Storybrooke. The second Regina stepped foot past the town line, it should have felt like home.
Instead it felt more like she was heading in for something she wasn't going to enjoy, but it would be necessary in the long run. The longer she was in town, the more Regina was really, really missing Portland. It was strange how she was starting to prefer a world with limited magic compared to a town where the place was practically saturated in it.
The second she saw Henry with the Charmings, it took all of her new-found inner peace not to walk up to Mary Margaret and bitch slap the hell out of her.
Emma actually looked relieved to see Regina.
"Please tell me your vacation is up early," she begged.
"No. I came to get my son," said Regina coldly.
"Mom?"
"Regina!" said Mary Margaret, clearly unhappy to see her again. It was obvious the feeling was mutual.
"I always knew you were a fool, but I never thought you'd be so stupid as to endanger the life of my son when I left him in your care," snapped Regina.
Swan looked confused.
"What are you talking about?"
"Cora has been sniffing around my son. And you idiots let her," snapped Regina.
"Cora? We've barely seen Cora, and never around Henry," said Mary Magaret, clearly upset. She remembered Cora, and the fact that it was because of her that Regina had been so dead set on killing her for years.
"And none of you morons thought it suspicious when Henry just happens to make a new 'friend' in this town who calls herself Alice? The same name as the girl who annoyed my mother, who took on the title as 'Queen of Hearts'?" said Regina, furious beyond reason.
"What?"
"Henry, is this true?" asked Emma. She didn't know Cora, and hadn't thought it suspicious that he happened to make a 'new' friend after the curse was broken and Regina's mother showed up in town.
Emma Swan could barely qualify as a cop, and wouldn't know a clue even if it stared her dead in the face and waved a hand stating "I'm a clue!"
She definitely hadn't developed the same mother's intuition or protective instincts Regina had, despite not being Henry's birth mother.
In an effort to defuse the situation (showing Regina Swan did have some common sense in that vapid head of hers, which was surprising), Emma took Regina and Henry to her office...which had become Gold's office when it was clear Emma didn't have it in her to lead anyone.
Gold seemed a little too pleased with the fact he was the least objectionable choice in a limited pool of candidates.
Surprisingly he was tolerably good at being mayor.
Gold didn't look too happy about seeing Regina there, but he was surprised she had brought Henry and Swan with her.
"Regina. Here to take back the reigns?" he asked, only mildly curious.
"Not quite. I only cut my vacation short because I found out Cora (she spat out the name like it was a diseased leper) has been around Henry and no one thought to tell me sooner," said Regina. Gold sat up.
Any idiot could tell Regina was very territorial over her son, and barely tolerated even Swan's presence...and that was after multiple efforts to rid the town of her presence. She only quite because they had come to a relative truce since the curse had broken...and because Regina had deemed Emma 'safe' enough to be around Henry.
Cora, on the other hand, was someone Regina would never allow around Henry, even as a last resort. And Gold didn't blame her one bit...and he had been the one to teach the woman magic in the first place!
"I take it you want me to whip up a batch of memory potion?"
"If you could, then I'll give you some information I know you'd be very interested to know," said Regina.
Gold sat up. The way she said that meant Regina had some very juicy information, and it was something she knew was worthy of a favor from him. A big one, if she played her cards right.
Emma sensed this was something she didn't need to hear, but she did hope like hell Regina was coming back. She didn't know how the hell she managed to juggle being a mother and mayor of this town full of lunatics. It had given Emma a grudging respect for the woman, even if Regina couldn't stand her because she felt Emma was trying to take Henry from her.
"Let's talk business," said Gold.
"I found out the Blue Fairy is either a bigger idiot than we thought, or a complete moron who can't see the truth in front of her face," deadpanned Regina.
Gold snorted.
"Where did you go mom?"
"Portland, and once we have that potion and the spell I know Gold has on hand, I'm taking you with me. I'm not letting you stay within fifty miles of Cora, even if she is my mother," said Regina.
"Which spell?" asked Gold.
"One that will keep his heart inside him where it belongs and not within easy reach of my mother. You know as well as I do that she wouldn't hesitate to take if she thought for a second that she could get something out of it, and I was too busy to think of looking up the spell myself after the curse was broken," said Regina flatly.
Cora was a master of heart magic, but if there was one 'person' that could protect Henry from her thieving ways, it was the Dark One. And Cora would try to take or even destroy Henry's heart, because she knew that it would give her a chance to try and worm her way into Regina's good graces trying to help her daughter 'heal' after the death of her son.
"Such a spell would require a price, dearie. You know as well as I do that magic always comes with a price," said Gold. The potion he would hand Regina for free, because it came with the chance to become the ruler of this pathetic town permanently, if Regina didn't want to come back. But the spell would require actual effort, short of making a deal.
"How about the information I mentioned earlier?"
"Depends on the information," said Gold.
"Is this room secure?"
Gold almost looked insulted.
"Like I would allow Cora to overhear anything sensitive when I agreed to take over for that fool Swan," said Gold. "And I know for a fact she doesn't have any familiars around."
Regina made sure of that, before she said flatly "There's magic outside the town. I've seen actual mandragora in the town I was living in with the same effects as the ones grown in the Enchanted Forest. So either they have a way in to the deeper regions... or there's a limited amount of magic in this world."
Gold straightened. This was big news, and Regina had guessed rightly that he would pay a hefty sum for such information. A spell to protect her son's heart was nothing compared to that sort of information and the plans he could work around it.
"Are you sure?"
"It's limited, and I've only sensed the barest traces of a ley line in Portland, but when I tested it I was able to make a decent sized fireball in my apartment. So there is magic, but it's not in the same quantity as the Enchanted Forest."
Gold looked like Christmas had come early.
"Is that enough?" she asked him.
"For that dearie, I'll cast the spell and keep you updated on Cora's movements...provided of course that you alert me to any lines you come across and don't want to claim for yourself," said Gold.
Regina nodded. That was a small thing, and it wasn't likely Gold would want to settle down anywhere near the same town she was in. They barely got along as it was.
Henry looked uncomfortable, but it was debatable on whether he was getting used to having the spell on his heart or because after hearing the bare bones of why Regina had been so pissed that her mother had been trying to get closed to Henry, Emma had agreed without arguing about Regina taking him with her.
Apparently Emma did have some mother's intuition after learning Cora didn't view Henry as her grandson and might kill him just to get close to Regina. Well that and she thought it would be good for him to see more of the world outside of the limited view he got when he went looking for her, and this meant he got a break from school for a bit.
Regina thought a tiny bit better of the blond when Emma didn't protest about the decision.
She still didn't like Mary Margaret though.
As they sat on the plane back to Portland, Henry tried to make small talk.
"So...what exactly did you do in Portland?"
"I became the temporary director of a group dedicated to helping and protecting abused people," said Regina.
Henry blinked.
"Really?"
"The Queen's Castle organization. I happened to be in the right place when someone killed the previous director and helped catch him, and when I offered to help them get their paperwork in order out of boredom they asked me to step in until they could find a replacement. I didn't really enjoy the mandatory therapy meetings I had to go to each week for a month though."
Henry clearly thought his mother was overdue for it, but was smart enough not to voice such an opinion out loud.
"So...what's Portland like? And why are we taking a plane to get there?"
"It's almost like the Enchanted Forest, but with more technology...and we're taking a plane because it's in Oregon. Where did you think we were heading?"
"I thought you were still in Maine," said Henry.
Regina blinked.
"There's a Portland in Maine too?" she said, surprised. Weird.
The main reason he hadn't been upset by the fact his mother left for a month was because he thought she had stayed close by. He hadn't known she meant the one in Oregon.
"At the very least you'll get to enjoy food outside of that tiny cafe in Storybrooke. I might even let you get a dog if you want."
She knew it was futile to try and keep Henry away from Emma. She planned to get him a laptop once he had settled in to the apartment, and she would let him talk to his birth mother through the internet if he wanted. However Henry had always wanted a pet, but the only thing that you could find in Storybrooke to get one was that idiot Dalmatian and there was no way she was letting Henry get a puppy from the town...and she wasn't about to leave the town just to visit a pet store.
Letting him get a pet from the pound might go a long way to getting him to quit seeing her as the enemy for once.
Henry perked up at that idea.
Henry picked the room right next to his mothers, and no matter how much he wouldn't admit it, he missed his mom. Emma was nice, but she didn't really have the same 'mother' qualities Regina had. She didn't know anything about bed times, the importance of homework, and she hadn't thought to keep track of who he was friends with like Regina.
Some kids complained about their mothers being so overprotective, but Henry knew that if Regina didn't care about him, she wouldn't be so interested in his life. Emma tried, but she didn't know the first thing about being a mom and she had some serious deep seated trust issues. She had no idea how to open herself up to anyone, and even he had barely gotten any headway into her heart.
Regina loved him, even if she hadn't given birth to him.
Though he would openly admit, he was getting sick of the 'Suzie Homemaker' stick Mary Margaret kept up all the time. It would be nice to eat food that wasn't so...outdated, and the only one who understood how awesome pizza was happened to be Emma. And she couldn't cook at all!
Any chances of him feeling upset about leaving Storybrooke until his mom was ready to go back disappeared the second he saw what she had brought home.
Pizza, with his favorite toppings and a tub of his favorite ice cream. Regina had missed him too.
Regina was late by three days. Usually she would have made a visit to the shop, roughly around noon.
So it was with some surprise that when she did show up, it was with a kid.
The kid made a face, probably because the apothecary had a certain smell to it that the medicines always gave off, and she had just finished making an antidote for Nick that had yet to fully dissipate.
"What is all this stuff?" asked the kid.
"Potion ingredients. Decent ones too, which is a surprise. Hello Rosalie. This is my son, Henry."
Rosalie put on a smile.
"Hello Henry. I didn't know you had a son."
"Hello Ma'am," said Henry, having come to stand by his mother.
"Rosalie is fine."
"I had to go and get him from his birth mother, for reasons I'd really rather not discuss. Do you have my usual order?"
"Give me a few minutes, I was expecting you a few days ago," said Rosalie. Unsaid was the fact that she had told Nick there was another Grimm in town, and that the woman likely didn't even know what she was even when confronted by a Hexenbiest. He had come by in the hopes of meeting her and possibly offering advice, but Regina had never shown up.
Time to tell Nick she was back in town...and that she had her son with her.
Henry was looking around until his eyes fell on an old amulet her brother had picked up years ago in the hopes of reselling it to someone who liked magic. It was little more than a trinket, really, and not one she would care if sold off. Unfortunately for his hopes of a quick sell to the tourists, most people passed it by.
"What's this?" asked Henry.
"I honestly have no idea. It's something my brother picked up before he was killed, but I haven't the faintest clue what it is."
Regina looked at it, then at her son.
"How much is it?" she asked.
"Ten dollars. He had some other things he hoped the tourists would buy, but they're still in storage."
"Really? What kind of things?" asked Regina. She could feel some sort of magic off the trinket, mostly protective spells. It was likely the man hadn't even known what it was.
Rosalie went and got a box full of what looked like useless junk and trinkets. However, in that mess of useless things there were a few items of note.
A pen that wouldn't look out of place on an old-fashioned writing desk, complete with a locked ink bottle that practically radiated magic, a mirror with a scrying spell, and most damning of all, a small handwritten book that was clearly written in the language of the elves. Something no one here would be able to read.
The pen and ink bottle she gave to Henry, but she kept the book for herself. She would have to read it to see if it was worth the paper she spent on it.
It did prove one very important thing though.
Wherever they got their inventory, it was blatantly clear now that they had a way into the Enchanted Forest, because there was no way that her brother could have gotten the book otherwise.
The question was...did she want to take Henry back with her?
