second entry for the OQ prompt party, tuesday.
22. page 23 showing up out of nowhere.
set in an alternate version of season 7.
Evergreen
Roni has a little secret.
Very few people know about it – Henry, for starters, Lucy and Jacinda, and her partner Kelly knew about it before she left to become a hippie.
The fact is, Roni's secret doesn't bode well with her reputation – the cool, take-no-bullshit sharp barista, the one who took a self-defense course and has a baseball bat behind the counter, the one who knows how to throw a punch and strolls around in leather jackets and sometimes, if she's in the right mood, plays guitar in the quiet of her apartment.
Roni has a soft spot in her heart. And it's not the little spot she shows to some selected customers, when she exchanges a few words because every good bar owner knows how to do that, people who drink alone have something to drink for. It's a softer spot, more hidden, private. It's something that happens every week, on Monday evening, when she goes at the hospital and into the intensive care unit, to a room that's usually very silent.
There, lies her patient.
Because Roni volunteers, every Monday evening, like clockwork. And she sits next to this man, this John Doe who's in a coma since she has memory of him – since everyone at the hospital has memory of him, truth be told – and talks to him. At first, she didn't think it could be useful. Bullshit, she's told the doctor who proposed her to take this assignment. A man in a coma can't sense I'm there.
But… she's come to like this quiet moment of peace in her busy week. She catches herself thinking that what she's doing is stupid, sometimes. Other times, she loses herself in contemplation of him, and holds his hand. She wonders what color his eyes are, how does his voice sound like.
One day she brings Lucy along, because Henry is away with Rogers, for who knows what sort of investigation, and Jacinda is working, so she's babysitting on her day off, but she doesn't mind. Lucy brings her book along – the one she's so obsessed with, but Roni likes the kid, so… she'll accept whatever weird quirk she has.
"It's him?" Lucy asks, entering the room, her usual excited voice dropping down to a whisper.
"Yes it is," Roni answers, standing up next to the bed. John Doe, says the little panel with his medical recordings, and John Doe says the screen with his vitals – thump-thump, thump-thump, his heart, steady and strong as it always is, seventy-per-minute and the like. He looks asleep, she thinks, as she always does during her visits.
He doesn't look like a John Doe.
;
Lucy lends her the book for some days. She has a theory, Lucy. Many theories. She has lists and lists of names and genealogical trees and connections between characters. So she said Roni should read to John Doe, read him some stories, because honestly, Roni's tales about the bar and Victoria and Weaver are interesting but repetitive, and Lucy is sure their patient would like a little kick, some novelty. Roni wants to tell her that no, it's already a miracle if he even hears her voice, but doesn't. Instead, she pushes an old movie ticket between the pages, where she's found a good story, and walks to the hospital for the umpteenth time.
"Evening, Roni," the nurses greet her, she's a regular here, but this time she brings flowers. Little hyacinths and dandelions she has found in the tiny plot of garden Victoria hasn't managed to get her hands on.
He looks different, tonight. Someone has shaved him – they do it twice a week, but she usually comes when he has a bit of a stubble.
"Hi," she greets, softly, an automatic reflex as she sees someone she knows. Except, she feels quite stupid, because she doesn't really know him, does she? Not even his real name.
She sits, swiftly, next to him, then her eyes find his face. He looks asleep. His chest lifts and descends normally, as if he's breathing normally. He doesn't even have an oxygen mask. She hesitates, then her hand finds his for a moment, and he's warm behind her skin, he looks… healthy. Different. Something feels decidedly different. As if he's more… alive.
Roni shakes her head. Get a grip, she tells herself. These are Lucy's ideas, her believing nature, and she can't succumb to it. She knows life will come back to kick her again, if she dares to hope.
"Okay," she murmurs. "I… Lucy told me I should read you something… and I picked a couple of stories, but I don't know which one you'd like most, so… I'll just go random, okay? And forgive me, I'm not a great reader."
"Once upon a time, there was a beautiful girl, witty, and smart, and courageous, who fell in love with a childhood friend, and then followed him through misery and times of gloom, where all hope seemed to be lost. This friend of hers was an outlaw, and he stole from the rich to give to the poor… but this is the story of the woman who loved him, and helped him see the beauty in acts of kindness, and turned his selfish heart into a generous one. This is the story of Maid Marian…"
Roni clears her throat, but he's still unmoving. What did you expect, she shrugs to herself, and goes on with the story. Reads and reads until her voice is tired, but doesn't stop.
The story changes – now it's the story of a queen, young and sad, living in a castle as a prisoner, until a fairy makes her fly with pixie dust to find her soulmate. She reads and reads, until the queen is outside the tavern where her love sits.
"And she stood there, freezing, as if the fire of her hope had rapidly been extinguished by a bucket of water, because she realized she could never find the courage to enter and meet him, the man with the lion tattoo…"
He moves.
Suddenly, without warning or any noise, he lifts his hand, so quickly she could swear she has imagined it all, if it wasn't for the so very real weight of his hand above hers. He has it curled around her fingers, and she looks at him, but he doesn't move.
"Can you hear me?" she whispers, but he doesn't answer. Her eyes dart to the screen – his vitals are still normal, those usual numbers she's come to cherish. "Are you awake?" She squeezes slightly on his hand. Nothing.
"I'll… just call the doctor, okay?" her heart is thumping fast, faster than ever, because could it be, that Lucy has been right all along?
;
"Miss Belfrey? It's Doctor Smith. You said I should have called you immediately after any changes about John Doe… yes, that one. He… his vitals are showing a sudden increase in his cerebral activities. Yes. There was one of our volunteers… she was reading to him, when it happened. Said he grabbed her hand. Her name? Oh, you may know her. Roni. Roni Ramírez."
;
The next time she enters that room, she's different. She feels different. She's not Roni anymore – she's Regina, and she has memories worth several lifetimes.
She started getting ready an hour earlier. It may seem stupid, but if she's gonna see the love of her life – knowingly – for the first time in fifteen years, she's gonna look good. Gone are her jeans and leather jackets, for today. She unearths a dress, somewhere, and the flats he liked, because he said they made her seem pocket-size – when life was easier, and a resurrected frozen fake-wife was the biggest of their problems.
Regina enters the room with a bundle of tulips and something like jittery anticipation in her steps.
There he is. Robin.
A sob wracks her, the moment she sees him, and it takes everything she has not to run to him and kiss the life back inside his body. She could wake him up, she knows she could. She's not cursed anymore, she could. But if she does, her son dies, so she just sits next to him. Takes his hand.
"I miss you," she starts. "And I'm still angry with you for saving my life, because you're a moron who always gets in my way, but I'm also incredibly grateful you did. I lived, just as you wanted. I got a granddaughter and I love my family, but it's not the same without you…"
She tells him of Roland, how he grew up with her other half and his wish-version, tells him of Robyn, his daughter, but mostly, tells him of herself. How she wishes she could just kiss him, but first, she needs to save Henry.
"You always agreed that children come before us," she says, all teary, his warm hand between hers. "And I love you so much, so much, and I missed you and I want to be with you, but I can't risk Henry's life. We'll have to wait a little longer," she presses his hand against her cheek, doesn't risk getting it anywhere near her lips. "We have always been good at waiting, haven't we?"
It's hard to leave him – harder than ever, even though she knows he won't go anywhere.
When she exits, her hands slump into the pockets of her raincoat – her chin down, she doesn't want to look at anyone, because she has cried her heart out. Her fingers find something – something wrinkled and quite familiar. She takes it from her pocket, and – it's – it's what she thought it was, and she unfolds it, the old page from another world, from her past.
She stands in the middle of the sidewalk, the passersby don't even imagine what she is staring at – a piece of magic and hope, that page Robin had found years ago, that page telling her to hold on, and have faith.
"Okay," she murmurs, to her love, her thumb caressing the paper. "Okay. I'll always wait for you."
