a/n: hey guys good news I'm alive! Sorry for the wait (things have been going on in my life that aren't worth mentioning but) hopefully you haven't abandoned me quite yet. Let me know what you think of the chapter!
29: Call me, please
Jennifer got the call as she was leaving the hospital for the night, weeks after she called Ruby the first time. As soon as she saw the caller ID she sighed and answered. "Jesus Christ, Emma," she breathed desperately, relieved.
"Jennifer, hi." Emma sounded tired and slow and drawn out.
"How are you? Ruby told me everything."
"We're okay. We're all okay."
Jennifer furrowed her brow. Emma's voice was too slow, hesitant~weirdly reassuring. "You don't sound so sure."
"It's just...nothing. It's nothing."
"No, what is it?" Emma hesitated on the other line and finally sighed as Jennifer hailed a cab on the busy streets of New York.
"Henry."
"What about him?"
"He's not...himself."
"Did anything happen over there? Did you have Dr. Whale look at him? Archie?" Jennifer frowned, shaking her head.
"God, you sound like a doctor," Emma breathed. "He's fine. He's just...off."
"Emma."
"I can't explain it," she rushed. "Something's just not right. And if everyone wasn't so drunk on life happy they'd see it too."
. . .
Jennifer tried calling Regina's number that night, curled up on the couch with a blanket over her legs and the TV playing in the background. Regina had been popping up in her thoughts all day, and she'd finally gotten sick enough of biting her nails and getting lost in her maladaptive daydreams to actually call her.
It went to voicemail. She sighed, rubbing her forehead as she heard the beep of the messaging system. She worried, maybe too much, and it was showing. "Hey, Regina, it's Jennifer. Just checking in. I heard you were electrocuted or something? Please, let me know you're okay," she implored in an embarrassingly emotional outpouring. Realizing how desperate that might have sounded, she clenched her jaw and sighed and ran a hand through her hair before resting her forehead in the palm of her hand. "Just...call me. Okay?"
. . .
"Hey, it's Jennifer. I talked to Mary Margaret. She said you're all doing okay. Emma's kinda paranoid about Henry. Is he okay? Call me back when you get a chance."
She hadn't had a chance to talk to Mary Margaret about Regina, but that could wait until she knew the woman herself was okay. Val had left for Los Angeles last week, but they'd been talking on the phone every night and every night Val never failed to ask about Regina. It was annoying as hell but in a caring way, she supposed.
. . .
"Look, I don't wanna clog your inbox. I'm sure you have more important mayor-y things to do. I'm just worried about you. Please just let me know you're okay. I wanna hear...god, it sounds stupid. Look, I just wanna hear your voice. There. Alright? Fuck. Okay. Regina, I know you're listening to these. We need to ta-"
. . .
"The damn machine cut me off. Look, Regina, please just-"
The line connected.
"I'm fine." Her voice was quick and tired.
"Regina!" Jennifer breathed, surprised.
"I'm sure you've already heard it by now. There was...electricity. But I'm fine," she assured quickly and sighed heavily, shaking the thought from her mind. "We got Henry. We stopped Pan. We're back home. I'm fine."
"The more you keep saying I'm fine the less and less I believe you," Jennifer drawled.
"It's just been a rather draining few weeks. I'm sure you can understand that I might be a little tired."
"Yeah, of course just…" Jennifer took a deep, slow breath. "Look, I want you to know that you can talk to me. About anything. I know it's kinda awkward. Now. But, um, what happened...that night...won't happen again if you, well, if you don't want it to. I guess I just wanna make sure we're still okay," Jennifer inquired hesitantly. There was a long silence on the other end. Jennifer couldn't even hear Regina breathing.
And she knew she'd told Val that she couldn't stand being just Regina's friend, but that was a complete lie. She just wanted to be Regina's something. And wasn't that a little sad?
"I think it'd be best if we took a few steps back. For a while."
Jennifer swallowed. Regina's tone was so blank, so steady and businesslike and foreign and cold.
"Right. Yeah. You're probably right."
There was a long, numb silence before Jennifer took a deep breath again and shifted on the bench in the hospital locker room. She still had her scrubs on. This latest call had been her most spur of the moment yet.
"So how's Henry?" She asked, resting her elbows on her knees.
"He's a little shook up. Frightened," Regina answered. "Emma told me to watch him, but I...frankly, I'm just glad he still needs me to be his mother," she gasped, nearly a laugh. Jennifer smiled on the other end.
"I don't think that's ever going to change." And she meant it. Then her pager went off. "Shit," she breathed, glancing down at it. "I gotta go."
"Work?" Regina asked like she'd asked it a thousand times before. It was frightening how natural and wonderful it sounded to Jennifer.
"Work," she answered, standing up. Then she sighed. "Look, Regina, I…" she started strong but the words died quickly in the back of her throat. She wanted to say something profound, maybe something that would set everything right again. Something they could start over with. But nothing was coming to mind, and she hated herself for it. "Fuck, I just…"
"I know," Regina finally answered, her voice soft and understanding. "And I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have~"
"You didn't know," Regina assured. "I reacted...strongly, but you needed to know…" she was the one to trail off now. It was as if neither of them could really say it. They always had to skirt the truth, and Regina had a terrible feeling that it was because neither of them were telling the truth.
. . .
It was at the end of a long shift when Jennifer was finally able to open her phone again that she saw the call. She'd just walked in the door and was eager to call Val. She was a week away from "officially" finishing her third year as a resident and needed a bit of guidance. For months now she'd been deliberating between general surgery and emergency medicine as a specialty. It was why she'd gone to, or had rather been planning to go to until she literally rammed her way into Storybrooke, the medical conference in Maine. Not only was general surgery a featured topic, but emergency medicine also took the spotlight, and she'd been eager to talk to some experts in the field to help her decide. This was a critical turning point for Jennifer because emergency medicine was a three year residency while general surgery was five. She had to decide now. And the dean of medicine was waiting for an answer.
When she finally opened her phone in the quiet of her living room, however, she saw she had a missed call and voicemail from Emma.
"Hey, I don't wanna scare you. I just wanna let you know something big is happening in Storybrooke. It's Pan. Something's um...well, I don't know right now. I just figured you deserve to know what's going on. I'll call you if I can."
Her voice sounded breathy and urgent, and how the fuck was that not supposed to scare Jennifer? Why was there always some kind of crisis in that god forsaken town? She tried calling Emma back, and to her great surprise she answered.
"Emma, what the hell?" Jennifer asked as soon as the line connected.
"Pan switched bodies with Henry," she breathed like she'd been running. Jennifer frowned. "I know it's weird just go with it. Now's not the greatest time. We're trying to break into Regina's vault. Pan's down there with her."
"What is he trying to do?"
"We think he's after Henry."
"Why is he in Regina's vault then?"
"He needs magic. Something. We're not sure yet."
"I'm coming up there."
"No, you have a job. A life. Stay there."
"I also have a family," Jennifer insisted. Emma sighed on the other end. "I'm coming."
. . .
Jennifer packed a bag that night and called Val from the road. "Hey, Birdie, how's it going?" Val asked when the line connected.
"I need you to talk me out of something," Jennifer breathed, distracted.
"If this is about your medical thing I already told you to go into emergency medicine. You work better under pressure. Besides, you'd get bored doing general surgery."
"No, it's not…" she sighed. "I'm driving to Maine."
"What?" Val asked. "Why? Don't you work tomorrow?"
"I already called it in. Family emergency."
"And you need me to talk you out of it?" She asked, confused.
"Can you just fucking talk to me, please?" Jennifer snapped. Then she sighed and kneaded the leather of the steering wheel and let her eyes close for a second on the freeway. "Emma's in trouble."
"Would you have done this a year ago?" Val asked.
"No. I wouldn't have believed her," Jennifer ground out. Her shoulders were tight. She almost felt frantic, and she was having a hard time containing it. The amount of crises in that town was going to give her a heart attack. And Emma was going to be the death of her, she was sure of it.
"Then why are you doing it now?"
"Because she's my sister."
"I'm sure she can handle whatever's happening."
"I know she can. I just wanna be there with her. I can't sit in New York and watch and wait while her life goes to shit. Besides, something feels...wrong. I don't know how to explain it."
"You don't need me to talk you out of this," Val realized finally. Jennifer had called Val and had her do something like this with her before. Usually it was about a girlfriend she was going to break up with. Talk me out of it, Jennifer would say, and Val would say that they were perfect for each other, they always seemed so happy, and Jennifer would say no because this and this and this. It was like she needed someone to be the other half of her conscience just so she could fight with it.
"Yeah, well, you know me. Can't stand the sound of my own voice talking nonsense in my head."
"Why am I not surprised at all that you'd throw yourself into something like this in a heartbeat?"
"Because I'm me," Jennifer laughed.
"Because you're just like Emma," Val said instead. A pit nestled itself in Jennifer's throat. She swallowed. Jennifer had told Val enough stories of Emma for her to accurately make that comparison. Jennifer hadn't really thought of it much before, but Val was probably right. The silence grew thick, and Val sighed. "Just keep an eye out, okay? I don't need a repeat of your last excursion to Maine," she said, and visions of Jennifer ramming her head into the steering wheel on a dark, stormy night flooded her mind. "Because if you die, I'll kill you."