Swan Queen Week Day 2: Divorced Lesbian Mommies AU
This one is a tad more depressing than the one from yesterday. It's actually the first time I've written something that wasn't mostly happy and uplifting. So I hope I didn't mess it up too much. Oh yes and all medical things mentioned in here are things I picked up from Grey' Anatomy. So yeah I hope you like this.
P.S. I would have put this up last night but fanfiction was being rude and wouldn't let me update. So sorry about the delay.
Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time or any of their characters. I also don't own that one character from Grey's Anatomy that I threw in there either.
Emma walked slowly up the sidewalk leading to her home -no, scratch that- her ex-wife and sons home. She could no longer call it home, not legally anyway. God she was stupid. But, there was no time to dwell on that right now -that's what her nights alone at the bar were for- right now she was walking up the sidewalk to the mayorial mansion to pick up her son so they could have their weekly dinner at Granny's together.
It was the only time with her son she was allowed after the divorce, and truthfully she was lucky she got even that. As she approached the door she sees it angrily swing open, great, just great, what does she have in store for me this week, she thinks to herself as her ex-wife appears in the doorway as annoyed as ever. "You're late." She states with finality. Hell she's only late by less than five minutes but leave it to this fucking woman to point it out.
"Yes Regina three minutes. It's clearly the end of the world as we know it." She regrets the words as soon as they leave her lips. Over a year ago these words would have been fine, she would have laughed and Regina would have made a playful comment back, but now things were different. Now they only exchanged curt pleasantries and when her ex-wife would yell at her Emma would simply just take it and apologize. But today, today Emma had been thinking too much about how she still thought of this building as home and how she was a huge idiot so she just said what came naturally and now she was probably going to die.
"Excuse me. What was that? I don't think I quite heard that Miss Swan, if you wouldn't mind repeating it?" Regina's brown eyes are filled with anger. Emma flinches noticeably at the use of her maiden name. She had been Mills-Swan for so many years that she was normally just referred to as Mrs. Mills. Hearing the woman she loves call her Miss Swan again is just plain painful.
She looks up at the woman she is still as in love with as the day they married if not more so and just apologizes. No excuses for being late no excuse for her snarky comment just a simple I'm sorry and its done.
Regina knows that this pathetic excuse for a woman in front of her has used that word far too many times this past year, to the point where the word uttered from her lips should mean nothing at all, but it still does. It still carries the same punch as it did when they were 15 and Emma had accidentally slammed her locker door into Regina's face. It still means the exact same because if there was one thing that Regina Mills knew Emma Swan did not do, it was apologize when she didn't mean it. Never once had she uttered those words and not meant it entirely. Regina knew that, which is why every week when the beautiful blonde woman would show up in front of her house to pick up their son and Regina would berate her for something Emma would say she was sorry and the mayor would let it go. She just gets Henry out the door and no other words are exchanged because when Emma apologizes she means it and being rude and being late isn't the the only thing she's apologizing for.
"Henry, your mother is here. It's time to go." She shouts up the stairs, just as she does every Thursday afternoon. And just like every other Thursday afternoon for the past year she watches as Emma Swan puts an arm around their son and forces a smile with a cocky "hey kid." And her heart breaks. Her heart breaks because she knows that she is as in love with Emma as Emma is with Regina, and she knows that Emma is hurting, and she is hurting too. So she closes the door, sits on the bottom step and smiles wistfully because for a fraction of a second she thought that the old Emma was back, but then she puts her head in her hands and weeps because she loves that insufferable woman so incredibly much that she can't believe she doesn't wake up to her face anymore.
"Hey Ma? Do you think you and mom will ever get back together" Henry asks innocently when they are settled in their usual booth. The question throws Emma off. She would love to be in that house again, love to hold Regina in her arms while she slept, love to say goodnight to Henry before he goes to bed every night. But she can't. And she doesn't think she ever will. But how can you tell that to a 12 year old.
Henry is old enough to know that his moms are not happy with each other. He knows that their chances are slim but he also knows that his brunette mother sits in her study and cries at night and sleeps on the couch because she can't bear sleeping in the bed his mothers once shared. He knows that his blonde mother goes to the bar every night and drinks herself stupid and sleeps at the sheriff station. He knows these things and he knows they love each other. That is one thing he knows above all else, he just needs them to know it too. So when his blonde mother throws him a sad "I don't know kid." He begins to plot in his preteen mind how hes going to get them to see what's right in front of them, little did he know that he wouldn't need a plan at all.
Its around midnight when the knocking on the door starts. This isn't the first time this has happened. When they were first separated Emma would get drunk and come to the mansion yelling about how she forgot her key and needed to be let in only to be reminded that she no longer lived there and therefore had no key in the first place. The blonde would just apologize and leave, most likely to go to the station. But it hadn't happened in months. So perhaps the sheriff had drank a bit more than usual tonight. But imagine Reginas surprise when she opened the door and Emma appeared to be almost completely sober. "Miss Swan. What on earth are you doing at my home at this ungodly hour?" She said trying to sound as perturbed as possible as she stepped onto the porch closing the door behind her as to not wake their son.
"No." Emma simply stated.
Regina furrowed her brow. "No?"
"Yeah no. No this isn't your home this is our home. You see this porch we're standing on, I fucking built it to your instructions. You see that door, I put it in after you picked it out. The paint on the fucking walls I put that there after you told me what colors you wanted. The living room furniture, I fucking picked that shit out with you. This is our home Regina. Ours! Not yours! Not mine! Fucking ours! Because when I was 15 I hit you in the face with my locker and a year later I told you I loved you and you said it back. It's ours because when I was 17 I asked you what your dream was and you said I want to be the mayor with a big white house that has a nice porch you built and a child of our own and I cried because that was what I wanted too. Its ours because when I was 19 and scared that we were drifting apart you said hey Em I think we should paint the kitchen orange but only if the kitchen is is facing east because it will look nice when the sun comes up as I cook breakfast. And because when I was 22 I asked you to marry me and you said yes and I said that I wanted a huge couch for the living room so that if we ever fell asleep on it we could cuddle and we wouldn't fall off of it. Its our house because I love you and I never stopped." Her voice softened as she continued her rant, "But right now you hate me and I dont know how to fix it because when I was 36 I cheated because I was drunk and you were mad and Henry was sick and I was so stupid and these aren't excuses because I know there isn't one for what I did and I hate myself everyday and wonder what it would be like if I just left and went across the country or something but I could never do that because I love Henry too much to do that and I love you too much to not see your face every Thursday when you open this door. I'm such an idiot and I know that but I also know that I love you more than anything in the world. But I should go now because i've really just been standing here and rambling for a good half hour and you probably want to punch me. So yeah have a nice night Regina." And with that she started walking down the steps toward her car but was stopped by a hand on her bicep.
"Emma." Is the only thing that comes out of Regina's mouth when the blonde turns around. She has nothing to say, her ex-wife just laid her heart out for her and all she can say is her name and nothing else. So Emma turns back around and gets back into that infuriating yellow bug with tears in her eyes and drives away. Regina wants to get in her Benz and go after her, she wants to run down the street calling her name, but she doesn't. She doesn't because no matter how much she loves Emma she can't let go of the hurt. The hurt of finding out that the reason her wife had been so withdrawn from her and her son for months and why she came home drunk on several occasions was because she has sex with Ruby on a drunken adventure at the White Rabbit, twice. It's been almost a year now and it still hurt like hell, so she stayed where she was and hoped to whoever was listening that she could get over it, move on from the hurt and from Emma. She knows it's futile because she has loved Emma since the day the flustered 15 year old in black rimmed glasses gave her a nose bleed with a locker door, and she knows that will never go away. And she knows that if she took Emma back that the small thought that she would cheat again would always be in the back of her mind. She loves her, but she can't go back to her. Not now.
Emma is at the White Rabbit again. Berating herself for showing weakness to the woman she hurt and for everything she had done to cause her hurt in the first place. She was just so stupid. She knew what she was doing that night, knew it was wrong, knew she loved Regina and not Ruby, knew that Ruby wasn't who she wanted, but she did it anyway. She did it and that was that. In a dark alley behind the bar to top it off. She was just so fucking stupid. She wishes she could just forget that night. Maybe tonight the alcohol will help her forget her mistakes and make her think that she is still Emma from years ago, the one who would rarely be out of the mayors reach because she just wanted to be near her and Henry all the time. She wishes and wishes that the alcohol will help her out just this once, but it doesn't, not tonight and not any other night. It really just makes her feel worse about herself but she comes back every night hoping that when she leaves she'll have forgotten. She walks out of the bar, well more like stumbles out, when last call comes around and sways her way to her car. With the little coherency she has left she knows she shouldn't get into the car. But she really doesn't care right now so she pulls the bug into gear.
The call comes in at around 3:30 in the morning. The loud ringtone blaring from the home line phones throughout the house, echoing into the night. She rolls over onto her stomach and reaches for the cordless on the end table next to the couch, and angrily jabs the talk button, "You better have a damn good reason for calling me this early." She growls, as the door to the living room opens slowly and Henry's messy head pops in with silent questions. She can hear through the phone that wherever the caller is right now is very hectic, she can hear a man shouting but can't make out what he's saying or who he is.
"Is this Mayor Regina Mills?" The caller asks gently. Which is weird for 3 am, isn't it? Don't calls at this hour normally involve anger or drunkenness? Unless, this isn't one of those calls. Unless this is… she can't finish her thought because if she does she will start crying and never hear what this woman has to say.
"Y-Yes this-this is s-she." Henry looks at her with horror, his mother does not stutter, never. This must be bad. He sits down on the couch next to his mom and lays a head on her slightly shaking shoulder.
She can hear the gentle voiced woman take a breath on the other line and then she hears it, "Miss Mills, there was an accident. Miss Emma-" but she doesn't hear the rest as she starts to cry heavily, she knew this would happen is the blonde kept drinking herself into a stupor, this was her greatest fear, every night she thought about, hoped it would never happen. "Is she alive?"
Henry's head pops up, -she- -alive- he suddenly understand what this call is. Something has happened to his ma. Something bad.
"She is but it's touch and go right now, Doctor Whale is working very hard to keep her alive, and she needs surgery but we just can't know." The nurse says apologetically.
Regina bolts right off the couch, and runs to the foyer, Henry hot on her heels, they throw on shoes quickly while Regina says "We'll be right there." into the phone and hangs up, throwing it towards the stairs, the device shatters but she can't bring herself to give a damn.
They reach the hospital in minutes, it's not too far away and Regina is sure she broke more than a few traffic laws on the way there, but it's 3:30 am and no one was on the road, and Emma is hurt so fuck the law. They burst through the ER doors looking a mess but they don't care. A nurse comes over to her and tries to ask her why she is here and tells her that visiting hours are over but she just pushes the woman to the side and heads toward the trauma rooms. "Emma Swan. Where is she?" she growls at a nurse who is walking out of a nearby room.
"Mayor Mills," She says gently and Regina wishes the woman would stop with the fucking pleasantries and just take her to her wife. "They just took her up to the OR, let me take you to the waiting room and I'll get someone to give you the details about her condition." Regina just nods and follows, Henry right behind them.
The nurse tells them to have a seat and Henry does but Regina is too nervous to sit down. Now that she has a moment alone to think she starts to remember earlier in the night when Emma had bore her heart out for her and she did nothing at all to stop her from leaving, nothing to stop her from going to the bar, getting drunk and getting in her car. This is her fault, she should have said more, told Emma how much she still loves her, still wants her, but she didn't and the last interaction she may ever have with that beautiful woman would have been that. What if Emma dies thinking that Regina hated her. No, no she can't think like that because Emma is stubborn and Emma is strong, and they will be together again.
She is so wrapped in her thoughts that she doesn't notice Doctor Montgomery come up next to her until the woman puts a comforting hand on the mayors shoulder, "She's in surgery now, she's looking slightly better than she was when she came in. Her breathing stopped for a little bit and we had to intubate her. She has a few broken ribs, a shattered hand and a broken leg, she hit her head which caused some minor intracranial bleeding, but Whale is taking care of that right now. One of her ribs punctured her right lung but that was almost done when I left the room. She's in good hands Regina." The brunette mayor just cried as the other woman spoke, and nodded when the woman told her that the sheriff was in good hands. She trusted Whale to do everything he could.
Regina and Henry sat in the cold and bright waiting room while the other member of their family was being worked on. They mostly sat in silence, Henry wondering in his head what all of this meant, would his blonde mother die? if she didn't would his mom let her come home again? But really he just hoped that his ma was okay. Regina's thoughts were less simple, she was still beating herself up about letting the blonde leave that night. Until she saw Whale come out with a small smile on his face. She doesn't think she has ran to someone as fast as she did to the doctor at this moment. "She's okay?" she asked, eyes full of hope.
Whale gave her a slight tilt of the head before launching into an explanation, "We were able to repair her punctured lung and set all three of her ribs, I stopped the bleed in her brain quickly and she should feel almost no effects from the procedure. Her broken hand and leg have been placed in casts and she is breathing on her own now. We just have to wait for her to wake up on her own, which could take anywhere from few hours to a few days. Would you and Henry like to see her?" He asked softly, never had she seen this man so gentle and caring, it would be jarring if she wasn't so focused on Emma. Henry and her just gave a slight nod to the doctor indicating that yes they would very much like to see her. "I must warn you, shes very bruised and cut up. It looks worse than it is." and with that her took them to a private room with a battered looking Emma Swan. Regina sobbed when she saw the blondes chest rise and fall slowly. Emma is alive.
When Emma wakes up six hours later, she's bleary eyed, thirsty as all hell, and she hurts fucking everywhere but she smiles. She smiles because Regina is sitting in a chair next to her bed with her head resting next to her own hip on the bed as she sleeps, clinging to Emma's not broken hand. And she smiles because Henry is curled up in a ball in a chair next to his sleeping mother while holding her other hand. She knows she was stupid and its her fault that they're both here and not going about their day but she still smiles, because they came for her when she needed them and for right now that's enough.
Nine months later.
Emma has been going to AA meetings in town, every Wednesday at 5. She went voluntarily, wanting to never put her family through what she had that night nine months ago. Her family, she thinks, damn that feels good. Having a family again. When she was released from the hospital she moved into the mayor's mansion again, granted she was living on the pull out couch because she couldn't very well recuperate on the cot in the sheriffs station she'd been sleeping on for almost a year. It gave her and Regina time to talk about what had happened to them. What Emma had done that lead them to divorce. They talked about everything and now, leg and hand cast free Emma has been upgraded to their bedroom. They're relationship was like they had never had a year apart, sure they still had some issues, but they were working through it everyday.
She has scars on her face and torso, and one on her leg from that night. Sometimes Regina will kiss and caress them, and it makes her forget in a way the alcohol never could. Makes her forget about the awful choices she made that lead to those scars and she just feels the touch of her love.
Henry couldn't be happier that they were getting along again, they had told the boy that they had begun dating again a month or so back and the now 13 year old burst into Granny's later that afternoon telling anyone who would listen that his moms loved each other again.
Regina sometimes would think about how they ended up here, divorced but dating again, and she thinks maybe the fates had this in store for them ever since Emma hit her in the face with that locker when they were 15. Maybe she was destined to let her go so they could see that they couldn't live without each other. And as she patted the small ring box in the pocket of her apron and smiled because this time she was doing the asking and this time she was never letting Emma go.
Hi again, hope you enjoyed it at least a little. Have a lovely rest of your day everyone.