DISCLAIMER:: do not own OUAT or its characters. just borrowing for purpose of creative expression. no profit obtained.

A/N:: so sorry guys. I know it's been a miniature eternity since I updated. however, if you want any updates, you are more likely to get them from my tumblr. I don't always post their either, but I'm trying to post status updates there. medically and academically, my life is more hectic than I am able to manage most days, and I am always playing catch up. even this summer, originally left open, has now been loaded with a film class (a subject I am woefully underexposed to and inexperienced in). I will still try and finish this fic before I return to school and work full time in mid-August. this is not the last chapter but not a cliff hanger either, so hopefully it'll be more sustaining than the last update. thanks, as always, for reading, beautiful people.

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Chapter 66: It's All Or None

She had been preparing for this moment for years, ever since Henry had first been diagnosed as a toddler. She had always known it could only end in one of two outcomes: his recovery or his death. Cancer was not something one just lived a full life with. It couldn't be managed with regular exercise, healthy eating, or even a plethora of medications. Eventually, the clock would run out. It would either leave him in peace or take him from her. She had existed in those binary possibilities for what felt like forever. As hard as it was, she had spent the last three years planning for both inevitabilities as best she could. She had researched late into the night on too many occasions, especially in the beginning, scouring the internet for everything she could find. She had folder after folder at her in-home office of information, from long lists of specialist to new experimental treatments. She had always been thorough- her job as mayor demanded it- but now, as she watched them wheel him out of the room and toward the double-wide lift that led directly down to the surgical wing, she felt a piercing fear she could never have prepared herself for. It lanced, white-hot, through her chest, as if someone were physically crushing her heart, while she stood there, helpless. He was so small, so frail, his body so ravaged; she knew he needed this. And yet… Henry had been her sun, the thing she had revolved around, for so long. She needed him. She felt a desire, so raw, so potent, to have Emma here to hold her through this. But she still didn't know where Emma was, much less how to reach her, though more than a day had passed since Gaby had assured her she had made it through surgery. Besides that, if Gaby was to be believed, Emma may not even want to be found.

She refused to believe her and Emma were over. Not yet. The thought was simply too much to process and accept. They had been through too much together and loved each other too deeply to throw it all away over something this trivial. If it were anyone else… anyone…. But it wasn't. It was Emma. Emma had been the exception to every one of Regina's rules from the moment she'd walked into her life. To let her walk so easily back out of it would be a betrayal of everything they had been and still were to each other. She needed Emma just like she needed Henry. She'd had hours, while the immunity suppressants had done their work, to burn through whatever anger had still found a home in her. The lying had to be addressed, but her identity would change nothing. Regina wouldn't let it.

She stood there, in the corridor, long after the lift door had slid shut. She couldn't really bring herself to go back to the room yet. If she did, she would do nothing but dwell on its emptiness. No Henry. No Emma. Just her, alone… deep down her greatest fear. She didn't want to sit there and wallow in her own misery, not when Henry would still need her to remain positive. So, she would do exactly that. It was her duty to give him what he needed.

She walked back down the hall, past the half open door to the room that now felt devoid of life and to the personal lifts. She had a feeling the coffee served in the cafeteria downstairs would be a similar variation of the sludge they served at group meetings, but as much as she dreaded it, she feared the empty hospital room more. And it might do her some good to exist among the living for a while. It certainly couldn't hurt.

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The cafeteria was actually rather beautiful, contrasting with the harsh clinically arranged corridors most of the rest of the hospital was filled with. It was on the ground floor, in the newer portion of the building. The old hospital, the easterly half, was mostly white, reminding one of some sanitarium out of the early twentieth century. It merged with the new portion as if there were an invisible portal in the main thoroughfare, a random spot that, once stepped past, the walls became a creamy beige, with wood accents and aqua benches at thirty foot intervals. The sudden change in colour and adornment gave the impression that the hospital was actually two distinct individuals that shared part of a body. The outside had long ago been renovated to look like a cohesive whole, but it was as if they had run out of budget before being able to redecorate the interior. Still, even in the newer half, the décor was just meant to distract from the reality that it too was as unremarkable as the older half. At least that half was upfront about it. Off the main corridor that ran the length of both halves, new and old, in the newer portion- but only just- was a smaller, darker corridor. Two doors in the left wall led to a room of vending machines and a public use microwave oven, and a room with single use coffee machines and pay phones, respectively. On the right wall was a wide doorway that led to a window beyond which people in hairnets were washing trays in a commercial sink. At the end were the closed double doors that led into the café, bathed in shadow.

Once one opened them however, it was like emerging into a different world. Hollow glass columns were interspersed throughout the room, each one containing a tree, reaching up within the confines of its square prison toward the distant sunshine from the opening above it. The walls were a green that reminded her of Emma's eyes when she smiled shyly. The room was shaped like an L. To her right was the various items for purchase: baked goods, junk food, soda, but also sections for the more nutritionally conscious and those with particular allergies. Tables populated the left side before her. Ahead, she could see the room curve and disappear into the foot of the L. The entire back wall was glass, looking out onto a collection of even more trees.

This place was meant to be a refuge from the terrible truths that awaited those who came here somewhere else in the building. It was calm and respite among chaos. And it was a far better place to wait out the bulk of her son's surgery than the empty room upstairs.

Despite the improved atmosphere, the food, whether ordered from the hot plate or selected from the dollies of pre-packaged fare, looked sub-par at best and horrid for her health, but she was too consumed by her own thoughts to waste additional energy wishing for one of Emma's home-cooked meals. She grabbed the first thing that even remotely seemed palatable and settled into a distant corner around the curve that afforded her a generous view of the rain cascading down the floor to ceiling windows of the back wall. It was soothing, just enough to let her raging thoughts ease from a torrential downpour to a steady stream, though not enough to stop them completely. The café patrons around her ebbed and flowed and morning rushed to meet afternoon, but she took no notice.

"Is this seat taken?"

Regina looked up sharply from the space she'd been gazing absently into and met Nick's eyes. She really didn't want the company, but as she searched for a decent enough excuse, he took the choice from her and took her lack of an immediate reply to be comparable to acquiescence. He pulled out the chair across the small two seater table from her and plopped down, effectively cutting off her view of the rain on the windows.

He eyed the cup of brown liquid before her, long gone cold without so much as a sip yet missing. "Earl Grey?"

She raised an eyebrow before glancing down at her cup as if she just realised its presence. "How did…"

"Emma drinks the stuff like it's going out of style; habits like that can rub off on people."

She nodded, pursing her lips as she pushed the tea aside.

He eyed her before popping a piece of his own chocolate chip muffin into his mouth. He was scrutinizing her, she knew, trying to read how she felt from her expression and body language. "Seen Emma yet?"

It took every ounce of her self-control not to react. She shook her head, keeping her expression neutral. "No. Have you?" She felt an unmistakable twinge of jealousy in her gut at the very thought.

He shook his head, shoveling in another three bites of muffin before speaking. "Not yet. After surgery, they took her to the ICU; only family is allowed. I tried, but security is pretty tight up there- infection risks and all that."

She sat up a little straighter. This was the first information she'd had about Emma's condition post-surgery; she needed to find out all she could. "So, she's in the ICU?"

He nodded. "From what I understand, she had some issues coming out of anaesthesia. It was just a precaution. They said she seemed fine, but it's hospital policy that she spend twelve hours in the ICU on vent. She should have been moved yesterday, but it was too late for me to come down and check. She was probably sedated all night, but I'm sure she'll stop by Henry's room to see you the moment she wakes."

Regina felt her shoulders sink on a mix of relief and melancholy. "No, she won't."

Nick appraised her sudden break in posture over the top of his soda can. "Of course she will. You and Henry are Emma's first and only priority."

"She doesn't want anything to do with me; Gaby made that perfectly clear. She wouldn't even let me know if Emma had survived the surgery because Emma forbade it. I had to beg for even that much."

Nick shook his head, setting down the can. "That was not what Emma wanted. Gaby told me that Emma merely requested that she have time to prepare before she saw you. She was afraid to wake up to you ready to toss her out to the rubbish pile without a chance to explain. But, Gaby also told me that because the request was verbal, not a written verification, she was obligated under HIPAA regulations to keep all medical information whatsoever from you, as if you were a stranger." He looked at her apologetically. "It's meant to keep patients safe."

"But you were allowed to be told?! I know how close you and Emma are, and what you mean to her, but I'm her fiancée. I'm family!"

He raised his hands in surrender, seeing her getting worked up and wanting to avoid a scene. "Only because my name was on the forms she filled out."

"And mine wasn't." She slumped in her seat. "She doesn't trust me."

"Can you blame her? She told me some of the things you said about his biological mother."

"That was when she was just an ambiguous concept, some distant question mark. It's different. It's Emma! I would never think that about her!"

"She had no guarantee of that Regina. I've never seen someone so happy and so miserable at the same time as Emma was when she got the confirmation. She loves you both so much, more than I've ever known her to love anything, and that file… it was a saving grace and a death sentence all rolled into one."

"It wouldn't have mattered… it doesn't matter."

Nick studied her again, chewing on another bite of his muffin. "She's scared you know. Terrified. Asking to be left alone here… it's just another way for her to run. She's trying to delay the pain, just like she always has. She wants to see you more than anything, but she also believes that the moment she does, it's over. And she's not ready to face that just yet."

Regina sighed. "She's always so convinced I'm going to break her heart, that all that's between us is temporary and, one day, I'll just change my mind and walk away. Did it ever occur to her that maybe that might be the furthest thing from my mind?"

"Is it?"

Now it was Regina's turn to scrutinize him. "I should be mad. I really should. And a part of me is. But only because she didn't trust me. I'm not sure if I can spend the entire rest of our lives together trying to convince her that I am not everyone who's come before, that I am not going to leave her. But then… I consider the alternative… the idea of life without her…" She trailed off.

Nick reached into the pocket of his jeans. "Emma gave me this for safekeeping. It's what I came to bring her. But I think it might be safer if you held onto it." He set Emma's engagement ring in the table in front of her. "I'll be honest. I've been the biggest critic of this relationship; it changed Emma, and I assumed that change was too much too fast, that she was risking losing some of who she was. But now, after seeing the look on your face, I think maybe Emma might be right. Maybe she hasn't lost herself; maybe she has just stumbled onto who she was meant to be all along." He shrugged. "I can't tell you what to do Regina, but I can promise you Emma's worth it. If you stick with it, no one will ever love you more. So, think on it. Really think about what it is you want. If you decide to be all in, give her that ring back with a clean slate. If you find you can't just forgive her fears and insecurities, big as they are, then let her go. No matter what your decision, just be sure of it, because it will determine whether she's a part of not only your life, but Henry's too, going forward." He pushed back his chair and gathered up the remnants of his breakfast. "I hope all goes well with Henry. He deserves his health."

Regina's gaze was still on the ring before her, but she had the presence of mind to mumble her thanks before he disappeared, leaving her to her contemplations.

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The corridor to the ICU was a blank, sterile stretch that branched off of a much wider and companionable corridor that ran the length of the third floor of the hospital. It was a stark mix of light grey and off-white, windowless, illuminated only by the buzzing overhead fluorescent lights. It ended in heavy-looking steel doors that appeared more appropriate for a walk-in freezer or some lab that dealt in radioactive materials. The only other decoration in the otherwise empty corridor was a panel set into the grey wall, with a white scanner and a white plastic phone, a mere twenty feet from the door at waist height.

Emma probably wasn't here; Nick had told her as much. But she at least had been, and that was the best Regina had managed to get from anyone so far. She only hoped she could learn something further from the staff here. Taking a deep breath to calm her nerves, she walked down the corridor, her head held confident and high, with distinct purpose, trying to make herself feel it. She stopped before the phone and read the direction placard attached to the wall above it. It instructed her to pick up the phone, press in her specialized patient code at the tone to open the doors, and then proceed immediately to the reception desk inside. Well, that was that. She didn't know any code.

"Forgot your code?"

Regina glanced up to see a smiling nurse coming down the hall in brightly coloured Dora the Explorer scrubs. The woman looked friendly enough as she approached. Knowing this may be her only chance to get the information she needed, Regina adopted a look of contrite shame. "Yes." She patted absently at the hips of her yoga leggings as if they contained pockets she could search. "I know I wrote it down somewhere, but I can't seem to find it."

The nurse smiled knowingly and lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Happens all the time." She nodded toward the door. "Who are you here to visit?"

Regina's thought about lying, saying Henry was in there and preying on the depths of this woman's sympathies to ensure she would help her get in, but changed her mind and decided to go with the truth instead. Or the truth as she saw it anyway. "My fiancée." She held up her left hand with its sparkling ring as if it were evidence. She felt Emma's own like a weight in the hidden pocket in the seam of her leggings.

The woman, easily older than Regina by a decade looked instantly more sympathetic. She nodded. Using her hospital ID badge, she waved it in front of the digital scanner next to the phone on the panel and a loud beep heralded the opening of the doors, which swung apart with an audible hiss. Revealed was a white foyer that led straight to a counter, behind which stood a male nurse with a ripped muscular bearing that spoke of a level of gym dedication she couldn't even fathom.

"Hey Rick." The blonde nurse strode forward, smiling at Nurse Muscles. "Got another one who lost her code. They really need to update that system. In this day and age, can't they just put in one of those biometric scanners?" She glanced back at Regina. "Rick here can help you find your fiancé."

"Thank you." Regina stepped up to the counter as the nurse stepped away.

Rick appraised her in that slow way common to overconfident men. "ACU or ICU?"

"What?" A quip about not being fluent in acronyms was on the tip of her tongue, but she held it back; she still needed this guy's help and that meant pretending to be flattered, or at the very least oblivious, over his extra attention.

"Your fiancé… is he in the Acute Care Unit or the Intensive Care Unit?" He had turned his attention back to his computer and was typing quickly.

"She, actually. And she was brought into the ICU after surgery."

Rick's head snapped up at her correction and he surveyed her with new interest. Figures. "Name?"

"Emma. Emma Swan."

Rick tapped a few keys. "Alright. Emma Swan. Here she is. Seems she was brought into the ICU after surgery two days ago. Switched to the ACU after she was off vent." He regarded his screen more closely, frowning. "I'm sorry ma'am. It seems your fiancée's not here."

"What?" Regina tried to project an air of panic. She had to play this right. Nick had told her Emma might be moved last night, but she still needed to know where. "That's not possible. She has to be here! I was told she was here."

"She was here. Yesterday. She was moved to the fifth floor last night; oncology wing."

She shook her head. She'd been there all day yesterday; she'd monitored the board like a hawk when Henry was sleeping, which had been often. "I… Our son is up there too. Emma, she's his birth mother, and his donor. I haven't seen her."

A look of understanding dawned on his face. "Your son is probably in the pediatric oncology wing; the regular oncology wing is on the other side of the family room. You just take the left at the fork, rather than the right."

Regina took a breath. Emma had been there, on the same floor, all night. There was both a relief and a disappointment in that. Relief that Emma was okay; they wouldn't have moved her unless she was doing better. But, if Emma had been so close all night, why hadn't she come to visit her and Henry, as Nick had claimed she would? Maybe Emma really didn't want to see her. "Does it have her room number?"

"5079."

She forced a grateful smile. Technically, she was grateful, but the idea of what she could deduce was playing in this man's mind, she would rather smack him than thank him. "Thanks for your help."

He nodded, pressing a button behind the counter. With a hiss, the doors opened behind her.

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She'd avoided the fifth floor as long as she could manage. Henry would be out of surgery within the hour by the estimates they'd given her. She had just enough time to go find Emma and get this nonsense sorted before she'd need to face the empty room and steel herself for his return.

The lift let her out just down from the fork Rick had mentioned. It had never occurred to her that they separated the children with cancer from the adults. She'd never really paid attention, and the wing where Henry's room was located wasn't covered in hand-drawn pictures and painted in cheery primary colours like the pediatric units displayed on primetime TV shows. She always had just assumed it was fictional, a device created to support the show's narrative. She moved down the left fork and into a wing that was a mirror of the other: the same walls, same layout, same overworked nurses.

Her eyes zeroed in on the assignment board as if drawn to it. There she was. Swan, 5079. She was here. She didn't want to turn from the board, some irrational part of her afraid the name would disappear, having never really been there at all, if she glanced away for even a second. Finally, she forced herself to break away and proceed down the hall.

Her room was at the end of the farthest hall, second door from the end. The room was a single, smaller than Henry's. She took a deep breath before forcing herself to knock lightly and push the door, already slightly ajar, all the way open.

It was empty. The bathroom door was ajar, the light off. Emma wasn't here. She felt the panic rise until she focused on the bed. It was messy, slept in. The collection of patient freebies that the hospital provided every patient with stood on the rolling table, a white and black label attached identifying them as the property of E. Swan. She was here; she was probably out for a walk or off getting some follow up test to make sure everything was alright. She'd be back, so Regina would too. She'd go back to their room to be there when they brought Henry back and then, when he was asleep, she'd return for Emma. She'd fix what was broken and mend her little family.

She retraced her steps back to the fork and went right this time, stopping in the family room to get a complimentary water bottle from the fridge in the corner before returning to her empty room. Only, it was no longer empty.

The bottle fell from her hand, bouncing with an audible crinkle of plastic and rolling further into the room.

Emma's eyes shot up, wide and guilty. She took in the sight of the woman standing frozen in the doorway, her hand still fixed in the claw-like shape that had previously held the bottle. Silence, neither tense nor entirely comfortable, stretched between them, sinking into all the nooks, pushing all other noise out. It settled on Emma's shoulders, pushing her down with the weight of it, seeming to capsize her lungs and make it harder for her to breathe. She turned back to the empty bed. "They left his blanket." She glanced back at Regina, tears now in her eyes. "He needs it; it keeps him safe." Silence continued to fill the room. Her eyes glanced between Regina and the corridor beyond her, her mind weighing her options. Finally, she wiped her eyes and cleared her throat. "I'll go… I just… I needed to know he was okay." She moved quickly, quite a feat considering the IV pole clutched in her right hand, her trajectory the spot between Regina and the freedom of the hall beyond, her eyes downcast.

The sight of Emma, whole, before her, robed in a hospital gown over a pair of men's lounge pants that must have been Nick's, made her heart grind to a stuttering halt in her chest. She wasn't able to speak, to move. A thin, pale arm emerged from the sleeve of the gown and clung to a portable IV stand, a saline drip and another liquid, milky in its consistency, connected to a tube that ran to a port in her right forearm, near, but not directly at, the crook of her elbow. A desperate need to protect the woman before her, something that felt deep-rooted in her very soul, emerged, muddling the last remnants of betrayal and anger over what had been done. Just as she was beginning to make sense of it all, she saw Emma trying to leave the room, to run, and she knew if she let her, it would threaten all the headway she'd made in gaining Emma's fragile trust. Regina caught her upper arm as she attempted to slip past her. She pushed her gently back into the room before shutting the door.

Emma moved to the far side of the room, feeling trapped, but also knowing she owed this to Regina; she deserved whatever blows were coming her way.

"You should have told me the moment you found out."

Emma flinched at the scolding and bitter edge to the older woman's tone. "I know."

Regina shook her head. "I don't think you do." She sighed. "Emma… I know you were scared of my reaction. You had every right to be. I have made no qualms about making my opinions heard regarding Henry's mother. I'm not mad that you were afraid. But I love you Emma, even when it's difficult, even when you fight against it. But the only way we're going to make this work is if you trust that. Trust that I can't imagine my life without you, that I don't want to."

Emma stayed near the wall. "I couldn't stand the thought that you might think I'd been playing you this whole time, that it was all some elaborate ruse to take Henry from you. I would never do that to you, or Henry. You need each other far more than you need me."

Regina crossed the room then and stepped into Emma's space. She could see the woman physically hold herself back from pulling away. She took it as a good sign, a sign Emma would at least make a good faith effort to fight her instincts. "How are you so blind to what's right in front of you? Henry and I both need you." She moved to keep Emma's gaze as the younger woman tried to look away. "When Gaby wouldn't tell me where you were or even if you'd survived your surgery, I nearly…"

Emma's head snapped up. "Wait, what?"

"Gaby said you wanted me kept out of the loop; she was respecting your wishes."

"No. Those weren't my wishes. Oh god, Regina. I never meant for that to happen. I wasn't trying to shut you out, I just… wanted to be ready."

Regina put a hand on her shoulder and both women shivered slightly at the physical contact after what felt like weeks apart, though it had been less than one.

Emma glanced into her eyes, her own apologetic. "I'm sorry. For everything. For not coming clean the moment I found out about my connection to Henry and for not…" She bit her lip. "I did it for him. It didn't come from a selfish place. I hope you believe that. He was better off with you, and I can't explain how, but I knew he would get to you. You were destined to find each other."

Regina raised an eyebrow. "I thought you didn't believe in Fate?"

"I believe in the universe righting past wrongs." Emma shrugged.

Regina knew Henry would return soon, that this was a conversation meant for later, when they weren't both worried and exhausted. Right now, there were more important things to dwell on. "Speaking of wrongs, I see an empty finger where there shouldn't be one."

Emma's left hand disappeared into the pocket of the lounge pants as she blushed. "I gave it to Nick; they wouldn't let me wear it during surgery."

"Well, it just so happens that I ran into a certain bartender downstairs and he thought I might be a better guardian of a certain prized possession." She withdrew the ring from its secret pocket. She held it up between them. "I need to know Emma, if this is still something you truly want. If it's not…" She took a calming breath. "If you can't handle this… Henry… me… I understand. I'll let you walk away from this, guilt free, just this once. Without a fight. It's a lot to take in and I know that. There's a new dimension to your relationship with him, and with me. Something that would have come eventually anyway, but previously you had the luxury of time. And I know how new this all still is for you, and fast. But the truth changes nothing for me. If anything, it only confirms what I've always felt. But I'm asking for all of you Emma. No more lying, no more running. We do this together, both all in, or we don't do it at all. It's a lot, asking for the entirety of a person. I get that; I understand. So I'll let you walk away, but I hope you don't, because I still want this Emma. I still need you."

Emma stared at her, studying her as if gauging her sincerity. Finally, she held out her left hand. "I don't want anything else."

Regina smiled brighter than she had in over a week. She gently gripped Emma's hand and slid the ring back onto her finger before drawing her into a fierce hug, fueled mostly by the intense emotions of the last couple of days. Now that she'd begun to repair her fracturing relationship, she felt the adrenaline leaving her body and the exhaustion rushing in to replace it. She pressed her lips to Emma's ear. "You scared me so much; I thought I'd lost you."

Emma didn't know to explain that the bond they shared wasn't something that one couldn't simply lose. It had survived feuds. It had transcended worlds. It had, above all, endured, and would continue to endure, long after her. But she couldn't give voice to notions like that; this wasn't a world for fairytales. So instead she just drew Regina tighter against her, keeping careful not to bump her injured hip, and whispered, "I'm here."