Getaway, Chapter 1

A Once Upon a Time fan fiction

This is not an AU story per se, but it is set in no definitive place in the series. Probably earlier rather than later, before everything has gone 100% totally and completely haywire.

Disclaimer: All names, characters, places etc. belong to Adam Horowitz, Edward Kitsis, and company. This particular story, however, is mine.

A/N: Yeah, yeah, I know one of the big early plot points is that no one can leave Storybrooke without something bad happening, but I've decided to ignore that completely. Should you not like that, feel free to write your own story. (Whoa, I guess I've got my sassy pants on tonight)

"I'm not going," he said in the bratty, petulant voice that only children of a certain age can muster.

"But Henry…" Regina Mills began, reaching out to try and tamp down a stubborn piece of his messy brown hair. The ten-year-old shot her a look that not only stopped her words but stopped her hand as well.

Regina's hand pulled back, its aim changing from her son's head to her own. She ran her fingers through her dark locks and then dropped a tense hand to her side. The motion was a new one to Regina, but she'd found herself doing it a lot lately. After an evening that was particularly irritating (or at least, that's what the woman wanted to think it was), she'd sat down on this same couch and started running her hands through her hair rapidly. Only when she caught a glimpse of herself in a nearby glass tabletop did she realize what she was doing. Then she realized why she was doing it: it was a nervous habit.

Thinking back, the current Mayor of Storybrooke could not remember the last time she'd had a nervous habit. Probably not since she was a very young woman. And the reason for this was simple: Regina Mills did not get nervous.

But with recent changes in the life she'd become so used to and certain new…intrusions, the anxiety level of the woman Henry often called the Evil Queen had skyrocketed. She could sometimes feel the control slipping out of her fingers, and though she likely wouldn't admit it to anyone, that was a feeling she hated.

Regina took in a deep breath and then turned to look at her son, hoping that her face was composed into her desired combination of loving caretaker and stern mother. "Henry, I have been planning this vacation for months, and we will be going. A while ago you seem so excited about it. What changed?"

The look of disgust on the small boy's face was so condescending; Regina could hardly believe it was coming from a child of only 10 years old. "What hasn't?" Henry asked in a cold tone, and then turned to look away from his adoptive mother.

Dark brown eyes flared in anger for a brief moment, but then Regina regained control of her emotions. She felt guilt start to collect in her soul, a feeling that had grown all too common recently. Lately, every time she spoke with or even thought about Henry, an inexplicable sense of guilt started to fill her. Like she had been a bad mother, like she was letting him down. She knew neither of these things was true, but unfortunately that didn't stop her from feeling them.

Henry could sense that his mother's eyes had left his back, but he continued to turn away from her and stare at the ground. While he knew that what he'd said was true, everything was changing, and rapidly, he also knew that he didn't need to be so rude about it. A sense of guilt that, unbeknownst to him, mirrored his mother's nicely began to fill the young boy's conscience. He knew he needed to apologize, but there was more he needed to say, and he wasn't sure what that was just quite yet. So he thought.

The small Mills family, just the two of them, who shared no blood or genetic bond, sat in silence for a short while. Regina thought about the topic that was almost always on her mind: how can I make my son love me again? She had yet to come up with any answers, and she doubted that now would be any different. But she knew she would think about it anyway.

Henry thought about a question that he hoped would be somewhat easy to answer: why don't I want to go to the beach anymore? He scrolled through a long list of reasons, each one possible but not true. Finally he stopped at one and an expression of a lighthearted "duh!" crossed his face, making him look younger than his age. That was obviously the reason he didn't want to travel, and it was actually fixable! Whether or not his mother would want to fix it was a different question.

"Mom?" the young boy said gently, turning back to look up at his mother's deep brown eyes and finding them full of weary compassion. "I'm sorry."

"I accept your apology, Henry," Regina responded, and this time when her arm reached toward her son, he welcomed it. She pulled him into a soft embrace, and he leaned into her warm and comforting side. As he sat up, his mom took her arm off from around his shoulders, rustling his hair as she went.

There was still the matter of the vacation. Henry decided he'd beat his mom to the topic. "I'll go on this trip, on one condition," he stated, his eyes gleaming with a smug deviousness Regina wasn't sure whether to laugh at or be a tad scared of.

Mayor Mills raised an eyebrow and tried to match her son's teasing expression. "And what, pray tell, is that?"

"It's entirely non-negotiable," Henry replied without answering the direct question. The insistence in his voice showed how serious he was. Regina didn't think she'd raised a particularly stubborn child, but sometimes lately she questioned that fact. Though after meeting her son's birth mother, the beautiful brunette had started to wonder if pig-headed certainty was a biological trait. Ms. Swan certainly had enough of it to make that theory a possibility.

Regina nodded resolutely and repeated, "Non-negotiable. Got it," before letting the boy continue.

The smug deviousness doubled in force in her son's eyes. "You're not going to like it," he said with a slight singsong in his voice.

"Why don't you tell me what it is and let me decided that for myself?" the woman asked exasperatedly.

Henry paused for what could only be interpreted as dramatic effect and then simply stated, "Emma comes with us."

There was another silence between the two members of the Mills family, and then came the response Henry had been expecting.

"Emma?! No. Certainly not. Not happening, Henry. Sorry to disappoint! Ms. Swan will not be joining us on our family vacation."

With a defensive expression on his face and a little hurt in his eyes, the young boy stared at his adoptive mother. "She is my family, Mom. You may have raised me, but she's my birth mother, and I love her and she loves me, and that makes us family. I know you don't like her, but you need to get over that because she is my mother in a way that you are not, and she's not going anywhere."

Regina was stunned into silence, something that didn't happen very often and would never have been expected as an effect a 10-year-old could have. She could see in her son's eyes that he didn't say any of this to hurt her, and that was a blessing she took with grace. He simply wanted her to understand how serious he was about this and how much Emma meant to him.

"Non-negotiable, huh?" Regina smirked, one eyebrow cocked again.

Henry's serious expression broke into a much lighter one, and he said, "Uh-huh. Either she comes or I don't go. Take your pick."

The brunette's full lips pursed as she thought about what choice to make. In the end, she knew where she'd end up, so she decided to skip all the deliberation and just give her son her answer.

"You will tell her that she's coming with us," Regina insisted with a light glare fixed on her little boy. "I know she and I will have to talk before we go, but I think she'll enjoy the news more from you than she would from me."

Thin lips and round cheeks broke into a bright smile, and Henry leaned forward to wrap his arms around his mother's waist. "Oh thank you, thank you, thank you!" he exclaimed, his face half-buried in the black fabric of Regina's sharp blazer.

She pulled her excited son back a little, kissed him on the head, and then let him snuggle back into her side.

"A family getaway…" Henry said dreamily.