May require fact checking and/or fact adjustment re: Walsh, which won't happen. Gosh, for a show I'm no longer watching I sure write a lot of fic.

Prompted by a post by terapsina on tumblr.

It takes a whole 24 hours for all the pieces to click into place, but when they do—

When they do, you're torn between a need to hug your mom and a need to shake her until she stops being so… herself.

The mayor's handshake—Regina's handshake, because you might as well start getting used to her name—was weird. Not bad weird, but you can't remember ever shaking someone's hand and having it feel exactly like how your mom hugs you when she gets home from work. Strong and soft and familiar and just a little bit awkward, like something you're still getting used to. And the weirdest part was the way your mom flinched, and looked over at Regina with sad, sorry eyes, like when she misses your school open house nights because of work. Like she can't help it but she wishes she could.

Regina looks at you like your mom looks at her, and when you're back on the couch and the two of them are sitting together on the kitchen stools, you pay attention. You pay attention to how Mary Margaret looks between the two of them like she's scared and sorry and also vaguely nauseous—but that might be the whole being pregnant thing. (Your mom said that when she was pregnant with you, she threw up twice a day like clockwork for weeks. She jokes around now and says that it prepped her for having to clean up after you, with your affliction of being a teenage boy.) You pay attention to how David looks between the two of them and then guides Mary Margaret out of the kitchen, over to their curtained-off bedroom.

You pay attention to how your mom's hand keeps fluttering a few inches from Regina's back, like she wants to touch her but isn't sure if she should, and you can't remember the last time your mom ever hesitated to do anything. Can't remember when she's ever been so uncertain about physicality, about touch.

Regina looks over at you and you offer her a smile, then look down at your book like you weren't staring, just happened to glance up. You hear your mom's jacket—and she hasn't worn that one for as long as you can remember, but all of a sudden everything is about going back and you want to shake her, shake her, shake her—and when you look up again, she's got her hand on Regina's back, finally, and the other holding her wrist, and—

God, she could've just told you.

Your mom didn't tell Walsh about you for the first six dates but Regina knows your name and that you're good at English. Your mom didn't introduce Walsh to you until three months in but you've only been in Storybrooke for twenty-four hours. Your mom didn't let Walsh touch her at all in front of you until, like, last week, but here she is, touching Regina's back and her wrist and looking at her like she just figured it all out.

She's so… frustrating.

But you get it. You're pretty sure it's as stupid and cliche as those lame Jane Austen novels you have to read for class, but on some level it's also… nice. Nice, that your mom can finally see something clearly in her life. That she can see herself clearly.

Because that's what it is. Walsh proposed, and she said no because that's what her gut told her to say. And you both knew her lame bit about not wanting to mess up the good thing the two of you have wasn't the reason. Or—you knew, but maybe she didn't. Maybe she didn't, not until she thought about this town and these people and this Regina.

(Part of you feels like her name is familiar, like maybe your mom talked about her a long, long time ago, before you knew to pay attention. Part of you feels like maybe your mom has whispered that name in her sleep.)

Walsh proposed, and your mom said no, and the next day you were in the car and driving here and then Regina saw you both in the diner and you've never seen your mom move so fast when she wasn't chasing a perp. Never heard her speak so gently to someone who wasn't you.

Walsh proposed and your mom said no because she didn't want Walsh to be the one asking the question.

You're pretty sure this is straight out of Pride and Prejudice. Or maybe it was the other one. They were both lame.

Regina looks at you like she knows every detail of your face, and your mom told her about you already, and she didn't introduce you at the diner because she needed this to be special and important and you really, really want to shake her.

Regina looks at you like she's missed you and you don't know why it's so, so easy to read her face, but it is. She isn't an open book, unless maybe the open book is Berryman, but Berryman has always just made sense to you and something about her eyes and the exact way she smiles at you is as transparent to you as a dream song.

You want to shake your mom, and you want to hug her right after, because if she's finally come back to home—if she's finally brought you with her—if this is where she's been trying to be for your whole life, for her whole life—if Regina's what's been missing all this time—

You watch Regina turn her hand in your mom's, watch your mom curl Regina's fingers into her gloved palm and then they are both looking back towards you, and their expressions are the same, the same, worried and loving and sorry and calm. Your mom, finally, calm.

So you smile, let the pieces click into place.