N/A: So to bring my creativity back, I'm going to write these drabbles (that became a little longer than a drabble when I was done with it) whenever I can and post it whenever I can. I know I did this a while back but I thought I'd redo this. This one kinda ends a little abruptly but it's better than what I had a few days ago.
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Storybrooke. Regina meets Emma.
She hears a mumble of voices coming from outside. The noise breaking the near dead silence that had occupied the house for always five hours (the only sound that could be heard was Graham's boots hitting the laminate floor as he paced) but even the loud mumble has him stopping, instantly walking over to the window and pulling the curtains aside.
It's his cry of Regina (all honorifics aside) that has her own attention focused on the window and she knows, she just knows.
Her little prince came back to her. Despite his instance that she was the Evil Queen, he came back to her.
It's what had her running to the door and pulling it open. The relief, and joy, and happiness spreading through her as she saw her baby standing just a few feet away. It's the thing that has her running towards him and pulling him into her, knowing that he is actually there, that he actually came back, that all might actually be forgiven.
It's only when she's pulling away and asking what happened when she notices the other woman standing there, someone who must have been the one to bring him home and despite what people might say (or did say) in that moment, she is truly grateful.
Until she hears the words. The words that were intentionally designed to hurt her.
"I found my real mom!"
At first she doesn't know what to think. Her mind reeling from his words.
I found my real mom.
And that's when she's taking the other woman in fully. Noticing her is presence. And she isn't what Regina expected. At all.
She's thought of this birth mother a lot in the past. Imagines of what she would look like, how she would behave, why she even gave up a child, would she ever come back for him...She thought of this more often than she liked yet her appearance was always of some peasant woman, someone run down and weak, could barely look after themselves let alone a child. But the woman who stands before her, she is none of that. Would it have been easier if it was?
She doesn't ponder on that and instead let's out of stuttered (why is she stuttering? Queens don't stutter) "Y-you're Henry's birth mother?" And it's awkward. So incredibly awkward. For both of them.
Graham breaks the tension. Muttering something about checking on Henry and Regina remembers. Remembers that she brought Henry home but she shouldn't have because she's his birth mother and…
Then she's remembering the terms that came with adopting Henry. The Closed option written in bold letters. They're not supposed to know each other. Neither of them are supposed to have any contact with one another. And yet, they do. Somehow, one found the other.
And that was dangerous.
What if she was the one who went looking for him? What if she regretted her choice to give him up? What if she was back for him…
No! Henry is her child, her happy ending, she belongs to her. Not some woman who just tossed him away.
But she still needs to know how Henry found her (or vice versa). What this woman wants? Who she wants. And there was only one way to find out.
"How would you like a glass of the best apple cider you've ever tasted?" Because, why not? She is the Evil Queen after all; apples are what she knows.