Guilt

Chapter 20

"This is so not like jumping in cold water. What Cora did was horrible."

Emma simply couldn't wrap her head around the fact that Regina thought this kind of behavior was acceptable. Though she herself didn't have the courage to stand up to the woman either.

"Do we have to talk about this? It's two a.m., we should get some sleep," Regina said. Emma knew she wouldn't be able to sleep, but she didn't want to be the one to keep Regina awake, so she kept her mouth shut.

She stirred in the bed, trying to find the best position to try to sleep in, until Regina wrapped an arm around her, to make her stop moving. Emma felt her heart pounding loudly as Regina's arm touched her body and she stayed still.

"I'm going to miss you when you leave," Emma said after a while. She didn't know if Regina had already fallen asleep, but she figured she'd try to start a conversation again.

"I'm going to miss you, too," Regina replied and moved her body closer to Emma's. "And I can't thank you enough for letting me stay here all those weeks. It truly means a lot to me."

"If you ever need a place to crash, you're more than welcome here," Emma said and finally felt herself getting tired. She felt Regina's hot breaths against her shoulder and sighed contently, before she fell asleep.

~~~~

As the weeks passed by, Emma spoke less and less with Regina. She became more focused on her job, the gallery was doing better than ever, and she spent time with Hope as much as possible.

Hope was more grumpy every day. She was completely done with being pregnant and she hated the way she appeared with her big belly. It was heavy and she was tired, most of the time.

She was over eight months pregnant now and didn't go to school anymore. She made all her homework at home and the teachers were all supportive of her situation, at least in front of her.

Hope was quite a dedicated student and she did make her homework as well as she could, because she didn't want to get behind on the rest of class.

Tilly and Margot were the only ones who knew the real reason as to why she was at home and they frequently visited her. Those moments were the light in Hope's days, because she needed the support of her friends.

It was exactly a year ago that Killian passed away and Emma was in a foul mood all day, as was Hope. The girl informed Emma that her friends would come over soon and Emma was glad that she was finding some sort of distraction.

Someone knocked on the door and Emma opened it, expecting to see Margot and Tilly, but Regina was standing there instead.

She felt like she hadn't seen her friend in over a month, but frankly, she'd quite lost the concept of time. Everything seemed to be going so fast lately.

Regina smiled faintly and handed Emma a single rose. "I don't know what is appropriate to do on occasions like these, but I wanted to show my support."

Emma looked confused, but opened the door further. "What do you mean?"

"It's been exactly twelve months, right?" Regina inquired. Emma inhaled deeply before she nodded. She looked at her friend and led her to the couch.