AN: Wow - I certainly didn't expect such a positive reaction, thank you all so much for your reviews and follows. I really appreciate it. A couple of people wanted more so I'm going to write a few chapters I think. I hope you're all coping as well as can be expected during the hiatus. DVD binges and my Once calendar seem to keeping it at bay for me at the moment! Thanks for reading!
It had been almost two weeks since Emma had told Mary Margaret the news and owing to David's recent behaviour, she was sure her mother had shared it with him. Emma was half expecting her parents to have sat her down and tried to persuade her to talk about how she was feeling but they hadn't. She made a mental note to thank them about that later. She swung her legs around to sit up on the edge of the bed and rubbed her face with her hands before pulling her long, blonde curls into a loose ponytail. Her eyes were drawn, as they were every morning, to the picture of Neal and Henry on her son's nightstand. She wondered if Henry managed to look at it every day without the sharp pain that shot through her chest every time she did. Henry. She would have to tell him soon. Slowly, she stood up, shuffled her feet into a pair of soft, white slippers, made a half-hearted attempt at straightening up her son's bed and padded downstairs.
Everyone was up and in varying states of readiness for the day. Mary Margaret was hurriedly eating a bowl of cereal at the table as she finished grading the last few papers before she left for school. David was dressed for work and sat opposite Henry, who was still wearing his pyjamas.
'Henry, why aren't you dressed?' Emma asked, her voice still croaky with sleep.
'We're having a staring competition,' he replied with his eyes still glued to his grandfather's, 'and I'm totally winning. Gramps said he would drive me to school today,' he added as an excuse for his unreadiness.
'Actually, kid,' began Emma, meeting her mother's eyes almost pleadingly, 'I was thinking that maybe, if David doesn't mind watching the station today, you could skip school and we could spend some time together?'
Mary Margaret gave her a knowing look and nodded her head slightly in approval just as Henry's eyes tore away from David's.
'Really, mom?' he asked, so surprised by her suggestion that he hadn't noticed he'd lost the contest.
'If its okay with your gramps,' Emma repeated. David looked quizzically at his wife who once again gave permission with her features.
'Fine by me!' he exclaimed and within minutes he and Mary Margaret had donned their hats, scarves, gloves and coats and bundled themselves out of the door.
As Henry stood before her, half expecting this to be a trick and his mother to change her mind any second, Emma studied him slowly. He needed a haircut, that was for sure. His pyjama bottoms were so short they finished above his ankles and she realised her son was no longer the same little kid who knocked on her apartment door on her 28th birthday.
'So, what are we doing today?' Henry asked eagerly.
'Well,' thought Emma out loud, 'neither of us have eaten and I could murder some of Granny's French toast. What do you say we grab some breakfast and then see what we want to do?'
'Sounds great,' he began, 'but if I go into Granny's, the whole of Storybrooke will know I'm not at school!'
'Good point. Okay, I'll go get the breakfast and bring it back here. Then we'll decide what to do.'
An hour later they had both showered, dressed and eaten. Ruby's eyebrows had raised when Emma ordered French toast and pancakes with bacon to go but it was worth it to see Henry cover them with syrup and tuck in hungrily. It was during breakfast that she decided Henry needed to know about the baby. She certainly couldn't keep it from him forever and he'd coped so well with everything that had happened recently.
'So I was thinking maybe we should take a walk. The snow is beautiful and we could go down to where your castle used to be so nobody sees us?'
'Okay. Hey, I can wear my new scarf!' As he ran to get it, Emma couldn't help but smile after him. He was strong, her son. He'd been through so much, he'd lost so much and yet his optimism never faltered.
Henry looked up at his mother through the slowly swirling snow and asked her a question.
'Mom... Are you okay?'
'Sure I am, kid. Why, don't I look okay?'
'Can I be honest?' he asked cautiously.
'Always.'
'Ever since dad...' he began, 'ever since Neverland, you've barely looked at me.'
She flinched, so taken aback by his sentence that she stopped dead in her tracks.
'What?'
'We don't talk anymore. I mean, we talk but we don't really talk, like we used to. And every time you look at me you start biting your lip just like you are now.'
With every word Emma's chest tightened and the emotion welled, hot and stinging behind her eyes. For a moment she just looked at him. A boy wiser than his years who was worried about his mother. They started walking again, towards the bench by the water. Eventually she opened her mouth her mouth to speak... and closed it again. The second time was more successful.
'Here's the thing,' she said as she sat on the cold wood and turned to her son, 'you're just like him.'
When Henry didn't respond, Emma continued.
'Your smile, the way you blink your eyes after you wake up in the morning, the amount of syrup you pour over your pancakes. I never noticed it before. I tried for so long to forget about him that I didn't realise how much like him you are.'
She paused, looking for some kind of reaction from Henry and when he didn't give it, she went on.
'I guess I miss him. When Neal came back into our lives I just wanted him to leave again. I told myself it was because I didn't want you to get hurt but now I know it was because I was scared. I just can't help thinking that if I'd told you about him you could have spent more time together. And now he's...'
She trailed off, not wanting to finish. Henry was looking into her eyes and watching the tears fall silently down her pale cheeks as wisps of hair blew around her face in the icy wind. Finally she plucked up the courage to say what she'd wanted to say ever since their trip to New York.
'I'm sorry Henry.'
In silent reply he wrapped his arms around his mother's shoulders and hugged her. She felt his chest heave against her own and, realising he was crying too, pulled him tighter.
'Hey, it's okay to be sad,' she whispered as her chin rested on his shoulder. There they sat as the snow fell softly around them.
Eventually Emma pulled away and rested her hands on Henry's shoulders.
'There's something else. Actually, it's the reason I brought you out here and before I say it I want you to know that it's ok to feel confused or strange about it because, God, I know I do.'
Henry's eyebrows knitted with worry as he studied the blonde's face for a clue.
'Okay...'
'Okay,' she took a deep breath and let it out to try and steady the nerves, 'in Neverland, Neal,' she took another breath, 'your dad and I um... we spent time together... you know, looking for you. And, well, I'm pregnant.'
Her son's eyes widened but he remained silent.
'Yeah. That's how I felt. But look, I want you to be comfortable so... Okay you're smiling,' she observed as the corners of his mouth did indeed curve upwards.
'Are you kidding? Of course I'm smiling!' he shrieked, 'I'm going to be a big brother!'
'So you're okay with this?' Emma asked.
'I'm more than okay, mom.'
It was in this moment that she realised she had been hoping he would be all along. She released a breath she'd been holding in subconsciously.
'Okay. Good. Oh kid, you're shivering. How about we go home, get under a blanket and watch some cartoons?'
Henry nodded and they began their homeward journey in silence. As they rounded a corner, Henry slipped his gloved hand into hers and gave it a squeeze.
'When you think about it, it's like dad left us a gift. It's like he didn't want us to be alone without him.'
'Yeah kid, it kinda is.' There he went again, being a grown up. 'I love you, did you know that?'
He grinned.
'Yeah. I love you too, mom.'
