a/n: I'm still alive! The last month has been insane, but thank you for being patient with me.
22: Dr. Alexander
After she'd hung up the phone with Jennifer last night, she immediately called Emma because when Emma had dropped Henry off at her house after school that afternoon all she said was to call her when she'd made her decision. She'd had no idea what Emma was talking about until after her lengthy conversation with Henry.
"You've been kinda...stuck inside your head since Cora left. It'll be good to get away from everything in Storybrooke. Besides, it'll be fun to hang out with Jenny," Henry had explained gently.
Had she been stuck? She supposed that Cora's words were still tumbling around her her head. After all, she'd told her own daughter that she was too weak to prevent Henry from leaving, that she was just a shell of what she could have been (what Cora didn't know that she once was): someone strong and decisive, someone who wasn't afraid to take what she wanted, what she needed. And she needed Henry in her life. The problem was that she felt like all she was doing to fix it was digging a tunnel through the sand. She felt weak and pitiful, and she feared that Henry could tell.
. . .
She didn't like airplanes. She didn't like being stuck shoulder to shoulder with strangers. She didn't like being launched into the air inside a giant metal death trap, and, the first time she'd flown, she remembered hating being treated like a commoner.
Henry, on the other hand, was ecstatic. He couldn't sit still for more than five minutes in the terminal. Gold would sigh dramatically every time Henry stood up, and both Emma and Regina would glare him into submission.
Then Regina's phone buzzed in her blazer pocket.
Have a safe flight! Stop by the hospital when you land. Henry might like a tour
Her lips stretched up into an amused smile, and Emma noticed. "Are you texting?"
The two of them hadn't communicated much since Regina cast the protection spell over Hook. In fact, they didn't say a word to each other during the drive to the airport.
"I fail to see how it's any of your business, Miss Swan," Regina blinked, shaking her head. Emma raised her brow and glanced down at Regina's phone. Regina swallowed, locking the screen.
"I just didn't think you were a texter," Emma shrugged. Henry was up again, wandering the terminal, looking out the windows at the planes taking off and taxiing, so there was an empty buffer seat between the two of them. Regina's phone buzzed again. "Is that an address? From Jenny?" Emma asked curiously. "She did say she wanted us to visit the hospital when we landed."
"I am not wasting time visiting Dr. Alexander when we could be looking for my son," Gold told them firmly, almost a hiss, apparently having listened to them talk. Regina shot her eyes to the ceiling and folded her hands over her lap, sighing.
"You can spare an hour for lunch," Emma drawled.
"You don't even want to see her," Regina couldn't help but interject. She was fed up with Emma's crap, fed up with her pretending to be such an angel.
"She's my sister. Of course I want to see her!" Emma protested, turning her whole body to face Regina who gasped out a ridiculous half laugh.
"Family doesn't do what you did," Regina shook her head.
"Tell that to your father, Regina," Emma responded in a low, icy voice.
"At least I lived up to what I did," Regina hissed. "All you did was make excuses." Emma's face was tense and angry, and it made Regina pause in shock, watching as Emma clenched her fists. "Wow. You actually believe them." She scoffed and shook her head. Before Emma could come up with a reply, Henry bounded back to them.
"When is our plane gonna land?" He asked, sitting down between them. He noticed the intensity in the air immediately. "Are you guys okay?"
. . .
"Inez, they're coming," Jennifer breathed as she jogged up next to her in the hall.
"What?" she asked, alarmed. "Who?"
"People I met in Maine. It's...complicated, but I didn't know they were coming until yesterday and I...I don't know how to entertain them."
"In New York City? Are you kidding me?" she laughed, looking Jennifer up and down. "Take them to the Met, Central Park, the Empire State building. Jesus, Alexander." Jennifer rubbed a hand over the back of her neck.
"I just want to make a good impression, you know? Henry's just a kid so he'll like anything I throw at him, but I have no idea what Regina likes," she pushed, hoping for some kind of miracle solution. Inez raised her brow as they walked. She was holding a chart, and Jennifer had a couple minutes to spare.
"Regina's a nice name." She had a curious lilt to her voice, almost suggestive.
Jennifer blushed, shoving Inez's arm. "Oh, fuck off. That's really all you've got?"
"What?" Inez laughed, throwing her arms up. "I didn't even do anything!" Jennifer just shook her head, and Inez smirked. Now there was no doubt in her mind that Regina was the one she'd gotten the phone call from yesterday, the one she'd been smiling about in the on call room.
"Alright, look. Show Henry around the hospital. Dr. Fields is the attending on call for general surgery, right?" Jennifer nodded. "Okay, I can get you 20 minutes if it's not busy, but the volume on your pager better be high enough to wake the dead from their refrigerated little caskets down in the basement. Got it?" she asked sternly. Inez was a Fellow, and she'd been something between a mentor figure and a friend to her for the last couple years.
"Got it, thank you," Jennifer smiled, falling back as Inez walked ahead.
"Oh, and it'll be good for Regina to see you in your lab coat. Women like uniforms. Make sure you don't have any blood on your sneakers either," Inez called back to her with a cheeky grin.
. . .
As promised, Jennifer took Henry and Regina on a tour of the hospital after Emma and Gold dropped them off. They didn't stay for lunch, and it was probably best anyway.
As they walked, Jennifer noted that Regina looked tired from the plane ride with shining eyes and flushed cheeks and clothes that were ever so slightly ruffled. She was in a very tailored jacket and a fancy silk blouse, and Jennifer thought it was rather funny that she chose to wear that on a plane. Those heels were fit for a board meeting not a cramped, stuffy airplane. But Jennifer adored that she wasn't phased at all by her questioning glances and couldn't help the grin and chuckle that escaped her lips as she directed them to radiology.
Jennifer asked them about the plane ride as they walked, turning corners and riding an elevator and squeezing past other doctors and nurses and stretchers. And Regina just listened, content, as she talked. She figured that she could listen to Jennifer talk for hours without getting bored. Though she didn't know what the hell Jennifer was talking about when she went into the specifics of diagnosing a patient, she said it with such enthusiasm that Regina couldn't help but be enamoured.
She admired the dedication and respect she had for her work. It was refreshing. And it was really very nice to see her in scrubs. They first caught her eye when Jennifer had met them in the lobby earlier. They were navy blue, and she was donning comfy looking tennis shoes and a pristine white lab coat as well~similar to the one she'd stolen in Storybrooke. It looked better with scrubs underneath. Jennifer, in fact, looked much more professional in scrubs, a lot different than when she'd thrown on a lab coat and played doctor in Storybrooke. This was the real thing, and it honestly took Regina's breath away.
This is what she did for a living. She saved lives, and all Regina had ever done for the world was take them away. She felt ashamed of herself all of a sudden. Jennifer was much too good for her, that was abundantly clear. She watched as Jennifer checked the pager on her waistband. "I better get going," she sighed, glancing up at them. "Why don't I meet you guys at the cafe across the street?" she asked, looking between them, her hands on her hips. That's when Regina noticed how frazzled she looked. Despite how normal she was acting, she looked exhausted, strands of hair falling out of her ponytail and dark circles under her eyes.
"How long have you been working?" Regina couldn't help but ask. She thought it was odd that Jennifer would only work half a day at a hospital, but she hadn't had a chance to ask about it until now.
"Since seven," Jennifer nodded, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her lab coat and shifting her weight around. Regina frowned. She seemed too tired to have only started at seven this morning. She hadn't even worked a full day yet her scrubs were wrinkled, eyeliner smeared ever so slightly at the corner of her eyelids.
. . .
When Jennifer's shift ended at one, her only thought was of coffee. She'd taken a few strategic power naps over the course of the last 30 hours, but it wasn't even close to a full night's sleep. Combined with the second shift she'd worked the night before, she was fighting to keep her eyes open. She changed back into her street clothes on autopilot~jeans and a tee shirt~and ran a comb through her tangled hair. She just needed coffee; that's all. She'd be fine. She washed her face, looked herself in the mirror, and nodded in resignation.
"I'm a mess." She had dark bags under her eyes, no makeup on hand, and the dull heaviness of sleep behind her eyes. She had no idea how she was going to entertain Henry and Regina for the entire day. She closed her eyes, holding herself up against the porcelain sink. After a moment of much needed calm, she took a deep, harsh breath and slapped herself lightly on the cheek a couple times, blinking rapidly. She looked at herself in the mirror. "Alright, sleep is for the weak. You can do this, Jennifer." She paused and pressed her lips together, exhaling forcefully through her nose and nodding lightly to herself. "You can do this."
. . .
Emma called Jennifer as she was walking to the cafe. She wasn't expecting her call until later so, curiously, she answered it. "Yeah?"
"Look, I know I've been an asshole. You're under no obligation to give a damn about me, but I need your advice," Emma breathed on the other end. She sounded like she was in a panic. Jennifer slowed her pace and frowned.
"What's wrong?" If Emma hadn't been so hysterical, Jennifer would not have felt any obligation to listen to her. Not unless what was going to come out of her mouth was a heartfelt apology. But Jennifer could practically feel her mind running in circles, and it reminded her of when they were kids. And she felt an old, familiar pull to listen and help and be a sister again. And she gave in. Just this once.
"It's Henry," she rambled, and Jennifer could feel her pacing on the other end.
"Henry?"
"Henry's father."
"What about him?" She didn't know where this was going or what had brought this on, but it was information that she felt was for her ears only, and that was something she'd forgotten she missed about Emma. All those little things they used to know about each other. And this felt strangely reminiscent of them talking under the covers at night when no one else could get to them and they trusted no one but each other and the dark to keep their secrets.
"Gold's son is Henry's father," she said quickly, like ripping off a band-aid. And there was a loud silence between them, Emma waiting for Jennifer to say something, anything. Jennifer didn't know what she should say. She blinked, her mouth gaping.
"Henry's Gold's…"
"Yeah, he is," Emma confirmed, completely frazzled. But there was something else she was concerned about. Jennifer could tell.
"So, what~"
"I told Henry his dad was a firefighter and that he died. Jesus, I told him he was a hero for fuck's sake!"
"I take it that's not what actually happened."
"Jennifer, I had Henry in jail because Neal let me take the fall for watches that he fucking stole! I haven't seen him in eleven years!" she exclaimed, outraged, frustrated, and trapped. "I don't want Henry to meet him."
"Emma, you can't keep this from him."
"I just…" she trailed off, groaning. "I can't even look at him."
"Emma, listen to me. Henry doesn't deserve not to meet his father just because you don't like him or because you lied to Henry about him. Sometimes you just have to suck it up and face your problems. You dug this hole, and you're just going to make it worse if you do anything but tell him. Both of them," Jennifer told her firmly. Somewhere in there Jennifer had started talking about her own problems with Emma, and they both knew it. Emma sighed, and Jennifer frowned suddenly. "But you knew that all along, didn't you," she guessed. It was just something about the way she sighed, like she was too willing, too ready to agree to whatever sense Jennifer happened to spout.
Emma didn't say anything for a while.
"Why'd you call me?"
Emma was silent some more. "I just needed someone to talk to," she paused. "I needed to talk to you," she amended. "Jennifer, you've been the only person I feel comfortable enough talking to about...everything. I just...miss you," she admitted. "But I'm also kind of panicking," she added nervously.
"Let's just focus on Henry right now," Jennifer suggested, making sure she didn't get her hopes up. Emma wasn't thinking straight, and she wanted to make sure to take that into account. At this point, she wouldn't put it past her to use Jennifer willingness to help to her advantage. "Where are you?"
"A bar. Somewhere."
"Okay, why don't you come to us. We're at the cafe across from the hospital," she instructed. Emma took a deep breath. "You can do this. Just relax."
