#loudestdork

Common sense should therefore dictate that she prefer spring over autumn if only to spare herself the grief of watching the whole world die year after year in endless repetition.  And yet nothing could be further from the truth.  Already a thousand years have passed since she struck the eternal bargain with Jovia Zelena to bind her to Dīs. A thousand years she has observed the flora and fauna endure the frigid snows and gales of winter.  A thousand years she has buried her four-legged friends in the frosty loam and held vigil over millions upon millions of trees and flowers and insects alike as they struggled, often fruitlessly, against the remorseless cold intent upon feeding the insatiable engine of death.  She has cried enough tears in that millennium to replenish both the Mediterranean and Aegean were they to succumb to a terminal drought and still she would rather endure another rather than spend the coming six months away from her beloved.

Speaking of Regina, as she stops abruptly and swirls around, Ruby can’t help but notice that her sheen toga clings wonderfully to her curves and that the part in the garment has separated to reveal nearly the whole length of a shapely leg her lips long to taste. Eyes blazing, hands on her hips, raven hair spilling over her shoulders, Regina cuts such an impressive and irresistibly handsome figure that Ruby can hardly keep herself from drooling.  And how very embarrassing that would be!

Not for the first time, she silently contemplates how anyone with functioning vision and a shred of reason could choose Venus as the fairest of them all. Lips red as the rose, hair black as ebony, and skin white as snow; surely Ruby’s closest childhood friend possessed all of those physical virtues and more, yet even Venus Mater Caelesti – known to those who lover her as Nix Alba (or in the common tongue Snow White) – failed to compare with the banished goddess that all with breath either feared or loathed.

In the vaulted halls of Olympos they derisively referred to the ruler of the Underworld as Regina a Malo, the Evil Queen.  But to Ruby she will forever be Regina in Corde Meo, the Queen of My Heart.

Survival for half the year without the sovereign owner of her love and devotion is a torture so unbearable that the Deam Optimus Maximus is no doubt thrilled that her faux attempt at leniency was failing so spectacularly.  Were it not for the unyielding support of her mother and Snow, she cannot imagine how she would even function.

True Love, as it turns out, is not only a source of unimaginable happiness but also of indescribable misery.

“Needless fretting?” Regina says, responding to Ruby’s request in a less than accommodating tone.  “In less than a fortnight you will leave me once again to the mercy of my imaginations.  I can do nothing else but fret when you are not by my side!  Beyond the borders of Dīs I cannot protect you, cannot watch over you, cannot...”

“Hover like a mother hen over her chicks?” Ruby supplies, interrupting in an attempt to forestall her wife’s spiraling descent lest she succumb to one of her abyssal depressions.

There is scarcely anything to be done when the darkness has taken hold of Regina in earnest.  In such instances, Ruby does what she can to provide whatever comfort her ailing partner will accept.  Usually space and time are required for Regina to wrestle off the impossibly heavy blanket of sadness that has engulfed her.  But sometimes she lets Ruby sing to her until the fog lifts or hold her hand while they go for a walk through the Fields of Gladness or the Blessed Groves. When the despair becomes too much, Regina will curl into Ruby’s body while they lie abed and it is all she can do during those evenings to keep from empathetically sobbing as her beloved trembles miserably in her arms.

Thankfully Ruby has discovered through trial and error that humor is a method of dispelling Regina’s souring moods that is effective more often than not.

“I resent that comparison,” Regina says, brows furrowed in objection.  Ruby breathes a sigh of relief, though, when her shoulders relax into a more neutral posture. “For your information I am nothing like your disgustingly virtuous mother, and I’ll thank you not to imply such again any time in the near future.”

“Aww.  Don’t be cross, love. I meant no disrespect,” Ruby says, then invitingly pats the empty space beside her.  “Now, be a good girl and come back to bed.”

One sable eyebrow quirks up as Regina eyes Ruby with a small grain of incredulity.  “’A good girl’?  Do you address Zelena with such remarkable insouciance when you deliver your annual report?”

Said report is part of the deal with the chief goddess Ruby acquiesced to so that she could have six months of the year with Regina instead of the originally intended three.  Her first destination each spring is Mytikas, the summit of Mount Olympus upon which the great temple of the gods was erected eons before she was even born. There she is to give account of Regina’s activities, however benign, as assurance that Zelena’s grasp on power remains uncontested.  It is a distasteful duty that Ruby executes with all of the precision she can muster, especially since it always makes her feel dirty, as if she is being employed against her will as a spy in her own wife’s domain.

“Of course not, silly,” she replies, smiling at how cute Regina is when acting absolutely ridiculous.  “I try to keep interactions with your sister to a minimum, and when I report to her I make sure to maintain the proper formality she most certainly does not deserve.  Now stop beating around the bush and come to bed.  As you said, I have a fortnight left with you and I do not intend on wasting even one minute.”

When Regina remains mulishly still, Ruby switches to a tried and tactic: batting her eyelashes and pouting shamelessly.  To her delight, Regina caves within seconds and responds with an affectionate if not exasperated roll of her eyes.

Once they are settled back in together, Ruby’s back nestled flush with Regina’s front, they both heave sighs of contented pleasure.  An easy, familiar silence reigns over them for a space that Ruby does not care to account for.  Not when the only thing she needs and desires is right here in this room holding her just right, nuzzling into her cheek and neck in between pressing patient kisses against the skin of her shoulder and arm.

This is her home, Regina is her home, and there is no other place where she feels more safe and loved and cherished in all the universe, which has garnered a fair few questions as to her sanity when she has admitted as such to her friends and loved ones in the planes above Dīs.  Some of them have been so bold as to declare to her face that she is insane.

“If that’s true,” she told one such acquaintance, “then sanity is not for me. Better to be deranged and blissfully happy than a sensible busybody like you who will never experience real love or understand how it feels to be desired for your heart instead of your tits!”

That particular individual has not spoken to Ruby since, not that it is a big loss. Drizella always was and always will be a vacuous hussy.

“What am I to do when you’re gone?”

Regina’s plaintive whisper shatters the silence as if she had screamed.  Ruby’s heart lurches from a pang of acute melancholy. She already knows the answer to that question, and has since it was first asked a thousand years earlier.  

While Ruby cries herself to sleep upon her plush bed in the Aventine Temple, Regina will be working herself ragged by micromanaging every last operational detail of the entire realm. She will spend countless hours draped in thick furs brooding upon her throne while being buffeted by cutting winds that sweep through corridors and hallways of the palace – for while above the spring breeds balmy, gentle breezes, in the Underworld the atmosphere turns ever more frigid and capricious and violent in tune with the temperament of its ruler.  Against all logic she will refuse nourishment far too frequently and eat meager portions only when necessary, forego rest until she is too haggard and weary to perform even basic functions, harshly dismiss all attempts to lighten her load until the majority of the staff is too frightened to even approach her, and generally wear herself down until all that is left is an exhausted husk that Ruby will have to revitalize all over again come the fall.

She hates that her beloved will segregate herself to such a degree, but there is little she can do to prevent it.  The Laws of Olympus cannot be broken, not even by those who decree them. However, that does not mean they cannot be bent.  She may be forbidden to physically see and touch Regina during her time on the surface, but the laws Zelena established dictating their separation make no mention of the metaphysical.  

Although eternal beings such as themselves do not require sleep, it is a luxury that provides many physical, emotional, and mental benefits.  For them, though, something unique occurs when they are asleep at the same time. Somnus himself had taught her that they are what mortals refer to as Soul Mates.  They are, he had told her, two halves of one whole and because of that no force known to heaven or earth could keep them completely isolated from one another.  Space and time are irrelevant to them when they can bridge any distance to be reunited in their dreams.  Unfortunately learning how to control this ability was quite complex and required many secretive lessons over the centuries for Ruby to even summon the most simple of dreamscapes for herself.

Thankfully this past summer she had at last managed to recreate the broader forest in which she and Regina first met.  And tonight she was going to draw them both there as indisputable proof that there was a place beyond prying eyes they could always be together.  

“Close your eyes.”

“I bet your pardon?” Regina replies, and when she attempts to prop herself up by an elbow, Ruby latches on to her arm to keep her close.

“For once do what I say without being difficult, would you please? I need you to hold me and close your eyes.”

For a long moment Regina does not comply, and though it starts to appear like she never will, Ruby continues waiting all the same.  She is very good at that – waiting on Regina.  In her experience, doing so never goes without reward. The woman may be more intractable and ornery than the hound that guards the gates of her dominion, but she is worth the expense of every single second of patience expended and every last ounce of effort exhausted on her behalf.

As if determined to prove her correct, Regina eventually settles back down and snakes an arms beneath the covers to wind over Ruby’s waist.  A cool hand then settles in the valley of her breasts, fingers splayed wide over her heart, and Ruby shivers more in response to the welcome touch than to the algid temperature of her wife’s flesh.

“Alright then,” Ruby says, wiggling further into the embrace, “are your eyes closed?”  Regina hums confirmation into the shell of Ruby’s ear. “Now, just relax, breathe, and listen...”  

And when all is still and quiet once more she begins to sing:

“Time is a river that flows endlessly and A life is a whisper, a kiss in a dream.

Shadows dance behind the firelight, 

And all the spirits of the night remind us: We are not alone.

Tomorrow, a sun soon rising, And yesterday is there beside us,

And it's never far away. If you listen to the wind you can hear me again.

Even when I'm gone you can still hear the song

High up in the trees as it moves through the leaves.

Listen to the wind, there's no end to my

Love is forever a circle unbroken.

The seasons keep changing; it always remains. Spring will melt the snows of winter and the summer gives us days of light 

So long till autumn makes them fade.

Remember the sound of laughter. We ran together through the meadows;

Still we thought our hearts could break.

If you listen to the wind, you can hear me again.

Even when I'm gone you can still hear the song

High up in the trees as it moves through the leaves.

Listen to the wind and I'll send you my love. Listen to the wind where the sky meets the land.

I'm not really gone I've been here all along

High up in the trees in the sound of the leaves.

Listen to the wind there's no end to my...

Time is a river that flows to the sea

And a life is a whisper, a kiss in a dream.”

As the song draws to an end, there is no sound or movement from Regina save from her steady breathing, by which Ruby can tell she is fast asleep. With a soft, peaceful smile, she shutters her eyelids closed and inhales deeply.  

By the time she has fully exhaled, she is already kissing Regina in their meadow.

“Yes,” Phil smiles softly down at her, his free hand moving to brush her tangled hair from her face. Melinda sighed, sitting up and rubbing the last of the sleep from her eyes.

“So what do you think will get more traffic: the fact that you knocked me up, or that we’ve been secretly married for a year and didn’t tell anyone aside from our close-knit cast and that band of blabbermouths actually kept it quiet for the entire twelve months?” Melinda asks her husband, amusement in her voice, and Phil’s thumb brushes over the soft swell of her abdomen, lips twitching upwards.

“Who cares? Janet and Peggy have already written it in and are over the moon for us. We had to stop Daisy from practically moving in with us when she found out. This kid is perfect and healthy and growing like a champ,” Phil reminds her, pulling a smile from her. “We’ll have fun with Daisy and Deke tonight, the whole world gets to find out why I smile like an idiot every day, and I can finally wear my wedding ring all the time.”

That draws a soft laugh from Melinda, and she leans forward until she can press her forehead to his, brushing their noses together.

“I knew I kept you around for a reason,” she teased, softening her words with a kiss to his mouth. “Share my shower?”

“Like you even have to ask.”

_

The dress she’d chosen is a little daring- it’s lower cut than she usually wears, but pregnancy has boosted her cup size up considerably, and she wants to flaunt it a little bit. It tightens around her middle, and when she turns on her side, the swell of her middle that had recently started to look like a bump is on display.

Kate, her favorite makeup artist, comes to their house to do her hair and makeup, going a little darker than her every day look, and leaving her hair long and loose, curling softly down her shoulders. Melinda can see where her face has already started to change- softer around the edges than before she’d gotten pregnant. She takes a picture for Instagram and then heads downstairs where Phil is already ready and waiting, chatting with Kate.

His jaw drops at the sight of her, and she can’t help but smirk at the look in his eyes as she descends the stairs, shoes clicking against the hardwood floor.

“Mel…” Phil starts, and Kate claps his back.

“My work here is clearly done,” she says, beaming, and waves at Melinda. “Bye guys, and congrats again- I’m so happy for you!”

“Thank you, Kate,” Melinda replies, watching the dark-haired girl bounce out with her makeup case with a smile.

“You know, I guess we don’t have to go,” Phil starts, and Melinda snorts, shaking her head.

“Oh, no, I did not have all this crap put on my face just to not go out now,” she tells him. “Daisy texted, she’s leaving now, we should get there at the same time.”

She grabs her jacket, Phil helping her shrug into it, and once it’s cinched around her waist, the tiny bump is once more hidden from sight.

“Ready?” he asks, and she nods, lifting a hand to touch his cheek before she kisses him softly.

“With you? Always.”

_

“You’re here!” Daisy’s excited voice carries across the room, and she waves enthusiastically as Phil and Melinda start to shed their coats. “May, I didn’t think you’d end up doing press, and- holy shit that dress.”

And aide comes to take their coats, and Daisy’s eyes widen just like her grin does as the dress is revealed. Melinda turns to greet Deke, and Daisy gasps again.

“Oh my god. Are you finally telling-” she cuts herself off, watching as Melinda and Phil exchanged a look before both nodding, and Daisy squeals softly. She comes forward, wrapping first Phil and then Melinda into a tight hug, practically dancing as she does so. “God I cannot wait to be an obnoxious proud godmother on twitter later.”

Melinda squeezes her fingers, keeping their hands pressed together as Phil pulls his phone out, likely filming something for Instagram- Deke makes them both laugh, and everything feels light.

“You guys are next for the carpet walk,” an aide comes to get them, and Phil pulls Melinda off to the side, pulling their rings out of his pocket- he slips hers onto her finger before she does the same for him. Phil kisses her palm, his blue eyes bright.

His palm presses against her middle, and both her hands cover his for a moment, squeezing gently.

“Let’s go tell the world, Daddy,” she says softly, pulling a smile from her husband before they move to catch up with Daisy and Deke.

Cameras flash as they step onto the carpet, and Phil’s hand touches her lower back, a warm and solid reassurance in the face of reporters. They pose a bit, strategically hiding their left hands, until Melinda looks up at him and smiles. At his nod, she turns a little as his arm lifts to her shoulder, ring glinting in the light as her right hand drifts to the underside of the bump in her middle.

There’s almost a lull as the world seems to stop, and then all attention is focused on them.

“Did you get married?”

“Are you expecting?”

“How long have you been married?”

“There’ll be an official joint statement later tonight, but yes- we did get married, about a year ago, and yes, we are expecting,” Phil answers, keeping Melinda close to him; he looks down at her, unable to keep the grin from his face as she looks back up at him.

Daisy is nearly vibrating with excitement a few feet away, hands clasped beneath her chin and dark eyes wide and damp as she beams at the two of them.

“How will this impact the show and your characters?”

“Well, that would be spoilers, now, wouldn’t it?” Melinda answers, lips curved into an amused smirk. “I guess you’ll just have to watch! Fridays, 8/9c.”

She looks up at Phil, smile softening; he leans down, kissing her, and more cameras flash at the rare moment of pure affection.

“Sometimes I wonder if things would be better if I’d never been put through Tahiti,” he says softly, almost an afterthought. Melinda’s motions stop, entire body going stock-still, and Phil’s eyes widen before he fumbles for words. “You- you weren’t supposed to hear me say that. Out loud. Ever.”

“Well, you shouldn’t be saying it then,” she says through hard lips, body rigid. “You needed to come back.”

There’s a pause, and Melinda swallows hard before she speaks again.

“I needed you to come back,” she whispers, gaze settled between his shoulder blades. “I’m not the person I want to be without you here. Look at who I was in the Framework without you in my life. It was so much worse here, to lose you.”

Phil turns, cupping her jaw in his hands until she looked up at him, dark eyes brimming with overwhelming sadness.

“I keep losing you,” she whispers, voice thick. “Not just in this world, but in virtual ones, and other galaxies. I lose you in every single one.”

Phil shakes his head, bending to press his forehead to hers, holding her tightly.

“I always come back. You always find me, in every single one of them. We’re never meant to be apart for long,” he reminds her, stroking her cheeks with his thumbs, brushing away tears. “We’re pulled apart but the universe always brings us back together. We always come home.”

Phil brushes his thumb along her lower lip, nudging her nose with his gently.

“No matter where I go, you always bring me home, Melinda,” he whispers. “And I will never stop coming home to you. From any universe. From any galaxy. My home is here. My home is you.”

Melinda reached up onto her tiptoes to press her mouth to his; her lips taste like salt water, and Phil holds her tighter against him.

“I love you,” she whispers against his lips, gripping his waist tightly. “I just can’t keep losing you.”

“I’m here,” he whispers back. “I’m here.”