Chapter Text
Silence. It envelops her, soothes her, cocoons her. Silence is her enemy, and her dearest friend. In the silence, she can conjure up images of days gone by, picture a hummingbird steadily beating its wings at her mother’s bottlebrush plants. She can call up stories, songs, poetry read before the words became too blurry on the page. She can breathe in slowly, in and out, listen to the echo of her lungs expanding. She can just be, rather than trying to struggle through the daily reminders of what she’s lost.
She can just be.
The waiting room is silent; none of that piped-in elevator music, no gossiping techs and receptionists hashing over their love lives. She’s alone, more or less - she can still make out enough light and dark to know that there are no bodies in the chairs opposite her, but more than that, she can feel the still of the air. Besides, it’s nearly 6:00. The late appointments have come and gone, carrying with them whatever news - good or bad - the doctor had to offer. It’s just Regina, sitting silently with Emma, waiting for her last chance, for the best macular dystrophy specialist in the country to flash a light that she can barely see into her eyes, and lay down his pronouncement.
Before he comes out, she’ll relish the silence.
She hears the nurse, rubber soles padding almost imperceptibly on the shitty tile floors that have lined every doctor’s office since Regina’s vision first started to blur. She feels the whoosh of air that accompanies the opening door. The nurse calls her name, but Regina hesitates for a second, her nails digging into the cheap pressed wood arms of the chair in the waiting room, before Emma prods her gently.
“They’re waiting for you,” her friend says. Fingers curl over her own, and Regina relaxes her grip. Whatever this man has to say, she can stand it. She pushes herself off the sticky vinyl – dark blue, she knows, doctors always have the same crappy chairs – and smoothes a skirt that she can only imagine has no wrinkles. Emma stands next to her and cups her elbow gently. “Once more, into the breach,” she whispers softly. Regina can’t help but laugh, a deep, hollow chuckle that barely escapes her lips, as she lets herself be led into yet another exam room.
The fluorescent lights hum softly, and Regina catches herself humming along with them. She’d heard before that people who lose one sense become attuned to the rest, but she’d never truly understood what it meant until her vision failed her. Now, she hears music in everything, even in the quiet of an exam room. Emma breathes in and out, taps her feet impatiently, a sharp staccato against the tile floor. The room itself sings to her, and Regina taps fingers on both hands against the paper liner on the exam table. One hand echoing Emma’s breathing, the other beating in time to the vibrating lights. A discordant melody, but it echoes in her mind. Beats in time. Music in quiet. Life, echoing all around her, even in the darkness.
Again, the rush of a door opening. She makes out the blurry shape of the doctor before he closes the door, before his white lab coat blends into the antiseptic walls of the exam room. She cocks her chin toward him and squares her shoulders. Ready for the latest in a long series of exams that have led nowhere.
“Ms. Mills,” he says, “I’m Dr. Locksley.”
A sharp intake of breath – her ears register the sound long before her brain realizes that it comes from her. Dr. Locksley. She’s grown used to the music of empty air, but she’s not used to this. His voice – not quite baritone, soft, heavily accented from what she guesses is the suburbs of London. Not what she expected to find here in the heart of Boston. He rests a hand on her knee. It’s not sexual, she knows that now. It’s merely to alert her to his presence, to allow her other senses to find him. Still, she clutches her thighs a little bit tighter. Emma clears her throat, and even in that small gesture, Regina fears she’s been too obvious. He’s her doctor, for Christ’s sake. He’s her doctor, and he could be 90 years old and riddled with tumors.
He’s not. Blame it on her other senses, but she knows he’s not.
Shuffling of papers, of another file spelling out her history, carefully written in Emma’s chicken-scratch handwriting. “I see you’ve been diagnosed with macular dystrophy,” he says, keeping his tone light. She can hear it though, in the words he’s not saying, that she should know by now that she’s never going to see again, that anything he tells her is going to be delivered in a pitying tone.
“Yes,” she says, “but you’re the best-“
He cuts her off, “Please, don’t. People come to me because they say I’m the best, but then they have their hearts broken when I can’t help them. Can we just say that I’m good at what I do?”
She can hear the grin in his voice, can picture it. Even white teeth biting his lower lip, smile lines highlighting his own perfect eyes. Would they be blue? She decides they would. The beauty of losing her sight – everything that she imagines is true. No lab coat – jeans and a beat-up jacket. Maybe a bit of a scruffy beard. She clears her own throat, suddenly at a loss for words, and she can feel Emma’s smirk. Damn her. Next time, she’s bringing a dog.
Still, she’s not one to give in to girlish fantasies, not even when she was a girl. “I can’t say you’re good at what you do until you do it,” she shoots back, and immediately regrets the words when they earn her a coughing spasm from the chair next to her. Definitely a dog next time.
His laugh runs from his chest to the fingertips that still rest lightly on her knee, and the vibration echoes up her spine. She shifts again, attempting to school her features into detached awareness, picturing the face she used to see in the mirror. Red lips, a slightly raised eyebrow, every hair carefully tamed into place. The one good thing about losing her sight is that, in her mind’s eye, she’ll never age past 34. When he pulls his hand away from her, her body moves without thinking to follow, and it’s only a snort from the chair beside her that forces her to collect her thoughts and rein herself in.
“Now,” says Dr. Locksley, as the lights dim in the exam room, “Shall we get started?”
***
Emma guides her to the doctor’s office, but before she can take a seat next to Regina, she’s waved away. Partly out of stubborn pride, and partly out of…out of something Regina doesn’t want to give name to. “Wait in the reception area,” Regina says. She doesn’t need to see her friend to know the look on her face, know that she wants to argue, but Regina stops her cold. “Please,” she says, and the please is enough for Emma to back down.
“I’ll be waiting,” Emma says.
Alone in Dr. Locksley’s office, Regina takes stock. She knows that the news he’s going to deliver isn’t good, has known it since he made that first hmmm of disappointment as he examined her. She steels herself, breathes deep. Catches the delicate scent of pine and smoke. A candle perhaps? No, not strong enough for that. Most likely the lingering scent of soap. The chair in his office is heavy, substantial, and her fingers chase lightly over carved wood. He’s a man who likes quality. Her own office is decorated in walnut and brocade – in that, it appears, they are well matched.
He calls back over his shoulder to the receptionist as he enters the room, and she once again catches woodsmoke and forest in the air. Definitely soap, then. He eases himself into his desk chair, a dark shape haloed by the winter sun streaming through the windows.
“So, Ms. Mills,” he says, and she corrects him before he can continue.
“Regina.”
“Regina,” he says, and her heart beats a bit faster at the sound of her name coming from his lips. “I see that Dr. Whale has been doing injections, and that they’ve helped alleviate the fluid in your eyes. That’s good, but…”
“Not good enough,” she finishes for him.
“Not good enough,” he agrees. “I wish I had some better news for you, but the truth is, macular dystrophy is incurable.”
She knows this. She’s known it since Whale told her why she could no longer make out faces two feet in front of her. Still, she fights to hold back tears – her eyes once again betray her as the wetness slides down her cheek.
“I’m sorry,” he says softly. “I wish I could do more.”
She shakes her head and forces a smile. “You’ve done plenty,” she says, fighting to keep her voice from breaking. “You fit me in when your schedule is impossible. That’s all I can ask.” She leans forward and reaches out for a handshake, wanting nothing more than to be out of this room. When her right hand makes contact, it’s not with the doctor, but with something cool – metal, obviously – and it hits his desk with a sharp thud.
“I’m sorry-“ she says, but he cuts her off.
“No need. Just a photo of my son, no harm done.”
He has a son. Of course he has a son. He probably has an adoring wife along with it. “How old?” she asks, out of politeness more than curiosity.
“Four,” he replies, and there it is again – that smile that lifts the edges of his voice. “He lives with his mother, so I don’t get to see him as often as I’d like.”
“But you do get to see him.” The moment the words escape her mouth, she regrets them. She can’t stand pity, and here she is practically begging for it. Regina Mills, who never backed down from a challenge in her life, is felled by a photo of a child.
“I do,” he says. No pity in his voice. Regret, perhaps, and empathy, but no pity. “I get to see him, and I thank God every day for it. And I wish I could give that to you.” He laughs. “Well, maybe not seeing my son as he’s a bit of a terror, but seeing your own children, your family.” He pauses for a second. “Is Emma your…”
She laughs before he can finish the sentence. “My wife? Good God, no. She’s the thorn in my side that won’t ever go away. Her son is my godson. He’s eleven.” She pauses. “I guess he always will be eleven to me.”
Dr. Locksley laughs, and his chuckle is warm and inviting. The kind of laugh best heard over a candlelight dinner, or deep in the night, when he should be sleeping but is more interested in staying awake. Down, girl, she thinks to herself. He’s her doctor. More or less. She won’t be seeing him again now that she knows he can’t help her, but still. Barriers must be maintained. Professional distance must be respected.
“In that case,” Dr. Locksley jokes, “I hope he’s a sight better-looking than I was when I was eleven. Nothing but buck teeth and skinny legs.”
She laughs at that, trying and failing to reconcile the image she’s created of him in her mind with the reality of a pre-teen boy. “I hope you grew out of it,” she says.
“I did. Now I look like Brad Pitt, but better.”
Oh, she likes him. None of the other doctors have been like this – witty, but gentle. Understanding without pitying. Trying to win a smile from her, rather than patting her hand and reassuring her that what she’s lost isn’t so very bad, not in the long run. She likes him, and she wishes he could help her – not only because she so desperately wants to see again, but because she wants to see him. To know if that voice, if that air of pine, if that warmth from his hand on her knee is real. If he’s who she imagines him to be.
Maybe it’s best this way. Maybe it’s best that she walks out of here, her head held high, taking comfort in his teasing rather than licking her wounds in his diagnosis. She’s grateful, and that’s not a sentiment she’s ever expressed for any of the doctors who have preceded him.
She should get out now, while she’s still buoyed by the attention of a man she imagines to be perfect, before she remembers that he’s being kind to her because she has good insurance. She pushes herself out of her chair and extends a hand again, praying that she won’t knock over anything else. He grasps it firmly, a hand callused by hard work done years before medical school. Holds on a moment too long.
Not long enough.
“I’ll walk you out,” he says, and cups her elbow as he guides her to the reception area. Emma helps Regina sign her paperwork and hands her her purse and coat. They’re on the way out the door when he calls to her.
“Regina,” he says, “I’ll call you in a day or two to check on you.”
I’ll call you. Not my office will call you, but I’ll call you. It means nothing, she’s sure, but for a second, she allows herself a little flight of fancy, before Emma’s tugging on her sleeve ruins her reverie.
“Thank you, Dr. Locksley,” she says over her shoulder.
“Robin,” he says, just before the door closes behind her. Robin. In the silence of the hallway, that one word echoes, over and over again. Robin.