Notes:
This chapter complies with the prompts from OQ Prompts:
#15: OQ as parents
#24: Back from the death
#70: one of them is sick/injured & a bad patient
#263: A secret getting revealed
#294: One of them almost dies before they get together
In the previous chapter
His big hazel eyes sparkle on his little face, and he shakes his head, then raises his hand holding the elegant crown of flowers that the young woman hadn't noticed before.
"We made a gift for you. Spring Queen crown!"
"Oh honey, this is the most beautiful crown I've ever seen. Will you wear it on and honor me?"
Henry's little hands place the crown on his mother's head, and she leaves a kiss on her son's cheek.
"Thanks, my little prince. You are the most perfect gift a queen could ever wish to have."
While the little boy hides on his mother's neck, his father wins a kiss too. "You too, my love."
The man sticks his nose in the hair of his wife, he thinks this is the only scent that will leave behind what is scattered from the countryside. He straightens the crooked crown and kisses her hairline.
"We thought we lost you." He wraps his arm around her slender waist and guides her as she walks. "You went to pick flowers, you were gone for two hours."
"I was sitting to rest, I fell asleep." She runs her fingers through her son's messy hair. "You will never lose me, darling. I will always be with you."
All three of them hold each other tightly as if their lives are connected.
Can you be the only employee or servant of someone that you have witnessed almost her whole life, you control the food she eats, the clothes she wears, the steps she takes, even the breath she takes? And when your boss is the kindest person in the kingdom?
Graham Humbert was a twenty-four-year-old young man when he was placed at the queen's service. His oath to protect her with his life gradually ceased to be a simple oath, and it also ceased the man from being just her right-hand man.
Now, as he turns the kingdom upside down, he swears that when he finds those who dare to take Regina Mills, whom she has a great love in his heart, from the people she loves and loves her, he will make life unbearable for them.
Even though Regina is much younger than Ruby Humbert, who was brutally severed from life and her brother before he entered the palace, and only four years older than Graham, he will destroy those who try to take from him the woman he replaced for his sister.
"Mr. Locksley." He called out to the man who kept his eyes on the woman he loved behind the glass that was placed between them three days ago.
He waited for the blue eyes to slide back to him from the woman under the white sheets.
"They informed us that some suspects were caught. But since all the cameras in your path are disabled, you are the only person who can identify them."
"Okay, if you can stay here, I can go now."
" I thought we could go together when Miss Mills came."
As Robin's crystal balls watched the man intently, he began to wonder if he had said something wrong.
"How did you find us, Graham?"
The panic on the man's face makes him frown.
"I…I know it's wrong, but I swore to protect our queen at all costs. You must understand me…"
"I won't judge you in any way, if she's still breathing today, whatever you've done is because of you. I just want to know."
"We knew that this agreement would bring dangers, but our queen insisted on executing it in the interests of the kingdom. I have control over her official phone and e-mail, but only she can enter her personal accounts. I took out access while I was away at the palace, just to be careful. I've been searching for threatening emails for a while, but we couldn't reach a result, so I increased the precautions. There is a mini tracker inside her phone, it works even if the networks are disabled. When I sensed an anomaly, we set out, but we couldn't catch up. I failed. I'm sorry."
Despite knowing that Graham had been with Regina for a long time, Robin had never thought about the extent of their relationship before. No matter how badly the man before him thought he had failed -no one could understand that feeling better than him- he had fulfilled his mission and saved his queen's life. No matter how much he thanked him for this, even if he threw the world in front of him, he felt like it wouldn't be enough. But the common feeling they shared made him think that it wasn't just a boss-employee relationship. He trusts Regina endlessly, he has nothing to take the wrong way, but he's not sure how Graham feels towards the woman. He can understand by the familiar pain that they shared in his eyes.
The guard realized that his stories sounded obsessive. And besides, he cares about her loved ones as much as he cares for his queen's happiness, so it's the last thing he wants to upset the man she loves. He thinks he might misinterpret it and immediately continues with his explanation.
"She was always so kind to me, I've been serving her for ten years, and you know… She was so lonely." He paused and took a breath for a moment. He had been able to say to Regina what he was about to say a little later, and now to the man to whom her heart belongs. "I lost my entire family when I was very young, for many years it was just my sister and I. Before I entered the palace… She was killed. After our queen found out about this, she was very supportive of me."
"She managed to hide you from all of us, I didn't know about it until a few months ago, but I'm sure her heart is always yours. I could see it now. She never stopped loving you, not even for a moment. Our feelings for each other are nothing more than a brother and sister, Mr. Locksley. I just want to protect her… I can't lose my sister again."
The lawyer's eyes, which had been filled with every moment for three days, once again found the woman he believed to represent all the good in the world from behind the glass.
First of all, you have to live for yourself, my love.
Then for our son.
Then for me.
For Zelena.
For our family, for our friends.
I found another reason why you have to live.
For a lonely soul. For your little brother.
You have to live, my love, to spread the beauty of your heart to the world.
"I always trust Regina's feelings, she never cares about the wrong people." He put his hand on the man's shoulder and smiled. "Let's wait for Zelena, then we'll go together. And Graham, please call me Robin."
As a lawyer, he should think objectively and learn to control his emotions. He should leave justice to the legal system. But while waiting for the suspects to be taken to the interrogation room at the police station, he wants to throw those who have made their life hell into fire. He loses the count of how many times he's walked the hall from head to toe as he clenches his fists so as not to grab a gun and puncture their bodies.
"Mr. Locksley, we are ready." An officer came out of the door they were waiting for and announced that it was finally time.
Robin is sure that his anger is at its peak, but he isn't sure if that anger has prepared him to face those who want to take Regina from him. Although he can't admit it, he is afraid to scrape all the details of the faces that he can't see clearly in the dark next to the voice in his mind, and add another element that will haunt his nightmares.
Three people are standing behind a thick glass. Three people don't make a point in his mind because he only communicates with their leader, but he concludes that the man standing in the middle is the right height.
"What do you think? Are these them?"
Are they? Those who want to leave his son motherless? Are they the ones who ripped his heart out?
"Robin?"
"Can you make the middle one talk?" He doesn't even notice that his voice is shaking.
The officer in charge leaves his side to fulfill his wish and enters the interrogation room.
Robin's anger from minutes ago gives way to the fear he felt three days ago. He begs Regina to stay awake, tells her not to get out of the car, forces her to stay behind. His breath freezes in his lungs, the clock on the wall flows backwards, not forwards.
"If you want to get her, you will have to go through me first!"
"Robin, go home."
"I'm already at home Regina, I'm with you. Don't ask me for the impossible."
After his request reaches the required place, the officer and the suspects are left alone in the room again.
Robin feels his heart like it's going to explode. He can't remember ever being so afraid of a sound.
"What was your purpose when you assassinated the Queen? Did you want to kidnap?"
"We are not the ones who assassinated your Majesty."
"Regina Mills, if you want to save your son and your lover, get out of the car; I am not your mother or your husband, I am not leave my work unfinished!"
"With your own choice, or your death, your majesty."
"I won't let a bought woman cost me everything!"
His anger is pouring out of his body. The breath he is holding comes out of his lungs not as carbon dioxide but as hatred. The free hand beside him clenches into a clenched fist, landing one after another against the thick glass. His brain can't even access the knowledge that they can't hear him, he just hits.
"You bastard, son of a bitch! I will kill you! For every second she suffers, I will make your hours hell!"
His one arm is bandaged and although he hasn't slept properly for days, Graham can't hold back the man whose feelings come out with the strength of a bull. He doesn't really want to hold him back, he wants to join Robin in listing his threats.
"You burst your seams?!" The red-haired woman entered the hospital room in amazement. "What were you thinking, Robin, for God's sake?" Exhausted after a nervous breakdown and reliving his worst day, the man turned his head from the pillow.
When Zelena noticed her bandaged hand, she realized that her knowledge was missing. "Robin? What happened?"
"It was him, Zelena." He said in a tired voice. "I lost myself. If we didn't have that glass between us..."
He is ashamed of the threats and curses he hurled at the police station, and he behaved unbecoming to his profession. But to hell with his job, that wasn't what stopped him from killing that man. Regina didn't leave him alone in his world, even as she struggled with her own life. He felt a strength holding his soul tight, preventing him from throwing his fists and kicks, and her beautiful voice filling his mind. Come to me Robin, I need you by my side.
Most cases require deep research after admission. Residences, assets, criminal records, many personal life information of the persons concerned... Health records are one of them.
Robin has read numerous hospital reports throughout his professional life; he saw pain, he saw joy. He watched the passing of a life in lines.
He wants to look at the stack of papers he is holding as a case file he has undertaken, he wants to think professionally. He wants to be a lawyer, not a man whose heart has been torn to pieces.
But no matter how hard he tries, he can't help but think emotionally as the letters on the file have turned into the name Regina Mills. He knows he has to change his decision that he wanted to take the case a few hours ago and contact a colleague he trusts. He will. But not before reading.
Flu, general control, vitamin supplement, cold, throat infection, blood checks, general control, wrist injury...
He stopped turning the pages and approached the letters, thinking he had misread it. He continued to traverse the lines as his blue orbs expanded.
Could there have been a mess? Or misunderstood? He wished it wasn't true, but deep down he knew there was more to it.
There was only one way to understand. He took the file with him and left the room. He continued his steps without stopping until he found the person he was looking for.
He stopped right next to the woman sitting in front of the door, which contains all the heartache at the end of the corridor.
"Zelena, I'm going to ask you something and I want you to tell me the truth."
She lifted her head from her phone and looked at the disheveled man with tangled blond hair and the same shirt and trousers he had been wearing for three days.
"What's going on Robin?"
"Was Regina pregnant?"
He watched a deeper pain spread into the sad eyes of the red-haired woman, whose pale lips parted and let out a small breath of surprise.
"Where did you learn that?"
He handed the file, which he held tightly in his hand, to the woman. "I was going to take the case, I needed to look at the patient file."
"It's not that I don't trust you, but you're worn out too..."
"I will give it to a friend. I can't control my emotions. Now will you tell me about this pregnancy?"
"This is a very sensitive subject for Regina. Just as much as you and Henry." She opened the file and scanned the page to see how much of her life had been written. Leopold had done everything specifically to keep this event secret.
"It just says it's an ectopic pregnancy."
The red-haired woman closed the file and handed it back to the man sitting next to her. Her eyes filled with sadness as she looked back over her shoulder at her sister. She couldn't bear her to be condemned to sleep in a hospital bed for days, as if all she had lived through was not enough, as if her losses were few.
"For a while when they got married, Leopold didn't care about royalty, so he didn't want a child. Regina was still mourning you anyway, she didn't even question his decision. Three years later, there were rumors that changed his mind…"
She didn't know if she should tell Robin about the pressure he had put on his young queen for an heir. Even though the woman had no problems -of course, no one could present it to the king, although Henry was the greatest proof of this- that he had repeatedly subjected her to fertility treatments or confined her to her room for days…
She studied him carefully, from the wrinkled t-shirt and trousers he'd worn since he'd changed his bloody clothes, to his younger-looking face three days ago. She knew he'd want to run and hug Regina when he found out, and if he didn't, he'd be overwhelmed with more grief.
For now, she decided to keep some of the past to herself. "And finally Regina got pregnant, and we didn't know. She was showing some signs, but she didn't want to admit it, you know… She thought she was going to betray Henry. One day, when she was taken to the hospital with heavy bleeding, we realized that she had an ectopic pregnancy. It was late…"
Leopold and his ambitions stole her motherhood from her.
"They had to get her fallopian tubes."
"She will never have baby again…" The heavy awareness of the truth hit Robin. Ah, where was he when his Regina was in so much pain? Why didn't he fight more?
They thought they'd go mad with joy when the day passed like a year—which, considering Regina had been sleeping for three days, they had been waiting behind the white walls for three years—finally, when the doctor finally announced that her vital signs had returned to normal, and that they would stop the medication, and wake the woman, whose face was still pale, they thought they would go mad with joy.
At last, they will be able to see again her eyes, a tiny pair of miniatures of all the stars shining in the eternal darkness of the universe. At last, they will be able to hear again the laughter that leaves the most beautiful flower gardens breathless.
After the doctor had agreed to take the most distraught trio of the crowd into the queen's room while they awaited her awakening, all four of them await the slightest movement, without taking their eyes off the bed.
"Are you sure she is rested enough to wake up? She still looks very pale." Zelena asked.
"She has a very strong body, don't worry, all values seem normal right now. She doesn't need any more sleep."
"Can people live normally with one kidney?" The boy with his father's arm wrapped around his shoulder broke the silence.
The doctor smiled as he wondered if Robin would join the conversation with another anxious question after he answered Henry's question. He thought the Queen was very lucky to have people who loved her so much.
"Without any problem."
"You said we'd know when she woke up if the head injury had done damage."
That's it! His predictions are correct.
"We will continue to keep her under observation at the hospital for at least one more week. We'll make sure she is completely okay."
"She's waking up!" Henry's excited scream filled the room.
The two adults quickly looked away from the doctor and back to the bed. A murmur escaped her pale pink lips as Regina slowly turned her sideways head.
The man whose arm fastened with a sling, bent down quickly and ran his fingers through her hair, which he had been afraid to touch since he entered the room. He was so afraid that he wouldn't be able to do this move again, and he felt the emptiness in his palms so deeply that he felt a panic as if the silk wires sliding under his hand were not real, and he would wake up at any moment and lose her.
"Regina…" His voice came out much weaker than he thought. "Love..."
She let out another vague murmur.
"We are here, honey. You're safe, you're fine." Zelena took her small hand in hers, gripping it tightly enough to suppress the intensity of her last recollections.
"Ro-bin."
Blue eyes hid behind his eyelids with his voice giving life to his name, and accompanied his spirit, sending a short prayer of thanks to God.
"I'm here, baby. Open your eyes, I'm with you."
The hot chocolates appeared and disappeared for a moment. The pupils, who had not seen light for days despite being fully opened in the next time, could not adapt to the environment and closed back.
"We can dim the lights." The boy, who had not yet dared to speak at the doctor's suggestion, ran and turned the knob by the door, dimming the brightness a little. When he returned, he hid behind his father so that he could still see his mother. He was afraid that if he opened his mouth, he would burst into sobs and cry.
"Is it better?" She replied by pushing her eyelids up again, this time leaving them there.
While she was slowly regaining consciousness, her family reluctantly withdrew so that the doctor could check her. Even one step away felt like miles.
He held the light up to her eyes and studied her reaction. "Can you follow my finger? Very good. Please move your fingers. Is there something wrong that you feel?"
"My stomach hurts."
"Your painkiller will be given shortly." He said. When it comes to her memory… "What is the last thing you remember, Your Majesty?"
"I-We were having dinner." She thought for a moment. Then she continued in a hoarse voice she hadn't used for days. "Robin was going to take me at the palace."
"Yes?" He watched her movements carefully as encouraged her to continue.
"I want water, please." A hand rose and rubbed her sore throat.
"You can drink it in small sips, if you feel nauseous, tell me right away."
Zelena raised the glass to her sister's lips as Robin supported her head. After drinking her water, she settled back into her pillow.
"I remember my head ached a lot. I think I hit somethi-They were following us! God!" The horror she had experienced days earlier was reflected all over her face as her mind was flooded with memories. "Robin, you were shot!"
Maybe he would find it sweet and his heart burst with love… But not when she was back from the dead.
"I'm fine, darling. You…" But he couldn't finish the sentence he started. Fortunately, the doctor, accustomed to such conversations, was there.
"Don't you remember what happened next?"
"Very blurry, there are-there are some voices."
"It will all come in time, don't worry. In such situations, our mind may shut down to protect itself. Your last moments may be blurred from the rising adrenaline level and the loss of blood."
"What happened to me?" She directed her question to the blue-eyed man standing next to her.
"Regina, you-I couldn't. You-My god!"
You almost died!
"Two bullets hit your body. Unfortunately, someone completely ruptured your kidney, we had to remove it." A confused expression appeared on her face as her shaped brows furrowed. "We were able to repair the damage to your liver. We will follow your head trauma and your adaptation process. I'll leave you alone for now, we can talk in more detail later when I come to check. Let me know immediately if you have a problem. Get well soon."
"I… Was I dying?"
Regina has always been the bravest. She did what was said to be impossible, she ran blindly to risks that no one dared to dare… And she said everything that was afraid to be said in one go.
She was filled with the need to take back what she had said for the first time as a suppressed sob rose from her son -Oh, why didn't you tell me Henry was here?!- , whose presence in the room his father had not noticed behind the body.
"Henry, sweetie…" His tear-drenched face came into view. The boy quickly but carefully sank down on the edge of the bed and buried his head in his mother's hand. "I'm fine."
"You weren't. I was so scared. I didn't feel like enough before-I never said it. I know-and I'm so sorry. I was so afraid of losing you. I understood before, but I didn't say it." He continued to take short breaths as he sequenced his unconnected sentences one after the other. "I can't lose you. Please don't leave me. I… I love you so much, mom!"
Notes:
Hey, how are you? I'm crying! Finally Henry called her mom, I think that might have been the best wake up gift he could have given her. Regina must melted.
Did you like the relationship between Regina and Graham? Everyone trusted him a lot, and so did I, of course. And I loved to write that there is so much more between them.
Let me know what you think, please.
And I have news, the next chapter is the finale. I promise there will be an epilogue as well.
See you soon!