The season 2 Red Queen au that nobody asked for.

She's out for run when she sees her, the looming presence of the full moon burrowing deep into her veins until she was outside running before the sun had even thought about rising. She’s sat on a bench at the end of the docks, barely visible to anyone else—especially this early in the morning—but even if Ruby couldn’t see her it’s so quiet that she’s pretty sure it’d be near impossible to miss the sound of her heartbeat. She should keep running, she should just ignore her, finish up her jog, and then enjoy her day off.

Ruby is still muttering under her breath when she leans against the metal barrier just in front of where Regina is sat, staring out at the foggy horizon. She sits so still that Ruby isn’t entirely sure Regina has even noticed that she is no longer alone.

“I owe you an apology,” Ruby says, fighting to get the words out because she should not feel like she needs to do anything for this woman. An apology isn’t what she deserves. But it’s all that Ruby has been able to think about since Archie re-appeared and Cora’s meddling had been revealed. She hates that she feels even a little bit guilty, but she does and telling Regina that is the only way she can think of to make the guilt churning away in her stomach settle.

“You were doing pretty well at the whole not being a raging psycho thing before that,” she says, and okay that wasn’t really what she was going for but it’s true, so Ruby figures she could’ve done worse (she probably has at some point). Regina still hasn’t acknowledged that Ruby is even standing there. “I’m sorry that I played a part, unintentionally, in screwing that up for you.”

Regina doesn’t even blink. She just keeps facing forward, and if the slight sea breeze didn’t catch her hair every now and then, she could be mistaken for a statue.

She should walk away. She really, really should just walk away—she said her piece, she can stop feeling so ridiculously guilty now—but Ruby’s never really been good at doing the things that she ought to. Grumbling, because this really isn’t how she wants to spend her Sunday morning, Ruby sits down next to Regina.

She has no fucking clue why she’s sitting down next the Evil Queen. But she is and if the stubborn woman can’t answer her then Ruby doesn’t really know what the hell she’s meant to say beyond Sorry I told everyone you murdered Archie. Even though I did see what I thought was you and given your history can you really blame me for thinking the worst? Somehow she doubts Regina will take that very well. “You could at least…” Ruby starts to try again but she trails off because even if the silence is starting to get to her (starting to itch under her skin the same way it did this morning before her run), she still can’t find the right words to break it.

“You can go now.” Regina is so quiet when she eventually speaks that Ruby is ninety percent sure if she were human she wouldn’t have heard her at all, even with how still the docks are on a Sunday her voice barely rises above the sound of the waves lapping at the shore line.

Regina’s right—Ruby can go, should go, shouldn’t even really care. But she’s never heard Regina sound like that before, and it eats at her worse than her guilt ever really did, so much so that Ruby knows if she walks away she will never forgive herself. So she stays seated, the little voice in the back of her head that’s been asking her what the fuck she thinks she’s doing since she first saw Regina sitting alone in the pre-dawn mist is significantly quieter now.

It’s barely light out, sun just starting to peek out over the water, but when Ruby glances to the side it finally registers that something is wrong.