Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There is a TV left on and flickering, it only ever says one thing.

The cornfield switches and the tall grasses stir.

There are three jarring buzzing blares. Buzz…buzz…buzz…

Regina slides her hand up Emma’s shirt.

…followed by one drawn ring. Beeeeeep….

Their lips lock and a few tears slip down Emma’s cheeks.

Inside the manor the TV flashes. 

The fireflies stir around them and Regina’s top falls into the tall, untamed grass.

An oldies tune is drowned out by static and crickets.

Her bra joins it.

And the warning begins to play…

Emma is topless and braless too. 

The same loop that has been playing for the past two months. Eventually the radio will sputter out on one last cough of static but not before the TV blips quiet. The power grid has sustained itself a lot longer than Emma would have thought. 

The best night of Emma’s life happens on July 23rd. And so does the worst night of her life. 

“Please remain indoors with the locks firmly in place, barricade…”

Emma’s hand slide down from Regina’s hips to her thighs..

“Effecting states from California all the way to Maine and Florida…”

Her fingers trace the bite mark on Regina’s outer thigh.

Chapter Text

The TV has gone dead.

The tall grass has browned and withered. 

The radio has lost signal. 

The leaves have lost their green.

And the burning foliage has lost its charm without Regina to wax over its beauty. 

Emma draws the curtains. 

Better to do it now anyways. 

She moves away from the window and crawls into bed.

It is only 3PM.

.oOo.

Emma shudders. 

The clock has long since gone dead as everything else in the world. But she knows that it is 11:47 PM. 

She hates 11:47 PM.

She craves 11:47 PM.

If Archie were still around she is sure he would have had something to say about that.

To see her face is a gift and a thing to dread.

Emma shudders again, twice as hard at the rattling of the side door. 

How long has it been now? Since all of this began? Long enough that she no longer jumps nor jolts at every little sound. Although the rattling of the side door still gets to her. It is the only thing that can. The others aren’t smart enough to go to the side door, they all crowd the front porch and amass on the back patio. 

But then, she doesn’t think that Regina is either.

Not anymore. 

It’s probably a coincidence. At most it is more of a habit or musclememory.

Definitely habit, one final flicker of the woman she had been.

Regina always had been a woman of routine and habit and she has taken that to her death and undeath. But back then it had been pointed and thoughtful. Now it is an instinctual autopilot. A familiar path that her mind still knows and her body is still capable of following.

A body that is diminishing further by the day and the intense summer heat doesn’t do it any favors. She still looks like Regina for now, mostly. Not like Ruby who has since shed her jaw or Grumpy who is down an eye, a nose and three fingers. Not like her father who stumbles about dragging his guts behind him, a host to maggots among other things. He was one of the first to die. 

Regina, she is still Regina.

Mostly. 

Regina would never let herself look so filthy and disheveled. She would never dress in attire that raggedy and would complain for hours upon finding a stain on any part of her immaculate clothing. She had stopped complaining about that several weeks into the outbreak.

But her face, though sullen, off color, and a touch sunken, is still perfectly intact. 

And that makes it worse.

Much worse.

If Emma didn’t know any better she would say that Regina is just ill. Ill and with no appetite. 

Technically she is ill, very horribly sick. But she has an appetite alright…

Her hair is knotted, bordering on matted. And there is a cloudiness in her eyes that wasn’t there before. Not last night as far as Emma could tell. She thinks that the patch of rot might have spread too but it is hard to see Regina’s leg through the slanted window of the side door. She can, however, clearly see the blood in the woman’s teeth. Emma wonders who she had managed to bite. Perhaps Dr. Whale? Or maybe Whale had been rescued as he vowed he would be after claiming that he could come up with a cure. It could have been Archie too. He refused to leave Pongo. The zombies don’t seem to bother Pongo. Or any animals for that matter, not the smaller ones anyways. 

Not yet. 

Pongo, she thinks with a flutter in her belly, might be on thin ice. 

Emma misses deer. And wolves. She wonders what it would have been like to have Graham around. Every zombie apocalypse needs a sexy sheriff with a scruffy goatee. She has the sexy sherriff part down. In a few months she might just get the facial hair portion down too. She laughs out loud to herself, she can clearly imagine the sound of Regina’s voice demanding that she shave. She chuckles again. 

She has to.

She needs a good laugh now and then. 

And who else is going to make her laugh. 

“Hey, Gina!” She calls to the thing that used to be the woman she loves. “You’ll give me some grace right!? I mean we’re in the middle of a zombie apocalypse for Christ’s sake!”  And she allows herself a cackle. 

“I’m sorry.” She apologizes. “I know that you hate the texture of facial hair.” And she flops back down on the sofa. 

Emma supposes that it doesn’t matter who Regina had gotten to, only that she has managed to make a meal of someone. Somehow that seems to make it official. More official than the grunting and the awkward gait. More official than the rash. The blood clots upon her lips, a true zombie. 

Emma tries to redirect her mind a second time but her eyes keep wandering to those grotesque teeth, Emma swears that there is gamey chuck of meat or a flap of skin stuck between them. It crosses her mind for the upteenth time to be the woman’s angel of death.

Authentic death. True death.

Death as it is meant to be. 

Regina would be disgusted, absolutely appalled by the state of herself and that makes it all the worse. 

Does Regina not deserve to die with the poise and dignity that she had possessed in life? It’s a little too late for that. She had already died twitching, spasming, and frothing.
Like an animal. 

A rabid fucking animal. 

Reduced to a sloppy, dumb parody of herself. 

She holds the gun level with Regina’s forehead. Through the scope she can see the see the little red dot at the very center of the woman’s grimy forehead. 

Her finger tightens around the trigger but not hard enough to fire. 

Every time she does, she sees some vision or another. Playing in her mind like a movie; a reel of Regina barefoot and running through sprinklers with Henry, pants grass stained at the knees—she had complained about that later that night. She sees Regina with a firefly on her fingertip. And she sees Regina with a snarl on her face. Regina snapping at her after she had dragged the woman’s ass out of the burning town hall. She sees those soft loving eyes. She sees those furious vicious glares. She sees those eyes filled with tears and arms clutching a pillow to her chest. She envisions an arm reaching across the blankets. She can still feel the woman stroking her arm. 

Stroking the very bicep that is holding the weight of a gun level with her head.

Emma’s finger tightens around the trigger again. She grits her teeth. But she can’t do it. She can’t squeeze any tighter. She can’t see through the tears that spring to her eyes. The woman she loves thrashes against the door that Emma presses herself against. It rattles in its frame. Emma knows that she should be wary of how much pounding that the door can take before it gives way. Especially given how often she finds herself with her ear to this door. And suddenly, as it always does, the pounding stops. 

And Emma is watching Regina shamble and limp back to her other usual haunt, the sidewalk that will take her to the town hall. She wonders if the woman ever makes it there. She speculates that she must, at least sometimes. 

There are periods of time where she is absent.

Periods of time that come as a relief but also bring a potent sense of dread. Like losing the woman anew.

But then she comes back.

And slightly different…slightly more grotesque than the last time.

Emma wonders if she is going to conduct some zombie press conference.

What do zombies talk about? Which human limbs are the most savory? How to rock the ripped jean, blouse askew with buttons missing look?

Emma laughs out loud again. 

Emma screams. 

She laughs and she screams and she cries at the same time.

She should leave.

Leave the mansion. 

Leave Storybrooke. 

Get as far away as possible before she goes insane.

But she doesn’t want Regina to be lonely.

No one else talks to her. 

And she had made a promise.

She promised Regina that she would never leave her as long as they were both alive. 

Emma is alive. 

And Regina is still…animated? She is alive in some capacity.

Emma beats her fist against the side of her head. This is madness. Stupidity. Foolishness. 

Regina can’t feel loneliness. She can’t feel anything but hunger. And even that feeling is more of a base instinct than anything genuine.  

Regina is gone. 

Emma should just pull the damn trigger and leave too.

Maybe she just needs to wait it out. Wait for decomposition to do what it does best. Needs to wait for the woman’s skin to start to peel and slough away. Wait for her wounds to begin weeping. Wait for her sores to start to fest. Wait until she is so decayed that she is unpleasant to look at. Maybe all that she needs to do is wait for Regina to become so unrecognizable that she can pretend that her true love is just another animated body among a battlefield of them. 

But tonight…

Tonight Regina still looks like Regina. 

Sickly, disheveled, and discolored. 

But still undeniably Regina. 

Chapter Text

They had gotten too comfortable—had fortified themselves so well that they had grown careless. Rather she had and Regina was the one who paid the price.

“July 19th.” Regina declares.

Emma doesn’t know why she is keeping track—there are no appointments to track, meetings to attend, nor jobs to go to. No deadlines in a dead world.

A sense of normalcy if Emma had to guess. And now it sticks out in her mind—July 19th, the day that the two of them had gotten brazen enough to venture to Acadia National Park. They ha just wanted a taste of yesterday. Of the world before the rot.

“I’d like to see the lighthouse. All of this time in Maine and I’ve never been.” Regina mentions. All of this time in Maine and she had been confined to Storybrooke for almost all of it. 

And just like that they had left the fortified confines of the manor, climbed into Regina’s now beaten Benz, and wasted precious gas.   Regina rests her head on the passenger side window—now and then Emma glances at her— catches the rising sun flickering on her face. Beautiful…golden. No matter how much she insists that she needs her makeup or a haircut or both. In another glance she is smiling at the sun. For a moment Emma can pretend that they are in another time two years prior, before all of this started. Two years prior when Regina’s skin was kissed by sunlight instead of smudged with dirt. When phones still had service and Henry was home for the summer.

He would be celebrating his graduation.

Should be.

He never made it home.

And Regina never made a full recovery. 

Emma promises her that Henry is out there somewhere trying to make it back to Storybrooke. But how? He had been somewhere in Cali. They both know that Sacramento was ground zero and it spread fast and far.

When was the last time that she saw Regina smile?

They pull into an overgrown parking lot. 9:15AM according to an analog clock that may or may not be accurate. The position of the sun suggests that it might be.

“You look nervous.” 

“Didn’t you notice that we didn’t see any of the infected for our whole ride?”

“Thank God, right?”

Regina bites her lower lip. 

Emma should learn to listen to her and take heed of her silences. “Come on lets have a nice day.”

They have all of the ingredients for a nice day; warmth in the air, the tench of brine upon it, a light breeze to stir the pines around the cliff that they will ascend. Suchshine, of course, and blue skies. 

She just has to focus on the sound of the ocean waves and ignore the faint scent of rot. She pulls out a portable radio. Mistake number three of the day. Zach Bryan and Lynyrd Skynyrd were not worth Regina.

But she was high on the first good ay that she’s had in ages and emboldened by the roar of the ocean. By the slapping of the waves on rocky cliffs. 

And that’s where Emma spreads the picnic blanket, right there on the cliff in the shadow of the Bass Harbor Head Lighthouse. Now poorly maintained, the lighthouse’s white paint job is discolored and partially reclaimed by the nature around it. There are marks of red upon it to match its roof but Emma knows that this isn’t the product of paint. She sighs, everywhere they go there is some reminder…

“Okay so I got some canned peaches, some canned carrots, some canned chicken noodle soup, and…” She grins. “The prize of the day, freeze dried coconut curry and some granola bars.” Some fresh fruits would be nice, Emma imagines juicy watermelons and icecubes clicking around in pink lemonade, but beggars can’t be choosers. At least they don’t have to start hunting yet. 

“Sounds wonderful, Emma.” Regina smiles. She lays herself down on the picnic blanket. Emma can tell that she is trying to avoid looking at the lighthouse that she had been dying to see. But it isn’t so photogenic decorated with smeared bloody handprints and a partially decayed corpse in the doorway. 

Regina puts a bullet in its skull for good measure. And Emma drags it into the lighthouse. Out of sight and, some thirty minutes into their picnic, out of mind.

They have their fill of freeze dried meals and canned goods and Regina lays back to watch the clouds roll by. She reaches up and touches Emma’s cheek. Cups it, caresses it. Emma kisses her cheek.

“I’m glad that we can still hear the birds.” Is what Regina remarks. 

What goes unspoken is that she misses hearing other creatures scampering around. Deer, fox, and wolves. 

Emma turns the radio up and Losing It comes through the speakers. At least that’s what Regina says. Emma isn’t much into indie folk and rock so she takes Regina’s word for it. “Gabrielle Grace isn’t one of my favorites but Henry bought this album for me…” And it was the one that she had forgotten to take out of the Benz. “It’s good hiking music, I think.” Emma comments. 

“Indeed.” And she clasps her hands atop her belly and stares at the swishing of the canopy. Emma lays herself down next to her and cups a hand over Regina’s. 

She gives that hand a good squeeze. 

They lay like that for quite some time.

Until Regina’s body jerks.

“Emma, turn it down or off.” She is on her feet, pistol in hand. 

Where had Emma left her shotgun? In the trunk? At the base of the cliff? 

The rustles come from the bushes. Regina fires the pistol and a raccoon dashes out with a hiss. 

Mistake number four of the day. 

They had made too much noise.

Regina closes her eyes, exhales, and flops back down onto the picnic blanket. 

“Wanna go for a swim?”

“I don’t have the right clothes for that.”

“At least walk with me on the beach? We came all this way.”

Regina chews on her lip again. 

“That raccoon really has you rattled, huh?”

“This whole infection thing has me rattled.” She pauses. “I’m tired, Emma. I’m so tired of having to always be on guard.”

“Then let your guard down just this once.” 

Regina sights. “Alright…just this once.”

And they are running towards the waves. Emma feels young again, like a teenager in an endless summer. She scoops Regina into her arms and spins her around.

“I should have brought some soap.” 

“Ocean water is no good to bathe in anyhow. We have the river beneath the toll bridge.”

“You know, I thought that I’d never have to deal with a lack of adequate plumbing ever again.” 

Emma laughs. “Well I think that it’s kind of fun sometimes, you know?”

Regina quirks a brow. “I guess that if you enjoy the possibility of getting leeches from bathing.”

“I enjoy the thrill of it.” Emma winks. “Ticks are exciting too because you never know where you’re gonna find ‘em!”

Regina crinkles her nose. “Emma, if I have to pull one more tick off of you…” She rolls her eyes. 

She is jesting along but Emma, too late to backpedal, recalls that just a week or so ago Regina had been absolutely convinced that the virus came from ticks and nothing she did or said could convince her otherwise. And maybe that’s because Emma couldn’t entirely convince herself either. Really they can’t rule out anything. Nobody knows exactly where the virus had come from. Just that it started in Sacramento. At least in the US. Europe had experienced its own outbreak on the same day in Latvia of all places and Singapore took center stage for the virus in Asia.

Emma thinks that it might have come from the ocean. Hadn’t some organization opened up a new oil rig or something? Or maybe some scientific agency had started digging around in dark trenches. 

Whatever the case, Emma is just glad that Regina seems to be over her fixation on solving the unsolvable, done with all of the conspiracy theories that seemed to occupy and fog her mind especially when it was time to sleep. 

She had mentioned that she would rather contemplate the how’s and obsessively churn out theories than imagine what Henry might be up to or worse…imagine how he might look shambling around as a zombie. An image that has appeared in Emma’s own nightmares now and then…

Emma takes her hand and leads her towards the water’s edge. They don’t enter. 

Instead, Regina catches her into a hug and clings on tight. She closes her eyes and presses her forehead against Emma’s chest. Emma savors each breath on her collarbone. Regina squeezes tighter.

And Emma is glad in retrospect that Regina had hugged her instead of going straight into the water.

Everything after that had happened so fast. 

She doesn’t remember all of it. In part due to the speed and chaos but mostly because she doesn’t want to—that memory has now been safely repressed. Repressed until it comes drifting back in on a nightmare just to be forgotten on a jolt and a scream when the sun rises. 

But she does remember the look in Regina’s eyes. 

The fear.

The sorrow. 

The little fragment of hope. 

When they thought that amputating a limb could save her. 

It probably would have had they been back at home. 

But the had, had an hour drive between them and any place with both a saw and a means to stop the bleeding. At any rate, Emma had assumed that it would be quicker to speed down the road than spend precious minutes scavenging for supplies that might not be there. At any rate, panic made it hard to think of ways to improvise; they had passed a house with an axe and she could have used her jacket or a rope or anything really to slow the bleeding. 

Hindsight…

“Emma.” Regina bites her lip. Her voice is so soft. It quivers. “I’m sorry.” 

Sorry for what? That she got bit? Emma swallows hard. “It’s not your fault.” It’s her fault. This whole stupid trip was Emma’s idea. And after Regina had expressed reluctance. Emma slams her fist on the steering wheel. She is so stupid! She should have listened! But she’s just so stubborn and so immature and just had to have a silly beach day. 

She likes to play pretend. Likes to force happiness into moments that aren’t made for it—a trait that she must have gotten from her mother. The very trait that got the woman killed. 

Emma grits her teeth and swallows a lump in her throat. She can’t think about her parents. Not now.

She can still save Regina!

She just has to drive. 

And the speedometer climbs from 90 to 100 and then to 110.

“Emma…please don’t crash my Benz.” 

She thinks that it was supposed to be a joke. A lighthearted way of reminding her that they need this car, it’s a type of lifeline.

The speedometer climbs to 115.

It’s not like there are any other cars on this road.

None that haven’t already crashed. 

“I love you, Emma.”

“Uh-uh! Don’t you say that! I don’t want a fucking goodbye!” She doesn’t mean to yell. She hopes that Regina knows that.

“Please just say it back, Emma. Please…”

But Emma didn’t because she had still been convinced that Regina would make it.

Chapter Text

Knock knock knock.

It is just part of the night ambiance. The ambiance of the last few months. 

They all knock and pound. Why would Regina be any different? Emma chalks it up to location and a touch of imagination. The zombies are a hive mind and they all pound thoughtlessly on the front and back doors. Regina always takes the side door and in  her isolation her knock s seem less frantic and chaotic and, by extension, more deliberate. 

But it is just knocking. That’s all. 

Just knocking. 

Emma lays her head down intent on ignoring it. 

Intent to n sleeping

And she does drift off.

It takes her some time to realize what has pulled her from that sleep.

Silence.

THe sort that has become uncommon. 

THere’s always some sort of grinding or pounding. The absence of it is uncanny, terrifying in a way that the shuffling of zombie feet can never be.

Emma throws the covers off and creeps towards the window.  She tenses as she parts the curtains. Her breath hitches and she jolts back. Regina is so close that if she could still draw breath and exhale, those breaths would be fogging up the glass. 

Staring, always staring.

Regina tilts her head as if taking in the sight of Emma. But before Emma can truly gaze back, Regina takes a step back. And then another. Her third step back is off balance. Emma grits her teeth, bracing herself for a fall that isn’t her own and doesn’t happen anyways. 

Regina  looks so delicate.

Deceptively so. 

Logically, Emma knows that she could hack the woman's arm off and she’d keep walking, could sever her leg and she’d crawl her way forward. 

But emotional thinking makes her feel as though Regina is fragile, easy to break. She watches  regina shamble her way away. “Have a nice day at work!” She calls to def ears. She sighs, rubs her hands over her face, and makes her way back to her bed.

.oOo.

11:47 comes and goes but Regina doesn’t. 

11:47 comes and goes as second and third time and the sense of grief begins to wash over her; she really shouldn’t feel a sense of mourning. She should have seen it coming. But somehow she had let herself assume that she’d see Regina until she rotted. 

She wonders what became of her. 

Had she been shot by a survivor–by someone like Whale? God, what if it was sweet Archie. 

Had she fallen and broken herself in a way that she couldn’t bounce back from?

Or had she simply moved on, taken to wandering lost on roads that she used to know so well?

Is she on her way out of Storybrook?

Emma thinks that she should take it as a blessing in disguise and finally muster up the courage to make her own departure.

But then another night falls and 11:47 comes. And once again it begins with a knock on the door. That same pattern that she has heard night after night at the side door.

Emma’s breath catches and her body tenses. She shouldn’t, she really shouldn’t. Not when she already has crates of supplies gathered in the corner just waiting to be loaded into a Benz that doesn’t really belong to her. 

But she does.

She pulls herself out of bed and she wanders over to the side door.

She can’t bring herself to part the curtains but that silhouette is unmistakable. And Regina has always knocked with a certain pattern. A part of her routine without a doubt. A very uncanny muscle memory. 

Against her better judgment, perhaps without any sort of thinking at all, Emma pulls the curtain back. She jolts back, landing on her rear. 

She isn’t used to Regina standing so damn close to the door. 

Close enough for Emma to see the ticks that cling to her cheek and the clump of dirt and what can only be a chunk of bloody meat in her hair.

Emma’s heart skips a beat or two and her stomach flutters most unpleasantly. The butterflies frenzy about in her stomach and when their wings finally stop beating they retreat on a wave of calm. A rush of relief so sudden that Emma almost doesn’t recognize it for what it is; acceptance…closure…

This isn’t the woman that she loves. 

But Emma finds herself drawn to the door. Perhaps she just needs this one final moment with the thing that used to be Regina. 

One final moment where she can say goodbye. 

Regina knocks on the door.

Emma raises her shaking fist and and knocks back.

After Regina returns that knock, Emma raises her fist and pounds a different pattern into the door. 

There are a few moments of silence and then regina lifts her bloodied, decaying hand and knocks back—a perfect repetition of Emma’s knock.

Chapter Text

Emma falls away from the door—stumbles back with such haste that she lands on her rear. Regina’s hand is still pressed against the door. She knocks again.

And then her hand finds the doorknob and she gives it a twist.

Emma knows that she should step away from the door and grab her shotgun but instead she moves closer. Unarmed.  And she could swear that she sees Regina patting her pockets. And then she falls against the mansion. “Oh Regina…” Emma mumbles aloud. Her heart yearns to help the woman regain her balance. Against her better judgment she opens the ooer just a crack and peers down at the woman she loved. Regina has become downright filthy. The bite mark on her thigh is completely fetid. It smells just as rancidly. She has smelled infection before but this one smells different. It smells as rottingly sweet as any other infection but it has faint sulfuric undertones and a hint of something like tomato. The bite mark is now in  a constant state of leaking and maggots have made homes of the craters in Regina’s decaying skin. They wiggle around in a pool of blood that has run thick and black, mingling with muck and pus. The same muck that cakes Regina’s cheek—a thick concealer to hide the rash of rot breaking out on her face. Her lips are beginning to peel, it is only a matter of time before her teeth will be exposed. But somehow, more than anything else, it is the state of her clothes that puts a tightness in Emma’s throat. Her pants are stained and tattered, the sleeve of her blouse is torn clean off to reveal the bruised and gashed arm beneath. And her shirt…Emma swallows…the top two buttons have torn off,  exposing one breast. The urge to wrap a blanket around her or give her her jacket nearly overrides Emma’s own sense of self preservation. “Oh Regina.” she whispers again.

And Regina cocks her head. Emma’s chest tightens, if she didn’t know any better, she would swear that the woman had recognized her name. It is likely nothing more than a reaction to hearing sound.She begins to pick herself off of the ground ust as Emma makes the foolish decision to step outside. She hadn’t even thought to check for more zombies. The door closes behind Emma and Regina is on her feet. 

Looking her right in the eye.

Regina’s soft brown eyes have gone cloudy–taking on  the glossy glaze of death.

They are face to face–nearly nose to nose–but Regina doesn’t even gnash her teeth. 

Emma can smell the rot on her and her gag reflex kicks in. Regina takes a step back and falls again. And as quickly as her gag reflex had kicked in, Emma reaches out to catch the woman. Emma’s breath catches as regina falls against her. The woman’s mouth falls dangerously close to Emma’s neck. Emma closes her eyes and waits for a clamping of teeth that doesn’t come.  

Emma stands Regina as up right as she can, lets go of her shoulders and takes a step back. But the woman doesn’t follow, doesn’t make a move to follow either. Regina takes a step back of her own and they stare at each other—Regina unblinkingly. Now she is gnashing her teeth. She shakes her head. But she doesn’t move closer. Her lips part and she starts to move her mouth but the sounds that she marks are nothing more than moans and groans tath bring a tightness to Emma’s throat. And in those sounds she can only convey suffering. Emma squeezes her eyes shut and backs into the mansion.

She shouldn't have looked back. 

When she stares at Regina for too long her imagination starts to run wild. 

She swears that she sees fear and understanding in Regina’s eyes.

Chapter Text

Pain. 

Hunger. 

She shakes her head it is like shaking off a shroud. But the gauze remain over her eyes and her head is still stuffed with cotton. Alcohol soaked cotton. 

She rises to her feet and…

She rises to her feet.

She rises to her feet, she rises to her feet…

Her legs don’t work. She keeps falling.

Sherises to her feet but this time she doesn’t try to take a step. She tries to get her balance. 

She takes a step forward or two.  

There’s a tingling.  She narsls. 

Tingle, tingle, tingle…

It won’t stop. 

It drives her mad. 

Tingle, tingle tingle…

Right on her thigh. 

It burns! It burns! It burns!

She opens her mouth but it doesn’t work. 

She doesn’t have lungs. 

It burns! 

There is a beating in her head. An itching in her brain—a tingle. 

She scratches at her scalp. 

Pounds on her head.

Pounds harder. 

Pounds violently. 

The tingles get worse.

Where is she? 

She can’t remember.

And it doesn't occur to her to try to remember.

The word ‘she’ doesn’t mean a thing to her. 

She isn’t a person. 

She has no thoughts. 

Except for that it tingles. And it burns. 

She is not a person. 

She is a tingle and a violent, ravenous hunger and nothing more. 

.oOo. 

Pain.

It hurts.

Hunger. 

It never ends.

It makes her brain so foggy. Sometimes it settles in so heavily that she loses herself. 

She can’t let it take her again. The meager bits of her that she has anyhow. And those bits are so small. The most meager fragments of something precious. A sound mind would call it humanity. Her diseased mind only knows—and barely understands—that she needs to cling onto this thing that makes her different. 

Different from the others that she has been walking with.

The ones that she walks with aren’t good company. They are rude and inconsiderate, constantly bumping into one another without saying ‘excuse me’ or muttering an apology. It occurs to her again, that she can’t talk either. But she doesn’t just walk into other people…

Are they people?

They are people.

She recognizes some of their faces. But their faces aren’t quite as she remembers them. And she can’t remember any names. 

She can’t remember her name. 

She can’t remember her face. 

She doesn’t want to see it. 

She stares at the crowd that likes the postbox in front of the building with the clock tower. What was that place called again? There is a word for it…she is sure of that. It holds books. She remembers what books look like. She can’t remember how to use them. 

The crowd kicks and punches at the postbox. Rattle it all about but nothing comes out. Someone falls over and that person gets trampled. That person grabs at one of the stomping feet and a second person falls and then a third and then the rest. 

That happens sometimes. 

They don’t help each other up. 

Sometimes they can’t even pick themselves up. 

She hates being in with that crowd. The bottom of the pile of bodies hurts. And so she makes her way back to the door. 

It is the only familiar thing these days. That door and the sidewalk leading up to it. She has no goal. No intentions. Just a sense that this is how it should be. That this is what she should be doing. And so night after night she walks to that door with a sense that she is doing something wrong. 

And then she realizes that she is doing something wrong. 

It is dark out. 

But why does that matter?

She beats at the side of her head, trying to dislodge the memory that will tell her why, or rattle the logic back into place. 

On the fifth beat against her head, the word ‘schedule’ comes to mind. It means nothing to her.

It should mean something…

She is at the door again. It is dark and the street lamp is trying to flicker on but there’s no energy left for it feast upon.

There is nothing for Regina to feast upon and she is hungry…

She knocks on the door until the woman appears. 

Regina likes seeing the woman, even if she never answers the door. 

But sometimes it drives her mad because she knows that she belongs in this home. 

She belongs there and the women won’t let her in!

Why not? Why not? 

WhynotwhynotwhynotwhynotWHYNOT!? 

She hadn’t meant to knock so loudly.

Hadn’t meant to terrify the woman behind the door. 

But she wants to get inside. She just needs to get inside and then everything will be okay.

Chapter Text

Sometimes Emma listens to the radio just to hear a human voice. 

It isn’t talking to her. 

The person on the airwaves doesn’t even know that she exists; let alone exists uninfected. 

At any rate, the signal is probably out of Boston and the broadcaster probably isn’t too fussed with rescuing survivors from small towns when the city folk could use it more urgently. They’re easier to spot. No, a small town like Storybrooke is an afterthought. 

Small towns don’t exist to rescue parties. 

Storybrook, it occurs to her, literally doesn’t exist to rescue parties.

Does it?

Could a person just walk into Storybrooke now? Or are they suffering as privately as ever?

“New York City, Cincinnati, St Louis, Chicago, Miami…” The voice says. She isn’t sure if they are talking about rescue or if they are talking about particularly catastrophic places to visit. And the constant fuzz of radio static doesn’t make interpretation any easier. “...Military presence…” the radio declares alongside “evacuation” and “meeting point.” And she begins to wonder if she happened upon a military broadcast. But then, wouldn’t they know if she was listening in?

Maybe they do.

Maybe they don’t care. 

Maybe they know that she’ll never make it from point A to point B even if she does decipher the words beneath the static. 

She pops open some canned fruit. She turns the radio off but it has already tickled something in back of her head; she is going to have to go out there eventually. Sure, losing Regina had earned her double the food but her supply will run out eventually.

Without the radio to fill the silence, her attention goes back to the door. 

She has been more active lately. Ever since Emma had opened the door for her. 

She comes around at 12PM now. 

She used to take her lunch breaks at home at 12PM.

Emma stares blankly into the can of fruit. And, with that pounding and rattling echoing about the room, she begins to wonder why? Why and what for? There’s really nothing left for her to do. Nothing left that she cherishes. It’s not like she has children or a family to fight for. She’d already lost those. 

It dawns upon her, as she stares into that can, that she can still be with Regina. 

They can walk together forever until they decompose.

And why not?

She wouldn’t have to pity Regina’s isolation anymore and she herself won’t suffer in solitary. 

She doesn’t leave time for rational thinking to settle in, doesn’t give herself a chance to talk herself out of it. Emma makes her way back to the door and puts her hand on the knob. They door opens silently and she finds herself face to decaying face with Regina.

Emma closes her eyes.

Emma senses Regina’s hand nearing her neck.

Emma, instead, feels that hand on her cheek. 

That hand is still. 

That hand is surprisingly gentle. 

Emma opens her eyes. 

Emma sees curiosity in Regina’s.

Emma feels a thumb stroking her cheek.

Regina tilts her head.

Regina withdraws her hand. 

Emma steps aside. 

Emma waits. 

Emma watches Regina step into the mansion. 

She holds her breath as Regina crosses the threshold. As Regina looks around, inspecting her own home as though this is the first time she has ever set foot in it. And then her cloudy gaze settles on Emma, head tilted. “Welcome home, Regina. Do you want me to take you to your bedroom?” She hasn’t slept there for herself since the woman died—couldn’t deal with how cold her side of the bed got, couldn’t get used to the feeling of the mattress not dipping beneath Regina’s weight. Can Regina even make it up the stairs? Probably not. But then, she had made it up the porch steps just fine. But the backdoor only has two small steps leading up to it. And she had stumbled several times. And she stumbles now. Right on over to the sofa. One of those nearly white, cream colored sofas. The one that Regina, in her right mind, would throw a fit over if it got soiled. It has grown dusty anyways. 

Emma takes a seat next to her an grimaces—the smell of her! Oh, God, the smell of her. Sunbaked infection and rot. Emma’s gag reflex kicks in and she fights the urge to throw up in her mouth. She doesn’t want to embarrass Regina or hurt her feelings.
Does Regina have feelings anymore?

“So…how are you?” What a stupid thing to ask. Especially since she won’t be getting an answer. Even so, she swears that Regina is listening, even if she isn’t comprehending. Maybe she just needs to hear a voice. Maybe that’s why she isn’t attacking. Or maybe she’s about as docile as a rabid raccoon and can snap at the drop of a hat. 

.oOo.

She is inside now.

Everything will be okay now.

“It’s nice to have you back.” The human says. 

Human.

Isn’t she human too. 

She was once.

Yes. That’s right, she used to be a human being.

That’s right, she is here to remind herself of how to be that again.

Humanity.

Precious word, that word.

“I was getting lonely.” 

Lonely. 

She thinks that she knows what that word means.

She thinks that she used to be that. 

She can’t remember if it is a good thing. 

She guesses, by the human’s expression that it is not.

“Lnly.” She tries to repeat. 

“It’s okay.” The human says. She reaches out but her hand never touches Regina’s. She doesn’t know why the human doesn’t like to touch her, but she always seems averted. “You don’t have to say anything. I’m just glad that you’re here.”

But she is sitting so far away.

Regina moves closer.

The human inches back. Ever so slightly. 

It doesn’t matter, the tiniest movements make her brain twitchy and fuzzy. All full of pins and needles. The slightest rustle of fabric is sandpaper in her sensitive ears. She covers them and screams.

The human jolts and falls off of the couch. 

She jerks backwards too, but the armrests keep her from falling.

The human staggers back, breathing heavily. 

She remains stiff and unblinking upon the sofa, observing. Waiting. 

Finally the human gets back to her feet. Very slowly.

She shifts and the human jerks again.

Jerks and exhales when she sees that she has only moved back to the position that she had been in before. 

“Sorry.” The human apologizes. “It’s just that…” she swallows. “It’s just that I’m used to zombies attacking.”

She nods. 

The woman smiles. “Do you remember me?”

She does. 

But she also does not.

She knows that she should.

So she doesn’t move her head at all. 

“My name is Emma.” She says in response to her silence. 

Emma.

Yes. That sounds familiar. It makes her feel…what? It makes her feel something that isn’t hunger or pain. Or fear.

“Yours is Regina.”

Regina.

She has a name. 

Humans have names. 

She is human. Sort of. 

She tries to say it. She can’t. That’s fine.

Chapter Text

She isn’t sure if it is safe to sleep. 

Will Regina attack her? Should she lock her in the basement?

She has been here for hours now, mostly just exploring. Wandering aimlessly, opening doors and closing them, watching the grandfather clock tick, picking up plates and putting them down or dropping them and startling herself—Emma had to help her back to her feet. 

The most aggression that she had showed was a fight with the blanket that had tripped her and Emma thinks that the blanket might have won. 

It is bizarrely endearing in the most morbid manner. She’s like a grotesque child exploring the world for the first time. Eventually she turns away from the kitchen faucet that no longer runs and its collection of useless knobs that she has been fiddling with and she makes her shambling way back to Emma.

She looks at Emma, possibly expectantly. 

But what can she possibly be expecting?

Reluctantly she takes one of Regina’s hands. The lesser decayed of the two. Her skin is like parchment and it fits too tightly over her bones, stretched oddly in places and ready to tear. Emma gives it a few gentle rubs with her thumb. 

“You’re not going to bite me in my sleep are you?”

She remembers when that sort of thing was playful.

Sexy.

She can still see Regina’s lips in her mind’s eye; full, plump, and stained deep red with lipstick. Her teeth had been perfectly white. Emma misses rubbing her thumb over that little scar. 

Emma glances at her upper lip. The scar is still there but it has been joined by other rips and tears. 

“Here, let’s sit down.” Emma guides her down onto the couch.

Sitting this close to the woman for a second time, she decides that she must have lost her mind. To bring a zombie into her home—it’s madness. The result of grief, prolonged isolation on her end, and persistence on Regina’s. 

.oOo.

Emma tells her how many days it has been since she has been inside. 

Regina likes to hear it.

It gives her brain something to think about.

Something to comprehend.

She likes to repeat her own name in her head too.

Sometimes when she does a fragment of her past falls back into place and she feels more human.

Emma treats her like a human.

A dumb human, but still a human.

She thinks that she probably is stupid.

She wasn’t always that way. 

Her thoughts are simple. 

Short. 

Disorganized.  

Sometimes they are driven by instinct as well.

She is primitive. 

When she gets mental glimpses of who she used to be she feels downright idiotic. 

Shameful .

Embarrassing .

But these are emotions.

And she is happy to have them back.

Each emotion makes her more human.

It has only been, according to Emma, a week—seven days—and she is beginning to get a sense of the mansion. She remembers where the woman that she used to be had always kept silverware, and which drawer that woman had stored which files in, and how she had organized her wardrobe.

She can’t dress herself. 

Doesn’t have that sort of coordination anymore. 

Doesn’t have that sort of balance. 

Emma dresses her. 

She still smells putridly.

And now she has the mental capacity to feel distress and humiliation over it.

But at least she has clean clothes and she isn’t wandering about partially exposed.

She has regained small chunks of her vocabulary.

She doesn’t care about this. 

Her mouth wouldn’t be able to get the words out and bloated tongue wouldn’t be able to shape and enunciate them even if she were to regain full literacy. 

She is never going to do that.

She is ever going to be the woman in her memories again.

And Regina has a thought…

She wants to die. 

To be truly, fully dead.

Chapter Text

Sometimes they sit by the radio for hours. Regina imagines that Emma is, as her mother would be, listening in for something…anything that could give her hope. A reason to live on and keep fighting. On some level, most likely subconscious, she has to know that Regina is not that reason. Regina is half-living on borrowed time. Soon her skin will entirely slough away. Soon her organs will melt—hopefully her brain will go first. Soon she will be just bones. 

Regina isn’t even really Regina. 

Regina understands this.

Emma does not.

She is someone…something that vaguely resembles the woman that had been Regina. And sometimes she gets thoughts that Regina would have had. But she is certain that a lot of those things that Emma says are signs that she is coming back are just hardwired habits, muscle memory. Actions taken in the same way that she had wandered to the back door night after night—without a conscious thought. 

Emma often muses that it is more than that. Emma swears that she sees intelligence and understanding in Regina’s eyes.

Emma doesn’t know that Regina is less of a person and more of a collection of scattered memories, mimics of human emotion, and pain. 

So much pain.

Everything always hurts. 

Every moment is agony. 

Every inch of her skin itches and burns. She can feel herself rotting away.

And each dol unit of pain strips more of her sanity and humanity away.

Emma tells her that she has made a lot of progress but she doesn’t feel like any of it is meaningful or long lasting.

She watches the woman fiddle with the radio until she finally finds something that isn’t purely static. Oh there is still most definitely static. In fact most of what the radio sneezes out is static. But this static has voices buried in it.

Emma reaches for the radio dial. 

Regina catches her hand.

This time she doesn't flinch.

She simply looks over at Regina, puzzled.

“It's just static, Gina.”

Can't she hear the voices?

Regina shakes her head.

Her mouth can't form the word ‘listen’.

Instead she stands up and makes her way to her former in home office. Emma follows her, calling for her to wait up.

That she didn't mean to offend her.

She will understand in a minute.

Regina finds a huge notebook and a pen and makes her way back to the radio.

“Regina…”

She points at the radio and holds up a notebook page that now reads, ‘listen.’

Her penmanship is atrocious, a toddler could have done better. To her it looks more like a series of harsh, squiggly lines than lettering. It is such a far cry from her neat, looping cursive. But somehow, maybe because her own handwriting is chicken scratch, Emma makes it out.

“You hear something?”

Regina nods. 

Emma doesn't look at her like she is crazy.

“I guess it's true then, zombies have heightened hearing.”

Regina nods.

They say that hearing is the last sense to go upon death.

“Well what do you hear?”

Regina writes simply, “your voice.”

Emma laughs.

First time in ages.

It's a nice sound. Tickles some part of Regina’s brain. The part that isn't riddled with virus. 

“Alright, I'll shut up and let you listen.”

And Regina does.

She leans in closer to the radio and…

“Once again this is Jones Ridley live on Living's Radio! Broadcasting from Survivors Coast, California, formerly known as San Clemente Island!” Regina makes some throaty noise that Emma probably takes the wrong way. Frankly. Mr. Ridley's pep and cheer is offhandedly out of place given the topic of his broadcast.

“I am pleased to announce that Survivors Coast now has its very own research facility established and run by San Clemente natives! So if you have any undead lovers or family members bring them on down to Survivors Coast for a sunny vacation and a chance to be cured. And really, where's the risk!? They're already dead! We'll either cure em or put em out of their misery!”

So many radio personalities to choose from and Mr. Ridley chose that one. So that’s all she is now—something to be experimented on or killed.

“Well?”

Regina lifts her hand and, to the best of her ability, begins transcribing what she just heard. She thinks that she has basic jist but it is the details that really matter. It only occurs to her that she has messed up when Emma says, “that’s awesome news! Where is this research facility at!?”

Stupid.

Stupid.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, she is so…

Emma catches her fist. “Hey, don’t do that.”

She can see the fear in her eyes again—Emma thinks that she is going to hurt her. She wouldn’t do that…would she?

“It’s okay, they’ll probably broadcast it again.

Probably.

She has likely just ruined her own chance to be normal again. To be Regina instead of this dull-mined impersonation. 

“Do you remember anything about the location?”

Regina picks up the pen and stares at the paper. Long minutes slide by before she finally writes, “California.”

“Well set out in the morning. I’ve already got supplies ready.”

.oOo.

“Does it hurt?” Emma asks the question that she doesn’t want to know the answer to.

Regina stares blankly at her palms as she absently flexes her ankles. She nods and reaches for the notebook paper. Emma struggles to read the words; ‘burning’, ‘itching’, and ‘starving.’ And Regina is still writing. ‘No control’. ‘No brain’. ‘Stupid.’

“You’re not stupid, Regina. You’re sick.” Infected. A zombie. 

‘Sickness makes me stupid.’ 

And Emma’s heart breaks a little more. “You’re smart enough to have figured out how to communicate with me.” She points out. “None of the other zombies can do that.” And Emma would like to know how. What makes Regina different? Enough so to resist that persistent, nagging hunger and the rage. 

‘Not human anymore.’

‘Just a zombie’.

Emma grimaces. “Sorry, I guess that I shouldn't be using that term with you.” Or maybe any of them.” They had all been people. They are still people in some sense, very sick people. But they aren’t like Regina. And Regina isn’t like her. Regina is intelligent, has some sort of grasp on human emotion. The other infected don’t. 

‘Everything burns.’ 

‘Everything hurts.’

‘I’m so hungry.’

‘I don’t want to eat.’

‘People. Want to eat people.’

‘I can’t eat.’

‘I can’t eat people.’

‘I’m so hungry.’

She puts down the notebook, lays herself on the ground, and bunches herself up. Just the way that she used to when she was upset, usually on the verge of tears. She is more human than she realizes. 

And just like she used to, Emma rubs small circles on Regina’s back. “We’re going to go to California and make the pain stop and the hunger go away.”

Chapter Text

Emma’s heart pounds as she loads the last box into the car. This would be a much quicker process if Regina could help. They had tried that—her balance is too off kilter to carry heavy boxes. Emma is fairly certain that the woman’s ankle is fractured to boot. The ankle that she had injured all of those years ago  in the town hall fire has always been prone to injury. The way that she is walking on it is not reassuring so Emma loads the car without help—looking over her shoulder and trying to be as quiet as possible. She carefully closes the trunk and beckons for Regina to enter the car. Emma’s heart gives a little flutter, the last time she ws in the car she had, had  her head pressed against the window. Emma can still picture her face washed in gold and decorated with a smile. She misses that smile. 

Misses the woman’s laugh.

Her voice.

California.

Their chance is California.

Her heart aches all over again—her mother is not here to deliver one of her hope speeches.

Cautiously, Emma pulls the car out of the driveway. It gives a rusty squeal, protesting its disuse. Storybrooke is a small town, she remiss herself, and all of the zombies tend to congregate on the city green, mostly in the shady spots. It’ll be worse when they get into Cali…

Next to her, Regina tenses, sitting rigid. “What’s wrong?” Emma asks.

She gets her answer when she takes a left turn and cusses. There is a whole cluster of them moaning and groaning and, she furrows her brows—was that a bark?

“Should I run them down? Would that even work?” But what if she accidentally gets pongo? What if there is a person in there? She glances at Regina; if they had been bitten it would be better to just plow them down. She knows what Regina would do. 

She knows that Regina would go in for the mercy kill.

Emma can’t bring herself to put her foot on the gas.

“Pongo, get out of here!” Comes a shout and Emma’s heart begins to hammer. She glances over at Regina—by instinct more than anything considering that Regina has no real advice to offer these days. And really, she doesn’t have to offer any.

Emma, wit no one left to save,  has gotten a little rusty but she is still the savior. 

There aren’t many of them anyways. Maybe five or six and she has more than enough bullets for all of them. “Alright, sit tight, Gina! I’m gonna rescue Archie.” 

Rescue him or get herself killed. And she and Regina can wander together forever and aimless until they drift apart. 

Or she can be smart about this and…

She rolls the car closer to the horde and rolls down the window.  “Cover year ears, Gina!” She pulls the trigger and a zombie drops. Next to her Regina flinches. With a second shot the woman is crying out. But Emma is already dashing out of the vehicle, towards the horde. She fires a third shot and then a fourth.

“Archie she calls.

“E-Emma?” 

“Archie, look out!” She shouts a nd ten she shoots her own mother. The zombie that used to be Mary staggers forward then falls back. Emma grits her teeth. That’s not her mother. That is not her mother. Not anymore. 

She glances back at the car, at the woman  inside of it. The woman is now slapping at the window, looking every bit like the zombie she is. And suddenly Mary’s fate doesn’t seem quite so cruel. 

Doesn’t seem cruel until she realizes that David is nowhere in sight—that he and Mary won’t be resting side by side one another, together in death.

She drops one more zombie and takes Archie by the wrist. Better to shoot and and shout than to think. To dwell.

She has never been much of a thinker anyhow.

“Emma, so nice to see a familiar face!” 

“Run now, we’ll catch up in the car!” She’d always known that the man was a stress talker but this? This is on a new level. She ducks under Ruby’s arm The same arm that used to sling over her shoulder. The same arm that use to wave her over for free pancakes. 

She sees Archie rush to the passenger’s side of the car. “Back seat!” She shouts. 

“Back…!?” Comprehension flickers onto is face and he climbs into the back seat, Pongo quickly following after, as Emma throws herself behind the wheel. Once Archie and Pongo are in the car she locks the door and floors it—plows over the people that she used to cherish and protect. She couldn’t save them. She failed as a savior. Failed to do the one job that she had. 

“Regina?” Archie furrows his brows.

Regina casts him a most hateful stare—Emma hadn’t even considered that the women might not take well to a new face. She hadn’t exactly been the most social person when she was herself, was never particularly welcoming of unannounced guests. But she makes no move to attack him.

“I didn’t realize that…I thought that she was…” He stammers. “Well I’m glad that she’s alive.” 

Emma cringes. Really there is no sense in keeping it from him. Because she can explain away the smell with a simple, “she’s killed a lot of zombies and showers have been in short supply lately.” She can remind him that fits of rage aren’t exactly atypical of Regina. But her poor speech and bizarre gait gut away any chance of secrecy. 

“She’s not, Archie. She’s not.” 

The man's mouth falls agape several times over as he sputters through what he can say back to that while Regina regards him rather blankly. “Emma you know that it is not safe to keep a zombie…”

“She doesn’t like that term. And she’s different. Shes…smarter.” 

“That’s more dangerous, not less. I understand that grief can make us lose sight of things like safety. And loneliness, especially prolonged can lead—”

“Please Archie! I don’t need a psych evaluation while I’m trying  to outdrive a hoard of the undead! I’m telling you, she’s different from the rest of them. She recognizes me, she’s got control!” She can't blame him for his skepticism. “Trustme, Archie, she’s been with me for days now and I haven’t had a single issue with her. She can even communicate! Show him, Gina.

Her words are allowed by the rustling of paper. And Regina holds up te notebook, upon it is a simple, ‘hello.’

“See?”

Archie seems to relax if only just a little. 

“Did you happen  to run into any other survivors?”

“You and Regina are the first that I’ve seen in months—well technically just you. Where are you headed?”

“California. Regina was listening to the radio. Apparently there’s this army base in San Clemente…” it had only taken several days to pick up on a broadcast and finally uncover the name. “...and they’re close to finding a cure for the virus. They’re accepting…people like Regina to test it on.” 

Test.

It is such an ugly word. 

To think of Regina as nothing more than a lab rat. 

“Well I hope that it works–for both of your sakes. I can’t imagine what it must be like for her.”

“Hell, Archie. Hell. And it probably doesn‘t help to have people talking about her like she can’t understand.

Archie grimaces. “I’m sorry, I just…this is a lot to take in. I should be more sensitive to her…” he glances at Regina. “To your predicament.” 

Regina offers but a stiff nod.

Emma fixes her eyes dead ahead as the town line comes into view. The curse has long since broken and yet she still feels tickles in her tummy approaching it. 

She still holds her breath as she crosses over it. 

And she bids Storybrook what she is certain is a final goodbye.

Chapter Text

They are only four days into what should be a ten day drive when things go awry. Iowa is rows of corn upon corn browning for a harvest that will never come—so much corn that it gets to be disorienting, especially without a GPS for guidance. Especially under the cover of a  night creeping in and no shelter in sight from the zombies shambling down the roadside in ripped flannels and muddy jeans. Useless powerlines swish overhead in the breeze, waiting for nature to claim them for its own. 

“Maybe we should just pull over and sleep in  the car.”

"That's too open, Archie, we might wake up surrounded.” Emma replies. She bites her lip. But they have n’t passed a si angle structure, rickety or otherwise. Not even a rotting, dilapidated barn. She can only imagine what the desert will be like if they ever make it there. 

The desert! 

She and Regina always said that they’d go.

That they'd make a road trip of it when they went to visit Henry. 

She brings the car to a crawl, pulls it parallel to the only other car on the road. A husk of a thing that has been rotting for months with blood stains on its seats and a horrific stench permeating from within. A cracked windshield spits glass onto those seats. Emma pulls the Benz in  front of it. “Ill take first watch."

Next to her Regina shakes her head. Upon her paper she writes, ‘I don’t need sleep anymore.’

“What did she say?” Archie asks and  Regina turns the paper to him. But Emma can’t imagine that he will sleep well. Four days in and she can tell that he trusts Regina just about as much as he had the woman during the cursed years. Emma can’t say that she’ll get any sleep for herself. Not while imagining zombies emerging from the corn stalks but she rolls onto her side and gives it a try. Part of her wishes that she had a blanket to throw over the windows. The other part of her is content to stare out into the rows of corn and imagine a big freight train thundering down the train tracks that run parallel to the road. Several months ago she could have tried to lull herself to sleep by watching the synchronous blinking of fireflies. Tonight she can only observe the cornstalks until she notices every last detail. Tonight she can only watch the corn, encased in golden-brown leaves, rot like the rest of the world. Distant wind turbines no longer rotate but Emma watches the looming giants anyhow.

Regina stares too and Emma can almost pretend that they are stargazing together, but she isn’t sure that Regina has the capacity to appreciate its beauty anymore. And Emma no longer has the sense of peace to appreciate the greater sense of serenity that singing crickets and late to leave cicadas used to bring. She listens for a train whistle that never comes. 

Never will.

And night three of their journey comes to an end. 

Day four begins with a rustling in the corn that causes Emma to jolt and yet Regina remains passive and uncaring. “What's in there, Gina?”

‘Just a cow.’

“A cow?”

“Dead.”

And Emma finds herself once again taken by a sense of terror. 

“I don't mean any offense,Regina, but I must ask; dead as in no longer animated or dead the same way that you are?”Archie asks.

‘Carrion like me.’ But carrion is spelled wrong and feels out of place in itself and the k in ‘like’ is backwards. She does that sometimes. 

Writes letters backwards. 

“Archie, can you take the wheel for a bit?”

The man nods. And they are off, down a monotonous, meandering  road dodging potholes, zombies, and, closer to Des Moines, overturned cars and debris of the old world; battered suitcases, bottles of  now dry sunscreen, broken sun glasses, cellphones, once cherished dolls, a stuffed lion with a Blank Park Zoo tag, a notebook with plenty of stickers turned to a page that says, ‘my summer diary’, and a CD-r that with ‘Midwest Emo <3’ in red sharpie that Emma picks up just to fill the silence with. 

She catches Archie bobbing his head along with a genre of music she never expected him to enjoy. But then, the man is probably just happy to be hearing music at all. And if Emma squints her ears hard enough the song is a touch upbeat.

It certainly makes the long way around Des Moines and its hoards of the undead feel shorter. The route burns gas but she thinks that it is worth it to avoid the hassle of reckoning with the undead. 

But they will reckon with them yet.

And they do so at a rest stop-gas station hybrid in Nebraska

Storms.

It was the storms if Emma had to guess. The clouds had been building on the horizon, threatening a furious gale for the better part of the day. Most of the day, really. Emma watched the first bolt of lightning split the sky.  Next to her Regina had gone tense. And each rumble  had amplified that over and over again until they had pulled into the rest stop. And now Emma is left to dwell. 

To contemplate.

To reckon with the what if’s and should have’s. 

What if they hadn’t pulled over? 

What if they pulled over sooner? At a different rest stop?

What if Archie had stayed in the car? 

What if she had gone into the rest stop instead of him?

She should have stopped fussing with the vending machine. 

She should have listened to Pongo’s whining.

She should have given Archie a gun. 

She should have pulled the trigger. 

But she didn’t and now she has just a long stretch of road and her thoughts; a scene that won’t stop playing in her mind.

.oOo. 

“I’ll be right over here.” She calls to Archie. “Fighting with this thing.” Half of the junk in it is probably expired by now. “See if you can find a few maps for us. Flashlights, clothes, anything else you think  could be useful. 

She pulls the other car door open. “Why don’t you come with, Gina. The last thing that we need is for your legs to get stiff.” Do zombies get rigor mortis? She doesn’t want to test that on Regina. She also doesn’t want the woman to be alone with the thunder that makes her antsy. 

She holds her hand out and Regina takes it. “Don’t wander off, okay?”

The woman gives her a nod and Emma fully expects her to just meander aimlessly about the rest stop. 

She should have known that something was amiss upon seeing her twitchy demeanor. The way that she jerked and growled upon the slamming of the car door.

“Pongo should be fine inside of the car, right? it’s not hot today.”

And she can tell that his playful yaps and leaps are upsetting Regina. “Keep a look out for us?”

Regina nods. As if she wasn‘t already looking every which way. As if she isn’t already pacing as best as a zombie can. And Emma finds herself getting equally anxious. She watches Arcyhie shuffle into the rest stop and vows to make her fight with the vending machine quick. Really it should only take a few good strikes from her baseball bat. Or one wasted bullet. She pulls out her bat and swings it three times but the glass proves sturdy. She has a spiderweb of cracks upon it by the time the first cry rings out—more startled than terrified or agonized. And so maybe it didn’t instill the sense of urgency that it ought to have. But Archie cries out again and Emma draws her gun and bolts. “Archie, where are you!?” She is answered by a third shout. A horrible screech of a shout that sends Pongo barking. And Emma’s heart drops. She has to solve this and get out of here; every zombie in Nebraska is probably on its way.

She hasn’t seen a hoard–hasn’t heard the tell tale grunts and groans and if there’s no hoard then…

No. It must be a stray zombie, a lone straggler that Archie is too timid to face.

She swallows hard as she rounds the corner. Archie is still screaming and those screams are becoming more hysterical. “ No, no,  no,  no! Please, no!” 

And Emma sees exactly what she doesn’t want to see—Regina pinning the man to a corner, snapping at his arms  as he tries unsuccessfully to fend her off.

“Regina! Stop!” The woman looks up and loosens her hold . If only Archie had seized the opportunity to shove her away. He is too nice for that. And so, as Emma shakily raises her gun, tears streaming down her face, Regia stoops towards his neck. 

“Regina, please, listen to me. You don't want to do this!” But Regina is not here right now. She can see it in her eyes–there is only the rage of infection. But Emma can't bring herself to pull the trigger and Regia takes a chunk out of Archie’s neck while Pongo whines and barks in the car. Emma fires a single bullet into Archie’s head, mercy is granted in a chunky red spray. Regina cries out in rage and pain. Emma throws herself around the corner and into the bathroom, barricading it with a mop and bucket cleaning cart.  It won't hold if Regina puts a good effort in. She grips her pistol tightly and pleads to herself that Regina won't pursue her. Instead of frantic pounding, Emma endures a series of rips and saps and wet smacks. She curls herself up ito a ball on dirty tiles that smell of mildew ad piss. She clamps her hands over her ears and shudders as she tries to fend off metal images of Archie being torn limb from limb and tearing sinew. Tries not to imagine Regina’s face covered in blood with chunks of flesh between her teeth.

Emma thinks, instead, of her smile on July 19th. But the memory is invasively overlaid by a vision of a bloodier version of that smile.

Two hours later the pounding begins. 

One loud beat that is followed by a few light knocks.

“Em…ma…” She extends the E and draws out the A. 

Emma bunches herself tighter. She hears a body slide down the door. She recalls a time so long ago when she had promised to get Regina her happy ending. 

She ended but it wasn't happy.

“Emma…”

She lets a half an hour slide by before she gets up and opens the door. Regina is lying there silently covered head to toe in blood with chunks of meat in her hair. 

.oOo.

Emma fixes her stare dead ahead, fingers tight around the steering wheel, and Regina wonders why she is in the car at all and not under the wheels spattered on the pavement just the same as any zombie. 

Because that’s what she is, she isn’t alf alive, partially alive, or just sick. 

She can't even be called undead—undead suggests a certain degree of intelligence and control. Vampires are undead, ghosts are undead, wiedergangers are undead, banshees are undead. 

She is bones wrapped in rotting skin and a collection of rabid, disjointed thoughts that mostly center around base emotions like hunger and rage.

She isn’t sure where Emma pulls off but she does so without a word. She pulls the car into the driveway of a crumbling wooden barn and listens for signs of unlife.

Maybe the woman is coming to her senses.
Maybe she is going to kick her out of the car, dump her off on this desolate road where she can wander dazed and confused forever with only fragments of the memories of the lonely life she had once lived before Emma changed things.

Who was that person?

What was she like?

She can’t recall, she just knows that that person was better by comparison.

There are crickets in the grass and coyote calls in the distance. And, once upon a time, in a land close by, this would have been an impulse vacation stop. A spur of the moment to drape a picnic blanket over the roof of the car, lay upon the roof together, and look at the stars.

Instead Emma screams. 

She slams hands on the steering wheel, pounds her fists on the dashboard, and unleashes long drawn out shouts that intermix with sobs. Cries that make Regina twitchy, that scratch that part of her brain that tells her to attack. 

To rip. 

To tear. 

To kill. 

What had Archie done to scratch that part?

She can’t remember.

What if he did nothing at all?

And so while Emma screams, Regina pulls out her beaten, now bloodstained, notebook and begins scribbling in her near gibberish hand writing that Emma has learned to decipher almost perfectly. 

It is only when her screams slow and taper off at the cracking of her voice and she slightly turns her head, cheek stained with tears, eyes bloodshot and baggy, that she sees Regina holding her notebook out.

‘Just put her down already.’

‘Please.’

Chapter Text

Regina is crumbling. And winter is her only saving grace. But what does that matter in SoCal where winter is as mild as a midwest May. The files still swarm her and the maggots still collect in the pockets of rot in her skin when Emma hasn’t the time to pick them out–she always misses a few. And now Reginga is practically infested, always itching her arm. Probably years for the rot to cut through it. Maybe she should pull over and burn the woman's arm. Just a quick peripheral glance and she can see that the woman's left hand has been taken over by the squirming thighs. And for the first time, Emma begins to wonder what the point is? Even if this thing in San Clemente is legit, even if the cure works, how can they possibly savage the rot and the missing pieces…the rotting, melted organs. 

Magic, Emma decides to herself. The doctors can do nothing but Regina can magically fix herself…if she can still use magic after all of this. For the first time, Emma wonders if she should take Regia up on her request to take her ito the first and shoot her.

“Can I see your arm, Regina?” Regina cradles her afflicted arm against her chest. “Please, Gina. I need to help you. 

The woman turns her head and Emma feels another wave of guilt. She hasn't accepted help since the Archie incident. Maybe she wants to rot away, to be consumed by the creepy crawly things until they burrow into her brain and steal the horrid memories away. 

“Please let me help you, we’re almost to California." 

Regina turns her head again.

“Lettnig maggots eat you isn’t going to bring Archie back. At least this time you didn’t mean it. You’ve done a lot worse as the Queen.” What a stupid, unhelpful thing to say. To remind her that she lost control and reverted back to the person that she had never wanted to be again. “What I mean is that if I can love you after knowing about all of that stuff then I can love you after the stuff that the infection makes you do.”

It certainly isn't helping that she has been looking at Regina differently, been acting more jumpy and skittish around her.

“I know that you weren't yourself.” She pauses, deciding on a different approach. “I killed my own mom, Regina. I had to shoot her.”

Finally Regina turns her head and regards Emma for a moment.

“We've all had to do awful shut since this virus spread. Remember when Hook stabbed Belle to save Granny? He never waned to use his hook like that again. Gold was hoarding the food that the town was supposed to ration. We're all so fucked up. At least you can say that you're sick. Like really sick.”

Finally she extends her afflicted arm.

“Does it hurt?”

The woman nods and, with her free arm, writes, “itchy.”

Emma slowly pulls the car off to the side of the road. Her stomach is already lurching at the thought of plucking a carpet of maggots. She scans the side of the road for a branch or a piece of scrap metal, something to scrape the pests off. 

Didn’t Regina keep an ice scraper in her car?

She rustles through the trunk until she finds it.

And then she spends the next thirty minutes or so trying not to hurl and trying, with less success, to not let the disgust show up on her face. 

Regina never meets her gaze.

She swears that she hears the woman apologizing.

.oOo.

Nevada zombies make Emma wish that a UFO would blink into the sky and beam her up.

They line the loneliest highway in the U.S.

A curious thing.

They hadn't come by many zombies the whole way.

Now here, in the most remote part of the country, she can count tens of dozens of the bastards.

She wonders if there was some type of music festival happening out here in the desert…or a stargazing event that was occurring just on time for the virus to reach Nevada.

Emma cruises on by, a task easier said than done. These zombies like to chase cars. She swears that one of them had thrown a rock at the car.

She knows that she has run into three of them that had gotten implied upon a single cactus and tangled up in a sea of cacti.

She knows that at least a dozen more had been playing in cacti.

The zombies in Nevada have quills.

At 9:30 the psychedelic rock album that shed pillaged from some car with a pair of lucky die looped around the rearview mirror and a slew of Marijuana paraphernalia in the backseat loses its charm. If it had ever had any charm. She knows that Regina hates this kind of music. Used to anyways. And stone rock isn't exactly her own first choice. She should have known what kind of tracks the mixtape would have when she saw the weed decals and ‘honk if you're stoned’ bumper sticker.

But at least it's something to listen to. 

Something to fill the silence.

At 9:47 PM she begins playing make believe again. She stares up at the milky way and pretends that this is all part of their road trip to see Henry. 

“Hey, Gina!?” She says knowing that the woman won't answer, might not even understand the questions posed to her. “Want me to change the song?” They could listen to that midwest emo mixtape again. 

She should really try to loot some professionally pressed albums. 

“Hey, Gina?” She nudges the woman and tries to ignore the intrusive thought that tells her that, if she keeps pestering, Regina will give her arm a good chomp. Might chew it off. “You think we'll see any aliens? This is extra terrestrial highway afterall!”

She peers over at Regina who has taken to making herself into a different kind of zombie; the type that insensitive folks accuse depressed people of being. Emma starts to wonder if she is becoming one of those insensitive types. If the end of the world has finally made her into the worst version of herself—the version that she was on her way to becoming before Henry walked into her life and coerced her into a life in Storybrooke. 

“I just saw a shooting star. Did you see it?” Regina ought to have; she has been staring out the window long enough. But her eyes are glossy and Emma doesn’t think that she has seen a damn thing in spite of her staring. 

Not the shambling silhouettes. 

Not the rattlesnake slithering parallel to the road.

Not the coyote that was stalking between the cacti.

Not the coyote that was feasting upon one of the zombies.

And Emma shudders at the thought of zombie coyotes on top of the human ones. Can wildlife get infected by the virus?

Best not think about that when she has only a long ribbon of yellow-dashed tar to keep her company. 

Overhead the stars glimmer endlessly and untroubled. Free from all the strife that goes on beneath them. 

She wishes that she could go to the stars, kick the Benz into overdrive and fly it into space. 

“Come on aliens.” She murmurs to herself. “Where are you?”

Somewhere in an abandoned gift shop on a tacky souvenir mug.

.oOo.

Everywhere. 

The zombies are everywhere.

It seems to her as if every zombie in the state has come to gather somewhere along this particular highway. And when they…she is in desperate need for a replenishing of her food supply.

And gas. 

They need gas again.

They always need gas.

And they still have to pay for it. But in blood rather than cash.

Emma pulls into the first station that she has seen in hours. Perhaps the only one along this stretch of road. 

Naturally it is completely overrun.

It hurts her head to try to come up with a strategy. That sort of thing was never her strong suit; Regina did most of the thinking and plotting, she liked to take the go in guns blazing approach. And she is beginning to think that that is the only option she has here; draw her gun, shoot as many as she can, and run into the gas station to snatch up as much food as she can before the zombies can get to her.

Emma rubs her hands over her face. 

She lowers them to reach for her gun. Regina’s hand clamps around her wrist and Emma gives a reflexive flinch that makes Regina withdraw her hand and shrink back into the seat. “No it’s okay.” This isn’t a lie. But it is, at least partially when she adds, “I’m not afraid of you, it’s the zombies outside that have me on edge.” She doesn’t think that Regina believes her any more than she believes herself.

“I have to run in there…” She stops short when Regina lifts her notebook for the first time in what feels like ages. 

‘They won’t go after me. Remember?’

Emma furrows her brows and then her heart gives a hopeful leap. Of course! Why hadn’t she thought of that. 

‘What do you need?’

.oOo.

She enters the gas station with a list and an ulterior motive. 

She staggers her way through a sea of rotting faces. Those of them that still have eyes for their sockets stare blankly at her. And for just a brief, blissful moment old anxieties take hold and she finds herself captured by the sense that she is trapped, in danger. That she has made a mistake and will now be torn slowly apart.

And she would deserve it.

The twinge of dread dissipates. 

They won’t ever know that she isn’t like the rest of them.

Anyways, what does it matter what is in her diseased head if it is full of and bombarded with all of the same vicious urges, if the body that holds it decays just like the rest?

As far as canned goods go, this gas station is limited. There are, perhaps eight cans left and one of them contains cat food. She considers it; she is no human but she remembers human desperation, how far humans are willing to go to meet their basic needs.  She takes the cat food off of the shelf as a zombie trips over a ninth can and topples said shelf. Heedless of its flailing and with a stare just as empty, Regina stoops down and picks up the ninth can.

Mistake. 

Regina’s knee pops out of place.

This happens now and then. It doesn’t hurt. 

But she can’t seem to get it back into place this time…

Degrading.

Justified considering the indifference she’d regarded the other zombie with.

But Emma needs her.

Rather she needs the food in her arms.

And so Regina drags herself across the dirty tiles as the lesser fortunate zombies do. She supposes that it was bound to come to this eventually. 

It's a slow and unsteady progression, one that involves crawling after cans that roll away from her. And Regina begins to fear that Emma will get out of the car to come find her or assume that she isn't coming back and begin driving away. The latter of the two is the more preferable scenario.

In fact, she hopes that Emma will just leave her. She belongs with this lot anyways, wandering without aim and constantly searching for a meal that she hopes won't ever come. 

But Emma proves patient and takes the beat up cans from her arms.

“What are you doing on the ground?” She can hear the frown in the woman’s voice.

But she doesn't have her notebook so she tries to stand instead and Emma has the luxury of watching her right leg buckle. The car door swings open, headless of the attention drawn to the sound.

She wants to tell Emma no but the woman is already out of the car and popping Regina’s leg back into place with a, “hurry, we don't have much time.”

Regina, despite the uncertain stability of her leg, begins to back away from the car.

“Gina, what are you doing?”

She takes another step back as the hoard seems to take a collective step forward. One stride closer to Emma.

“Regina, get back in the car, okay. We really don't have time for this.”

Regina dips her head and turns her back on the woman.

“Regina, please. I really can't do this without you. I need someone.”

But she's not a person.

“I need you. ”

“No.” Regina insists. “You. Don't.”

Emma steps out of the car.

And Regina understands.

The horde is too close now for any further arguments and Regina isn't willing to watch Emma get ripped to pieces because she wanted to be stubborn.

Selfish.

Emma is so selfish. 

To keep her alive like this.

And she is a hypocrite; as if she wouldn't do Emma the very same way.

“I love you, Regina. I didn't mean to make you feel like…a monster.” She pulls away just as the first bloody hand slaps the windowpane. “I love you so much.”

But not enough to let her go.

Chapter Text

It is fortified. 

Heavily. 

And the fortification is spattered with the blood of everyone who hadn’t passed the metrics of the San Clemente guard personnel, zombie and human alike. 

And here Emma is, standing brazenly with a zombie at her side, knowing exactly what the woman is. Knowing also who the woman had been. Knowing who she could be again if the guards give her a chance.

Their guns are all level and ready to be fired.

“No wait! We heard your broadcast!” Emma shouts up to them. “My wif—” she begins just to reconsider. She doesn't need to give them a reason to think that she is delusional with grief. “I have a zombie that you can test your cure on.”

“Why isn't it chained up and muzzled.” Calls the man that she assumes is in charge for the shift.

Emma’s throat runs dry. She probably should have if she wanted to be taken seriously. If she didn't want her sanity questioned. She clears her throat. “Because she…it is tame. I've tamed it.”

The guns don't lower. “Tamed it?” 

“It is intelligent.” A sense of deja vu comes over her. “She can understand…” and is probably  hurt by “...what we are saying and can communicate back.”

The team of guards exchange looks. And the man in charge demands, “explain.”

“Go on, Regina, show them.”

She watches Regina scribble something on her notebook page. She holds it up to reveal, ‘I'm here for the cure. You have the cure?’

She has been writing longer sentences, the result of a few days and nights worth of writing in her notebook and speech therapy with Archie. It is impressive really, how far the mind’s muscle memory goes. 

It goes further than physical muscles; Emma is certain that parts of Regina’s face have rotted away to a point where her mouth can no longer move to shape the words that she knows.

The lead guard draws up a pair of binoculars. He holds them to his eyes for some time. “We do have a cure.” He calls down. “But we haven’t tested it on the deep rotted.”

“The deep rotted?”

The man nods at Regina. “The ones that have been festering for months. Our cure works on the recently bitten and the ones who had only been infected for a few weeks to a month.” He pauses. “But I am curious about that one. How it managed to retain so much intelligence.”

“ She has retained her humanity too.”

“Is that right?”

“Yeah.”

“And how do you know that?”

Because she hasn’t stopped wallowing over Archie since it happened. 

Guilt. 

It has become a tether for her. A tether to her humanity.

“She…we used to be…we still are married. She remembers that.” At least Emma hopes that she does. “She gets embarrassed about…” Emma grimaces and her heart sinks. “About how she smells and walks and her handwriting.”

“We’ll need more than just your word.” Calls a female guard. “I’m still skeptical of its intelligence.”

“You’ll just have to trust me.” Emma calls back. 

What a stupid thing to say. 

Why should they?

Archie did.

And look where that trust got him.

Next to her, Regina very slowly raises and extends her arm. And just as slowly, extends her middle finger. The lead guard cackles. “An expression of intelligence and humanity at the same time.” 

And thus they have their ticket inside. A facility that still has power. The result of luck and brain power that the soldiers brag about. Emma pays their prattle little mind, instead captured by the metal walls and fluorescent lighting and this overly clean ammonia aroma. She is quite thankful for its potent chemical scent having been surrounded by filth for so long. She’ll take the hospital smell over decay any day.

“So how far did you come from to get here?”

“ We traveled from one end of the country to the other. Maine. We’re from a little town in Maine. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”

“You’d be surprised. I’ve been stationed in Texas, DC, New York, Louisiana, and Kansas.”

“Kansas? You fight bison or something?” 

“Tornado aftermath clean up.” He replies. “Was deployed to help with the outbreak over there too. Was a bitch and a half to get back here. My chopper went down and my radio went dead.” He pauses. “Shit, I don’t know how you managed to get all the way over here. I barely made it back myself.”

Emma shrugs. “A lot of luck, I guess. And a zombie who could detect other zombies a mile away. She helped us avoid a lot of them. She could also do supply runs for us. She could walk right through hordes of zombies and they obviously wouldn’t pay any attention to her.”

The man strokes his stubble. “Yeah, I reckon it is quite an advantage to have a zombie that doubles as a guard and a delivery dog.”

“She is…was…is a human being.” Emma reminds through gritted teeth with a balled fist.

The man regards Regina again who stares blankly back. “Yeah to some extent, I suppose.” 

“By the way, the boat that we stole to get to this island was a piece of shit.”

“The price of theft.”

“What’s theft anymore? Owner of the boat is probably dead.”

“Well he might be now. If you’ve found a fully fueled boat it’s probably one of our own. Thanks to you I’ll be sending out a small team to pick the man up. If he’s been bitten then we will be administering the last of this batch of ST5.V1—searum test 5, version one—to him over your lady.”

Emma’s stomach lurches. “When will you have a new batch ready?”

“Two weeks if we’re lucky. Relax, we’ve replicated it before. We’re on batch ten and working on an aerosol type that we can spray over densely populated areas. Bring this nightmare to an end.”

“How does it work? This serum?”

“Well that’s a question for our head scientist. Kid’s a genius if I do say so. A biochemist and a virologist among other things. Loves outerspace though. I think that he said that he was studying to be an astronomer before all of this. Just so happened to be taking some biology and pathology courses too. Or something like that. I’m no scholar.” 

“When do we meet him?”

“Once we get past those double doors and a decontamination processes. Your…er…wife doesn’t need to bother with any of those precautions. She’ll be going through those doors with the rest of the biohazards.”

Emma’s heart begins hammering anew. “We can’t go together?”

“Will that be a problem Ms…”

“Emma. Just Emma.” She couldn’t handle begin addressed by Ms. Swan. Not now. Not by him. “And no…it’s just that we haven’t really been apart since she turned. I don’t know how she’ll handle it.”

The guard brings their steady walk to a stall.

He casts a sidelong glance at Regina and takes a drag from his cigarette. “You gonna make it a problem, rotter?”

Regina shakes her head.

Emma clears her throat. “Can we try to keep stimuli to a minimum?”

The lead guard quirks a brow.

“She gets overwhelmed and when she gets overwhelmed she…”

The man nods. “It goes feral? Yeah I’ve been around a deep rotter or a hundred. Even the newly rotting get into a frenzy now and then.” He stuffs his free hand into his pocket. “So we’ll muzzle it like the rest of ‘em.”

“Talk about her like that again and I’ll—!” She begins only to be cut of by Regina. And a good thing too, with all of the pent up rage she has stored up. She could never bring herself to beat Regina for what happened to Archie but the need to pound something…someone…is growing harder to resist. And impulse control has been eroded by prolonged periods of isolation and stress and edginess that doesn’t have an end.

“Jo-nes Riiid-ley?” Regina asks in her slow slur. 

Emma furrows her brows and the man goes rigid.

Regina points at him. “Jo-nes Riiid-ley.”

“How do you…?

“Broadcast.” Regina answers so indistinguishably that she has to pull out her notebook and write it down. She adds a hasty, ‘your voice sounds like his. You are him.’

“Yeah.” He replies. “Sure am ma’m.” He strokes his stubble again and hums. “Yeah. Maybe this rotter doesn’t need a muzzle. We’ll see how it…” He glances at the notebook that she holds up for him. 

‘Muzzle me.’

“She’s lost control before.” It isn’t a question.

.oOo.

She sits nice and uncomfy as they strap a muzzle around the lower half of her head. 

It is too tight. 

She is already in pain. A little more of it doesn’t matter. 

She doesn’t sit so still when they start picking and peeling and spraying. 

All of the maggots and worms and crawly things create a carpet beneath her among chunks of skin and other particularly dirty, vile bits of her. 

They pour chemicals over the crawling carpet and set it on fire. They extinguish the flames and continue cutting away at her until her skin crawls and burns more than ever. They splash her with hydrogen peroxide and scrub her down until that familiar itching and twitching begins in her mind. Scrape and peel until her sanity is shaved down just as well as her diseased skin. Prode at her and manhandle her until she begins gnashing her teeth beneath her muzzle and thrashing. 

And so she finds herself in chains. 

Zombies can’t cry.

But she knows that she’d have a lot of tears if the ducts of her eyes still functioned. 

She is not a human.

But she was before. 

Shouldn’t that mean something?

Anything?

Finally, only after every single inch of her has been rubbed raw, they lead her into the next room. They strap her naked body to a gurney with a chill to juxtapose the friction heat on her flesh. They leave her completely alone to bask in the violation that she feels. 

Of all of the emotions to remember, she wishes that it weren’t this one.

She tries not to look at her left elbow.

They had scrapped her to the bone.

The skin had gone a sickly, mushy black at her elbow but she thought that she would have more time to prepare herself to see bones.

She wants to scream, to cry, to beg for help or a swift and merciful end. Her body allows for none of that so she expresses her fear and distress in the only way that she knows how, the only way she can; through a series of grunts and growls and plenty of jerking against the restraints. 

“Here she is.” Ridley announced. “Our very first deep rotted subject.”

And the lead scientist speaks.

He only says one word.

One small, squeaky, timid word.

“M-mom?”

Chapter Text

She stops her thrashing and her agitation dissipates a degree or two. There is now something more deeply innate to override the base instincts of hunger and rage.

She can't quite place what that thing is but she knows that it has to do with Henry.

She never forgot him.

Nor even a moment.

Even when she only had a face with no name to it.

Between the muzzle and her decaying mouth, she can't call his name. She can't reach out with the restraints that bind her. But she can squeeze his hand when he kneels down and takes her own. She can stare at him when he looks into her eyes.

His eyes look so terribly sad.

But she is not, she is something else that she cannot place, but the feeling comes with knowing that Henry has not met the same fate that she did.

“That’s your mother?” Ridley tilts his head. “The one you’ve been telling me about.”

Henry nods.

“Well that’s a damn shame then. She could have been a great asset to our research team.” He pauses. “I suppose she still is in a manner of speaking but she’d have made a great scientist. I can get you other mom that military position…” He muses aloud. 

Could have been. 

Regina could have been a lot of things. 

The virus has stolen every bit of potential that she had once had.

“If my serum works then my mom can still be on the team.” Henry declares. 

Mom.

Mother. 

The words put a tickle in her chest.

Does she still have a heartbeat?

She thinks that she does. If it’s a virus and she hadn’t truly died…

She had just assumed that she died. 

Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe it is disease that rots her skin and not decomposition…

“You ready, mom?” Henry asks.

She looks up at him and nods as Emma steps into the room and Regina lets her body fall somewhat limp. There isn’t quite enough tension to hold it up now that that angry, primal part of her has nestled itself away once again, leaving only a faint tingle in her head.

“Henry!?” Emma’s mouth falls agape. “You’re…? You made it?”

Henry offers a meek little wave. “Hi mom.” And a sad smile. “Yeah. I’m guessing that Storybrook didn’t.” 

“It didn’t.” Emma confirms. “It’s just Gina and I as far as I know.” 

“What about grandma and grandpa?”

“Let’s have this conversation later. I get that the rotter’s your mother but just how long do you think we can leave her bound and muzzled before she gets restless. I wouldn’t want to have to put a bullet in her right in front of you, Mr. Mills.” 

Emma takes a step forward but Ridley doesn’t flinch the way that the people of Storybrook usually did when the woman would puff her chest. “I didn’t drive all the way over here just to—”

“Mom, it’s okay.” Henry says. “He’s just trying to keep everyone safe. We have a lot of families on this island. And we’ll be quick anyways. It’s just a little injection and incision. I give her the initial dose of ST5.V1 and then I make a small cut…” He glances at Regina’s arm. “Or, if there’s a deep enough patch of rot, I can insert the first patch in there…” He trails off. “It’s a simple process. We just have to insert three patches over a few days.” 

“Alright.” Emma replies with a glance around the room. “Where is everyone else?”

“There is no everyone else. We’ll have a rotating team to observe her over the next few days to see how she reacts to the patches. Our researchers are quite busy working on the aerosol. Your son will be the primary observer of his mother’s progress. He takes thorough notes on his own. I trust the man to document the serum’s effects and efficacy on a deep rotter.”

Regina shifts in the chair, dread beginning to creep in once again. She wishes that Henry would stop stealing, just get over here, and get it over with! She shakes her head, but the intrusive, impatient thoughts remain. She used to be at least decent at suppressing those.

“You ready, mom?” Henry asks quietly. 

She isn’t. Not particularly. 

But needles and incisions beat the alternative. 

So she nods in spite of her reluctance. 

“I’m going to inject the serum through your right arm because that is where you seem to have been bitten.” He looks to Emma for the confirmation the Regina doesn’t have the capacity to give him. 

It is fuzzy anyways.

Details of the day that she had been bitten.

Her memory comes in shredded scraps; disorganized and practically useless in their disarray. Especially since she lacks the higher cognitive functioning that it would take to sort through and makes sense of them.

But at least she has them and the tethers to relative sanity that they provide. 

Regina hisses and gives a reflexive bite of her own to match the needle’s. 

“Okay. Next part. And it's kind of the worst part.” He takes her hand and gives it a little squeeze.

“Incredible.” Ridley remarks. “She’s…realitively calm. More so than even the newly rotting.” 

“I told you.” Emma says. “She’s not like them.”

And why not.

What sets her apart?

Makes her special?

Her magic?

Her glowing heart that can still beat when she pulls it from her chest using that magic?

And it dawns upon her that the experiments might just be beginning.

Chapter Text

Sleep. 

She thinks that she sleeps more often than not these days.

But that is alright because every time she wakes up she finds that she has recovered more of herself.

More impulse control.

More emotional regulation.

More cognition.

But very little strength.

And very little where cosmetics are concerned.

As far as emotions go she still feels dumb and dull. She struggles with crossword puzzles, reading, and basic math. Worse still, she had failed to feel as much glee and relief as Emma had when they finally got their real moment of reunion with Henry. Emma was all tears and hugs and laughs. 

She feels only dull pangs of longing. A yearning for all of those passionate, deeply felt emotions that she used to wish she could dull. She wishes that she could feel a fraction of that sort of intensity again. 

She is happy to find Henry alive and well in spite of all of the odds. But the fluttering and tickling that used to stir in her tummy during overwhelmingly happy moments is no longer there. She should be excited. Elated. Teeming with enthusiasm, warmth, and love. 

She is cold and hollow as an animated corpse dragged out from some cryochamber.

And she still smells of rot and decay. She is still terribly dirty and appalling to behold. And now that the fog of virus has been stripped away she has the capacity to be ashamed of the state of herself in full. She doesn’t want Emma to see her like this. She really doesn’t want Henry to. She used to be regal. Refined and elegant and glamorous. 

She used to have standards.

Emma assures her that nobody really has standards anymore and that the lucky ones get basic hygiene maintenance. Which is terribly easy to say when she is one of the lucky ones, well bathed and decently groomed. Now and then she enters the quarantine zone with a stained shirt beneath her biohazard protection suit. Now and then she looks a little rough and rugged. But her hair is typically clean and not matted. Not the way Regina’s is. 

‘I want a bath, Emma.’ She writes. 

“You’re supposed to be using your voice, remember?” Emma says. 

But she doesn’t like talking. Doesn’t like the way that her voice sounds now that the virus has rendered it hoarse and garbled. She has the vocabulary but likes the ability to move her mouth to shape the words properly. And she writes these thoughts down for Emma to read.

“Not talking isn’t going to help that.” Emma points out. “It’s going to make things worse.”

“I’m not a child.” She mumbles in her slurred speech. “Stop talking to me like…” a sharp pang shoots itself from her jaw to her neck. And tears come to her eyes.

It still hurts. 

Everything still hurts.

Worse than before without the virus to manipulate nerve endings and how she processes pain.

When she is not sleeping she is crying.

“Emma, why?” Why her? Why can’t they just let her go? And her mind wanders to a place that it hasn’t in a very long time; to Daniel. To how she had been trying to raise the man from the dead. Her stomach gets queasy; this. This is what she would have condemned him to. Selfish. She was selfish. Emma is selfish. Henry is…no. No, they are just too full of love and hope for their own good. All three of them. 

Hope is blinding. The need to nurture and care and heal against all odds is blinding.

Emma is by her side again. Cradling her in her arms in spite of the stench and the grime. 

At least she knows that she is truly loved.

Truly cherished.

But she still finds herself murmuring through her daily pleads. “Please let me go, Emma. Please let me die. For real this time.” She is never going to be normal again. Never herself. Even after patch number three. “I want to…I can’t do this.” What if it is all for nothing. All of this suffering and struggling just to live her life a step above a zombie’s lifestyle.

Henry insists that she will make a full recovery; he shows her progress pictures of other cured zombies. But, as Ridley likes to remind, these people had been new rotters. And none of them had looked nearly as putrified in their before pictures as she does in hers. 

“You’re going to have a bath tomorrow.” Emma tries. She dances around the big ‘if’. If the third patch successfully eradicated the virus in her. And part of her hopes that it hasn’t so that they can put her out of her misery. “You’ll probably feel better after that.”

Or she’ll feel like an ogre in pretty clothing. And abomination that smells tolerable. She doesn’t fancy the thought of being paraded around the facility from the quarantine zone to the general population.

“It’s only been a few weeks. You’re not even in the recovery stage yet.”

How long had he been standing there? Regina’s cheeks warm. 

“We start that tomorrow.” Henry declares. “With the bath. The team will wash you up, or you can do it yourself…” But she can tell that he doesn’t recommend that yet. She can’t blame him, she still has trouble walking without a limp or a stagger. Something that he says will be rectified with the surgeries and the following physical therapy.

Surgeries.

She will be undergoing a lot of those. 

Already has had a few. Now that the virus isn’t there to keep her alive…reanimated…whatever state she had been trapped in she has been in and out of procedures to keep her from bleeding out. 

She has had holes in her stomach patched, lesions on her lungs repaired, and has become something of a human quilt or a scarecrow—stitched up from head to toe with borrowed skin from pigs and human donors. 

“I’ll help you out.” Emma finishes for him. 

Regina nods and Emma squeezes her tighter. She gets nervous when the woman does that. Sometimes it causes oozing. Do they even have the technology to fix that sort of thing? This place and its occupants seem to have maintained its power grid well enough. 

Much better than she has been able to maintain her magical power. 

The only thing that can fix her is lost to her…

“Just one more day, Gina. And then you’ll get a bath and some clean clothes and painkillers.”

Why can’t they just drug her into oblivion now? Shoot her so full of morphine that she won’t have to feel a thing physically nor emotionally. A zombie of a different kind.

Just one more day.

One more…

.oOo.

She feels relief and mortification in equal measure. As expected she can’t bathe herself, not to the degree that is required. And so Emma helps her get the places that she is too weak, stiff, or in pain to scrub clean. And the act of cleaning her wounds is painful in itself. 

Her bath is less of a bath and more of a very intense pat down with towels, soap, and alcohol so that she can avoid worsening the infections that they are fighting to treat. 

But she does get shampoo and with very clumsy fingers and muscles that tire fast, she is able to wash her hair on her own. Far longer than it should have taken, Regina is finally clean. Her skin doesn’t look quite so dreadful now that layers and layers of crusted mud and blood and God knows what else have been scraped away. 

She still isn’t a pretty sight with her patchwork skin, her sallow complexion, and her hollow cheeks. Her haircut is awful too but there was no salvaging it with how matted it had become. But at least she looks vaguely human now. 

Emma helps her into a pair of baggy sweatpants and an even baggier tank top. Something loose and breathable that will make wound care easier. She holds the fabric of the sweater to her nose but can’t smell a thing. She lost her sense of taste too and her vision is so blurry that she may as well be blind. 

“Don’t worry, you smell nice. If you like the scent of sandalwood.” Emma promises. She reaches into her pocket and produces a pair of glasses that she fixes onto the bridge of Regina’s nose. “How’s that?”

Regina shrugs. 

She can see again.

“You ready for general pop?” Emma asks. 

She isn’t.

Not at all. 

“I think that this will be good for you. Really good.” Emma smiles. “Socalizing will probably make you feel more human.”

Or less so when everyone starts gawking at the monstrous amalgamation of stitches, skin, and sores before them.

“There aren’t too many of us.” Henry assures before taking her into a cafeteria that is crawling with people. Hundreds of them with more to be seen outside the windows. And they do talk to her. She doesn’t have much to say back, not with her clumsy tongue and accent that sounds like she is recovering from a wisdom tooth extraction. But they make conversation; they tell her about the community garden and invite her to help out with it when she recovers her mobility…if she recovers her mobility. They talk to her about the weather and what their lives were like before the outbreak. They tell her about their current occupations and their favorite movies, books, and songs. 

And then Henry leads her to the table with the formerly infected. The people who look somewhat like her with mapworks of scars, strange speech patterns, and jerky motions. 

A tightness forms in her throat that she cannot find a source for until Henry reassures her that, “they usually don’t sit at the same table for lunch but we thought that it would be helpful for you to meet all of them at once.” 

“We have ourselves a little support group.” Remarks one of the cured. “We meet on Thursday nights.” 

“That’s Terry McDelvis. He was the first person to be given the serum.” Mr. Ridley appears from behind. “Good man. Brilliant man.” He pauses. “Excellent soldier too. And we’re working to get ‘im back in uniform.” He slugs the man on the shoulder. And McDalvis gives a flat, disjointed laugh.  “You’ll also get really familiar with Ander Belfost—that one’s a talker. Tally Jean Gulch and her mother Alyssa Gulch. And then there are the Gutierrez brothers, they started a disk golf team.”

She gets a long list of names and a reminder not to worry about remembering them all right away. But she writes them down and runs through them periodically. A little something to try to kickstart her working and short term memory again. 

“I got you signed up for a few classes.” Henry declares, beaming. “We’ve got a whole program to help rehabilitate the newly cured! It’s based on the exercises that have been the most effective so far.” 

It all sounds so, so promising. 

But Regina knows better than to hope. 

Hope is such a dangerous thing. 

She wonders what the catch is?

Chapter Text

Regina’s fingers shake as she buttons up her blouse. It takes a few times; her first three attempts come with the buttons coming unfasted—she thinks that she hadn’t managed to push them all the way through the hole. She is one button off on her fourth attempt leaving her top askew. She hisses and seethes at her own incompetence. She feels a hand on her shoulder during attempt six. “Maybe it’s time for a break, Gina.” 

But she can’t take a break.

She has a speech to give! 

She can’t just go up to the podium to open and lead a discussion on the triumphs and successes of a rotter rehabilitation if she is still failing at simple tasks like dressing herself and she tells Emma as much. “Some of them still see us as…”

“So it’s like a lot of other disabilities.” Emma declares. “There are going to be a few setbacks, rough days, and struggles and there are always going to be jerks who dismiss the process and talk a whole lot of shit.”

Disability.

She hadn’t thought to look at it that way.

Disabled is certainly a much kinder term than rotter. 

“I have a feeling that nobody is going to care about blouses and buttons when you tell everybody that Henry is a few steps closer to bringing the cure worldwide and you’re living proof that it works on people who have been infected for a long time.”

Living proof. Regina gives a curt and short laugh. 

Emma grins.

It takes Regina a moment to realize that she hasn’t expressed bitterness, sarcasm, or cynicism since before the virus had stolen her capacity to have any type of humor.

“You’re doing great, mom.” Henry promises. 

For now.

There is still a part of her that dreads a relapse. 

Sometimes, in her nightmares, she feels Archie’s flesh in her teeth. Sometimes, in her nightmares, she feels that itch in her brain. Sometimes it follows her into her waking moments and she comes out of sleep shaking and short of breath…hyperventilating with Emma reassuring her that she is still human. And the anxiety in itself becomes a source of comfort; zombies…the infected can’t feel panic. She can. She is still human. She is not sick.

But she worries that the disease will return. Wake up from some dormant state. 

She is thankful to have Mr. Ridley takes her concerns seriously even if he is blunt and rude about it. “The rotter’s right, we should invest in maintenance shots.” Is better than hearing, “oh it’s okay, you’re going to be okay, you’re worrying yourself over nothing.”

Less comforting is Ridley’s growing interest in whatever it is that had made her so special. Now that she is cured and more or less competent the man has been pestering her over what about her body, genetics, psychology, or neurological functions had allowed her to retain more of her humanity.

Not that she isn’t curious herself. 

Not that she wouldn’t be willing to let Henry run a few tests on her if it could produce a vaccine…

“Can I help you?” Emma interrupts her thoughts. 

Regina makes one last half-hearted attempt at the top button before letting Emma unfasten and refasten each of them. 

“There.” Emma squeezes her shoulders. “You’re all ready for your speech five hours from now.”

“I want to make sure that I’m on time.” Regina replies. “Anyways I used to dress like this all the time…” She used to wear heels too. She misses them. She stares down at her feet, at the cast that is still around her ankle. The one that should be coming off for a second time with another lecture about being careful and not reinjuring herself. It is easier said than done with her ankle being so fragile. But easier than it had been now that she has had a few months of physical therapy. Now that she can walk in a straight line so long as she is wearing her glasses. 

“Do you want to comb your hair?”

Regina nods. Of course her hair needs to be at least combed. Hair straighteners are in short supply, that is to say that there isn’t a hair straightener on San Clemente Island. Makeup is also in short supply so she has to use it sparingly. 

Tonight is as good as any if she can bring herself to look in the mirror. She wants to look good and well put together but she doesn’t particularly want to see how she looks before she can put herself together…

“I can do it for…”

“No. I’ll do it.” Regina replies. “Thank you, though.” 

.oOo.

Emma leans against Henry as Regina steps up to the podium. Her gait is slightly unsteady but she hadn’t exactly been an expert at using crutches before the virus either. When she reaches the podium, she leans heavily against it.  She clears her throat. She is teeming with anxiety, the sort that she doesn’t wear obviously. But Emma knows her well enough—knows that she absently drums her pinky finger when she is nervous. Knows that she holds her hand against her abdomen when she gets stressed. Right now she drums her left pinky against the podium and holds her right hand to her abdomen. “Good evening residents of San Clemente…” she begins.

Emma knows that she ought to listen to Regina’s words—the woman will ask her how she did, if she was coherent—but her attention is on the woman herself.

Healthy.

That is the first thing that comes to mind. Perhaps she isn’t the picture of health these days but her cheeks are much fuller and her complexion has regained its color and some of its glow. That skin has a generous crackle of imperfections. Long cracks of paler skin where atropic scars have formed. Most of the scar tissue decorates the spot on her neck where the decay and rot had gotten particularly bad but there is a line of scarring that extends from her neck to the bridge of her nose. 

She hates it. 

Emma thinks that is a beautiful testament to her survival.

Part of her nose is still split at the left nostril. And where the scar on her lip had been is a particularly tricky spot. A spot where her teeth and gums are exposed. It is a work in progress that she hides beneath bandages and face masks.

She also hides her arms;  never wears short sleeves anymore and Emma knows that it is because, beneath those long sleeves, her entire right arm is a field of scars. The bulk of her medical treatment post cure had been to repair the horrific state of decay on that arm in particular. The skin of that arm is less of Regina’s own and more of everyone and everything else’s. A good ninety percent of the skin on that arm is synthetic or xenograft. 

Regina hates it. Emma finds it intriguing and alluring. Henry says that her skin is like a book, that it tells her story. Isn’t there a certain charm in that?

Emma hopes that the woman will get used to it. Will learn to accept and even embrace it. 

Her posture is much better too, despite her broken ankle. She can hold herself high with her chin up. 

She has styled her hair nicely. She complains that it is too short, Emma insists that it makes her look mature and composed. It falls just beneath her ears, a little thinner than it had been but with a silky and soft texture. 

But it is her eyes that mean the world to Emma. They are cloudy and baggy but she can see a twinkle of emotion within them. 

Expressive. Her eyes have become expressive again.  

And when Emma does get around to listening to the speech she can hear Regina again. There is a slight slur and a drag something that might only be apparent to Emma because she knows just how clearly and dramatically Regina used to enunciate her words, especially when addressing the public. But that voice is still Regina’s, it is still velvety and still has some depth to it. She drinks a very generous amount of water but her voice is still pretty hoarse by the time she says, “and I am pleased to announce that my son, Henry Mills has gotten several steps closer to distributing an aerosol version of the serum worldwide.” She takes another drink from her water bottle, the last of it. “And I am equally pleased to share that I will be granting my consent to undergo clinical trials that may lead to the development of a vaccine.”

Emma notices her pressing her hand more firmly into her abdomen. 

.oOo.

Regina makes herself as comfortable as she can upon the mattress and lets Emma unfasten the buttons of her blouse. Her stomach flutters as the woman pulls her arms out of the sleeves. And her breath catches when Emma traces her fingers over the raises and indents of her scars. She closes her eyes and lets out a few shaky breaths. 

“You okay?”

Regina nods. Although she isn’t quite sure. 

Emma holds her palm against Regina’s cheek. 

Tonight isn’t a night for words. 

Tonight is a night for touches. 

Touches that are somehow infinitely more comforting than any words could be; she can’t be too appalling if Emma is still willing to touch her. But then again she had also cuddled her putrifying, festering, critter riddled body too…

But she hadn’t nuzzled her nose into her hair nor had she kissed the top of her head. 

Regina closes her eyes and relishes in all of these things that she can feel again; love, affection, comfort, reassurance…hope.

And all of those things that she cannot; agony, uncontrollable rage, confusion perpetual fear…infection.

Beneath Emma’s hand her heart beats, thrumming with something peculiar. Something special. Something healing.

.oOo.

Emma lies awake listening to the sound of Regina’s breathing.

Somewhere in Storybrooke the people that she used to love roam.

They pound upon doors and bang on windows.

Here in her arms Regina murmurs and flexes her fingers in her sleep.

Now and then she bunches her fists and limply knocks against Emma’s chest.

This is also common; the sleep knocking.

At 11:47 exactly.

Emma is glad that she had opened the door.