A/N: After beginning this chapter, I got to about 5,000 words before I realized I should find a good stopping point and just leave the rest to Chapter 6. What was originally planned as just seven chapters is growing quite rapidly! Also, if you're interested in being a beta reader for this story, send me a PM.
Chapter 5: The Waiting
"What the hell have you done?"
It's the last thing she remembers hearing. She cracks her eyes open, but the bright fluorescent lights above her force her to shut them again.
"Emma? Are you awake?"
"I think so," she grunts.
David reaches out his hand and puts it on top of hers before giving it a gentle squeeze.
"What happened? How did I end up back in the hospital? And why is the room spinning?"
He can't help but to laugh a bit. She sort of deserves that much.
"You were found in the alley beside The Rabbit Hole early this morning."
"What?!" Her eyes finally open completely.
He nods a bit. "Apparently you had too much of a good time after escaping the hospital against doctor's orders to rest here for a few days."
He puts on his best disappointed Dad face.
"Oh," she groans, the pain in her head finally being noticed. "Why were you at The Rabbit Hole?"
"I wasn't."
"Then how did I get here? Who found me… in the alley?"
"Regina."
She groans again, this time rolling over to face away from her father. Why did she have to pull such a dick move last night? She should have just left everything the way it was. Regina is finally happy now. What right does she have to ruin that by attempting to make some sort of half-cocked confession of love? Hell, she doesn't even know if that's what she's feeling anyway. And why would someone as gorgeous and intelligent as—
"Wait. Did you say Regina found me?"
He nods.
"Why the hell was she out that late and at that shit hole nonetheless?" She's now sitting up, her legs crossed underneath her, head in her hands, desperately trying to stop the pounding ache there.
"That's a good question, but I'll let you ask her that. I just popped in when they said you were beginning to stir."
The beat of Emma's heart picks up a bit. Is Regina still waiting here?
She allows her eyes to slide to the cracked door before pushing the brunette from her mind (for now) and focusing on another. "How's mom?"
David can't stop the huge grin spreading across his face. "You have a baby brother, Em."
Emma gawks at him, then mimics his broad smile. "Really?" She whispers excitedly.
"Yes. Whale said you can come see him once you get your strength back up. Or maybe we can bring him down."
"Yeah," she gestures, "that'd be awesome!"
He kisses the top of her head and slips out, a goofy grin still plastered on his face.
Emma smiles warmly and settles back in the bed. She may feel like absolute shit right now, but damn if she's not excited to be a big sister. She thinks about it all for a moment and then gets a familiar empty feeling in her chest.
She waits a few moments, almost expecting Regina to come through the door and lecture her about being safe, drinking, having a child, and anything else she might think of on the fly. When no one comes in, she reaches over onto the stand beside the hospital bed and grabs her phone.
Dead. Of course.
Using the hospital phone, she dials Archie's number.
"Hello?"
"Archie! Hey, it's Emma."
"Oh, Emma. Are you okay? We've been so worried about you."
She laughs a bit. "I'm okay. Just had a little too much fun after my great escape last night."
"So I heard."
"Is that Emma?" she hears a feminine voice in the background.
Emma closes her eyes and holds her breath, hoping the brunette doesn't take the phone.
"Archie, can you bring Henry over to the hospital? I'm sure he wants to meet his uncle."
"Mary Margaret had the baby?"
"Mmhm."
"She had the baby," Archie says to the obviously-populated room he's in.
Emma can hear Henry and Roland's excited chatter as well as a murmur from Regina.
"We're on our way, all of us!"
Before Emma can protest, Archie hangs up.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
"He's so tiny," Emma smiles, letting her baby brother wrap his fingers around hers.
David stands over the two of them, still amazed.
"Charming, you're hovering," Mary Margaret scolds from her wheelchair on the other side of the bed.
"Sorry." He sits down in the chair, but slides it about three feet closer to the bed to be closer to his children.
They all look up when they hear a soft knock on the door.
"Ma!"
Emma watches as Henry bounds into the room. She signals for him to quiet down, nodding her head towards the serene baby in her arms.
"Oops," he smiles, walking gingerly over towards the bed where his family is.
Emma watches him look in awe between her and the baby, obviously unsure who to ask about first. She pops her head up towards the door when she hears someone clear their throat… not that she needed to look to know exactly who it is.
Regina's heart hitches on a beat seeing Emma in the hospital bed, the small baby boy wrapped up in her arms, her smile bright and genuine. This must be what it was like when her Henry was born, save for the family all gathered around. She suddenly feels her heart drop into the pit of her stomach, knowing she was the one who caused Emma all that pain so long ago. Still, and despite her desire to be and seem irritated with Emma, she can't pull her eyes away from the blonde and the baby in front of her. There's something so perfect and familiar about it all.
"Regina, hi," Emma says, handing the baby to David, who has been anxiously waiting to get his hands back on him.
"Hello," she says flatly as she makes her way further into the room.
Mary Margaret looks between the two of them and back to David.
"We should get back to the room and feed him. Henry, would you mind?" She asks, gesturing towards her wheelchair.
Henry looks at Emma. "Yes, go, go. I'm fine."
"See you guys later?" Emma questions. She almost wants to beg them to stay. She knows the inevitable conversation with Regina is not going to be pretty.
"Of course, sweetie. Get some rest."
And, with that, she's left alone with her. Again.
It doesn't take the older woman a second after the door clicks to close the distance between her and the foot of the hospital bed.
"Do you care to explain what was going on in that dense skull of yours last night, Ms. Swan?"
Emma rolls her eyes.
"Regina, I need to rest. The doc—"
"What?" She muses. "The doctor said for you to stay in bed? Perhaps you should have listened to that order last night before driving across town to my house, then getting trashed and passing out in a dark, dangerous alley!"
"Why, Mayor Mills, if I didn't know better, I would think you were concerned about my well-being," Emma retorts, perhaps a little bitchier than she had planned. But she's quickly growing tired of playing this game.
Regina doesn't even answer that.
"Why did you show up at my home last night?"
Of all things to be worried about, this was the argument she was choosing?
"Oh, I'm sorry if I ruined your fuckfest."
The brunette's eyes grow unnaturally wide. Emma immediately regrets what just spilled from her stupid mouth.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
Regina's nostrils flare as she tries to settle the anger rising in her body.
"No. You didn't interrupt anything, actually. We were finished," she raises an eyebrow, obviously taking a jab at Emma.
Emma's jaw sets rigidly, not unnoticed by Regina.
"I was just out of it. Too much medication," she finally answers calmly.
"Hm."
"What?"
Regina shrugs. "Nothing. Why did you go to The Rabbit Hole after?"
"Why did you?" Emma responds, narrowing her eyes at her.
Regina's mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first.
"I didn't go to that place! I was just out, driving."
"Why?"
"I don't have to answer to you, but if you must know, Ms. Swan, I couldn't sleep and just needed to clear my head."
"About what?" Green eyes are now boring holes into brown ones, challenging, begging.
Silence.
"That's what I thought."
Emma reaches over and turns the overhead light off and wraps herself up in the blankets, turning away from Regina. She hears her exhale, then the click of her heels across the floor, going away from her. Emma looks up towards the ceiling, willing the tears not to fall to her face. She sees a slight purple mist enter the room before she hears the door close softly.
She's confused for a minute, but then realizes that the room is no longer spinning and the pounding in her head has subsided… Regina must have just used magic to heal her. She hadn't even noticed that Regina's ankle was no longer taped up. She must have gotten her strength back. Sure she did, being that she probably spent all last night on her back. Emma cringes again and rolls over, thankful to be alone in the dark room once again; her only company a steadily beeping monitor.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
Regina hurries out of the hospital, to her car, to the safety of being by herself. When she slides onto the leather seat, she lets out the breath she had been holding since she left Emma's room. She puts her car in reverse and pulls out of the garage.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. She wasn't supposed to feel like this. Robin was her destiny. The lion tattoo. She was supposed to be happy, blissfully happy. Instead, she feels even lonelier than before. It was everything that Emma hadn't said that was now crawling under her skin, making its way to her beating heart and ripping it apart, fiber by fiber.
What brought all of this on anyway? She scoffs aloud. She knows. She and Emma almost died trying to save each other. It always seemed to come down to that, one of them risking everything for the other. And for what? What did Emma think she had to gain by always being Regina's savior?
Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
It hits Regina like a ton of bricks. Any time she had come to the aid of one of the Charmings or, hell, even just one of the townspeople, it had always been for selfish reasons or for her son. But Emma? No, Emma just did it. Just for Regina, with absolutely nothing to gain and with no ulterior motives.
She grips the steering wheel tighter, causing her knuckles to fade to white. She had been genuinely worried about Emma last night. When she saw the blonde sprawled out on the wet pavement, she had practically screamed her name, praying that she would stir, show some sign of life before she could reach her. And there it was again—the realization that she might not ever know what Emma wanted to talk about when she had been standing in her foyer… the things Emma hadn't said.
Why the hell won't she just say it? Get it out? Regina, I care. Regina, I love you. Regina, I want to be with you. Anything! Maybe then, just maybe, Regina could face her own feelings instead of forcing them back down her throat whenever they threatened to reveal themselves in the blonde's presence. There's no way she could be the first to tell Emma how she was feeling. She wasn't even sure those feelings were real at this point. What if she had been totally wrong and Emma really didn't feel that way at all? What if it was all just a product of the trauma they both had experienced and Emma was now coming to her senses about it all?
"Ugh," she growls, slamming on the brakes.
She turns the car around and heads back towards the hospital.
_.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._.-._
Emma drapes her arm over Henry's shoulders and it suddenly hits her how tall he has gotten. She smiles softly, then sadly. How will she tell him that she wants them to go home, to be a normal family again in New York?
Should he choose to stay in Storybrooke, would she be able to go back without him? On the other hand, could she really see herself staying here with the constant reminder of what she can't have slapping her in the face every single day?
She forces her thoughts back to the scene unfolding before her—her parents smiling down at their newborn, her son beside her. It's almost too good to be true. She's losing her resolve.
"Henry, could you give us just a minute?"
He looks up at her, a little worried, but then nods. "Sure. Change for a soda?"
"Oh, kid," she laughs, handing him a few dollars.
"Thanks, ma!"
She ruffles his hair as he rushes past her and out of the room. Her parents look up at her curiously.
"Is everything okay Emma?"
"No."
Mary Margaret hands the baby over to David and sits up, eyeing her daughter. She motions for her to have a seat on the bed, but Emma doesn't move.
"We're going back to New York."
"What?!"
"Yeah." She just nods as though it's the most natural, obvious thing in the world.
"Why, Emma? Why would you do that? You're home. With us. We haven't even named your baby brother yet!"
Emma laughs a little. Leave it to her mother to think of that at this moment.
"Regina will kill you. I mean literally, Emma. She will, if you try to take Henry."
Emma swallows hard. "Yeah, well. I'm willing to risk that, I suppose."
"Did you forget about the whole Evil Queen thing?" David scoffs.
"Actually, Dad," she hesitates. "She's the reason we're leaving. Well, the reason I'm leaving."
They look back and forth between each other and Emma, obviously perplexed.
"I'm going to let Henry decide if he wants to stay. I don't want to, but what else can I do? I can't just take him away from Regina. She is his mother, after all."
"Yes, but so are you. You shouldn't make him choose. And why would she be the reason you're leaving? Everyone is finally getting their happy ending."
"Oh, are they?" She asks sarcastically.
"Are you not happy, Emma? I just thought maybe you and Hook were—"
She puts her hand up, stopping her mid-sentence. "No."
"Well, you don't need a man to make you happy, you know?"
She accidentally laughs out loud at that. Nope, definitely not a man.
"Mom, Dad… I'm just going to say this one time and I don't want any discussion or lecture, okay?"
They just stare at her.
"Okay?!"
"Okay, okay. What is it, Emma?"
She shoves her hands into her back pockets and looks down at her feet, taking in a huge gulp of air.
"I think I'm in love with Regina."
She can feel both sets of eyes burning into her. She looks just in time to see her mother's mouth begin to move.
"Ah! You agreed!"
Mary Margaret's mouth snaps shut as she steals a glance towards her husband, who is frozen.
Luckily for Emma, she hears the door clicking open. She exhales and smiles at her son struggling with the handle, his drink, and her change.
"Hey, kid," she says a little too cheerfully.
"Mom wants you to meet her as soon as possible in the parking garage."
"What?" She snaps.
He nods, taking a sip from his drink. "She was standing outside the door when I went to get my soda. I thought she would come in." He shrugs. "I guess she didn't want to interrupt. She just left."
"Oh, god."
Emma rushes out of the door and down the hallway. This is bad. This is really, really bad.
"What's with her?"
David and Mary Margaret cover their faces with huge, fake smiles in an attempt to mask their discomfort.
"Nothing. Now, tell us, how was New York?"