Coffee To Go: Chapter Twenty-Nine
I don't own Once Upon A Time.
Please enjoy.
I think we were both scared. Well, I was scared; she might not have been. More likely, she was simply waiting for me to start. Maybe she was worried that I would have a bad reaction, aggressive maybe, to whatever she said. Whatever her reasons or mine, we held off talking until we were settled. I had led the way, away from the station. I knew if we talked there and everything went sour as I feared it would, then it would be hard for me to walk through that door every day and be reminded. No, that wouldn't do. So I led the way to the park and dropped into one of the swings. A little push of my toes against packed sand sent me into a gentle rocking motion.
I swung, forward and back. I waited, eyes fixed on the grass and not on her. Forward and back. Her presence lingered just outside mine, standing a few metres from the swings. Her hands were clasped in front of her. I wondered if they were shaking like mine. Forward and back. At that thought, my hands tightened and tightened on the chains until it hurt, until I knew the imprint would no doubt remain for some time. Forward and back. I didn't dare let go. The pressure grounded me, the press of the chains against my hands and arms wrapped around them as I swung was comforting. Forward and back. Everything would be fine, though. Just listen to her. Deep breaths. Forward and back. And even if it isn't, you'll still have Henry. You'll still have Graham. Forward and back. The world isn't going to end.
"May I sit with you?" she asked, finally breaking the silence that had settled all creaking swings and cicadas. I jerked a nod. So she did, perched primly on the next swing. The image of us startled me into a smile.
I was all careless limbs and wild hair and she was sitting prim and neat. She was refined and me, well, I don't think anyone has ever thought that about me. All that we really shared were careful, careful hearts and yet there I was, waiting for this perfect woman to say those words and break mine.
"I'm sorry," she murmured very quietly out into the dark. It helped. Not facing one another, I mean. It helped because I could work through all the expressions I wanted to without scrutiny. I felt passive shift to worried to should I be thankful? should I be scared? to waiting, waiting once again. Say more, I silently urged her. Why? Why are you sorry?
"This is difficult. For me. I…it was easier with the notes. To say what I needed to." She let out a tiny sigh. I stared at my boots. "Did you read my notes?" I nodded a yes. "Oh. I wasn't sure."
Silence again.
From the corner of my eye, I could see her open her mouth, pause, and close it again. She was having trouble saying what she wanted to say, I supposed, or thinking of the right way to say it.
I kicked at the sand beneath my feet. It made me feel better – one, because it did feel good to kick something and two, because I could see the effect of it and watching the sand fly forward and scatter itself across the ground was oddly soothing. I did it again. And then, seeing the gouge left beneath my feet, I felt an abrupt fear settle in my chest. I didn't want that to be us. I didn't want to be hurt and I didn't want to hurt her. I threw her a bone.
"Did you really send your mother away?" I asked. My voice was quiet but it still rattled both of us out of our own private thoughts.
As I knew she would, she latched onto the words. "Yes." She smoothed her hands over her slacks. "Ah, yes. I did. It took a few days but I arranged for Mr Gold to take the job she offered me and I told her to leave. After you left."
"After you made me leave," I corrected sharply.
"Yes." I saw her swallow and turn her head away a little. "Yes. After I made you leave."
I rubbed my eyes wearily and then stood. She shot out of her seat as well, eyes wide and panicking, a hand out to stop me. But all I did was turn and move my leg over the swing, straddling it, so I could face Regina. Though it had so much potential to suck, this conversation felt like one that should be conducted face to face. Head on. So she couldn't keep avoiding and sidestepping and so I could figure out once and for all where I should go with this. With us.
"Tell me," I said.
"Pardon?"
"Tell me what happened. With your mother." It was a way to breach the topic. Of us, that is. As much as I disliked Cora, she was still peripheral to us. She was a catalyst of whatever Regina had been feeling and as much as I wanted to blame the woman, the truth was that Regina made the decision to choose Cora over me and that was what I had an issue with.
"She…" Regina paused. I watched her carefully. I wanted to know what she was thinking, how her thoughts progressed, why her lips thinned into a white line and her forehead crinkled, what thought had made her shift in her swing, and what conclusion she had come to with that final nod of her head. When she turned to me, something had changed. Her neck was less stiff; her eyes were more open. "It is a very long story."
"I've got time."
"Very well." She folded her hands carefully on her lap. "When I was young, I had a friend. His name was Daniel." Irrational jealousy aside, curiosity loomed immediately. If she started a story about Cora by talking about a past love, this couldn't end well. I readied myself to hate Cora a little more than I already did. "He was kind and gentle and a good man." A small smile grew then and I rested my cheek against the cold chain of my swing. She was very beautiful. Love looked good on her.
"You loved him."
"Yes. Very much so." She looked over to me and shook her head. "I was afraid, always afraid, that it wouldn't last. He wasn't rich or particularly ambitious or driven. He knew what he wanted to do and that was to stay in his home and have a family and work with horses." She smiled again, such a sad smile that I had to close my eyes against it. "I always thought that it would be wonderful and peaceful and lovely. I would go to college and then I would return to him. He would have waited for me, found a good job and a home for us. We would marry and be happy. But then," she said slowly, achingly slowly, searching for the words. My eyes opened and I saw she was staring not at me but outwards, into the trees and beyond them, to somewhere that I couldn't see. "My mother found out. I'm not sure what she did exactly but I know a little of what occurred. She told me in no uncertain terms that I was to end the relationship. She said that we both had futures to look forward to that were separate. We were born to different worlds, he and I, and that was for the best. Naturally, I disobeyed her. We were going to run away, get married and have the future we had dreamt up together."
"What happened?" I asked. Unfortunately, the words snapped her out of whatever spell she had fallen under and the glow of memory that had made her features soften and lighten returned itself to harsher lines and a shadowed mask.
"He disappeared."
"She had him killed?" I asked, sitting upright in shock.
Regina smirked. "Not quite. I found out some time later that he left me. He found a job and a family and a life somewhere else, with the help of my mother's money." She closed her eyes. "I'm not sure which was worse. At first, it was just the fear that something had happened to him. But then, knowing what he had done, it was…"
"A betrayal." I felt sad for the young Regina. I felt more sad for the Regina of now, thinking that it was happening again. But still I was angry because nothing I had done would have made her think me capable of something like that. Everything I was and had done was crazy and stupid about Regina and I thought she knew more about me than that. I made myself listen to her again.
"Yes. He had taken my mothers money and abandoned me. And I'm sure that he had his reasons – blackmail, possibly she threatened to blacklist him – but he still left."
"And you were afraid that I would do the same?" I asked, knowing it sadly to be true.
Regina looked over at me, thoughtful. "Yes, I think so. My mother… I'm not sure how much you heard, before you returned that night. You left and she cornered me only a few moments later and said an astonishing number of things very quickly – about Daniel, about her, about everything that she had done, and I was confused and angry and she mentioned your habit of packing up and leaving and told me you were the same, you would abandon me as easily as you had Henry's father and every other home you'd ever had."
"And you believed her. You…you believed that something like that was easy for me. You know that I want a home, I want to belong. You know – I told you that those homes forced me out. And I told you about Henry's dad." My words were jittery with righteous anger. How could she have thought that of me?
"I was scared, Emma," she said to break off my rant. She shook her head at herself. "It was wrong. I know that. But my mother, she is… You only knew her for a little time. I've had her standing over me for my whole life and she got into my head. She knows what to say, what to do, to make me do what she wants."
"Likening me to Daniel, you mean."
"That. And," her fingers twitched like she wanted to entangle them, fiddle. Regina was not a fiddler. "Henry."
I frowned. "What about him?"
An exasperated look was what I got for that question. "I adore him, Emma. I love your son and she knew that from the very moment she met us. And the thought that you would leave and take him with you and I would never see him again was painful and I was terrified and furious with you."
"I didn't do that!" I snapped.
"I know!" she snapped back. Then she relaxed, clenching her jaw against anger. "I know," she said more quietly. "But that doesn't change the fact that you could. And I would be alone again but it would be worse because my house was used to Henry's laugh filling up the kitchen and the living room and my sheets smelled like you from that one night and every time you left even to go home my house didn't feel like home anymore and it was so empty without you both and I was scared, Emma. It wasn't rational and it wasn't right but please, can you understand?"
I said nothing and before I could, she was talking again. Quietly, so very quietly, and I made sure I caught every word because she had never spoken so openly before and I wondered if this was the last time I would be able, be allowed, to see past her guarded expressions and if it was I wasn't missing a moment of this, this free pass to her mind.
"I don't make the right decisions every time. I'm far from perfect and my mother ensures that I know that." She took in a deep breath. "I sent you away because I was scared and I was angry because my mother was telling me things, things she had done to destroy my life here and I was furious with her, and then you came right into the middle of everything and you say you spoke with her about it, you told her to say these horrible things, and everything was so overwhelming."
"So-"
"No, please, let me finish." I nodded. "You must realise that all I have ever wanted from my mother is approval. Any at all. And I have always, always, fallen short of that. But she has left me be for the years I've worked here as Mayor and I assumed that her silence was tacit permission and approval for all the good I have done. So when it turned out that she was the one behind the destruction of everything I have achieved, I was, it was,"
"Horrible?"
"Yes," she laughed. "And horrifying. And depressing. And I was angry and sad and furious at myself for believing that she could love me and I felt so incredibly stupid."
"And then I barged in and made it worse."
"You confirmed it as true. And you had discussed it with her, behind my back, and you had made her tell me and it is childish now and ridiculous but my only thought was that you made her tell me and so it was your fault. If you hadn't done that, I might never have known, was the way I explained it. It was your fault I was hurting. It didn't matter that the hurt was really from my mother, only that you were the one to make it happen. And she was there telling me everything I was scared to hear and offering me peace and love and security." She smiled at me then, a small sad little attempt. Resigned. "But of course mother would have bragged about it at some point, months or years from now as she did concerning Daniel and I would be worse off than I am now."
"She bragged about Daniel?"
"Oh yes," she said, nodding. "At great length. She took immense delight in telling me that my precious first love left me for only fifty thousand dollars."
"Really?" I scrunched up my nose. "You're worth at least eighty grand."
"Emma," she said warningly, even as I grinned. My smile faded when I remembered why we were here and what we were discussing. "I'm sorry," she said. "I am so, so sorry. I made a mistake. I was overwhelmed and upset and hurt and scared and I needed time to understand. But I hurt you and I'm sorry."
I lowered my head, thinking about her words, and I scuffed my feet in the sand again. I felt a little of the pressure in my chest easing. "Say it again," I mumbled.
Her hand came out to touch my chin, lifting my head so she could look into my eyes. And her eyes, her beautiful brown eyes, were sad and at least a little scared still and desperate and careful. "I am so sorry, Emma." And her voice curled around the words and my name and I eased a shuddering sigh and pressed my head against the chain when her hand retreated and nodded. "And I should have come to you earlier, to explain myself and talk to you."
"I probably would have slammed the door in your face."
"I should have tried," she insisted.
I nodded again. She probably could have. But she had brought me coffee and notes, whether I read them or not, and now she had tried to breach the distance between us one hand reaching out and I had to close it. Did I want to? I traced my fingers along the chains, watching as they repeated that curved movement over and over and considering my words.
"I'm not going to say," I started very carefully, "that everything is okay. Because it isn't. I tried to do the right thing and let you know that something was going down, and I tried to do the right thing by your mother to let her tell you. And you really hurt me." I raised my eyes to meet hers again and let go of my guardedness. I was sure she could read the pain in them now – I mean, everyone else had. "Like, a lot."
"I'm sorry," she said instantly.
"Don't. I don't want you to apologise. I don't—" I cut myself off, shaking my head. And then, before I knew it, she was on her feet.
"I understand," were her soft words. "I will keep our relationship strictly professional, Deputy Swan."
"No!" I threw myself out of the swing, staggering a little when my foot caught on the rubber seat. And I shocked myself with the desperation that one word managed to convey. But it did the trick. Regina froze and looked at me.
"No?"
"Don't leave," I said. "I'm not great with words, Regina, you know that. I'm…I'm clumsy and awkward and I ramble and my train of thought isn't exactly straight – no pun intended." Just for a moment, Regina smirked and her eyebrow twitched into her trademark arched pose—her 'really dear? Did you just say that?' look—before that look faltered and uncertainty instead flickered there. I guessed she didn't know whether she was allowed to tease me. "Can you…just give me time to sort everything out in my head. Sit with me until I'm done. Please?"
For a moment, as we stared at one another and considered how much easier it would be to abandon this and run, run back to the safety of our separate homes and lives, I thought we'd ruined it. That we'd both tried but it wasn't quite enough. But then she was returning to the swing and setting her face resolutely and nodding to me and I could relax. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. It was nice. Not the breathing, but the knowledge that I could close my eyes and know that when I opened them again she would still be right there, waiting for me. I had time. I had reassurance that I could take a moment and be certain about something and she would at least hear me out.
It was a long time. It didn't really have to be. I knew what I wanted. But I was still scared. So I thought and rethought and when I came to the same conclusion time after time, I knew I had to.
"I don't like what you did. I tried to do the right thing and I've tried hard for you before. I'm insecure and damaged and stupid and I'm not good enough for someone like you, but I never thought that you agreed with that." Regina opened her mouth but when I shook my head, asking for time, she shut it again and waited. "It hurt a lot. And if I didn't have Henry to think about and Graham to look after me, I think I might have drunk myself to sleep twice." At the very least, I thought. "I wasn't really functioning well, Regina." I looked up at her, only to immediately feel the need to kick myself. Her face was pale and drawn and it hurt me to know that I was the one hurting her. "I don't say this to be mean." I moved to kneel next to her and, after a moment of indecision, I took her hand in mine. "Regina. Look at me." She didn't move. "Please?" I swear I could hear her joints creaking as she moved slowly, so slowly, to look down at me. She was so stiff. Scared.
"I promise you – I promise – I'm not saying this to hurt you." Her eyes flickered. "I'm saying this so I can get it out. So I can say I hated what you did. I hated feeling like that and if you ever make me feel like that again I will probably slap you." I nodded as if that made the threat more viable. Then I grimaced. "Okay, no, I would never ever do that because that's heinous." I shook my head. "What I mean is that I'm saying this stuff so the next thing I say can be I forgive you."
Her hand, which had been limply allowing me to hold it, tensed and she gripped hard. "What?"
"I forgive you."
"No," she said. I blinked. "It can't be that easy. You must have some kind of, of retribution. Some way I can earn it. What do I have to do?" And it was that, far more than anything else I had learnt about Regina to this point, that convinced me wholly that this woman had not lived and loved as she deserved. And the clenching around my heart, the feeling of the iron band around my lungs that meant I couldn't breathe properly around her, dissipated and everything that I had refused to let myself feel while I kept my hurt tugged around me like a cloak flooded me. Love, hope, worry, love again, warmth. If that made it hard for me to breathe as well, it was in a very different way with me being too full, feeling too much, and almost all of it good, my fear and nerves fluttering at the edges of me.
"Forgiveness doesn't really work like that," I said gently. I smiled but it was sad. I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and explain to her that yes, she could and should expect for it to be that easy. Explain to her that I couldn't help but forgive her because every atom in my body had been pulling me toward her for my whole life. Everything in me was telling my heart and brain – the two of which, for once, were in complete agreement on a subject other than Henry – that she was my one and only and I could never again be capable of putting something other than a smile on her face.
So I told her that. "I'm tearing myself apart," I told her softly. "Because you are right here, Regina. You are right here and I know with everything that I am that…that if I take you in my arms everything is going to be just fine and I never, ever want to let you go. But I can't. I'm tearing myself apart because you're right here and I can't hold you yet. I'm scared."
And I smoothed my thumb over the back of her hand. I watched the movement. Such a small gesture. It didn't seem like it should be capable of sending shivers down my spine but it did. I hope it conveyed exactly what I intended to Regina. 'I'm here for you' in holding her hand so gently. 'I forgive you' in the tender brush of skin. 'You're safe with me' in the firm grasp I had, still open enough for her to slip out of if she so wished. 'I'll never leave you' in the lingering brush over her knuckled where I paused before sweeping up her hand again. And 'I love you' in the slightly erratic pulse that thundered through my fingers, wrist, in everything that urged me closer, knowing that my comfort stemmed from her and giving all of mine in return.
I hope that she heard all of that.
Because the reason I couldn't hold her wasn't her. It was me.
She reached up with her free hand and lightly traced my knuckles, the little tears in my skin from the thorns, the small scar on the back of my hand, and I, surprising even myself, slipped my hand away. I couldn't help it. I had the thoughts before – unclean, ill-mannered, uncouth, unworthy – but with the physical reminder of my own imperfections before her flawlessness, I felt inadequate once again. I turned my face away, feeling the burn of an ashamed blush.
"Emma. What can I do to make you forget?" she rasped. "How do I convince you that I spoke out of cruelty, not honesty?" She stole my hand back and brushed a tentative kiss on my palm. The shockwave that ricocheted through me made me whimper and that damn eyebrow of hers shot up.
"Please, Regina," I croaked. "Please don't do that." She froze. "Not unless you mean it."
"Emma," she said carefully.
"Most of me wants to reassure you and I want to think and we are okay. But there's a part of me," I said shakily, "that is scared shitless because I've been hurt before. I've been hurt really bad and I don't want to go through that again. And I'm not saying that you'd hit me or anything but I know you could just destroy me." I smiled weakly. "Because you've got all of me, Regina."
"Oh, Emma. I will work for the rest of my life to rid you of any thought of pain." Her brow creased thoughtfully and then she leant forward and caught up both of my hands. "Will you let me tell you what I truly think of you?"
I pressed my lips together. Last time…last time, with that venom in her voice and all those nuances of the get out she had thrown and the you she had called me – inferior, foster kid, orphan, unwanted – the especially not someone like you and it had hurt. I nodded anyway. Foolhardy. Desperate to hear words of love, warmth, affection. Desperate to banish that nervous look in her eyes.
"I think that you are beautiful. And wonderful. And you are so strong and intelligent and generous of heart. You give all of yourself so fully and so unreservedly and that you have done that for me is the greatest gift, my most precious gift. Everything about you is perfection."
The words rocked me, literally rocked me backwards to sit on my heels, but she held tight to my hands as I tried to work through the fact that this woman, the epitome of perfection, had said in utmost seriousness, without a flicker of doubt or insincerity in her eyes or voice, had told me that I was her most precious, most perfect thing.
"What about my table manners?" I said weakly, trying to diffuse the tension.
She would have none of it. "I wouldn't change a thing, my dear." Regina cupped my cheek and gazed down at me fondly. "Not a thing." And she swallowed thickly and ran her thumbs over my knuckles and nodded to herself. "And I think it only fair to tell you that I understand. I understand being afraid and I understand how brave you are and I'm sorry that I couldn't be brave first. I had to hear you say the words first because I was scared. But you," her fingers brushed my cheek, "you have all of me as well. And I love you. Because you are so vibrant and I can never quite understand that you would want me. I'm an empty person and I cling too tightly to things that make me feel like someone, like something important. I clung to anger and what little power I had and I fiercely protected what little I had but I never managed to let anything in. But you, you managed somehow to rid me of that and you tell me that everything I am is enough. But sometimes I am afraid that my skin is too thin now that you have stripped my anger and fear away and I feel like you could overtake me, overwhelm me, because you are so warm and bright and I would lose myself in you. But Emma," she breathed my name and it felt like love, "when you tell me that you love me… I'm not lost and I'm not scared and I'm not less. I feel more like me when I'm with you and it's so completely incredible. You are so completely incredible."
I let go of my fear. And my uncertainty. And anything else that might dilute this feeling that raced through my veins. They broke to pieces, shattered, and were dazzlingly absent when I smiled hesitantly and tried to decide how we could proceed. Proclamations and red beating loving hearts were all well and good but we had to move on, somehow. I didn't want to go back.
"So," I said into the heavy space between us. "I love you."
"And I love you."
"What do we do about that?" I asked, slowly entwining our fingers.
"I'm not sure," she admitted. "But I think it will probably begin with me talking with Graham." I nodded. She'd definitely have to do that. With me at her side. We'd have to do it together otherwise he might not hear her out. "And after that, we'll see."
"I'd like another date," I mused, tugging her to standing. Pulling her in required no additional thought. "And I would like photographic proof that your mother is no longer here."
"I can do that. Both of those," she nodded.
"Good." I tilted her chin up and tentatively brushed her nose with mine. Her closeness was sending shivers up my spine and crackling all my nerves with the urge to press skin to skin. I leant my forehead against hers and let myself be still. Familiarising myself with the feeling once more. "I'd also like a kiss."
"Done," she growled and she cupped my cheeks in the next second and I happily relinquished any cognitive powers in the pleasure of the kiss, and the knowledge that I was hers and she was mine yet again.
"And if you're angry with me," I panted between kisses, "you have to talk to me."
"Done." More kisses. And some walking. She was taking me somewhere.
"And if you're upset, you have to talk to me."
"Done."
"And if I'm scared, you have to trust that I love you and I'll come back."
"Yes, done, anything." Ah. That was where she was taking me. She shoved me up against a tree and pushed her hands under my shirt, running cold hands over my skin. I looped my arms around her neck and pulled her closer, closer, and pressed happy kiss after happy kiss against her lips, cheeks, neck, and back to her lips. "Emma, anything. Anything. I love you."
I grinned at her, enjoying the feeling of happiness. "I love you too. And we have to stop kissing now because Henry misses you. Come on." And while she might have groaned about missed kisses, she very happily took my hand and followed me home.
We had things to talk about still but everything else could wait for tomorrow.
I hope this wasn't too sickeningly romantic. I also hope that you enjoyed it. Let me know. Happy reading, readers :)
