A/N: Another update! This one includes Swan Queen, finally. Also, I totally imagine Riley as being played by Blake Lively. I'd like to hear y'all's thoughts on how the story is going if you could be so kind as to leave a review.
Someone was pounding at her door, and all she wanted to do was tell them to fuck off. Grumbling to herself, Riley rose from bed, pulled on her pants from yesterday, and swung the door open, greeting the person with a scowl.
It was Henry, and Riley's bad mood fell away at the hopeful look on his face. He was too much like Emma, and it felt nice to be regarded with something other than uncertainty and contempt. Besides, even without his resemblance to his mother, the kid was good company. He was great at keeping a conversation going, his optimism was contagious, and Riley found she liked the way he dressed.
Today he'd chosen to wear jeans and a plaid button up, which seemed to be usual for him. Riley imagined it wouldn't look quite as clean-cut on another kid.
"What's up, kid?" she asked gruffly, her southern accent more pronounced in her tired state. She hadn't slept more than two hours. After the dream she'd had - the memory she'd been forced to relive - she hadn't been able to relax enough to sleep again.
Henry shoved some papers at her. She looked at him, confused, then took the papers. They looked like they'd been torn from a book. "What are these?" she asked, flipping through them. Some had illustrations on them, and she studied them closely.
"They're your and my mom's story. I wrote them last night." He pushed past her into the room and sat on her bed. He definitely wasn't shy, though considering who his mothers were, she wouldn't expect him to be. "I didn't know you were in the system with her."
Alarm bells went off in Riley's head. "Wait, what? How do you know that now?" Emma had only introduced her as an old friend, as neither had wanted to explain the full truth of their relationship. "And our story? What do you mean you wrote it?"
Henry grinned. "I'm the author. I write what happened and sometimes what's happening." His expression turned pensive. "I don't really know how it works. I just wake up and find I've written stuff."
"The author," Riley repeated dubiously. She looked back down at the pages in her hands. "I hate this town," she griped, reading them over. When she was done, she raised her eyes up to meet Henry's. He was watching her, waiting patiently. "I assume you have questions?"
Henry nodded. "The pages don't really go into that much detail. I was hoping you could tell me more." He gave her this pleading look that reminded her so much of Emma, she had to look away. "I mean, they say that you took care of her and they tell the story of how you left, but they don't talk about your time together or how you met or why you left. And they really only tell it from my mom's point of view. I'm interested in hearing yours."
Riley closed the door, crossed to the window. It was sunny outside, though still too early for most of the town's residents to be awake. "Does Emma know you're here? Or Regina?"
The kid was silent. Riley took that as a no.
She turned to face him. "I should take you home."
Henry scowled. "I'm fifteen. I think that's old enough to walk around town by myself. Besides, I left a note."
Riley turned back to the window. He was right. She only wanted to take him home so she could avoid the conversation he wanted to have. "Why don't you ask Emma this stuff?" she tried.
"I don't think now's the best time to ask her painful questions. And like I said, I want to hear your side."
Riley sighed.
It was silent for a moment as Riley debated whether or not to tell him. On the one hand, he didn't really need to know. On the other, he wasn't asking all that much. He was a good kid, brave and loyal. And from what she knew, his life had kind of sucked lately. She figured if she could make him happy by just answering some questions he had, it was the least she could do. Maybe it could also help to assuage her guilt for what she'd done to the kid's mother.
"Alright, kid. You ask, I'll answer. Shoot."
Henry grinned, and Riley knew she'd made the right choice, despite how uncomfortable it made her. "Cool. So how did you guys meet?" He toed his shoes off and sat cross-legged on the bed as he awaited her answer.
Riley pulled out a chair from the desk and plopped down onto it. "Well, we were in the same group home. Shared a room. Didn't talk, though, 'cause older kids didn't mix with younger kids. Not willingly, at least. I think most older kids resented the younger ones 'cause they had higher chances of gettin' adopted. That didn't really bother me, though; I wasn't lookin' to get adopted."
Henry's face scrunched, amusing her. "So why didn't you talk to the younger kids?"
"I was goin' through a time where I hated everybody - young, old, black, white. Didn't matter. Anyway, so we'd been livin' together for about three days by the time I actually paid her any attention. I was walkin' home from - well, that's not important. So I was walkin' home and this kid comes sprintin' past me, followed by three other kids who were, like, twice her size. I wasn't gonna interfere or anything, but the alley they turned down was on my way home. So I turn down it, and they've got the poor kid pinned against the wall. Thing is, she doesn't look scared - she looks pissed. And they're threatening her, but she ain't backin' down. They'd make fun of her, and she'd throw an insult right back at 'em. Kid was 'bout to get her ass beat. So I stepped in, scared the punks away, and we walked home together. Walked her home everyday after that, too."
Henry smiled, but the expression quickly gave way to a frown. "She got bullied?"
Riley looked at him for a moment, then sighed. "You gotta understand - your mom was tiny. She was in fifth grade when I met her, but she looked like a second grader. And she was poor and had no adults lookin' after her. Her hair was always knotted, her clothes were too big and were sometimes ripped and faded. There was always dirt on her somewhere. And she'd have lots of scrapes and bruises. Add in her penchant for pissing people off, and she was the perfect candidate for gettin' picked on."
The teen picked at the bedspread for a bit, taking the information in. "Why'd she always have scrapes and bruises?" he asked, looking like he didn't want to know the answer.
Feeling now would be an appropriate time to stretch the truth, Riley smirked and shrugged. "Kid was clumsy."
She doubted he believed her, but he accepted that answer. "So you…" - he searched for words - "took her under your wing?"
"Sure, you could say that. I kept her safe, made sure she got to school on time, made sure she ate enough. And she - well, she gave me a reason to live. Until then I'd been livin' to spite my father, but she showed me there was more to life."
"If you cared so much about her, why'd you leave?"
Looking at a spot on the floor, Riley replied, "I aged out of the system. And I was so messed up - I was spiraling. I needed something to control me, something with structure. So I enlisted in the army."
"But what about my mom?"
Riley's vision blurred. She rose to stand by the window in an effort to keep Henry's observant eyes from scouring her face any longer, knowing her expression would betray the deep regret that burned in her abdomen. She did not like this conversation and prayed it would end soon. Through a regret-swollen throat, Riley answered, "She went back to bein' alone."
The silence that permeated the room after that statement was heavier than any she'd experienced in years. Just as she was beginning to feel crushed under the weight of it, Henry said, "It had to happen, you know."
Riley spun to face him, hands clasped behind her back, her posture ramrod straight - something she'd learned in the army. "What?" she demanded, cursing the hope the statement gave her. Logically, she knew he was wrong. But she'd been expecting him to loathe her for abandoning his mom, and there he was, staring at her with determination and everything good in those green eyes of his.
"You leaving her. It had to happen, just like my dad had to leave her. If you had stayed, I might never have been born, and she might never have broken the curse." He shrugged. "It was fate."
This did little to comfort her. "Fate sucks," she groused.
Henry smiled. "Yeah," he agreed, "it does."
Emma sat in the library, across from Regina, as they read through old books they hoped would help them defeat their new opponent. She and Regina had become closer since losing their true loves, having the greatest understanding out of anyone what the other was going through. When Emma was near Regina, the hole in her heart didn't quite disappear, but it definitely felt a lot smaller.
Becoming frustrated with their seemingly fruitless task, Emma sighed and shoved her book away. "Do you ever feel like it's just one thing after another in this town? Like there's no time to just relax and be people. We're always fighting something."
Regina glanced up from her reading, saw in the blonde's expression that she was done searching through tomes for the time being, and closed her own book. "Yes, I feel like that quite often. Now more than ever." The dark-haired woman paused as she thought for a moment. Her eyebrows pulled together and Emma found herself transfixed, watching the emotions shape her face. "I've almost forgotten what it feels like to lead a quiet life."
Emma frowned for another moment before her lips began to curve upward. "Do you want to do something normal? Just for a little while." Excitement bloomed in her chest at the thought of her and Regina hanging out like normal friends did - leaving behind their grief and stress for just a little while.
"Like what?" Regina was interested in Emma's proposal, it seemed, but she also looked highly skeptical. Which was okay, because Emma hadn't expected anything less.
Honestly, Emma didn't care what they did, as long as it brought their focus onto happier things. "I don't know. We could go see a movie."
"As much as I'm sure I would enjoy sitting in a run-down theater for the next few hours, I have seen Return of the Jedi far too many times."
"How about ice cream then? And then we could go for a walk."
Emma was sure Regina was going to scold her and say something about how she should take better care of her body, but to her surprise and delight, Regina offered Emma a small smile and a nod and a "that sounds nice."
"So how are you coping with Riley being here?" Regina inquired as she scooped some vanilla ice cream onto her spoon. They were walking along the water's edge, shoulders brushing every couple steps, filling Emma with warmth whenever they did. Emma knew she hadn't spoken much to Regina of how Riley's presence was affecting her, and that Regina worried for her. She hadn't wanted to talk about it, but now that Regina had asked, she felt as if there were a crack in her armor. Knowing the former queen cared enough to ask after spending so many years without a friend made the idea of sharing seem less daunting.
Though, how much of that was being asked, and how much of that was Regina asking? Emma knew she wouldn't talk about this with Snow or David if they broached the subject. There was something about being with the brunnette lately that made her feel safe in a way that she didn't feel with anyone else. Even with Hook, there had always been a lingering anxiety.
But that was probably because her relationship with Killian had been romantic, and the purely platonic relationship she shared with Regina did not involve being someone's better half, which if you asked Emma, felt like a load of responsibility she wasn't quite ready for. She imagined she would have been eventually, had he lived. Now, though, she had lost that chance.
God, she hated this. Everything reminded her of him!
Feigning an air of nonchalance, as she didn't want her sadness to remind Regina of her own, Emma licked her mint chocolate chip ice cream from where it sat in its waffle cone and shoved her free hand into her jacket pocket. She shrugged. "It's kind of weird. I'm used to people you guys used to know showing up out of the blue, and I guess I'm used to having people from my past reappear. It just feels different with Riley because she has no other connections here. She's not here because she's someone's kid. She's here for me. And it's weird because I thought she'd forgotten about me or something, and then I found out she committed a crime punishable by death to come save me from the very thing she left me for."
Emma felt guilty sharing with Regina what she wouldn't with her parents, who wanted nothing more from her than her trust. But it wasn't as if she didn't trust them. It was just that she felt connected to Regina in a way she didn't with her parents - or anyone, really. Her connection with Killian had been strong, but different. With Regina, she felt like she didn't even need to speak; they had just learned to understand each other on a deep enough level that sometimes words couldn't tell her anything she didn't already know about the woman.
She watched as Regina brought the spoon to her mouth and closed her red-painted lips around it before pulling it out and returning it to her little bowl. She didn't say anything, only offered a small nod of understanding, but it was all Emma wanted from her. She wasn't looking for advice or sympathy; she just wanted Regina to know how she felt. She had ever since they'd sat up together the night after Robin's funeral and just talked until morning.
Something caught Regina's eye. "Speaking of weird," she murmured, coming slowly to a halt.
Emma brought her eyes up from where they'd been studying Regina's hand - she liked that it wasn't perfectly small and feminine - and followed the woman's gaze. She was met with the sight of two figures, one showing the other a specific way to stand. They were about the same height, though Emma knew one of them was in the middle of a growth spurt and that he'd soon tower over the woman he stood with. The woman reached her hand up to tuck a lock of hair that had escaped her braid behind her ear.
An unsettled feeling grew in Emma's stomach. Watching her son enjoy the company of the woman who'd abandoned her at such a tender age was not what she'd envisioned doing on this normal fucking walk that she was taking to feel like a normal fucking person. "What's he doing with her?" she demanded incredulously.
Regina just shook her head, indicating her own lack of knowledge.
They watched as Riley, wearing her usual cargo pants and tight t-shirt, modeled a movement for their son, who immediately did as Riley had, with her giving corrections that they couldn't hear from this distance. "She's teaching him how to fight," Emma realized.
Regina glanced at Emma out of the corner of her eye, though the look of concern was lost on the woman, who stared at the scene in a state of bewildered shock. "So it seems," Regina agreed, lips twisting downwards. Even in her state, Emma could sense the disapproval that rolled off of her friend in waves. "His note failed to mention this," she added, dark eyes narrowing as she stared at Henry.
Emma wondered if it was the lack of notification that was upsetting her son's mother or the way Henry's actions had caused Emma to react.
Emma was finding it hard to tear her eyes away as well. She only looked away when something wet trickled onto her hand. With a displeased twist of her lips, Emma muttered, "My ice cream is melting." She quickly licked it until it was no longer dripping, then returned to watching the scene playing out in front of her.
Riley was fixing the way Henry made a fist. After a moment she took a step back and held up her hands, instructing the teen to do something. He aimed a punch near her face, though he only came into contact with her hand, as she had caught his fist. She said something to him, then had him do it again. This time after catching his hand, Riley must have complimented him somehow, as Henry grinned widely and, though Emma couldn't be sure from this distance, seemed to be blushing.
"Oh my God." Emma's eyes widened even as her stomach dropped. A cold feeling washed over her body. "He totally has a crush on her."
Regina pulled her eyebrows together, looking from the duo to Emma and back again. "What gives you that idea?" She sounded concerned, and Emma knew she'd be looking for anything to prove her wrong.
Emma felt like she'd been hit in the head with a brick, everything clear and fuzzy all at once. "Well, I mean, it would make sense. She's gorgeous, strong, mysterious. And she just ran away from the army to save his family, which probably makes her ten times cooler in his eyes." Emma located a trashcan and threw the remainder of her ice cream in it, no longer interested in eating it, Regina following along next to her and doing the same with her own ice cream. The movement brought them about ten feet closer to the pair, and yes, Henry was definitely blushing.
"There are other attractive women he has known who have risked much to save his family." Regina was glaring at Riley and their son as if she could read their minds if she stared angrily enough. "What makes Ms. Thompson any different?"
Emma smiled briefly at the formality, remembering when she had been Ms. Swan. The situation quickly caught up with her, though, and she didn't know if she felt more forlorn or angry. "What makes anyone different?" she responded desolately. "Anyway, even if I'm right, it's a small thing. Nothing to worry about, so don't go all protective mama bear on anyone." Emma knew her friend well enough to know that she would take drastic measures to keep Riley and Henry apart if Emma didn't at least pretend she was okay with this. She didn't want a repeat of what had happened when Regina had tried to keep Henry away from her. "It's not like Riley returns it," Emma continued. She paused. "That would be weird."
"Yes," Regina replied, looking uncomfortable and disapproving all at once. "I believe that would make her a pedophile." The way she was looking at Riley, Emma was surprised Riley didn't feel her scorching gaze, or at the very least, burst into flames.
Emma laughed. She didn't like the turn of events, but it was entertaining to see how upset her friend was over it. "You know," she said, attempting to switch topics, "he's not so little anymore."
"He is fast becoming a man," the brunette acknowledged. She frowned. "I don't like it."
"Me neither."
They stood for a few more moments, watching their son with Riley.
"He's in trouble, isn't he?"
"Oh, definitely."
