#SwanQueen

A sad prompt: Regina got pregnant with Emma’s baby after a one night stand before the curse broke. Since Henry is angry and Emma at FTL, she was left alone dealing with the miscarriage. One night, she’s crying inside the empty and dark mansion when she heard a knock on the door (Emma).

Thanks for the prompt. This is super sad angst. TW for miscarriage. SQ hurt/comfort/angst. I don’t own Once or any of its characters. Apologies for any mistakes. Hope you enjoy :)

—-

Pain.

She’s felt it before, more times than she can count but tonight is agony. Regina curls in on herself on the bathroom floor cradling her stomach and wishing that for once in her life, someone would listen. They won’t. In her world her wishes simply evaporate into the air.

Thanks for the prompt :) 

Emma frowns as she anxiously paces her bedroom. She’ll wear the floorboards out soon but she needed to get away. She knows her parents don’t mean it but they keep going on about his milestones and being first time parents and she can’t keep hearing it. So she ran. 

She ran and now she’s pacing and needs to calm the twitchy bitter jealousy rising up inside of her. 

Okay Emma, she thinks, just think of a safe, happy space. 

She smiles as an image of Regina comes to mind and she sighs knowing that with her she can always just be her. There’s no need to be anything for more, just Emma. She wishes she could feel like that all the time. 

“Emma?!” 

Emma opens her eyes in shock at hearing Regina’s voice. She blushes and gasps upon seeing Regina standing there in just a black lace bra and panties. “I…um…I….I have no idea how I got here…”

“You, to use your term, poofed,” Regina replies, “What were you thinking about?” 

“Where I wanted to be…I guess my magic took it literally…oh wow…”

“Oh wow?” Regina asks with a suggestive wink and smirk. 

Emma’s cheeks burn scarlet, “I didn’t mean you are…well you are wow…I…oh god…you know what I’m just going to go home and let the earth swallow me up.”

Emma, though. She was a girl who was never given comfort. Did she cry the first time she heard thunder and get slapped for it and told not to make a fuss? I can see that happening. I can see her huddled under her bed in fear, in a house that leaked and was so ramshackle it seemed like the storm might blow it away. Emma was afraid of storms and taught to be afraid to show that fear.

And now I’m imagining the first time Regina and Emma are in bed together when lightning strikes (the literal not the figurative kind). I think Regina smiles and turns to Emma expecting her to smile back. But instead the light of the storm illuminates her pale face, and it’s so tense and still.

Does Emma pull away when Regina tries to comfort her? I think maybe she does. Emma doesn’t like being weak. Regina understands. She doesn’t either - but she likes Emma being in pain even less. So the next day she starts a conversation that was years coming - and takes days and weeks to finish. She learns all the sad, messy details of Emma’s childhood and she’s nothing but kind, even though she’s fracturing inside from the guilt. But this is Emma’s pain to feel, not hers.

The next time there’s a storm, though, Regina wraps Emma in her arms as the wind rises. Regina strokes Emma’s back when she tries to pull away until, finally, she sighs warmly against Regina’s shoulder and relaxes. And Regina talks to her until it’s all over, snide comments about everyone in the town that have Emma laughing and then protesting and not thinking about the thunder at all.

Regina can’t change Emma’s past, however much she yearns to, but she can take care of her in every second of the present that she’s allowed. She can comfort the neglected child who still lives inside Emma, even as she loves the woman she’s become.