I apologize for the long wait, but this whole chapter, and the coming one, has been incredibly difficult for me to write. I should have Part 2 up by tomorrow or Monday at the latest. Thank you all so much for your patience and kind words! Please enjoy!

Gold left a speechless Regina, walking away, wearing that knowing smirk of his that drove the former Queen nuts. Her stomach twisted like a wad of worms on LSD. The information he gave her had indeed been something the mayor had known nothing of, and her first instinct was doubt. Trusting Rumplestiltskin wasn't something that Regina was in the habit of doing.

And yet, his words gnawed at her. She knew something was wrong with her; that much was obvious. Wherever the mysterious - and seemingly violent - fits she kept having were coming from, she couldn't say. For all she knew, the imp had been offering up a story to conveniently fill in the gaps, just to get her to play his game. The game he had them all playing from the start.

She ground her teeth in frustration. Madness from being magically cut from one's True Love? It was completely... Well, if Regina was being honest with herself, it didn't sound implausible. She had heard stories of men and women, both great heroes and simple folk alike, having fallen to lunacy when their love was taken from them. Some even died, though it was said that they would simply die of a broken heart.

She growled to herself. Those were coincidences and rumors. If that were true, why had she not gone mad when her mother had crushed... The brunette swallowed hard. A tiny voice whispered in her ear, You and I both know that Daniel was not your True Love, dear. You were children, and he was your First Love. Don't deny what you have spent decades running from.

She shook her head, hard, looking like she was trying to throw a wasp from her scalp. Her eyes fell to the woman beside her, and Regina busied herself by glaring at the blonde out of spite. Usually, the sheriff had given the mayor damn good reasons to earn gazes full of ire. At that moment, though, she just needed something to be angry at.

If, and only if, Gold's words held any truth, and what he had told her did apply to Regina... She wasn't sure she could handle the truth. That would mean that the unbelievably aggravating woman bound to her by medical tape was her... No. She refused to say it, let alone think it.

The brunette was about to reach over and peel back her binding, but the words scribbled across it caught her eyes again. Henry had come here, not just for Emma, but for her as well. She did not know the extent of what Rumple told him - and yes, she knew that he had audacity to meddle with her son - but he came to make sure that she was safe.

Her anger ebbed slightly, thinking of the boy she thought she lost actually coming to her aid, and then she snorted, because he clearly got that from his Charming lineage. She felt Emma's fingers shift slightly, parting enough to allow her own to slip between them. She felt, and heard, her own heart jump slightly. The movement seemed so intentional.

Usually, when the Savior moved against her, it felt like jerks and the unconscious twitches of an unconscious woman. Yet, this simple shift unnerved the woman who nonetheless allowed her fingers to lace with Emma's. When she squeezed slightly to see what would happen, the blonde's heart jumped too.

Without warning a large, mischievous grin spread across her face as a thought blossomed in her mind. She was thinking of the positively mortified expression that would cross Snow's face if she found out that her daughter was with the Evil Queen. She could imagine the almost sheepish smile on Emma's face, while Snow's eyes bounced between the Queen and the Savior, her mouth stupidly agape with shock and horror.

A small chuckle escaped her throat as Regina rested her head back on her pillows, closing her eyes. The dumbfounded look on Charming's face while his hapless wife babbled incessantly, trying to get her precious Emma to rethink her choice was a delicious vision indeed. She imagined that she would move in close to the blonde, slide her hand into the sheriff's and lean in to plant a small, but victorious, kiss upon the cheek of the woman beside her.

Regina found her mouth suddenly dry, and her tongue came out to lick her lips. She cracked open her eyes, turning her gaze to Emma Swan once more, lying still as the grave. She frowned, her stomach writhing once more. She wanted nothing more than to roll over, facing her back to the person she was now rooming with, but their hands were still taped together.

Like a petulant child, Regina huffed, reached over, wincing at the pain, and peeled back the medical tape. She extracted her fingers from the blonde's, rubbing her itchy, oxygen-starved skin. Emma's heart slowed again.

Regina suddenly felt as though she was slightly tipsy. It felt like her focus had had a chunk of it torn off. With that, her thoughts didn't feel quite so clear or organized, and her head felt like a Jenga tower on the verge of toppling. She was sure that if she could stand, she would feel wobbly and unbalanced. Regina shook herself, rolling over to face away from the infuriating woman. She just needed some sleep to steady herself.

Regina was awoken by soft knocking against glass. She sat bolt upright, almost crying out in pain, but no one would see her do so. Instead her eyes tightened considerably along with her jaw. She saw a nurse opening the door, looking timid and wearing an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, Mayor Mills. I didn't mean to wake you, but I've got to do my rounds." The woman had a small cart full of supplies behind her.

Regina didn't bother to give any sort of answer or show any acceptance of apology. She lay back down, crossing her hands over her midsection, staring up at the ceiling. The nurse busied herself with her duties, changing the IV bag, clothing and waste on Emma, as well as checking her limp body for bedsores. Regina stared almost unblinkingly upward, refusing to watch any of what was going on beside her.

Every time the mayor previously saw her new roommate, it had been late at night, when no one was around, and Emma always looked the same as ever. Watching someone else take care of everything that the sheriff herself was unable to do, thanks to the Sleeping Curse, made it somehow so much more real just how completely helpless the Savior was. In addition to that, it added a level of guilt that Regina was definitely not ready to feel.

She still felt kind of like her brain was mushy from having drunk too much alcohol, but she knew she hadn't. It must be a combination of tiredness and whatever drugs she was probably on at the moment.

"What time is it?" she asked sharply.

The woman glanced at her watch. "A little after five. Anything I can do? Are you hungry? In pain?"

"I... I need to use the restroom." Regina chastised herself for the flush creeping up her cheeks at her statement.

"No problem, Mayor Mills. I'll have someone come right away." She walked over to a little pager and called for another nurse and a wheelchair. She smiled at the brunette before continuing her duties. Within minutes a man in purple scrubs pushing one of those infernal chairs showed up.

She had not felt so embarrassed in a long time, struggling to climb out of bed until he simply put his arms under her and gently carried her to the chair. He smiled, and looked upon her with no judgment, but the brunette could not fight the deep scowl etching her features. He wheeled her the short distance to the bathroom, and he was about to push her in and help her onto the toilet, but the thought of that was so revolting that she pushed herself in, slamming the door in his face.

There was no lock on it, and Regina glared at the doorknob as though it had personally insulted her. Grunting slightly with soreness, she got herself to the toilet, and with significant pain, some cursing and a little awkward shimmying, she got herself onto the toilet.

The mayor knew that she should have let the stupid nurse help her go to the bathroom, but her pride was not to be damaged. She missed her magic, ruing her inability to heal herself. She glowered moodily at the red button on the wall in case of an emergency.

Some minutes later, the mayor found herself back in the room with Emma, and once she was placed back in her bed, she was alone with the woman once more. She found herself feeling oddly envious of the fact that, though the sheriff was enduring greater indignities than she was, at least the blonde wasn't awake for any of it.

She found herself tempted to touch Emma's hand, but pulled away from the thought. It was one thing when she was visiting the Savior in the dead of night, but being there with her all the time was doing nothing for her mood. She felt like she was being forced to think about her feelings, question herself and why couldn't she just focus on just one thing? Her mind was racing, and it put her ill at ease.

She managed to fall back into a restless sleep, having dreams of Henry screaming at her while Emma lay dead on the floor of her royal bedchamber. She would end up cowering in the corner, hands over her ears, trying to block out the deafening fury of Henry's bellows. Regina's eyes snapped open and then cringed at the clear autumn sun flooding their room.

She tried stretching herself and stopped after feeling the dull aches shooting through her limbs and the hot tendrils of fire stabbing up from her bandaged feet. Right, how could she forget that she was once again crippled? She moved to prop herself upright when her hand landed on Emma's.

She jerked it away, startled by the coldness she wasn't expecting to feel. Her arm remained suspended while she stared down at the offending hand. It was resting casually on her bed, but her palm was facing up, instead of flat on the sheets, like it always was. That slight change in position completely unnerved the brunette. It seemed like an invitation, or a quiet beseeching.

She had been housed with the unconscious Savior for less than twenty-four hours and it already felt like Emma was intruding. That thought was ridiculous, of course, because how could she be? She was cursed. Could her suddenly close and constant proximity to the woman be causing this? Hadn't Emma always responded to Regina's touch? Hadn't she always- No.

She cursed under her breath that she had allowed Rumple to get under her skin so easily. His words were meant to manipulate her into doing something that was probably another part of his grand plan, one that she was thoroughly sick of playing.

Regina shifted, and placed her hand beside Emma's, definitely not on the offered hand. The mayor realized that there was absolutely nothing in the room to distract her from her still-racing thoughts and put her mind at ease. No news papers, no books, hell, she would even settle for a magazine.

Then, as though knowing how impossibly bored she would soon become, Henry knocked on the glass with a nervous-looking Mary Margaret standing behind him. Her face split into a wide smile, and she motioned for him to come in.

"Hey, Mom!"

"Henry! I'm so glad to- shouldn't you be in school?"

He rolled his eyes at her, going to sit next to his birthmother. "I don't have to be there for about 15 minutes. I wanted to check on you."

It was not lost on Regina the way he moved instinctively to Emma's side, or how his eyes kept looking upon her face with what appeared to be trace amounts of horror, or how there was the slight note of disappointment to his voice.

"Thank you, Henry. For coming to see me."

"What did Mr Gold tell you?"

Regina's head snapped up in surprise at the blunt question that was so casually tossed her way. "What do you mean?"

"He said he was gonna help you, but he wouldn't tell me what was going on." He frowned, having never liked being kept in the dark.

"He... He didn't say anything to me." She was lying straight through her teeth again, and she hated herself for doing so. But Rumple was right, Henry did not need to know the information relayed to her.

"Why are you lying to me?" He glared at her, calling her out in a way that definitely screamed Emma.

"I'm not lying to you, Henry. I don't-"

His eyes widened. "Your hands! How come they're not together?"

Regina mentally let out a sigh of relief that he was distractible enough - another trait he clearly inherited from his mother - to let her out of an impending, difficult accusation. "The tape got itchy, dear. And the nurses can't do their jobs if we're stuck together." She smiled sweetly at the boy still putting her under heavy scrutiny.

"But I told you not to! Didn't you see what I wrote?"

"Of course I did, but I can't just stay like that."

"When are you going to see? When will you realize what you need to do?"

"Henry..."

"You promised me. You promised me you'd try."

"No, I promised you that I would think about it.

"How much time can you need? Emma's been like this for a month now! Of course..." He snorted, looking away from the brunette trying to understand him. "You would be that selfish. You're the Evil Queen."

"Henry, don't talk like that. I am Regina, and these things aren't so simple-"

"No, you're just being a coward! Here," he tossed a small bag onto Regina's lap. "I have to go to school." Without another word and not even looking at his adoptive mother, Henry stood up and marched out of the little hospital room.

Regina woke up late one night, a hot surge of tight pain from her foot rousing her. She propped herself up, never opening her eyes, groaning from the sensation, waiting until it ebbed away to a point where she could once again ignore it. After the angry stabbing had receded, the brunette flopped down. Something cold and lumpy was underneath her.

Her eyes snapped open, and Regina gasped to find herself curled around Emma's unconscious form. It was three days into her hospitalization, and nothing quite like this had happened before. There were times when she would wake up from naps or nightmares to find her fingers laced with the blonde's, or clutching at the woman's arm, but where she found herself now was an entirely new development.

She stayed frozen where she was, torn between all of the things screaming in her head. Part of her was exhausted, sore, and lonely, and she would love nothing more than to curl up with the Savior and drift away again. But the rest of Regina's mind was hounding her to pull away. How could she be so weak? And what if she were found sleeping like that with the sheriff?

It was a bad idea. She propped herself up on one arm again, studying the woman below her closely. There was nothing different about her. Her arms were by her side, her face impassive, and the only difference was that the sheets over her were a little mussed from Regina's limbs tangled over them.

"How do you break me down to nothing when you aren't even awake?" She sighed loudly. "You should be. You should be conscious to counter me, and make me see once more that you are my enemy, not my..." She bit her lip, battling over the word that was threatening to make itself known to both women. "...Anchor." Regina lowered her eyes in a dark scowl, ashamed of herself.

She huffed loudly, completely pulling away from the troublesome woman. She leaned over to the little nightstand beside her bed and pulled a book of Sudoku puzzles from the bag that Henry had brought her. Normally she was remarkably fast at solving them, having liked math and the way numbers fit so seamlessly together. She liked doing other puzzles as well, like crosswords, but they were more ambiguous and less logical. Regina was a calculating woman, and the patterns of the digits suited her just fine.

She frowned at the Sudoku she was currently working on. The little squares seemed to be taunting her. It was her second day working on this one, and still the answers eluded her. Her eraser was starting to run low. There was nothing different or particularly challenging about the puzzle before her, so there was no earthly reason to be struggling with it in the way that she was.

Yet, every time Regina tried to see a pattern, puzzle out the math, she found that her mind was somewhere else entirely. It was thinking about Daniel, then Henry, then Cora, followed by her horrific marriage to the King, then Emma, then Henry again, The Enchanted Forest, Crushing her first heart, Daniel's turning to dust. Graham's betrayal, kissing Emma, Rumple's manipulations, Cora, her father, Daniel's lips, Emma's lips, Snow biting the apple, pushing her mother through the mirror. Sending so many children to the Blind Witch, Henry running away from her...

Regina bent over the edge of the bed, retching and watching yellowish bile dribble from her mouth onto the floor. She hung over the edge, unsure if there was more to come. Her head was pounding, and her abdomen aching from the broken ribs that Whale kindly informed her of having. A slight sheen of sweat peppered her brow. She couldn't remember the last time she threw up, and it left her feeling ever so slightly helpless, sensing the smallest desire to want to be taken care of. She hit the little button to page a nurse. Her sick needed to be cleaned up, and Regina really wanted something to knock her out.

Regina picked at the breakfast she was brought. The coffee was watery, the eggs were tasteless and her bagel was, well, she couldn't quite bring herself to even classify it as a bagel. The only thing that she had consumed entirely from her tray was the little cup of applesauce.

A nurse came in about a half hour later to pick up her tray, and Dr Whale was following closely behind. He met her gaze with a smile that didn't quite make its way to his eyes.

"Doctor," Regina said curtly.

"Good morning, Madame Mayor. Not very hungry this morning?" He eyed the tray of mostly-uneaten food.

"It's a wonder I haven't starved to death, considering what poor excuses for food you keep serving me."

"This is a hospital, not a five-star restaurant. Maybe your boy will bring you a treat from Granny's. Funny," he said without humor. "I haven't seen him here for you, in a few days."

"What?"

"Well, he seems to make he visits his birthmother while you're napping. Strange that he doesn't feel the need to wake you," he sneered. Regina shot him the most venomous look she could muster, her mouth opening to retort, but he cut her off. "But I'm sure that's a talk for you to have with Henry. I am here to have a look at your feet."

The mayor chewed on her tongue, biting back all of the fury that was welling within her. His groin was mere inches from her heel, and she wanted nothing more than to slam it into him. The only thing that stopped her was the image of Henry's disappointed face.

Whale gently pulled back the wrappings, and Regina clenched her fists slightly at the sudden onslaught of cold air on the soles of her feet. His brow knit together while he studied her healing wounds.

"Is something wrong?"

"Tell me, have you felt any unusual tightness in the skin around your injuries?"

"Yes, I have. Is something wrong?" she repeated with a little more harshness to notify him of her rapidly depleting patience.

"Well... it would appear that your stitches are ready to come out, and you've healed at an alarmingly fast rate."

Regina sat up on her elbows looking hard at the doctor. "What did you say?"

"Your stitches, some of them have already popped open. I need to remove them immediately. I'm not sure what's happening, but I want to keep you here for the remainder of the day for observation. Once we see how you're doing, we might be able to discharge you tomorrow."

The mayor's head snapped back. "Really?"

"Yes. I'm going to have someone come see you today to test how well you walk. Once we gauge your progress with that, then we can really talk about when we can discharge you."

The former Queen knew what she needed to do. It didn't matter if it killed her to walk on her own two feet, she was going to do it, and show no pain. Masking her feelings was something she perfected decades ago, doing this would be a cakewalk - no pun intended - She just needed to get out of the tiny hospital room and away from Emma.

Once again, Regina endured the uncomfortable sensation of sutures being severed a pulled away, but from both feet this time. Whale was quick and quiet, knowing the mayor was in no mood for idle banter. Especially after the comments he made about Henry. He finished, observed his handiwork and held up a mirror for Regina to see.

The bottoms of her feet were definitely going to bear heavy scars, and these were going to be scars that the woman was glad weren't going to be shown to many. Though she wore the history of her battles proudly, these blemishes were not ones of triumph or strength. What was happening to her was something she desperately wanted to keep quiet, despite the fact that the whole town already knew something was up. The mayor was simply glad that the only ones who genuinely knew the truth were Rumple and herself, not that she believed a word the imp had told her.

Regina was flexing and wiggling her feet, enjoying the fact that they were no longer bound, nor required to be kept as still as possible. She wasn't a particularly fidgety woman - those habits had been forcibly subdued by her mother; no queen fidgets - but the brunette found that the longer she was supposed to remain still or composed, the stronger the desire to do so became. So, since having stitches again, she wasn't supposed to move her feet too much. In combination with her unusually-restless thoughts, all the brunette wanted to do was fret her feet around.

Now that she was freed, she was busy getting all of the squirms out of her system while she could. No one told her when a physical therapist was supposed to show up to see how well she could walk, but Regina was starting to get desperate. She was a woman of action, and lying around wasn't exactly her cup of tea.

The brunette was busy tapping her toes to a made up rhythm, trying to ignore the growing ache pounding over her left eye. Her brain still felt like a slideshow of her past put on fast-forward. Each memory, action, and face made itself known just long enough for her to recognize it before dashing away to reveal the next image.

She rubbed her eyes, vainly hoping that would help to alleviate the pain threatening to spread throughout her skull. Regina pulled her hands away and looked at them, forcing herself to concentrate. She knew why Henry had put their hands together, even if he wasn't privy to that information. Rumple said that she was losing it because she was cut off from Emma. The Savior grounded her, and Henry knew it. She made a promise to only person she truly loved in her life.

Regina placed her hand on top of the blonde's and heard the responding jump in heartbeat. The brunette felt the intensity of her headache recede slightly, and the maelstrom of thoughts crashing around her brain seemed to settle like the pieces on a Boggle board finally fall into place. Nothing was organized, and her emotions felt strained, but things felt a little more right for Regina in that moment.

Again, I have a Tumblr for those of you who are interested! Link is here: writers-dilemma. tumblr. com