Last Thing You'll Do

Chapter 17

The house was empty and cold around her as the front door closed. No air seemed to move throughout the house, making it difficult to draw breath. Cold and darkness seemed to linger in air, clinging to everything making it so difficult just to keep breathing. It had been the same way for the last seven days. A week had passed since her true love had died.

Parts of the last week seemed to blur into one continuous moment while others dragged and Regina can remember each distinct minute that had passed. She can remember exactly what the paramedics had worn as they entered their home, rushing to where Regina was holding Emma; trying with everything she had just to make her love wake up. She remembers every word the two men said to her and Henry as they asked them to move out of the way so they could help Emma. Every single word; and yet she couldn't remember what they looked like. She couldn't have even pick their faces out of a line up.

Regina can't remember the ride to the hospital but she can remember both her and Henry standing in the middle of the room unable to do anything to help the doctors and nurses rushing around to help Emma. She can remember caring very little that she was stood in a crowded room in only her pyjamas, her bare feet sticking to the cold tiled floor. She can remember looking over at Henry and noticing for the first time just how old the boy was as he stood still dressed in the clothes from the day before. She had watched Henry straighten and marvelled in just how tall her son was before she allowed herself to look at the thing that had caught his attention. It had been Whale walking towards them.

She cannot remember now what the man said; though she can remember with a sick irony that had Emma been there she would have understood the long words and peculiar terms the doctor had used. She can only remember looking at him, she wasn't even sure she was moving but she can remember staring at him. Waiting for the moment he'd say Emma was okay; that he'd managed to save her. Except those words never came. Instead the words "I'm sorry we did all we could" followed his explanation. Thinking back as Regina had done repeatedly this last week she wasn't even sure Whale had told her that Emma had died, only that she knew she had.

She can remember how everything seemed to stop. The world stopped spinning, and the Earth's population silenced. Everything froze and Regina's vision blurred and darkened around the edges. She fought the urge to vomit and not collapse as the tight band that had been trying to suffocate her since Emma's confession that the man in front of her had found a tumour in her brain, finally defeated her. It had tightened so forcefully she struggled for breath as she had clutched at her chest. The only thing that stopped her from giving up in that moment was feeling Henry tucking himself into her side. It had been the young teen's sobs and pleading the man before them; he had to be wrong, his mother wasn't dead. She can remember her son shrinking before her eyes.

She remembers holding him close as they both cried themselves hoarse within minutes; neither of their legs could withstand their weight nor the weight of their grief as they crashed to the floor. How was it possible that Emma was dead when just minutes before she'd been trying to persuade Regina to stay in bed with her? How could Regina have refused? She had cared very little for their audience as the medical staff seemed to give her and her son their moment to grieve. She remembers turning down Whale's offer to inform the Mayor of her daughter's death. It was something she, Regina should do.

Regina can remember the exact tone her former stepdaughter's voice took as Regina tried to explain that her daughter was gone. The pixie haired woman had misunderstood and thought she had meant back to Boston. It was only when Regina broke down and sobbed down the phone the other woman had understood. It was then Snow had begged Regina to tell her she was lying. That it was just a cruel attempt to get back at her for everything Snow had done and said since Emma had left; and as both woman cried Regina had wished it was.