"I want to hope," Regina admitted quietly, hiding her shudder behind a well-timed sniffle. "I want to believe that she's out there, that she's safe and someone is taking care of her, but I have to be realistic." She shook her head as if talking herself out of her own thoughts. "I stopped believed in miracles a long time ago. I can't keep putting myself through this, but—"

"You don't want to forget," Archie provided when she couldn't. When she nodded into her tissue, Archie gently placed a hand on her knee. "Forgetting and letting go are not mutually exclusive."

"I don't know if I can."

"Maybe not now, but in time, you will." He sat back in his chair and grabbed his notepad, ripping off the front page and handing the pad and pen to Regina. "You mentioned that simply writing to Emma when Henry was sick helped ease your discomfort. Perhaps we can start with that."

Chapter 22

Chapter Notes

Disclaimer in Chapter One.

AN: YAY for double updates! Quick movements in time in this and the next chapter.

The pen and paper lay on her desk untouched as it had been for the last fifteen minutes. She couldn't even jot down the date because she knew once she got past that, she'd actually have to continue on with Dr. Hopper's request to continue penning letters to the soldier who wouldn't be opening them. This was even worse than when Henry made that map. Her eyes unconsciously drifted toward her drawer where she kept it, and felt the grip on her heart strengthen. It was one thing to encourage her son's naive hope, but she was a grown woman, goddammit. She didn't need to write to an imaginary woman to sort out her feelings.

Cold dread swept over her at the thought.

No, Emma wasn't imaginary. She was very, very real. She was warm, and strong, and soft, and safe. Hopefully. Though that wasn't what she told Henry a few days ago.

Her eyes slid shut as Henry's horrified gaze penetrated her being. Some days all she could think of was the terrified eyes of her son, looking up at her betrayed. Without conscious thought, she picked up the pen and placed the tip to the paper, the date smoothly etching into its fibres.

December 15 2006

Emma,

I—

She dropped the pen before she could even finish the thought, profusely shaking her head and darting from her seat. She couldn't do this. It was crazy to write to a de—her breathing picked up until she was gasping for air. Air. She needed air. She leant over her fireplace mantle and inhaled deep breaths, her throat constricting with every intake.

It was just a letter. A few words on a paper she had spent years doing. Her eyes burned with tears she refused to release, so she pressed the back of her palm to her closed lids as her breath shuddered filling her lungs.

She didn't have to be okay, Regina reminded herself, though the voice in her head sounded unusually like Dr. Hopper's. Not today. She didn't have to say goodbye today.


A few days later, Regina tried again, getting past the greeting with relative ease if she didn't think too much of the fact that she could see the woman in question in her mind's eye, sitting in front of her, possibly smirking as Regina failed to find the right words. It's just me, Regina, Emma would say. I don't bite. No doubt followed by a saucy wink.

Her pen continued, moving down a line as she wrote.

December 18 2006

Dear Emma,

I haven't written those two words in so long, and I feel as if I don't know where to begin. I don't even know why I'm doing this. Dr. Hopper has informed me that it'll help, but I don't understand how. It's just words on a paper, talking to myself. I can hear your voice in my head, and it's part teasing and amusement, and I miss you.

Regina


Christmas came and went with the standard struggle of getting Henry to sleep. The warning that Santa wouldn't visit if he wasn't promptly in bed didn't work quite as well on the five-year old as it had previous years.

"He doesn't always bring you what you want," was his only response as he begrudgingly trudged up the stairs, his light up reindeer slippers glowing with every stomp.

She wanted to scold him for his behaviour, but he was right. The fabled old man couldn't work miracles. Christmas Day was pleasant nonetheless with Auntie Kat dropping off gingerbread for Henry and a rum cake for Regina. The only reason the brunette knew Kathryn was heading out of town for the holidays leaving David to fend for himself was for the suitcase she could spot in the front seat of the sedan. She felt she should ask, but how could she when she spent the better part of the year evading her friend's invitations.

Regina watched as the calendar days dwindled, feeling her mood shift before her mind could even register the fact. Henry was asleep in his bed the evening of the 28th when Regina sat in her kitchen, losing herself in a rum cake that was more alcohol than pastry. She was never one to eat her weight in feelings, but there had been a time or two when she'd drown her sorrows in alcohol, and the rum cake was her best bet. When every piece was eaten, she moved on to the real thing, grabbing the closest bottle her fingers found — Absolut leftover from months ago — and strategically evading her office and living room and kitchen and any room where Emma left her mark.

Out of options she dropped to the foot of her stairs, downing more than a shot from the tumbler she managed to grab as her body doubled over on her knees, her shoulders shaking and her breath coming out in hard, erratic gasps.

This was real. This wasn't just some never ending nightmare she was living. It wasn't some cruel prank or alternate reality.

I'll be back before you know it.

Fucking liar, Regina hissed to herself as angry tears came to her eyes. It's been a god forsaken year!

Her make-up ran down her cheeks when she lifted her head up and poured herself a healthy dose. And then another. And another. And soon she was taking a swig from the bottle and leaving the bottle barely capped at the foot of her stairs.

Merry Christmas to me, she toasted herself bitterly as she stood.

"Yes it is," she slurred aloud as she took determined yet haphazard steps to her side table. "And what a wonderful new year!"

The drawer in her table wouldn't budge, but her depth perception wasn't much to bank on at that point. She finally got it open and grabbed at the pens and scrap paper hidden there before moving to lean her back against the wall and missing entirely. She fell to the floor, her ass hitting the hardwood with a thud, and the momentary shock was enough to dim the pain to her backside and lower back. Her suppressed laugh echoed in the foyer, snickering and wheezing in place of boisterous laughter. She needed another drink, but who the put the bottle so goddamn far away?

Rolling her eyes at fool's incompetency, she brought her knees up and used her thighs as a board against the paper and started to write furiously.

"To the woman who stole my heart," Regina voiced out loud. "Go to hell."

She underlined the words twice, the pen ripping through the page and ink marking her silk pyjama bottoms, but continued on, a snarl forming on her lips with every word.

You left me today. You left me and sent some second-rate soldier whose life is apparently more valuable than your own to tell me that you weren't coming back. You didn't even have the decency to tell me yourself!

"Idiot," she huffed and growled when her flesh was too soft to write on. Her hand moved to the table and grabbed, spilling bills and keys and small toys until her fingers settled on a magazine.

The doctor wants me to write to you, then so be it! A year. It's been a year. No phone call. No note. Not even a fucking telegram. I thought you liked it here. I was waiting for you. Henry was waiting for you. You never showed up because you had to go and be some altruistic idiotic saviour. Why does Neal get to live, and you get the short end of the stick? What, because you're a woman who needs to prove herself? Because he had a family? You have a family! Get that through your thick skull. Why couldn't you just for once think about yourself? After how many times did you promise me you'd be careful and you'd be safe? You had people waiting for you. You can't just come into our lives and claim to love us and then suddenly disappear. That isn't fair, Emma Swan! That's not how this works. You were supposed to come back! You don't get to leave us like this. God, how dare you? I loved you. I love you, doesn't that mean something to you? It hurts. Every single day I wake up and everything reminds me of your stupid face.

"I just have one thing to say to you," she seethed and balled up the paper, throwing it across the hallway along with the pen and magazine. The pen cluttered to the ground, and the magazine whirled before thudding. All the anger and misery Regina felt came out in gasping, breathy sobs as she leaned against her side on the floor and cried.


Regina's body woke her up at 6:00 AM precisely, hangovers be damned. She didn't know when she had wandered over to her couch, but if the remaining fifth of tequila was any indication, she wouldn't be remembering any time soon. Her silk tank top did nothing to shield her from the early morning chill. Goosebumps prickled on her arms as she sat up, straightening the kinks in her back and neck. She was never drinking again.

Grabbing the bottle, she moved toward her office to replace it back in her liquor cabinet then made her way toward the stairs to check in on Henry. He was a fairly heavy sleeper, but God forbid he witnessed anything particularly scarring. Her foot stepped on something prickly yet it yielded to her weight. A pen lay tangled in between the banister and a magazine was open in the middle of the hall. Squinting, Regina moved her foot and found a crumpled up ball and picked it up, her eyes widening as she unravelled it.