Author's Note: Chapter 2 here so soon? You betcha! Another friendly reminder that this puppy is gonna be long. So prepare yourselves.
Chapter Two
Henry eyed her suspiciously over his cereal. They'd accidentally slept late and a huge full breakfast was exchanged for quick and easy Cheerios.
"Why are you dressed so nice?"
She glanced down at her clothes. Tailored slacks and a wool coat and "what's the matter with how I'm dressed?"
"That's your funeral coat," he pointed out.
"It's cold out," she said lamely.
He continued to stare.
"Hurry up and finish breakfast or you'll be late for school."
"I'm never late."
"I'll make you late. As-as punishment."
He raised an eyebrow.
"Just eat your breakfast."
####
"Is it a job thing," he asked.
"No."
"Did something happen to your leather jacket?"
"No. Your mom just wants to look nice for a day of paperwork. Is that so wrong?"
As Emma tended to wear jeans and her red leather jacket exclusively, yes, to Henry's mind, it was wrong, and he gave her the stinkeye that said as much.
She shoved him playfully as she pulled up to the school. "Go to class wierdo."
Regina Mills, of the even more expensive coat, walked by their car, flashing them both a huge smile that rendered them both quiet.
"Hurry up," she practically purred, "don't want to be late to class Henry." He nodded, still staring, and her eyes darted to Emma. She almost winked, but seemed to catch herself at the last moment. Her face quickly fell and then she pulled it into a polite smile and kept walking.
Henry stared after her. "She's wierd," he observed.
"Because she talked to you? What's wierd about that?"
"No," he said sourly. "It's just." One hand squeezed the door handle as he tried to figure out what he was gonna say. Then it froze and he turned around, taking in Emma's coat once more.
"She's why you're dressed nice?"
"What? No. Absolutely-"
"That's practically the same coat!"
"It's a nice coat!"
He glared in what she could only characterize as a paternal way. He'd been that way since he could talk. Her miniature dad.
She cracked. "We're doing coffee."
His eyes bugged, "You and my teacher?"
"Me and a friend! We would have-she's nice Henry."
"She's my teacher."
"So we won't talk about you." She crossed her heart. "Promise."
He went back to staring and Emma sighed and leaned closer, hanging her arm over the seat behind him. "Here's the thing, I don't get a lot of chances to socialize with people my age that aren't-"
"Deadbeats?"
"Right. I mean my best friend is 13. Regina's an adult that I get along with and that isn't a deadbeat."
"That we know of."
"I need a friend my own age Henry. If coffee goes well then it might be your teacher."
"But what if it doesn't? What if she smells your feet or hears one of your prison stories or-"
"I promise Henry. No blowback."
"Fine," he sighed. "I guess."
"And who knows, maybe we do coffee and I find out she's an evil murderer with a massive bounty."
"Then we get steak!"
"See? Bright side!"
She pulled him into a hug before he could protest and dropped a kiss on his ruffled hair.
Henry hopped out of the car and smoothed his hair back down. Then leaned back in. "If you want I can start investigating her. Operation-"
"No Operation, Henry. Not yet at least."
Henry reluctantly agreed and ran towards the school. Regina was standing at the door holding it open for students and she smiled at Henry and patted his shoulder as he walked by. She looked up when the last student was in and stared directly at Emma. No smile. Or thoughtfulness. Just something still and inscrutable.
"Here's to not needing a Operation Regina," Emma muttered, and shifted the Bug loudly into first.
####
He was still Henry.
That's what kept striking her. The last time she'd implanted memories in people and given them whole other lives they'd changed. Snow had become the timid Mary Margaret. The confident Charming because the indecisive David. While elements of their original personalities remained much of who they were shifted.
But Henry. He was still her son. More outgoing perhaps. More worldly seeming. But Henry. He was studious and careful and cleverer than every other child in the room.
And he seemed to notice her staring. He'd pause in the middle of his work and could always, without fail, find her eyes. His head would tilt as he'd watch her thoughtfully and then he'd return to his work-sometimes chancing a quick glance back at her.
The first time it happened she excused herself from the room and hid in the bathroom, hyperventilating and trying to school her unwieldy emotions.
She'd seen him already. Her first day of school they'd spoken and her heart had jackhammered in her chest. But now. Now after a week she was just a teacher of his. Not some curiosity. One of a multitude. And still his eyes searched her out and…
She'd let her head thump against the stall door and sighed. Of its own volition her hand had risen to her mouth to muffle a sob.
He was still her son.
All the magic in the world. All the joy she'd given him. And it couldn't alter that one truth.
She'd taken a ragged breath and gone back to the classroom. And his looks after that were met with tremulous smiles that hopefully fueled his curiosity without raising his hackles.
She knew her son well, and it was only a matter of time before he start penning a plan in his little notebook. Researching the new teacher that couldn't escape his thoughts.
Operation Rattlesnake or Python.
Or maybe, Operation Mills.
####
"What," she hissed.
"Am I using this right," Hook shouted.
Regina had to pull the phone away from her ear and a few heads swiveled to watch her. Including Henry, who slowly ate his tuna fish while scrutinizing her.
She backed into an empty corner of the cafeteria and turned away from the students, covering her other ear with her hand and ducking down. "Yes its fine. You've managed to figure out the phone. Why are you calling?"
Hook was chewing obnoxiously loudly and the crunch of cookies through her pilfered phone's tinny speaker had Regina wincing.
"I'm looking at what you wrote last night."
He yawned and Regina glanced up at the clock. "It's 12 o'clock! Did you just wake up."
"I'm an artist darling. We need our rest."
"It'd be easier to get if you stopped raiding the liquor cabinet."
The house they were…squatting…in had a rather expansive collection of liquor and Hook had made it his goal to sample every single one.
"I was into the Kentucky Bourbon last night. Those Kentuckanese certainly know how to make a fine drink."
She massaged the bridge of her nose in an attempt to quell her anger.
"It's," she said through gritted teeth, "Kentuckians. And get to the point pirate. Quickly."
"Right." He cleared his throat and she heard him rifle through papers while munching loudly on another cookie. "So this bit where you teach hapless children how to believe in themselves by sending them on a quest to face a blind witch. I feel…it's inaccurate."
"That's what I did."
"Didn't most of them die?"
She snorted, "Guess they didn't believe hard enough."
"I don't think this story is the way to endear Henry to you. It could be interpreted as…"
"Yes?" Henry hadn't stopped watching her.
"You sending a bunch of children to their deaths to get a poisonous apple for yourself. Also, I know for a fact you did not save Hansel and Gretel from an abusive home."
"He left them in the woods."
"Because you abducted him."
She rolled her eyes. "Whatever. Figure it out. Use your 'artistic sensibility' to make it work."
"Really?" Why did he sound so excited.
"Really."
She glanced back to spot Henry but he was gone. She quickly forgot her phone and stepped on her tip toes, craning her neck and trying to find him again.
"Ms. Mills?"
Somehow Henry had crept up behind her-a feat he'd never accomplished in all the years she'd been his mother-and Regina jumped a good twenty feet in the air.
"Oh! Goodness you scared me."
"Sorry," he said-not the least bit sorry.
"Is everything alright Henry?" She stooped so they were eye to eye.
"You're going on a date with my mom."
She was-her mouth formed a perfect "O" of surprise.
"I…" she tried. "I'm new to the city and your mom offered to-"
"Go for coffee. It's a date Ms. Mills."
"I see." He was trying to sound much older than he was and only half succeeding. She wondered if he'd have ever been this protective of her. She straightened up. "And are you okay with our date?"
"I don't want it to affect our relationship," he said very seriously.
"I can assure you Mr. Mi-Swan, that I can be very professional," she responded-as seriously.
"Good," he nodded succintly.
He held his hand out and Regina took it gingerly. It was the first real physical contact she'd had with her son in well over a year, and it nearly undid her.
His hand had grown, and it was stronger now-the grip firm. This close to him she could see the faint shadow of a mustache. The result of rapidly approaching puberty.
He ended contact first and turned to walk away, but Regina called after him. "Henry," she said, "it really isn't a date."
He paused to look back at her, his hazel eyes wiser than she'd ever seen them. "It's okay if it is though."
####
Emma bounced from foot to foot and tried not to look anxious as she watched the door to the school. She'd shown up ten minutes early and sat in her car editing reports. At two minutes til she'd gotten out and very. Slowly. Walked towards the school. All while trying to look casual.
The whole friend thing was new and she was giddy on the inside. Bouncing around and eager to talk and be talked to and make the other woman laugh.
She really needed a life.
Regina came out of the school three minutes late with her phone pressed to her air. She was hissing something that sounded unpleasant into the phone and when she saw Emma she froze and tried a polite smile before hanging up.
"Everything okay?"
She waved her phone, "My collaborator can be…difficult."
"That's the beauty of working alone."
"Agreed. I'm half tempted to learn how to draw."
"Is he at least…good?"
"When he's sober. Though he's madly in love and insists on hiding her face in every illustration. It's like a bizarre Where's Waldo."
Emma laughed. "He sounds fun-in that drunk and tortured artist sort of way."
Regina eyed her, "Yes, though I suspect your version of fun is very different from mine."
"Now, see, that you can't know until you hang out with me. Because I can be a lot of fun. Only with less drunken and tortured artist habits. Like right now? We're going to walk to a coffee shop up the street and it's going to be really fun."
She turned so she was walking backwards in front of Regina who rolled her eyes and followed.
"Getting coffee is fun?"
"With me, always. But especially in this neighborhood. We get to spy on all the rich kids skipping school to hang out in the coffee house and then call their parents on them."
Regina raised an eyebrow.
"If…you know…we wanted to. Or we could just do coffee."
"I think we should probably play it safe. Some of those kids might have gone to my school and I'd rather not get fired in my second week."
"Even aspiring writers got to eat?"
She smiled pleasantly. "Something like that."
####
"Hm."
Coffee wasn't in the cards. Emma had double checked on Yelp and the place's website to make sure it was open. It was not.
"Guess coffee doesn't do business like it use to," Regina mused.
"I double checked."
"Did you?"
"I did!" She tried the door and peered through the foggy glass. There was no sign of life. She whipped out her phone.
"What are you doing?"
"Leaving a strongly worded message on Yelp."
"The great Emma Swan leaves Yelp reviews?"
"She does-though I don't know many people who would call me great. You can keep doing it if you want."
Regina blushed. "It just seemed…appropriate."
"It's okay," she flashed a quick smile, "It's like I'm a princess. Oo! Or a queen."
Regina rolled her eyes.
Emma finished her quick missive and shoved her phone back into her pocket. Regina was leaning against the abandoned coffee shop's window and staring up at the sky. She seemed perfectly bored.
As adventures with new friends went Emma's was bombing.
"Do you like art," Emma asked.
Regina continued to look skyward. "On occasion, but I'm not walking all the way over to Museum Row."
"I wasn't planning on that either. Come on." She grabbed Regina's hand without asking and dragged her down the street and further from the school.
"You're awfully chipper," Regina noted dryly.
She paused, "Why wouldn't I be?"
"I-I don't know?" Regina frowned-genuinely confused.
"Um. Thanks I guess." They paused at a crosswalk and Emma dropped Regina's hand, shoving her's back into her coat pocket and watching the road before jaywalking. "You know I used to not be the bright and shining example of optimism you see before you?"
Regina hurried to follow and had to catch her purse as it slipped off her shoulder. "Oh?"
They crossed at another crosswalk and kept walking, Emma guiding Regina carefully around stalled pedestrians that Regina seemed not to see. She was focused accutely on Emma, and Emma, surprised to have someone so openly curious, was happy to keep her entertained.
"Before Henry. I grew up in the foster system. Whole nine yards with the different sets of parents every few months and eventual residency at a lovely state home. Guess the original parents weren't a fan of babies."
"Maybe."
"It made me a little…prickly."
Regina nodded, her eyes carrying that lost look again. She did that a lot, it seemed. Went somewhere far away in her head.
"But then," Emma smiled, "then I had Henry and it was like being in charge of this little guy just kind of demanded me being happy you know? I had to be optimistic because I had this kid looking up to me and he was never gonna be good if I wasn't there to set an example."
"So this, all this, is because of Henry?"
"Healthy paychecks help, but yeah. When you've got a kid as good as Henry it's hard not to be chipper. He makes life easier."
"I'm sure," Regina said softly. The lost look never quite disappearing. Instead she seemed to grow even more distant. More lost.
Emma wanted to smack herself. Right. Regina had had a child, and by all accounts lost them, and there was Emma talking glowingly about her own.
"Sorry," she said immediately.
"What," Regina's face fogged with confusion before, "Oh! No. It's all right. I work at a school Emma. If I got upset every time a parent talked about their children I'd go crazy."
"Yeah but I can help by not talking about my-"
Regina reached out to squeeze Emma's arm, surprising them both with the contact. "Really," she said softly. "I like hearing you talk about Henry."
Emma reached up to squeeze the hand on her arm and they shared the briefest moment of contentedness-before both women blushed.
"This suddenly got really personal."
Regina coughed. "It did. You were saying something," she tried to smile but it looked like a grimace, "about art?"
"Right," she dropped her hand down into Regina's and pulled her to an abrupt stop in front of a building.
Regina looked up, "Society of Illustrators?"
"It's art."
"Okay…"
"I know you look at this stuff a lot with your book, I guess I just thought it'd be fun," she rubbed at her neck, "Henry and I usually get a kick out of coming and checking it out. He's a member and everything."
She glanced up at the name of the building, etched into granite. While she'd never been a person into whimsy she always allowed herself a little at the museum. There was something infectious about it. Particularly her son's recent obsession with the place. For the last year he'd insisted on coming as often as was reasonable.
That seemed enough to sway Regina. She looked up at the building and her expression softened. Taking a deep breath, she nodded. "It sounds wonderful."
####
It was fairytales. The exhibit was hundreds of pieces of art from fairytales. Most of Regina's life in watercolors and pencils. There was the witch that would be Maleficient and there the imp that would be Gold and there she was in all her gnarled glory offering an apple or in all her most magestic finery preening in a mirror. This world's interpretation of her life.
She never watched the movie, and she'd only rarely glanced at Henry's book, so she didn't often think of how others saw her.
To this world she was the ugly villain.
"You're my mom," Henry had said-and she had to chant those words over and over again in the face of her own awfulness.
Emma sidled up beside her, oblivious to her thoughts. "That's my favorite."
Regina nodded to the one that depicted her dancing in red hot iron shoes. "You like torture?"
"No. This one." She pointed at another. Regina-the Queen-looking into the mirror and Mary Margaret-Snow-looking back. Only the glass seperated the women, as Snow reached out trying to break through and Regina turned her head away to avoid looking upon her.
"Why?"
Emma shoved her hands into the pockets of her coal gray coat and considered it. "I don't know. I guess because they don't hate each other in this one."
"You think they care about each other?" That was a surprise, and Regina didn't bother to hide it.
"I think the story is about making women compete against one another. It's nice to see one where they're trying to communicate."
"It is rare." Except in the last year. Then Regina and Mary Margaret had found common ground. Mothers without children they'd bonded in ways they never had before.
Something awful-something only communicated as "respect" was forged between them.
"What about you? Got any favorites?"
She peered at all of them, looking for just one that didn't paint her as a monster or Snow as an innocent. Sighing she settled on the most innocuous one. "This one," she said.
The Queen and King with a young Snow. They all looked happy and whole-the only nod to the Queen's villainy being the lurid shade of red on her lips.
"Cute family. Little weird that dad is so obsessed with his kid's beauty though."
"Is that-" she looked at the card beneath the piece, and the caption was about how he loved his daughter for her beauty best of all.
One bit of truth in the tableau before her.
"It's astounding what we let children read isn't it? That this-this muck is considered a good story?"
"It teaches them about monsters out there. I figure that's something every kid needs to learn. This way they get it in a cute book.."
"But it's so black and white. The world isn't."
"Maybe." Emma continued to appraised the work. "What would you do? If this was your story up here?"
"What I am doing is showing it isn't just villains and heroes. The good can be evil and the evil good. It's as important as the monsters are."
"That's your book?"
Apparently it was. She nodded.
"Then I'll have to read it when you finish."
It was the perfect opportunity and Regina would have been a fool not to take it. "You could read it sooner," she offered. "I mean," she tried a little self-effacing smile, "I'd love fresh eyes on it."
It would solve one of the largest obstacles currently in Operation Get Regina's Family Back. She could just…she could show them the book and they would see their stories, and all the other stories, and it would click.
It had to click.
"I'd like that," Emma said, with none of the false niceties most people would extend in that situation. This new Emma was far too earnest for Regina's taste. "Now," she rocked back on her heels, "what are your thoughts on Peter Pan?"
"Vindictive little troll better off dead."
Emma blinked.
"I guess I'm not much of a fan?"
"Noted. But there's some illustrations in the other room. They really hone in on the dark aspect of the character-which it sounds like you would like. And Hook has the biggest wart on his nose."
Now that actually sounded enertaining. She could take pictures with her phone and laugh at Hook as she showed them to him.
Emma snagged her hand again and guided her into the other room.
And Regina let her.
####
"We should do this again."
"Fail at coffee?"
"Hang out. You had fun right?"
Regina nodded, "I did…you really want to 'hang out' with me?"
"Well not when you say it like a grandma. But yeah. Maybe we could do dinner. Oo. Or a movie. Henry's at a sleepover on Friday and I've got time."
Regina tilted her head, "Henry has sleepovers?"
"Sure." He was one of the most popular kids in his grade despite gangly limbs and a borderline obsession with fairytales and comic books.
She smiled softly. "So he's well liked then?"
"Well, you see him more than I do now. So-"
"Of course. I do. I do. I just. I never realized he got along with so many of the children."
"How long have you been teaching there anyways?"
"A week. The last teacher won a great deal of money and left the city."
"And they just hired you?"
She flashed her teeth in a wolfish grin, "I can be persuasive."
"How persuasive?"
Oops. Emma had sidled up to her when she said that. Falling into a flirtatious rhythm that she wasn't sure Regina was picking up on.
Regina blushed and her smile faltered. "Very," she croaked.
"Did this just get personal again?" Clearly it had, and Emma was trying to jokenly defuse the situation.
But Regina didn't back down like she could have. "It got something."
"Something bad," Emma asked
She studied her then stepped close, "I honestly don't know."
They were both in heels, but Regina was just a scant inch taller so Emma had to look up. It felt odd. Like Regina should always be the same height. Or shorter even.
"So, dinner and a movie," Emma asked softly.
"I'd like that."
Emma, feeling awfully bold, took another step forward. Regina gasped and didn't take her eyes off Emma. She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone.
"Got a number?"
"That sounds dangerously like a pick up line Emma."
"And if it was?"
"Thought we were just going to be friends?"
"Friends exchange phone numbers too."
Regina kept watching Emma, but blindly reached for the phone and punched in her number. "Call me then," she said softly. She tucked Emma's phone back into her pocket and backed away before bowing her head and smiling and disappearing back into the building.
Yeah. Emma was definitely going to call her.
####
She made her way directly to the bathroom where she slumped in front of the mirror and stared at her face-searching for any sign of magic.
Because it had to be magic.
Emma wouldn't just be-be hitting on her otherwise.
It didn't make sense with the life she'd been given. She was a happy mother who'd never lost her son. Not a…a lonely woman desperate for contact-even if it was with a new teacher who acted half crazy half the time.
Maybe some spell lingered on her or someone had gotten to her or- It was a potion. Something that affected them both and explained why Regina actually flirted back there at the end.
It had to be something external. It could never, ever be something-"Ms. Mills? Are you in there?"
She took another look at herself in the mirror, and tried to use the relatively calm face staring back as an anchor. Grounding herself. It wasn't a big deal. This new, happier, Emma Swan was just a facade. Regina would break the spell and Emma would forget this and there'd be a few awkward moments before they'd descend back into normalcy.
All she just had to do was break the spell.
