A/N- I hope you guys all like this chapter! Thanks for the reviews and follows and favorites, you guys have no idea how much they all mean to me!

TRIGGER WARNING: I usually don't have to do these, because I don't usually have this super dark stuff. But, mention of non consensual sex, physical abuse, and (sort of gross but I promise it sounds worse than it reads) bloody sex (and by that I mean period sex) sorry if you can't stomach it! It isn't graphic or gross, just mentioned.

Let me know what you guys all think!

A few days passed much in the same manner. Regina would spend all day in Emma's room with her, David or Snow would often bring her things from her office that her secretary would put together for them, so she could get a little bit of work done while Emma slept. Which she did a lot. Slept, that is. If Regina didn't know better she would think that Emma had been sleep deprived for years. Regina had dealt with her depression by killing people or lying in bed restlessly; Emma was dealing by sleeping and avoiding people. Snow would bring Henry to the hospital when school was out, but she would only stay a few minutes each time. David would bring them dinner from the diner or whatever Snow made when the mealtime rolled around, and he, too, would visit for a few minutes before leaving. Ruby would drop in to pick up Henry every night to take him to his grandparent's place, and she would always bring Emma a cocoa and Regina a coffee. She didn't linger often, entering the room only to tell Henry to pack up and to kiss Emma's forehead.

Emma still hadn't voluntarily eaten anything more than sipping on her cocoa, but even that didn't hold the same taste it used to. She was trying to try for Regina, but she couldn't force herself to act like her usual self. The only time she really talked was the occasional supplanted hum or other form of acknowledgement when Henry would tell her about his day at school, and then there was nighttime, when everyone but Regina was gone and her girlfriend would crawl into the bed and wrap her arms around her. She talked to Regina, and Regina alone was the person who could get more than monosyllabic sounds from her. This day was no different, except that it was a Sunday, so Henry had been there many hours longer than usual.

Regina pushed Emma, tried to push her too hard to eat one of the fries that Granny had sent over with David. She dipped it in ketchup and waved it in front of Emma's mouth, but the pale and chapped lips stayed tightly sealed. Regina dropped the fry and walked out of the room. She stormed around the corner and smashed right into a broad and firm body. When she looked up she saw David standing there.

"What are you doing here?" she snapped.

"Sorry. I…just hang around a bit after I bring you guys the food. I watch sometimes where you can't see me and hope she eats something."

"Right. I'm…I'm sorry for snapping at you."

"It's fine."

"It's not. I know that. I just don't know what to do. I can't help her! I'm trying to be there for her, but she's not there anymore."

"She is…she's just buried. She'll get better." David paused, hesitating. "H-how much longer until they check the baby's growth again?"

"They're checking it tomorrow morning. They don't do it on the weekends unless it's an emergency, I guess. Her stomach has grown, and she looks healthier, physically anyway. Dr. Whale said that it might mean the nutrients are getting to her and the baby properly. I guess we'll find out tomorrow."

"It hasn't even been a week…how has her stomach grown already?"

"Well, she's getting food now, not food food, but the tube is giving her what she needs and because she went so long hardly eating anything, Dr. Whale said something about her body trying to recover and prevent near starvation from happening, so it stores sugar more. I…I don't know the details, you'd have to ask him."

"Oh…ok. And he wants to wait until next Wednesday to even consider taking him out?"

"Yes," Regina nodded. "I want her to be better, I want them to just take the baby out and make Emma better." She looked in horror at David; surprised at the confession she had just given him. It wasn't something that she meant to tell someone besides Dr. Whale.

"I understand that. Regina, she will pull through, she's a fighter."

"Yes, I do hope so."

"Alright, well, you should probably get back in there, I'm gonna go. See you tomorrow?" She nodded her agreement. "Will you call me and Snow after they check the baby's growth?"

"Yes. Have a good night, David."

"You too. Take care of our girl." She turned and walked back to the room where Emma and Henry were, expecting more of Henry's usual chatter but she didn't expect to hear Emma talking. At the sound of the blonde's raspy voice, Regina halted outside of the door.

"I'm sorry I can't be a better mom, Henry."

"No, mama, you're great. Don't say that."

"You deserve so much more."

"No. I have you and mom, that's all I want. Everybody gets sad, everybody deals with it differently."

"You're a smart boy."

"You'll get better, you're the strongest person I know. I know you'll get better."

"Your mom is the strongest person we know, kid. She wouldn't ever be weak enough to break like this. She's the one you need."

"That's not true."

"What's not true?" Regina felt her heart clench at Henry's words, wondering where he was going with his statement, and Emma's question had come out in such a low tone that she strained to hear what they were saying.

"Mom broke before. Well, I mean, she became the Evil Queen for a little while, but that's not what I'm talking about. Once, when I was 8, mom had a really bad nightmare, but she wouldn't tell me about it. I heard her crying in her sleep for a long time. The next day she didn't even wake me up to go to school or anything. Graham came over when he got a call from my teacher telling him that I hadn't shown up and mom hadn't called me in. He helped me get to school and then I guess he probably went to check on mom. He stayed with us for almost three weeks, making us meals, getting me ready for school and taking me there and bringing me home. She cried a lot, and I didn't see her very much when she was sad. I went in her room a few times and slept with her, it was the only thing I thought I could do to comfort her; she likes hugs, even if she pretends she doesn't. She likes them from the right person."

Emma was crying and she reached out her arms to take Henry into a hug. "Henry, how are you such a smart kid?"

"I take after my moms!" he cheered, trying to break the dark atmosphere. "But, ma, I know you can get through this. It's in our blood to come out fighting."

"How old are you again, Henry? Like, 40?"

"Huh?"

"Nothing, kid. It was a joke. Thank you for comforting me. I needed it."

"I know. Even if I don't remember you and mom dating, I can see how happy you guys are, and I want you to be like that again. I don't want you to be sad."

Regina took the silence that followed as an opportunity to back down the hall silently before walking back towards the room and entering.

"Hey," Emma offered with a weak smile.

"Hello sweetheart. I'm sorry for how I walked off earlier."

"No, I get it. I wouldn't want to be around me either."

"Henry…can you please go to the cafeteria and get some ice cream?" Regina asked him. He nodded, taking the hint, and headed down the hall to the elevator. She turned back to Emma after a moment of staring at the door. "Emma, darling, it is not at all that I don't want to be around you."

"Then what is it?"

"I was being momentarily selfish, and I'm sorry for that." Regina sat on the edge of the bed at Emma's hip. She stroked one pale arm with her warm hand, trying to give some of her warmth over to her girlfriend. Her chocolate eyes searched dull green ones intently before moving to gaze over the tired and worn face that no longer looked like the woman she fell in love with. No, the face looked like it belonged to someone who had given up.

"How were you being selfish? Pushy…maybe, but selfish?"

"I'm having a hard time being here because I can't…I don't know how to help you. And I'm trying so hard to be able to help, but I have no idea what to do. And I needed to walk away for a minute so that when I came back I could continue to try, properly, without pushing you."

"You help me just by being here. Really." Emma waited a beat before continuing, unsure of what Regina would say in response to her next confession. "I know you were listening, before, when Henry told me about you."

"I'm sorry I eavesdropped. Don't tell Henry, he'll have me for ages on that one." She received another small smile.

"Why didn't you ever tell me?"

"It never came up. And…I wasn't ready to reveal certain things about myself yet."

"But why?"

"Because I'm a deeply flawed and deeply complicated person. And I fell in love with this woman who is as complicated as I, and it's scary. I'm the reason behind the way you grew up. I'm the person behind the cause of a good number of my nightmares. I'm the person who doesn't deserve to have a moment to break and need or receive help."

"But…that's not true. Everyone deserves help. Everyone deserves to break…some people just handle it better than others. Some people aren't as haunted by their pasts as we are."

"I know. Nevertheless, I didn't want you to see the things I've kept hidden so well behind my walls."

"But what if they help me get better?"

"How would they?"

"By giving me something to think about that isn't about what's wrong with me. Everyone wants to talk about what happened to me, why I'm like this, why I don't feel like eating or breathing or living. I don't want to talk about that, it makes it all feel worse right now."

"Ok."

So later that night, after Ruby picked up Henry and brought Regina and Emma their hot drinks, the brunette told the blonde about the nightmare that had thrown her into nearly three-week breakdown. She told her about how she dreamed of a time when Leopold had come into her bedchambers. That Snow hadn't been there on one night when the king had enjoyed a spectacular amount of mead after having been gone for a month visiting another kingdom. He came back wanting…needing his desires to be fulfilled and how she had been in her monthly cycle when he came into her chambers. She had been in pain from her abdomen cramping and had already lost more blood than she usually did in her time of the month.

She told Emma that she dreamed of that night, when he took her like he always did, and how even though her blood had provided some lubrication so it didn't hurt as badly, the rest of her body hurt. She told her how he was upset at how messy it was and gripped her arms tightly, shaking her, pushing her deeper into the bed and blaming her like it was something she could control. Her arms had large hand-shaped bruises for several days that eventually faded to yellow and then nothing.

She told her that the nightmare was triggered because Graham had been over that night, and like many nights they had slept together. Unlike any other time they had been together, she started her period early while they were having sex and when Graham got off of her he noticed the blood on himself and on the sheets. He wasn't disgusted, they showered together and he helped her get her bed set into the washer. But still, the blood on the sheets and on both of their bodies triggered the nightmare for her.

By the end of her story, both women were in tears and holding each other tightly, Emma had her head on Regina's shoulder and her blonde waves tickled the exposed skin of the brunette's bicep and sternum. Neither said anything else for the rest of that night, they just held each other and slept. It was the first night that Emma didn't cry in her sleep. She didn't make any noise she just slept peacefully.