Chapter 4: Hey, Mom

"No," said Henry, not to Dr. Jones. He realized he was beginning to repeat that word quite a bit, but he was not going to fall into the trap. The asylum was the delusion. The world with magic was the reality. He was sure of it.

"You'll want to meet her," said Dr. Jones.

"Sorry," said Henry, "I wasn't talking to you." Of course he said it like that. Now he really sounded crazy.

"I was talking to myself," he added, hoping this would convince Dr. Jones of his sanity. And then he realized that there was no way to make this sound normal.

"That's quite alright. Follow me." Dr. Jones held the door open for Henry.

Henry walked into the white hallway and followed

It wasn't just Dr. Jones and Henry walking through. A security guard was following them. A security guard who looked an awful lot like Robin Hood.

"Hi," said Henry, turning to the security guard, "what's your name."

"Jonathan Lynch," said the guard, surprised, "Nice to see you doing better Henry."

"Perhaps I should explain," added Dr. Jones, "We've done this walk before. But you weren't lucid at the time. Jonathan Lynch has been with us for a little over a year now."

"You used to mumble to yourself," said the guard, having not a touch of Robin Hood's accent, "like I said, glad to see you doing better."

"So who am I meeting?" Henry asked Dr. Jones.

"Ah, terribly sorry. Your mother – Regina Mills that is."

Henry lit up a little.

Then he reminded himself that this world wasn't real and it wouldn't really be his mom.

They walked to the end of the hallway, and Dr. Jones opened a door and they arrived in a large room with several tables. In the room were about twenty kids, presumably more patients. Quite a few of the faces looked familiar to Henry. Some were old classmates, a few were Lost Boys. Some of the kids were sitting at the tables, some were playing the games. One girl was sitting at a table muttering to herself.

And in the center of the room, sitting down in the clothes Henry remembered her wearing to City Council meetings was his mother.

Except it wasn't her. Henry was sure of this. He had decided that this world wasn't real, and he was sticking to that story. And he would tell whatever it was that looked so much like his mom as much.

Except he didn't want to hurt her feelings.

Henry paused to chuckle at the silliness of it all. "Regina" was either a figment of his imagination, a vision created by someone else, or someone masquerading as his mom. But he couldn't risk hurting her feelings.

So instead he ran up to his mom and hugged her. She hugged him back. Tight. It felt real. It felt so real.

Henry sat down on one side of the circular table; his mom sat on the other.

"Hi Henry," said Regina. She seemed different. She was less confident for one. Obviously she seemed very sad, but that was not surprising. But what did surprise Henry was how tired she seemed. And what surprised him most of all was that all of this rang true for Henry. Somehow, it seemed like his mom even though she was so different.

"Hey, mom," said Henry.

"It is so good to talk to you. Do you remember me coming by before?"

"No," admitted Henry. Why was he being so nervous? This wasn't real!

"That's okay," said his mom, "the doctors told me you might not remember. But I came. I tried to come once a week. Some weeks I couldn't come, and I felt terrible about it. I don't know if it was guilt or just me missing you."

"What was I like?" chanced Henry.

"Not good," said his mom slowly, "You weren't very responsive. Occasionally you'd hear me, but you didn't ever seem to answer. Mostly I'd just talk to you. You don't remember any of it?" She seemed worried.

"No," said Henry, "sorry."

"Well then," said his mom, "this isn't going to be easy. They haven't told you anything, about what's been going on with me have they?"

"They just told me you were here," said Henry.

His mom paused.

"There's no easy way of doing this," she said, "and I doubt that you have any amazing stories to tell me. I made some mistakes. After I had to send you here. I don't want you to think this was your fault, but I messed up Henry. After you left I was sad and I got…careless I suppose?

"To be honest, I think I never really handled Storybrooke well. I tried to run the town like I owned it. That wasn't even close to true. Mr. Albert West owns that town."

Henry interrupted.

"Who?" he asked.

"Albert West? Old guy, uses a cane?"

"Mr. Gold?" said Henry. His mom sighed.

"The doctors said," she explained, "that some of this might happen. Some names might have changed around. They said you should remember events correctly, but the names will have changed around. Henry, the man who ran the pawnshop, his name is Albert West."

"What about other names?" asked Henry, wondering what he could trust, "My teacher when I was last in Storybrooke?"

"Mary Margaret Blanchard," said his mom, "In your…stories, these are all fairy tale characters right? Who are Mr. West and Miss. Blanchard?"

"Mr. Gold – uh Mr. West is Rumpelstistkin," said Henry, "Miss. Blanchard – same name – is Snow White."

"If I'm the Evil Queen, that makes sense."

"But you're not," said Henry, "anymore I mean. You changed."

"It's nice to hear you thinking of me like that," said his mom, "but the truth is, I think you cast me right." She let that sentence hang in the air, "Like I was saying. I was able to manage the town for so long because I was careful, not to mention keeping good relations with Albert West. But the fact is, the way I ran Storybrooke was illegal.

"The things I did, I always did for the good of the town. Deals with Mr. West were the name of the game in Storybrooke. I got Sydney Patterson to write me favorable stories in The Daily Story to combat the influence of Mr. West, and hatchet jobs if I thought someone was hurting the town. Except I guess it got more about protecting my position than protecting my hometown.

"And like I said, I started to get sloppy. I'm being indicted on corruption charges. And I'm thinking about pleading guilty."

It was like the air had been sucked out of the room. For a second, it seemed like there was nobody else in the room.

In that moment, Henry could only remember when he was six and was scared that there was something under his bed. And there had been his mom, there to comfort him. She had been so strong for him then.

Henry could believe that she was corrupt, at least at some point as mayor. For a few years, he had been more scared of her than any monster under the bed. But he couldn't believe she was just giving up.

"I think," said his mom, as if she guessed what was on Henry's mind, "it's about being honest for once. I think with everything that happened with you – well I guess I started looking at my own life, my own failings as a mayor, and as a mother. And I think I need to be honest, not just with myself, but with the world, about it."

"What's going to happen to you?" asked Henry.

"If I plead guilty I'll go to state prison," said his mom, almost nonchalantly, "on a reduced sentence of course. How long is up to the judge."

Henry didn't know what to say.

"So tell me something," said his mom.

"What?"

His mom grinned.

"Your psychiatrist told me that he was Captain Hook," she said.

"Yeah," said Henry.

"You must have hated him," said his mom.

"Actually, Hook's pretty cool," said Henry.

"So was anybody else in this room in…that world?"

Henry looked around.

"That guard," he said pointing at the guard that had brought him in, "is Robin Hood. You and he were together," he added.

His mom looked at the guard who looked like Robin Hood.

"Okay," she said, "clearly your opinion of me got much better over the years."

Henry grinned at her, and looked around the room again.

One teenage kid stood out to him in particular: a boy playing Connect 4 against himself.

"That's Peter Pan," he said. His mom looked annoyed.

"I've learned to hate that story," she said.

"Why?" asked Henry.

"Peter Pan takes children off to a land where they get lost in a world of magic. Sound familiar?"

"You'd like my version," said Henry, "he was a villain. And my great-grandfather. On my father's side."

Up until that point, Henry's mom had managed to avoid looking at him like he was crazy, whether it just hadn't occurred to her, or she was making an effort not to do so. But the look on his mom's face made Henry burst out laughing.

And then his mom laughed too.