The only light in the room came from Regina's laptop nestled across her stomach as she lay back against the arm of the couch, revelling in her young lover's voice.
"I love you all. And I think about you guys all the time. Take care of each other."
She hit the play button again as Emma grinned at the camera.
"Hey! Happy birthday, Henry. I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but I bet your mom made it super awesome."
Her eyes shut slowly, imagining Emma to be right next to her, the warmth from the laptop heating her belly and Emma's voice over the speaker whispering in her ear as if the blonde was nestled on top of her.
"I really miss you guys. You, and Uncle August, and your mom. Regina."
She'd never grow tired of hearing her name slip from Emma's lips, either hollering for her from a different room of the house or simply saying her name just to get her to look. Regina. Regina.
The video ended, and the brunette let her eyes open to stare at the fuzzy image of the blonde soldier permanently still on screen. The time on her computer told her Emma's birthday had come and gone, but Regina stayed lying there in the darkness. It was Emma's 24th today, well, yesterday. She was so young. Regina never failed to bring that up simply because she couldn't believe it herself. She continuously forgot because Emma had matured so much for her age. Insight and experience would do that to her.
As she sat up, the letters on the couch shifted under her weight, and just as she moved to replace the computer onto an empty space of the coffee table, her house phone rang.
Only one person ever called her after ten, but the emotional exhaustion she felt overwhelmed her enough not to dive too deeply into it. She grabbed the cordless off the side table, immediately understanding once she saw the caller ID.
"Can't sleep?" She answered in greeting.
"I usually can't on this day," August admitted.
"Me too."
They settled into a comfortable silence, the whirring of the laptop's motor perforating the night on Regina's end while the soft mewling of Figaro sounded from August's. "Ruby and I broke up."
She crinkled her eyebrows and reached for her drink. "When was this?"
"Last month," he supplied.
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay. It was mutual. But you should really talk to your friends more often, don't you girls fawn over this stuff?"
"I talk to them enough."
"I doubt that." Another silence settled before August broke in with a quiet voice. "You know, Emma was convinced she could get through her service as a lone wolf, and she might have, but she wouldn't have been as happy."
"She was always so stubborn."
"In the best ways."
Regina nodded her agreement, fiddling with the stem of her wine glass.
"You kept her alive all those years."
Regina scoffed. "She's not alive now, is she?"
"You don't know that."
"And you do?" She took a moment to gather the letters in her lap, placing her glass down when it threatened to spill, and laid them on the table. Her elbows on her knees, she fixated on the pictures scattered about and she shook her head. "Please, August. We can't keep having this conversation."
"Archie says it's fine to hope as long as it doesn't hold us back."
"You're seeing the doctor?" Regina inquired surprise.
"Wise man," he provided with a shrug. "You know there are help groups for army wives who have spouses overseas."
She scoffed again and grabbed the glass, finally sipping it. "And what? Listen to their sob stories about their husbands while I'm there for my girlfriend, and then they can discredit all that she's done as a soldier?"
August chuckled softly, almost knowingly. Figaro purred loudly against the mouth piece. No doubt the cat was resting on his chest, and August was stroking him thoughtfully. "You still think of her as that."
It was fact, simple as that. She opened her mouth to refute it but found she didn't want to deny the claim. "She's—Emma—it's not like we ended things."
God, she was holding on, Regina groaned to herself as she gulped the rest of her wine and slammed the glass onto the table. Not for the first time she wished she could just turn off a switch to her feelings if that could make her head stop spinning for just a moment.
"What about you?" She croaked.
"She's still my sister," he answered obviously. "I may not have been able to protect her from everything and that's okay."
"My, my, you have been going to the shrink," she said with a wry smirk. She refilled her glass and swirled the liquid around as she mused to herself. "Do you go?" She asked quietly. "To these group meetings?"
"Once."
"And you expect me to go?" She chortled.
"It's a different process for everyone, Regina. You never know. You might meet someone there who actually gets you."
For once Regina didn't argue a suggestion since her biggest problem remained to be Henry. Many times she would check in on her son who would be lying on the floor of his room or playing board games with August (who despite having his own place continued to show up for dinners and on weekends) in his playroom, and she would hear the older man share stories about his younger sister.
"Emma always cheated at snakes and ladders," August had informed him. "She said she was too cool for board games, but whenever we'd play, she would climb up the snakes saying she was a snake charmer."
Henry would laugh and try to shimmy his token up a snake, but good old Uncle August was much too competitive to be bested by a six year old.
August clearly took to heart the steps that speaking about Emma would only help him. But with Henry, Regina couldn't find it in her except to evade the topic whenever Henry talked about Emma. He was young, his memory of her might not hold. But that thought alone sent shivers down her spine. She didn't want to be the cause of actively trying to make Henry forget Emma simply because Regina didn't like the idea of Henry losing a loved one. But there that was. The soldier had become a key figure in his life, even through their initial letter exchange. Emma had been just as excited as she when Henry took his first steps, when he said his first words, when he used the big boy potty (and sometimes fell in) all by himself. She was frantic when he was sick and terrified that he had gotten lost.
And now Regina couldn't even talk to him about her anymore for fear that his young heart wouldn't be able to grasp the concept of death. But at the core of her being, she knew it wasn't him she was scared for. Regina admitted that to herself now more than ever since she noticed Henry's musings about Emma became fewer and further between. She'd catch whispers when he spoke about her to Uncle August, but around Regina, Henry found less and less reasons to bring her up. It was both a blessing and a curse that her son was insightful enough to realize the mention of the blonde made her tense, but she couldn't put that emotional burden on her child.
So by the beginning of November, Regina dawdled outside the auditorium door of Storybrooke High for a bereavement support group. She already knew how much harassment Emma received from her General for their relationship. She didn't want to add insult to injury and taint the image of the decorated soldier by going to the 'army wives' group August had mentioned. Though how their relationship was harmful or anyone's business was beyond Regina, and it continued to set a fire in her eyes. The female bisexual soldier gave her all to serve her country, yet they couldn't be bothered to find her?