Regina had been determined to give Maleficent her space. She knew better than most how —- difficult a situation like this could be to navigate. She’d seen the girl, Maleficent’s child, reuniting with her mother only at a distance, and quickly found other ways to occupy herself. Seeing the two of them together stirred something deep within Regina’s chest that she found unsettling and very much unwanted. Desperate not to further examine the stirrings, she tried to put the pair from her mind. It would be selfish of her to ask anything of Maleficent at a time like this, much less to have expectations. Whatever was brewing between them had survived this long, and getting in the way of something so personal was hardly going to help the cause.
It wasn’t as if she were completely alone, either. Henry had stayed with her while Emma fetched the girl, and for a time he sufficed to keep her completely engaged. Talk of the author abounded, and what she would want written when he was found. Yet, he’d left now, skipped back over to his other home to hear all the stories Emma, still not darkened, had to tell of her journey to fetch a dragon’s spawn. With the house empty once more, Regina found herself torn. Conflicted. She scrolled her phone once, then twice, staring at the number she’d programmed in, only to set the device back down. She’d already begun to move on from Robin, in small ways, but when she was left to the merciless clutches of silence, somehow determination lost much of its punch against the creeping memories that she kept caged behind rusting bars in her mind. And to speak of memories, she had to also face the once newly escaped. Maleficent was after all, much more than a mere friend.
Sat on edge of her couch, Regina let out a long sigh, giving a dismal and dissatisfied glower to the untouched glass of wine sat upon her coffee table, now warm from neglect. Alcohol did little to sate the aches with her, if anything it merely numbed the edges of her mind. Forced her to stop thinking about the countless things she’d never be able to change, and the even more innumerable things that haunted her past. It was as her hand moved to lift the glass that the doorbell chimed, stilling the motion before she could succumb to the self pitying indulgence. A frown creased her brow as she stood, feet moving with a haste as she reached her foyer within moments. Peering out the door’s peephole, she was shocked to see Maleficent standing there, alone, no less.
Without a moment’s hesitation she opened the door, concern gripping her features as she saw the state the woman was in. She could not recall any time in her long and sordid history with Maleficent that she’d ever witnessed the other woman crying.
❝ Maleficent? ❞
She spoke cautiously, glancing each way out her door as she stepped nearer to the woman, a singly hand reaching out tentatively to lay gently on her arm. She could only guess what might have put the woman in such a state, and not one of them were good. How could they be? Maleficent was one of the strongest people Regina had ever known. To see her reduced to something so… pitiable was nothing short of alarming.
❝ What’s happened? ❞
Somehow even through the thick pine door the sound of the doorbell made her head throb. A deep and dull resonance that echoed louder than made any sense. By the time the door swung open Maleficent had almost forgotten why she’d come there in the first place, and had forgotten exactly what sort of state she had come there in. Her lips parted softly as if to speak but for the longest moment she couldn’t form words. She’d come here for solace, for something she wasn’t sure why she thought she’d receive and yet somehow the look Regina gave her, the hand that touched her arm in some manner of comfort made it almost achingly clear she could have anything she needed here. And that thought alone stalled her voice for another beat.
Her lips pursed together, head nodding side to side like she were trying to deny what she knew was obvious to the other woman. She was hurting, confused, and somehow here, this place, this woman was what she ran to. Drawing in a breath through her nose, she kept her arms crossed tightly in front of herself, and yet despite the defensive posture she finally spoke, in a way that was both honest and desperate not to be turned away.
“Lily, she — she gave me a week, to stay here to, be her mother. A week Regina. I only have a week to spend with my child.”
Tears cut through an already broken tone, splitting her words as they flowed freely down her cheeks. Her eyes stayed cast down at first but slowly they worked their way up, staring at Regina in some silent plea for – something. Advice, a distraction, even she didn’t know what she needed. All she knew was there was no one else here who she could or ever had trusted, and no matter how complicated things were between them now, she was the only one capable of providing either one.
