Last Thing You'll Do

Chapter 6

"What?" she breathed her voice sounding foreign to her ears. She was being suffocated. She couldn't even draw in breath. A lead weight was crushing her chest. Regina's body and brain weren't connected though she felt the rush travel through her entire body making her feel dizzy. She was going to pass out. Her sense of time and surroundings wouldn't click into place either. Her vision seemed to blur around the edges as if her body was losing the ability to keep her conscious. Her constant anchor to reality...her now stark blindingly painful reality was Emma's shuddering breathing against her throat.

"He found a brain tumour" the blonde timidly repeated against her skin, though Regina did not need the words to be said again. She needed the words to be explained. How could Emma have a tumour? It didn't make sense. It didn't...click inside Regina's head.

A brain tumour. That wasn't...that wasn't possible. That couldn't be true. Emma ... Whale had to be mistaken. No they were wrong. It couldn't be a brain tumour. Regina had stayed awake worrying as she watched Emma become more distant and their day to day life become increasingly difficult. She'd cried herself to sleep when the woman who should have been there to comfort her and tell her everything was okay, was nowhere to be seen. She'd thought of so many situations and problems Emma could have gotten herself into that the other woman had felt she had to run away; but she had never thought that. She'd never thought of Cancer.

"No...you don't...you can't" Regina stammered into the blonde hair she was now clutching. It felt as if the ground beneath her had vanished and she was simply suspended in mid-air waiting for the moment she would fall into the dark abyss beneath her. She felt the small kiss pressed against her neck before Emma moved. Regina slipped the final inches to the ground which seemed solid and cold beneath her knees as she came to sit on her heels. Emma slid upwards through no more of the other woman into view as Regina felt Emma's fingers wove in her hair. Regina's scalp tingled at the familiar, well known feeling.

Emma's cheek was flushed against Regina's now and she could feel the blonde's tear coated skin against her own, and hear Emma's jagged breath against her ear. Her love was mirroring her now, though Emma's hold seemed stronger and more stable. Regina let the tears fall. Hearing Emma's staggering breaths despite her determined hold against Regina's head and waist confirmed Emma's words.

"I do...and I'm so sorry" the other woman said her breathing shook so dangerously Regina felt her own grip against the woman's waist tighten. She heard the wet kiss placed against her ear as well as the repressed sob that fell from her lover's lips. Closing her eyes she felt the warm tears fall down her face. God...this couldn't be happening. How could this be real?

Once again, much like it had so many times since the day it happened; their last argument played itself in Regina's mind. Little Emma had screamed at her that day made sense. She had tried so hard to make it fit, to make it make sense; and she always failed. But she remembered Emma's final words before she'd announced she was leaving Storybrooke. Now that made sense and she felt like vomiting. She remembered Emma's frantic tone as she'd shouted "I just want to be happy for once without everything fucking up! And I can't even have that." Whale had potentially handed her a death sentence, and Emma had ran.

Her hand tightened slightly in the blonde tress around her fingers. She wanted to do something...anything to ease the pain she felt. The pain she heard in the woman holding her though her harsh breathing was lessening. When had it changed so she was the one being comforted...being held? When had their lives changed so drastically?

"Again?" Regina said breaking the silence as the entirety of Emma's confession reached her brain. She'd said again...when and why had Emma been to see him before? Why hadn't she told her? "You said again" Regina added as Emma shifted and moved away from her completely. Their knees seemed to be the only thing touching now as they all but sat in the debris of Emma's forgotten belongings. The guilt was back.