Big thanks to Addicted1, who prodded and encouraged me throughout the months it took me to actually finish this, and to both Addicted1 and nonsequiturvy for their wonderful enthusiasm for this piece :)
Keep in mind, this is set mid-curse, so while Regina isn't at her most desperate and destructive, there is still some evidence of an unhealthy way of thinking.
Regina sighed, leaned her elbows on her desk and pressed two fingers into the space between her eyes, rubbing small circles in an effort to ease the tension there.
"I've explained this to you every single day for the last twenty-five years, Dr. Hopper. I really don't see why a man of education – questionable education, but education nonetheless – can't seem to grasp such a simple concept."
The ever-earnest ex-insect blinked large eyes behind small glasses.
"Er, twenty-five years, Madame Mayor?"
She huffed, waving a hand in both exasperation and impatience.
"It's a figure of speech, Doctor, one which I'm employing to illustrate the endless tedium of this meeting."
"I apologise, but this is something that's been on my mind for some time – "
She harrumphed again, scoffing, "Clearly."
He faltered, but plunged on bravely.
"I really feel that with a dedicated youth recreational facility, you would see a decline in the amount of disruption these kids are causing by being out on the street on their own. Surely you're aware – "
Regina sighed again, heavily.
"Yes, I am well aware of the problem, given that this office deals with the complaints. But as I've… as I'm sure you can understand, there is no budget for such a project. I suggest you pitch the idea to Mr. Gold. His financial patronage would make the idea a lot more viable."
As expected, Archie's face fell. Gold was never going to agree to help someone unless there was something in it for him. There was very little incentive for him to pay for a youth centre, so it was safe to say it would never happen. Even if they weren't cursed into a place where nothing ever changed anyway.
It didn't matter. None of it mattered, this job and all the effort she put in to keep this town running on its meaningless, never-ending loop was a sham. Her power as Mayor was worth about as much as her power as the wife of the King. These people bowed to her will without knowing it, but she could implement a policy to behead anyone caught littering, and it wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference. Nobody would question her, and the next day nothing would have changed. There was only one thing in her life that meant anything, only one thing in this world that gave her any joy, and it wasn't sitting behind this desk.
"This is a waste of time," she muttered.
"Madame Mayor?"
"This meeting is over," she said, standing abruptly from her chair. "I have nothing further to say on the matter, Dr. Hopper. I strongly suggest you take it up with Mr. Gold. In fact, everyone in this town should take their issues to Mr. Gold in the future. I might do the same myself."
Archie stammered uncertainly, full of apology for not quite managing to follow her sudden change of tack. Regina breezed past him and gathered her coat and bag, leaving him blinking owlishly in the chair in front of her desk.
"I'll be out of the office for the rest of the day," she informed her secretary.
"The rest of the day, Madame Mayor?" the girl repeated, startled.
Regina treated her to her best Evil Queen smile, just because she rarely got to use it any more, and liked to remind herself that she could still instil fear in the hearts of her subjects, even if they couldn't remember what it was they were so afraid of.
"Yes. I'm going to pick my son up from school."
She saw him before he saw her, and couldn't help the bright, genuine smile from splitting her face at the sight of her little boy bounding down the steps. He was on his own in a crowd of children, his bag dangling haphazardly from his elbow, the zip half undone and threatening to spill the contents everywhere. He leaped enthusiastically down the path, apparently avoiding the cracks between the paving stones, his mouth moving in time with his imagination. Regina's cold, dark heart warmed, the frustration of the day rolling off her. Her beautiful boy, her precious little prince. He always managed to brighten every monotonous day of this curse. She could be happy so long as she had him.
She noticed as she came closer that these shoes had holes in them now too. Apparently seven-year-old boys and shoes of any kind don't mix.
"Mom!"
Henry had spotted her at last, and, abandoning his careful navigation of the paving stones, was haring towards her with great enthusiasm. His backpack swung wildly and a trail of stationery, toys and playground flotsam spilled out in his wake. Regina sighed and shook her head, but she was beaming.
"Hello, sweetheart."
"You came to pick me up!"
"Such an observant boy," she smiled.
"But how come you're not at work?" he asked, impatient with her teasing.
"Well, I'll tell you a little secret, Henry," she said, crouching down in front of him. She beckoned him closer and he offered her his ear eagerly.
"It was really, really boring," she whispered mischievously.
Henry let out a scandalised giggle which he quickly stifled, unsure if he was allowed to laugh. Regina leaned back to look him in the eye.
"And I decided I'd much rather spend some time with my favourite boy. I thought, roast chicken for dinner, we go to the video store now and get some popcorn and a movie, and then apple pie and ice cream for dessert. What do you say?"
"On a school night?" Henry gasped excitedly.
Regina smiled and nodded. Henry whooped and threw his arms around her in celebration.
"Now," she said, standing upright again with purpose. "What have I told you about keeping your bag zipped up?"
Henry stole a guilty look at his gaping bag.
"I'm being careful," he assured her quickly.
"Oh, are you?"
He nodded, meeting her eyes firmly. She resisted the urge to chuckle. She had to admire his moxie.
Instead, she just pointed slowly behind him. He followed the direction of her finger automatically, looking sheepish when he noticed the trail he'd left behind.
"Sorry, Mom," he said, hurrying off to pick everything up. She followed a couple of paces behind, intending to help, but he was gathering it all up so fast she clearly didn't need to. He stuffed armfuls back into his bag and zipped it up, as though hoping she would forget it ever happened if he got rid of the evidence.
"I was trying to be careful," he said in a small voice as he returned to her side. He was still brave enough to meet her eyes, but he looked abashed now, his exuberance and defiance slightly deflated.
"Well, perhaps we just need to work on your idea of being careful," she said gently.
Hope lit his face and he smiled tentatively.
"I will Mom, every day, I promise!"
She laughed softly.
"That's my boy."
"So can we still get a movie?"
"Of course, sweetheart."
"And ice cream?"
She ruffled his hair, waves of affection rushing over her and making her feel, well… happy. Close to peaceful.
"And ice cream," she confirmed.
Henry took her hand as they walked (well, she walked, Henry capered) back to the car, and though she couldn't help looking around to see who was watching, Regina knew there was nothing she wouldn't do for her son.
At the video store, she reigned in her smile for the benefit of the clerk, throwing an intimidating glare his way for good measure. There was no need to let people think she was going soft.
This particular person had been an earl or a lord of some sort in the Enchanted Forest, she vaguely remembered. His face still had the ivory plumpness of privilege – reminded her of Snow White in a way that made her grit her teeth. His status had been elevated by virtue of doing something for the King. To be fair, she didn't know how much choice he'd had in sharing his wife with the King (and she certainly hadn't complained that her husband had found someone else he preferred to grunt and sweat on top of), but the fact that he was rewarded for a lack of action and an abundance of cowardice still disgusted her. It pleased her to see him reduced to this kind of mundane servitude. But of course, Storybrooke did hold the monopoly on that.
She followed Henry to the children's section. He was walking up and down the length of the shelf, running his fingers over the spines of each and every videotape.
"So what are we watching tonight, sweetheart?" she asked, her hand resting on his shoulder.
"It's hard to choose!" he sighed dramatically, flicking his hand off the edge of the shelf with a flourish. "What would you pick, Mom?"
"Hmm."
She bent slightly, scanning the titles on the shelf. She tried not to grimace at some of the uncomfortably familiar ones. That was not a pleasant thing to discover about the Land Without Magic, nor was the fate of the hag in the children's film bearing her enemy's name.
She had watched it alone one day, early on in the curse, out of morbid curiosity, and now all Henry knew was that certain movies weren't allowed in the house, for reasons his mother refused outright to explain.
"What about this one?" she suggested, pulling out Lady and The Tramp. She'd found that the stories with animal protagonists were the safest bets.
"Nah," Henry said, barely glancing at it. "That one's boring."
Regina sighed. She actually liked the canine love story.
She replaced the video, watching with trepidation as Henry resumed his patrolling up and down the shelf. He had an adventurous spirit, her boy, and a fantastical imagination – one that revelled in tales of heroes and villains, grand battles and even grander victories. One that wouldn't be satisfied with a spinster aunt and her vaguely sinister singing cats. No, her precious little boy's eyes lit up when great paragons of goodness defeated the wicked dragon, the evil witch, the jealous stepmother, and it made Regina's stomach churn. Sometimes she would even catch him playing out his own version – taking on the role of the fearless champion, darting around the lawn parrying and thrusting with the cardboard tube from her finished roll of paper towels, until he finally ran his evil enemy through and crowed in triumph.
She tried to shake herself out of her dark thoughts. Henry was her little prince, and he didn't see her as a villain. She wasn't a villain, no matter how she was portrayed in those films. She was Henry's mother, and he loved her. He was the only one who loved her.
"Mom, what about this one?"
She plastered a smile on her face and turned her attention to her son, but it quickly fell when she saw the case he was holding up.
"No."
His face darkened immediately, his eager grin giving way to a mutinous scowl. Whatever power she may or may not hold over the citizens of her curse town, she had the power to do that to her son. To make him go from happiness to resentment and anger with a single word.
It was a power she never, ever wanted.
It was a power she wished she knew how to stop wielding.
"Why?" Henry demanded, slapping Beauty and The Beast face down on the shelf with a loud clap. "You always say no, for no reason! You make these stupid rules and you never tell me why! It's not fair!"
Despite her anger at his defying her, her frustration with his fixation on good guys and bad guys, her paranoia about anything that came close to the truth about who all these people were, who she was – she felt the strangest flare of pride at his total lack of fear, his brashness at standing up to her. He had such fierce integrity, her boy. He saw something he didn't like and he said something about it, he did something about it, refusing to let it stand.
He was the complete opposite of everybody else in this town, and she loved him for it.
It was that which made her take a moment to reel in her anger, to try for a calm and reasonable reaction instead of instinctively responding to force with greater force and stomping down his protests. She knelt in front of him and spoke in a low voice, not particularly wanting the shop clerk to overhear.
"Henry, it's just that I don't think this one is appropriate for you – "
"That's not true," Henry said instantly. "Because you let me watch Ghostbusters even though Mr. Smythe said te-ni-cally it was too old for me, but he let us get it anyway because you told him to. And Beauty and The Beast doesn't say it's too old for me on the cover like Ghostbusters does."
"Honey, I never said it was too old for you, I just said it wasn't appropriate – "
"You're just being mean," Henry accused, his lower lip starting to wobble, and Regina's own eyes were suddenly watery too because he was right. She was mean. She was cruel and selfish and she didn't deserve this wonderful little boy who was so much better than everyone in this town, including her. But, because she was selfish, she was going to try her best to keep him anyway.
"I'm sorry, Henry. You're right. I'm not being fair, and I'm not being totally honest with you."
He looked taken aback for a moment, clearly not having expected her to be so forthcoming. He quickly set his expression back to stern again.
"I didn't want to watch that one," she continued. "And that's my fault, not yours."
"But why? What's wrong with it?"
Regina hesitated, glancing around her once more.
"It… scares me," she admitted.
And that was the truth. The idea of Henry watching Beauty and The Beast scared her. It wasn't even as if the story was especially recognisable – Belle's jailor-turned-love-interest was a literal beast, for stupidity's sake. Hairy mane and everything. And underneath the fur he was a prince, cursed with paws and a hunch by a sorceress. Even Henry's wild (and perceptive) imagination would never connect the fairy-tale beast to Mr. Gold. But the idea that Henry could get attached to this depiction of the girl she kept hidden in the bowels of the hospital, that he might one day find out what she'd done and hate her, was something she couldn't bear to think about.
"It scares you?" Henry repeated, brow furrowed in confusion. After all, his mother wasn't scared of anything.
Regina dropped her gaze to the floor, more ashamed to admit the truth than she was to lie.
"Yes. I – I don't like the story. It makes me afraid. I don't like being afraid."
Her eyes still felt dangerously full, so she kept them lowered, feeling utterly wretched, wondering how it was that she destroyed everything she touched, her mother's voice echoing in her head, weak, weak...
And then her little boy had joined her on the floor, kneeling in front of her and wrapping his arms around her neck. She hugged him back, pressing his skinny body into her chest, swallowing back a sob of relief.
"It's ok, Mom," he told her gently, stroking her hair like she had done to him so many times. "I don't like being afraid either. We don't have to watch it."
She blinked fiercely before pulling back and giving him a watery smile.
"Oh Henry. I didn't want to disappoint you."
"You didn't, Mom, really. It's ok. I know what else we should get anyway!"
She smiled, a more sincere smile this time, determined to show enthusiasm for his choice. Even if he chose Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Henry's happiness was more important. She knew that.
He pulled out another videotape, showing her the front with a hopeful, toothy grin.
"The Wizard of Oz?"
"Yeah, there's a Wicked Witch, see? And she has flying monkeys!"
She laughed at that.
"Flying monkeys, does she? She must be very wicked."
Henry nodded eagerly.
She'd heard of Oz, read about it years ago under Rumple's tutelage, but had never been there or met any of its inhabitants.
"Sounds perfect," she said.
It was practically one of the ten labours of Hercules to calm Henry down enough that he could get his homework done before dinner. He was so excited by the prospect of dessert and popcorn with his movie that he spent the first ten minutes after their arrival home tearing about the house, spinning wildly in circles and throwing cushions at the couch, pretending to be the twister that, he informed her, whisked Dorothy's house away from Kansas.
Skating on the very edge of her patience, Regina confiscated the latest cushion and told him she needed his help if he wanted the special crispy potatoes. It was a strategic request; they were Henry's favourite part of a roast. So after they restored the living room to its usual perfect order, she set him to work peeling potatoes while she stuffed the chicken. He maybe showed a little too much enthusiasm shaking the roasting bag to coat the potatoes in flour and herbs, but once they'd (mostly) dusted themselves off, he was happy enough to research bumblebees for his science project at the kitchen table, while she put everything in the oven and threw together an apple pie.
She sat down next to him when she was done, helping him choose the relevant pieces of information from the encyclopaedia and gently correcting his spelling. She even caved when he begged her to draw a bumblebee for the front page of the report, insisting it would make his look 'so much cooler' than everybody else's. She got quite invested in the quality of her illustration, borrowing the encyclopaedia herself for reference, scrapping several disproportionate or demented looking Bombuses and glowing with pleasure when Henry hugged her and said it was the best drawing of a bumblebee ever.
Over dinner, Henry filled her in on what the other kids in his class had to do their reports on, why little Tom was no longer allowed in the sandpit, and ate a grand total of four potatoes (it would have been five, but Regina reminded him of the pie in the oven and he was quite happy to cut his intake). Henry then begged to be allowed to eat dessert in the living room, which Regina declined due to the dangers of sticky ice cream handprints on her couch, but eased the rejection by promising to let him eat the popcorn in front of the movie. She privately thought that after dinner and dessert, Henry wouldn't have room for popcorn. But she had a feeling there was no point in telling Henry that.
So, once he'd literally licked his dessert bowl clean (grinning at her so beatifically that she couldn't bring herself to scold him), she dampened the corner of a tea towel (with the tap, not her tongue – he protested enough as it was) and wiped the sticky mess off his face before allowing him to bring her the jar of unpopped kernels and the big pot with the glass lid.
They supervised the popcorn together, Henry standing on a chair and mimicking the sounds the popping kernels made under his breath, Regina hiding her smile. She melted some butter in the microwave and ground some salt into his hands for him to sprinkle over the bowl. She'd make the mistake of letting him do the grinding once before, and the end result had been so salty even Henry couldn't manage more than one or two pieces.
She gave the buttered, minimally salted bowl to Henry to carry through to the living room, doing a very quick kitchen tidy (she could leave the dishes this once) before following and inserting the videotape. Then, they settled in side by side on the couch, the popcorn balanced carefully on Henry's lap, and started the movie.
It was a nice feeling, Regina decided, to watch a movie and not have to be wary about the unfair and imbalanced portrayal of real life people, or her son's reaction to stories that hit a little too close to home. Instead, she was able to simply let a completely unfamiliar story draw her in. Soon, her legs were tucked up underneath her and her hand was supporting the popcorn bowl as Henry sprawled back against the opposite arm of the couch. She scoffed at the farm girl's insipid song about a land of hope and bluebirds over the rainbow as she absent-mindedly helped herself from the bowl. Henry made a similar noise in agreement. But she couldn't help muttering as Almira Gulch stuffed Toto in her hand basket,
"She can't just take the dog, what kind of justice system is this?"
She did manage to hold back from urging the stupid girl aloud to just knock on the storm cellar door, but both she and Henry inhaled audibly when Dorothy stepped out of the farmhouse into the technicolour Oz.
Now over his initial scepticism, Henry was enthralled. But it wasn't until the Munchkins came on screen that his biggest reactions began. He tittered when the first of them spoke, and pointed out various aspects of their appearance to her ("Look at his funny hair, Mom! Look at those bits on his boots!"). He snorted in vague disgust at the high-pitched voices of the Lullaby League. But when representatives of the Lollipop Guild appeared, he chuckled immediately at the sight of their stripy socks and bizarre yellow hair. And when they started singing: strange, froggy voices issuing from the sides of their mouths and accompanied with the oddest, jerky dancing movements, Henry was lost.
He dissolved into peals of laughter, doubling over with it and upsetting what was left of the popcorn. Regina was too busy giggling herself to notice. Henry's laughter was utterly infectious, and before long they couldn't actually hear the movie over Henry's cackling and her chuckling.
"Rewind it, Mom, rewind it!" Henry gasped as soon as he had enough breath to do so.
"You pick up that popcorn," Regina bargained, even as she reached for the remote.
They watched the little Munchkin song twice more at Henry's insistence, and it sent him into fits of giggles each time. Regina finally had to put her foot down and continue watching the rest of the film before they spent the next hour with the Lollipop Guild. It was a school night, after all, and she was more than familiar with her son's capacity for repetition.
Her fingers were buttery by the time the film ended, the popcorn bowl having proved more tempting than she'd anticipated. Henry was obviously sleepy but full of excitement for having found a new film to love. When she sent him to get his pajamas on, he did his best impression of a flying monkey on his way up the stairs, and when he reached the landing, crowed, "I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!" down to her. He hummed the tune of the Lollipop Guild around his toothbrush. He sung it in bed, and Regina couldn't quite stop herself from humming along (he'd got it in her head).
"Do the voice, Mommy?" he pleaded with her.
She laughed softly and shook her head, but he sang the first lines again temptingly, and she found herself joining in, Henry laughing with pleasure and leaving her to round it off alone with,
"And in the name of
The Lollipop Guild
It's time for little boys to
Go to bed."
He sighed but consented, his eyes already heavy. She bent over him to tuck him in and he wrapped his arms around her.
"I love you, Mom."
She hugged him back fiercely.
"I love you too, my little prince."
It became one of Regina's favourite memories. Her secretary eventually stopped being so shocked when the Mayor left the office early to pick up her son. There was absolutely nothing she wouldn't do for him, and when he unwrapped his very own copy of The Wizard of Oz at his next birthday, she even did the voice without prompting. Henry laughed, and laughed, and beamed at her, and everything, everything leading to this moment and all the moments since, was worth it.