A/N: sorry for the cliffhanger! But here you go with the aftermath of the fight.
P.S. I'm not a doctor …
"Where's Emma?"
Red raised her head and narrowed her eyes when she saw the woman stood in the doorway. Mills looked smaller somehow, more timid as she nervously fidgeted with the sleeve of her top, waiting for the blonde's roommate to answer. The remnants of a bruise was visible around one eye and there was a partially healed cut on her upper cheek.
"Why should I tell you?" Red spat, before returning to the magazine she had been reading.
"Because I'm her girlfriend," the brunette responded, moving a little way inside the room.
Red let out a bark like laugh. "Some girlfriend you are," she replied. "Emma doesn't want to see you and I don't want you seeing her either."
"Please," Regina implored. "Just tell me where she is."
"The infirmary," Red responded. "Not that you'll be allowed to visit her anyway."
Regina's brow furrowed. "The infirmary? Why? What happened to her?"
"You happened to her," Red growled. "Now get out and don't go looking for Emma. She's got enough on her plate without getting involved with a psycho like you."
Regina opened her mouth to speak but the glare Red shot her made the words die in her throat. She turned and walked out of the room, her mind fraught with worry. She had been in SHU for a week and had been unable to bribe a single guard to pass a message to her girlfriend. And now she found out the blonde was in the prison hospital. Red hadn't seemed overly worried about her bunkmate's physical health, so Regina assumed whatever was wrong with Emma wasn't serious. Or was no longer serious, she mused.
Regina walked blindly through the prison, finding herself outside the infirmary without even realising where she had been headed. She took a deep breath and pushed the door open. A quick scan of the room told her Emma wasn't there. Frowning, she approached Doctor Fisher who was checking another inmate, propped up on a nearby bed.
"Doctor, may I have a word please?" Regina asked.
"In a minute, inmate. Take a seat," Fisher said without looking up from the chart on the clipboard in her hand.
Huffing her frustration, Regina moved to sit in one of the uncomfortable chairs against the wall. Tapping her foot impatiently, she glanced around. There were three beds in the room, two occupied and one vacant. As she waited, the sound of a toilet flushing could be heard from the room beside her chair. A few seconds later, the door clicked open and a familiar blonde woman walked out.
"Emma!" Regina cried, jumping to her feet and reaching for the blonde's arm.
The younger woman flinched, her eyes widening as she turned to face her girlfriend.
"Regina," Emma said, blankly. "What are you doing here?"
"I came to see if you were ok. Red told me you were here," Regina said, reaching to grasp Emma's hand as she spoke. The blonde pulled away and turned to walk back to her bed. Regina frowned but followed her.
"I'm fine," Emma said shortly as she reached the edge of the mattress. Slowly manoeuvring herself onto the bed, a grimace of pain flashed across the blonde's face. Regina rushed forward to help, Emma accepting the support as the brunette's arms helped her lower herself back down gently.
"What happened?" Regina asked, about to reach for Emma's hand again before she stopped herself at the memory of how the blonde had moved away from her moments before.
"Ruptured spleen," Emma muttered. "They had to do emergency surgery."
Regina paled, her face etched with worry. "How? Are you ok? What's going to happen now?"
"I'm getting better," Emma said, reaching for the glass of water by her bed and taking a sip. "You can live without your spleen, you're just more susceptible to illnesses."
"But how did this happen Emma?" Regina implored, needing to know what had been going on whilst she was away.
"What do you mean?" Emma asked, confused.
"What caused your spleen to rupture?" Regina asked again.
"You don't remember?" the blonde asked, eyebrows raised.
"Remember what? Emma, please, you're scaring me." Regina's voice dropped to a hushed whisper as she realised Emma's bed neighbour was listening intently.
"The fight in the dining hall," Emma began. "I was trying to hold you back, stop you getting your face smashed in by your half sister's thugs and you pushed away from me. I fell backwards and smacked into the floor. Apparently that was all it took," the blonde finished with a shrug
Regina clapped her hand over her mouth, tears forming in her eyes as she looked at her girlfriend.
"I … I did this?" she asked, her voice shaking.
"Well, not on purpose but, yeah," Emma shrugged.
"Oh Emma, I'm so so sorry!" Regina cried, reaching out to take Emma's hand once more. This time the blonde didn't pull away but her fingers lay immobile in Regina's grip. "I never meant you to get involved. I never meant for you to get hurt. Oh Emma, please forgive me."
"Inmate Mills. What are you doing?" Fisher asked, her head snapping up from the charts at the sound of Regina's raised voice.
"It's ok Doc," Emma assured. "Mills is just leaving."
Regina's brow furrowed. "What?"
"Please leave Regina. I'll speak to you when I get out."
"When will that be?"
"A few more days," Emma said. "They want to keep me in to monitor the … to monitor me."
Regina frowned harder but nodded. "Ok. But please know I'm so sorry Emma. I want to make this right. Please come and find me when you get out of here."
"I will," Emma promised, her fingers squeezing Regina's lightly before the brunette withdrew her hand and left the room, glancing back one more time as she reached the doorway.
Emma flopped back on her pillow as soon as the brunette was out of sight and placed her arm over her eyes, groaning quietly.
"Are you ok Miss Swan?" came Fisher's concerned voice. Emma nodded before removing her arm and smiling weakly at her doctor. "Let me just do a few checks and then I'll leave you to your lunch."
Emma sat up in bed and pulled up her hospital gown, used to the routine by now. Fisher wheeled the ultrasound machine over and squeezed some gel onto Emma's still flat stomach. As she wiggled the probe around, Emma shut her eyes and turned her face away from the monitor, something she had done every day for the past week.
"The baby's looking fine," Fisher said as she stowed the probe away and wiped Emma's stomach clean. "There's still no sign of trauma from the fall or the surgery. You were both very lucky. If this speed of recovery continues, I'll release you on Monday."
"Thank you," Emma said sliding her robe back down as the doctor walked back to her office.
"Welcome back!" Red and Snow cheered in unison.
Emma smiled a real smile for the first time in ten days. Her friends were stood by her bed which was covered balloons. A pile of her favourite commissary snacks had been arranged on her pillow and a fresh stack of glossy magazines lay beside them.
"Thanks guys," Emma said as she walked further into her bunk and gave both her friends a hug. She placed the collection of get well soon cards she had brought with her from the infirmary on her cabinet before she sank onto her bed. Red hurriedly cleared some of the balloons away and then she and Snow sat down on either side of the blonde.
"How are you feeling?" Snow asked.
"Much better thanks. They took my stitches out yesterday and the scar is healing well."
"And the baby?" Red asked in a hushed tone.
"Fine," Emma said. Both Red and Snow let out audible sighs.
"Good," Red smiled. "We were so worried about both of you."
"Me too," Emma admitted. "I've never been so scared in all my life."
"I could have killed Mills for what she did to you," Snow said, her eyes darkening uncharacteristically.
Emma raised her eyebrows at her usually passive friend's tone. "Well, she didn't exactly mean it to happen. She didn't even remember doing it actually."
"You've seen her?" Red asked.
"Yeah, she came to see me in the infirmary a week after it happened. She had no recollection of pushing me backwards or anything."
"I told that bitch to stay away from you," Red growled, getting to her feet and moving towards the corridor.
"Hang on Red," Emma said. "It wasn't really her fault."
"You're forgiving her?" Snow asked, incredulously. "She nearly killed your baby. And she's left you without your spleen."
"But she didn't mean to. And both me and the baby are fine," Emma reasoned.
"Why are you defending that mental woman?" Red asked. "Don't you remember what she did? The way she fought with her sister with no regard for the consequences? She's dangerous Emma, and you need to stay away from her."
Emma chewed her lip. She knew what her friends were saying made sense. She knew she shouldn't want to see Regina ever again. But that hadn't stopped the brunette's beautiful face being the last thing she saw when she went to sleep at night and the first thing she thought of when she woke up. Her dreams were filled with images too. Seductive, playful, loving, funny, earnest Regina, the thought of whom made Emma's heart swell with happiness.
"I don't think I can," Emma whispered, ducking her head away from her two friends' disbelieving looks.
"Emma, please. Think about yourself. Think about your baby," Snow implored. "You need to be safe and healthy, for both your sakes. I hardly think getting involved with someone like Mills is a good idea."
"Don't you guys get it?" Emma asked, looking up once more, her eyes filled with unshed tears. "I'm already involved. I can't stop thinking about her, I can't get her out of my head, and I don't want to. I know she's dangerous but she would never hurt me." Red snorted and Snow raised an eyebrow pointedly. "She would never deliberately hurt me," Emma amended. "And you didn't see how sorry she was when I told her what had happened."
As soon as she had finished speaking, Emma stood up and headed towards the doorway.
"Where are you going?" Snow asked.
"To find my girlfriend," Emma replied before she rounded the corner and was out of sight, leaving the two brunettes to stare wide eyed at each other.
"Regina?" Emma said quietly.
The brunette's head spun around at the quiet voice behind her and the book she had been reading dropped to the table with a dull thud. A few nearby inmates looked away from the television to see what the commotion was.
"Emma!" Regina breathed out, rising to her feet and looking the blonde up and down. "Are you ok?"
"Much better, thanks," Emma smiled softly. "Can we talk?"
"Of course," Regina said, picking up The Great Gatsby and gesturing for Emma to lead them out of the television room. Pausing for a moment in the corridor, it took Emma a few seconds to decide where to go. But really there was only one room that made sense to her.
As they reached the chapel door, Emma pushed it opened and stood back, waiting for Regina to enter before stepping in behind her and closing the door softly. The midday sun filtered through the fake stained glass windows, making the room far brighter than it had been during any of the other meetings between the two women.
They sat down in two chairs near the wall, both glancing at the spot where they had had sex for the first time. The only time, in fact. Regina remained quiet, waiting for Emma to speak.
"How've you been?" the blonde asked after a long silence.
"Not great," Regina admitted. "I didn't think you'd ever speak to me again."
"I told you I'd come and find you once I got out of the infirmary," Emma said.
"Yeah but from the death glares Snow and Red have been giving me for the past three days, I assumed they'd try and stop you coming to see me."
"They did," Emma said simply. "But I came anyway."
"I'm so sorry Emma," Regina said, echoing her words from the previous week. "I never meant for you to get hurt and I'll never forgive myself for what happened."
"It's ok," Emma said.
"No, it's not," Regina shook her head. "Your friends are right. You should stay away from me. I've caused you nothing but pain since I've known you and you deserve so much better than me. I'm sorry for ever pursuing anything between us and all the hurt I have caused." The brunette stood up and made towards the door.
"Regina, stop," Emma said firmly, reaching out to grab the brunette's arm.
Turning around, Regina's eyes shimmered with tears once more as she looked down into Emma's face.
"Firstly, I don't want to stay away from you," Emma began, getting to her feet and moving to stand in front of the brunette. "More than that, I can't stay away from you, Regina. I was thinking about you all the time when I was in that hospital bed. I know you're technically the reason I was there but that's immaterial to how I feel about you. I'm crazy about you. You do deserve me and you need to believe that. What happened to me was an accident. It wasn't malicious, or at least the malice wasn't aimed at me, and I know you never meant to cause me any harm. I forgive you Regina, but you need to forgive yourself before we can move on."
Tears began to roll down Regina's face as Emma talked. The honesty and depth of Emma's words overwhelmed the older woman who had lived a life devoid of sentiment for so long. A sob escaped her and Emma's arms quickly enveloped her quaking form. Regina clung to the taller woman, her hands fisting tightly in Emma's top as she cried against the blonde's neck.
"I'm so sorry," she mumbled, over and over again as Emma ran a soothing hand up and down Regina's back, waiting for her girlfriend to compose herself.
After several minutes, Regina pulled away slightly. Emma wiped her tear-streaked face softly with the pad of her thumb before placing a sweet kiss against Regina's lips.
"I forgive you," Emma whispered, leaning her forehead against Regina's, enjoying the way their breath mingled intimately.
"Thank you, Emma," Regina said, breaking their contact and giving the blonde a watery smile. "You're incredible."
"So are you," Emma smiled, pulling the brunette back towards her and placing a firmer kiss to her lips. Arms slid around Emma's waist, pulling her closer and eliciting a small groan which was swallowed by Regina's mouth as her lips parted slightly. Two tongues met, tasting each other once more and battling for dominance before Regina acquiesced and allowed Emma to plunder her mouth thoroughly, flicking and teasing over every inch before the blonde pulled reluctantly away. With one final kiss placed on Regina's scar, Emma stepped away and sat back down. Regina frowned slightly but took the hint and sat down next to her girlfriend.
"Look, Regina," Emma said, suddenly nervous. "As we're being honest with each other, there's something I need to tell you."
"You can tell me anything Emma," Regina said earnestly, grasping both the blonde's hands in her own.
"Ok, but before you do, I need you to remember that I have already forgiven you for what happened last week in the dining hall. What I am about to say is not intended to make you feel even more unnecessary guilt. But I do need to say it."
"You're scaring me Emma," Regina said, sensing the seriousness in her girlfriend's tone. "What is it?"
Emma took a deep breath and closed her eyes tightly before opening them once more and looking intently into the red rimmed brown orbs before her.
"I'm pregnant."
Oops, another cliffhanger, sorry!