Thursday: Caregiving

Regina's eyes fluttered open. From the strong smell of detergent and antiseptic she expected to see the glaring white of one of Storybrooke's finer hospital rooms. Instead she didn't. She saw nothing. No black or white or any other colour, just nothing. It was like trying to see what was behind you without turning around. You knew something was there, and even possibly what was there, but you still saw nothing.

She heard Emma shuffle into the room and gasp right before there was a hand pressed against her cheek.

"Regina? You're awake!"

Regina hummed softly. Her throat hurt and her body ached. Her head was the worst though. It wouldn't stop pounding painfully. She tried to reach out to her magic but it lay deep down, barely touchable and dormant. Regina wasn't too surprised, she was obviously still exhausted and it would take time to recover from the amount of magic she had used up to stop Zelena.

"Let me go get the doctor."

"Wait."

Emma's shoes squeaked as she turned back around to Regina.

"Is there something you need?"

Regina just held out her hand for Emma to take. Emma sat on the side of the bed; one hand in Regina's the other back on her cheek.

"What happened to Zelena?"

"Well, she attacked you like we expected and Glinda's amulet worked and started sucking all of her magic out of her. Then she did something, some sort of spell that she threw at you that made the amulet break and sort of blow up. You were both knocked back but Zelena was the only one who got up. God Regina, I was so scared when you didn't get up. And Zelena was standing over you ready to do this spell, but she couldn't get it to work."

Regina sighed. "So it worked? She has no more magic?"

"Gold and Blue both said she doesn't. We have her locked up in the station for now."

"Good." Regina brought Emma's hand to her mouth and kissed it softly before settling back into the bed. "That's good."

It didn't take long for her to drift back to sleep.

/-/-/-/

The next time Regina woke she could hear someone in the room. They moved about her bed quickly and they most certainly were not Emma.

"After all these years, you still can't fool me into thinking you're asleep."

Regina smiled. "Ingrid."

Ingrid had been her nurse maid when she was a child, and soon after that her governess and eventually her hand maiden after her marriage to the king. She was a smart woman who knew when and where to show affection so that Cora never saw it.

"How are you feeling?"

"Drained. My magic is reluctant to cooperate at the moment and my body is sore, but it's not so bad. I've been through worse."

"I know you have. Emma gave us permission to run all the brain scans and x-rays we need to. No brain damage and no broken bones, if you'd believe that. She's a good woman, Regina. Well done on getting her. Now, just open your eyes for a second."

Regina did as she was told and felt the slight heat from a penlight on the skin around her eyes.

"Hmmm. Your pupils aren't constricting. How is your vision?"

"Non-existent."

Ingrid was silent for a few minutes. "Emma didn't mention that."

"That's because Emma doesn't know."

/-/-/-/

Emma had not been happy to find out that Regina had kept her out of the loop, even if it hadn't been purposeful. She'd had every intention of telling Emma, but Regina had fallen asleep before she could. Still, Emma took it upon herself to make sure Regina had everything she needed after Regina was discharged.

Emma would guide her to and from the toilet, though Regina refused to let her stay and if Regina even thought about going down the stairs on her own Emma would pick her up and carry her bridal style. Emma had taken over dinner duty which meant something from the Diner every night. Not that Regina was complaining, because Granny was a really good cook and Emma was a really bad cook. She'd rather not lose her kitchen to a fire as well as her eyesight.

On the third day Regina was sick of it. She couldn't sneeze without Emma hovering over her and her requests to leave the house had been shot down before Regina had even managed to get a full sentence out. She was a prisoner in her own house. She wasn't even able to move around without a guide. Her house had changed very few times in the twenty nine years she had lived in it and those were all most completely restricted to Henry's room. She could, and had walked the hallways of her own house in pitch black darkness and this time it was no different.

Perhaps losing her sight would have affected her more if it was the first time, but it wasn't. Rumpelstiltskin had used blindness as a rather creative way of ensuring Regina learn how to reach out with her magic and feel the world around her. Until she had been able to retrieve a magically enchanted object from another room of Rumpel's castle without fault he had refused to restore her vision. The first time had sent her into a rather panicked sate that left her sitting on the floor for an hour before she started to see the delicate traces of magic around her visible only in her mind.

Seeing with magic was less like physically looking at something. It wasn't exactly another form of sight, but it worked. Rather than seeing, Regina just knew when something was there. Everything held some form of magic or energy, and they all resonated off each other creating a mess which was almost impossible to sort through unless one had been trained. How else could you tell the difference between a person and a tree if all you could feel was that it was something alive that was in front of you?

Rumpel had delighted in testing Regina randomly and semi-frequently until he was sure that she had a fundamental understanding of the energy and magic that surrounded her. Those small strands of magic could be harnessed and used for much greater things, such as turning straw into gold. Something Regina had excelled in, much to Rumpel's annoyance.

It was different in Storybrooke because there was no innate magic in the world. Magic made things messy and without it everything was cleaner. The distinction between objects took next to no effort to find and made it much easier to navigate around. It was a close as Regina had ever come to actually 'seeing' with magic. With everything so defined Regina could almost paint a mental image of the world around her, but only as long as she had access to her magic. So she slipped out of the mansion while Emma dozed on the couch and made her way to Rumpel's shop. She had things to do.

/-/-/-/

Rumpelstiltskin looked up as Regina opened the door to the pawn shop. His shop was harder to navigate because of all the magical items obstructing the mental image she had created but she still managed to find her way up to the counter. She leaned on heavily on the counter. The intense magic usage had taken up much of her energy and she'd need to save as much as possible for the journey back home.

"What can I do for you, Regina? I get the feeling this isn't a social visit."

"Is it permanent?"

"Is what permanent?"

Regina looked up. She had been told that eyes, while they looked exactly the same as they always had, flashed green and white and purple on occasion. She could only guess it had something to do with the way in which she had been blinded. At least she looked the same. Regina knew she was vain, but she hated the idea of having milky white eyes almost more than the actual blindness.

"This." Regina said with a wave towards her face. "This damned blindness."

Gold reached a hand out and then all Regina could make out was the murky energy that rolled off of Rumpelstiltskin in waves.

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

Regina nodded. "I thought so. What do I owe you?"

"For this, nothing."

"There's always a price."

"Consider it a gift for getting rid of Zelena, then."

/-/-/-/

It took nearly three hours for Regina to get back to the mayoral mansion due to her lack of energy and her magic periodically cutting out, causing her to stop and wait until she had recovered enough for her to see again. People had approached, but Regina had years of practice in pretending she was fine when she wasn't. It was better this way; that people saw her just as mean as before, just as capable as before. If she was mean she wasn't weak and Regina wasn't foolish enough to think that if someone decided they wanted her head now that she was blind that Emma and Snow's good words about her would stop any attack.

Regina stumbled into the foyer and let her magic relax. Her vision of the energy around her faded into the strange nothingness she had become accustomed to over the past few days. She could make the rest of the journey with no trouble as long as her weary body didn't give out beneath her. Her heavy footfalls brought Emma running though, so Regina knew she would not be able to relax and recover anytime soon. With a groan Regina collapsed onto her knees.

"What the hell, Regina? I wake up and find you gone. Henry has no idea where you are and no one's seen you in hours."

Emma levered Regina up with one arm around her waist and the other holding the arm that Emma had slung around her neck. She was already moving up the stairs and towards their bedroom before Regina could protest.

"Look at you, you can barely stand and you think it was a good idea to leave. Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

Later Regina would say she was exhausted from using her magic. Later she would say she had over reacted. But right now Regina shoved Emma away from her even if that meant she had to lean heavily against the hallway wall just to stay standing.

"It doesn't matter if it was a good idea or not. The only thing that matters is that it was mine."

"Regina…"

"No! It was my choice."

"You're blind!"

Regina could hear the tears in Emma's voice.

"You think I haven't realised that? It's hardly escaped my notice."

"Maybe you have realised it. But what you haven't realised is that you're not invincible."

"I know that!" Regina screamed. "But I'm not a china doll either. You can't keep me locked up in my own house. I have lived through one marriage caged like a wild animal and I won't let this one be the same."

"God, Regina…" Emma whispered.

Regina let her body slide slowly down the wall and onto the floor. She ran a hand over her face; almost as if she'd be able to see her own hands if they were close enough. Emma thumped to the hallway floor with her and let out a shaky breath.

"I don't know how to do this, Regina. If it had been anyone else I could deal with it, but it's you. What if I can't help you? What if I'm not enough and I fuck this up even more?"

"You don't get it, do you? I would forgive you anything, Emma. Anything except being caged, no matter the reason. I will not be held hostage again. Not even for my own good. I have heard that so many times and never has it been for my wellbeing. Never."

"I … I didn't mean to …"

"I know. But you did. Emma, we haven't even talked about this since the hospital."

"Would it have made a difference?"

"Yes. I needed to talk, Emma. I needed help and you weren't there. I needed to find out if this … condition was permenant and you wouldn't help me."

"I'm so sorry, Regina." Emma sat on the floor next to her. "Where did you go?"

"I went to see Gold, and I'm afraid it's rather permanent."

"There's nothing we can do?"

"I didn't say that, dear." Regina said and Emma almost laughed at her sly smile. "This, I can deal with. There is magic to give you a sort of sight. It's not the same, but it will do. I don't need you to lead me by the hand, Emma."

"I know you don't. You just might need to remind me a few times until I get it through my thick skull."

"I can do that."