Henry had never exactly meant to stay away from Regina. He simply always managed to be far too occupied to find her. After they'd returned to the Enchanted Forest, he'd had a whole new world to learn – he'd had lessons in manners and sword-fighting, horses to ride, banquets to attend. He'd had a family to find his place in, a family that was by all accounts charmed – grandparents that adored him and wrapped him in love and warmth and laughter and sparkling approval, a true real mother, who made him laugh as she attempted to navigate the same new world that he was, and always kept an eye out to make sure he was alright. He had so many good things, things that shone so brightly, he had no room for the shame and anger he felt at and towards the Evil Queen. When he thought of her, he formed some hazy picture of her like in his Fairy Tale Book, safely tucked away somewhere ordering and demanding and seething with rage, but too far off to ever really be a concern.
After a few months of his not-exactly-chosen, but not-exactly-innocent ignorance, however, the truth came home to bear about the fate of the Evil Queen. Henry liked exploring, and had discovered many tiny passages through the castle he now called home, passages that allowed him to be where he oughtn't. In this case, directly above the council meeting Emma and his grandparents were overseeing. They spoke and argued for a time, and he knew it was about the Evil Queen. It was a single sentence, spoken in a booming voice by one of the counselors, that finally dispelled the little illusion he'd been living in for the past several months.
"We have delayed it long enough, Queen, and we can delay it no further. It is time the Witch be made to pay for the trail of death and destruction she has left behind her. By the laws of the land, she must die."
When Henry heard those words, he slipped down to his knees – frigid and sweaty and shaky, like when you have a fever. And in that moment he wanted nothing more than to feel his mother's hand on his cheek, the gentle touch she'd given when he was a small boy and was sick or scared, when she was the only comfort he looked for in the whole wide world. He'd forgotten that touch – the concern and the softness in her eyes when she'd look down at him. When you're a little child like that, you love your parent so simply and so faithfully, it wouldn't even occur to you to give the feeling a name – he'd forgotten he'd loved her like that, until that night he heard she was to die. In that moment, he learned what unconditional love is… how it forgives; and he learned a truth that moved him one step out of boyhood, and into adulthood - that in life, we are all imperfect hearts, and will do things that wound and that require forgiveness: she was his mother, and he had abandoned her.
Henry waited for Emma with all the patience of a desperate 11 year old boy. He paced around the room, fingers tracing the cracks in the stone wall. He sat on the chest at the foot of her bed, feet knocking against the wood. He peeked out her heavy door, to see if he could see her, or here the echo of footsteps, indicating that she was approaching. He did it all again… And all the while he pictured his mom, their home, and the rhythms of their life together. He remembered her faithfully opening the door to his bedroom every night to check that he was sleeping (how did he just now realize that he missed his room?); throwing him a distracted smile from behind the imposing desk in her office and promising "Just five more minutes, Henry…"; her sighing as she reminded him to please not leave his shoes – his backpack – his books – lying around, and then how she'd pick them up herself and put them back where they belonged, all those things that she had given to him. Deep in his heart he felt, with such conviction, that though the memories of their life were not all tender caresses and easy hugs, they were not so bad; and he recalled them now with a painful tenderness.
That was how Emma found him; hunched at the foot of her bed, arms clutched around his stomach, looking near to tears, or just past them, or perhaps both. He looked up at her, grief-stricken. The first fresh tear fell, and she knew that he knew. "Emma…" was all he could get out around his sadness, and it was enough. She went to him, and wrapped him close to her, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. They were not the arms that Henry wanted, but he accepted the embrace for a moment before pulling back. "Emma… I want to see my mom." Emma looked down into the eyes of the boy she loved so well, nodded, and reached for his hand. "Let's go."
The guards of Regina's tower cell let the two pass with decidedly little interest, given the gravity of the moment to the boy walking by them. Emma stopped a little ways before the end of the hall, and simply squeezed his shoulder, in reassurance. He looked up to her for a moment, finding courage in the gaze of his White Knight, and then he walked on alone. The final guard opened the door with as little interest as his predecessors had shown, and pushed it open just far enough for the boy to enter.
Sleep was elusive at best for Regina. The sound of the key in the lock was enough to wake her, cause her to fumble for the lantern by her small bed. The light flickered on just as Henry stepped through the door way.
Henry. Oh the way love for him clenched at her heart. She wasn't sure if she'd said his name out loud, or just in every shred of her ragged soul. He moved closer to her, hesitatingly, and she'd have done anything to quiet his anxiety if she only knew what he wanted from her. Her eyes were locked on him, but his gaze met hers only fleetingly before shifting to take in her face, her simple clothes, her meager room. He finally stopped altogether, just out of her arms reach, and then looked to the ground and away. "Mom…" he whispered, and she could have wept at the syllable alone.
He looked up then, and there were tears… Tears in the beautiful bright eyes she'd looked for herself in for ten years. Ever so haltingly, wishing for words that were more powerful, that would make things right, and failing to find them, he continued. "I'm sorry."
The sound Regina made in response was almost a laugh, but there was no mirth to it – it was a stunned exhalation; an involuntary response to words that literally took her breath away. She understood then why he was here, what he must have found out. She, being well familiar with the inexorable forces of the world, had been simply waiting for the decision to be made – but her child had not known what was coming.
With a slight furrow in her brow, she shook her head. It was not a rejection of his apology, not at all. It was absolution. She reached out finally, reached for her son, and he hurried into her arms, where he'd wanted to be since hearing the declaration of the council. She sat him next to her on the bed and he rested his head against her, his hot tears turning the homespun dress into truly the sweetest thing she'd ever worn. She shook her head again, her cheek this time rubbing against his fine soft hair. "Oh, Henry…" she sighed, so gently that not a hair on his head moved, "… you have nothing to be sorry for."
Henry tilted his head up to look at her. "I left you… After the curse broke, and we came back to the Enchanted Forest, I didn't come to see you."
"I understood." She answered simply.
"I helped break the curse." He offered.
"That took great courage, and faith, and love… And a hundred other good things I could never seem to find in myself. Deep in my heart…" she whispered against him "… I was so proud of you."
And then his final offering. "I hated you." The tears still came, it felt like they burned against his skin. He felt her deep inhale, absorbing the blow, but then he felt her thumb against his cheek, wiping those tears away.
"But I always loved you, and that love was the very best part of me."
He nodded, then, his confession made, and his guilt blown away by a mother's unfailing love.
For a long time he was quiet, simply feeling the rise and fall as she breathed, comforted by her sweet familiar scent. "Mom?" He finally asked.
"Yes?"
"Do you remember the Christmas you let me pick the decorations?"
She smiled a little, and nodded. That had been around the time she first truly realized that he was slipping away from her, a day at a time. Up till then, she had always overseen the holiday decorations – they were always tasteful, sleek, flawless. That year, though, she thought maybe it would be a way to bring him back closer to her, closer where she could hold on. So they'd picked a tree, and strung bright multicolored lights on it, and covered it in silly decorations made of paper and toothpicks; and as Henry strew tinsel on the trees branches, and Regina trailed behind attempting to redistribute it in some vaguely ordered fashion, he'd looked back at her with such a wide-open smile that she'd almost believed everything would be alright.
"That was a good day." He said softly.
She nodded her agreement. "Henry?" She spoke, quietly, solemnly.
"Hmm?"
"I'm sorry, too." Sorry for too many things that ran too far in every direction for her to name them one by one, but she was sorry for them all.
He nodded against her, quiet but unhesitating, the faith of a child.
"Will you do something for me?" No demands now, no orders. Only a request.
He nodded again. Of course. He was her child, her brave White Knight.
"Will you remember that day we hung the tinsel together? Remember that I always loved you, the very best that I knew how to? And just let all of the rest of it fade away?" It hurt to say the words, to squeeze them out around all the sorrow choking her, that she could not love him better.
Henry nodded, and stretched his hand out. Regina wrapped it up in hers, the way she used to do to help him cross the street, to keep him safe, when he'd been very small. There were no more words to say. Henry simply listened to the beating of his mother's heart, the rhythm that had so often soothed him to sleep, so very long ago. Between the late hour, and all the tears he'd cried, that heart that beat with love for him had the same effect on him now.
Regina sat for a long while, with Henry against her, his small hand still in hers. This, she realized, was the moment she should have frozen in time, when her child was cuddled close against her, a child that loved her and forgave her. Henry would always be safe, she knew now. A heart that forgave could never be tainted by evil. Here, at long last, was her happy ending.
Finally, achingly, she lifted her head from where it rested against his. The moment had passed.
"Ms. Swan…" She whispered. The door opened quietly, and Emma stepped into the room. Clear and honest blue eyes met dark eyes, bottomless with sorrow and love. Emma had no words.
"You should take him now…" Regina spoke softly. "Take him out of here, please, and don't bring him back again. My fate, it seems, has been sealed, and I must go to it alone."
Emma nodded, lips tight, wishing that she had words to speak the things that she was sorry for, but she couldn't find them. Regina just nodded, a faint smile at her lips. "Thank you, Emma, for bringing him. It…" She trailed off. It was a taste of joy, something she'd never had much of. It was a relief. It was a mercy. It was too many things she couldn't say.
Carefully, Emma collected the boy, almost too big now to carry. She backed quietly, carefully out of the room. She turned back to look at Regina before the door closed, but the single light flickered out, and there was nothing more to see.