Archive of Our Own ^beta

The incessant buzzing against her thigh is maddening, but Regina refuses to even look at Emma's flood of texts, let alone answer them. It's for Emma's sake, not hers. She doesn't trust herself right now. Not with something like-

Regina shakes off all thoughts of the other woman and everything that entails. She needs to focus. To keep her hands on the wheel and her eyes on the road and the car pointed towards Storybrooke.

It would be so easy to make a u-turn on the long stretch of empty road laid out before her. So easy to turn around and flee back to the city. To run.

Mother would expect it of her, no doubt.

Honestly, at this point Regina might expect it herself.

-

Tiny hands curled into the soft fabric of her sweater. Clutching tight.

"Love you."

-

The house should feel smaller, she thinks, as she forces herself up the walkway towards the mansion. It has in her more recent visits. Ever since she'd grown up and left town and seen the scope of the world. Far outside small town dramatics and squabbling.

Now though the house looms over her. Broad and imposing, daring her to step inside. Taunting her courage even as she knows nothing threatening remains within any longer.

Mother is gone.

It's safe.

Safe in a way it never has been before.

She takes a deep breath, and forces herself to unlock the door.

-

"Faster," Regina cried, clinging to her father's back. Her grip on his shoulders wavered and his strong hands boosted her safely back up as he galloped through the main hall.

"You have to go easy on me, little one," he said through exaggerated pants to earn more giggles. "Don't forget I'm an old man."

-

Their rooms aren't intact anymore. As soon as Zelena graduated college, Mother had turned her room into yet another office. And when Regina left a few years later, hers had become storage space. There was nothing much left of either of them in those rooms. As though they'd never lived in them at all.

Regina decides to start in her bedroom all the same. It feels the most natural. She sets up an organized system. Designates a space for giveaway, a space for trash, a space for keepsakes.

Her phone buzzes all the while.

She turns it off and gets to work.

Zelena arrives two and a half hours after the agreed upon time, well after her younger sister is already exhausted and sweaty, lower back aching.

Regina is just glad she's shown up at all.

-

"You don't even care," Regina screeched. She grabbed the book on Zelena's desk and threw it with all her might. Her sister dodged out of the way so Regina grabbed her desk lamp, yanked the cord out of the socket, and threw that too. "You wanted this to happen."

The lamp crashed against the wall, chipping the paint.

"Fuck you," Zelena spat back as though she were so much older than she truly was. "I did not."

"You never cared. Not ever. You didn't even cry."

"He was your father not mine."

-

"Aw, look at this," Zelena coos. She's holding a tiny blue ribbon. "The little horse nerd."

Regina rolls her eyes as she shifts through the box in front of her. "That was the competition where, instead of congratulating me, Mother said I rode like a man."

"Such a sweet soul she had." Zelena passes the award over, but Regina tosses it into the trash pile without so much as sparing it a glance.

It doesn't matter. Not any more.

It probably never did.

Zelena bursts out a squeal of delight. "Snugginton P. Waters!"

And Regina can't help but laugh as her sister brings her old stuffed hippopotamus to her nose and breathes deep.

"We are reunited at last," Zelena murmurs, gently stroking the ratty doll, something suspiciously like tears in her eyes.

"You're thirty-nine," Regina reminds her.

Zelena makes to throw Snugginton at her head, but hesitates before release and seems to think better of it. She holds the hippo close to her chest. "He's a gentlemen. He works in finances to support his wife and their eight children. Mrs. Waters would work but she's come down with hippotitis again."

Regina snorts. "Remember when Mother thought you found out about some obscure STD and freaked out?"

Zelena cackles. "Nearly had a heart attack. Even the most remotely sexual thing, no matter how vague, would set her off. It was amazing."

"Not when you got us both in trouble."

"Oh hush." Zelena waves her off. "You were such a bore. You needed to live a little." She returns to her box, digging through papers and binders and only glancing at them for mere seconds before tossing them towards the trash pile.

Regina will have to go through it all on her own later. She doesn't trust Zelena not to throw out their birth certificates or ownership papers of something that had been in their family for generations or something equally irreplaceable.

Classic Zelena.

-

"What did you girls do?"

Regina and Zelena giggled where they stood in the kitchen, ignorant to their father's distress. They were too young, too trusting still. All they knew was that the play fight had been fun, and they looked ridiculous with flour woven into their hair, dusted across their cheeks. The entirety of the kitchen blanketed in soft powder like a snow white wonderland.

"Hurry now. Quickly. Off to the bathroom, both of you. Into the tub. Hurry." He ushered them out of the room, groaning as they tracked little footprints across the immaculate hardwood floor in the hall. "Wait." He scooped Regina up in one arm, Zelena in the other, and carried them carefully to the tub.

He filled it halfway and sent them in together. Ordered them to wash up before dashing back to the kitchen.

He was fast, but not fast enough.

"They're only girls. They were only playing."

-

They call for a pizza around six and, small town that Storybrooke is, the delivery boy actually sounds fairly dubious over the phone. Cora Mills doesn't order pizza. Everybody knows that.

When it arrives they over tip and eat in the 'sitting room' on the 'entertaining furniture' with paper plates just because they know it would kill Mother all over again. Zelena drips a little bit of grease on a throw pillow in a move that Regina is fairly certain was accidentally-on-purpose.

"Ugh," Zelena grouses through a mouthful of cheese, "who keeps trying to text you? What poor, needy boy’s heart did you crush?"

Regina had turned her phone on again to place their order. In that time Emma had called once and sent four text messages.

"I didn't crush any hearts," Regina murmurs as she switches her cell to silent. Guilt thrums within her but she's not about to have a heart to heart while Zelena is in the room. Besides, she hasn't exactly come to terms with everything just yet.

She's not ready.

She knows Emma would respect that, but she doesn't think she's brave enough to tell her.

"Come on," Zelena drawls, "that was so the desperate callings of a jilted ex-lover." She throws back her head and dramatically cackles. "I always thought you'd grow up to be a little heart-breaker."

Regina bristles at the accusation. "Actually, I'm seeing someone."

Maybe.

If Emma will take her back after this whole mess. Not that she should. Emma is-

Emma is so much better. So much more.

More than anything Regina is capable of offering.

"Oh," Zelena brightens, waggles her eyebrows a bit, "do tell."

Regina shifts uncomfortably under the attention. "Well, she's-"

"She?" Zelena squawks, eyes wide before she bursts into a fit of laughter. "Oh, so that's what killed Mother so suddenly. I bet she literally just dropped the second you two first kissed, her bigotry senses tingling."

Regina rolls her eyes. "We've been dating for close to a year, you idiot. And no, as far as I know Mother never found out."

"Yeah," Zelena sniggers, "until she did and then it fucking killed her."

"Shut up."

-

"I love her," Regina shouted. There were tears in her eyes, she was shaking with anger and fear but she'd never learned how to submit quietly. Not even after all that time.

"You're sixteen. You don't know what love is."

"I understand it better than you, you bitter old b-"

She heard the slap long before she felt the sting of her mother's palm. It took some time to register. To slowly seep in. The hot, biting pain of it. Sharp and malicious.

It was the first time - It wasn't the last.

Regina had stood, mouth open, cheek burning, lip stinging, shell shocked. Mother had stared her down, eyes blazing, chest heaving, daring her to cry foul.

And then she'd left, and throughout the next few weeks Danielle started pulling away from Regina, avoiding her. Disappeared from her life quite completely until all Regina had were fleeting glimpses across the hallways at school.

She was forced to accept that perhaps Mother was right.

Perhaps she didn't know what love was after all.

-

Regina lets Zelena take the guest room and she stays downstairs on the couch. Mother's bed goes unused. Neither of them wants to even step foot in her bedroom.

It's close to eleven before they call it a night.

One last peek at her phone shows a goodnight text from Emma. Subdued and resigned and utterly unenthusiastic. It breaks Regina's heart just a little bit, so she sucks it up and forces herself to be a better person.

Emma answers on the first ring. "Regina?"

"Hey." She says it as though Emma doesn't have every right to rip her a new one after everything she's put her through.

"Jesus," Emma sighs out. And because she's so good and so much more than anything Regina deserves she doesn't even sound mad.

Tired, concerned, maybe a little frustrated, but not mad.

Never mad.

It makes Regina's insides squirm.

"I was really worried about you, you know? Next time at least send a, I don't know, an 'I didn't crash and die on the way up' text, okay?"

"I'm sorry," Regina murmurs. "I just-"

"I'm not trying to guilt trip you. Let's just-" Emma sighs.

Regina can picture her with her head in her hands at the tiny round table in her apartment, so much smaller than Regina's place. Run down and yet so much more of a home.

"How are you? That's the more important thing right now. You, uh, are you handling everything okay?"

Regina breathes deep, swallows. "I think so. Zelena showed up after all."

"That's good. I'm glad."

"She's probably more of a hindrance than a help though, if I'm honest."

Emma chuckles. "I can imagine."

They've never met, but Regina had told plenty of stories and never really went too far out of her way to paint her sister's outrageousness in a favorable light. The funny thing is, she has a sneaking suspicion the two would get on rather well should the conditions be right. Emma loves a good laugh and Zelena is certainly always happy to deliver.

"So do you-"

Regina can feel Emma's hesitation through the phone and she knows what's coming next.

"Look, with how you left I don't really know how things are between us, but I don't want that to be bothering you right now. So, everything aside, ignoring all that, do you want me to come up? No pressure, I just- Zelena's there now, yeah, but I know she's flaky. I don't want you to have to go through everything alone if she gets bored and takes off on you."

That is incredibly likely to happen but-

Regina clears her throat. "I'm actually not doing too bad," she tries, even if it sounds hollow to her own ears.

"I don't just mean emotional stuff. That's a big job for one, even two people. Lots of heavy lifting. I'd like to lend a hand if I can. No, uh," she lets out an awkward, strained laugh, "ulterior motives or expectations. Promise."

Regina chews on her lip, hesitating. Of course not. Emma is too kind to even consider using this as an excuse to force Regina into a serious conversation about the future and the past and everything in between. But she just can't-

What if-

"I think I'll need to get back to you on that."

There's a pause. Too long. And then Emma lets out a heavy breath.

"Yeah. Sure. Maybe we'll talk tomorrow." She sounds like she doesn't believe it.

Regina grips the phone tight and prays that in the morning she'll be strong enough to prove Emma wrong. "That sounds good."

"Make sure you're taking care of yourself, okay?"

"Okay."

-

Regina stared blankly at whirring machines, blinking and beeping and buzzing. Her father was sleeping at the moment. Resting, the nurse told her with a kind smile. Healing.

He didn't look like he was healing.

He looked like he was losing. Like the big bad scary monster the adults called cancer was winning.

Like he wasn't going to wake up.

-

During breakfast Zelena gets a call from her father and stepmother asking if she's all right. If she needs anything. If there is anything they can do to help. Their conversation is bright and warm and old resentments stir up in Regina. Bubbling way down deep in her gut.

She remembers what it felt like at eleven. Twelve. Thirteen. Watching them come pick Zelena up for a weekend or school vacation. Whisking her off on holidays.

Regina would press her nose against the window and watch the car pull away and feel Mother's cold hand on her back.

Zelena left. Regina stayed.

Always.

When she hangs up, a cheery Zelena leads the charge up to Mother's first office. The second being Zelena's old room which they had tackled yesterday. Most of the stuff here is easy. All packed away and neatly filed to begin with, they've only got to send the majority of it off with Mother's business associates. They've already agreed to hand it over after the ceremony.

It'll be a large grand affair with many guests, but little emotion.

Fitting.

The room is near bare by lunchtime. They leave the furniture for the time being. Much of it is heavy and they've already decided to bring in professionals when the time comes. Zelena reckons they can make some money selling the nicer pieces online.

Regina doesn't care. She tells Zelena she’s free to keep whatever money she can make off it and earns a wet kiss on the cheek in return.

They order Chinese for lunch and then tackle the knick knacks in the sitting room. It takes quite a few coin tosses and more than a little squabbling but eventually they get it squared away. Zelena claims the little crystal elephants and the fancy candlesticks. Regina makes off with the carved stallion sculpture. The big things had been detailed in the will, but it's the little stuff that bothers them more.

That's what has meaning.

-

Zelena and Regina were near bursting with the force of their laughter. Giggles escaping this way and that as their father sat quite studiously at their little play table, a frilly blue bonnet atop his balding head.

"My, I didn't know tea parties were so funny," he exclaimed as he poured himself an imaginary drink from a pink plastic teapot. "I would have joined much sooner if I had known."

The girls only laughed harder.

-

Mother had done an admirable job of expunging his presence, but eventually the inevitable happens. They find a pair of old loafers in the back of the hall closet. There is a box of photographs tucked away under the bed in the guest room. A coat folded neatly in a box of winter wear.

Evidence of him. The life he'd lived before he'd left. Gone. Abandoned them - Regina - to this.

Alone.

-

"You ungrateful brat. Do you have any idea how much that cost?"

Mother's grip on her arm was sharp, fingers like daggers.

She'd cried.

Father watched.

"She's just a child."

"You stay out of this."

He stood and stared and watched.

-

Zelena must catch her scowl.

"Not easy, is it? Looking at it all through an adult's eyes."

Regina hums, nods. "No," she agrees. "The sooner we're done the better."

"He always resented me," Zelena says, holding up his long coat against her and studying her reflection in the mirror as though testing the fit. "I could tell. He was always pushing me off with my father's family. Wanted me out of the house." She snorts and tosses the coat into the trash pile. "Guess he didn't like the reminder he was second in line."

When she leaves, Regina picks up his coat and puts it in the keepsake pile, then she remembers him standing, him staring, him watching, and she throws it in with the donations.

-

"Just apologize, baby girl. Please. Just apologize." His eyes were wide, desperate as he trailed gentle fingers along her arm.

She snatched it away, drew it close to her chest, pitiful tears welling in her eyes. "I didn't do anything wrong," she protested, too young to understand that some punishments were issued without reason. Without warning. Without thought.

That sometimes, the world wasn't fair. Sometimes you could just be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Soon, she learned.

-

Zelena has a coworker with a truck that comes and takes away the expensive exercise equipment from the basement. Regina doesn't protest. Her sister has had her eyes on it for a couple of years now. She's more concerned with the fact that there's less and less stuff that catches Zelena's interest.

Zelena's attention is starting to wander.

Her work ethic is weakening.

-

Regina peered around the edge of the doorway, watched her sister pack up her clothes and books. Filling duffel bags and suitcases and big cardboard boxes.

Zelena flashed her a wide, bright smile when she turned around, as though she wasn't fully aware of what this meant. "You can store whatever you want in here now. I don't mind, really. I'm sure Mother won't care."

"I wouldn't want anything to be in your way when you're back," Regina said, fourteen and still young and stupid enough to cling onto hope. Because Daddy was gone and Zelena was the only thing she had left in all the world.

"It's okay." Zelena shrugged, sixteen and freedom finally within her desperate grasp. "It'll just be like, a few weekends and some holidays and stuff. I won't be here long enough for it to get in my way."

Regina swallowed and smiled and watched from the window of Zelena's bare, empty room as her second family whisked her sister away.

-

It's late, but better than nothing. Emma's shock is clear in her tone, and Regina is glad that this is at least a happy sort of surprise. In a way.

Maybe.

"Well, you're right," she keeps her tone dry and impressively light, "her attention is flagging."

Zelena is upstairs taking a long, hot shower after spending the entire day making remarks about how she hopes the office is faring well without her, that she prays the walker is getting precious Toto enough exercise. Blunt hints, peppered with purpose throughout their work.

"I'm sorry," Emma says, even as she chuckles. "Is there anything I can do?"

Regina hesitates.

"Anything," Emma presses.

"Does Neal still have his truck?"

"Yeah, though he probably can't get up there until the weekend. Is that okay?"

"Of course." Regina settles back on the couch as some of the tension dissipates. Emma's always had a way with battling back her uncertainty. It's something that seems to come naturally to her.

"What're we stealing?"

She laughs. "A small armchair. As payment you can tell him there's a television we’d otherwise sell. It's big enough to have him on the floor."

"Really? Well shoot me a pic when you have a chance and I bet we can get him over there in a matter of hours."

Regina hums her amusement. "This weekend is just fine."

"You're the boss." Emma's voice softens. "You feeling okay about Friday?" Regina can just about hear her wince through the phone. "I mean, as okay as you can be."

"I don't know if it really registered yet, to be honest. In some ways it feels so sharp and so clear and yet-" Regina trails off, sighs. "Sometimes I think there must be something wrong with me. Zelena said she's been crying at night." Though her sister does seem bitter about the fact. Grouchy and irritable as though this is Mother's last great ploy to make her miserable.

"Hey," Emma lightly chides, "don't get caught up in all that. There's no right or wrong way. You feel how you feel."

A bitter smile tugs at Regina lips. "Thank you," she says. "I really am sorry, you know. I never meant-"

"I know," Emma interrupts. "Forget that for now. Focus on where you need to be right now, we'll be here when you're ready."

Regina puffs out a heavy breath. "Promise?"

Emma chuckles, though the sound is hollow, forced. Because it's not her who disappeared in the dead of night. Who crossed state lines without so much as a word.

"It's not like I have something better to do, I don't have any other plans this week. I took some time off work to give my girlfriend a hand, remember?"

Stomach churning with guilt, Regina can't bring herself to offer so much as a teasing remark. Emma's breathing is strained over the line.

"Look, I just-" she falters. "I think Henry would like to say goodnight. Do you think you can manage?"

Yes, she's desperate to say. Of course. More than anything she wants that comfort. That familiarity. Henry's soft, earnest voice. Chattering on about his day and what he'd learned at school and the grade he'd gotten on the spelling test they'd practiced for together. She's craving it all. She's desperate for him.

But-

-

"Please," Regina whispered, cheeks sticky and wet, face burrowed into the sterile smell of the hospital gown. "Please don't leave me here like this. Not with-"

"Really now, Regina, hanging off him like that." Mother's tight grip wrapped around her small wrist and she tugged.

Father didn't stir. He just breathed, slow and labored, eyes closed, machines steadily whirring.

-

"It's late," Regina murmurs, voice thick with her cowardice. "And we're getting an early start tomorrow."

"Right." If Emma's angry, she's not betraying it in her tone. "I guess I'll let you go then."

"Yeah."

Emma hangs up without saying goodbye.

Regina rolls over and burrows into the musty couch cushions, loathing every inch of her being.

-

Mallory wasn't a forever kind of thing. Regina had known that since their first meeting in the common room, just as sure as she'd known they would inevitably fall into bed. She was merely a beautiful blonde pit stop. A friend to pull her through the misery that was her college experience. A kindred spirit in bitter intelligence.

In having seen far too much far too young.

The unintentional slights sometimes made the experience more hurtful than healing.

There were moments in the dark on the weekends, when Regina's roommate was out and their bodies were slick and the air heavy with their breathing, when Mal would whisper quietly to her. Hushed, bitter truths about her distant mother and her overbearing father. Their expectations and demands. Her frustration with the way they used their money to bind her to their dreams for her future.

And after a time Regina grew confident enough to whisper her own secret. A horrible poison of a truth. Venomous. Ugly.

"I hate him for it, sometimes, how he just abandoned me there with her. How he just let it all happen and then left."

She'd cried a little with the admission, and Mal looked down at her, brow furrowed, eyes tinged with something bordering on disgust.

"Shit," she'd said, "It's not like he asked to get sick," like that made everything that came before and after okay. Like it absolved him of all responsibility. Like she was in the wrong to resent him at all.

At the time Regina let herself believe that.

-

By midday, Zelena's got a duffel in one hand and a backpack slung across her shoulders. She stands in the front doorway, fidgeting and shifting under the weight of her own guilt just as she had all those years before. It's clear she cares, just as much as she had then. She really does.

It's just not enough.

It never has been.

"I just don't think I can stand there and shake hands with hundreds of strangers that have no idea who she really was."

"Someone has to," is all Regina says, already resigned to her fate.

Zelena grimaces. "It doesn't have to be you."

"Who else can it be?"

From the driveway, her friend honks the horn in his idling truck. The bed is loaded down with all of Zelena's findings. Everything of worth to her sister, packed up and ready for transport.

Zelena takes a half-step out onto the front porch at the sound, but hesitates. Settles on the stoop.

"You've been dating someone for nearly a year and I have no idea who they are," she sighs out. "A female someone."

Regina snorts. She crosses her arms, leans heavily on the doorframe. "You left when I was fourteen. I've grown up a bit since then."

"I came back," Zelena protests, and it must sound weak even to her own ears because she winces as soon as the words are out of her mouth. She must remember just as well as Regina does.

Stilted get togethers and distant holidays. Weekends fewer and farther between with each passing year.

"I felt guilty," she whispers, words clipped and tight, eyes seeing past Regina. Beyond her.

"I know," Regina allows.

The horn blares once more.

Evidently, she doesn't feel guilty enough to keep from doing it all over again.

-

Regina stared down blankly at the glittering stone adorning her sister's finger.

"He asked in October."

It was Christmas. They were sitting, the three of them, seated around the too-long table in the eerily quiet, cheerless dining room. Mother's mouth was a thin, disapproving line. Regina's gaze was vacant and dull.

It was Christmas.

He'd asked in October.

It was Christmas and he'd asked in October and Regina hadn't even spoken to her sister since late June.

When the engagement was called off, Regina got a secondhand account from Mother over the phone three weeks after the fact.

-

She left, Regina texts.

I'm coming up, Emma sends back.

-

Regina stared in the mirror at the jagged gash over her lip. Busted open from the harsh edge of the stone in Mother's ring. It stung when she dabbed at it with damp tissues, but she cleaned it meticulously. Methodically. Determined not to be bothered in the slightest by the tiny scar left in its wake as it healed.

It was worth it.

She and Danielle were worth it.

Because soon they would graduate and Mother would be but a distant memory, a forgotten horror, and the two of them would be forever.

Forever. Forever. Forever.

-

It's easier to throw herself into working than to think about, well, anything. She ties her hair back and storms her way through the upstairs rooms. A hurricane, she leaves nothing untouched in her wake. Everything goes. Piled up outside on the curb for collection or stuffed into trash bags for Goodwill.

She's done. She doesn't want anything to do with any of it.

She never has.

The attic is easy. Empty save for old decorations that went unused after her father's death, boxes of clothes she and Zelena had grown out of as young children, and a whole lot of dust bunnies. She covers her nose and forces herself to tackle every last piece of this nightmare.

-

Regina's arm burned as Mother dragged her upstairs, yanking without remorse. And Regina’s mouth was open in soundless protest as she struggled and thrashed and reached toward the figure at the bottom. Eyes pleading for rescue.

For help.

He looked away.

-

Regina stands in Mother's doorway, taking in the cold, contrasting decor. Everything in neat ordered lines. Black and white. Methodical. Deliberate.

It looks like Regina's apartment.

Like her office.

Like everything Regina has let herself become because she doesn't know how to be any different.

Any better.

She swallows down the bile that rises in her throat and rolls up her sleeves and gets to work.

-

Admittedly, it was very slow, very controlled. The barest hint of an accident. Hardly qualifiable. They had just sort of rolled out and bumped. Nothing to write home about.

But in the moment, Regina felt it. The rage building. The heat bubbling, deep in her gut. Churning her stomach and forcing her out into the parking lot. "What the hell is wrong with you, you idiot?"

The woman that emerged from the garish beetle that had backed into her car blinked dumbly.

"Oh great," she seethed, and she knew this feeling. Hated it. When Mother's blood seeped through her veins at the slightest provocation and overtook her. Dictated her every move. A constant smothering reminder that no matter how hard she tried, no matter how far she ran, there was no escape.

She had been formed. Shaped. Molded for this.

There had never been any real chance to break free.

She'd seen professionals and lost friends. Burned bridges and hurt people - good people - and still she'd never been able to-

To-

The woman raised her eyebrows in the face of Regina’s ferocious, red-faced anger and laughed. Actually laughed.

"Whelp," she said dryly, "at least you're keeping a cool head about it and not overreacting."

Indignation had her bristling. "Excuse me?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "Look, it was a joint thing. If anyone is to blame it's the asshole parked between us who thought they needed a monster truck to go grocery shopping." She waved at the oversized SUV a few feet away.

"Oh, do you always pin your mistakes on the innocent?"

The woman snorted. "You're a real piece of work, huh?" She stooped and pointed out the space between their vehicles. The minuscule indentation. The barely-there scratch. "This is nothing. You don't even have to get work done. I could fix that, even."

Regina scowled, crossed her arms in challenge. "Well, nobody is stopping you."

"What?" The woman stared up at her, mouth gaping like a fish.

"You said you can fix it so," Regina gestured to her car, "off you go then."

A beat passed and then the woman was laughing again, even harder that time. And when Regina looked up to restart the yelling, she caught sight of a tiny face in the back window of the Beetle, curiously watching the entire scene.

-

Regina strips the sheets off the bed and stuffs them into garbage bags. She throws books into boxes. Clothes into haphazard piles. She refuses to rest. To slow. To think.

The closet is the challenge. Long and full and deep. She barrels through, determined to end this. To finish this last, lingering connection born of obligation.

-

"Nothing," Mother hissed over the phone. "Amazing how it's always nothing. That's all I get every call. Nothing."

Regina bit her lip to keep from snapping, leaned back against the bench, tried to let the warmth of the sun keep her tone calm and even. "If there's something worth mentioning going on in my life, you'll be the first one to know."

Henry beamed from the top of the playcastle. Waved with the overwhelming enthusiasm of a seven-year-old boy. Everything he did - every smile, every embrace, every giggle - it renewed her commitment to his safety. To his protection.

To preserving that innocent trust in the kindness of the world.

Regina waved back, ignoring her Mother's cold, disappointed, "You're stagnating. Wasting all that potential."

Even though they hadn't had dinner, Regina bought them a couple of popsicles before they left the park.

Just the once, because it always had to be about the small victories.

-

Shoes. Belts. Scarves. Sweaters. Dresses.

Regina wades through it all even as it clings. Tugs and pulls at her like quicksand, dragging her down, down, down.

Somewhere between the casual and business wear she's crying. She doesn't know why.

It smells like her.

Every inch. Suffocating. Wrapping around Regina and reminding-

Reminding, reminding, reminding-

She's free. She got out.

It's over.

It's done.

It's over, it's over, it's over.

-

"I hate you," Regina screeched before she'd been old enough to know better.

And Cora laughed. Hard and deep and long. "Do you have any idea of the things I've done for you? What I've built so that you don't ever have to face what I faced?" She held out her hands, gestured to the walls around them. "You'd have nothing if it weren't for me. Nothing, like I did. And you dare to stomp your feet and spit in everything I've spent my entire life making when it's all been for you?"

-

She's desperate and teary eyed by the time she gets to it, and so she jams her finger painfully against the hard metal of the hidden box before she even registers it's there. It's tucked deep in the closet. Covered and shrouded. A mystery.

Regina stares at the safe, heart beating hard in her chest. She's never seen it before. Never. Not in all of her life.

It's old. A little rusty. A knob serving as the lock. A sequence of numbers all that's keeping her from the inside.

-

"Daddy?" His chest was firm and warm and Regina relaxed her whole weight against it, closed her eyes as his fingers brushed through her hair.

"Yes, princess?"

"I want to go with you," she said.

He released a sad hum. Craned his neck to press a kiss to the top of her head. "I'll be working, sweetheart. You would be all alone at the hotel for most of the time. That doesn't sound very fun, does it?"

Regina shook her head against him. But still, "I don't want to be here without you."

"Oh," he gasped out, and it sounded like he might be crying, "baby girl." He kissed her again. Harder that time. "My baby girl."

In the morning, he left.

-

Regina tries Mother's birthday first. Then she tries her mother's. The day her business empire first opened. The day she semi-retired before losing patience with her underlings and retaking the helm.

Nothing works.

Regina hesitates, then twists in her own birthday.

That doesn't work either, and she laughs at herself for trying.

-

"You coddle her," Mother seethed. "You treat them both like little more than infants."

"Is that so wrong? They're our-"

Regina didn't see the blow, but she heard it.

-

It's dark before Emma pulls in. She's alone, thankfully, and Regina's quite certain she knows more of what went down then she's letting on.

Regina greets her, trying her best for warm and comfortable and certain. Emma's far from fooled. Her features are pinched up and she lingers in the hall, hands clenched at her sides like she isn't sure if she's even allowed to touch Regina anymore.

"You, uh," her eyes dart about the house, taking in the boxes and bags all stacked up and sorted, "you've been busy."

"I have," Regina agrees, aware of the way her hair must be curling by now, how her shirt clings to her back, damp and sticky.

Emma flashes a timid half smile and holds up a paper bag. "I brought take-out."

-

"I'm scared," Regina admitted in a whisper, trembling in the dark.

Emma kissed a path down her chest. Lips firm and sure and unwavering. "You're incredible," she murmured against the taut skin of her stomach. "There's nothing to be scared of. I promise."

And even if Regina didn't quite believe her, in the morning she relented and officially met Henry.

-

Emma brought her a chicken caesar salad, but despite everything else dividing her attention Regina has missed her, and by fifteen minutes in she ignores her own meal to sidle up to Emma on the couch and steal all her fries. Emma rolls her eyes, but still throws an arm around her, always so ready to forgive.

"He's scared he made you mad."

Regina squeezes her eyes shut and breathes deep to keep the sob from bursting out of her. "I'm sorry."

"I know." Emma sighs. "I think I talked him out of it mostly, but he needs to hear it from you."

"I never meant-"

"I know," Emma says again. "We'll figure it out."

Regina abandons all pretense of eating and burrows into Emma's side. "I just-" she whispers, raspy and hoarse. "Even my good example is shit. I don't- I don't know how-" She shakes her head. Clutches at Emma's shirt like a child.

"Come here," Emma mutters. She abandons her sandwich, wiping her hands before gathering Regina up tight. "You're ridiculous. Absolutely nothing has changed." She rubs slow, soothing circles on Regina's back.

"It feels like everything has," Regina mutters, petulant and pathetic.

Emma presses a chaste kiss to the top of her head. "Well, you're being a big baby about it. That's changed."

Regina huffs and grumbles and can't help but smile as Emma snuggles her close.

-

"I'm really sorry about this," Emma said, as if Regina's whole issue was being inconvenienced. "I'll make it up to you, I swear."

"Emma," Regina hissed, fighting to keep her voice low enough that the boy in the living room couldn't overhear them, "I don't- I never-"

Emma chuckled. "It's half an afternoon. You're always all over each other. You'll be fine. You've been here literally a million times."

Never like this though.

Never without-

" I'll be back in a couple of hours tops."

"But-"

"I gotta go," Emma insisted, slowly backing out the door. "Just keep him breathing until I get back."

"But what if-"

"Regina," Emma laughed, "no knives, no open flames, no drugs. You're a smart lady, you can handle it. You can give me a call if demons attack." And then she left without hesitation, as though Regina was in any way capable of-

"Can I have some juice?"

Regina jolted and stared down at the smiling boy, eyes wide.

"Of course," she managed weakly and headed for the kitchen, a steady mantra running through her mind.

No knives, no open flames, no drugs. No knives, no open flames, no drugs.

Fuck Emma.

-

"Jesus," Emma puffs out as she lugs the minuscule safe downstairs to the kitchen table. She drops it with a heavy thunk that makes Regina wince. "Whelp, there goes my back," Emma growls, rubbing it.

Regina swats her hands away. "I'll give you a hand after we open it."

"Talk about motivation." Emma studies the safe with renewed interest. "So, no combo, huh?"

"No. It's possible I missed it," Regina allows, "but I went through her office quite thoroughly. I think I would have caught it if I'd seen it written down somewhere. I've been separating all the documents I deem important enough but I know the company has no interest in."

"Whelp," Emma pats the top, "you got a couple of options."

"My next plan was to keep tossing it out the attic window until it smashed open so I'm all ears."

"Always so brash." Emma laughs. "The adult thing to do would be to hunt down a locksmith. Though that can get pricey and there are, you know," she shrugs, "other free ways."

"Ah, the dark and mysterious criminal past you allude to whenever the wine comes out." Regina smirks. "Do tell."

"I'm not saying I'm proud of it," Emma defends, hands raised. "I'm just saying I have a few tricks up my sleeve. This thing looks pretty old fashioned so I think we've lucked out. It won't have all the high tech bells and whistles. You got a stethoscope?"

"I'm sorry," Regina drawls, "I must have left it in my Gladstone bag with all my other medical supplies."

"You know, sometimes you can just say yes or no when I ask a question." Emma grins. "How bout the garage, any tools?"

Regina takes her to the handyman's shed out back instead. Graham moved on quite quickly after Mother's death, but she'd supplied the tools for him, so pretty much everything was left behind. Emma's apparently happy with what she finds, and they return to the kitchen quickly.

"Okay, so, this doesn't seem too crazy thick. Like I said, kinda rudimentary. I can probably just drill into it and get to the lock that way." She sniffs. "If that doesn't work I'll try and cut into it, and if that doesn't work I'll take it outside and go for some good old fashioned smash and bang."

"Very scientific."

"You know me." Emma flashes her a soft smile. "Whatever I end up doing this will take a bit so feel free to get back to packing. I'll give a shout if I crack it."

"All right." Regina gives her arm a squeeze as she passes out into the hall. "Let me know if you need anything."

"Will do, Boss."

-

Emma pressed a kiss to her lips in greeting before she made her way to Henry's room to bid him goodnight. Regina lingered in the hall. Stiff and slow and suffocating. Panic bubbling up from her gut, catching in her throat and leaving her quaking.

"Hey," Emma was back, and smiled at her, soft and strained, exhausted from her unexpectedly long day, "thanks for taking care of bedtime."

Regina's nod was sharp. Rigid.

It was a simple thing. Easy. She'd done it a dozen times before.

Except this time-

This time-

"Neal will be here bright and early to get him off to school. I threatened bodily harm. We have our own early start though so we should get to bed. It's a long drive." Emma tilted her head, studying Regina at her continued silence. "You doing okay?"

"Yes," Regina forced out, "just tired. Why don't you go ahead? I'll be in in a minute."

She waited until she was sure Emma was asleep. Then she slipped out of the apartment, got in her car, and drove to Maine.

-

It's forty-five minutes and a half dozen trips with bags down the stairs before Emma calls her back. She finds the woman with a sheepish smile, sweaty and rumpled and the tiny safe pried apart in pieces scattered about her.

"Graceful as always," Regina says.

"As opposed to chucking it out a window? Yeah, I'd say." Emma steps back and gestures to the open box with playful dramatics. "All you, babe."

Regina dares a step closer, then another. Emma softens at her clear hesitance.

"Do you want some privacy?"

"No." Regina swallows, shakes her head. She doesn't even really understand her reluctance. There's nothing to fear here. She's seen the worst of her mother a thousand times over. Felt it gripping at her limbs and sharp against her face. If she could survive that, there was nothing in a box that could do her any real harm. "Stay with me."

"All right." Emma tugs out a chair from the table and takes a seat, pats the empty one beside her. "Let's take a look then."

-

"Stop fidgeting," Mother snarled as she zipped up the back of the dress.

It was long and sleek and black and narrow. It felt unfamiliar. Foreign. Something for adults. Not little girls like Regina, barely on the cusp of being a teenager.

"The stockings are itchy," she murmured, but she hardly thought about her discomfort again once the funeral started.

-

There's a fair bit of jewelry. Pearls she doesn't remember Mother ever wearing. Round and bright and likely worth quite a bit. She sets them aside for her sister and presses forward.

She finds the birth certificates she's been keeping an eye out for. Both of her parent's.

A marriage license.

First one, then the other.

A passport.

A letter with Zelena's name scrawled in messy cursive across the envelope.

A second with her own.

Regina's sure her heart stops beating.

"A note from your mother?" Emma asks.

"No," Regina forces out, a strangled, sharp sound.

No.

"My father wrote this."

-

"Daddy," Regina whined, clinging to the edge of his desk, peering over the top and watching his slow, loopy words take shape.

The air was thick with cigar smoke. His tumbler of scotch dripped with condensation in the heavy summer heat.

"A few more minutes, sweetheart," he murmured, eyes never leaving his work. "Just a few more."

"Daddy, now." She stamped her feet and pouted and griped until finally, he relented. Standing and scooping her up in his strong arms.

"What a demanding princess," he crowed as he lifted her high. "More like a little queen."

-

It's already open. The edge of the envelope jagged and ripped. Regina brings it to her nose, breathes deep, but time has stolen his scent.

"You've never seen these before?" Emma runs her fingers along Zelena's envelope, tracing her name.

"She must have kept them from us." An idea overcomes Regina. Washes over in a wave. It comes like understanding. Not a theory. A truth. "He wrote it at the hospital," she says. "He must have. He left them for us but-"

"But Cora found them first," Emma finishes when she can't. "Jesus."

Emma has never been very good at hiding her hatred for Cora. Regina had betrayed enough of her childhood to kindle the flame of Emma's dislike into something hot and unwieldy. She's been doing her best to hide her feelings since news of the woman's death out of respect for Regina, but Regina's never been fooled for a second.

It's comforting, validating, even as it irritates her. Because it's everything to have Emma's support, but at the same time there is a tiny piece of her that's dried up and bitter and resentful of anyone who doesn't understand. Who wasn't there. Who hadn't suffered the way she had.

It's petty, and a piece of herself that she loathes, but it exists all the same.

"I guess so." Regina pulls the letter out, crisp and clean after all these years, but she can't bring herself to unfold it.

Emma shifts in the chair beside her. "Uh, is this something you want privacy for? I can just," she jerks her head towards the living room.

"Maybe just for a minute," Regina says.

Emma grimaces her understanding. She stands, and gives Regina's shoulder a comforting squeeze on the way out.

Regina stares down at the lined paper in her hands.

-

Regina hesitated, hiding in the stifling silence of the dark room.

"You don't have to talk about him," Emma said. Her fingers trailed over Regina’s stomach, tracing gentle patterns in the dips and curves of her skin.

"I want to," Regina insisted. And it was true. It really was. It was just-

Just-

"Wait," Emma said. "You'll know when you're ready."

-

Regina stands, gripping the letter tight. She brings it to the living room, finds Emma on the sofa, mindlessly scrolling through her phone. She looks up at Regina, concern shining clear in her gaze.

"Did you-?"

"No."

Regina takes Emma's phone and tosses it on the other side of the couch. She nudges Emma until she shifts. Sits between her legs, leans back against her. When Emma's hands come up to rest tentatively at her waist, and she presses her forehead into Regina's back to show she won't be peering over her shoulder, Regina at last opens the letter and soaks in her father's final words.

I've heard that dying changes you. It makes you study your life. Look upon your past with objectivity. It reveals regrets. That's what they say. But I've never needed death. I know the mistakes I've made. The griefs I've always carried with me.

You were so small. I can't stop thinking about it, when I held you in my arms that first day. You were the tiniest thing but you were so, so loud, my princess. The doctor laughed, you know. I don't think I've ever told you that. She's going to have a lot to say, that one. That's what he told us. You screamed and screamed and screamed and I've never felt happier in all of my life.

I swore in that moment that I'd always protect you. That I'd learn to soothe you and I'd never stop. Not for as long as I lived.

I failed you.

It started so slowly. So quietly. I didn't know how to stop it. I never did. I tried. I've stood in front of her, a shield. And I stood behind her, pacifying. And I've never been able to keep her from you - from both of you - my precious girls.

I failed you, and my only hope now is that whatever you may think of me, you know that I love you. That I always have, more fiercely than I've ever dreamed myself capable.

My darling girl, nothing about this sickness could ever hurt me more than knowing how I leave you now. I have learned in my time as your father that not all harm is physical. So, if you'll have me, i'd like you to carry these words with you. To have them blanket you when I cannot. To keep this piece of me that will always be yours no matter what may come to pass.

You are so loved, my baby. More than you can ever begin to understand.

You are so brave in your defiance. So just in your indignation.

You are beautiful.

You are perfect.

Never lose yourself. Not to her. Not to anyone. That smile I adore, that laughter that fills me with joy. That belongs to you and she can never take that away. No one can.

Fight. Keep yourself whole and be better than anything we could have ever possibly dreamed for you.

Not for her. Not for me.

For you.

For the person you want to be.

As many mistakes as I've made, my biggest regret is losing the chance to see the woman you'll grow into because I know she is going to be something extraordinary.

-

Regina giggled as she held tight to her father's arms, his hands resting just under her armpits.

"Ready? One...two...three!" He braced his arms and started turning. Spinning faster and faster and faster as she squealed in delight when her little legs lifted from the ground.

"Faster," she shouted, breathless as the world turned around her. Twisting and sliding into a dizzying blend of colors and shapes.

It was never enough.

And so faster he turned.

-

Emma stands with her on Friday. Stays glued to her side as Regina shakes the hand of every single person who steps up to tell her what a fantastic person her mother was.

How the world has lost a tremendous woman.

Cora Mills would hate scrappy orphan Emma Swan and her bastard child born out of wedlock. She would have done everything in her power to dispose of them. To shake them off her daughter and keep their grubby fingers from staining her image.

Regina knows this without question. She always has.

"I wish I'd told her about you," she murmurs, head against the hard glass of the window as Emma drives her back to the house. "Both of you."

Emma reaches across the car and grips her hand tight.

-

Henry was sprawled out on the floor, scribbling doodles of his favorite cartoons. Emma was lounging on the couch, a book in hand, humming and hahing every so often at whatever the pages revealed.

That was when the phone rang, just when Regina was pulling the chicken out of the oven.

"Hello?"

It took her a minute to really register just what her sister was saying. To grasp the meaning of her words. To understand that they were real.

When she did, she dropped the serving platter.

Shattered the glass all across the kitchen floor.

A stroke.

Something so simple. So mundane.

A stroke, and it was over.

-

Regina presses Zelena's envelope into the box before carefully packing Mother's jewelry on top. She tapes down the cardboard flaps and stamps on the postage.

"You're a better sister than I'd be," Emma says from behind, chin heavy on Regina’s shoulder.

Regina laughs and shrugs her off. "You'd have pawned off everything in the house before she even got here."

"Probably," Emma allows, grinning.

The house is barren now. Large furniture the only thing remaining, waiting to be taken away before the place can be sold. Regina and Emma have a couple of bags by the door, and Regina moves to slip her envelope into the side pocket of hers. She hasn't let Emma look at it yet. But maybe one day she'll be able to.

Though, she's honestly not sure if she could ever bring herself to read it again.

It's Mother's final mystery for her, she supposes. Why the woman hadn't merely destroyed the letters if she'd never intended to give them to her daughters. Why she hadn't merely thrown them out.

Well, despite all evidence, Cora was human. She wasn't a being of pure evil. Maybe somewhere deep down she knew she couldn't tear up her husband's final words.

Maybe at some point her love for him - for all of them - had been untainted and genuine.

Regina will never know, and she's going to have to learn to live with that.

Emma moves beside her and throws an arm around her waist and she thinks maybe it won't be so hard, this moving forward thing.

This letting go.

This finding balance.

Outside, a sharp horn blasts, completely obnoxious, and five times total. Emma groans.

"I'm gonna kill him." She falters, winces. "You, uh, you're sure you're okay to do this?"

No, but Regina nods her head and grips Emma's hand to tug her out the door.

They find Neal grinning out the window of his truck, waggling his eyebrows like an idiot. "I heard somebody is giving out flatscreens in this neighborhood. Think you two beautiful ladies could point a fellah in the right direction?"

"I hate everything about you," Emma shouts.

Neal busts into deep laughter, but Regina can't focus on him. Her eyes are glued to the other side of the car where the passenger door opens and a tiny boy carefully slides out to the ground. Her heart clenches as he rounds the front of the truck, faltering when their gazes lock.

They study one another for a moment before he dares to flash her a shy, sheepish smile.

Ignoring Emma and Neal's bickering, Regina manages a handful of steps forward and Henry mimics her, meets her halfway.

"Hi," he says, soft and unsure, and Regina despises herself for putting any sort of strain on the ease that's existed for so long now between them.

-

Emma was later than they'd planned coming home, but her boss had been good enough to give her nearly a week off on obscenely short notice, so neither of them felt as though they had much of a right to complain. Regina stayed at the apartment with Henry. Fed him dinner, helped him with his homework, got him settled in with a short movie.

He leaned heavily against her as they watched the animation whirl by on screen. A frenzy of color and sound that somehow, impossibly, seemed to lull him towards sleep.

"Early to bed for you tonight, I think," Regina said, jostling him a bit when his head drooped.

"I'm fine," Henry insisted, rubbing at his eyes.

She humored him for a few more minutes before clicking off the television. Drowsy as he was, he didn't even kick up a fuss. He merely melted into her arms as she scooped him up and hauled him off for bed.

She wouldn't be able to keep it up for much longer. Already it was a far more difficult task than it had been in their early days. The apartment was compact enough she could manage though. His bedroom wasn't far and the door was open.

As gently as she could, Regina lowered him to the mattress. He hummed in appreciation as she tucked his comforter around him and smoothed out his hair.

"I'll miss you," he mumbled. The upcoming trip had been the center of some arguments over the last couple of days. "I wanna go."

"I know," she sighed, brushing her knuckles against the swell of his cheek. "You have school. It'll only be a few days. Your mother will be back before you know it, I promise. Now get some sleep, okay?"

"'Kay," he murmured, already well on his way.

She smiled and on impulse alone bent down, pressing a chaste kiss to his forehead. Henry gave a contented hum when she straightened and rolled into her. Arms around her waist in a pseudo hug.

Tiny hands curled into the soft fabric of her sweater. Clutching tight.

"Love you."

-

Mother had never known about them, about the beautiful boy that had so suddenly come into her daughter's life, and yet she'd almost taken Henry anyways. Had almost stolen him away because of everything she'd always chosen to be.

"Oh, Henry," Regina sighs out at the doubt that clouds his features. She falls to her knees, gathers him up close, squeezes him tight and resolves to never let go.

To never fail him again.

To never repeat those mistakes.

"I love you too," she breathes against his neck, " so much."

And his arms tighten around her shoulders, his little chest hitching against her as he believes in the softness and safety of his world once again. She pulls back a bit, presses their foreheads together and soaks in his beautiful, trusting smile.

"More than you can even begin to understand."