Huge shout out to pixip53 for the awesome edit suggestions for this chapter. Never would have found my way through the labyrinth of all of these emotions without you in my current mental state! Thanks, Love!
And a huge thank you to everyone who continues to follow this story and comment in reviews and PM's. You're all amazing, and I'm glad to have such supportive readers.
Finally got my grandfather into surgery about an hour ago after a three day postponement. SO, you might get a double post if I get another done in the 8 hours I'll be sitting here.
Enjoy Lovelies!
Song: Talk to Me by Lauren Aquilina
"Regina!" Ruby called when The Queen appeared on the other side of the ravine. She never slowed her pace, however, and Regina struggled to keep up in her massive heels in the dirt as the wolf walked briskly along the cliff.
"I felt Emma hit the edge of the barrier. Where is she?" Regina demanded, not bothering to hide the hint of fear in her voice.
"She fell in," Ruby yelled across the chasm and pointed towards the river. "I've been tracking her. I figure you'd come when she tried to pass the five mile mark. Can you see her?"
Regina disappeared from the ledge, and a flash entered the water a moment later. Ruby jumped the ravine just as Regina reappeared with an unconscious savior in her arms. "She's freezing," Regina managed between her own chattering teeth. The frigid water soaking into her clothes, seeping into her bones.
The tickle of energy raised the hair on the back of Ruby's neck, and the wolf covered Regina's cold hands with her larger, warmer ones. "Don't use magic," she whispered.
"This is hardly the time for a morality speech. Emma is dying!" Regina snapped and pulled on her magic again.
"Stop, Regina, please. You'll kill her if you heat her up too fast. We need to get her somewhere warm. Take her to the hospital. Whale will know how to treat this," Ruby instructed.
Regina's eyes narrowed, and she clutched Emma tighter against her chest. "And where did you learn to treat it?"
Ruby rolled her eyes. "While you've been living in your cozy mansion, I've been taking care of homeless people who sometimes give up and lay down somewhere to slowly freeze to death rather than live in your kingdom another day, Majesty," the wolf intentionally hurt her sister. It was her fault Emma fell in the damn river in the first place.
Regina grabbed her sister's hands in her one free hand. "Teach me, Ruby. Help me save her," she begged, a tremor of fear shaking her words. Ruby studied her sincerity for exactly one second before nodding and scooting closer until Emma's head pressed into her stomach.
"Lay her down. I need to check for a pulse," Ruby instructed, and The Queen surprisingly obeyed. She wasted no time on analyzing Regina's docile reaction. A faint thump touched her fingertips when she pressed them to Emma's neck, but her chest remained still and unmoving.
"Shit," Ruby cursed and laid her ear on Emma's chest. Her heat thumped slower with each beat. "She's not breathing." She sat up and tilted Emma's head back as Whale taught her and pushed a deep breath into The Savior's lungs. She barely parted her lips from Emma's to breathe and then pushed another puff of life into the fading woman.
Emma's chest deflated suddenly, and water gurgled from her mouth. Ruby rolled her onto her side as the liquid dribbled from her lungs, but Emma never woke. It wasn't a good sign, Ruby noted silently but kept her comments inside her head lest Regina freak out even more.
"We need to get her somewhere warm," Ruby repeated. Before she fully sucked another breath, the world around them shimmered and then became a bedroom. It was Emma's, but Ruby didn't know it at the time.
Ruby asked no questions, but reached forward and unzipped Emma's jacket. "Shit, she's not shivering. Regina, get her clothes off. Now!" Ruby added when Regina only stared dumbly at her little sister.
"Is she going to be okay?" Regina asked, not even bothering to hide her fear anymore.
"She needs a hospital, Regina. This is severe hypothermia, and gods only knows what she damaged when she hit the water," Ruby tried to persuade The Queen.
"No, I can't protect her there. Too many people," Regina reasoned.
Ruby grabbed Regina's shirt in a tight fist and shook the woman. "Regina, wiggle your goddamn fingers and make her clothes disappear, now. They're freezing. We need to get her warm!" The wolf yelled, losing her patience with Regina's frantic rambling.
With a wave of her hand, Emma's clothes disappeared, leaving the woman stark naked. "Pull the blankets back," Ruby barked her next instruction and lifted Emma from her arms. Regina listened, too scared and out of her element to do anything else. The wolf deposited Emma in the bed and then stripped her jacket and shirt, leaving only her bra.
"Go get dry and warmed up, and then get your ass in this bed," Ruby ordered, now completely in charge of the situation. Regina only nodded and watched her sister slip beneath the blankets with her pet. She hissed when Emma's cold, wet hair pressed against her chest, but she wrapped an arm around her head and held her closer.
Regina bolted to her room and changed into her pajamas, feeling silly for the expensive silk gliding over her body when Emma lay in the next room dying from hypothermia. She heated her own body with magic, dried her hair using the same, and then returned to Emma's room. With a deep breath, she slipped into the bed beside Emma.
"Regina, get as close as you can. Cover her chest and stomach with your body. We have to protect her internal organs," Ruby explained with much more patience than she felt.
Regina hovered over Emma for a moment before gently touching her chest to her pet's. She gasped but held firm against the frigid skin. She clamped her eyes shut as if it might have erased the image of Emma lying beneath her unconscious and broken. Her body shivered, and Regina recognized instantly the fear rather than the cold as responsible for the physical response. Ruby saw it immediately in her eyes.
"Hey," Ruby whispered and tucked a piece of hair behind Regina's ear. "It's going to be okay."
"I did this," Regina muttered darkly as self-loathing kicked into hyper drive. Ruby remained silent on the subject of blame but touched her hair again.
"It was an accident, Regina," she soothed the wallowing queen, but Regina jerked her head from Ruby's comforting fingers in her hair. She didn't deserve it.
"She never would have been on that cliff if she hadn't witnessed my dalliance with Azalia," Regina reasoned with a hard voice, cold. Ruby knew she meant the tone as a self-reprimand and sighed deeply.
"Regina," she started.
"Enough! I am your queen, you filthy mongrel," Regina reminded her harshly. Ruby rolled her eyes, immune to Regina's empty barbs by that point in her life, but she held her tongue. Nothing she said made anything better until Regina cycled a little more through the anger covering her fear. Without reason, a soft remembrance of her very early childhood filtered into her brain, and the wolf's lips cracked into a small grin.
"It's nice to be with you like this again," Ruby distracted her tortured sister from the task at hand and hopefully her obviously crushing guilt. "Remember those nights when you let me come into your room and brush you hair until I was too tired to hold the brush?" She asked The Queen in a nostalgic whisper, still afraid of someone overhearing their secrets.
Regina snorted and raised her eyes to meet the darker brown of her wolf sister's. "You were so tiny. I can't believe you grew so much taller than I," Regina wondered at their only partially different genes.
"You called me 'Puppy' like I was your little pet or something," Ruby laughed and then mimicked a very young Regina. "Now, Puppy, you are not a dish woman, stop pawing at my hair like a dirty pot."
Regina's lips quirked upwards without her permission. "You were the most uncoordinated creature I'd ever encounter," she agreed, losing herself in a memory of a tiny Red tripping over everything in sight… and those out of sight, such as air on a flat floor with no furniture near enough to blame.
"And yet, you still thought it was a great idea to put me on a pony," Ruby accused playfully. "I'm still scared of the damn things."
Regina snickered. "I did that so that you would stop following me around like, well, like a puppy," she admitted, eyes closing as she finally remembered where the nickname came from.
Ruby's grin spread into a smile, but it fell slowly as the reason for Emma's accident came crashing into her. Regina's eyes narrowed, sensing the abrupt change immediately. "I smelled the people who attacked me. They were in the woods. I don't know if they followed me or if they just happened to be there. That's why we jumped across the ravine."
"Give me your phone," Regina ordered and held out her hand. Hers had been soaked when she flashed into the water to grab Emma. She dialed Graham's number immediately and barked into the mouthpiece when he answered, sounding groggy and disoriented. "Graham, organize a search party immediately. Miss Lucas has informed me that her attackers were in the woods near the ravine not ten minutes ago. I need you to track them and bring them to the prison immediately."
She ended the call before he responded and handed it back to Ruby. "If they left a trail, Graham will find them," she assured the wolf.
Any response Ruby might have formulated died when Emma's body shook violently beneath them. She breathed a sigh of relief and pressed her forehead to Emma's while Regina's eyes flew wide open in fear. Ruby snorted at the dramatic reaction and cupped Regina's cheek lovingly. "It's a good thing. It means her muscles are warm enough to shiver, which will generate more heat. She's okay."
Regina nodded and turned her gaze to Emma's pale face. Ruby just watched the different emotions dance across her sister's face and then disappear as The Queen rejected them one by one. After a moment, Regina scooted down the bed and laid her head on Emma's chest and wrapped a possessive arm around her waist. Ruby smiled.
"The Evil Queen falls in love with The Savior, which will end the curse completely," she murmured, almost to herself.
"So, you know then," Regina grated between clenched teeth, not really surprised. Ruby possessed an annoying talent to overhear most of is said within a 100 yard radius of her sensitive ears.
"I'm not stupid enough to tell anyone, Regina. That's only going to start a war that I want no part of," Ruby assured The Queen and then grinned mischievously. "Plus, this is much more romantic and poetic."
"I'm not in love with, Miss Swan," Regina reminded aridly. She tossed in an eye roll for dramatic effect, but it was lost on the dreamy wolf.
Ruby rolled her eyes, unknowingly copying her big sister's gesture of slight annoyance. "Not yet, but you could be if you stop putting her through these insane tests of loyalty and just let yourself feel something." She'd expected nothing less than denial from her emotionally stunted sister than a complete avoidance of her feelings towards Emma Swan.
Emma shivered again once, stilled for a moment, and then vibrated as her muscles suddenly kicked into overdrive. Ruby slowly released her grip on The Savior's head and detangled her body from the blankets. "She's going to be fine," she assured and pulled her shirt over her head. "Just stay under that blanket with her for the rest of the night, and she should be all warmed up by morning."
"Miss Lucas," Regina warned, a sudden panic grabbing at her heart. Ruby wanted her to hold Emma all night, and Emma's accident scared her enough to actually do it, which Ruby knew.
Ruby smirked devilishly and saluted The Queen sardonically. "You're welcome," she chirped and turned to leave.
"Ruby," Regina called softly, freezing her little sister in place. "Please sleep in my room tonight." She pointed a trembling finger towards the door connecting her room to Emma's. "We haven't a clue yet who followed you to the forest, and I'd like to avoid another incident."
Ruby glanced between the door and Regina several times. After a pregnant stretch of silence, the wolf barked a loud laugh and nodded. "Okay, I promise not to leave you alone with your feelings."
"You're insufferable," Regina grumbled and tried to relax against Emma's shivering body.
"Guess it runs in the family," Ruby volleyed lightheartedly. Not many people knew this Regina, and she wished more than anything to show the world her sister's compassion, maybe more than she wanted Belle as her wife. Regina clicked her tongue but offered nothing more to the conversation. She decided then not to allow another 47 years pass without spending time with her little sister like this again.
Ruby rolled her eyes. "Do I at least get dinner?"
Regina pointed to a button on the wall that looked like a doorbell. "Of course, you may eat. Press that button. I'll inform Astrid that you will be taking dinner in my room tonight. I'm not a monster, Miss Lucas." The conversation pertained to food, but Regina's words kicked her back to the moment in her office before she chased after Emma. Apparently, she'd hurt her sister's feelings, but Regina hadn't the first clue how to tell her that without using anger.
Ruby's good mood fell flat on its face and flopped around as it died. "Regina, I didn't mean that. I was pissed because you just do this shit. I wish you used your ingenuity for things other than tearing people apart, but…" she shrugged and shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans.
"Good night, Miss Lucas," Regina dismissed her before the conversation turned sentimental and pointless. What was done was done. She could no more reverse the decisions she'd made any easier than Ruby could have stopped being a wolf.
"Right. Night, Majesty," Ruby took the abrupt dismissal in stride. "Cover her head," she offered a final instruction and then meandered from the room.
Regina conjured the remote to Emma's television and searched the channels for the one she wanted. "It's not quite time, yet, but I suppose if I remain awake long enough, you may watch The Golden Girls with me tonight," she murmured quietly to the shivering savior and pulled the blanket up further, wrapping it around Emma's head without covering her face. On second thought, perhaps she wanted to kill Ruby for forcing her to nurse her pet back to health. She was the queen for Gaia's sake.
"You recalcitrant fool, you nearly killed yourself running off like that," Regina murmured into Emma's chest softly. The words inspired anger to flare where worry and fear had been nestled uncomfortably in her chest.
"If you hadn't proclaimed your undying love this might have been avoided. You are the most confounding, unruly insurrectionist I have ever encountered, and if the people liked you only half as much as they do now, I'd have killed you already," she continued, unable to accept her own guilty role of Emma's injuries. Those thoughts scared her, but anger was comforting, familiar.
"Had you even considered if you'd just kept your mouth shut, something you are utterly incapable of doing, I might have achieved my sexual release with you, thereby omitting the need to take up with my guards?" She blamed Emma because she couldn't blame herself, not for this, not when it meant confessing her own more tender feelings towards the obstinate blonde.
"This entire mess might have been avoided," Regina continued, giving into her anger. It felt better than wallowing in self-pity and guilt. "You'd never have fallen, and I would never have needed to dive into a freezing current to save your worthless life. I would never have had to make pointless conversation with that vile creature in my room." She almost hoped Ruby listened with her wolf hearing.
"It hurts," Emma gasped through chattering teeth.
Regina startled and raised her head from Emma's chest. How much had The Savior heard? It didn't matter. A switch flipped instantly, and she touched Emma's face, soothing the wounded time traveler. "Emma, you have hypothermia. I can't warm you up any faster," Regina explained as the anger slipped from her easily now that a task eclipsed her racing thoughts and mild panic from holding the other woman so intimately. She needed to soothe Emma to prevent further injury, and her words meant nothing more than that, she reasoned.
"Regina?" She tried to open her eyes, but they refused to cooperate. Regina's brow furrowed in concern. Was Emma's confusion normal? She didn't know and felt calling Ruby might have exacerbated the situation.
"You're safe now, Emma," she reassured the disoriented woman. "You're in the mansion."
"It hurts," she repeated, and Regina swallowed thickly, shocked by the sudden emotion catching in her throat.
"I know," she agreed, but she hadn't a clue. Desperate for something to calm the increasingly distraught woman, Regina propped pillows on the headboard, elevating her slightly when she lay back and pulled Emma's head onto her chest. Emma resisted very little in her impaired cognitive state and tucked her head beneath Regina's chin, allowing her mistress to guide her arm around her waist.
Despite their combined warmth, Emma continued shivering and whimpering as her body slowly reheated, bringing with it the icy pinpricks of nerves rejuvenating proper sensation after being frozen still. Regina almost called for Ruby, but when she sucked a deep breath and opened her mouth, she surprised herself when a slow, haunting song wept from her lips.
"I am stretched on your grave, and I'll lie here forever. If you hands were in mine, I'd be sure they would not sever. My apple tree, my brightness, it's time we were together for I smell of the Earth and I'm worn by the weather."
Emma settled slightly, and Regina pulled the blanket over her head again and tucked it around her body as she continued with the next verse. "When my family think that I'm safely in my bed. Oh, from morn until night, I am stretched out at your head, calling out unto the earth with tears hot and wild for the loss of a girl that I loved as a child."
Something hot and wet dripped onto Regina's chest, and she held Emma a little tighter. "I'm sorry, Mom," Emma whispered, delirious. "I'm sorry that I couldn't forgive you, Mommy." She wept quietly into Regina's chest, and The Queen gritted her teeth against the unsuspecting emotions welling in her chest. The Savior hid more pain than she initially believed.
"Do you remember the night, Oh, the night when we were lost in the shade of the blackthorn and the touch of the frost? Oh, and thanks be to Jesus we did all that was right and your maidenhead still is your pillar of light." Regina's voice cracked with emotion, but Emma seemed not to notice as she burrowed further into her embrace. Her shivering subsided slightly until only a few shakes and tremors shook her body ever 30 seconds or so.
"Oh, the priests and the friars, they approach me in dread, Oh, for I love you still, Oh, my life, and you're dead. I still will be your shelter through rain and through storm, and with you in your cold grave, I cannot sleep warm."
"I won't let her die, Henry," Emma mumbled, and Regina smoothed a hand over her still cold back.
"Who are you protecting, Emma?" She asked gently, not really expecting an answer but playing along anyway.
"Your mom. Regina's a difficult person, but she's still your mom. I have to protect her. I won't let anyone hurt her, Henry, I promise," Emma proclaimed valiantly, completely dissociated from reality.
Regina trailed feathery finger tips down her spine and dragged them upwards only to repeat the process over and over. "Who wants to hurt Regina?" The Queen asked, punching herself in the face the entire time. She shouldn't have taken advantage of Emma's mental state.
"They want to kill Regina. She's The Evil Queen, but I won't let them hurt her. I liked her a lot more when I didn't know what she was thinking, but she doesn't deserve to die," Emma admitted in a stage whisper and then giggled. The joyous sound led to a coughing fit, which Regina endured patiently despite the saliva flying onto her chest. She wiped at the wetness, trying her best to ignore Emma's confession.
"Mary Margaret, are you really Snow White? Are you my mother?" Emma asked, sounding more like a lost little girl than The Savior she was born to be.
Tears blurred Regina's vision, and she blinked them away angrily. Those idiots put their daughter in a tree and sent her into an unknown world barely five minutes old, and it'd been her fault, just as Emma's hypothermia was caused by a terrible decision she'd made. Despite all of that, Emma cared for her, and she'd done nothing but make her existence miserable from the moment she arrived in this timeline.
"Rest, Emma. It won't hurt in the morning," Regina made false vows that a part of her knew she needed to hear more than the delirious savior.
"It won't hurt tomorrow," she promised and held her lips to Emma's cool forehead in a lingering kiss that soothed them both.
Had Emma been lucid, she'd have realized immediately that Regina soothed herself with the promise of diminishing anguish.
The song Regina sings is I am Stretched on Your Grave as performed by Kate Rusby
