"Regina."

In the distance there was a small picture, square and neatly contained. A bucolic country scene, hills and animals grazing. They might have been sheep or maybe horses. They were too small, too far off to tell.

Regina moved closer to it, step by step by step. Pulled and weightless. Once nearer she could hear that the picture hummed, the warm static buzz of an old television set - framed in and set safely behind a pane of glass.

But the longer she looked at it the larger the picture became, the sound rising and rising until she fell forward shattering the glass around her. Regina could hear each broken piece as it slid against her skin, cutting her open in delicate red lines, the noise of it ringing in her ears.

As her feet found ground she saw that the picture had changed. What she had thought from a distance to be a farmhouse or stable was suddenly close now, rushing in on her. It towered overhead so high it seemed it might crack and crumble and crush her where she stood - all stone and turrets and looming spires stretching skyward.

And hanging above a drawbridge was a marquee, lit and shining white around thick black letters.

The drawbridge fell open.

There, though distant and wavering like a shadow in candlelight, was Daniel.

Daniel.

He lifted a hand to touch her cheek.

Regina closed her eyes, waiting for the gentle stroke of his fingertips. But what came was a harsh scrape along her jaw. Her eyes shot open.

There was Daniel,

Daniel.

striking matches against her skin.

He held each one until they burned and went out. Then he cast them down, black and smoking to a floor that looked to have fallen away beneath their feet.

Raising his hand, he held up another match. And as he went to strike it on her cheek Regina reached to stop him.

But it hit her hand and lit to a small bright flame.

Fire suddenly burst and burned in her palm, her skin bubbling and cracking, peeling away in the heat.

She shook trying to get it off. Trying to stop it climbing up her arm and setting fire to her nightgown. Trying to stop it blazoning beneath her skin until her heart was burned and black.

The fire shot forward instead. Cracking loud like a gunshot it spread and surrounded them. And as it burned, it roared - like applause, like church bells, like the heavy closing of a casket lid. It all echoed against each other, growing louder and louder, closing in on her. Claustrophobic.

And there was Daniel,

Daniel.

crumbling into ash as the fire around them faded to a thick and suffocating curtain of black smoke.

He looked younger and smaller, and hers in a way that he hadn't been, never was.

And in a terrible moment of horror, he was Henry.

Waking suddenly, Regina grasped at her throat holding back the surge of sound working through her - a sob, a scream, a sigh of guilty relief.

Though she had dreamt, she was sure, of fire and smoke and ash, she was cold now. Freezing.

Standing abruptly, she walked barefoot across the linoleum floor, one wall to the next, stilling finally in the corner beside her bed.

Her body ached and trembled, each muscle tensed to the point of shaking. Hand still at her throat, tamping down heavy uneven breathing, Regina rested her head against the wall. Across the room she could see the window, curtains still pulled open. She watched it, body stilling, until the low star light gave way to the soft glow of early morning.

*

They were both seated, facing each other across the small table set in Ms. Mills' room.

A letter sat on the table between them.

Ms. Mills barely held to one of the envelope's crisp white edges. Her thumb, delicate and still, rested above curling black letters.

Zelena Mills

It was still unopened.

Mary Margaret watched Ms. Mills' hands waiting for her to turn the letter over and peel back the flap. Maybe she would do it slowly, carefully, running a finger under the seal until it had been opened so gently it seemed to have never been closed at all. Or maybe, Mary Margaret thought, she would rip it open, tear into it, sparked to life by a desperation to get to the letter within.

But she made no move at all. She'd hardly looked at it since Mary Margaret had handed it to her moments before.

"Ms. Mills, would you like me to open the letter?"

Before she had finished speaking, she'd already started reaching out. And as she picked the letter up off the table, Regina pulled her hands back and away. Now holding the letter between them, Mary Margaret lifted a loose corner. Then she tore until the envelope's top edge was ripped all the way across and open in her hands.

The paper inside was neatly folded, and a darker white than the envelope. Though both seemed quite pale in the sunlight - shining through the window beside the table and casting long dark shadows onto the opposite wall.

Mary Margaret glanced up and smiled at Ms. Mills seated impassive across from her, her fingers holding to the smooth crease of the folded letter. But before she pulled it out, she hesitated, hands stilling and as pale as the paper she held.

"Shall I read it?"

Her grip tightened, sliding the letter just a little ways out of the envelope.

Ms. Mills did not respond.

The corner of Mary Margaret's mouth fell, and her smile faded. Though the weight of the letter in her hands was light, it seemed to grow heavier as she looked across the table.

"Shall I read it to you?"

Her voice was softer as she asked again, and when she spoke she kept her eyes fixed on Regina's looking for some flicker of emotion, a spark of something that would reveal what she felt under the silence and the steadiness of her dark gaze.

But the harder Mary Margaret looked, the more certain she was that all she saw in Ms. Mills' eyes was her own image reflected back at her.

Swallowing, she lowered her head down and to the side. Then, pulling the letter from the envelope, she carefully unfolded it to read what had been written.

"'Dearest Regina, since we are not allowed to see you I am writing to you instead. You don't have to read this letter. You can ignore it. In fact, I expect that you will…But for Henry's sake I hope you won't. I shall continue to try my best for him, but an aunt can only fill a mother's place in some ways, and I am coming to suspect that in very few of the ways that matter."

Mary Margaret paused, looking up from the letter and across the table.

"Do you really want me to go on?"

Ms. Mills did not reply, though Mary Margaret again searched her for some answer before continuing.

"He is such a clever boy, always with his nose in a book or scribbling down stories and scenes - casting himself as a knight or a hero, slaying dragons and saving maidens. I think he writes parts for you too."

Mary Margaret smiled at the image, but as she read further the smile fell away.

"Regina, he asks after you constantly, seeking contact and an answer to the question that haunts him, has he hurt you? He blames himself and doesn't know enough to think otherwise. The two of you were so happy, so close. He can't remember or understand enough of what has happened, even I do not understand why…"

The words seemed to weigh upon the page, heavy with an appeal that Mary Margaret could not comprehend. But though she could not comprehend it, she could see the shape of it plain in the black scrawled letters, as clear as the shadows still stretching long and dark on the opposite wall.

She trembled, fingers tightening where she held the letter. And though she felt suddenly vulnerable, exposed, she looked up at Ms. Mills seated across from her.

Her face was blank and her eyes were empty.

Mary Margaret's brows creased, and a tightness in her throat spread through her chest to the corners of her jaw. But letting out a shaky breath, she lowered her gaze back to the letter. She did not look up again as she continued to read.

"Do you remember telling me once-"

Her voice had a high strained edge to it, and she trailed off.

"I can't read it" she said, lifting the paper closer to her face trying to decipher the curve of the letters.

"We have-"

She hesitated, stuck, eyes scanning and rescanning. But the words only seemed blurrier with each pass. Finally, she blinked and the wavering black lines cleared and came into focus.

"Now I see."

Clearing her throat, Mary Margaret read on.

"'We have to see each other as two anxious children, filled with good will and the best intentions, but ruled by powers that we can only partially control.' Do you remember saying all that? You must. Because Henry doesn't remember, and he is so stubborn like you. He is like you in so many ways. Though there are times that he looks at me and I see the shadow of Daniel in him too."

Suddenly, Regina reached out, tearing the letter from Mary Margaret and crumbling it in her hands beneath the table top. The vein in her forehead was pulsing hard just beneath her skin, and her chest rose and fell with each loud unsteady breath.

Mary Margaret's eyes were wide as she watched. And it was only then that she noticed, perhaps because of the way the light from the window fell upon Regina's face and set part of it in shadow, that she had a scar on her upper lip - fine and white and cutting against the red shape of her mouth.

Then, voice soft, she said;

"There is a photo with the letter."

She swallowed.

"A photo of your son. I don't know if…"

Pausing, she pulled her hands back so they rested lightly atop the envelope and the picture still inside.

"Do you want it, Ms. Mills?"

Mary Margaret started to slide the photo out, glancing down to see the round face and bright smile of a child with dark hair and eyes, both lighter than Regina's but hers all the same.

"He looks terribly cute."

Across the table, Regina sat up, her back straightening. Her jaw was still clenched, but her face had softened. It seemed that her lower lip trembled in time with the vein in her forehead.

Reaching out, she took the photo. Her hands shook, and her fingers were light and gentle as she cradled the picture. And where just moments before there had been nothing in her gaze, Mary Margaret suddenly saw too much - a small piece of something massive.

Then it was gone, and Ms. Mills was turning her face toward the opposite wall, folding the photo and sliding it away, sliding it back across the table.

*

Mary Margaret had left the curtains open again. It seemed that whenever she came in and found them closed, that was where she went first - pulling them open and apart before turning back to face Regina.

But she wasn't here now, and Regina was alone.

She sat quiet in bed, facing the wall, watching nothing.

The light from the window was soft and bright, streaming in across the linoleum floor, the small table set, and onto the white sheets folded by her feet.

There was silence.

Then the door opened - a latch and squeak as the hinges shifted. Regina turned her head sharply towards the sudden sound. Mary Margaret, she thought. Her heart beat fast and tight in her chest. Fingers that had been limp at her side pulled into a fist.

But Dr. Hopper stepped into the room instead.

She looked at him.

Then she turned again to face the wall, settling back to stillness. Even though she missed the way her nails dug into her palms. Even though in a brief flash of thought, there and and gone too quick to be remembered, she wished she would have closed the curtains. If only so Mary Margaret would see them shut and move to pull them back apart.

"Regina,"

He stood at her shoulder, nearly behind her. And as he spoke, voice chirping in her ear, she wasn't sure if she was hearing him or if he was simply echoing out from someplace inside of herself.

"I don't think there's any point in your staying at the hospital. It's just hurting you to be here."

She did not turn to look at him, but her eyes narrowed and shifted up towards where he stood at the bed frame.

"Since you don't want to go home, I suggest that you go somewhere where you can get a change of scenery, see more than this room."

Regina swallowed. Her throat though felt wooden, and her chin lifted a little as she listened to him continue.

"Mary Margaret has offered her family's summer home, a cottage in the forest."

The wooden feeling in her throat dropped into her stomach, and she had the sudden urge to spin around and hit him, let the back of her knuckles crack against his jaw. Instead she lifted her trembling hands and folded them tightly in her lap.

"It's by a lake, I think."

He paused and walked around her toward the window. Moments passed as he looked out - his voice eventually swallowed up by silence.

Regina wondered if he was waiting for her to speak. She wouldn't though, and the tremor in her hands eased as she pictured him stuck forever in an endless quiet.

But then he turned and continued. And as he spoke, Regina could see herself reflected in the lenses of his wire rimmed glasses.

"Don't you think I understand? The hopeless dream of being. Not seeming, but being? The desire to be free, without anyone else imposing roles on you? The tug of war in trying to understand yourself and how others see you, what they expect of you? A feeling of vertigo?"

Jaw tense, Regina dropped her gaze from his, looking instead at the hands folded in her lap.

Dr. Hopper though pressed on, insistent, a fly bumping against a window pane.

"There's a constant hunger to finally be exposed. To be seen through, ripped open and pulled apart…even obliterated."

His tone seemed to grow lower as blood rushed to Regina temples. And though her gaze was still lowered and aimed ahead, her eyes were hard and hot and stinging.

Stepping closer, Dr. Hopped returned to his place at her shoulder. Regina could feel him behind her. Pesky bug, buzzing in her ear.

"Commit suicide? That's unthinkable. But you can refuse to move and be silent. Then, at least, you're not lying. You can shut yourself in, shut out the world. Then you don't have to play any roles, show any faces, make false gestures. But is it really better to be empty? To go unknown and unseen, rather than exist only within those parts others cast you in? That life has cast you in?"

Clenching her shaking hands tighter together Regina glanced up at the window, sure that was where he looked now.

"You'd think so...but reality is diabolical. Your hiding-place isn't watertight. Life trickles in everywhere. You're forced to react. And there are those who will still see you. Those who will put you in a mask thinking they've revealed what's underneath. Nobody asks if it's real or not, if you're honest or a liar. That's only important at the theater, perhaps not even there."

He lifted an arm then, resting a hand on her shoulder. It was heavy, and Regina felt it like an anchor around her neck. Like a weight dropped on thin ice. And though she kept her eyes forward, she could feel him shift and face her profile, watching to see if any cracks would appear.

She wanted to flick him away like the pest he was, burrowing into places where he wasn't welcome.

"Regina," he said, still looking at her "I understand why you're silent, why you don't move. You should play this part until it's done...until it's no longer interesting."

Suddenly, his voice grew stern, notes of warning punctuating each word.

"But then you should leave it, as you leave all your roles. Or else you may become too attached to it, and it, too big a part of you to leave behind."

He didn't say anything else then. He just turned and left, like a shadow of a thought passing in strange light.

The door latched softly behind him.

Regina's hands still shook as they rested in her lap, but the blood behind her eyes faded in the long moments that passed as the echoes of Dr. Hopper's voice grew softer and softer.

And when all was quiet again, Regina stood. Walking to the window, she closed the curtains to the now dim light outside.