Archive of Our Own

"There you go. In two days, please come to the outpatient clinic for a wound check and until then, take it easy on your hand. No heavy work and make sure the dressing stays clean and dry. I'll also give you prescriptions for an antibiotic and painkillers, which you can get from the pharmacy." With that, Emma placed the scissors and needle holder in the metal tray provided and slipped the sterile gloves off her fingers, which she discarded.

"Thank you," the older man who had sawed his hand in his hobby workshop and whose wound the blonde doctor had just stitched, nodded. Sliding somewhat clumsily off the stretcher, he slung his jacket over his arm and took the prescriptions. "Thank you, Dr. Swan," he repeated with a smile before leaving the room.

"You're welcome, I wish you all the best!" Sighing, Emma glanced at the large clock on the wall. It was the fourth such injury she had treated that day. This time of year, all the hobbyists seemed to get the idea of surprising their loved ones with something homemade for Christmas. The only problem with that was that they didn't seem to know how to use their tools. She literally longed for a polytrauma, or at least a simple appendicitis, so she could escape the terse cold symptoms and minor injuries in the ER and do surgery instead.

She took a sip from her water bottle, longing much more for a cup of hot cocoa with cinnamon. Her colleagues, who all kept themselves awake with coffee, smiled at her for this admittedly unusual preference, but she did have a weakness for the sweet drink and would not let herself be talked into it.

When there was a knock at the door and just a moment later a nurse poked her head in, Emma was already expecting her to announce that she had to stitch up another cut. But to her surprise, it was other words that reached her.

"Ms. Swan? Dr. Whale would like to consult you in room 3," the stern-faced nurse informed her.

Emma nodded, put down her water, and slipped into her doctor’s coat, which she had hung over the back of her swivel chair moments before. "Did he say what it was about?"

Nurse Mildred shrugged briefly. "A young woman. Fall while ice skating. Seems to be quite a fuss in there."

Her right eyebrow shot up before Emma could stop it. "Is he already overtaxed with simple falls now?" she muttered to herself after the nurse had left again, retying her ponytail before making her way over and entering two doors down after a quick knock.

She had already heard Whale screaming in the exam room from outside and let her eyes wander over the scene that presented itself. Lying on the stretcher was a woman Emma estimated to be only slightly older than herself. Her dark brown, almost black hair framed her pretty face and just touched her shoulders. Emma would have described her appearance as perfect had it not been for a fine scar running through the right half of her upper lip, but instead of disfiguring her, it made her look even more interesting. Emma cleared her throat and forced herself to tear her gaze away from her face and dark, wide-set eyes and scan her body. At first glance, however, she couldn't make out much, as she was still wearing her black turtleneck sweater and tight-fitting black jeans, while her arms were crossed tightly, almost defensively, in front of her torso. Only her left pant leg appeared even darker than the rest of the fabric at knee level, which is why Emma suspected she was bleeding. The patient appeared almost stoic, but her tense jaw and the flash of panic in her eyes indicated that it was only a facade.

"I'm getting sick to death," Whale said at that moment, who had turned away and was typing something into the computer.

"Aha, should I leave again then?", Emma wanted to know sarcastically and tilted her head.

"Swan! What’s that supposed to mean, sneaking in here like that?" the doctor with the bleached hair asked her, spinning around to face her, startled.

Emma shrugged one shoulder and stepped up beside him. "I knocked. They said you sent for me."

"Indeed. For I am at my wits and nerves' end. Not only won't she answer any of my questions, she won't even let me examine her properly," he cursed, gesturing indignantly toward the patient before standing up, leaning over her and saying. "I just want to put the ECG on you, so perhaps you would have the goodness to remove your arms from your chest so I can do my work?" he said again to demonstrate to his colleague what he was referring to. Since the patient again did not react, but only stared slightly unfocused into space, he pulled on one of her arms to get to her upper body.

Immediately, the dark-haired beauty only strengthened the vice-like position of her arms, wrapping them around herself as if her life depended on it.

"What the hell are you doing?" Emma gasped in horror, yanking his arm back. "It's pretty obvious she doesn't want this, isn't it?" Anger clenched in her stomach and she had to be careful not to forget herself. After all, she was still a resident and he was her assistant medical director.

"You're clearly out of line, Ms. Swan. But if you can do better, then there you go. She's all yours. There are plenty of other patients out there for me to care for who actually want to be helped!" Furious, he stomped out of the treatment room and slammed the door behind him.

Emma took a deep breath to calm herself down instead of running after him to confront him before pulling a rolling stool next to the stretcher and grabbing the medical chart that lay on a small table next to it. "I'm sorry for the fuss... It says your name is Regina Mills, is that right? I'm Emma. Emma Swan." She raised her head and looked questioningly at the patient.

She returned her gaze, but instead of answering or at least nodding, there was only confusion and an expression of pain in her eyes.

Again, Emma flipped through the chart to find the protocol that the paramedics had filled out. "You were ice skating? And fell on your left knee, left arm and head?" She was hoping for at least some kind of response, but again she got none. The patient had fallen on her head and according to the documentation had also been unconscious for just under a minute, but that didn't seem as if it could explain the lack of any reaction. "Okay, let’s try something else then," Emma muttered to herself, setting the chart aside and sliding the stool closer to the patient to gently take her hand and look directly at her. "Are you in pain?"

It seemed to take a few moments for Regina’s gaze to focus. Slowly, she finally nodded to point at her knee before rubbing her eyes in near panic, however.

A surprised expression slid across Emma's face as she suddenly answered her question non-verbally. "Are you having trouble seeing?"

Again, Regina did not answer, but continued to maltreat her eyes until they were already beginning to redden.

Emma noticed that her left wrist was slightly swollen and she moved it a little more carefully than the right, but apparently the pain there was bearable. "Hey, I'm going to take a look at your eyes, all right? If you'll just allow me to examine you," Emma tried again, but again with no success. Nevertheless, she got up to grab a diagnostic light, but in the process yanked the pen stand off the table, which spilled its contents onto the floor with a deafening bang. "Crap, sorry!" She had barely finished the sentence, when she realized something: The patient hadn't even flinched briefly, though she still had her hands in front of her eyes, while even Emma herself, who had seen the bang coming, was startled. "Hey," she said before she slowly took her seat again and gently put her hand around Regina's forearm. She could feel the tension under her fingers, but finally she lowered her hands and looked at Emma. Emma made an effort to speak clearly this time and not break eye contact. "You can't hear anything, can you?"

Regina nodded and pointed with her hand to her mouth and then to Emma.

"You can read lips?" the latter guessed what she had already suspected anyway.

Again, the patient nodded and let herself sink against the back of the stretcher, apparently relieved.

Emma was once again annoyed with Whale, who had not noticed what was going on with her and instead of dealing with her, had tugged at her like a piece of dead meat. Not for the first time she had the impression he would be better off in pathology. "I'm sorry no one has understood you yet. Okay, let's start over: I'm Emma Swan. I'm a doctor here, and with your permission, I'd like to examine you."

Regina made no move to back away again, but continued to look at her with her dark, expressive eyes.

"So...what's wrong with your eyes? Do you have bad vision?" she slowly began.

"Henry," was the reply from Regina. Her voice was low, raspy, and so quiet it was hard to understand, the middle part of the word more of a mumble.

"Henry?" Emma repeated, unsure if she had heard her correctly. "Who's that?"

Seemingly frustrated, Regina sighed and held her left arm in front of her chest before moving her right hand down from her forehead and placing it over the other.

Emma looked contrite as she repeated the gesture twice more. "I'm sorry, I don't know sign language." Strangely, she had never been so honestly sorry about anything concerning her patients before and it was not uncommon for her to have to refuse requests or deliver bad news.

Regina's gaze wandered around the room for a while before she saw her smartphone lying on a table near the wall along with her other belongings. She pointed to it and held her hand to her ear like a phone receiver.

"Yeah, sure," Emma nodded, handing her her phone a moment later.

The room was silent for a few moments as Regina squinted her eyes strained and typed on the screen. Finally, she turned the display around to her doctor. 'Henry is my son, he's waiting outside. Would you please bring him in?' When Emma nodded, having finished reading, Regina showed her a photo of her boy.

“I'll get him,” she nodded, giving her a thumbs up. She would have liked to finally get around to examining the patient, but perhaps she would get a little closer to doing so if she called her son in. As she left the exam room, her eyes wandered over the many waiting faces until she noticed a boy sitting there all alone in the far corner of the waiting area, who had to be about ten. "Hi, are you Henry?" she asked him when she reached him, letting her eyes wander from his tousled brown mop of hair to his red and gray ringed scarf and down to his black winter shoes.

Hazel eyes looked at her questioningly. "Yes?!" he uncertainly replied.

"I'm Emma. I'm your mom's doctor," she explained to him.

Now fully interested, he raised his head. "How is my mom, can I see her? She's deaf," he babbled.

Emma nodded and put a hand on his shoulder reassuringly. "That's why I'm here. She's fine so far, but you know, it's hard to examine her because we can't really communicate. Maybe you can help us for a minute before we start?"

While the young doctor still spoke, Henry got up and picked up his backpack. "Of course I can." Clearly excited, he followed Emma back into the exam room where his mother was. "Mom!" it immediately escaped him before rushing to her side and snuggling into her outstretched arms.

Regina smiled and hugged her son tightly. Squinting her eyes tightly shut, she looked relieved for the first time since Emma had entered the room, and the tough facade got a few cracks.

Emma looked at the two of them and then watched in awe as they began to converse at high speed in sign language. Just watching them made Emma almost dizzy, but she couldn't take her eyes off the spectacle. She found it impressive how effortlessly they made it look to exchange words and sentences with each other without saying a single word. She literally felt like an intruder. Not wanting to interrupt, she finally lowered her eyes and continued to read her patient's file incidentally, since Whale hadn't given her information before just leaving her to her own devices.

"She says you can examine her. But she wants you to look at her eyes first. Since the fall, her vision has been blurry and she's afraid that..." He paused and looked down at his hand, which was being squeezed so tightly by his mother that it almost hurt. "She's afraid she'll lose her vision."

With a furrowed brow, Emma nodded. "I'll do that, of course. Please tell her that I still need to examine her thoroughly everywhere first. We'll definitely have to do X-rays and we'll do a CT scan of her head while we're at it. Then we will see if the fall has damaged her visual cortex in any way. But she should not be afraid, I do not assume that at all. It's not uncommon for a concussion like this to lead to vision problems that will soon go away all by themselves."

Visibly reassured, Henry nodded and then translated Emma's words for his mother.

Regina squinted again as she watched his facial expressions and gestures, then closed her eyes to let herself sink backward onto the gurney with a relieved nod.

"Thank you, Henry. Now would you please wait outside again while I examine your mom?", Emma asked the boy. Now that Regina was more relaxed and no longer had to worry about being completely blind at any moment, she would probably be able to concentrate better on her lip movements. However, she could fully understand her panic. She didn't even want to imagine what it must be like not to be able to hear anything and then to have to fear for the only sense that allowed one to communicate with the environment.

Uncertainly, Henry looked back and forth between his mother and the doctor and finally nodded. Carefully, he touched Regina's hand and gave her some signs.

After another nod, the brunette looked after her son as he left the room.

"I'm going to look at your head first and check your pupil reactions," Emma stated clearly when she was sure Regina was looking at her.

With her arms folded in front of her chest, the patient nodded once briefly and then nearly held her breath as Ms. Swan came so close to her face with hers that she could make out individual blue speckles in her green eyes.

"You have no visible external injuries to your head except for a bump. Your pupils react normally to light. As I said, we'll definitely do a CT scan of your head for clarification, but these are good signs."

Regina took a deep breath and nodded. For a brief moment, her face contorted before her expression became free of any emotion again.

Emma didn't miss it while she carefully palpated her wrist and moved it slightly. "Bearable?" she wanted to know.

Regina nodded and waved it off, but then tightened her jaw again.

"Doesn't look like it to me at all, though."

With her uninjured hand, the brunette waved it off again.

"No, no, you're not getting away with that so easily," Emma said, shaking her head. "On a scale of one to ten, how bad does it hurt? Ten is the worst pain you can imagine."

Sighing, Regina rolled her eyes and pointed to her head, then held up five fingers. She then raised her left hand and held up four fingers to Emma. Lastly, her eyes fell on her knee and she showed her eight fingers.

Emma raised an eyebrow and again checked the chart to see what pain medication the patient had already received. Whale had given her nothing at all, while in the ambulance she had only received a mild painkiller as an IV. Still, she sighed briefly. With an 8, she was guaranteed she wouldn't be sitting so upright and almost without turning a hair in front of her. Why couldn't people ever be realistic about their pain? "All right, I'd like to take a look at your knee now," she explained.

Nodding, Regina opened her waistband and started to push the skin-tight jeans down a bit, but after a short moment she was already biting her lower lip and gave an agonized moan.

Emma couldn't help but notice that, except for her son's name, this was the only sound she had heard from her so far and how pleasantly deep her voice was. "Wait," she stopped her and put a hand on her arm, knowing she hadn't seen her mouth move. "I'll cut the pant leg, if that's okay."

Hesitantly, Regina nodded and let herself sink back again. Her pride actually forbade her to show weakness, but she had felt for a brief moment like she was going to throw up from the pain, so now she did give in.

Emma had barely uncovered her patient's knee when she sharply drew the air through her teeth for a moment. Suddenly, she didn't think the 8 she had indicated was so unrealistic after all. Her knee had swollen to almost twice its normal size and the skin had burst open, revealing parts of the underlying bone. She had to be really tough if she could still hold herself up like that. "Okay, wow... I'll clean the wound and then you'll be taken for x-rays. I can't say much about your wrist yet without pictures, but I’m pretty sure you’ve broken your kneecap."

Horror spread across Regina's face.

"Don't worry, we'll get it fixed. It's not uncommon for that to happen with a direct fall on the knee," Emma tried to reassure her. Now she was downright ashamed that she had wished for surgery, even though she knew the accident wasn’t her fault. She carefully cleaned the area around the wound and then covered the tear with sterile compresses before spreading a blanket over Regina.

Regina shook her head and sat up. With her hand she indicated a writing motion and nodded to a notepad on the desk after Emma put her cell phone back in the plastic bag with her other belongings.

As soon as Emma handed her the notepad and a pen, she began to write.

'When can I go home?’ the note read as she held it out to the doctor.

"If my suspicions are confirmed, you'll need surgery and then you'll have to stay here for about a week," Emma replied. "But even generally we'll have to keep you here for at least one night because of the concussion."

Again, Regina shook her head and began writing again. ‘That’s not possible.'

Emma smiled wryly. "You just won't have any other choice, unfortunately."

'My son has only me.' Her eyes were full of tears as she slid the note to Emma. She had to take care of him, she couldn't fail now.

"Okay, now just calm down. I'm going to give you a painkiller, then you're going to get an X-ray, and when we know more, we'll bring your son back in for our conversation, okay?" Emma's heart ached uncomfortably in her chest as she saw the distressed expression on her patient's face. Without consciously intending to, she suddenly held her hand and squeezed it encouragingly. "Everything will be fine, you'll see."

Regina returned her gaze and actually calmed down a bit. Without taking her eyes off her, she watched as she started another IV on her and then made a phone call. "I'd like to do another ECG now, I'll have to take your sweater off for that," she finally explained, addressing her again.

Hesitantly, Regina nodded and clumsily freed herself from her top, so that a moment later she lay there only in her cut-up jeans and bra apart from the blanket.

"Good, I'm attaching the electrodes now," Emma said while she was already busy with the cables. The cold fingers wrapped around her wrist, however, made her pause and look to Regina. It was only her anxious expression that reminded her that she had once again forgotten to turn towards her while she was speaking. "I’m sorry. I'll attach the electrodes," she repeated, continuing only when she received Regina's confirming nod. Emma couldn't help but admire her smooth, soft skin as she did the ECG. It also didn't necessarily help that goose bumps ran down the patient's body with each of her touches. Emma took a deep breath and tightened her shoulders. This was work, she needed to stay professional. The instant attraction her body felt for Regina Mills had no business being here.

Regina stared stoically at the ceiling while the doctor examined her. She felt goose bumps creeping over her body and was ashamed of it, but she could do nothing about the reaction that the gentle touches triggered. The bright green eyes that scrutinized her intently didn't make it any better. It wasn't until she saw out of the corner of her eye that she was talking to her again that she turned her gaze back to her and tilted her head questioningly.

"The ECG looks fine at first glance. Blood has already been drawn from you. Now we'll wait for the X-ray, then I can tell you more," she explained.

As if on cue, the door opened at that moment and the nurse came in.

"Nurse Mildred will take you to radiology now. I'll see you later when you get back here," Emma told her, before she and the nurse exchanged a few words that were incomprehensible to Regina before she was pushed outside on the gurney and through several hallways.

Suddenly, Regina felt as helpless and lost as she had after being admitted to the hospital, when no one had understood that she couldn't hear. Emma Swan had been the only person who had taken the time necessary to figure it out. A warm feeling spread through her stomach as she thought of the look of her green eyes.

While the scans of Regina's head, arm, and leg were being taken, Emma went looking for Henry again in the emergency room. She didn't have to look for long, however, because he was once again sitting in his seat from before. "Can I sit with you?"

"Sure," he nodded immediately, pulling his backpack and ice skates from the chair next to him. "How's my mom doing?" he then immediately wanted to know.

Emma took a seat and turned to him. "She's at X-ray right now, but her leg is probably broken. She'll be fine, don't worry."

Relieved, Henry's shoulders slumped slightly. "This is my fault. I really wanted her to go ice skating with me." He hung his head and lowered his eyes in shame.

"Hey, it's not your fault. It was a stupid accident, these things happen," Emma immediately reassured him.

"Not to my mom," he explained in response, looking at her so seriously that it almost seemed funny considering his young age. "She's incredibly cautious and avoids any kind of danger."

"Well, to be fair, ice skating isn't necessarily one of the most dangerous things there are," Emma smirked.

Henry shrugged and sighed. "I skated too far away from her, though. If I had been near her, this wouldn't have happened. There was some weird kid there, bragging all the time about how great he was at skating. Doing different tricks and stuff. Then all of a sudden, he yelled 'Out of the lane!’ and went around at an insane speed. Everybody dodged him, but my mom couldn't hear him and was startled when he skated sideways past her from behind. Then she stumbled and fell."

After this narration, Emma felt an unbridled anger boiling up inside her for the second time that day. It had never happened to her before that she had felt so intensely for someone she didn't know. "Okay, but like I said, it was an accident. You're not to blame for it. If anyone is to blame, it's the other boy."

With little conviction, Henry shrugged. "If her leg is broken... Will she have to stay here, or will she get a cast and be allowed to go home?"

"Then she'll have to stay here for a few days," Emma explained, rising as she saw the gurney with Regina being pushed back into the exam room. "There she is again. You can come with me now, Henry."

Immediately, the boy grabbed his things and walked close on the doctor's heels behind her.

Emma wanted to be polite and raised her hand to knock, but then lowered it when she realized Ms. Mills wouldn't hear it. She didn't miss the relieved expression she received from her when she entered the room.

Afterwards, when Regina saw her son coming through the door behind the doctor, her gaze became affectionate and she stretched out her arms to him. As soon as she had released the embrace, she began to speak to him using sign language.

Emma turned away to retrieve the recordings on the computer. With her brow furrowed in concentration, she sat and stared at the scans for a few minutes.

"So, how does it look like?", Henry finally snapped the doctor out of her thoughts.

Emma turned to the two of them and met two pairs of expectant looking eyes. "I have good news and bad news," she explained. "First the good: Your wrist is just sprained. A few days of rest and cooling and it'll be good as new. Also, there are no fractures or bleeding on the scans of your head. That is very good. So the vision problems are definitely due to the traumatic brain injury and will resolve," she began. "As far as your kneecap is concerned, however, I'm afraid my suspicions have been confirmed." She pulled the table with the computer closer to the gurney and traced three thin, black lines on the X-ray that didn't belong there. "Here, here and here we have fractures. This needs to be operated on as soon as possible."

Regina shook her head and crossed her arms in front of her chest again with a somber expression.

"Mom, you need to have surgery. You saw what she said," Henry said verbally, using sign language in parallel so the doctor could follow at least one side of the conversation.

Regina's hands just flew as she answered her son.

"She says it can't be done because I'm too young to be left alone," Henry translated, looking up at the doctor. "What does that mean?"

"Well, Henry... I'm afraid your mom is right about that. If you really don't have any other relatives, that means we'll contact Social Services, then a social worker will come here and place you in foster care until your mom gets better," Emma explained to him uneasily. She could still see Henry's anxious look before she was startled by the energetic knock on the table that Regina used to get her attention.

Immediately as Emma turned to face her, she held up the note she had pressed on so hard with the ballpoint pen that it had developed holes in several places. 'My son will NOT be taken to any strangers!!!' To make her anger even clearer, she had underlined the word 'not' twice.

Emma sighed, clearly recognizing from her attitude and facial expression that the woman was used to getting what she wanted. "I understand your displeasure, Ms. Mills. But what alternative do you suggest?" She could see Henry translating beside her as she spoke.

Again Regina's hands flew and Emma looked to Henry for help.

"What did she say?"

"She said that you should come up with something and that she wouldn't agree to it. She would also pay for me to sleep here," he relayed his mother's words to her.

"That's not what this is about. Sure, it could be done on the quiet somehow, but what's going to happen to Henry when you're discharged? It will be a while before you can walk normally again," Emma kept trying.

It was clear how distressed Regina was, even if she tried to hide it behind a carefully constructed wall of haughty expression.

"I'll tell you what: for now, we'll go over the paperwork together that you need to fill out before the surgery. Because no matter what, you're not getting around this. Then we'll get your knee fixed up, and after that we'll still have time to figure something out. Tonight, Henry can definitely sleep here. I won't do anything you don't want me to, I promise." She realized that she had just made a promise that she couldn't possibly keep. As soon as her superior got wind that she hadn't informed Social Services, it would cost her her job and Henry would still go into foster care. But she simply could not deny this woman her wish. She admired her for her demeanor. At times she might seem cold and aloof, but how else was she supposed to assert herself as a single mother in a world ruled by men? That alone was difficult enough, and with her there was also the deafness.

Tears shone in Regina's eyes as she looked at Emma. No sound escaped her lips as she carefully formed 'thank you' with them.

Emma nodded and then printed out the declarations of consent from the computer. While Regina was busy reading through everything, she turned to Henry again. "How do you usually do it when your mother is sick?"

"She never is," he replied with a shrug. "She's never had more than a cold."

"I see," Emma nodded, opening the desk drawer. "Are you hungry? I have a granola bar if you'd like," she offered, holding it out to him.

As if to ask Regina's permission, he glanced briefly at his mother. Only when she nodded affirmatively did he thank Emma and accept the offer.

"What about your dad, Henry? Doesn't he live here?" she inquired after a while.

Shaking his head, Henry denied the question and swallowed the bite he had had in his mouth. "I don't have a dad. I'm adopted."

"Oh, I see." As unobtrusively as possible, Emma squinted over at Regina. Her admiration for her was growing by the minute.

"My grandpa isn't alive anymore, and Mom's fallen out with Grandma. She doesn't even know where she is right now. It's always been just the two of us," he continued.

"She's so badly estranged with her mom that she doesn't even know where she lives?" Emma asked in surprise. She had never met her parents, who had abandoned her as a newborn and was not particularly eager to make the acquaintance of people who were capable of such things. But she had always wanted parents who would raise her and love her.

"Mom doesn't like to talk about it," he explained quietly, as if she could hear him otherwise. "Well...Grandma turned her back when she adopted me."

"Why is that?" Perplexed, she raised an eyebrow.

"She always felt that Mom needed a man by her side to take care of her. That she couldn't manage on her own because of her disability. So, of course, she thought it was rather less good that she suddenly had an infant instead of a man. She told her not to dare to ever ask her for help and left. We have not seen her since. I never met her. Well, only as a baby, but of course I don't remember that."

Emma shook her head slowly and looked over at Regina. How could a mother do such a thing to her own daughter and not realize what she was made of? Henry would hardly have grown up to be such a well-behaved boy if her deafness had somehow limited Regina. Now, however, she could understand why Henry had said she was always overprotective. She must have had the fear breathing down her neck all the time that something might happen to her and then she wouldn't be able to be there for him. For as well as she was coping, her mother was still right about one thing: she had a disability and though she was coping with it so well, it had also led to the accident that day. "Henry, can you give your mom and me another minute while we go over the notes together?" she then asked the boy. "It won't take long."

"Yeah, okay," Henry nodded, stomping his foot on the floor twice briefly to get his mother's attention. He then performed a few quick signs, after which Regina nodded and he went outside.

"Are you done?", Emma wanted to know and then pointed at the slips of paper.

Regina nodded again and looked at her, waiting.

"Before we discuss what you just read, I'd like to bandage your wrist. I know that for you it's like being banned from speaking, but you should still try to keep your movements to a minimum for the next few days," she said somewhat contritely.

Without showing any reaction, Regina merely held out her arm to her.

Emma took the necessary bandages from the cupboard and then took a seat next to her. As she carefully wrapped her slender wrist to immobilize it, she suddenly became hyper-aware of her closeness to her and slid a little more off her with the swivel stool she was sitting on. "All right, that's it."

Over the next few minutes, Emma explained everything she already had in writing in front of her, step by step, and then signed her up for the surgery. Since she had eaten something before the accident, it would take place later in the afternoon. When everything was settled, Emma took a deep breath and nervously stroked her hair. "I've been thinking," she then explained slowly and without looking Regina in the eye. She was careful not to lower her head, however, so that she could see her lips. "Sooner or later, it will be noticed that Henry is here and no social worker has been called in." She could see Regina straightening up, but Emma raised her hand to show her she wasn't finished. "But if you give me written permission for him to stay with me while you're here, the problem is off the table." Spoken aloud, it sounded even crazier than the moment she had gone over it in her mind, but now she couldn't go back. "I can then bring him to you whenever I'm working and he's not at school and at night he'll have a bed to sleep in. And then when you're back home, I can help out around the house and check on things every now and then."

Regina narrowed her eyes into slits and reached for the notepad. 'Why would you do that? Do you do that with every patient?'

Emma swallowed and looked away from her for a moment. She couldn't very well tell her she felt sorry for her, because she had the distinct feeling that pity was the last thing she wanted. Besides, that wouldn't be the whole truth either. Bravely, she raised her gaze again and met the gaze of Regina's dark eyes. "I can't explain it, but I feel like I've known you forever. I care about your well-being and that of your son and I don't say that as a doctor, but as a human being."

'I've known you for less than two hours and I'm supposed to trust you with my son?'

Emma read the words and then looked up at Regina. Shaking her head, she closed her eyes. "You're right, I'm sorry." However, when her fingers suddenly closed around her wrist and she opened her eyes again in response, she saw something other than suspicion on Regina's face.

She smiled slightly crookedly and again formed a soundless 'thank you', with her lips.

It took a moment before Emma recovered from her surprise. Finally, however, she smiled as well and squeezed Regina's fingers lightly. She caught herself wondering if her lips would feel as soft as they looked and withdrew her hand. "You're about to be taken to a room, I'll check on you again before surgery," she said quickly and stood up, literally fleeing the room.

Regina watched her go, wondering why she trusted her so much to leave Henry to her. Until now, she hadn't even left him in the care of a babysitter, and now he would be staying with a strange doctor for several days. But no matter how much she anticipated it, the fear did not materialize. Instead, she felt only relief that her son would not be taken away from her.

The closer the operation came, the more nervous Regina turned. It hadn't taken long for her to be assigned a room, her leg elevated on a splint, and ice placed on her injury. The bed was a lot more comfortable than the one in the emergency room, but none of that helped push back her fear that something might go wrong.

Not even Henry managed to calm his mother down, even though he tried his best. ‘Then I'll stay with Emma?’ he asked in sign language.

'You will, if that's all right with you. She says then you can see me as often as you can,' she answered him.

'Sure, that's fine. In fact, that's really super.' He beamed at his mother from ear to ear. 'You like her a lot, don't you?'

Astonished, Regina raised an eyebrow. 'What do you mean? She treated you well and didn't label me as a crazy person, but took her time. So of course I like her.'

'That's not what I mean, Mom.' Henry rolled his eyes and just saw Regina gesture for him to watch how he acted toward her. 'I'm not stupid after all. I've seen the way you look at her. I think she likes you too,' he grinned. 'She looked at you the same way.'

Now it was Regina's turn to roll her eyes and shake her head. 'Whatever you thought you saw there, Henry Daniel Mills, she's my doctor and nothing else. Don't you dare say anything to her.'

A mischievous grin lit up Henry's face.

Before Regina could implore him any further to shut up, the door opened and Emma poked her head in.

"Hi. I wanted to check on you before we start," she explained, feeling her cheeks flush.

While Regina waved her into the room, Henry gave his mother a look that said 'I told you so'. She paid him no further attention, however, but leaned over to her bedside table, her face contorted in pain, to reach for the sheet of paper that lay on it and hold it out to Emma.

The young doctor took it and, after glancing at it, recognized Regina's close, neat handwriting. She had already put into action what they had discussed and appointed Emma as Henry's temporary guardian. "Good, everything should be running its course with that," she nodded after she finished reading. "How are you feeling, Ms. Mills?"

Regina answered in sign language and Henry translated for her.

"She says the pain is bearable and asks if you think it's funny not to be on a first-name basis now that I'm going to be staying with you."

This time it was Regina's turn to blush slightly.

"I’d love that," Emma nodded, giving them both an encouraging smile. "Don't worry, you'll be back on your feet in no time. My boss may be unbearable as a person, but he's a very good surgeon," she assured Regina. She hated to admit it, but if there was one thing Whale was really good at, it was operating.

"She wants to know if you're going to be there," Henry explained, after his mother had said something again.

Emma nodded. "Yes, I'm assisting."

Regina took a deep breath and relaxed a little.

Even though she claimed otherwise, Emma knew she must be in more pain than she admitted and let on. Her brow furrowed in concern before she tore her gaze away from Regina's closed eyes and moved back toward the door. "I need to get ready. See you later."

Henry nodded and squeezed his mother's hand briefly so that she would also be aware that Emma was saying goodbye.

The brunette glanced after the doctor, cursing herself for the fact that her heart seemed to do somersaults whenever she was with her.

"Swan, glad you found your way here, too," Whale wryly greeted his resident in the washroom nearly two hours later.

Emma rolled her eyes and began soaping her hands and forearms. She always tried her hardest not to let him provoke her, but today in particular she found it more than difficult.

"So silent?" he continued to tease.

A frustrated snort escaped Emma and she turned to him with a jerk, eyes twinkling with anger. "Seriously? You're my superior, but that doesn't mean I have to love you to death, does it?"

Grinning in amusement, he shook his head. "Swan, Swan, Swan, you're having a lot of nerve for only being a resident. One word from me and you can clear out your locker, don't forget that."

"You know what, Doctor Whale," she began, emphasizing his title so overtly that it sounded mocking, "you've lost all my respect today at the latest and if you want to see to my dismissal, then please, feel free and go ahead. But then I'll also tell everyone that you weren't capable of recognizing that your patient was deaf and instead yelled at her and touched her against her will."

Whale's expression darkened before he entered the operating room without another word.

Emma was glad her mask hid her grin, because even though she was enjoying the temporary triumph, she didn't want to lose her employment. When she also entered the OR a few minutes later, she looked Regina in the eye with encouragement for a moment before stepping behind the drape that blocked the patient's view of the surgical field. Knowing that Regina would be awake during the entire operation made her a little nervous, even though she knew full well that, first, she wouldn't be able to see anything and second, she would be administered sedatives by the anesthesiologist. Still, she was more excited than she had been in a long time when Whale asked for the scalpel and she held the wound open with the retractors.

"A multi-fragmentary patella fracture by the book," Whale noted as he had the scrub nurse hand him the instruments. "Take a good look, Swan. You can learn something here."

Emma clenched her teeth tightly and kept silent. There was no way she was going to irritate him any more than she already had. When he was angry, he became unfocused and she wouldn't blame herself if he made mistakes and Regina had to deal with it afterwards.

Glad that Regina at least couldn't hear what was being said, Emma let any attempt to irritate her bounce off her over the next 45 minutes and was grateful when Whale left the room and she could close the wound with clips in peace. When the nurse finally applied the bandage, Emma stepped back from the table and peered at Regina again for the first time.

She was sound asleep, however, after the anesthesiologist injected her with sedatives to keep her circulation stable.

Reassured that she was doing well, Emma stepped into the washroom, removed her sterile gowns and gloves and washed her hands. Her shift was over, so she took her time with everything and changed into her private clothes before checking on Henry. The boy was still sitting with a book in his hand in the waiting area where Emma had sent him before the surgery began. She had merely asked the nurses to keep an eye on him from time to time, even though she was quite sure he wouldn't just take off. "Hey, Henry," she said softly before she sat down on the bench across from him.

"Emma!" he called out immediately. "Is my mom okay?"

"The surgery went like it was supposed to. She'll be in the recovery room for a while now and then you can go see her," she explained.

Hearing this, Henry jumped from his seat, rushed to the young doctor and wrapped his thin arms around her neck. "Thank you!"

Emma immediately had to smile and hesitantly stroked his back. "Not for this. What do you say, you sure must be hungry?! The cafeteria is still open and right now all we can do is wait anyway." Of course, in her capacity as a doctor she could have checked on Regina, but she didn't want to leave Henry alone any longer.

"Starving pretty much sums it up," he replied with a sly grin.

"Well, hurry then," Emma nodded and set off with him. It felt strange how familiar he was with her. It wasn't that she didn't like the boy, but so far she had always had the impression that she was rather clumsy when it came to dealing with children. Perhaps in this case it was simply because of how open and warm he was. Unlike his mother, he didn't seem to be suspicious of everything and everyone. She didn't even want to imagine what it would be like if they were out of her life again and she was alone once more. The sudden burning in her eyes that set in at this notion surprised even her. She quickly ran her hand over her eyes and tightened her shoulders before buying dinner for them both.

"Do you think she's already slept it off?", Henry wanted to know as he walked with a slightly bouncing step beside Emma to the ward where his mother was lying.

"I'm pretty sure she has. She just got some sedatives during the surgery. She didn't have general anesthesia for her concussion, you know? If it's possible, you'd rather do a spinal anesthesia in a case like that, so she just won't feel her legs temporarily," Emma explained, then stopped outside the hospital room. "I'll wait here."

Henry already had his hand on the door handle, but then paused and looked at Emma with a tilted head. "Why?"

"Your mom is recovering from surgery and I'm sure she's happy to see you. I can't imagine she would want a stranger at her bedside right now," she explained.

"Nonsense, you operated on her and she likes you. And I like you, too. Come on."

Emma didn't even get a chance to object further, because by then he had already grabbed her hand and was dragging her into the room behind him. She just managed to run her hand quickly through her open hair to bring it into some shape before she found herself face to face with Regina as well. "Hi," she gasped breathlessly unimaginatively.

Henry grinned and made a few signs before stepping up to his mother and hugging her.

Regina hugged her son tightly, squinting her eyes in relief. She then signed something that made Henry laugh.

Waiting, Emma looked to him.

"She said ‘Thank you for not killing me,'" he relayed his mother's statement verbatim, laughing again.

Smirking in amusement, Regina looked Emma in the eye. Normally it didn't bother her that she was deaf and dumb. She didn't know any different, since she had been born that way. But after Henry, Emma was the first person she wished she could hear voice and laughter or respond to verbally. Too late, she registered that Emma was saying something. Seeking help, she turned her gaze to Henry, who immediately translated for her. In response to the question about pain, she gave Emma a tired smile and a thumbs up. She wondered if it was the doctor in her that just kept asking her such pragmatic questions, or if she was just incredibly bad at small talk. On the other hand, she could understand her. Who wanted to make conversation with someone who could neither hear nor answer and who always needed his ten-year-old son to interpret? Depressed, she rolled her head to the side and closed her eyes. Of course, she hadn't gotten her hopes up, not really anyway. But a tiny little part of her had just imagined how nice it would be to have someone like Emma by her side.

"Do you think she's not well after all?" Henry asked as his mother turned away from them, ruining the only opportunity for conversation.

Emma was about to urge Henry to keep his voice down, as she was surely still woozy from the medication, before she remembered that wasn't necessary. "She'll just still be tired. She'll be much better tomorrow, you'll see."

Henry nodded briefly, then eyed the surgical drain hanging from the bed, where a little blood was pooling, before letting his gaze wander with interest over the technical equipment in the hospital room.

"Are you interested in the medical stuff?" Emma inquired, who hadn't missed his gaze.

He shrugged, then turned back to her. "I kind of am. I used to be in the hospital a lot when I was little."

Emma waited to see if he would tell her more.

"I had ear infections a lot. Mom was probably afraid I'd eventually go deaf, too. Wouldn't be so bad, I speak sign language fluently anyway," he grinned.

"But being able to hear is pretty nice though," Emma laughed, before immediately becoming serious again. "Your mom...has she always been deaf?"

Henry nodded. "From birth. It doesn't bother her. But she says it bothered her mom a lot. She would have always wanted a perfect daughter and then she was such a disappointment to her."

Emma felt her blood boiling. Maybe she was better off without parents, after all.

"She made her take language classes and things like that," he continued.

"She can speak?" Emma inquired with interest.

"More or less. She hates it. Sometimes she calls me when dinner's ready and stuff. But that's about all." He shrugged. "I can understand her not wanting to talk. She has her language, that's enough. Why should she bend like that for others? For people who don't even try to understand her?"

Nodding in agreement, Emma looked over at Regina again. She felt so infinitely sorry for her, but not because of her lack of hearing, but because she had apparently been taught all her childhood that she was inferior. "You're absolutely right. No one should force her to speak."

"It's not just exhausting for her, it's... Well, it's embarrassing for her," he explained, looking to his mother, who was still tuning out the world around her.

"Because she's just hard to understand?" Emma guessed, following his gaze.

Henry nodded curtly.

"That's perfectly normal, though. How could she do it perfectly if she's never heard what words sound like?"

"She's ashamed anyway. So she'd rather keep quiet. A lot of people think it's weird. Like she's deliberately not trying," the boy returned.

This time it was up to Emma to nod. "That may be. But I don't see it that way. I think she does everything right. It's her way of communicating and no one should look at her askance for it."

Henry cast a sideways glance at Emma and grinned.

"What's the matter, kid?"

"I'm not supposed to talk to you about it. My mom told me not to," he explained, still grinning.

Emma raised a brow and glanced back and forth between Regina and Henry in turn. "It's not like she has to know."

"Hey, are you trying to take advantage of her deafness right now?" he asked, playfully accusing.

"No, if she could hear, I'd tell you the same thing, only outside the door."

At that, Henry chuckled, tilted his head and grinned mischievously at her. "I think you'd better find out for yourself. You know what? I saw a vending machine out there that has cocoa. I'm going to go get some." With that, he slid off the visitor's chair and disappeared out the door before Emma could say a word.

Confused, the blonde doctor looked at the closed door and so didn't notice Regina looking at her until quite a while later. "You're awake," she noted, smiling cautiously. "Are you really all right?"

Regina nodded, somewhat weakened, and gave her a thumbs up.

Having already witnessed how well Regina could endure and mask pain, Emma took it upon herself to keep a very close eye on her, so she could immediately spot any sign that she wasn't telling the truth. "Henry's just getting some cocoa. I'm sure he'll be back soon," she then explained the absence of Regina's son. When she thought about it more carefully, however, he had actually been gone far too long to merely go get some cocoa, and the thought crossed her mind that he had rather had in mind that she was talking to his mother.

Weary, Regina turned to her nightstand and reached for her smartphone. She had thought thoroughly about everything in the last few minutes, during which Emma and Henry had probably thought she was asleep, and now she urgently needed to talk to the doctor. Since she was still slightly woozy and double images slipped into her field of vision from time to time, it took quite a while to type, but finally she handed the device with the considerably long text to Emma. ‘Thank you for wanting to take care of Henry. I would never have asked you or anyone else to do it. But by now I don't know if it's really such a good idea. He'll get used to your presence and I don't want him to be heartbroken when you disappear from his life again. He doesn't have to tell me, I feel he is missing a second parent. Or maybe he just misses an adult person he can talk to normally. Whatever it is, he will see both in you. It wouldn't be fair to keep this from you and wait until it's too late to do so. Because he's good at turning your head, that's just the way he is. I don't want you to suffer from your helpfulness. I know I've been very clear, but I'm sure a foster family will take care of him just as well as you would and it's only for a certain amount of time. It's probably for the best.'

Emma had already been shaking her head in disbelief while she was still reading. After the last line, however, she shook it all the more violently and looked at Regina. "No, it's not best that way. You'd hardly get to see him. Believe me, I know how that works!"

Questioningly, Regina tilted her head.

Emma swallowed hard and looked at the floor. She never talked about her past, not if she could help it. But she felt she could confide in Regina, and that she had a duty to warn her if she could. "I grew up in the system," she began slowly, careful to make sure Regina could read her lips, despite Emma's continued averted gaze. "It wasn't always bad. Most of the time, though, it was. Not every family takes in children because they want to give them a home unselfishly. You adopted Henry and he has a fabulous life. But not everyone is so lucky. No one ever wanted me. I'm probably overreacting, because my experience has been bad, but I don't want Social Services to take care of him." She raised her eyes and finally looked at Regina. "He's such an incredible kid. Who knows what this would do to him. And he's been so excited to stay with me. I understand your concern about him getting too attached to me. But he'll get over it and he'll definitely get over it better than he would get over bad experiences." As serious as she was about it all, there still continued to be a tight knot in her stomach ever since she read the words 'second parent'. Regina had been talking all along about not wanting to hurt Henry, but Emma couldn't help but feel that there was more to it. That Regina herself might not have wanted to be hurt. That she, as a woman, could be Henry's second parent made it pretty clear that Regina wasn't interested, or at least not only interested, in men. A voice in her head, however, whispered softly to Emma that this was all surely wishful thinking on her part, which made her lonely heart tighten. She hadn't even noticed that Regina had typed on her cell phone again when she was already holding it out to her again.

'I'm sorry you had to go through that. All right, you talked me into it. But only because Henry already knows about the idea.' She had to do what was best for her son. It didn't matter if her heart would hurt and break into a thousand little pieces in the process.

Emma smiled as she read the answer and then nodded to Regina as if to assure her that it was the right decision. She hadn't expected to see the brunette's eyes gleam wetly, however. "Are you sure you're all right?"

Nodding, Regina ran a hand over her eyes and looked away from her. Slowly, she pushed aside her bedspread so she could look at her operated leg. There wasn't much difference; it was still on the splint and an ice pack directly on her knee. The only changes were the tube from the drain and the orthotic that had been added. Questioningly, she looked at Emma again, her face again devoid of emotion.

"Everything went according to plan," Emma explained. "The drain will be out tomorrow or the day after, at the latest. You'll have to keep wearing the orthotic for the next few weeks, though. It'll relieve your knee and keep you from bending it too much too soon."

Regina sighed and covered herself again. Those were not the words she had hoped to hear. The longer she thought about it, the more she feared being completely helpless.

"It sounds worse than it is," Emma assured her, who, despite her reserve, could read her face like an open book. "And six weeks will go by faster than you think. You'll see."

When Emma arrived at the hospital eight days later to pick up Regina, her heart was in her mouth. She had made extra sure to have the day off so she could set things up for the young woman and her son at home how they needed it, but by now she was becoming all too aware that the time really had come. She had talked a lot to Regina in the past week and by now she could understand some of her more frequently used signs, but right now they were still in the seemingly protected environment of the hospital. She couldn't explain her panic, but she feared that everything would suddenly change as soon as they left the clinic. The fact that Henry was still at school and she was therefore alone with his mother didn't make it any better.

Regina was standing by her closet packing her bag, one crutch leaning against the wall, the other under her armpit, when Emma entered the room.

As she had learned from Henry, she stomped her foot twice to draw attention to herself and not startle Regina.

Regina turned to the door and smiled when she realized it was Emma who had come in. Greeting her, she raised her free hand and then went on to finish packing her things. Only the bottom shelf, where a nurse had placed her shoes and the bag of dirty clothes, she could not reach without help. Her leg, stiffened by the orthotic, prevented her from bending that far. Without her having to say anything, she felt Emma's warm hand on her back a moment later.

"I'm going to wrap this up. Rest for a moment," she asked her, nodding over to the bed.

Rolling her eyes, Regina grabbed the second crutch and slowly crossed the hospital room. She had already received physical therapy in the past few days, but she was not yet allowed to put full weight on her leg and every movement still involved pain, even if she denied it. "Is Henry at school?"

Emma turned and nodded. She'd probably never get used to the robotic voice that rendered Regina's words so unnaturally mechanical. So that Emma wouldn't always have to read what Regina had written, the latter had downloaded an app that read her lines aloud. In order not to hurt her, Emma had so far kept quiet about the fact that she was anything but thrilled about it. After knowing the pleasantly rough, deep sound of Regina's real voice, she didn't want to hear her words from this shrill imitation of a female voice. She much preferred the silence, which didn't become uncomfortable for a moment. "He is," she finally replied, nodding. "I was able to convince him to leave after assuring him that you would be there when he got home."

A soft smile slid across Regina's face. She was glad to have her son, who always stood by her. The time he had turned away from her for a while after learning he was adopted had been the worst months of her life.

"Are you ready?" Emma finally asked after making sure nothing was left behind in the bathroom either.

Nodding, Regina took a seat in the wheelchair and pulled her bag and crutches onto her lap. Frowning, she stared ahead while Emma pushed her through the hallways and finally the foyer. As soon as they reached the door, Regina stood back up and looked from her crutches to her bag and back.

"I'll carry this, you focus on walking," Emma immediately responded, making the sign for 'walking' and pointing at Regina before she slung the bag around herself and dropped the wheelchair off at the entrance.

Regina would have protested immediately, but she was too moved by the fact that Emma was already starting to use her language after the few days they now knew each other. It was only a few words and it looked a bit awkward, but just the fact that she was trying so hard made her heart race.

"Since your car is still at the rink, you'll have to make do with mine today, I'm afraid," Emma said as they reached her yellow, dented Beetle, which she had parked as close as possible to the entrance.

Regina frowned when she saw the vehicle and slowly stepped up to the passenger door, which Emma opened for her. Although Emma had already pushed the seat as far back as she could, she had to let her help her get in because she almost couldn't find enough room for her damaged leg. When she was finally seated, she couldn't help her hand from automatically going to her aching knee and she screwed up her face for a moment.

Gently, Emma put a hand on her arm and waited for her to look at her. "I'm sorry. Just let me get you home quickly and we'll do something about the pain, okay?"

Without responding, Regina just took a deep breath and then stared through the windshield at the snowy parking lot. She wondered, not for the first time where she and Henry would be now if they hadn't met Emma. So easily she could have been taken to another hospital or the young woman could have been off duty. She didn't really believe in fate, but in this case even she had to admit that there were plenty of coincidences that came together.

The trip didn't take much time and although it wasn't the first time Emma had entered the noble townhouse with its own doorman and elevator, since she had already gotten things for Henry and Regina and watered the plants, each time it left her speechless. Reverently and with her mouth slightly open, she looked around the spacious, mirror-lined elevator on her way up, so that Regina's amused smirk completely escaped her.

As soon as they entered the tastefully furnished apartment, Regina went straight through to her sofa and settled down on it. Sighing, she closed her eyes and hoped that the uncomfortable throbbing in her knee would soon subside.

"I'll unpack your things and you just rest," Emma said, before she realized that Regina's eyes were closed, making her practically non-existent to her, no matter how loud she screamed. "Regina," it therefore came from her simply quietly out of habit before she sat down next to her and put her hand on her shoulder.

Regina opened her eyes again and looked at Emma, who was suddenly much closer to her than she would have expected.

"Get some rest," she repeated, "I'll unpack your things in the meantime."

But Regina shook her head and tried to push herself up off the sofa again, but she couldn't because Emma was still holding her down by the shoulder.

"Lie down. This is doctor's orders," she smirked, removing her right shoe first and then, a little more carefully, her left shoe, before gently pushing her into a lying position and lifting her sick leg onto the sofa after stacking some pillows to support her knee.

Sullenly, Regina watched her go as she disappeared from the room and returned moments later with a cooling pad wrapped in a towel from her icebox, which she packed onto her knee. She pulled the air through her teeth sharply as the sudden cold hit her overheated joint and let her head sink back onto the pillow defeatedly.

"Now you take another painkiller and I'll take care of everything else," Emma finally said, handing her one of her pills and a glass of water that she had fetched along with the cooling pad. The look Regina gave her as she accepted both would have probably sent anyone else running, but Emma just found it amusing what a bad patient Regina was, even though she just wanted to help her.

When the glass was empty, Regina set it down on the coffee table and let herself sink back in before folding her hands on her stomach and looking at Emma with an exaggeratedly well-behaved expression on her face.

"That's it," Emma nodded, simultaneously putting her flat hand to her chin, which she then moved down in an arc. "Do you want me to make you a coffee or tea?"

Regina's lips formed the word 'coffee' before she touched her chin with the fingertips of her flat hand and then moved them in Emma's direction.

The latter just nodded and disappeared into the kitchen. Regina thanked people all the time and for everything, so she had already learned the sign for 'thank you' on the first day. When she had been in the apartment the previous times, she had usually hurried and not looked around further, because she had felt like an intruder, but now that Regina was present, Emma took a little more time and looked at everything in detail.

The kitchen was as huge as the rest of the apartment and divided into several kitchen units, on which were the most numerous and modern appliances Emma had ever seen. She felt like she was in a store selling every electronic kitchen gadget there was. The living room and bedroom were equally impressive. Henry had all the space in the world, too and Emma was impressed with how neat his room was. But from what she had come to know of Regina, she did not allow mess. The only unusual thing that couldn't be found in a normal apartment were the lamps that were placed above the doors in each room. She was pretty sure they had to do with Regina's deafness, but that was all she could tell.

When the coffee was ready, Emma put two cups on a tray and balanced them back into the living room.

Regina had already sat up again, but had at least left her injured leg on the pillows and looked up at Emma as she appeared in the doorway.

"You're worse than the patients in the pediatric ward," Emma noted with a laugh. "They can't lie still either."

Regina reached for her smartphone and a moment later her app echoed her written words, "I'm used to having to do everything by myself. I usually cook around this time so Henry has something to eat when he gets home from school."

"Do you actually have a job?", Emma wanted to know. The question seemed foolish to her; after all, she was in a castle that one could hardly afford without a job, unless one had won the lottery or married rich, of which she was sure neither applied to Regina, but they had never talked about it until now. She could tell from Regina's grin that she, too, was amused by the question.

"My father left me a lot after he died, otherwise I couldn't afford this luxury here. But of course I also have a job," the electronic voice from Regina's cell phone answered. "I write and illustrate children's books."

"You're serious?" Emma retorted, finally settling down in one of the armchairs next to the couch with the tray in her hands. "That's great! I love children's stories. They're so much nicer than novels for adults, where everything is always so serious."

Laughing again, Regina bit her lower lip briefly before she clearly hesitantly began typing again. "I wrote a novel for adults. It's been years."

"What happened to it?", Emma wanted to know curiously.

Regina made the sign for 'nothing' and shrugged.

"Meaning?"

"It's still on my laptop and I never had it published," Regina's cell phone answered.

Uncomprehending, Emma moved forward to the edge of the armchair and shook her head. "Why not? Did you write it to keep it a secret?"

"I didn't think it was good enough."

Emma rolled her eyes and handed her the coffee cup which had no milk or sugar in it; by now she knew Regina drank her coffee exclusively black. "Your perfectionism is going to be your ruin one day," she sighed, sipping her own cup.

Before Regina drank as well, she eyed Emma with a tilted head and thought about it for a moment. Emma was right, of course; she was extremely perfectionistic, which often nearly drove her out of her mind because of her life situation. It wasn't easy as it was to get along as a deaf person in a hearing world and it was even harder to live up to her own expectations because she was constantly making too high demands on herself.

"Has anyone told you that your novel isn’t good?", Emma wanted to know after a moment. She had waited specifically until Regina looked up at her again.

"No one has read it."

Again, Emma shook her head. "You alone can't even judge whether others would like it or not. What's it about, anyway?"

Regina glanced at the clock and shook her head before carefully sliding to the edge of the sofa.

"What's this going to be?" Because Regina was not paying attention to her, Emma stood up and put a hand on her shoulder until she finally caught her eye. "Where are you going?"

'Henry will be here soon, I have to make him something to eat.'

Emma knew Regina had slowed the speed of her signing especially for her, but she still hadn't been able to understand more than 'Henry' and 'food'. "You want to make food for Henry?" she made sense of it and was relieved when Regina nodded.

The brunette reached for her crutches and screwed up her face as she stood up and put weight on the damaged leg.

"I can prepare something, can't I," Emma said, looking her in the eye. "Surely he likes noodles?!"

Hesitantly, Regina just looked at Emma at first and finally nodded slowly. She couldn't get used to having someone there to help her.

"Good," Emma whispered, staring at Regina's lips for a while before turning away and walking back into the kitchen. She could tell by the uneven footsteps behind her that Regina obviously wanted to be there while she cooked.

After showing her where things were, she took a seat at the dining table and watched Emma prepare the meal. Lost in thought, her gaze slid over the softly wavy blonde hair that flowed down the doctor's back and reached almost to her waist. She was slim, but still her muscles stood out under her tight-fitting white shirt. She wondered if she was working out or if the daily surgeries were strengthening her back and arms. Suddenly Regina noticed Emma looking at her and blushed as she caught her staring.

A slight smirk slid across Emma's lips before she stirred the pasta and sauce again and then came over to the table to pull out a chair for Regina to rest her leg on. "You need to elevate it a lot, even if you don't like it," she said when she was sure Regina had a clear view of her lips again.

Regina just scowled at her, then pinched her face for a moment as Emma lifted her aching leg. Once again she was annoyed at how clumsy she had been and stared at the orthotic immobilizing her knee as if it were responsible for the mishap.

"You need to learn to let someone help you for a change," Emma whispered, knowing full well that Regina hadn't been able to see her words and gently placed a hand on her shoulder.

Regina's jaw tightened and she let her gaze wander from Emma's hand up her arm and finally to her face. When she saw the smile the young doctor gave her, she immediately relaxed and placed her hand over Emma's.

Emma's heart was in her mouth at the touch and she couldn't help noticing the strand of hair that had curled out from behind Regina's ear. Instinctively, she reached out her free hand for it and tucked it behind her ear again. Pulling back, she gently grazed her cheek with her thumb without taking her eyes off her dark ones that were looking at her just as intensely.

It took all Regina's strength not to nestle her face against Emma's hand. She was all the more shocked when Emma suddenly leaned toward her and her lips were only a few inches from her own. She could already feel Emma's breath brushing against her skin and there was nothing she would rather have done at that moment than kiss her, but she couldn't do that. She couldn't let Emma get that close because in a few weeks, when she would be able to walk again, she would be out of her life and she wasn't ready to get that attached to her before then. As if fate had heard her silent plea, at that moment she looked over Emma's shoulder to see the pot of pasta boiling over and hastily pointed toward the stove.

Emma recoiled from her and had to come back to the here and now before she could react and turn down the heat on the stove. The smell of burnt water with oil filled the kitchen and made her wrinkle her nose before opening a window and then standing at the kitchen counter with her back to Regina and taking a deep breath. She was sure her face was the color of a ripe tomato. For a moment she had actually believed that Regina had feelings for her as well, but apparently she had been wrong. She hoped that this almost-kiss would not come between them in the next few weeks and make every situation awkward.

Frozen in place, Regina sat in her chair and wrapped her arms around her torso. She could still remember how it had felt when her first boyfriend, Daniel, whom she had dated for a while in high school, had kissed her for the first time. At the time she had thought there was no better feeling than that. Now she was horrified to discover that Emma Swan almost kissing her was an even better feeling. Without thinking more carefully about what she was doing, she finally grabbed her smartphone and hastily started typing. She had to end it before it could start, she just owed it to Henry and herself. Her thumb hesitated briefly over the button to play the text, but then she pressed it anyway. "I really like you, Emma. Certainly more than I should. But I think we should end it at this point. Thank you for having Henry with you this past week, I'll never forget that. Don't take this as me kicking you out, I just don't want to complicate things."

When the robotic voice cut through the sudden silence, Emma flinched. She slowly turned to Regina only after the last word had faded and looked her in the eye. "I'm sorry if I misinterpreted your feelings. We can just be friends too, that's fine with me. It doesn't have to be complicated." In reality, she wanted anything but that, but a friendship was a better alternative to not seeing Regina and Henry at all. Just the thought of leaving the apartment and being alone again, as she had been all her life, was unbearable.

Regina gulped, grabbed her crutches and left the kitchen as quickly as she could. She was so annoyed at having allowed Emma to take care of her that she would have liked to punch something.

"Regina!" Emma shouted her name and then hurried after her into the hallway, where she stomped her foot. She realized from Regina's stiffening that she had noticed her.

Taking a deep breath, she turned to the doctor again.

"I'm not just going to leave you here alone. I won't do that," Emma stated.

Regina pressed her lips tightly together and stared at her. Even if she had wanted to, she couldn't answer her because her cell phone had been left on the kitchen table.

Now it was up to Emma to take a deep breath. For a moment she looked at the floor before bravely lifting her gaze and looking Regina in the eye. "You're right, it's complicated because I fell in love with you and you can't reciprocate. But I'm an adult and I can handle it, I promise."

Tears shone in Regina's eyes, tears she would never allow to fall. She felt backed into a corner, lacking the opportunity to answer Emma. So she could only think of the most unreasonable thing to do at that moment. Without breaking eye contact, she raised her right hand and spread her thumb, index finger and pinky while closing her ring and middle fingers into a fist. It was a crapshoot, but she could tell by the look of disbelief from Emma's bright green eyes that she knew the sign and understood it.

"You love me too?" she whispered incredulously, knowing even as she said it that she had barely moved her lips and Regina could not possibly have understood her. Before she could say anything more, however, a key scraped in the lock of the apartment door behind the brunette before Henry was also standing in the hallway.

"Hey, Emma," he immediately called out to the young doctor as he slipped his shoes off his feet.

"Hi, kid," Emma replied.

Regina immediately turned her head toward the front door in response and gave her son a wry smile.

"Mom!" Henry beamed, stormily running towards her before braking at the last moment and carefully wrapping his arms around her middle so as not to upset her already shaky standing any further.

While Henry began to tell his mother something with his hands flying, Emma retreated unnoticed from the hallway and continued to tend to the food. By now the noodles were soft and the bottom layer burned into the pot. She hoped it couldn't be tasted. Her mind began to race as she drained the water and disposed of the burnt noodles before pouring the rest into a bowl and placing the sauce pot on the table.

"Wow, did you cook?" Henry suddenly asked as he came into the kitchen and noticed the table set.

"More or less," Emma nodded, pursing her lips. "It's a little burnt, I'm not exactly the best cook," she admitted.

A grin moved across Henry's face.

"What is it?"

The boy shrugged and only grinned wider. "My mom must really like you if she lets you cook in her kitchen. Cooking is one of those things she's super awesome at and doesn't trust anyone else with."

Emma swallowed and brushed her hair back. "Well then..." was all she replied. "I hope you're hungry and don't mind if it's not perfect. Where's your mom?"

"She said she was in pain and wanted to lie down," he explained as he took a seat and helped himself to the food.

"Enjoy your meal. I'm just going to check on her and make sure everything's all right," she excused herself to Henry, then went back into the living room. She moved quietly, though she didn't have to and hesitantly glanced over at the couch where Regina was sitting, hastily raising her head as she entered. Slowly Emma approached and nodded to the empty seat next to her, "May I?"

Regina shrugged and slid aside some more to make room for her.

Wordlessly at first, Emma sat down and propped her forearms on her knees. Finally, she looked up at Regina. "Henry said you were in pain."

Shaking her head, Regina denied the statement.

"You just wanted to be alone?!" Emma speculated in response.

Regina looked her in the eye and took a deep breath. There was so much she wanted to tell her, but all she could do was stare at her unblinkingly.

"Unless I completely misunderstood you earlier, you love me too. What's the problem, Regina?", Emma wanted to know and bravely reached for one of Regina's hands that was in her lap.

The touch made Regina's stomach do somersaults. Shaking her head, she withdrew her hand and stared at the floor.

Sighing, Emma eyed her for a while. Regina was really beautiful, but she had not fallen in love with her appearance, but with the woman who had not let anything get her down and had raised a child alone, although all circumstances had been against her. She radiated something sad and vulnerable alongside her strength and Emma felt the need to take her in her arms and reassure her that everything was okay. Instead, she handed her her own smartphone with the notes app open so she could answer her.

Regina looked at her for a while before accepting the cell phone and then staring at it instead.

Not wanting to crowd her, Emma got up and walked to the other end of the room, where she stopped in front of a large shelf of DVDs and CDs. Regina seemed to have quite a collection and Emma wondered why she owned music CDs if she was deaf from birth. It was only the knock on the tabletop that made her interrupt her musings and come back to Regina, who handed her the phone without looking at her.

'You deserve better.'

In disbelief, Emma read over and over the single line Regina had typed. Her disbelief soon turned to annoyance and with a furrowed brow she turned to Regina and waited for her to look at her. Since she didn't, Emma without further ado squatted in front of her, took her hands and looked up at her. "This is bullshit and you know it."

Regina's lips quivered and a haze of tears covered her eyes as she shook her head vehemently.

"Regina, what are you doing? You're a great woman who raised a great son. If you don't want me, that's one thing. But if you really think you're not good enough, that's not a reason I can accept," Emma declared with an iron gaze, holding her hands tightly, but without it being painful.

After a while Regina withdrew her hands, but only to have them free for typing. 'Give me time, please.'

Nodding slowly, Emma forced a small smile. Time she could give her.

Over the next few weeks, Emma was a frequent guest at the Mills' home. For the first few days, Regina was unable to do anything around the house and Emma even had to make her a bed for the night on the sofa since she couldn't make it up the stairs to her bedroom. The young doctor was more than uncomfortable leaving her alone overnight and having to work the next day. Regina's stubbornness and iron will meant that she was not one of those people who would sit on the sofa reasonably, so Emma feared that one day she would enter the apartment with the duplicate key Regina had given her and find her lying on the floor somewhere. Fortunately, however, it never came to that and Emma began to relax.

If she had the next day off or a late shift, she sometimes stayed overnight with Henry and Regina and the three of them had breakfast together before Henry had to go to school and Emma did the laundry and cleaned the apartment. She and Regina had never again addressed the events of the first day in all the time that passed.

However, Emma felt the looks with which the brunette beauty covered her while she was vacuuming that afternoon and was pretty sure that she was not just checking if she was doing the job properly. Since the living room was the last room she had to clean, she finally turned off the device and turned to Regina. "That's it, I'm done," she said unimaginatively and sat down in the armchair across from Regina.

The latter only nodded briefly and gave her a smile before chewing nervously on her lower lip.

"Hey, what I've been meaning to ask you all along: How come you own so much music?", Emma finally asked, not wanting to embarrass Regina further and hoping the question wasn't disrespectful or insensitive. "I mean... you said you haven't been able to hear anything since you were born." She kept accompanying her verbal words with sign language as far as she knew and had memorized it. Her vocabulary had already improved immensely in the past few weeks, as she spent every free minute learning Regina's language via an app or together with Henry. She didn't just want her to understand her better; she thought it was polite not to expect her to conform and make no effort herself.

Regina smiled, bending her middle finger and rubbing it over her chest.

"You feel it?" Emma asked, raising her brows.

Regina nodded and raised a finger to indicate she should wait. With only a crutch by now, she walked over to the CD player with the big speakers and put in a CD. Before pressing play, she told Emma to cover her ears before a song by Bette Middler blasted out of the speakers at a deafening volume.

Somewhat startled, Emma pressed her hands even tighter over her ears, then watched Regina lean over to the speakers with her eyes closed and place her hands on them.

Her lips twisted into a blissful smile as she enjoyed the vibrations caused by the highs and lows of the instruments and the singer's voice, nodding her head to the beat.

Emma wasn't sure she had ever seen Regina with such a relaxed expression on her face. At most, Henry managed to make her seem so happy and content.

When the song was over, Regina opened her eyes again for the first time and stopped the track before seeking Emma's gaze.

"You love music, don't you?" the latter inquired softly as she removed her hands from her ears.

Nodding, Regina came limping back to the sofa and settled down on it. "I don't know what music sounds like to you, but I know nothing more impressive than the interplay of these different strong vibrations. They are all unique and make a masterful whole," Regina's smartphone echoed her written words a moment later.

Emma slightly contorted her face, which was not due to the statement, however, but to the robotic voice. She thought it was a good time to tell Regina. "You know what you're saying, the way you perceive music, it sounds beautiful."

Irritated by the inconsistency of Emma's words and her expression, Regina screwed up her face in confusion.

"I've wanted to tell you this for a long time, but I didn't know how. I didn't mean to offend you. You do everything you can to make sure we can communicate as easily as possible and I'm grateful for that, so I didn't say anything. So... You think it's fantastic how the vibrations feel. It fills you with happiness and you feel comfortable with it and I... well, I feel that way about your voice. I realize you don't know what your voice sounds like," she quickly added as Regina's posture closed off, "and I don't want you to use it because of me. Your signs are your language and that's perfectly fine with me. It's just... I know what your voice sounds like and I think it's beautiful and what's coming out of the phone doesn't remotely resemble it and feels wrong. It's like another person is saying your words and I don't want that. I always want to know what you have to say and reading it doesn't bother me because then I can imagine how you would sound saying it out loud."

Regina clenched her teeth so tightly that the muscles around her jaw twitched. Emma could say and explain whatever she wanted, for her it felt like she was missing something as long as she didn't talk to her like normal people. She didn't want an argument, though, and disappointment won out over her anger anyway, so she lowered her eyes rather than leave the room or send Emma away.

Frustrated, Emma sighed when eye contact was broken and reached for her cell phone, typing hastily into it. Invitingly, she held it out to Regina when she finished, to which she hesitantly took it from her. ‘I can well imagine what's going on in your mind right now. But none of it is meant badly or should force you to do anything. I like your voice, that's all. It's pleasantly deep, slightly raspy. When I hear it, I have a feeling of security and when I read your words, I imagine in my mind how they would sound if you were to say them. I'm sure you also imagine how I would move my lips while saying those words to you and how I would smile at one point or another. Hearing your words in a strange voice is like having a stranger come in and deliver my words to you. It's confusing and feels wrong.' Emma was more than relieved when Regina's posture seemed to relax again the longer she read and breathed a sigh of relief.

When Regina finished reading, she raised her head and nodded slowly. Apologetically, she smiled a little wryly at Emma and then slid her cell phone back to her, into which she had typed her reply. 'I'm sorry for being so hostile sometimes. I'm very sensitive when people try to force me to talk.'

"I know that and you don't have to apologize for that," Emma quickly replied, squeezing her hand that she could just about reach from where she was sitting. "I would never make you do that."

Gratefully, Regina nodded again and then used her own cell phone to write, but without using the play-function. 'I know you had an early shift today, stood in the OR half the day and then cleaned up here... But can I ask for one more thing?'

"Of course you can." Emma almost whispered as she eyed Regina's beautiful dark eyes. She probably would have jumped out the window if she had asked her to. The butterflies in her stomach swirled almost painfully, but for the sake of peace she had not dared to make any further advance and was content to enjoy Regina's presence.

'My physical therapist is on vacation for three days. Can you maybe help me with the exercises? I can only manage a few on my own.'

When Emma looked at her again, she noticed the embarrassed expression in Regina's eyes. “With pleasure,” she replied gently. She knew her way around only roughly, but had watched often enough in the last few days to know what the procedure was. Regina knew everything else herself anyway. So without further request she got up and took the exercise mat out of the hall closet, which she then unrolled on the carpeted floor of the living room. Carefully, she then helped Regina to her feet and escorted her to the mat, where she slowly lowered her to the floor. The scent of her apple shampoo rose to her nostrils as she bent over her and she had to exert tremendous willpower not to bury her face in it. "Are you okay?", Emma wanted to know when Regina finally lay flat on the floor, her bad leg in the orthotic not fully extended.

Nodding, she gave her a thumbs up and hoped Emma hadn't noticed the goosebumps crawling up her arms. Being so close to Emma and not being allowed to pull her even closer was taking a toll on her. It didn't get any better when the doctor lifted her damaged leg and bent and stretched it in slow, steady movements. Regina concentrated on her breathing and on moving her leg along, distracting herself with little success from the fact that it was Emma's hands that were on her thigh and lower leg.

"Painful or good to bear?", Emma wanted to know after a while. Receiving another thumbs-up in response from Regina, she bent her knee a little further beyond resistance until the young woman screwed up her face and bit her lower lip. "I'm sorry. But you've made quite a bit of progress," she noted as she immediately reduced the bending angle again in response.

Regina rolled her eyes and looked at the orthotic in annoyance. The flexion she managed was still nowhere near normal and of course that wasn't enough for her ambition.

"I know patience isn't your strong point, but I'm serious. Looks like Whale and I did a good job," she grinned.

Regina responded with a sarcastic smirk and then continued to do her exercises to Emma's and her own satisfaction.

Emma, too, remained silent for the next fifteen minutes, during which she passively moved Regina's leg, helped her lift it up and put it down again and corrected her movements when she was able to accomplish exercises on her own. They formed a unit that didn't need to communicate to understand each other, as if it wasn't the premiere, but as if they did the exercises together every day.

'Thank you,' Regina finally signed before she sat up and came to rest on the exercise mat.

Emma bent down to her and gently slipped her arms under her armpits to help her back up off the floor, but when she touched her and their faces were even, she paused and looked her in the eye.

Regina made no move to get up either and returned her gaze. She knew that Emma would not try anything more and she had to take the first step if she wanted more. Her heart beat wildly in her chest and she held her breath for a few seconds. She had to make a decision because if Emma sensed her hesitation, she would help her up and the moment would pass. When she perceived Emma's grip on her shoulder blades tightening, she put her hands on her shoulders and pulled her a little further towards her. She didn't want to think and weigh up and hesitate anymore. She wanted this so badly that she stretched her neck slightly and pressed her lips to Emma's. From the way Emma returned the kiss, Regina could tell that her advance did not come as a surprise or unwanted by Emma. Rather, her lips were greedy and gentle at the same time, as if she had been waiting for this moment for too long.

Emma enjoyed the kiss like nothing else. She hadn't expected it and so it felt all the better when Regina's soft lips met hers. Full of pleasure, she closed her eyes and slid a hand into Regina's silky hair. But as surprisingly as the kiss had begun, it ended and she opened her eyes to look at Regina.

She smiled wryly and bit her lower lip before lowering her eyes in shame.

Gently, Emma put her hand under Regina's chin so she could lift her head again and look into her eyes. "That was incredibly awesome."

Regina just nodded and took the next opportunity to look away from her again. 'Incredibly awesome' couldn't even begin to describe her emotions. She had never felt anything like it and could have stayed like that for hours, just not to lose the closeness to Emma. But she was still convinced that she wasn't good enough for her and hated herself for that moment of weakness that must have awakened new hopes in Emma.

"And you already regret it," Emma muttered to herself, since Regina wasn't looking at her anyway. Sighing, she straightened up again, pressed a kiss to the top of her head, and then pulled her to her feet as she had originally planned.

As soon as she was able to manage on her own again, Regina put distance between herself and Emma and limped back to the couch, where she put her leg up. Her knee was throbbing uncomfortably and since she didn't want to think about the kiss and instead fully focused on her injury, the uncomfortable pressure soon turned into an almost unbearable pain that made her contort her face. She hadn't noticed that Emma had left the room, so she didn't look up at her again until the young doctor held a glass of water in front of her face and tossed the blister with her painkillers into her lap.

"I guess we overdid it a bit," Emma said, who noticed that her statement couldn't have been more ambiguous.

Regina nodded curtly and held Emma's gaze from green eyes for a moment longer than necessary before taking a pill and lying down.

"I guess I'd better go, then," Emma said before Regina could close her eyes, cutting her out. "There's food in the fridge, and of course if there's anything you need, you can always call."

It was clear Regina was struggling with herself, but after a few seconds had passed, she nodded her head, making no effort to stop her.

January turned into February and after Emma celebrated Regina's birthday together with mother and son, she became more and more aware that the time to say goodbye was getting closer.

Regina was making more significant progress with each passing week and even though the orthotic continued to splint her leg, she was now walking without crutches and, strictly speaking, no longer needed Emma's help.

While Regina was walking better and better, Emma was relentlessly learning her language. The movements of her fingers and hands were no longer clumsy, but seemed more natural, and she could communicate with Regina and Henry almost easily without verbal words.

"Emma? Hello?"

Emma only startled out of her thoughts when Henry waved his hand in front of her face. "Sorry, kid. What's wrong?"

The ten-year-old rolled his eyes theatrically and pointed to the deck of cards on the table in front of them. "Your turn, that's wrong."

"Sorry, I was in thought," she admitted, staring at the cards she held.

"I noticed. What's is it?" Henry inquired immediately.

Emma selected a card and placed it on the discard pile before looking back up at him. "Nothing. Adult stuff."

Henry's eyebrows went up. "And I'm supposed to believe that?"

"You got a reason not to believe me?"

Snorting, Henry placed his cards face down on the table and took a sip from his orange juice. "Not really, but I know exactly what you're thinking about."

"You do?" Emma sighed, propping her chin in her palm. "And that would be?"

"About my mom. You like her and she likes you and really we don't need your help anymore, but yet you're still hanging around. That didn't sound nice..." he stated to himself. "I think it's great that you're here. But you're wondering how much longer you can stay here without it seeming weird."

"Woah, okay. Your turn," she immediately shut off, nodding to the deck of cards. She didn't know how it was possible, but the boy was always absolutely right in a seemingly magical way and she wasn't about to admit that to herself.

Ignoring his deck of cards, Henry continued to look at Emma. "I'd like it if you stayed with us forever," he said quietly after a while.

"I'd like that too," Emma admitted, looking away from him.

"Then why don't you tell my mom you love her?"

"Kid, that's exactly what I did. And do you know how she responded to that?" she asked challengingly.

Tensely, Henry looked at her.

So Emma raised her hand in the air and made the sign for 'I love you.'

Henry's eyes widened and a glow ran across his childlike face. "But that's great, then I don't understand why you pull such a face!"

"Henry, you know your mom. Do you think she's going to fall in love with me and ask me to move in here as a result?" she asked rhetorically, sighing. "No, she's shutting herself off and explaining to me in a very rational way that she loves me but can't be with me because she's not worthy of me."

"Then convince her otherwise! You're some kind of superhero, you make people well again. That shouldn't be a problem for you," Henry grinned.

Snorting, Emma shook her head in disbelief. "That's easy for you to say. I'm not good at that kind of emotional stuff," she admitted. Sensing movement out of the corner of her eye and turning toward the door, she immediately blushed as she realized Regina was leaning there, a large white bath towel wrapped around her middle and a smaller one on her head as a turban to dry her wet hair. 'How was the shower?" she asked unimaginatively in sign language.

'Wonderful,' Regina answered, who couldn’t wait for her physical condition to finally allow her to get in the shower again. She had been washing her hair regularly, but a head in the sink and a washcloth were no replacement for a real shower. Smiling, she eyed Emma and her son.

Henry couldn't help grinning as he looked back and forth between the two women and finally slid off his chair.

"Where do you think you're going, we're in the middle of a game!" Emma replied horrified. She wasn't even remotely concerned about the card game, but rather that he was obviously deliberately leaving her alone with his mother.

Henry didn't reply anything, just said a few sentences to his mother, which were much too fast for Emma to translate, before he ran up the stairs and disappeared behind the door of his room.

Emma lowered her eyes and bit her lower lip as she gathered her deck of cards and placed it on the table. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to Regina and stroked a hand through her hair. 'I should go,' she said in sign language and stood up from the table.

'You can stay for dinner. I’ll make lasagna,' Regina replied, tilting her head slightly and smirking, knowing how much Emma loved her lasagna. In fact, she had never known anyone to eat so much of it. Or anyone who had eaten so much at all.

Emma shook her head. 'No. I mean, I should go. You don't need my help anymore.'

For a while Regina continued to look at her uncomprehendingly, but eventually it dawned on her what Emma was getting at and her face took on an almost horrified expression. She had become so accustomed to Emma's presence that the idea of suddenly not having her with her brought tears to her eyes. Without saying anything, she turned and climbed the stairs as fast as she could and went back into the bathroom. In front of the mirror, she pulled the towel from her head, whereupon her strands of hair, which appeared almost black when wet, fell around her face. Sad eyes met her gaze and she struggled with herself like never before. Emma was here and she was real and a gesture with her hand from her would be enough to make her stay here forever. She wasn't the first woman she had tried a relationship with and the problem was that her experience with it had been exclusively negative. So over time, she had gotten into the habit of keeping her love affairs at a distance to avoid the inevitable outcome and not get hurt again. But this time was different. Emma had already become so much a part of her and Henry's lives that she wondered how her son would cope with the loss of the young doctor. On the other hand, it had only been weeks, and even though Regina had been attracted to Emma from the first moment they met, a relationship meant something more to her than that. She wasn't exactly one of those people who believed in love at first sight. Sighing, she dropped her bath towel to the floor and reached for the clothes she had laid out before showering.

Emma was still standing in the kitchen, one hand on the back of the chair she had been sitting on, the other on her hip. She just wasn’t able to make head or tail of Regina's behavior. On the one hand, she was sending out clear signals, but on the other, she immediately curled up like a hedgehog as soon as Emma reacted. A glance at her wristwatch told her that she still had a few hours before her night shift would start, but she didn't want to stay that long. She had to finally end this, whatever it was, with a clean cut. After all, she didn't even know what her role was in all of this anymore. Now that she didn't need to help Regina out anymore, she was just an acquaintance who was always hanging around their place and that had to end. Emma hurriedly ran into the living room and gathered up her belongings, which had accumulated over the past weeks and were scattered all over the room. Vigorously, she stuffed everything into her backpack and threw it next to the apartment door. She considered for a moment whether she should at least say goodbye to Henry, but she doubted she could still leave so easily when his hazel eyes eyed her pleadingly, so she slipped into her red leather jacket that hung next to the door and threw the backpack on her back. Her gaze went over her shoulder again and slid down the entry hall before she reached for the door handle. "Get a grip, this isn't a fairy tale, it's reality. Did you really think it was going to be this easy?" she whispered to herself, shaking her head as she opened the door.

"Emma, wait!"

Thunderstruck, Emma paused and slowly turned back around.

Regina stood halfway up the stairs, her hair still wet, but her body by now wrapped in black cloth pants and a white blouse, the top buttons of which were not yet fully closed. "Stay!"

Emma dropped her backpack to the floor and shook her head. "No," she whispered.

"Please, Emma!" Regina's words were so slurred they could barely be understood and far too loud, but she was desperate and the orthotic on her leg slowed her down on the way down the stairs, so she was afraid Emma might leave before she reached her.

The doctor was still shaking her head, however. She didn't feel like leaving, quite the opposite: her steps carried her towards Regina and when she stumbled on the second to last step, she caught her and pulled her into her arms. Her free hand stroked the back of her head.

"Emma, I...," Regina began, but Emma put her index finger to her lips and stopped her.

Firmly she looked into her eyes and then shook her head again. "Stop, please."

Tears welled up in Regina's eyes as she read the words from Emma's lips.

Emma's gaze became gentle as she stroked Regina's cheek with the back of her hand, wiping away a stray tear. "I didn't mean it like that," she whispered, placing a kiss on her forehead. "I want to stay and as far as I’m concerned, I want to stay forever. I just want you to stop talking. This isn't you. You hate it, I know you do. So don't do it for me, only do it if you really want to. I won't ever let you bend for me, okay?"

Regina's lips trembled, but finally they twisted into a smile and she nodded slowly.

Emma returned the smile and again buried her hand in Regina's damp hair. "May I?" she asked, her eyes fixed on her mouth.

Again, Regina nodded and as Emma's lips pressed to hers and she closed her eyes, she felt as if a heavy weight was falling off her. 'I love you,' she signed to Emma as the kiss ended and they looked at each other again.

'I love you too,' Emma replied in sign language as well and although they had faced each other this way before, it felt different now. This time they had a future lying ahead of them and Emma couldn't wait to find out what it would be like.