21: On Call

The next few days after Regina called Jennifer were tense but uneventful. Greg was still in Storybrooke, and, from what she'd heard, Gold was revving up to leave town which meant that Hook was in danger. Outside of Storybrooke, Gold was defenseless, an easy target. He needed to eliminate any possible threat to his life. And Hook was vulnerable at the hospital. Besides that, Gold just wanted to be rid of him in general. The pirate knew it, too. So, as much as it pained him, he asked Emma for protection while he was healing. Emma, ever the Charming, couldn't in good conscience let him die. So, despite how much she disliked him, she asked Regina to cast a protection spell.

"Why should I protect Captain Hook?" Regina asked Emma in the same hallway that Jennifer had stolen her damn "vacutainer." Emma sighed, shifting from foot to foot, her thumbs latched under her belt loops. Regina's stubbornness exhausted her sometimes.

"Because he doesn't deserve to die," she said plainly, as if that was the only explanation anyone could ever need. Or as if the Evil Queen had any concept of decency.

"Let me rephrase it in a way that even a Charming should understand: why should I care if he dies?" Regina enunciated, leaning forward. It was a challenge designed to make Emma frustrated and irrational, a petty blow, really. Truth be told, Regina didn't mind casting the spell. She had no strong feelings either way for Hook. But after hearing about what Emma had done~was doing~to Jennifer, she felt an obligation to be particularly difficult with her.

Emma bristled at Regina's jab. "Because it'll be your fault," she told her firmly, her words hanging heavily in the air, echoing back in her head. "Look, if something happens to Hook because you didn't cast that protection spell, everyone will know. Henry will know. If you won't do it to save a life, at least do it for yourself."

Though Emma's voice was cold, she made it sound like Regina had a choice, like Emma was helping her. She looked ever so innocent, too, with her lips pressed together and her brow raised. God, she actually believed it! Regina nearly laughed at the absurdity of it all as a hard lump formed in her throat. She almost couldn't believe that Emma was capable of this kind of manipulation. She swallowed as reality set in, her eyes burning with angry tears. Emma was still waiting for a response. Oh, she'd give her a response. Quickly, Regina's lip twitched up into a snarl, her eyes glistening as they lowered. Then she forced a grimace onto her face.

"You're not as Charming as I thought you were, Miss Swan." Her words were icy, dripping with contempt. Emma stood up straighter, hiding her sudden uncertainty behind a firm mask. Wordlessly, Regina raised her arms, bursting with anger, and cast a spell. "I hope the pirate is worth it," she hissed before striding away.

. . .

With Hook protected for now, Gold was even more determined to leave Storybrooke as soon as possible. He was trying to keep up a relationship with Lacey, but Baelfire seemed like more of a priority for him. Lacey would still be there when he came back. So he contacted Emma. She knew this world better than anyone in Storybrooke, and she found people for a living before Henry came into her life.

"As I recall, you owe me a favor, Miss Swan," he told her, calm and collected while she stood there feeling angry and tricked. "Pack a bag. We leave tomorrow morning at 8." And he left her apartment without another word.

Henry had heard the entire thing from the top of the stairs. And, unaware of the severity of the situation, he was rather excited at the opportunity. So he asked Emma if he could come with. Jennifer had, after all, promised him a trip to New York. Besides that, with some planning, maybe he could get his mom and aunt to be friends again.

. . .

Jennifer and her friend Mitch had decided to go to their favorite restaurant across town for their lunch break that day. So they stopped in the locker room to grab their phones and car keys, and Jennifer frowned when she saw that she had two missed calls and a voicemail.

"What is it?" Mitch asked as he slid on his jacket, brow furrowed curiously.

"Emma called," she muttered absently.

"Maine Emma?"

"Yeah," Jennifer answered quickly before pressing the phone to her ear.

"Hey, Jenny. It's Henry. Guess what? Emma and Gold are going to New York tomorrow to look for Gold's son, and Emma said I could come. I was thinking maybe we could hang out if you're not busy? Call me back as soon as you get this!"

Jennifer smiled as she took the phone from her ear. Henry was a sweet kid. Impatient and selfish some of the time, but what little kid isn't? He had good intentions. It was incredibly short notice, but at least he wasn't putting her on the spot. She would hate to let him down like that.

"What'd she say?" Mitch asked. Jennifer had been friends with him since her last year of med school, so she told him a lot about her personal life including her trip to Maine.

"It wasn't Emma actually. It was Henry. They're coming to New York tomorrow on business. He wants to meet up." The business part was stretching the truth a bit, but Mitch didn't need to know that. "Can lunch wait a few minutes? I wanna call him back."

"Sure, no problem. I'll wait outside," he supplied, leaving her alone in the locker room. He was tall and lean, the kind of guy who could have been a pro basketball player if he wanted. He had cropped, blonde hair and a kind, warm smile. Most of the women in the hospital fawned over him and gave her dirty looks whenever they were together as if she were yanking him off the market or something.

She took a deep breath before redialing. Emma would probably be the one to answer. To be honest, she was actually pretty disappointed that Emma hadn't been the one to call her in the first place. She was the adult. She was his mother, for goodness sake. An eleven year old shouldn't be setting something like this up, especially not without Jennifer talking to Emma about it first.

"Hello?" It was Emma.

"Hey, Emma, it's Jennifer." There was a strangled silence on the other end, and Jennifer had the immediate feeling that Emma didn't know what Henry had done. To save them from any awkward conversations, Jennifer just continued to talk. "I don't know if you know, but Henry called me on your phone. He told me that you, him, and Gold are coming to New York tomorrow. He, well, said that he wants to see me."

"No, um, Henry didn't tell me that," she stumbled, pausing for a small moment to think. "But, I mean, I'm okay with it if you are."

"Yeah, I'm fine with it. I just don't get off work until one tomorrow afternoon. I don't know when you guys get in..."

"We fly into Laguardia at eleven thirty."

"Then I suppose you can visit me at work if you want. If I'm not busy, I can sit down and talk for a few minutes. Maybe I can get Henry in on a tour of the hospital. He seemed to like helping me take out my stitches back in Storybrooke."

"Yeah, I'm sure he'd like that a lot," Emma chuckled.

"How long are you staying?"

"Just a day or two."

Jennifer hummed. Her mind was running a mile a minute. She imagined that an outing with Emma would be extremely awkward, but at least it would be in a fresh new place. Who knew what could happen? This could be a fresh start for both them. And that gave her another idea. "Hey, Emma, do you think you could get another ticket to New York?"

"Another? For who?" Emma was obviously confused.

"Regina," Jennifer answered. She could feel the skepticism on the other end of the line. "Look, just do me this one favor, please. It'll be good for her. She needs to get away." Emma sighed.

"How are you going to convince her to go?"

"Leave that to Henry. He's the only one she'll listen to. I know he's in school right now, but can you tell him that? And can you please tell him to have Regina call me after he talks to her?"

There was silence on the other end. Jennifer winced, waiting.

"I'll ask Gold to buy another ticket," Emma finally answered, though rather reluctantly. "But only because Regina won't have magic outside Storybrooke." Jennifer clenched her jaw at Emma's paranoia but decided to set her misgivings to the side for now. There were more important things to worry about.

"Thank you, Emma."

. . .

It was Jennifer's turn to be the resident on call for the general surgery department. That meant that because she'd gotten to the hospital that morning at seven, she wasn't going to leave until around one tomorrow afternoon. It was currently 7:43 in the evening. On a normal day she'd be finishing a shift around now, so she was positively exhausted. To get through these god forsaken hours, apparently the ACGME recommends "strategic napping." It was worth a try. Someone would page her if things started going south. Besides, the attending on call had given her the go-ahead to grab half an hour of shut eye if she could.

She hated being on call, but it wasn't because she hated her job. In fact, she loved her job. Doing what she does had been her dream since she was a kid. The problem was that general surgery was a hell of a big and busy department. There were a handful of other residents working right now, but when she was on call she was just as busy as them for double the time. Plus, interns generally turned to the on call resident to gauge the state of things, so she always had to put on a brave face no matter how exhausted she was. They'd start to panic if they saw how wrung out she really felt. But could they really blame her? What did they expect, anyway? She ran everywhere for 29 hours, not 12 like the rest of them did, and she barely slept for any of it. Of course she still found it gratifying to be able to save a patient's life. It was why she put up with these ungodly shifts. She just wished they would leave her alone for 30 blissfully silent minutes.

She was dragging her feet by the time she reached the on call room. There were two sets of bunkbeds in the room that was aptly nicknamed "the closet." It had no windows, dark green walls, and was about the width of a closet. The lights were rarely turned on, but that evening they were. Inez must be working tonight. She always read books in the on call room, and, sure enough, there she was on the top bunk. She was a ridiculously sweet person, constantly smiling, inhumanly patient, and always cracking jokes to half the staff and all of the patients whether they were hers or not. And when Jennifer dared her to cut off her insanely long hair for 50 dollars, she came in the next day looking like Ellen. Naturally, she'd donated it all to charity and refused to accept any of her friend's money.

"Hey, Vega," Jennifer breathed.

Inez glanced down at her and smirked. "Long day?"

"Not even half over yet," Jennifer told her as she flopped down on the bottom bunk of the bed opposite Inez's. "I'm on call until tomorrow afternoon."

"Didn't you work second shift yesterday?" Inez wondered as she shifted onto her side to look down at Jennifer sprawled out on the bed, her eyes drifting closed against her will. Jennifer grunted in response. "Ouch." Inez hissed, looking down at her sympathetically, her brow furrowed tightly. "Hey, Mitch Chapman came in here like twenty minutes ago. You just missed him. He dropped off your cell before he left for the day, said someone important called you."

Jennifer cracked an eye open. "Toss it to me." Inez did. If Mitch thought it was important~urgent enough to bring her phone in here for her~then she better take a look. When she opened her phone and saw who it was, she couldn't help the smile that tugged incessantly at her lips. Inez picked up on it immediately.

"Who is it?" She sing-songed as she earmarked her book and set it down. Jennifer rolled her eyes.

"Someone I've been expecting," she responded as plainly as she could before standing up to make the call outside.

"Oh my goodness, honey, don't leave. You've been on your feet for twelve hours. I should be getting back to work anyway," Inez admitted as she climbed down from the bunk. "Good luck," she called as she strode out. Yeah, Jennifer was going to need it if Regina was going to be as reluctant as she expected her to be. With a deep breath, she sat back down and dialed her number.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Regina it's Jennifer. I'm guessing Henry talked to you?"

She heard Regina sigh heavily over the phone. "Yes, but I don't know if this is the best idea."

She knew Regina would say something like that. "Why not?"

"It's so...sudden."

Jennifer let out something between a laugh and a sigh as she scrubbed a hand down her weary face. "I know, but I think it'll be good for you."

"That's what Henry said."

"Then Henry's a smart kid," Jennifer smirked, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. "How's it going between you two?"

"Well. Slow," she admitted. "I walk him home from school now. We talk. Of course the Charmings can't see it, though. All they see is the Evil Queen," she bit through her teeth.

"They'll come around. You just have to hang in there," Jennifer assured her, and she truly did believe that. "Look, Regina, I really think that a trip to New York would bring you two closer. Besides, it'll be an adventure."

Regina chuckled into Jennifer's ear, light and amused and a little bit skeptical. "An adventure?"

"Yeah, you know, I can show you guys the sights while Emma and Gold look for his son," Jennifer answered, trying to make it sound reassuring, comfortable.

Regina paused, and Jennifer could practically feel the smile fading from the mayor's lips. "There's just one thing I'm not...Henry told me that one of the reasons he asked me to come is because you want me to…" she trailed off.

Jennifer's face flushed red, and she swallowed. "I just want you to be happy. And spending time with Henry outside Storybrooke will do nothing but help your relationship."

"You barely know me."

"I know you enough to know that you deserve more than the treatment you're getting in Storybrooke right now. And that is exactly why you need to get away," Jennifer deflected, her heart thumping in her chest.

Regina sighed, a soft noise of protest escaping the back of her throat, conflicted.

"Look, just tell me what's holding you back. Really," Jennifer insisted, but Regina was oddly silent. Jennifer was starting to frown by the time she spoke again.

"Alright. I'll go."