"Hey kid, your mom finished cooking and wants you to come eat." Emma bounded up the suitably large staircase in the mayoral mansion to her son's bedroom door. They started these little weekly 'family' dinners weeks ago after Henry insisted both his mothers needed to learn how to 'be in the same room without attempting to kill each other'. Honestly, they've only tried to kill each other what..once..twice..three times, if anything he should worry about getting Regina to hold back from trying to kill his only living grandmother, that's who should be having these torturous weekly dinners. But here Emma was, another Wednesday evening at the Mills house, another Wednesday of Regina playing the perfect hostess, and another Wednesday that would leave both the blonde and brunette slightly tipsy, unbenounced to their shared son. In the time it took reach the teen's door not a single sound had been made, no rush to get to the table to inhale whatever tonights meal would consist of; most likely something Italian and something with apples for dessert, though Regina mainly used apples now just to get that instantaneous look of fear for her personal enjoyment, but she didn't even hear the small, lazy footsteps he does when he is so exhausted from whatever he had been doing, which made Emma highly suspicious being that Henry had inherited her black-hole of a stomach "Kid did you hear me?" she asked as she swung the door open, only to realise Henry was in full on zombie mode, headphones on, music blaring, and completely dead to the world as she stared down at some paper with the same warning look his adoptive mother gave when a sudden ball of fire would appear in her hands. After seeing the damage one of Regina's anger induced fireballs could elicit the blonde woman took caution in getting his attention, even if he didn't have any magical abilities he could still find a way to make Emma rethink every and all decisions she had ever made. As she nudged the ever-growing brown haired teen on the shoulder she prayed to anyone who would listen that her kid would not try to bite her head off, she had had enough dragon fighting to last a life time. "Hey kid, how's it going?"

Henry, who noticed practically everything, never saw Emma walk into the room resulting to him being scared half to death when he felt a sudden jerk on his right shoulder. "What did you say ma?" he asked, though it was clear in his eyes that at the moment something else was hold a majority of his attention.

"I had just come up to tell you dinner is ready. Why do you look so stressed out?" the concern was evident in her voice as well as her face as she furrowed her eyebrows to see if she could figure out the mystery herself before he responded. When it was obvious she would not be coming to an answer soon and gave up Henry decided to answer her question.

He recounted all that had occurred in his day, "My math teacher gave me homework on a new lesson we started today and I just don't get it. I've been sitting here since I got home and I hardly understand what the notes even say. Ma can you help me?" her son looked up at her with his deep brown puppy dog eyes that were almost always impossible to say no to. How could she say no, when his gaze pulled at her heart strings and looked into the depths of her soul, this is what she signed up for when she demanded for Regina to allow her back into his life what felt like ages ago.

Truthfully math was never Emma's best subject in school, if Henry had a problem with english she would have been waiting for him to ask for some help, but math she barely ever passed the class, and on top of that it had been over a decade since she did anything other than basic arithmetic. But Emma was not about to give him a reason to be disappointed with her, nor would she give his other mother some more ammunition on how bad of a mother she was. "Yeah sure I'll help you out kid, what are you working on, fractions, times tables?" the blonde reluctantly answered.

"I'm not in the fourth grade Emma." Henry sniped, eager to get his work done so he would never have to see it again, well at least not until school the next day. "We started with quadratic formula and conics today."

"You're doing what?" Emma asked, the confusion emanating off of her.

"You know, quadratic formula,x=-b=b2-4ac2a, and conics with a whole ton of graphing."

"Whoa Henry slow down, I'm not so fluent in math as I used to be." Emma chuckled trying to break the tension in the teen's bedroom, only to worsen his mood further.

"Emma come on, can you be serious I really-"

"Miss Swan, what could possibly be taking you so long to bring our son down for dinner, I know you must have found him since your idiotic parents passed down all of their utterly annoying genes to you." Regina called as she came up the stair, the snark evident . All of a sudden his brunette mother stormed into the room, both Emma and Henry completely forgot about dinner and how she was 'patiently' waiting down in the dining room for them. If Regina were able to steam would have been pouring out of her ears and a fireball would have been at the ready, waiting for its target to be announced, but because of her deal with Henry not to practice magic staring daggers would have to do. The two on the receiving end froze under her pointed glare, unshaken until her continued dialogue pulled them from the momentary trance they were in, "Are you now incapable of answer simple questions Ms. Swan?"

"What, no I was about to help Henry with his math homework. Is that a problem Regina?" Emma quickly recovered, making sure not to show the few seconds of fear once the other woman entered the bedroom, much smaller now that 3 people were in it.

"Of course it is not a problem, as long as you do not cause for Henry to fail the assignment. Being you cannot manage the simple task of turning in paperwork on time, do you honestly believe you are best to assist him with his work?"

"Well if you think you could do better why don't you help him? the blonde defended whilst trying to avoid the commitment to Henry, because she was entirely afraid he would fail his work if she was wrong.

"Maybe I will!" Regina practically screamed at the infuriating woman who really was getting on her last nerve and one step from being kicked out of the house or the foreseeable future.

"Fine!"

The argument between the two moms was getting heated, as was the fire in both emerald and brown eyes. That is before the neutralizing factor spoke up.

"Can one of you please help me because biting each other's heads off isn't." Henry spoke for the first time in a few minutes, annoyed with the turn the conversation had taken. Any other day his mothers' bickering wouldn't have bothered him but now was not the time, there were bigger matters at hand.

"Yeah kid"

"Of course sweetie"


It had been almost 2 hours since Henry's 'adult' parents decided to help with his homework and no progress had been made. He knew it would take them a little bit, it had been years from when they stopped going to school, but after the first 45 minutes of them going at it like children over who was right and who was wrong he was ready to just take the zero. But being his adoptive mother was the mayor, former-Evil Queen and town perfectionist she would not let him give up. The 'Savior' on the other hand was ready to throw in the towel after the three skipped numbers 1,2, and 4 to 'come back to later'. Which Henry added to his list of Things Emma Can't Do, right after cook breakfast and wear different jackets. As the, learning experience, continued on Regina's ever regal personality began to shed away and aggravated Regina stepped onto the scene. It was about another hour before Regina wanted to stop with the ridiculous assignment once and for all.

"Guys I have an idea!" Emma proclaimed all too excitedly.

"Thank you for the warning, shall I go get protection for us all before you continue whatever plan you have concocted?" Regina quipped as the tall teen began to chuckle.

"Ha ha very funny. But you might actually need some protection for this one."


"Ms. Swan I knew you to be juvenile but not to this extent, you must be joking."

"No I'm 100 percent serious. Henry can't exactly do his homework if it caught on fire now could he?"

"I'm not going to use my magic to set fire to our son's homework so that he may get out of doing it, what will he learn of responsibility?"

"This isn't about responsibility this is about avoiding failure in front of a class of judgemental, 13 year old fairytale teenagers. And you don't have to use your magic, all we need is a lighter or match or something."

Knowing just how judgemental these 'good-hearted' fairytale characters could be was the deciding factor for the witch. "Are you okay with this?" she looked at her son and asked, for fear he would frown upon it, even if it was Emma's idea.

"I don't care as long as I don't have to look at it anymore." his response, although not surprising, still managed to shock both mothers, who were sure he would shoot down the plan before it took off.

"All right then, let's get this show on the road." came the blonde's near immediate answer.

The 'family' stood and watched as the time consuming homework ignited in flames in the eloquent stone backyard fire pit from the match Emma had thrown into it. "We will never speak of this. Agreed?"

"Agreed. The other two confirmed unisonly. They proceeded to watch the fire until Emma looked back towards the house and asked, "So Regina, what's for dinner?"