Miles To Go

Chapter Twenty-One

For every mile that passed, it was another mile put between her and Regina and Emma's heart was aching as she tried to keep her focus on the road ahead of her. Her tears had all but dried up by the time she drove out of Storybrooke. She hadn't bothered to turn on the radio, silent and the sound of the car driving along the interstate keeping her thoughts company, thoughts that had her wanting to stop the car, turn back around and drive back to Storybrooke and into Regina's arms.

Where she belonged. Where she should be right then and there. Where she needed to be more than anything else in the world. Where she was meant to be for the rest of her life and there she was, driving along the interstate and heading home.

She wanted to turn around so badly, but she was fighting the urge to do it, knowing that if she did, leaving her again would be so much harder and it would hurt so much more. She couldn't do that to Regina. She couldn't do that to herself. If this was hard, what were their weekends going to be like? Would it be so impossible to leave one another without tears being shed, without hearts breaking over and over again? Emma wasn't even sure she could handle the miles between them and the miles they would have to go just to be together.

It had been easier not having Regina in her life at all. At least then she could cope. At least then when her sadness crept up on her, she could just cry herself to sleep. It'd be different now, especially with all the new memories they had made together over the past two months. Especially since Emma knew she loved her far deeper than she had eleven years ago. It was so deep in her heart and her soul that every mile put between them caused a driving ache to fill her, an ache she couldn't quite shake off.

"Fuck," Emma rasped as she gripped on to the steering wheel tighter, her knuckles going white in a matter of seconds. Her cell phone rang from where it sat on the seat next to her and with a quick glance, she saw that it was Ruby calling. She hit answer, turning it to speakerphone and held her phone in her lap. "Hey, Ruby."

"Hey, Em."

Silence. Nothing but silence. Emma could barely swallow the lump in her throat now and she could feel her eyes stinging, yet no tears came.

"Is that Mom on the phone?" Emma heard Henry ask, his voice faint. "Hi, Mom! Where are you? We're already in Boston!"

Emma looked at the sign quickly just as she drove under it. "I'm about forty minutes away. I ran into some traffic a few miles back that slowed me down."

Had she really been on the road for over three and a half hours? It surely hadn't felt like that and in some way it felt like she had literally just left Storybrooke moments ago. She kept her focus on the traffic on the road all around her and heard noises over the line of the phone being passed back to Ruby.

"Hey, Em? Are you okay?"

"No."

"Are you okay enough to drive?"

"I made it this far, Rubes, I'll be fine. Really. I'll see you guys soon, okay?"

"Em?"

"What?" Emma snapped and she took a few deep breaths to try to calm herself. "I'm sorry, Ruby. It's just...whew...there was no way I was prepared for today. I thought I could do this. I thought I could say goodbye without losing it completely."

"What happened?"

"Can we...talk about this when I'm not doing 70 in a 65mph stretch right now?"

"Okay, we'll hang out where we said we were going to meet. Call me when you get close, yeah?" Ruby asked and Emma gripped at the steering wheel tight with her left hand. "Em?"