Notes: Sorry for the wait in between chapters. Hopefully this makes up for it. And sorry for the short note, I'm in a hurry! =D Thanks to all who read, review, follow, and fav as always. Love y'all! Fox out.
Standard Disclaimer: The characters ain't mine, I'm just borrowing their strings for a while, so don't sue me please! Please point out any errors in grammar or spelling privately and I will correct them.
Chapter 10 – Is This The Real Life?
She was walking. The nascent cold of autumn was in the air, biting into the bare skin on her arms. Filled with such anxiety that her legs hardly worked at all, Regina forced herself forward one dreadful step at a time – left, right, left, right, left right, left, right. She had to concentrate on her movements lest she stumble headlong into the looming void that now permanently hovered at the edge of every footstep.
For the briefest of moments, her grip on control wavered, and in that millisecond she was overcome by such intense feelings of sorrow that she gasped. Clutching at her chest and grasping at the fabric of her fine black dress, she was disturbed to find gaping holes in her memory. She could not recall having dressed at all, couldn't remember much really aside from the relentless melancholy she seemed to be living in these days.
Casting her gaze around, she sought for Red, hoping to find the woman to whom her heart belonged for an explanation as to why she was feeling so sad, so bereft, so utterly broken that she could barely even tell she had a heart anymore. Tempted to reach into her chest just to check, Regina pressed her fingers to her breast but upon feeling the harsh thumping against her sternum, reality flooded in. Regina stopped abruptly with a jolt. At last, she remembered the terrible truth: Red was gone. Dead. Murdered right in front of her eyes.
With that realization came the resurgence of an anguish so acute that her body could barely contain it, let alone endure it for any sustained amount of time. It sapped her of her energy, drained her dry of the spark of life she used to have, of the motivation to get out of bed and face another day with only half of her heart and soul present. Lurching forward, Regina gasped.
Like she had most of the week, she began to feel like she was adrift in an endless sea of despondency. The suffocating weight of crushing depression and the abject misery of an irrecoverable loss pressed in on her from all sides, surrounding her with a darkness that seemed as strangely welcoming as it was inescapable. Death lingered there at the edges of her consciousness, its arms wide open, its ghoulish face cut into a wickedly inviting grin, pleading with eyes of burning flame for her to give up and to simply accept the inevitable. It beckoned to Regina to surrender herself to oblivion in order to join Red in whatever world awaited beyond the current one – an all too tempting prospect.
But then a smaller hand slipped into her own, grasping it tightly as trembling fingers began to rap an unnerved pattern against the back of her hand.
"Mom? Are you okay?"
Looking down, Regina saw her son, dressed in a fine suit of midnight black suit which was accentuated by a sleek silken tie and perfectly styled hair. His ruddy cheeks were stained with moisture, marred by streaks of liquid sorrow which flowed in fat droplets, much as if part of a heated summer rain. He swiped at his eyes and sniffled loudly, a mournful sound that pierced through the heavy air like the unexpected bursting of a happily bouncing balloon. Henry's pain was palpable, settling itself in Regina's chest right alongside her own as a knot of discomfort that refused to be relieved.
As if nature itself was joining in with the shared grief of mother and son, the all too familiar path that lead into the cemetery was laden with autumn's first fallen leaves, laying down a carpet of orange and yellow organic tears on which her heels loudly crunched. Clouds of dullest gray rolled lazily in the sky, blotting out the sun and casting the area in a semi-darkness that was almost too appropriately matched to the atmosphere of the occasion. In the distance, Regina could hear the rumbling of thunder. The staccato claps, uneven and deeply pulsating, seemed to match up with the stuttering beat of her heart.
Now closing in on the graveyard proper, she made out the marble columns of the Mills' family mausoleum. It's grand doors were flung open to receive mourners. Crowds of people surrounded it, all dressed in black. Some of them were openly weeping and almost all were gravely somber. Red's life, however woefully short, had affected so many people, most potently her friends and loved ones, that it appeared most of the town at large had gathered to mourn her. Regina hated them all.
None of those pretenders knew Red or even cared about her beyond her status symbol as Snow White's faithful friend and protector. Red had never been given the opportunity to be her own woman, to stand out from among her peers and be recognized as she deserved. She was forever and always being defined by her associations, a shadow that was never given a shape unique to her, ever conforming to that of others. While Regina wished to cast all such blame on Snow, she was loathe to admit that it was true with her as well. She couldn't count the number of calls and cards and letters she'd gotten apologizing for her loss as if Red's death was somehow only important because she had been Regina's lover. It was disgusting.
Red had a value all her own that only a select few seemed privy to, such as Snow and Emma, and even they didn't really know Red as they should. But how could they? The woman, like Regina, had kept her true self hidden, though Red's reason for doing so was vastly different. Instead of holding back due to fear of being hurt, Red's self-restraint was a sacrifice. She had voluntarily chosen to mute her incandescently blinding light so that others could shine in her place. Snow was the primary beneficiary of this, but so was Regina, and it pained her to look back and think she hadn't appreciated Red as she should have. So to see the general public with wet faces and sad eyes infuriated her. They couldn't understand. They didn't know what they were doing because they didn't really know who it was they were supposed to be mourning.
They didn't know how loving a person Red was or how safe she could make someone feel with her arms around them. They hadn't seen Red patiently teaching Henry how to play soccer in the backyard, hadn't danced with her until 3 am in the living room, stopping only because their feet began to hurt. Those people didn't know how how sweet Red's kisses tasted or how soft her skin was underneath the sensitive pads of a fingertip. They didn't know what Red looked like in the morning, bathed in the soft morning sunlight with her hair all sleep-tousled, her face free of makeup, and her lips adorably pouting from being awakened so early. How she still managed to look like an angel despite all of this served as proof to Regina of her inherent goodness, a goodness that wrapped Regina up each and every morning, lending her the strength to face another day. Those false faces of insincere sorrow did not have awareness behind them of how Red's pale skin glowed in the moonlight or how her expressive green eyes could write novels of love and romance that only the object of her affection could read. None of them could ever truly know anything of substance about who Red was as a woman, as a human being, or as a lover, but Regina knew it all.
She knew. She understood intimately and keenly felt the loss of the person who was, other than Henry, the world's most precious inhabitant. Red was worth a thousand of anyone else, nay, a million, and she had been wasted as if she were worthless, her life spilled out on Regina's front porch over a rash and impulsive act of vigilante violence that was not even directed at her. It was, Regina thought, the greatest tragedy in the history of tragedies and she seemed to be the only one who comprehended that.
When she thought about that, truly considered what the world had lost when Red was taken, the bitter anger that welled up in her belly rose until it burned through her chest, straining to be released upon the reckless imbeciles whose stupidity had wrought the incident. As she would often lament in the days that followed, if only she'd been permitted to do so when it happened, perhaps her agony would have been mitigated. It was an irrational thought, but focusing on her hatred helped, however little, to lessen the anguish she was drowning in.
After Red's death, it had taken all of Emma, Snow, and Charming's combined strength to keep Regina from destroying the entire town in her molten fury. In a perversely tragic show of irony, magic had flooded the town not a minute after Red breathed her last breath, and the second it hit Regina that it was back, she had risen from Red's side like an avenging demoness, her clothes, hands, and face stained with her lover's blood and murder in her eyes. To their credit, the 'heroes' were able to restrain her from leveling Storybrooke, but they were not quick enough to stop her from poetically slaying the man who had stabbed Red with his very own sword when she caught him trying to flee. Just a few minutes earlier, Regina might have regretted taking such an action, but after watching the life drain out of the love of her life and having sat by helplessly as the light dimmed forever from her eyes, fading away into oblivion, she came to wish she had not killed that man so quickly.
It took some time but eventually Regina realized that Snow, Emma, and David stopping her from lashing out at the rest of the crowd didn't really matter. Even had she been permitted to wreck the whole town and reduce it into a pile of smoldering ash, that primal act of revenge would not have satiated her, would not have put out the fiery ache that now permanently resided in her chest. Nothing could soothe her in that way ever again. Without Red, all hope of peace and happiness was forever extinguished.
In the aftermath of Red's death, the entire town seemed to realize that Regina was teetering on the precipice of a meltdown. Only Snow and Emma put for any kind of effort to check on her, coming by every day to offer their support despite their differences. Regina could not yet accept Snow's help though she could clearly see the woman was trying. Mostly, Regina ignored her, but there were times when she lashed out at Snow's unsolicited acts of consolation. Even then, Snow did not complain, which made Regina hate her even more.
Other than Henry, only Emma was allowed to show Regina any form of comfort. Against all previous evidence to the contrary, Emma's presence was not wholly unwelcome. Emma, it seemed, had let go of her antagonism and Regina was too devastated to hold on to hers. Why the shift of opinions occurred was hard to pin down, but Regina assumed it was entirely to do with the two common denominators she shared with the Savior: Henry and Red. With common ground between them, Emma no longer agitated Regina's temper enough to set her off or stirred up memories of Red the way Snow did, which only plunged her back into the throes of mourning.
The Savior, it turned out, was actually not so bad of a person. She was becoming a real friend to Regina in Red's absence, which helped to alleviate Regina's suffering to some degree but not nearly enough to repair the damage to she had incurred to her heart. That was a wound that nothing could heal, not even time or magic, so no matter how hard Snow or Emma tried to be there for her and no matter how much care they showed to her, she was irrevocably withering from the inside out.
Speaking of Emma Swan, as Regina swept her gaze through the crowd, she caught sight of the familiar flaxen hair, tied up into a messy bun, that belonged to Henry's biological mother. Making her way into the graveyard, Regina pushed through the crowd, ignoring the sympathetic gazes and pitying words of the bystanders. As she and Henry at last approached the Mausoleum, Emma looked up at her and Regina felt her chest tighten. The woman's face was stained with bitter tears, her perpetual frown stretched into a strained grimace. With her arms around her torso and hands gripping her own waist, Emma appeared to be physically trying to hold herself together, almost as if she feared she would crumble into a million pieces if she let go for even a second. Regina understood the feeling. Were it not for Henry, she would have long ago fractured apart or shrunken into a grotesque caricature of a woman.
As it was, Regina wished above all else that she had the option to abstain from the morbid requiem over a life that should not have been cut so tragically short, if only to drink herself into a stupefied oblivion within the confines of her home – Red's home and Regina's prison of torment. She was there for Henry's sake, though, for she knew her son needed closure. Being long accustomed to dealing with loss – even though this one stung more than any other before – Regina was an old hat at mourning. Henry, on the other hand, was not. He needed the outlet for his sadness. He needed a way to come to terms with the fact that the funny, vivacious, and infectiously kind woman he had been so privileged to accept in his life and into his heart was never coming back.
If it were possible, Regina would have shielded her son from the pain he was currently experiencing. However, life, as she herself had learned, did not afford such luxuries. Suffering was universal, something all creatures had to endure, a unifying crucible that linked all human beings throughout time and space with the world around them. No matter how great or how small, life ended the same way for all. Everything that lived had to die. It was just the way the universe worked. In order to live a healthy life, Henry was going to have to learn how to process those things, Regina just wished it hadn't been Red he had to learn with.
Looking at Emma, Regina noticed that the fair-haired woman was staring worriedly at their son. It seemed that Emma was on a similar wavelength to her own, which was a good thing. Henry was going to need his other mother in the days to come when the loss really hit Regina and drove her into such a desperately low state that she might actually pose a danger to him, albeit more indirectly than directly. And even if she was able to control herself to an adequate degree to protect him, Henry was not prepared to witness the depths of depression she would soon sink into. When that happened, Emma was going to have to step up.
"Where are your parents?" she then asked Emma, the sound of her own voice gravelly and low as if she had spent the better part of a week sobbing herself into sickness, which she had. In fact, she wanted to do so right at that moment and would have but for Henry's hand in hers, heavily anchoring her to the present.
"Inside," Emma replied around a sniffle, her chin trembling while a lone tear slid down those enviably high cheeks. "I think we're going to have to carry Mary Margaret out. She's not handling this well at all."
"As if you are," Regina commented, noticing the attempt at deflection. In a fit of uncharacteristic compassion, she reached up to smooth Emma's tears away.
At the touch, Emma's green eyes leveled on Regina, awash with an unmasked heartache that spoke to the depth of her feelings for Red, or rather, Ruby. Regina had not forgotten that Emma was already half in love with Ruby when she finally gathered up enough courage to follow her heart. Seeing the stars in Emma's green eyes whenever Ruby smiled at her had been all the motivation Regina had required.
That being said, even though nothing ever happened between Emma and Ruby, Regina was aware that the past 3 months had been difficult for the Sheriff in a way that only she could begin to understand. Emma had lost the opportunity with Ruby before even getting a chance to be with her, but to the woman's credit, she hadn't taken her heartache out on Ruby or turned her back on their friendship because of she was hurt. Instead, Emma had chosen the high road, remaining a steadfast friend until the end. For that, she had earned Regina's eternal gratitude and respect.
At the moment, however, Emma's heartbreak was almost as thorough as Regina's own, though somehow despite that brokenness, her eyes remained pointedly clear and full of a genuine sympathy that Regina was able to partially accept because from Emma, she knew it was real.
And then said eyes turned worriedly onto her. "Or you. You've not been sleeping or eating. You can't go on like this, Regina."
Ducking her head, Regina fought back a cascading tide of emotions. Emma was right. She felt like a walking mess. She had not set out to fast her grief away, it was just that solid meals did not seem to want to stay down, and after the first few days of trying everything from bare-bones salads to chicken noodle soup, she gave up trying. Only the supplemental drinks, light protein shakes, juices and occasional bowls of chicken broth that Snow, Emma, or Henry forced her to down kept her going at all.
As if that were not bad enough, nightmares prevented her from sleeping most nights. It was impossible to stay asleep when Red's death played over and over again in her head, even in the midst of her dreams, and when she inevitably woke up screaming in much in the same way she had when she watched Red fall, it was an equally futile endeavor to go back to sleep. Most nights she just laid alone in bed or sat forlornly on her couch, thinking of what she'd lost and mourning in varying degrees of extremity.
Red. Her idiotically brave hero.
Regina hadn't asked Red to save her life like that, nor had she even really wanted it. On her best days, she did not consider her life of equal value to Red's. It never had been. How could it be? Even when she was a Queen and Red a pauper, somehow Regina had enough awareness to recognize that Red was better than her and that Red possessed something she didn't: an innate strength and goodness that made her inherently qualified to be deserving of happiness. At heart, Red had never been anything but pure, her character always unwavering, a fact which even with her blackened heart and tainted soul Regina had been cognizant of. That was what made Red's sacrifice impossibly difficult to process: it was so wrong that it was practically perverse. If there was any justice to be found in the cosmos, someone so perfect should never be permitted to die for someone so miserable.
Through the haze of those the days proceeding Red's death, Regina could remember imploring Emma to look after Henry so that she could be alone in her attempt to come to grips with so indigestible a reality. She hadn't wanted her son to be a witness to the way she would scream and curse and rail against life, fate, and the universe while she destroyed things at random. After a while of such fruitless pursuits, it became increasingly clear to Regina that she was on the verge of losing her mind, which made her even more glad she'd had enough of her wits about her to send Henry away.
Because of how close he'd grown to Red, she knew he was already in the throes of grief and with that being the case, what would it have done to him to watch his mother quite literally break on top of that? It would only have added to his torment to bear witness as she held maddened conversations with a dead woman, replete with pathetically degrading grovelling aimed at said dead woman which were interspersed with pleas for answers to questions that were unanswerable. Putting him through that spectacle would have been unconscionable.
And so, all alone in her giant house, Regina had went about asking those questions of Red, such as 'Why did you do that?' and 'Why didn't you just let me die?' and the most pitiful of all, 'Why did you leave me?'" Just as expected, no answer ever came, leaving her alone with an emptiness inside that grew and grew until it threatened to suck the color out of almost everything else in her life. During those darkest of days, it was a miracle that she was able to get out of bed at all, let alone take care of a ten year old son who was processing the death of someone he loved as well.
Thinking about that now, Regina tallied up shame to her laundry list of emotional ailments, for not only had she failed to save Red, but she was a proving herself to be a lousy mother as well. She supposed after the example that had been set for her, it was inevitable, but it still hurt.
"I know, Emma. Yet I'm still here," she eventually responded to Emma's concerned statement of fact, lifting her eyes to give the woman a weak smile. "Although that's about as much as I can manage for the moment."
Nodding as if grudgingly accepting Regina's answer, Emma then lead both her and Henry inside, but not before affectionately ruffling her son's hair. The boy sniffled yet again and greeted his other mother in such a sorrowful tone that it set off moisture in Regina's eyes once more. Tamping down on them, she followed Emma in, still holding on tightly to Henry's hand.
She hated that she needed him so much. Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't it be the child who leans on the parent for strength and not the parent the child? But the fact remained that Henry was the only tether currently tying her to existence. If his hold on her slipped away, the ever-present temptation to kill herself would rear its ugly head again, and the way she was feeling at that moment, she knew she hadn't the strength to resist it. The blissful oblivion of suicide was almost always a viable option for those devoid of all hope, as it often seemed for Regina when compared to the gaping wound in her soul that radiated molten agony almost constantly. For Henry, though, she persisted.
Once inside the Mausoleum, the small crowd that was gathered around Red's casket parted in reverential silence, allowing Regina, Henry, and Emma to step around to the end where Snow and Charming were standing. Not unexpectedly, Snow was so distraught that Charming was literally having to hold her upright. Emma had underestimated her mother's grief. The muffled cries emanating from Regina's former nemesis should have been a source of great joy but instead they only magnified her own personal anguish.
Of all the mourners there save Regina, Snow was the only person who had truly known Red beyond the cursed Ruby persona that served the many patrons of Granny's diner. As unlikely and difficult as it was to accept, Regina had to admit she felt a new kinship with Snow because of that tie. While it was more macabre in nature than the short-lived bond they had formed after Regina saved Snow's life, it was still very real and almost distressingly tangible. They were now connected together by more than a life debt, tragedy, and mutual disdain, but by their love for the irreplaceable woman that they were both striving unsuccessfully to say goodbye to.
"Oh, God, Regina," Snow gasped when she caught sight of the newcomers. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry."
Regina couldn't speak, could only nod in a similitude of gratitude due to the heavy lump in her throat. It took everything she had, all of her internal fortitude, to hold in her renewed anguish. Snow was not so disciplined, though. Covering her face with her hands, the raven haired woman began to sob in earnest once more.
A movement from the side then drew Regina's eyes to Emma, whose own aura of strength was disintegrating in a frighteningly rapid manner as she watched her friend and new-found mother fall apart. Rushing over to Snow, Emma took her from her father and gathered the trembling woman up in her arms in a rare display of public affection. It was a touching sight, or rather would have been if Regina could feel anything beyond constant, debilitating sorrow.
Along with Snow's weeping, an oppressively sad atmosphere descended over the room, punctuated by the sounds of crying and sniffling from all over the room. For a long time, Regina was unable to move. She simply stood there, still as a statue, staring almost lifelessly at the occupied casket. Red's body was there, resting just inside it, having been enchanted for preservation after being dutifully cared for at no cost by Victor Whale – a penance for the part he played in her death. The kindness did not absolve him by a long shot, but Regina was no longer tempted to set him on fire every time she looked at him.
It was strange to think of Red being so still, so quiet. In life the vibrant woman was almost constantly moving as if in a permanent state of forward inertia, hardly ever slowing down except when in bed, which Regina sometimes had to forcibly drag her into (except on those occasions where nakedness was promised; Red came willingly then), and sometimes not even then. Just as it was back in the Enchanted Forest, before the Dark Curse, being with someone so young and energetic had breathed a new sense of vitality into Regina's life and had helped to break her out of the shell she had erected around her heart to guard her true self from being further abused. By just being herself, Red had forced Regina to spread her wings once more, to take that chance of leaping from the safety of the nest she had constructed out of things she was comfortable with, and to risk everything just be able to feel what it's like to fly (it was exhilarating and addicting and Regina didn't know how she was going to live without it now).
But Red wasn't moving anymore or loving Regina in a way that pushed and inspired her to be a better person. In fact, Red did not even exist anymore. What rested in that casket wasn't Red at all but a hollow husk, an empty shell that merely resembled the woman Regina loved, and even that poorly, thus the reason for the closed casket. Regina did not want to see Red that way. She wanted to remember her the way she was when she lived and they loved each other. That body was not Red because the spirit that it once housed was long gone, having fled from this world for realms unknown, forever out of Regina's reach.
There, standing silently at the coffin, acceptance finally dawned. Having already spent her rage and disbelief, having already begged and pleaded until her voice was hoarse, all to no avail, and having already been consumed by sorrow, all that was left for Regina was embrace the actuality. Now that it was finally registering, it brought with it the awful truth that she was never going to see Red again.
All that she had now besides her priceless memories were her mementos, such as her favorite picture featuring Red in pigtails wearing her most luminescent smile, and the videos she had taken of Red dancing in the living room to bad rock-n-roll hair bands. There were also treasured belongings to cling to, things Red left behind like her vast collection of hats and necklaces, and various articles of clothing like her worn out flannel shirt and her recent favorite, a gray t-shirt that she had – after seeing Emma's VW Beetle flavored one – begged her grandmother to embroider with bold red letters that read, "I Love My Latina". Both of those shirts still hung in the closet with Regina's clothes, still smelling like the woman who so proudly wore them. But however much comfort she could draw from such things, they were a poor substitute for the woman they had once belonged to.
Regina's heart rent at the thought of never feeling Red's touch again or getting to taste the desire on her painted lips or smell her coconut scented lotion while she diligently rubbed it into the silky skin of her legs. She would never get to wake up to the radiating heat of Red's body again, so welcoming that she relished the feeling of pressing her body as tightly into that pliant source of comfort as she could. Never again would she get to watch Red's face light up when she caught Regina walking into a room, or see the unfiltered adoration resting upon it while Regina cooked dinner, or observe the ecstasy that washed over it while she was being relentlessly driven to completion. It was unthinkable that for the rest of her life, Regina was going to have to go on living without the only other person besides her son who gave her life meaning, the woman she'd just learned was her True Love and the other half of herself.
How was she supposed to go on? How was she supposed to survive having been given the glimpse of real, tangible happiness only to have it ripped so cruelly away from her yet again? How was she supposed to make it day after day after day through the abyss of darkness in her heart that seemed to never, ever end, like a gravity well of despair that mercilessly pulled her under one excruciating inch a time? The crushing nature of her grief was killing her at such an agonizingly slow pace that she could no longer cope under the stress.
Unable to stand it anymore, Regina felt something snap in her mind. Eyes wide with panic and mouth hanging open in a silent scream, she began to hyperventilate as she backed away from the casket and through the arched opening separating the viewing area from the rest of the vault until she collided with the far wall. She slid heavily down the wall once she hit it, causing her dress to rumple up from the friction, landing with a thud on her rear. The pain of the hard impact did not even register.
Rocking back and forth under the pressing assault of madness, she gasped and fought for air, clinging wildly to the last shreds of reality as the hysteria clawing at her mind began to prevail. Pressing her face into her hands, she moaned, emitting a loud wailing sound that deafened her to everything else that was happening around her. The magnitude of her torment was so great that her magic flared to life unbidden and spun helplessly out of control, lashing out unpredictably and shaking the entirety of the building down to its foundations.
Feeling her sanity crumble along with the marble walls of the mausoleum, Regina screamed.