Regina eyed the squirming bundle in Mr Gold's arms with sudden trepidation. Her heartbeat picked up as he limped towards her, cane laid aside in order to cradle the tiny form fully. He passed the baby – her son – to her, and as she looked down at the tiny, wrinkled hand waving aimlessly towards her face, she missed the triumph that flashed briefly across his features. Gold murmured his congratulations and turned to leave.
"Gold?" Regina stopped him with a sharp word.
"Madame Mayor?" He responded.
"The birth mother?" Regina asked.
"In prison. She waived all parental rights and agreed to a closed adoption. He's all yours, Madame Mayor. Congratulations again."
He slipped out as she refocused on the baby, now yawning softly.
"All mine," she whispered, suddenly filled with a sense of awe.
"Your name is Henry Daniel Mills," she told him softly, lifting him gently to kiss his brow. "I'm your mom, Henry. You and me, we're going to make a happy ending."
After three days, Regina had had enough. The first night with Henry had been amazing. She'd lain propped up in her bed with Henry lying on her chest, his tiny hand curled over her heart. He'd slept for two hours, then woken and cried, mouthing helplessly at the curve of her breast. She'd managed to warm a bottle without putting him down, and held him close as he suckled on it contentedly. He'd slept again after that; his tiny, snuffling breaths soothing her into a peace she hadn't known since before Daniel had died. On the second day however, word had gone round that the reserved, intimidating mayor had adopted, and Regina's time with her son was constantly interrupted by a stream of well-wishers. The appearance of Mary Margaret had been particularly galling, and Regina had suffered through her saccharine cooing only by reminding herself that not only was her nemesis ignorant of the fact that the vegetable she wasted her afternoons reading to was her husband, but that her child had been abandoned somewhere in this harsh reality and had in all likelihood come to a nasty end.
The presence of her son made that thought uncomfortable in a way it hadn't been in the past, and Regina had found herself offering to let her former daughter-in-law hold Henry. Thankfully she had come to her senses quickly and taken her son back, ushering Mary Margaret out brusquely.
By day three however, it was clear that something would have to be done. The inhabitants of the town she had created seemed to take her son's presence as a sign that she was softening, becoming more approachable. Had she still been Queen in the other land, no-one would have dared call her son "an adowable widdle sausage". He would have been a prince, treated with respect, and she would still have commanded awe.
She was startled by the homesickness that had grown inside her since Henry had arrived. She found herself thinking longingly of her castle, of the forests and fields that surrounded it, of the guards and servants that had attended to her faithfully. Her curse had only caught up those she wanted to punish and those who might be used to punish them, her faithful subjects had remained behind. If she could get back, there would be a kingdom waiting for her. Henry would grow up a prince, the heir apparent. Without Snow White and her moronic husband, she could rule in peace, no longer haunted by the memory of betrayal, and focus on raising her son. On the morning of her fourth day of motherhood, Regina found herself mentally assessing what magic she could muster and whether it would be enough to get her and her son back...to get them home.
It took a month of preparation. Regina had fought with herself viciously, but Henry was too young to withstand a rough journey, so she had reluctantly drained the magic from her mother's spell book. The tome was left blank, and Regina took a moment to acknowledge that she had sacrificed a major source of power for Henry's sake. The knowledge that her mother would never have done the same for her both hurt and made her oddly proud. She collected Jefferson's hat and every other scrap of magic she'd managed to bring with her, and on the thirty-third day of Henry's life, Regina and Henry vanished from Storybrooke.