Henry opened the door to the house on 108 Mifflin Street after coming home from school.

"Emma, look!" he called out eagerly. The blonde stuck her head out from the kitchen.

"What is it?" she called out, hands full with a turkey sandwich.

"Look" Henry repeated. She walked over to the front door and peered outside. A black cat was pacing back and forth across their porch.

"Can we keep him?" Henry ventured.

"I think he might belong to somebody else, kid," Emma returned, stuffing the last half of her sandwich into her mouth in one giant bite.

"Well, can we still keep him?" he asked again.

"What if someone found Frederick?" she asked him, "Wouldn't you want him back?"

"Of course I would!" Henry fervently defended. He looked towards his iguana's favorite spot and could see his long tail sticking out from underneath the couch and into the middle of the room. More than once he had yelled out for his Moms not to step on his pet, and there had been a heated debate about moving the couch to a different area. They had all eventually given up on getting the green fellow to choose a different spot. It was now automatically ingrained for his Moms to step extra wide when passing the couch as not to step on him again; weather he was actually there or not.

Still chewing at the half sandwich she'd stuffed into her mouth Emma said, "Okay, listen here, we can keep him—"

"Yes!" Henry exclaimed.

"—but only until his owners come and get him. You can put up some flyers around the neighborhood, okay?"

"Okay," Henry agreed. Emma went back to the kitchen to get the cat some water and when she returned with a small bowl Henry looked at her dubiously.

"What?" she asked defensively.

"Don't you know?" he asked as if it was obvious, "Cats don't like water, they only drink milk," he insisted. Emma tried not to roll her eyes at her son's insistence, but still put the water down inside of the doorway to their home.

"He's not gunna drink that," he said with full belief.

"We'll see," Emma replied. The black cat crossed the threshold into their home and Henry carefully closed the door. The cat then sauntered over to the bowl of water and simply sat down and looked up at the blonde.

"See," he smugly said.

She had to admit Henry had a way with animals neither her nor Regina could understand. It didn't matter what kind either. When Emma had found a spider in their room, through all her screaming and her wife's laugher, Henry had insisted they didn't kill it. Instead, he had gotten a jar and spent the next half hour trying to catch it until he finally succeeded. He had named it Rex and begged to keep it as a pet before finally giving in and letting it free outside in their backyard. It was still a while before Emma came down off the bed to the floor again. Regina had found it incredibly amusing Emma could slay a dragon, but not a tiny spider.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Emma brushed him off. Henry ended up getting the black cat some milk and then they left him alone when he promptly laid himself down in the sun streaming in from the window to take a nap. It wasn't until later the black cat was causing complete chaos.


"WHERE IS IT?!" Emma screamed

"HE'S NOT AN IT!" Henry yelled back at her, trying to keep her away from the cat that had woken up some time ago.

"IT peed on my boots!" Emma said furiously, stomping through the house in her mismatched socks.

"You can't—"

Their argument was interrupted by a fierce hissing coming from the other room. They both ran in to see what was going on. The cat was hissing itself into a deep arch, making it appear larger with all of its fur sticking up in response to the iguana residing under the couch.

"Uh-oh," Emma commented, "This isn't good."

"What do you mean?" Frederick started to bob his head back and forth. "They're just getting to know each other," Henry responded a little less confidently. The green lizard then started to twitch his tail and Henry's face fell fast. But before Frederick Mills did anything more, the cat, still hissing, extracted its claws from its paws. That seemed to crack Henry's illusion of how innocent the terror was right away.

"NOBODY THREATENS MY FAMILY!" Henry exclaimed, charging in to break up the soon to be fight. Emma jerked him by the arm last minute to keep him back.

"Hold on there," she said, taking his place, stepping in and grabbing the cat by his tail.

"Mom, no!" Henry tried to alert her. Realizing her mistake only too soon, the feline turned and sunk its claws into Emma's jacket.

"Ah! Son of a—" Emma stopped short on her expletive, dropped the nightmare and stared at her red jacket she was wearing, now with fresh rips down the pocket. The black nuisance ran off inside the house. She was lucky the fabric of her jacket was thick enough that she was unscathed. Emma turned to her son and setting her expression into one of complete gravity, said, "Let's do this."

The blonde then gathered a hodgepodge of items including oven mitts, a hockey mask, duck tape, a can of tuna, a laundry basket, a broom, and two magazines.

"Okay, kid, this is what we're going to do to get that demon out of here," she began conspiratorially. Henry listened with rapt attention.

"You chase it into the corner where the tuna is, and I'll use the laundry basket like a cage to put over it." She brought out the oven mitts and put them onto her son.

"What about you?" Henry asked in all seriousness. Emma looked deep into his eyes. "If I don't make it, tell your mom…" she paused, "I was the one who turned all her white button ups pink."

"THAT WAS YOU?" Henry exclaimed incredulously, "BUT YOU BLAMED ME!"

"That's neither here nor there; we need to catch this thing," she side stepped, avoiding his eye. "Here, wrap these around your forearms and I'll duct tape 'em."

"Magazines?" he questioned with a puzzled countenance.

"Saw it in a movie once, but it's so you won't get scratched up," she explained.

"Oh, nice," he said as the screech of duct tape filled the room.

"Alright, are you ready?" she asked after wrapping the makeshift armor over his oven mitts. Henry put on his hockey mask he still had from the two weeks they had tried to enroll him in a winter sport earlier in the year.

"Ready," he affirmed. Emma nodded, grabbed the broom and plastic laundry basket, and moved to her position near the corner where she set down the opened can of tuna and waited. The house was completely silent. Soon enough, Henry came charging through the area in a run, but he wasn't chasing the cat; the four legged devil was yowling and chasing him!

"Emmmmaaaaa! Get it away from meeee!" he shouted. Emma gripped the broom tighter and went to intercept the black nightmare. She dropped the weapon when Henry jumped up and into her arms at a run, nearly making her lose her balance and fall to the floor. She adjusted her grip of her son who had wrapped himself around her when the two cat hunters completely halted at the sound of the front door closing and keys jingling.

Henry bounced down to the ground again and he and Emma made their way to the entryway. When they turned the corner, the beast was circling itself around Regina's heeled boots and mewling like a kitten.

"Aw, aren't you the sweetest thing," Regina baby talked a few octaves higher with her usually husky voice. Emma and Henry stared with their mouths falling open so wide their jaws nearly hit the ground. Regina bent down to lightly stroke its head all the way down to its tail; its bottom arching up to meet her with every stroke.

"Aw, come here, darling," the brunette cooed and bent down to pick up the ebony feline.

"MOM, DON'T!" Henry tried to warn, but she had already brought the monster up and into her arms. Emma was still gaping like a fish out of water.

"Who's this?" Regina asked them curiously as the creature started purring into her chest. She gave Henry a second glance, "And why are you dressed like that?" she asked, taking in his attire and giving her wife a pointedly raised eyebrow.

"How are you-? I mean, that thing-" Emma exasperated.

"She's quite lovely. Is she another rescue?" Regina modestly inquired.

"She?" Henry repeated, as if it all made sense to him now.

"Isn't it obvious?" Regina said to him then turned her attention back to the four legs in her embrace, "Of course you're a she," she said to the feline, kissing the top of her head with a small peck. The onyx cat purred even deeper. Henry tiptoed closer.

"Can I hold him?" he asked his brunette mother in a small voice. Regina pried the animal away from herself to try to hand her over. Henry unceremoniously yanked the terror from her arms, opened the front door and tossed the cat outside where it landed lithely on its feet. The cat turned her head around, hissed one final time and then took off at a dead run into the neighborhood. Henry slammed the door shut, breathing harder than he should be. Emma burst into whoops of joy, high fiving him and Regina's eyes widened in shock.

"HENRY SWAN MIl—"

"MOM WAS THE ONE WHO TURNED YOUR CLOTHES PINK!" he interjected. Emma ceased her cries of joy and gasped in utter disbelief as her son sold her out and bolted off to his room, taking the stairs two at a time.


A/N: I'm really hoping to involve Regina more in the next few. Inspiration always strikes randomly though. I'd love to try my hand at a crack fic but that would most likely be posted under its own story. (I was really tempted to exaggerate this ficlet into a crack fic, actually...)
Reviews feed my creativity, so by all means, let me know what you thought or what you'd like to see next. And thanks for reading!