Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Once Upon a Time.
Prompt from TheOfficialNinja.
Two
Regina woke long before her alarm, excitement and trepidation fluttering in her chest. First things first, she would have to tell Henry what had happened to his mother. That was concerning on one hand but on the other, she was just as worried about getting him ready for school. She was the principal, had been for seven years, and before that she had been at teacher for nearly ten. Being around children was her job and yet she felt completely unprepared.
She felt claws inside of her raking her insides raw. In her job she was confident, on the streets she was polite, but change always terrified her, made her feel insignificant and like the failure she was as a child.
She fell back on routine and order to calm her, to orient her in this new reality.
Hoping a shower would steady her nerves, she turned off the alarm before it sounded and tiptoed into her large, well-lit master bath. Letting the steam engulf her and the water rush over her, she tried to picture Henry's mother. They had never spoken as far as she could remember as they rarely moved in the same circles. She tried to place Henry and with him, his mother. Blonde, she was blonde, with wild unruly curls. She was the town librarian, adored by the children and adults alike. Around the third Wednesday of every month the diner was filled with chatter surrounding the rumours of wine and pot at her book club meetings. She couldn't quite picture her face, she didn't know if she was single or married, or where she lived.
It was strange how you could live in a small town for that long and know next to nothing about a person.
She chided herself as she stepped out onto cool tile, wrapping a towel about herself and shivering despite the soft terry-cloth. It was entirely her fault she was a cold hearted bitch, or so everyone told her.
Cold hearted bitch or no, she still had feelings. She longed for someone to see past her fake smile and really say hello. No one ever did, so as she blow-dried her hair and made up her face, she carefully pulled the mask over her features, wearing it like a shield.
It was still early when she was ready and went to the kitchen to make breakfast for her young charge.
Pancakes.
Every kid loved pancakes.
In movies at least, she wouldn't know what it was like to have someone cook her breakfast, most of all pancakes.
She shuffled through a cookbook and carefully began to mix the ingredients together. The batter in the bowl before her bubbled with a pleasantly sweet odour, she hoped when they were cooked they'd taste just as good as they smelled. The book didn't give her much information on how to cook them, but they always looked so simple when they came to you at a restaurant, it shouldn't be so hard.
Not five minutes later, the fire alarm was going off and she was standing on a stool in an attempt to stop the noise.
Henry slid into the kitchen on socked feet, clad only in boxer shorts and his school t-shirt that he'd slept in. "Woah, are you ok?"
"Yes, dear." She managed, finally resetting the alarm. Returning to the stove, she dumped the charred remains of a pancake into the garbage.
"Ew." He wrinkled his nose at the black mess and the acrid smell that filled the kitchen.
She felt her insides curdle, the threat of failure shaking her to her core, "I...I'm sorry Henry I..."
He just nudged her out of the way, added some butter to the pan and poured some of the remaining batter into three perfect circles.
The young brunette pointed with the spatula, "Look you gotta watch for the batter to bubble around the edges and when it bubbles all around..." He yelped, interrupting himself, "Oh look like that one! Then you gotta flip it." A few minutes later he flipped it from the pan and onto the plate, "There, try it."
She carefully cut off a bite and tucked it in her mouth, chewing hoghtfully. "It's perfect Henry!"
"Thanks!" He flipped the other pancakes onto his own plate before finishing off the rest of the batter with four more pancakes. He made himself right at home, marching to the fridge, "You got syrup?"
"No ...I don't have any I'm afraid." She kicked herself again, you were supposed to have that for pancakes.
"It's cool," He shrugged, pulling strawberry jam from the shelf. "I'll use this." He gulped a large glass of juice and polished off his pancakes so fast he practically inhaled them. "Thanks Miss Mills, that was awesome. Your house is so much cooler than the kindergarten room."
Just like that, the ten-year-old reassured her, threw her failure away. "You're welcome Henry."
"So what happened to my Ma?" He asked, kicking the kitchen counter absentmindedly.
"Oh..." In the morning excitement she'd forgotten that detail. She'd forgotten to formulate a response, something that would provide him with all the details without being overly alarming.
"It's ok you can tell me. Is it really bad, did she run away like my Dad?"
She gasped, "No dear nothing like that. It seems she's been arrested and she's in Bangor at the moment."
"Oh ok." He blinked at her. "What was she arrested for?"
"I'm afraid I don't know any more that what I told you. I thought I would go to the Sherriff station this morning, to find out more."
He jumped up, "Can I come?"
"I'm not sure if that's a good idea."
"Please, it's my mom, you'll tell me everything anyways," He challenged her. "Right?"
"Alright. Run and get dressed and we'll go before school."
He ran past, pausing to wrap his arms around her middle, "Thank you."
The clatter and clamour of children's feet echoed through the large house, like it was meant to be.
Under the watchful eye of a detective she was granted a call.
She couldn't call home, she couldn't be sure Henry was there. Ganny's? Ruby would have taken Henry in if she'd been there. But Ruby was on the other side of the world.
Shit.
Graham.
He'd been there when she was arrested.
She dialed his cell number from memory, digging her nail into the edge of the table while she waited through the rings. "Graham? Oh thank god. Henry? Where is he? Is he ok?"
He sighed heavily into the phone, "He's fine, he's staying with Regina Mills."
"Who the hell is that?" Her mind raced through her mental directory containing the citizens of Storybrooke, "Waaaait, the principal?"
"Yeah, that's her."
They had spoken exactly once before, when Henry began kindergarten at Storybrooke Prep. Regina had proudly taken them on a tour of the small campus, Henry holding onto her hand and chatting her ear off. She'd followed along in ballet flats with holes in the heels, while Regina marched along in shiny black pumps that showcased muscled calves and a gorgeous ass. She hadn't crossed paths with her since, only seen her across a crowd or in the diner. She seemed to keep to herself, so it surprised her that she would be one to take in a child. "Oh wow ok, he's ok?"
"Yeah, he came in this morning to check up on you. He was in pretty good spirits overall, albeit confused."
Then, only then, did she let out the breath she hadn't even known she'd been holding. "What did you tell him?"
"I explained that you were in Bangor, and they were holding you until they figured everything out."
"Ok, oh ok."
"Let me give you Regina's numbers ok, you should contact her."
"Thanks Graham." She scribbled them down under the ever present glare from the detective.
She was declined a second pass at the phone, instead taken to a dim six by six room to be questioned by the local police, the FBI and by some guys in suits from another two or three letter agency that meant nothing to her. She went over the details over and over, through countless acidic cups of coffee that gave her heartburn and that she chased down by plastic tasting water.
Mostly she just really had to pee.
But she sat under the fluorescent light that made her increasingly nauseas, wondering if she needed to dye her roots again and if they could see her first wrinkles, and answered every question.
"Yes, at age seventeen, Neal and I were together. He ran off when I found out I was pregnant."
"No, I hadn't heard from him in over ten years, until he showed up a week ago and asked to see his son. " She paled visibly, "Shit, shit. He must have been watching me or something...how did he know..." She pounded her hands against her forehead, "Ugh, I'm so stupid."
Sympathy will get you nowhere Miss Swan, simply state the facts. Faceless, nameless, men in muted dress shirts and snappy suits took turns prodding her for details. They were indistinguishable, one from the other, they were clones.
She took a deep breath, "Ok, he showed up last Tuesday around dinner and asked meet H-Henry."
"Uh, the next day he asked if I would let him stick a black binder into my safe."
"I didn't ask what it was because it was a little black zippered binder and it's not like my safe is super high tech or anything. I have it just in case, to keep stupid teenagers out, even though it's not that they would know a good book from their own ass."
Miss Swan.
"Only I know the code, I'm the only one who handles the rare books."
"He just left his stuff there, didn't ask about it the rest of the week, didn't even ask for the code either. He was normal I guess, he hung out with Henry they got along well. He tried to take me to dinner to apologize, like spaghetti bolognaise was going to make up for deserting a pregnant teenager."
"He left late Saturday or early Sunday, I don't really know. Just took all his stuff, didn't even tell Henry he was going. Kid was devastated.
"No I don't know where he is. If I did, I'd kill him for hurting my son."
Pick your words more carefully Miss Swan, your words can be used against you.
"Shit I didn't think."
"I never looked, why would I? He asked me not to, and I wasn't going to argue after he gave me so much money."
"Oh god," She stopped herself, "I didn't even connect the two. He gave me a check for ten thousand dollars and I assumed it was for Henry."
Thank you. The clones stood up, collecting their voice recorders and notebooks.
"That's it? " Heartburn rose with her panicked thoughts, shouldn't they ask her something more? She only just realised the implications of what she'd done herself.
That's it for now. They filed out one by one.
I need to speak to my son! I need to get out of here!" She slammed against the table, accenting her words.
Not one of them looked back.
She was left alone in the six by six room with her thoughts and fluorescent lights to keep her company.
A/N: Ahhhh thank you all so much for the response to this! I'm super excited for a longer story - I literally can't stop writing scenes for this like a million and a half chapters down the line. There's a lot of setting up in these first few chapters. I'm sorry. I'm trying to post them quickly so that we get sq interactions ;) Thanks againnn xx
