasily studied her gentle face.
At first, he thought it was an accusation; that she was condemning him for not being there to prevent it. But then he registered the surge of sadness building behind her carefully constructed porcelain features.
"Mary Margaret, I—" Gods, this was hard to deal with. It weighed on his shoulders like an immovable boulder. The last time his insides had ached this bitterly was the night he'd released Belle from his castle. Centuries before that, Bae had fallen into that pitiful swirling vortex.
"If I hadn't broken it off with you, I might have gone home with you. When I'm with you, I'm protected. Regina can't hurt me." Her face was turned away from him on the pillow, but a tear rolled across her skin. He longed to brush it away.
She was blaming herself, not him. She regretted turning her back on the utmost source of protection and therefore took her chances with Regina's wrath.
"Protecting you, that's…that's not the reason I did it," he admitted, letting his head hang.
Of course, he would have protected her, but the main reason was because he had been selfish. Taking what he wanted like the monster he was. Because he wanted—no, needed—her close to him in this world.
"Maybe not, but it was one of the benefits, wasn't it?" She sniffed and reached out to touch the hand resting on his cane. Those green eyes were tormenting in their grief. "I think of all the things Regina could have done to me these last few months. It's true she set me up for murder, she made everyone in town including David turn on me, and she exposed my relationship with you…but you were there. Regina could have done so much worse, except you were there."
It gave him an empty feeling to listen to her undeserving praise for what they had. And what did they have, really? A business matter alongside the river and a messy relationship besides. They could not even hope for greater commitment, thanks to Regina.
Maybe this was why he was hanging his head. Maybe he knew he did not deserve it. All he could imagine was the way she had looked at him in his shop, as if he were the last person she'd ever desire. A monster.
"Do you still hate me?" What was he asking? Of course she would.
That moment in his shop had been the beginning of the end—she had finally seen what everyone else realized first. And now she would pull her hand away because she would be reminded of the truth. Any moment now.
But her delicate hand was still there. In fact, there was the slightest pressure—she was squeezing his hand. Why was she daring to mock him? To give him false hope?
The hospital bed groaned as she shifted closer to the edge, closer to him. He could almost feel the warmth of her body emanating between them, tempting him to peek at her. Was that a smile on her lips? A weak one, but it was there.
"Even when I was standing in your shop and it was clear you had pushed Regina to fire me, I never hated you. I think…I wanted to. I knew I should. But the anger didn't last long. If anything, I pitied you." Pity? That was only a step above disgust. And apparently, he was not yet spared.
"For someone who is so desperate for comfort that they would do anything for it, someone who wants to know he's not just a monster. You try to be, and maybe you've convinced yourself. But you're not." She smiled at him and finally withdrew her hand. "I'm still upset over our argument, but this…what Regina's done to me is so much worse."
He couldn't argue with that point. In his mind, Regina already had a tombstone waiting for her. It was bad enough she'd miraculously had the guts to stamp her heel down on his special word.
Despite what Mary Margaret thought, he wouldn't hurt Regina yet. He'd bide his time for the opportune moment.
"It's not your fault," he whispered to her, his fingers wrapping almost painfully around his cane. Was it just him or was there a flicker of doubt in her eyes? "She will not walk away from this. Trust me, dearie. This time, Regina has gone too far."
Swallowing his fury, he rose from the chair and set his sights on the door. Before he could take a step, Mary Margaret's light hand grabbed onto his, a surprisingly firm weight that bound him to her side.
"Stay with me," she pleaded.
Glancing down at her, he saw the tears beginning to build beneath her eyelids again. Her chest rose and fell, though the occasional quiver sent a gasp through her throat. The best thing for her would be to walk away, to leave her be. Let that fool David Nolan come in here and sweep up the pieces of her heart.
But as he had come to accept so long ago, he was quite selfish.
Dipping his head, he sunk back into the chair and brought Mary Margaret's hand to his lips to press a kiss to her skin. It was a silent promise—as long as she wanted him, he would not leave her for a moment.
….
Only a month or so until season 2! Though I certainly wish the wait were already over. Of course, I also have my reviewers to thank. Thank you everyone who is reading this story and enjoying it. That's all I can really hope for.
To DragonRose4: Thank you for the support, as always. And this is Once Upon A Time—apparently, everyone missed the memo about not eating the Evil Queen's fruit. (-;
To Twyla Mercedes: Yeah, it was a difficult decision for me to make, but the upside is that Regina has definitely caused Mary Margaret more pain than Gold has. That woman will do almost anything to get what she wants. Maybe that's why it's so much writing her.
Thank you everyone for reading! Until next time!
