"You are just like your mother- never thinking of consequences!"
"I didn't know!"
"Of course, you didn't. Well, you just better hope to hell you didn't bring anything else back."
With that, Regina spun on her heel and stormed out of the diner. "This is it, the former queen thought despondently to herself. "This is when I lose everything again just because some little girl couldn't leave well enough alone."
"Mom! Mom, wait up!"
At the sound of her son's voice, Regina turned around. "Henry, go back inside. The party isn't over yet and you deserve to have some fun with your family after everything you've been through this week. Don't worry about me. I'll be fine."
Henry shook his head. Both of his mothers constantly did this. They felt they had to pretend they were fine and unaffected when all they really wanted was someone who would let them be weak. "You're not fine, Mom, and you don't have to be! No one expects you to be. Robin just got Marian back- a woman we all thought to be dead. Now, I don't know the whole story because, you know, memory loss and all, but I got the gist. That's hard for anyone to deal with."
Regina looked down. Henry always had been too perceptive for his own good. Most of the time it made her proud, but now it just made her want to run as far as she could to avoid his scrutiny.
"And Mom?"
"Hmm?" She made a noise of acknowledgement in the back of her throat but wasn't ready to look her son in the eyes, afraid he would continue to talk about what had just occurred in the diner.
"I can't have fun with my family when they're not all there to celebrate with."
Finally, Regina raised her eyes and smiled softly, touched when she realized what Henry was suggesting. It meant a lot, but she really didn't feel like sharing the little that she had left tonight. "Thank you, Henry, but I really don't think I can go back in there and not revert back to my old ways. I'm trying, for you, but…"
"I know. I get that it's hard. Which is why I already asked Emma if I could stay with you tonight. You shouldn't have to be alone right now, either."
Regina nodded, raised her arm, slinked it around her son's shoulders, and pulled him into her side so they could share body heat. An inexplicable chill had suddenly gusted through the town. "Let's go home, then. It's freezing."
"But maybe I haven't lost everything after all…"
Meanwhile, in the diner…
"I'm screwed!" Emma grunted, as she returned to her seat next to Hook and dropped her head against the table. "If this is where you say I told you so, please get it over with. I'd like for something today to be predictable."
Killian smirked. "Well, now that you've taken the fun out of it…" He leaned in closer to her, resting his arms on the table. "And I am anything but predictable, Love." He growled under his breath, offended by her choice of words.
Emma giggled at the pirate's change of tone and lifted her head swiftly, causing her curls to flip over her shoulder."Oh, I'm sorry. Did I damage your delicate ego?"
"Nothing a little…stroking of it can't alleviate, I assure you." His good hand grabbed hers and began caressing the back of it with his thumb, never breaking eye contact and suggestively biting his lip in a futile attempt to hide his grin.
Before Emma could decide whether now was the time to encourage or admonish him, however, she was spared from such a conflicting choice by the sound of the door to Granny's opening and closing behind someone. When she squinted, she could make out that it was Marian and Roland that had left hand in hand, yet Robin remained. He was currently talking to her parents- probably congratulating them one last time on their newest addition to the family before he followed behind his wife and son- but she realized with yet another guilty pang that there was an undertone of awkwardness and uncertainty between them now that had never been there before Marian's return to the present. "God, this is all my fault. I, the product of true love and acclaimed 'savior', very possibly broke up a woman's second chance at happiness. And not just any woman's, but Regina's. That has the potential to get really bad, really fast."
Making up her mind, she moved to get up from the table and join the pair, but was stopped by the hand that was still holding hers.
"Swan, what are you doing?"
"I've gotta say something to Robin. I owe it to both him and Regina seeing as I'm the reason they're in this mess now to begin with."
"No, meddling with the past is what got us into this mess to begin with. Perhaps sometimes it is best to just let the dice fall as they will."
"Aren't you the one who taught Henry about weighted dice?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.
Killian gave her an exasperated look and dropped her hand in defeat. "I was being metaphorical, Love."
"If you two would stop bickering," David cut in, walking over to the pair. "You would realize that Robin left sometime before you mentioned something about teaching my grandson how to cheat. Thanks for that by the way. I'm glad he'll have an honorable way of making a living when he's older, thanks to you."
Killian scoffed. "At least I'm not the one who attempted to teach the lad how to work one of those infernal death traps."
"They're called cars, Hook." David said meekly, having the sense to look embarrassed now that he could look back on that poor choice without jealousy clouding his brain.
Giving up on her desire to speak to Robin for now, Emma glanced over to see that Killian was prepared to playfully antagonize her father further about his less than shining moment, but she really wanted her pirate to walk her home before she went to bed. "Purely for safety reasons, of course. We've both had an exhausting day and need some sleep. If we kiss a bit more at some point along the way then… sue me. Oh wait, I'm in Storybrooke. It's more like curse me," she thought sarcastically.
"Alright, you two, I hate to interrupt the impending bromance moments, but I definitely gotta get home before Granny yells at me for sleeping on her specially polished tabletops." She stood up on her toes to give her Dad a kiss on the cheek, then walked over to Snow and the baby to do the same to them as the men behind her continued their spirited exchange. Finally, after she was done cooing at her newborn little brother one last time, she returned to where she had left them.
"Think you could walk me home?" she inquired, gazing at him as she lifted her jacket off of the back of the chair she had previously vacated.
With a knowing and mischievous smirk, Killian rose as well. "Aye. I think I can manage it."
She would worry about the repercussions of her actions in the morning - after she had recharged with a well-deserved night's sleep.
That night, if each and every one of the members of the extended Swan family were too caught up in their own tumultuous feelings to notice the snow that had begun to swirl just outside their windows, then so be it. It may have been Summer, but anyone interested enough to look could see that Storybrooke was about to get frozen over.