Chapter five
Regina could see them bickering from across the courtyard and she sighed deeply.
She was not in the mood for this and she was pretty sure that she would never would be.
Kathryn appeared to be holding something out of Ruby's reach whilst the other girl tried desperately to grab it and Regina had to assume that it was related to Emma.
Ever since the mall fiasco, she hadn't really interacted much with Emma and it was beginning to bother her. She was still trying to put aside the thought that it was because she didn't like how much time Henry was spending with their new foster sister. It wasn't fair that he seemed to so easily build a relationship with the girl just because of comic books.
"Stop it," Regina heard Ruby growl as she tried to get whatever was in her friend's hand.
"This is important!"
Regina sighed again and and quirked an eyebrow at the scene before her, she could now see that Kathryn was holding a phone.
She cleared her throat so that they both turned to her and she asked, "what are you doing?"
Kathryn looked suddenly guilty. The rant that she received after the incident at the mall made it clear that she needed to stop being an insensitive bitch and she was sure that what she was about to do would fall under that category.
"Well…you wouldn't tell me what happened to Emma, so I thought that I would just see what came up on Google, but Ruby won't let me…"
"Because it is a complete invasion of privacy, how would you feel if your worst life experience was online for everyone to read about?" Ruby retorted.
"I would prepare myself for the fact that people are going to read it!"
"No, you would turn into an emotional wreck and ask how you can have something taken off Google!" Ruby shot back.
Regina rolled her eyes and finally slipped into the seat opposite the pair and decided to just continue to listen to the argument until she was forced to join in.
"I'm not that stupid," Kathryn replied with a little pout.
A moment later, Kathryn turned to look at Regina almost expectantly and the head cheerleader said, "I didn't tell you anything because I don't know anything. I would have told you literally anything to stop what happened at the mall…"
"You're totally overreacting, it wasn't that bad," Kathryn replied and rolled her eyes, though Regina could tell that a part of her wasn't too confident in her innocence here.
"You terrified her," Regina said through gritted teeth. She was just so happy that Zelena had decided to not tell anyone about what had happened, but she still had yet to actually try and apologise to Emma and she knew that it was because she was slightly afraid to talk to her for whatever reason.
"Exactly!" Ruby took the opportunity to offer her input, "you've already done enough to her, the least that you can do is have the common decency to not Google her!"
"So you're telling me that you're not even the slightest bit curious about what happened to the girl living in your house, Regina? You don't even know what happened to her arm?"
Regina bit the inside of her cheek and focused on the food that she had yet to actually touch.
She had, of course, wondered on more than one occasion what happened that could have meant that her mother could hear about an injured foster child from another state. It didn't help that the broken arm was a constant reminder that it must have been something bad.
There was a part of her that was actually afraid to find out what could have happened to such a sweet and beautiful girl and what kind of person could do those things to her.
Regina's eyes widened a little when she realised that she had somehow drifted to thinking about how beautiful Emma was again, and she glanced between her two friends to make sure that neither of them had noticed.
The pair were just looking at her expectantly, so she figured that she wasn't being too obvious, so she just replied, "I'm sure that it isn't something that she wants to talk about. Besides, we're not really close, we've exchanged maybe a few sentences since she got to Storybrooke. I don't think that she would choose me to talk to about that stuff."
Ruby frowned and considered for a moment that there was a certain amount of dejection in the other girl's voice, but she decided that was probably just because she was sick of Kathryn constantly talking about Emma Swan when she appeared to have very little interest in the topic.
She could never understand how Regina could seem to be so considerate in one breath and then inconsiderate in another. It was like there was always something holding her back from being fully nice and she had definitely noticed it more when it came to Emma.
Even if she was worried about the new girl somehow affecting her social standing, Regina had basically reached the point at Storybrooke High where she had the right to decree that anyone was popular, so it had to be something else that was holding her back.
"Do you think that's something that should change?" Ruby asked and took the opportunity of the distraction to reach across the table and snatch Kathryn's phone out of her clutches.
Kathryn opened her mouth to protest, but Ruby held up her hand to tell her that she wouldn't be getting her phone back until she agreed to stop it.
Regina sighed and shrugged, "I guess that I'll have to talk to her when she starts school."
"And don't you think that she would be more comfortable if you actually tried to make an effort before then?"
Regina shrugged again and pretended to be suddenly absorbed by her food as she mumbled, "I guess."
Ruby shook her head in exasperation but quickly turned her attention to slapping Kathryn's hand away.
"What are you doing?"
Regina physically jumped up a little in her chair and turned away from her laptop to find herself being fixed with a judgemental gaze.
"Nothing," was her instant and unconvincing reply, which became less convincing when she turned her desk chair around to quickly shut the lid of her laptop before turning back to her sister.
Zelena quirked an eyebrow at her and walked further into the room, so that she could close the door behind her.
"Really? Because it look like you typed 'Emma Swan' into Google," the older of the pair replied with narrowed eyes.
"I…" Regina began, silently cursing that she had opted to have her desk so close to the door, there was no way that she would be getting out of this, "I didn't press enter," she replied.
Zelena crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head as she asked, "why not?"
"Well…I really want to know what happened to her…but don't you think that it's kind of an invasion of privacy? And the news isn't going to have the whole story anyway…"
"And what brought this on?" Zelena asked, trying not to sound disappointed.
"Kathryn was trying to search for what happened to her at lunch but Ruby wouldn't let her. She said that it would be an invasion of privacy and that it isn't fair that her worst life experiences are just online for everyone to read…."
Zelena raised her eyebrows as her sister spoke.
The younger Mills was clearly conflicted about the whole ordeal and Zelena couldn't help but feel a little bit of pride for that fact. The captain of the Storybrooke High Cheerleaders tended to like people to think that she didn't care about anything or anyone, especially if it involved hurting someone's feelings. She was sure that if there was embarrassing information about another student online, she wouldn't have hesitated for even a second to search for it so that she could discuss it at length with her friends. There would probably be a group dedicated to it, in fact.
"So…Kathryn and Ruby are like your consciences?"
Regina sighed but shrugged, it seemed like an apt comparison.
"Then you should know exactly who you should be listening to?"
"Well I usually would just listen to Ruby, but what if Kathryn is right? Emma might expect people already know what happened to her, which would mean that she would never want to talk about it and if she never talks about it then she'll never deal with it and I mean…it must have been something awful."
"Wow okay, calm down, Gina," Zelena said and uncrossed her arms so that she could raise her hands, "it isn't your job to be her shrink and if she never wants to say anything about what happened, then she doesn't have to. But if she does want to talk about it, then it's our job to make sure that she would actually want to go to one of us. Instead of obsessing, don't you think that you should just try and make friends with her?"
Regina flopped back against her chair and let out a sigh as she glanced over to the closed laptop, before she asked, "and how am I supposed to do that?"
"Stop treating her like she's an intrusion and maybe actually say more than one sentence to her. And when she gets her cast off and goes to school, don't pretend that you don't know her just because you want to look cool."
"I've said more than one sentence to her," Regina protested, though she couldn't think of a single thing that she had said in that moment.
"About shopping, but bombshell Kathryn interrupted the bonding."
The younger sister nodded and looked down at her lap. Zelena was making complete sense but it was easier said than done. Henry had bonded with their new foster sister almost instantly and she couldn't help but wonder whether she had missed out. She had no idea what their common ground was, so it wasn't particularly easy to start a random conversion that wouldn't be incredibly awkward.
"Why are you in my room anyway?" Regina asked as the thought suddenly occurred to her and she realised exactly where they were talking.
"I needed a pen," Zelena replied with a shrug and leaned forward to grab one from the desk.
"And you didn't knock?"
"I couldn't hear any music so I assumed you was up to something nefarious," Zelena replied with a rather satisfied smirk.
Regina rolled her eyes, though she didn't make any more arguments. Her sister's unwillingness to knock usually worked out in her favour considering that she would usually stop her from doing something bad.
"So what am I supposed to do?" Regina asked.
She knew that there was nothing that she could do right now since Cora had taken Emma for another meeting with Mr Gold for a progress report. She was sure that it was just a formality since it was rather strange to allow students to home school themselves for two weeks and her mother had been rather worried about the fact that the girl had very little experience in Storybrooke High. Then again, Cora had been rather worried about almost everything concerning Emma since she had arrived and Regina felt a pang of guilt when she realised that she hadn't been very helpful in her mother's pursuit to make Emma happy.
Honestly, she hated that she just naturally acted like a bitch, even though she knew that it was just a defence mechanism. Emma was so sweet and adorably awkward and she didn't deserve that.
As she realised that she had allowed her thoughts to drift again, the teen flushed a little and looked up at her sister for her reply.
"I can't just tell you how to make friends with her, Gina."
"Is that because you haven't made friends with her yet?" Regina asked.
"I never thought that we would be best friends, we're not exactly in the same age range like your are," Zelena replied.
"Henry isn't in her age range either and he's the one she spends the most time with…"
"Because he talks to Emma and they both like comic books…you used to like comic books right? Before you went all air-head cheerleader?"
"I'm not ten anymore, I just grew out of them," Regina replied with an exasperated sigh.
"Keep telling yourself that," Zelena replied with a chuckle, "but if you want to find some common ground before you talk to her, then you know exactly who the best person to ask would be…"
"You expect me to go and ask Henry for everything he knows about her?"
"It's that or go for the awkward conversation," the older of the two said before she starting walking towards the door, "just to warn you, you probably won't be getting this pen back."
With that, Zelena disappeared through the door and Regina shook her head, deciding that there was no point dwelling on how weird her sister was. If she left it till later, she would probably talk herself out of it.
Instead, she turned back to her computer and took a deep breath before she opened the lid so that she could get onto Amazon.
Henry would need some incentive to help her and she was sure that a certain web slinger would help with that.