Chapter Two
When Zelena awoke the sun had yet to shine through the high windows and a quick glance at the clock told her it was five in the morning. She groaned. Once she was up, it became impossible to fall asleep again. What was she to do for the next three hours? Luckily distraction arrived in the sound of sharp high heels coming fast down the hallway. After the nightmares that had plagued her during the night, Zelena had never been so happy to see her sister's blue dress and red earrings ensemble come through the doorway. "Regina!" She called, then realizing she had sounded far too relieved, followed the statement with a sarcastic, "You didn't go evil again huh? What a shame." Regina smiled like a cheshire cat. "Your barbs can't sting me, my ill-tempered sister. In fact, there is nothing that could get me down today." Zelena decided to play along. "Why's that?"
Regina pulled out a chair noisily from behind Emma's desk and scooted it close to the bars before sitting primly on the edge of it. "Well I talked to Robin last night," her cheeks flushed. "And he said he and Marian quarreled but she eventually gave her go ahead for us to be together." Regina's face darkened, a little of the Evil Queen now visible in her smile. "She also said she only stayed in the marriage for Roland." Zelena clapped her hands brightly. "Oh, I am so very happy for you! Go on, enjoy your happy ending!" The sarcasm finally got a waver out of Regina's smile but it quickly steadied and stayed on in full force.
"I've come to renew my offer of a second chance. Everything that I'm feeling right now has been worth all the hard work. If the Evil Queen can be happy, why can't the Wicked Witch?" Zelena's hands fell back to her lap and she glanced away at the wall to gather her thoughts. Regina pressed on in the silence. "Would it be better to feel hate and jealousy for the rest of your life or try to feel something more and be good for once?" Zelena nodded, bemused. "I could be good. Good is easy. Doing good is easy. However, feeling love or another obscene emotion…wouldn't work out for me. I'll never feel those things."
The wall of the jail cell blurred for a minute but she knew tears were only an automatic reaction, something her subconscious had reasoned was the correct response to her sad words. She turned back to her sister. Regina looked confused, her brows furrowed and a shadow over her eyes. With her pout and the creases on her forehead she was almost comical. "How could you be good and not feel anything? I don't understand. Even heartless (A/N: heartless as an adjective for emotion not literally without a heart) manipulation requires the user to believe they are good." Zelena sighed. "Must everything be spelled out for you?" Regina didn't answer. "What do you feel with sis?"
"My fingers, my skin, my-"
"No, you idiot, your heart. You feel with your heart."
"Yes and your point?"
"I'll never feel any intense emotion. Ever." The sound of chair legs and rattling bars made shockingly similar metallic sounds as Regina stood suddenly. Her mouth had dropped open in comprehension. "You don't have a heart." Zelena nodded.
"Where did you hide it? And when did you take it out?"
"No sis you don't get it. I don't have a heart." She shifted her eyes downward for a fraction of a second then gave her brightest smile. "I wasn't born with one." The bright toothy smile contrasted discordantly with the deep and irreparable sadness of her voice. Regina knew this wound was a deep one. The kind made at childhood that you never forget. "How could you not have been born with one? You would be dead."
"My magic keeps me alive. Regulates my blood flow. And before you get all concerned that stealing my magic will kill me, my nature as a creature who can use magic will sustain me."
"That's good." Regina sighed. This was becoming too complicated for her limited magic knowledge. She had learned enough to take her enemies out but magic theory had never really stuck in her mind. "You still don't seem to believe me." Zelena stepped right up to the bars and looked her sister straight on. A bit of the Wicked Witch's daring shone against the Evil Queen's soft side. "Rip out my heart."
"What!?"
"Go on, do it. It's the only way I'll prove I'm right." Regina's hand hovered in the air, indecisive. Then the Evil Queen's softer side disappeared and an expression living up to her name took its place. In a rapid jabbing motion she plunged her arm in past her wrist. Zelena winced and fell against the bars a little but remained standing, her breath coming in gasps. Regina moved her hand around a little and to her surprise felt absolutely nothing. She yanked her hand back out and found it empty. Ever so slowly Zelena changed her posture so it appeared she was leaning against the bars instead of using them to stay standing. Blatantly ignoring Regina she pretended to check her nails remarking, "No luck? Try the other side, maybe I just moved it." She had meant it as a joke but was unable to resist stumbling when Regina shove her hand into the other side of her chest. Once again Regina came up with nothing.
Regina set her jaw and sat back in her chair, taking her time to cross her legs in an attempt to return normalcy to the conversation. "You could have just taken it out," she said after a while. The sheer exasperation in Zelena's expression ruled out that possibility. She rolled her eyes and responded very deliberately. "I'm telling you, I wasn't born with one." "Why?" The one word question shocked Zelena. During the time she'd spent watching her sister, Regina had always seemed more of a take action person than someone who would figure things out. Learn something new everyday it seems.
"It's a very unknown fact but humans are not born with hearts. That is to say, they receive a heart the instant they are born, but do not have one as a matter of course. The catalyst that creates a heart is love. As long as someone, anyone, in the room where the baby is born loves the infant, a heart will form in its chest. As a child of a cruel mother who had something against me from before I was born, I missed out on being loved my anyone when I came into the world. The midwife had been hired for her discretion not sensibility and didn't even bother to check for a heartbeat. Cora of course didn't have the time when she could have been dating a king. The only love I ever knew was my adoptive mother's, but she died before I could remember her and it was too late then anyway." Zelena's voice had taken on that biting edge, so caustic and yet so defensive it didn't protect as well as it could have. Especially for Regina's discernment when she knew firsthand how embarrassing it felt to tell your own horrible life story when you knew the audience wouldn't care. On the contrary, her heart ached for her sister, having never experienced love. As the saying goes, better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. Cora ruined the lives of both daughters.
Joy was still burning through Regina but it was dulled knowing the last of her family would never understand how joy felt. How to get her sister a heart? Regina had never come across someone born without a heart and no one with two who might be willing go donate.
Suddenly the image flashed through her mind of Snow's heart. Of the true love between Snow and Charming allowing Regina to split Snow's heart in half and give half to her and half to her husband. That was it. Someone would have to split their heart out of love and give Zelena half. Regina would do it herself but the darkness in her heart would probably not be beneficial to her sister's psyche. So true love then.
She glanced over at Zelena. Her sister was seated back on the cot, her back against the wall, but still turned slightly towards Regina. One leg was tucked up next to her on the bed while the other swung in sharp strokes off the side. She had folded her arms and every muscle was tight, exuding great exasperation and also fear. As Regina watched, a strand came loose from the complicated twist on Zelena's head and she blew hard out of her lips to push it away, shaking it violently behind her ear. This might not be very easy.