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Early morning, Regina was in front of the mirror getting ready for the day as Emma sprawled out on the bed behind her, just coming back from a night shift patrol. It was the sheriff's day off, so the brunette decided to let her girlfriend sleep in.
To her knowledge, nothing special was going on at the office today, she just wanted to feel good wearing her new outfit she had just bought the other week black suit with red details, and the new earrings Emma got her matched perfectly to her style.
She walked into the building, greeted by her assistants busy preparing for her arrival for the first meeting of the day. As they were about to start, Sidney pulled the mayor off to the side and commented nonchalantly. "Don't take this the wrong way, but you'd be just as effective in something a little less... ostentatious and distracting. Also, I don't know how you wear heels like that all day."
It shouldn't be a big deal, it was just clothes, she could just correct it next time. But her stupid brain triggered her trauma, and she didn't know why. Okay, maybe she did, maybe it was the tone or maybe all seemed like she was in trouble and there would be punishment just like it did with Cora.
Regina was trying so hard not to cry, this weird heavy feeling in her chest that still seemed quite irrational to her. She breathed through her mouth slowly and exhaled with extreme control. But the day had to commence, and as the meeting started, all eyes were on her. She instantly plastered a taunt smile that didn't reach her eyes and put on her best customer service voice.
And the day went on, with time slowly lessening on the clutch on her emotional state, although it never left. Just as she thought she could handle getting through this day without falling apart, of course, a second incident happened just as she was about to go home for the night. She realized she had lost one of her earrings somewhere within the town hall. She started to spiral.
Maybe it would be less of a crisis if her cup wasn't half empty already due to the earlier incident, and to add salt to the wound, it was the earring Emma had gifted her and she had been especially ecstatic when she received the accessory from her wishlist she had been eyeing forever.
Regina started to panic, rising heartbeat thundered in her ear. She knew she had no choice that she was charging straight into an impending storm. She scurried frantically and searched up and down the hallways with desperation, even glanced at all the wastepaper baskets, the recycling, the trash in the building, retraced every step today. But in the end, no luck.
She almost choked out a sob, but she held herself together, she couldn't let anyone see her weak. She was the mayor, mayors do not cry over a lost earring. It was already dark out, she should go home, and she knew Emma would stay up late waiting for her to be back.
With utter defeat, she slung her purse over her shoulder and hung her head as she walked up to her car. The brunette carelessly dumped her purse in the passenger seat and leaned back with a heavy bone-tired sigh. There was this heavy weight in her chest that seemed to make her take more effort to breathe, but not strenuous to the point of needing to gasp.
Her head was still swirling and screaming with intrusive thoughts. Something's wrong with me. She scrubbed her hands over her face roughly, trying to ignore the raging storm in her head. Why does this always happen to me, or maybe I did this to myself. If I didn't wear the clothes, didn't wear the earrings, I did this to myself, everything backfires.
The brunette subconsciously unlocked her phone and messaged the first person in her contact list without thinking through her actions. Her finger almost trembled furiously as she typed, her vision blurred with haste, unaware how her words might sound.
Regina: Time to crash the fucking car!!!! 🤬
Regina didn't even wait for a response, she dropped the phone in the passenger seat, next to her discarded purse, shifted into drive and left the parking lot with reckless speed toward the closest highway.
A reply flashed across the screen not even a second later.
Emma: I'm sorry, what???
But the queen was too busy trying to chase adrenaline to shut the thoughts out of her head and the suffocating breath in her lungs to notice text after text flooding her lock screen.
5 missed calls - Emma ❤️
There was silence, no text, no return calls from Regina.
Emma paced in their bedroom as she continued to stare at her phone, still no response. Every second passing by without hearing from Regina seemed like torture, the unknown of it all, maybe she was just joking but she knew her girlfriend had her demons in her mind.
The sheriff almost went out in her cruiser with blaring sirens and flashing lights to find the mayor. Instead, somehow with the last of her self-restraint, she stayed put. The blonde fidgeted with the car keys in her hand as her legs bounced restlessly, waiting and hoping Regina didn't do anything stupid.
On the other hand, Regina gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, trying to outrun her self-deprecating thoughts in her head - She was too much, not enough. The trees zipped by in a blur outside the window and slowly the storm went down to a drizzle until she finally calmed down enough and got back into the city. Then another wave hit her and thunder clashed again.
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Twenty-five minutes later, the sheriff finally got a text back
Regina: I crashed the car
Emma: What??
Regina: I mean I said I'm gonna crash the car, and I did... just not head on
Emma: Baby where are you?
Regina: Outside.
Emma: Outside where?
Headlights rolled into the driveway, followed by the tires screeching against pavement. The car door slammed heavily as the queen stepped out with wind-ruffled hair, head hung low and shoulders slumped.
She slid the key into the lock and opened the front door slowly, entering on high alert for the yelling she was certain was about to occur, just like Cora would when she was younger.
"Hi Emma." Regina sheepishly mumbled, barely audible, when she spotted her girlfriend charging towards her.
But there was no scolding, no harsh tones, no judgment, no nothing. Instead, Emma ran forward without hesitation and threw her arms tightly around the brunette's neck like she had come back from the dead.
The blonde whispered, her loving voice a little wobbly, "You scared me." Deeply breathing in the scent she knew so well, afraid that if she let go, she would disintegrate.
Regina froze for a second, unsure what to make of the care being offered, and then leaned into the warm embrace. Yet, under shame, the brunette didn't dare meet her girlfriend's eyes and words just started tumbling out of her mouth, over-explaining before Emma could pass judgment on her stupid, stupid mistakes.
"I wanted to crash the car, so I tried to calm myself. I wanted to feel something else, something like adrenaline, cause that's the closest thing to danger and dying I could get if that makes sense..." She admitted.
She gasped and continued, voice trembling and tears edging at her eyes. "So I went on the highway, it was perfectly fine and I was calming down then and instead hit the side of the car, a parked car, doing forty back in the city."
Emma hummed softly and stayed calm and patient as she gently brushed a strand of hair from Regina's face. "And how is that logical, Baby?" Emma asked quietly without anger or judgment, she just wanted to understand and help Regina reflect.
"I don't know..." Regina replied, avoiding the obvious question. She didn't want to admit it out loud, if she did, it would've made it true. She knew she shouldn't have done it but she did anyway.
"You let actions driven by emotion," Emma suggested. "And sometimes you don't always think it through beforehand," she explained further.
The brunette gave a self-deprecating chuckle, trying and failing to shrug it off. "I just realized it might not be calming, whoops." Regina attempted to lighten the situation.
Emma arched an eyebrow incredulously, teasing but soft. "You think?"
"It was the stupid comment Sidney made," The queen let out a shaky exhale. "And then the earrings. I lost them. And it just—it was like being seventeen again."
Her voice cracked like glass. "Like I was going to be punished for existing. It was my fault, it was always my fault." It was the only truth she knew for so long that it was carved into her bones. That one wrong move would cost her everything.
The brunette lowered her gaze again. "I was so happy when you gave them to me. I loved them, I felt... loved. And when I lost it, it felt like I'd lost that too," she whispered, her voice hoarse with emotion.
Emma's expression softened as she finally understood the weight of it. The triggers piled up like scabs being picked at, then started bleeding again, too much, too fast.
"Oh, baby, I'm not going anywhere." Emma reached up, her thumb brushing tenderly across her cheek, catching the first falling tear.
"The earrings are replaceable," Emma cupped her face, leaning in with barely an inch between them, eyes locked with deep affection. "You, Regina, are not."
Finally, tears fell silently, then a choked-up sob, gasping for breath she had held for years of silence and once she started, she couldn't stop.
Something broke inside Regina, like someone - Emma had pried her broken heart apart that had been welded shut for years. All her needs being buried because of being punished, ignored, or manipulated was seeping out of her wounds and it stung. Hard.
Her legs buckled under her, and the saviour tightened her grip around her waist and lowered them to the floor. She collapsed into the blonde's arms trembling, fingers clutching her shirt.
Regina sobbed harder now, not caring how stupid she felt. She was that little girl again, the one who taught herself to internalize everything, but this time Emma stayed like she's never been held before, not like this, not ever. Emma was the first one to stay.
The brunette started between gasps, barely coherent, "I'm sorry." She wasn't even sure what she was apologizing for. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
Emma pressed a soft kiss into her hair. "But did you mean to hurt yourself?" The sheriff didn't like to question her girlfriend like that, she didn't want to know- she needed to know.
Regina stilled, her body went rigid and stayed quiet and that silence told Emma everything she needed to know. "Regina." The blonde breathed, it echoed in the empty room.
"I just..." The guilt started to creep up her throat. "I wanted it to stop." She wished she could just shrivel up under her gaze right now. "The noise. The pressure. I felt like I was drowning and I couldn't breathe."
She was the kid who'd been trained to earn affection and still be denied it. Who'd learned that love was a weapon—used to control, to manipulate, to take.
"I'm in a constant loop being thrown back into the past." She swallowed in a sob. "Like, no matter what, I will forever be that little kid who braced the pain."
"You've survived more than most people could even imagine." The blonde rubbed soothing circles into her back. And I know it's not fair, it's not. I know. You deserved so much more."
"You're the safest place I've ever known." Regina was shaking still, but her arms tightened around Emma, clinging like her life depended on it. "It's like you... you actually care." She admitted it like she barely believed it herself.
"Because I do." Emma's eyes filled with tears now. "And I'm not going anywhere."
She brought her hands up to Regina's cheeks again, wiping away the tears without hesitation, not caring how soaked her sleeves got as she kissed her fully on the lips. "I know you're damaged but I still love you unconditionally."
"Your broken parts make you more the reason to love because you deserve it. Because that's basic human decency." Her voice cracked. "And it's an outrage they ever made you think you had to beg for it while they weaponized it."
Regina replied through tears as the blonde kissed her again. "I love you, Emma." She let her head fall against Emma's chest, listening to the steady heartbeat against her chest like nothing else in the world mattered.
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