Author's note: This is the final part. I may revisit the story again at some point in the future, but I have no immediate plans to do so. Then again, it was originally intended to be a one shot, but then I wound up writing two more parts. Hope you enjoy this chapter - it's a little different to the first two.
Also note that this story was previously published on AO3.
Emma woke up curled around Enrique. Regina had been away for three weeks, and the bed had felt so lonely and empty that Emma had allowed the cat to sleep with her. Even though they'd been together for more than three years and Regina had to travel at least once every couple of months, Emma still wasn't used to her absences. However, Regina was due to get back late this afternoon, and Emma was excited and rather nervous. She hadn't slept at all well last night, and she was tempted to linger in bed a little bit longer. Her plans for today wouldn't wait, though; she needed to make sure that everything was in place for the evening.
She completed her errands as quickly as she could and was now pacing a hole in the kitchen floor, talking half to the cat and half to herself.
She bent down to pet Enrique and addressed him directly. "Okay, Enrique, Operation Falling Star is a go. Your Mom is going to be home in five hours, and everything has to be absolutely perfect. You know your job, right?"
He purred and rubbed himself against her ankles.
"Okay, that's a good boy. We're just going to do a bit of a dress rehearsal now. I want to see how this ribbon looks around your neck."
Emma tied the ribbon around Enrique's neck and stood up and looked critically at the cat. "Hmm… not bad. Red looks good on you. Okay, so this is how it'll go down: I'm going to come inside under some pretext, like refilling the ice bucket, and then I'll put the ribbon on you, and then you come out with me looking cute, and then we see what your Mom says. Hopefully, it'll be yes."
She continued to pace. "Okay, so I'm going to practise my speech and I want you to tell me what you think."
She rambled on for several minutes, before eventually realising that Enrique was no longer in the kitchen.
"Damn it, cat. Where the hell are you?"
She looked for him, growing increasingly frantic, until he came trotting back into the house about half an hour later.
"Oh, thank God." Then she looked a little closer and started to panic. "Where's the ribbon, Enrique?"
Emma sat on the floor, leaning against the pantry. Oh shit, oh shit. She did the only thing she could think of: called for help.
"Hey Ruby."
"Hey Em, what's up?"
"I have a small crisis and I need your help right now."
There was a sigh from the other end of the line. "I'm at an audition. Can it wait?"
"I lost the ring."
"Oh… Where are you?"
"At home."
"Okay, I'll be there soon."
Emma was still sitting on the kitchen floor, muttering to herself, when Ruby showed up with Mary Margaret in tow.
"Emma! What happened?"
"I lost the ring."
"How? Where?" Ruby and Mary Margaret were both shouting at her, and Emma could barely make sense of it all.
She tried to focus. "I don't know. I was doing a dress rehearsal with Enrique. I tied the ribbon around his neck, and then he slipped out while I was distracted. He came back and the ribbon and the ring were gone."
Ruby groaned. "Oh, Em. Why on earth did you trust him with the ring? He's slipped at least a dozen collars just this year."
Emma grimaced. "I know, I know. But he means so much to Regina, and I figured I needed all the help I could get, that maybe the added cuteness would help seal the deal."
Mary Margaret sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. "I get it and I think it's terribly romantic. We'll find it, even if we have to turn the whole neighbourhood upside down."
Emma felt tears prick at her eyes. "You guys are the best. And Ruby, I'm sorry about the audition. I'll make it up to you however I can."
Ruby shook her head. "It's okay. It was just a stupid tampon commercial. I was going to have to run down a beach and pretend to be happy about having my period. And I'm pretty sure they were going to give it to this blonde girl who honest-to-god looked like a real, live Powerpuff Girl, anyway."
They searched the house systematically, checking all the nooks and crannies that the cat might possibly have got into. By the end, the house looked like a bombsite, and Emma suspected that Regina would probably say no, anyway, once she caught a glimpse of her normally immaculate house. And they still had nothing. They moved into the yard and scoured every inch. Finally, Mary Margaret caught sight of a glimmer of light from a tree at the back of the yard. The ring and the ribbon were suspended from a branch, about 15 feet off the ground.
They stood there at the base of the tree contemplating their approach. Mary Margaret ran inside and grabbed a broom and a chair, and Ruby tried to reach it. Unfortunately, there were too many branches in the way, and she couldn't quite get to it.
Emma sighed. There was no other option. "Give me a boost, guys. I'm going in."
Emma climbed the tree, carefully making her way branch to branch. She finally made it within reach of the ribbon, grabbing at it desperately, and stashing it in her pocket straight away. Unfortunately, the branch that was more than adequate to support the weight of a cat was not quite up to the task of supporting a fully-grown woman. The branch broke with a sickening crack, and Emma knew a moment of excruciating pain and then nothingness.
Regina is tired and cranky, and desperate to get home. Three weeks living out of a hotel room, and she is dying to sleep in her own bed. Three weeks of 14-hour days of coddling idiots who should know better, of painful networking drinks, of running interference between executives and their unhappy staff. Three weeks of keeping a straight face while using words like synergy and buy-in and ownership and wondering just when it was she sold her soul for a corner office. Three weeks of missing Emma and her sure hands and knowing grin that have taught her not to take herself too seriously. Three weeks of missing arms that wrap around her and make her feel safe and loved.
The plane is held on the tarmac for what seems an eternity, before they are allowed to exit to the terminal. She collects her luggage and joins the line for a taxi, which seems interminably long. As she waits, she remembers to check her messages: work, work, dentist appointment, Mary Margaret. Mary Margaret?
"Hi Regina, it's Mary Margaret. There's been an accident. Emma's been taken to A&E at St Andrews."
The time code on the message is 4:00pm; about an hour ago. She tries to call back, and curses as it keeps going straight to voicemail. She must not have any reception. She leaves a voicemail demanding that Mary Margaret call her back straight away. She tries calling the hospital direct, and ricochets around the switchboard, no one able to give her answers. She tries Mary Margaret again, and then has to clamp down on the urge to throw her phone, to smash it to smithereens when the battery runs out.
Regina finally gets a taxi, and then traffic is crawling so slowly that she swears at the driver. She knows it's not his fault, but there's a pressure building and building and building inside her and she's afraid that if she doesn't release it somehow, her heart won't have enough strength to pump against it and her lungs won't have enough room to expand in her chest. The air suddenly feels liquid and heavy, and she chokes on her words as she urges the driver onwards, faster.
She's spent too much time in hospitals in her 34 years, too much time in waiting rooms, too much time talking to doctors and hearing bad news. Too much time drinking shitty vending machine coffee, too much time sleeping in uncomfortable chairs, too much time listening to platitudinous expressions of sympathy that can't even begin to describe or comprehend her pain.
She's experienced the pain of sudden wrenching loss, like an arm or a leg being torn off, and the enduring sense that there's something missing, a constant ghostly reminder of what should have been there. A fall from a horse, Daniel getting up laughing and smiling at his own clumsiness. Hours later, collapse. Extradural haematoma. The decision to withdraw extraordinary measures. Organ harvesters hovering, waiting like so many vultures to take away a strong, healthy heart, lungs, kidneys, and even the eyes she's spent so-much-but-still-not-enough time gazing into. Just think of all the good he's doing.
She's also known the drip-drip-drip corrosiveness of slow, inexorable decline. Cancer. Her father, portly and cheerful, gradually wasting away, his warm smile being replaced with sunken, sallow cheeks and his thinning hair falling out completely. The smell of vomit and decay. Multiple metastases. Nothing to do except make him more comfortable, and wait and wait and wait for Death to finally show him the mercy that's been lacking for the past two years.
As she sits there in traffic, she's terrified of the scene that will greet her when she arrives at the hospital. The lithe, muscular body that she's spent so much time learning lying broken and small on crisp, white sheets. The rhythmic hiss of a ventilator pushing air into lungs unable to work on their own. The beep of monitors. The frantic activity of an emergency response team trying to force life back into a shell that it's already fled.
She'd spent six years enclosing herself in layer-upon-layer-upon-layer of protection, hardening herself until she could be sure that nothing could hurt her ever again. But Emma Swan had somehow found a way in, through armour she'd thought was impenetrable, burrowing through until she found softness that Regina had thought was long gone. And now she's wondering if that chink in her armour is going to see her cut to the core once again, sliced so deeply that there won't be anything left except ugly, knotted scars.
She remembers reading that a heart scarred too deeply cannot beat with enough strength to keep the body alive. She wonders what her heart looks like; whether loss and suffering have made her heart become fibrous and scarred rather than the vibrant, vital organ it should be and whether it will have enough life left in it to keep beating tomorrow.
She reads the advertisement on the back of the seat in front of her over and over again, trying to cling to anything that might distract her. Nicotine-replacement gum. Minty fresh. Guaranteed to help you quit. No matter how many times she reads it, the words don't make any sense to her.
Regina throws a handful of bills at the driver and runs into the hospital, a suitcase trailing in her wake. She terrorises a couple of nurses until they point her in the direction of Emma's room. She slows as she walks down the hall, the urgency of a moment ago gone as the prospect of knowing looms ever closer. The sense of dread is welling up, and Regina feels like she's drowning.
And then she hears Emma's voice.
"Ruby, look. Elvis is here and he's wearing a tutu. He wants to dance with me. He wants to dance with you too."
Regina burst into the room. Emma was lying on a bed, one arm in a cast, and an IV line running into the other, staring at a fixed spot on the wall. "Emma! Oh my God, are you okay?"
"And look, Regina's here too! Regina! The aliens are coming down with the meteor shower tonight and they're going to make you their queen. They sought out the fairest in the land, and it turns out that the fairest of the fair is you."
She smiled gently at Emma, trying to stave off the worry that had been threatening to overwhelm her. "Is that so, dear? Perhaps you can tell me more about that in a minute, after I've spoken to Ruby."
She turned to Ruby and growled, "You are going to tell me what is going on this instant. And you better not have had anything to do with this."
Ruby sighed audibly. "Hi Regina. Emma fell out of a tree. She has a broken arm, a couple of cracked ribs and a few cuts and bruises. Right now, as you've probably guessed, she is ridiculously high on morphine. The doctor should be back to check on her shortly."
"What the hell was she doing up a tree?" Regina snarled.
"An excellent question and one that you should probably ask her. Maybe wait until she's stopped seeing goblins and aliens and long-dead rock and roll musicians."
In the background, Emma was chatting animatedly to the IV stand. "Oh wow! Hi Lucy Lawless. What are you doing here? You know, you're the second-hottest woman I've ever seen. You shouldn't be jealous though, you're second only to Regina, the love of my life. Hey, can you keep a secret? I'm asking her to marry me tonight. There's gonna be a meteor shower and champagne, and this weird French cheese that Regina likes that smells like feet and so much other awesome stuff. It's gonna be perfect."
Mary Margaret walked in at the tail end of Emma's monologue, carrying two coffees. She handed one to Ruby and the other to Regina. "I'm sure you need this more than I do."
That small act of kindness was what finally broke her. The cup slipped from her grasp and spilled its contents all over the floor, and Regina's body was wracked with sobs. She was dimly aware of Mary Margaret leading her to a chair, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. The next little while passed her by in a blur, and it was only with the entrance of the doctor that she was able to force herself back towards some kind of equilibrium.
Overnight for observation. Just a precaution. We're confident that she'll be going home tomorrow.
Regina was half-dozing when she heard Emma clear her throat. She opened her eyes to see Emma looking at her.
Emma's voice was scratchy as she spoke. "Hey Regina."
"How are you feeling?"
Emma laughed and then winced with pain. "Honestly? Like I got run over by a truck."
Regina struggled to keep her tone neutral. "You scared me."
"I'm sorry."
"What were you thinking?"
Emma smiled ruefully. "That I wanted a perfect evening with you, and I wasn't going to let anything get in the way of that." She paused, peering up at her uncertainly. "I guess you've heard about the plan for last night?"
"You told Lucy Lawless about it in great detail and Mary Margaret filled me in on the rest." Regina sighed. "Emma… I would have said yes, even without the meteor shower and the champagne and the string quartet, or whatever else it was that you had planned."
Regina rolled her eyes as Emma muttered, "Note to self: string quartet." She looked up at Regina with hope in her eyes. "And if I asked you now?"
"I'd tell you to ask me again when the fear of losing you isn't so fresh."
Emma's face fell. "Oh. Does that mean…"
Regina cupped Emma's cheek. "It means I love you and I need you, but I just need some time to piece myself back together again." Regina gently brushed a lock of hair back from Emma's forehead. "Ask me again soon. I don't need grand, romantic gestures, I just need you safe and well and with me always."