strangetrip | [GP] All we can do is learn to swim

Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim. - Vicki Harrison

"You're sure?" Regina already knew the answer but demanding that Sam tell her what she already knew satisfied something petty in her. Or maybe just something hurt that hoped he'd have a different answer than her locator spell had already provided.

"Yeah." Sam half-rolled his eyes at her as he leaned across the pink bar counter to grab bottles of beer from the Silver Bar ice bin -- probably the results of Rebekah's last work-effort at the Inn -- for himself and his newly arrived companion.

Briefly, Regina considered burning a hole in the seat of his jeans, but it wouldn't bring Rebekah or any of the absent ones back. Instead, she took refuge in straightening her A-line and walking around the stylish counter Sam lay across like he was surfing the waves of grief. She took down a bottle of pointlessly pricey champagne, and then found the precise cut-crystal glasses Rebekah and Miss Fisher had preferred for their afternoon indulgences. She poured herself a glass and one for the person who dared her openly bitter expression.

"So who all are we missing?" they both said at once, glared at each other and sighed. They both knew the answers, in their own way and for their own reasons. And neither of them wanted to say.

Rebekah Mikaelson. Henry Winchester. Jack Robinson. Phryne Fisher. Dorothy Williams. Angua von Uberwald. Jaime Vegas. Harry Dresden. Lydia Martin. Raleigh Becket. Yasmeen. Joanna Beauchamp. Constance Bonacieux D'Artagnan. Lindsey McDonald.

"Grief is like the ocean," Sam clearly quoted from some fucking where, and Regina tuned him out until he added, "All we can do is learn to swim. Rebekah told me that."

Now Regina rolled her eyes; they weren't friends. "Shut up, Sam."

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Regina poured them each another glass of whiskey almost instinctively. They were going to need it.

Head tipped forward, she stared down at the table a moment, and when she looked up again, fingers brushing her hair back behind her ear, there was more warmth and familiarity in her gaze than before. "Before we came to the Inn, some of us were in a different world sort of like this only bigger. Myself, Snow, Yasmeen, Raleigh, Harry, Jaime, Lydia, Jack and Angua. We weren't all friends, but most of us had met. We also knew many of the others here, but from different points in their lives or entirely different universes. You were one of them."

"I don't remember anything like that," Corbie said, not unlike what she'd said to Harry then. Only now instead of a rising panic and fear, she was attempting to puzzle out how this could work and what it meant.

"You wouldn't." Regina glanced down at her glass, swirled the liquor in it, and settled her gaze on Corbie again. "She was older than you are. Either it hasn't happened for you yet, or you're not the same Corbie."

"How much older are we talking?" Because that was the easiest thing to grasp, not because that was the most important thing to know. She shook her head. It was a stupid question. "And if you recognized me, how would I not be the same?"

"A few years. No more than five, probably." They'd never discussed their ages. Like so many other things, it hadn't been important.

"You look the same, but you don't know as much magic as you did. I don't know when or how you learned most of what you knew in Gotham, but it wasn't all the same style you work in now. That could be because in some other version of your world, magic is different. There's no way to know, but it doesn't matter. As far as I'm concerned, you're the person I knew." Younger, and less confident, but still Corbie.

Corbie's brow was already furrowed in a pin scratch of a frown, and it was slowly deepening as she tried to get this to make sense.

But then she realized that it wasn't going to make sense. So it'd have to do something else instead.

"So she did learn to be a wizard?" she asked in a small voice.

"Yes. A very accomplished one." Regina smiled again, this time warmly and encouragingly. "You organized several of us to create very powerful wards for an orphanage you were protecting. Very cleverly."

She'd had help, of course, but now was hardly the time for specifics.

Corbie's eyes went huge in her face as she tried to wrap her head around the very idea. She sat up a little straighter. "I don't think you're lying to me," she said. "But how do I know you're not making this up?"

"You haven't told me the name of your mentor's brother in this world," Regina suggested. She was sure of that. Felix might have come up. "His name is Mildmay. He has an old injury to his leg. You also have a blind friend named Kay."

There had been another one. A blonde who seemed more of a rival to Felix than anything else, but she'd never met him to recall his name.

Corbie had mentioned Felix, but she wasn't sure she'd even mentioned he had a brother, but the mention of Mildmay's name riled her up all the same. And Kay she definitely hadn't mentioned at all. Even if she had, she would have referred to him as Lord Brightmore, or the Margrave of Rothmarlin. Not Kay. Never Kay.

Tears sprang to her eyes, but she firmly wiped these away. She nodded. "Okay."

Moved to see the tears in Corbie's eyes, Regina reached over to brush her fingers across her cheek. "I hope you understand why I didn't tell you before now."

"Yes," the girl agreed with a nod. She hadn't been ready, as she'd tried to tell Harry even though she hadn't entirely grasped that was what she was trying to tell him. It was still confusing and she wasn't sure she understood, but she did believe.

Corbie leaned into the touch. "I miss them. I miss them so much."

"I know, dear." She felt so impossibly ancient in the moment. So tired and so full of the sorts of emptinesses Corbie was only beginning to know. "If it helps, they were happy and very proud of you."

Corbie nodded. "It does," she whispered. She wasn't sure why, but knowing Felix was proud of her made warmth spread in her belly and she sat up a little straighter. "I'm okay."

Regina blinked, smiled wryly, and shook her head minutely. "Not yet, probably. But you will be." And a hell of a 'wizard', to boot.

[GP] All we can do is learn to swim

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