As part of the #AngstDay2k15 that I've just imposed upon myself, here have some angst.

I'm not bitter haha i'm just angsty.

For Geli. Thank you to my sweet friend Jen for her pre-read and pre-approve! :)

TW: Death. Miscarriage. Don't read if sensitive. Thanks.

Enjoy!


|Would you know my name

If I saw you in heaven?

Would it be the same

If I saw you in heaven?|

Regina shrugs on her coat as she hurriedly makes her way down the stairs. Her heels make a loud click-clacking noise against the floorboards as she tries to carefully reach the last landing. Her husband is right behind her, her (well, his, actually) burgundy scarf in his hands. He pulls her by her elbow once they near the door, and then nips her by the waist.

She smiles and playfully pushes him away. "I'm going to be late," she says with a roll of her eyes as he leans down and kisses her, his hands sneaking looping the scarf around her neck. She breathes in a little sharper when he pushes his tongue inside her mouth. "Robin," she tries once more. "Gold is going to be displeased if I'm tardy."

Working at Storybrooke firm has its perks, one of them being on the top law firm in the whole of Manhattan, but it has its downsides—one of those is working for Gold who is a stickler for time and would definitely raise all hell if someone is late. So she does need to go…but that thought is pushed further into her mind as Robin kisses her once more and slides his tongue in her mouth, playing with her for a while and making her breathless before he releases her lips.

His hands come down to touch her not so little bump (it's humongous in fact, she's due any day now and she's going over her maternity leave which is why she's having this meeting with Gold). He pushes her coat away, and she lets him feel her bump as much as he wants, smiling as he does so.

"Take care of my little gummy bear," he says, making her smirk and raise her eyebrow. He'd taken into calling their child gummy bear ever since he's seen the sonogram picture and declared it to look like one. She'd never been able to dissuade him from doing so. "And take care of yourself, my love." He leans down again to kiss her.

She nods as she tightens her hold against him. "I love you," she whispers. Their lips are centimeters apart and she feels his breath tickling her face.

"I love you too," he says, pecking the tip of her nose, before he nuzzles it with his. "Keep safe, and I'll be waiting for you to come home."

She nods before she pulls away and walks out of the door with a smile.

She feels the first strings of labor as Gold goes over some facts of her maternity leave. Not that they haven't discussed this before, or anything. She tries to focus, tries not to think or panic, but the pain becomes intense from her lower back down to her front.

She grimaces as another wave of pain knocks her back and makes her lean back against her chair. She should have listened to Robin and had had Gold over. But she'd wanted to do things, rather than just sit at home, fiddling her thumbs. So she'd gone. She regrets it now.

"Regina?" Gold asks, a look of concern falling over his features, "Are you okay?"

She opens her mouth to answer, but just then, her water breaks and a wave of pain hits her again. She isn't able to hide the moan that escapes her lips this time.

"Call 911, then call my husband," she says, almost pleading as the pain intensifies. "I think I'm going on labor."

She'd have laughed at the look of horror that crosses Gold's face if she isn't in so much pain.

He sits on one of those plastic chairs in the waiting area as he wonders what has happened to his wife. This is their first baby, and they have been told that it might take longer, be more painful for her…but he worries, and he worries very much, so he stands once more and starts pacing. Beside him, Killian—his best mate, and the first one he'd called whilst driving to the hospital—groans and slaps his palm on his face.

He's asked Robin to calm down twelve hundred times as of the last half an hour.

"Mate, she's going to be fine," Killian says with a look of exasperation. "Look why don't you go call her family or something?"

Robin has already called Regina's mother and father, her cousin Mary Margaret, and is now just waiting for them to arrive. He shakes his head no and starts his pacing all over again.

"Fine," Killian says, standing up now. "I'm going to get something to drink. You want something?" he asks, as he points down to the corridor, when Robin shakes his head no, he sighs and then disappears once more. All the while, he's fishing out his cell phone, no doubt trying to call his girlfriend, to give her an update. Whatever.

Robin paces, watching the door closely. He's been asked to go out for a while as they prep his wife, and will be called in once everything is settled down. When the door pushes open, he rushes towards it and looks at the doctor expectantly.

"You may come in," the doctor says, nodding at him. "It might take a while, though before she actually goes to labor. She is only five centimeters dilated."

He nods and thanks the doctor before he rushes inside the room. He finds his wife in bed, looking over to him with a tired smile. She'd make a brilliant mother, he's sure.

"How are you?" he asks softly as he takes the seat beside her bed and takes her hand in his. He lifts and places a kiss against her knuckles, watching her closely.

"Tired," she says, shrugging. "In pain, but it'd be so worth it." She gives him a megawatt smile that makes her even more beautiful.

"You've never looked so beautiful as you do now," he whispers, scooting over in order to kiss her lips. God, he loves her so. "I love you."

"I love you too," she says, grimacing as another wave of pain hits her. "But I'm going to cut off your dick so you don't do this to me again."

He laughs, and then moans in pain when she grips his hand too hard. But he doesn't mind even if she breaks his bones. She's the one who's about to deliver their baby.

"She's going to be beautiful, just like you," he says with reverence, stroking her hair back from her forehead.

She looks at him with glassy eyes. "You want it to be a girl?" she asks softly, eyelids fluttering.

"It doesn't matter," he says, because it doesn't—what matters is it's his and hers, a product of the love they share. "As long as it's healthy."

She nods and agrees with him. "Gummy bear is going to be so loved," she whispers as her hands come down to rub her belly.

"And you, my darling love, are going to be a wonderful mother," he says, his heart warming when she turns and gives him a watery smile.

It takes hours, more like a day, before she is dilated enough to go on labor. Her parents and her cousin have arrived. Her mother has been a calming presence, stroking her forehead and holding on to her tightly when she is hit by a contraction. She's screamed more than once to get the baby out of her body. But when the doctor has sad that it's time, she feels panic rise up her throat.

"No, I'm not yet ready," she says, tearfully, grabbing her husband's collar so they are face to face. "Tell them I'm not ready to give birth, I can't have the baby yet." But the pain is too much, she thinks, and she screams in agony.

Robin kisses her forehead. "You can do this my love," he encourages her with a smile. "Let's go meet our gummy bear."

It is the most agonizing pain she's ever felt in her life, and god, she'd thought more than once that she is really going to cut her husband's penis after this. The doctor keeps telling him that it's one more push before her baby is out, but she thinks that it's been one last push ten minutes ago and still no baby.

"Love you can do this," her husband says as he holds her hand in his.

She turns to him and glares. "How about you fucking do this? You're not touching me again, Locksley," she snaps.

Robin nods, looking far too solemn for it to be real. "Whatever you want my love," he agrees readily, no doubt trying to appease her pain. "But just a few more and you get to hold our baby in your hands."

And a few more pushes she does, before the baby is fully out. She breathes out a sigh of relief, collapsing against the bed, failing to notice the look on the doctor's face. Robin is holding her, whispering praises against her ear, kissing her forehead.

She could see the doctor patting her baby's bottoms before she closes her eyes and tries to regulate her breathing.

It is rather belatedly that she realizes that her baby isn't crying or wailing.

Isn't it supposed to be crying?

She looks at her doctor and finally notices the look on his face. "Doctor?" she asks in a voice laced with panic.

"I'm sorry," the doctor says, shaking his head. He looks at Regina with sad eyes. "The baby isn't breathing."

The world feels like it's closing in around Regina and she feels like she couldn't breathe. Beside her, she feels Robin stiffen, a cry of anguish escaping her lips.

"No," Regina growls in a feral manner that has the doctor stepping back. "Give me my baby! It can't be… no, it's not…it can't be!" She feels tears wet her cheeks as her heart breaks. This cannot be happening. She's carried that baby in her arms, felt it kick inside her womb…it can't have been dead.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Locksley," he says, shaking his head. "I'm sorry, Mr. Locksley."

She feels Robin gather her into his arms as she sobs, asks for the doctor to give her baby back, it can't be true, her baby isn't dead and if they could just let her hold it…

"What was it?" she asks, because they never really knew, wanting to be surprised (they've decorated the room in a gender neutral way, not wanting the surprise to be spoiled).

"It was a girl," the doctor says before taking his exit just as Regina lets out a cry, the pain in her chest making her expand more and more until it shatters into pieces. Robin holds her in his arms, the pain that he feels quietly leaking from his eyes.

It's been weeks, weeks since she's given birth to a stillborn daughter. She wonders constantly what her eyes could have been…they'd have names her Harper…Harper Lily. But she's gone now…and Regina never had the chance to hold her.

She stays in Harper's room most days, sitting on the rocking chair they've placed by the windows. She's imagined herself sitting there so many times, nursing her child, as Robin watches from the door.

There is no one to blame…nature only ran its course. But the pain is looking for a place to blame and it finds her, her heart filling with guilt that not even her husband could assuage.

She sits on the rocking chair now, hand on her now empty belly. She feels hollow now, feels like she's failed, feels keenly the emptiness brought by the loss of her daughter.

She hears the door creak, and she doesn't have to lift her head to know that it's her husband, come to check on her once more, make her eat something, or anything. She hears his footsteps, feels the heat radiating from him enveloping her senses. She wants to share his burden, wants to share his pain, but she feels so heavy, her heart and chest so painful that she can't. Not yet.

Tears leak from her eyes nonstop and she wishes she could bring back time. Silently, her husband lifts her into his arms, and cradles her as he lowers himself on the rocking chair. He rocks them back and forth, letting the beats of their heart to fill the silence that has stretched between them for so long. She feels him press kisses on her forehead and she leans into his embrace further.

"I never got to hold her," she says, as sobs rip from her throat. "I never got to see her eyes."

"I know my love," he says, his voice cracking, leaking with the pain she knows he feels.

"Will she still know us?" she asks as she feels her heart drop, drop lower until it shatters into the ground.

All she's ever wanted was to have her child in her arms, here with them, safe, protected…alive.

"Even if she's in heaven?" she continues with a small voice, as she shrinks further into him, feeling small and frail in his arms.

"Of course," he answers with a nod, his hand rubbing her back up and down. "She'll always know how much we love her, Regina." He pauses and she feels his tears wet her hair, making her hold on to him tighter. "And we'll see her again, someday."

She nods, quiet now, as she cries, and he cries with her…and for the first time, their tears mingle as they share this pain together.

|Beyond the door,

There's peace I'm sure,

And I know there'll be no more
Tears in heaven.
|

Fin. (11/26/15)


Sorry.