"Hey mom," Henry says as they meet up outside Granny's.
He's smiling like a normal kid and, surprisingly, Regina doesn't even flinch at the moniker. Were it not for the blazing sun in the sky, Emma would assume that hell had finally frozen over. "Hey kid," Emma says, putting aside the weariness of her job for this special occasion.
Storybrooke these days is less a fairy tale and more a… Well, a fairy tale, but not the Disney version. It's more like the original tales, full of barrels of nails and dancing to death in red hot slippers. Grimm always did balance happily ever after with enough blood and disemboweling to frighten any child away from wickedness.
Amidst resentment and grudging compromises, Granny's has become Switzerland. They walk inside, the bell rings, and Emma sniffs deeply of the odor of eggs, bacon, coffee and pie. It's a place untouched by conflict, perfect for her and Regina and Henry.
It makes sense, too. The old woman never hurt anyone, as far as Emma has been told, and that makes her trustworthy. But more importantly, in Emma's world, she tolerates Regina. The former monarch of terror hasn't redeemed herself in everyone's hearts; she hasn't really tried, to be fair to the townsfolk. People are alive thanks to her, but they wouldn't have been in danger in the first place without her. It's a tricky situation, and Regina prefers to ignore everything with a smug chill that's, admittedly, a little annoying.
There are those, though, who have forgiven her. Archie and Red might bear the brunt of her insults, but they also have been blessed with uncursed humanity in this small town. Some others—all mice, horses, enchanted trees or household items in the Enchanted Forest—are grateful to have their bodies back. Some peasants, too, are willing to accept a comparatively luxurious life in sunny Storybrooke, in exchange for poverty back home.
Emma tells herself not to call them peasants, but it's hard when her days are spent around Snow and Regina, the queens of divine right and upper class. She can only hope Henry isn't picking up on their political delusions.
At the moment, it seems Henry is distracted. It's become routine for him to have hot chocolate with his mothers twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Regina demands routine, and Emma silently allows that it's a pleasant kind of security.
He keeps looking out the window while Regina orders for the three of them, but there's no more sullenness in his eyes.
Their son is at the age when he's just discovering morality (and so he stubbornly sticks to black and white definitions) but for the time it's working in their favor. Regina murdered, tortured, manipulated, and cursed everyone to an existence with meh endings instead of happiness and joy. But she also raised him, loved him, absorbed a death curse for his mother and grandmother, and then sacrificed her life for the entire town instead of hopping with him through a portal.
Emma has thought, many times, that it'd be better for him to understand that people can do good things without being good, but then he'd ask if people can do evil things without being evil, and it would all make Emma's head hurt.
So for the three of them, and a few people in town, Regina has been declared on probation. Former evil, current good. Everyone non-forgiving is too afraid to murder her. It works, for now.
Their hot chocolate arrives, steaming and topped with cinnamon.
"Henry," Regina prompts, with the sort of mother's firmness Emma can't quite emulate, "why don't you tell Emma about your school project."
The way 'Emma' comes out crisp and clear is nicer than 'Ms. Swan', but Emma cringes. Normally, when you sleep with a woman and blow her freaking mind, she says your name with warmth. Regina has established a disappointing distance. Figures. For all Emma knows, she cast a spell on herself to forget that the event ever happened.
It's annoying, but in hindsight Emma supposes that the sex was an ill-advised impulse. For Henry's sake if nothing else. And today is about Henry, not about how Regina says her name with a hint of chill.
"It's about genetics," Henry says, after taking a big sip of his cocoa. Regina twitches, but doesn't wipe the bit of whipped cream from his upper lip. Good for her, Emma thinks. Their son is thirteen and very insistent that he's not a baby anymore. "Some guy long ago experimented with vegetables and discovered genes and stuff. Ms. Blanchard is really enthusiastic about it, and I would be too except…" He rolls his eyes a bit. "Her and Mom won't talk about how it works with things like magic."
"I may know about science discoveries in this world," Regina retorts, "but I wasn't given a Ph.D in it. I'm not qualified to discuss the impacts on the Enchanted Forest, nor is Ms. Blanchard."
"We could guess, though! Make hypotheses." Henry refuses to be rebuffed, his enthusiasm nearly cracking his voice in that adorable preteen way. "Some things have to be genetic, you know. But then there's True Love magic that's kind of genetic but also not. We don't know if Mom passed it on to me—if it's even possible—since you guys won't let me do anything with magic. And the Dark One is different, but then there's Cora and Mom, so that's hereditary."
"Which means we have nothing to go on," Regina says, fingers twitching around her coffee cup.
Henry realizes, a few seconds too late, that bringing up his other grandmother was taking things too far. His face falls a little. "Still. I don't see why we can't at least test to see if I have magic."
Regina has gone all twitchy, her spoon tapping against the ceramic mug at an erratic pace, so Emma steps in. "Kid, magic is dangerous and it's really hard to control. Even I don't want to touch it, and mine supposedly comes with a No Evil Guaranteed clause, thanks to your grandparents."
"But only magic can fight magic," Henry insists. "Someone's got to face the danger."
"That's my job." Regina smiles fondly, but her eyes brim with discomfort. "No one else needs to dirty their hands or hearts. That's the deal we all made."
Henry swallows, remembering once again that things have a price. That darkness led them here, not the pretty sparkly magic that one can read about in this realm.
Parents shouldn't have to talk about these things. They shouldn't have to remember the things that Henry does, and have to avoid questions like 'Was grandma always evil? Was your magic ever good, mom?' They shouldn't, and yet they do. Here in a bustling little diner. Emma worries about Henry aging too fast, breaking under the strain of a morality that doesn't answer all the questions he has about his world.
To be honest, she's more than 30 and still doesn't know what to do with all this mess. Regina's one thing, but Mary-Margaret and David have given her moments of horror too. It's the easy choice to brush over conflict, but she doesn't think it's quite wrong.
Henry's forgotten about his school project, and Regina's forgotten that they're here to talk and bond and do the whole family thing. Emma fidgets in her seat and wonders if it'll always be like this.
The bell on the door jangles with a new arrival. The awkwardness on Henry's face finally fades to something softer, and he groans. "She's so hot…"
Emma does a double take to see that, sure enough, Henry did say that. She looks back to see that his gaze has fallen on the newly-arrived Alice. A moment of blinking shock aside, it's not the worst thing. She's pretty for a teenager, Emma supposes. An age-appropriate crush.
"Henry!" Regina says with horror.
Emma almost laughs, but holds her tongue.
"What? I'm almost fourteen." Henry rolls his eyes.
"You are not," Regina insists, "and you will not speak that way."
"Fine. She's awesome, smart, and very…pretty. Better?"
Emma swallows another laugh, but the horror hasn't faded from Regina's face. She looks nearly drained of color. Surely she can't possibly be disgusted by simple puberty. "What is it?" Emma asks.
"You're not old enough," Regina says, as sharp as she ever gets with Henry. Her fingers twitch.
That's enough to make Henry snap. "I'm not a little kid, Mom. I'm not like the rest of this town, I'm actually growing up. I'm becoming a man."
"Hey, jeez, kid," Emma puts her hand on Henry's arm. "It's chocolate day, let's not fight. Your mom's just being your mom. Time flies, believe me." It does hit her, like a punch to the gut, that she's only known him for three years and already he's bristling at the title of kid. The squalling red-faced infant is so, so gone.
Regina says nothing, her lips pursed together and her eyes behind walls. It's not really helpful. Emma sighs and counts down the seconds before her head starts to hurt.
Henry grumps in a way that boys do at this age, when masculinity becomes a real concern, with a hint of whipped cream still at the corner of his mouth. "I just don't want to be coddled."
"What do you want, Henry," Regina asks in exasperation.
"For my balls to finally drop," Henry mutters.
This time Emma can't hold in the splurt of laughter that sends specks of cocoa flying across the table.
"Henry!" Regina is back to shock.
"What?" He waves a hand. "Then I'd finally be a man and you guys wouldn't treat me like a kid."
Regina bristles, and the two of them look so goddamn alike it's a little sad. "Independence isn't so easily gained," she says. "And neither is manhood."
Again stepping in to prevent disaster, Emma pats Henry's shoulder before he can snap back at Regina. "She's right. There are four things that make you a man, and none of them involve balls."
Regina cringes at the word 'balls' but Henry looks intrigued. "What do you mean?"
Emma grins and ticks them off on her finger, humming the song in her head. "You must be swift as a coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon and the strength of a raging fire. And, of course, be mysterious as the dark side of the moon."
They must be grumpier than she thought, considering that there's not even the hint of a smile from either.
"The dark side of the moon isn't even mysterious, Mom," Henry says, rolling his eyes.
"Are those things you learned in prison, Emma?" Regina adds, clearly unimpressed.
While clearly it's distracted them from their bickering, this is not what Emma planned for. "Oh come on, that song is the best," she protests.
"Song?" Henry and Regina say simultaneously.
Emma can't help it. She gasps. "Holy crap, have you guys not seen Mulan?"
Henry scrunches his brow. "She's that woman you met in the Enchanted Forest, right?"
The pieces fall together, leaving Emma so stunned that she probably looks like a carp. Of course, of course, Regina banned Disney movies from Storybrooke. No point in testing fate and repressed memories—and no point in having to be subjected to a version of herself that looked more like her mother. Still, the thought of Henry growing up without Disney movies is more than Emma can manage.
"Really, Emma, this is ridiculous."
"It's a song, Henry," Emma finally blurts out. "It's from a movie—there's a whole bunch of movies—all about the Enchanted Forest."
"What?" Henry looks confused.
Regina understands too quickly and hisses, "They are loosely based on our homeland."
"Right, but, every kid grows up with those versions of the stories," Emma says, gesturing wildly. "Girls grow up wanting to be the princesses, or sometimes to marry the princesses, and boys…I don't know, actually, but every kid watches Disney movies. The songs, Henry, the songs!" She starts singing Go the Distance, but Henry looks at her like she's lost it.
"Mom?" he asks Regina.
"They're ridiculous, over-romantic, childish representations of what one strange frozen man thought of the Enchanted Forest," Regina says, in a way that tells Emma she's had this argument before. "And I spared you and everyone else the secondhand embarrassment of growing up with them in your life."
"She's wrong." Emma looks Henry in the eye. "I'm going to fix this. Starting with Mulan, because seriously, you're worried about being a man? Great place to start."
Regina rubs at the bridge of her nose, eyes shutting.
"Okay," Henry says slowly, glancing between them and sighing. "Are they anything like Star Wars?"
"Yes," Emma says without hesitation. "And X-Men, and all that. It's just the fairy tale version. With kick-ass music."
Their son shrugs and seems to give in to the crazy. "Maybe we can have a family movie night."
"Not with me, you won't," Regina grumbles.
"How do you know you won't like them if you haven't seen them?" Emma challenges. When Regina doesn't respond, she narrows her eyes. "Unless you have…"
"One or two, during those first years." Regina finishes her hot chocolate in a manner that hides her eye-roll. "But I prefer to read. So does Henry."
It's surreal, Emma notes, to be talking about Disney and movies and normal stuff with these two. The idea of Regina living here—actually living and taking part in this world—is almost as hard to envision as her Evil Queen past. All their dangerous adventures are a recent development. For 28 years they were just everyday people. For 10 years, Regina was just a mom. As much as that's a little disturbing, it gives Emma hope.
This might be something they can talk about, on hot chocolate days and movie nights and absurdly common events that Emma never got to take part in. At least until everything else gets easier to talk about and they have to involve Archie for the heavy stuff. It's better than endless parenting arguments, for sure. She embraces the ordinary. "So what books did you read? Popular stuff, I assume. Twilight?"
"As if anyone could get past the first 20 pages." Regina snorts.
"Tolkien?"
"Perhaps."
"Harry Potter?"
"Why are you interrogating me about this?"
Henry pipes in, "Oh yeah, we totally read Harry Potter."
Emma catches the only word that matters in that sentence, and grins again. "We, huh? Aw, Regina, did you read them to him before bed?"
The other woman bristles, eyes dark. "It was a rite of passage among his generation, I was told."
"Well duh, they're great books." Henry says, finally cracking a smile and looking once again like the little kid Emma first met. "I bet you liked Harry best, right Mom?"
"You got it," Emma says, with mostly fond remembrance of hiding under blankets with a flashlight, ignoring the suffocating summer heat for the sake of the story. "Orphan angst, wild hair and broken glasses included. No scar, but I tried with one of my foster mom's makeup sets. You?"
"Hermione." Henry shrugs. "Even though Mom read her with this weird squeaky voice."
Emma raises an eyebrow. "Regina Mills, did you read aloud with special voices?"
"Today was supposed to be about Henry, not my reading tendencies." Her voice might be full of warning, but the darkness is gone from Regina's eyes. She looks prickly—but the fun kind of prickly, the kind that you can poke at.
And Emma really shouldn't be thinking things like that about Regina. She tells herself that this isn't real, that this woman has been evil and unrepentantly so. It's not something that Emma has forgiven. She may not ever forgive it. Yet these moments sneak in. Moments when Regina and Henry share a soft fondness, a near smile on their lips, an understanding and love that can't be denied, and Emma's heart swells just like it did on that fateful night when she crashed into Regina and Regina didn't deny her anything. Moments when Regina drops the mask and Emma likes what's underneath, more than she's liked anything in her life, and that's not just a metaphor for how great she looks naked. It's a mad, mad world they live in, and Emma is 100% sure that they'll need therapy for the rest of their lives because of it.
She shakes it off and drinks her now-cool hot chocolate, acting as if their little family is normal because that's what Henry needs even if it's a lie. "I bet your favorite character was Snape, huh Regina?"
The woman eyes her with disdain strong enough to eat through solid stone.
Henry chortles. "Nah, I think it was Luna Lovegood."
Regina just shakes her head. "I am not talking about this."
Emma stares at her son's mother and lets out a little sigh, wondering if any—or all—of Regina is real. They've been around each other for the past three years, through curses and attempted murders and magic-sharing and sex, and Emma still doesn't know what she's dealing with. It could be worse, though. Regina's favorite character could have been Dolores Umbridge.
"So, Disney movie nights until we've seen them all," Emma pronounces after a pause. "And then maybe we can marathon Harry Potter together."
Henry looks about ready to roll his eyes, but he finally sighs and says, "Fine, Mom."
Regina mutters only, "Since I don't seem to have been offered a choice on the matter…"
Emma smiles. "You know how family works. Everybody takes part or nobody takes part."
Though she opens her mouth, no doubt ready to dryly protest that fact, Regina says nothing in the end. She shrugs, and nods to Henry. "Finish your hot chocolate, dear. You have a mountain of homework at home to do."
He may be nearly fourteen and nearly a man, but Henry only says, "I know, I know," with the time-honored tone that exasperates mothers everywhere.
Emma really, really hopes that he doesn't have magic. She's not ready for him to be special. Hell, she's not ready for him to grow up, but that's happening anyways. She wants him to have an easy life from now on. Simple, normal, ordinary. When she meets Regina's eyes, she sees that dream reflected in them too.
She'll settle for the shared goal now, but she won't forget about the rest. She'll figure Regina out someday—it'll force her to decide on love or hate, but it has to happen. Not today and probably not tomorrow, but Regina's not leaving anytime soon and neither is Emma. She has a lot of Disney movies to show Henry.