A lot could happen in just two short weeks in the life of Emma Swan, and Regina was beginning to find that it wasn't at all a burden to be the one keeping up with it. Following the positive results of the blood test and Henry's discovery of the news, Emma had informed Regina that she had decided against giving birth within the limits of Storybrooke. There were a number of reasons for this, but mostly Emma simply didn't want Whale anywhere near her or to share the same doctor during childbirth as her mother. Regina did point out that there were likely other qualified persons in Storybrooke to help, but Emma was determined, and agreed only to the compromise of choosing a hospital a little more than half an hour away. In the case of an emergency, it would still be relatively difficult to get to in a timely manner, but for now Regina focused on knowing that Emma was at least making headway with her planning.
The newer changes in Emma were extremely subtle but nonetheless important as far as Regina was concerned. Emma had returned to work where she continued share sheriff duties with David, and they had finally nailed down a schedule for where Henry slept and when. Despite Emma's reentrance in to society, there were some who recognized that she was still withdrawn and couldn't let it go. Snow and David had not only noticed just how closed off Emma could now be at times, they had also begun to notice Regina and Henry's instinctive protectiveness over her.
Sitting at the counter in Granny's with a fresh coffee in hand, Regina was enjoying the first few minutes of peace awarded to her that day. A Saturday morning full of meetings had very nearly bored her to death, which would have been tiresome enough if not for the visit she had gotten from Snow in her office first thing that morning. As with most of their conversations lately, it had been about Emma, and Regina's now blatant refusal to give in to Snow's pleading for information. Emma was back at work and functioning; that should be enough for the woman.
Just as Regina raised her coffee to her lips, the sight of her son hurriedly wrenching the door to the diner open gave her the feeling that her few moments of serenity were about to be shattered. Thinking about how her meeting with Snow had ended that day, with the other woman storming out in frustration, Regina could guess what Henry might be there to tell her about.
"I messed up," he said, nervously coming to a stop right next to Regina, lowering his voice so that no one around them would here. 'I accidentally told grandma the thing that I wasn't supposed to,' he said.
Catching sight of Ruby hovering only ten or so feet away, Regina followed along with Henry's avoidance of the topic itself. "I'm sorry, Henry, she shouldn't have dragged you in to this," she said, pushing her coffee away from her carefully.
Still, Henry seemed unnerved as he hastily shook his head. "No. Grandpa called me and asked if I had seen Mom. They talked to her about all of this, they had a fight and she drove off. They can't find her, but I thought maybe we could. She'll want to see us, right?"
In one fluid motion, Regina rose from her seat and swung her coat back on, already heading for the door. "Let's hope so," she muttered under breath as she led Henry out of the diner and out to the parked Mercedes in the street.
Knowing Emma quite well, Regina was confident that the blonde wouldn't have driven off to somewhere public if her intent was to avoid being found by her parents. Regina first drove by the docks and then down the winding roads of the woods, she and Henry keeping a sharp eye out of the distinct yellow contraption that Emma called a car. Regina was running low on ideas when Henry came up with one of his own.
"What if she went back to the house? Your house, I mean," he said from the passenger seat, his eyes still scanning their surroundings through the windshield before meeting Regina's gaze briefly. 'You're her best friend, Mom. If she didn't want to be alone maybe she went looking for her friend,' he rationalized.
Secretly, Regina thought that Henry was overestimating how much she meant to his other mother but with no other options to consider, Regina made the necessary turns toward her own house. In spite of Regina's reservations, though, it was impossible to miss the bright yellow bug where it was parked in front of Regina's house and on the porch sat the lonely figure of Emma Swan. Physically, Emma looked fine as Regina and Henry hastily exited the Mercedes once Regina had parked in the driveway. The blonde was sat on the stop of the porch, knees brought up to her chest and arms wrapped around them tightly. It was obvious that Emma hadn't expected to be out in the cold much, as she wore one of her long sleeved shirts with no jacket and was sans beanie in the blustery weather.
As Regina and Henry drew closer, Emma smiled tiredly at them. "Hey."
"You could have gone inside, the house isn't empty. Robin is here," Regina said, watching Emma stand.
Ruffling Henry's hair distractedly, Emma muttered, "I know."
To escape the biting wind, the three of them quickly made they way to the front door and in to the house. Regina didn't quite have it in her to chastise Emma for the number of loose leaves that were stuck to the bottom of her boots, faced with the blonde's sour expression it left Regina with little else to do but remember her concern for the woman. The living room carpet could wait, Regina wasn't so sure that Emma could.
"Do you need anything to drink?" Henry asked, hovering by Emma's elbow as she dropped on to the couch unceremoniously.
"Got any cider?" Emma replied, smirking knowingly in Regina's direction, though there was no seriousness in her tone.
With a roll of his eyes, Henry stepped away from the couch. "Cocoa it is," he chuckled on his way out to the kitchen, leaving Emma and Regina alone, now both seated next to one another.
Immediately, Emma appeared apologetic. "I'm sorry, I just didn't know where else to go. You're the only one that really gets how they are," she said quietly.
Regina couldn't help but laugh because she truly did know just how much Snow and David could grate against one's nerves at times. "I'm glad you decided to come here, though I do wish you hadn't sat out in the cold the entire time," she said, nodding toward the thin material that covered Emma's torso.
Glancing down at herself, Emma merely shrugged uncaringly. "I didn't have time to grab one. They were being so…them," she said for lack of a better word, her jaw clenching with frustration.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Regina queried carefully, not wanting to push Emma when she had evidently been pushed far enough that day already. In truth, it looked as thought the last thing Emma wanted to do in that moment was talk about anything at all. She was slumped back in the couch, her brow furrowed with a constant scowl while the fingers of her right hand tapped the arm of the couch repeatedly. Running her left hand through her hair, Emma quickly glanced over to the doorway to check if Henry was there listening, though Regina could clearly hear him in the kitchen where he was likely making a mess in his attempts to make cocoa for his mother.
"I just wish they would give me some time," the blonde admitted, speaking more softly now, as though wanting such a thing was shameful and yet to Regina it felt perfectly understandable.
Before she could speak, Regina's heart dropped at the sound of her front door opening once again, accompanied by footsteps. There was a very short list of people that would ever dare not to knock and simply barge in to Regina's house, and all of them were already in it. Emma, too, immediately knew who it was that had come barging in and she shared an exasperated look with Regina. Of course in a town this small with not many places to hide it was inevitable that the Charmings would eventually find their way to Regina's house. When Snow and David entered the living room they did so warily, as if expecting to have something thrown at them for their troubles. Regina and Emma didn't move, leaving the Charmings to slowly make their way around the couch until they stood by the fireplace, expressions a combination of concerned and confused.
After taking a moment to assess Emma, Snow let out a relieved breath. "Emma, we're sorry. We didn't mean to upset you, we've just been so worried these past few weeks and we want to help," she implored, so that her apology was lost in amongst a silent request for Emma to open up.
To back up his wife, David added, "You don't have to push away the people that love you."
His attempt at fatherly wisdom washed over Emma, and Regina watched as the blonde looked from one parent to the next, sizing them up before speaking. "I haven't pushed everyone I love away. The people that love me should be more understanding of what I need. They shouldn't use their own grandson for their own gain," she replied evenly, her expression dangerously impassive.
Shooting a glance in Regina's direction, Snow pressed her lips together in a sad sort of smile. "I'm sorry, Emma, truly. If we'd known what you were really going through we would have done whatever we could to help make things easier for you. You don't have to do this on your own," she said.
"She hasn't been alone," Henry said from the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, the hot cocoa evidently forgotten in the kitchen. 'She's had Mom,' he added with a deft nod in Regina's direction.
Evidently, this wasn't news that Henry had brought up during his earlier interrogation nor a revelation that Emma had brought up during her argument with Snow and David as their eyebrows rose in surprised unison. If Regina wasn't hurt or offended by the looks on confusion on their faces, then she most certain was hurt by the next words that came out of Snow's mouth.
"You told Regina before us?"
It was a simple enough question and perhaps Regina's internal reaction was unwarranted, but she couldn't help the stinging that the disbelieving tone had inflicted upon her. She and Snow were friends now, and perhaps it was a little strange that Emma had trusted Regina with her secret this long, but Regina hadn't thought that Snow would look so dumbfounded at the idea. It felt as though Regina wasn't worthy, and didn't deserve to be let in on the secret.
"Mom guessed," Henry pointed out from behind Regina, not that she looked up, she was far too busy smoothing out the invisible wrinkles in her dress to avoid anyone being able to detect that she had been upset by Snow's words.
David raised another eyebrow, "You guessed?" he asked, and though Regina wasn't looking, it was obvious that the question wasn't for her.
Thankfully, though, Henry had her back. "She noticed when no one else did and has been there for Mom ever since. You guys haven't stopped pushing and asking questions since we got back from the Underworld. First, you left Mom all alone in the house because you thought that's what she wanted. You abandoned her, and now you're mad because someone else was there for her when you didn't want to be," he said, his voice rising with every word so that by the time he's finished it's in a shout.
Neither Regina nor Emma chastised him for raising his voice to his grandparents, not now, and they probably won't later. Glancing up at the teenager it was easy to see the pent up anger that he felt, and rightfully so. Henry had every right to voice his feelings, and every right to stand up for his mother, whichever one that might be.
"What's going on?" a new, slightly irritated voice asked in a hush from the same doorway that Henry had just vacated during his shouting as he had moved to stand behind his mothers in support.
At the sound of Robin's voice, Emma immediately rose to her feet. "Emma, where are you going?" David sighed as his daughter began to make her way back around the couch so that she could leave.
"Sorry for the trouble Regina," Emma murmured, ignoring David's question and keep her eyes glued to the floor as she moved.
Casting another angry look at his grandparents, Henry was quick to follow. "I'll go with you," he told her, so that she slowed up only enough to put an arm around his shoulders and march out of the living room past a clearly confused Robin in the process.
Only once Regina heard the front door shut in such a way that Regina could tell exactly which one of the duo had slammed it did she round on the Charmings still standing in her living room. "Need I remind you that this is my house? We might be friendly now but that does not give you the right to barge in here with your misguided parental nonsense, nor does it give you the right to press my son for information on his mother's private affairs," she hissed, her voice firm as she glared from one idiot to the other.
"She's our daughter, Regina, we were scared. We shouldn't have talked to Henry, I know that but can't you understand that we felt so helpless these last weeks watching Emma isolate herself and then force herself through motions when she is in public?" Snow practically whined, willing Regina to comprehend what she was saying.
Regina shook her head. "Emma needs your support right now, not your meddling. If she wants you to be involved in this then you will be but it is her choice, this is happening to her. If you know what's good for you, you'll let her do this her way and give her the time she needs," she said, relaying Emma's actual desire to her parents with a bit more force than Emma might have done.
The Charmings appeared rightfully guilty, shamefully dipped their heads. "You're right. Emma will come to us when she's ready, and until then we shouldn't push so hard," David agreed.
Beside him, Snow nodded in affirmation. "Thank you, Regina. Henry had a point, you've been there when no one else has been and you cared enough to notice she was pregnant in the first place. Thank you for taking care of her," she said.
"Emma can take care of herself, I've only been here to support her," Regina amended strongly, against the very idea that the pigheaded Emma she knew required another person to care for her in any capacity.
With a murmured apology full of genuine remorse, the Charmings took their leave much quieter than Emma and Henry had done. Once they were gone, and the drama with them, Regina let out a long breath that immediately caught in her throat when she realized that Robin was still standing there watching her with an expectant expression.
"Emma's pregnant?" he asked, clearly confused by the conversation that he had just witnessed unfold. Seeing as Snow has just given away the secret anyway, Regina stiffly nodded. 'You didn't tell me,' Robin continued, as though mildly surprised that this was the case.
"Emma asked me not to," Regina shrugged tiredly, internally debating whether or not she should go to Emma and Henry now to check on them. At the very least she was going to call Henry, lest his mother still be driving and therefore unable to answer.
Leaning casually in the doorway, Robin nodded calmly, his relaxed demeanor in stark contrast to how tense Regina felt in that moment. "Well, your lengthy stays out of the house make a lot more sense now," he reasoned, his tone light but there was something off about it that made Regina wonder if he was truly upset that she had not included him in this.
With all of the talk about Emma's pregnancy, Regina really shouldn't have found it so easy to forget that there was already a baby in the house but she was quickly reminded when she heard the sound of faint cries echoing down from upstairs.
"You should go," Regina told Robin, gesturing toward the sound of the cries while she fished her phone out of the inside of her coat she had failed to remove when she had arrived with Emma and Henry. 'I'll be right up in just a minute,' she added with a smile in Robin's direction when she realized that her words sounded an awful lot like a dismissal.
"You're going to call her?" Robin said, phrasing the statement as a question though it was obvious that he already knew the answer.
Pausing with phone in hand, Regina had the overwhelming feeling that she was doing something wrong. But to call her friend, and her son, who had both just left her house extremely upset was natural. It was safe and responsible to want to check on their wellbeing when no one else would.
"I owe it to her to be a good friend," Regina found herself saying, the truth ringing loudly in her words. After years of good and bad decisions, and more near catastrophic events than either cared to remember, both Regina and Emma owed it to each other to be there for the other. They had saved each other time and time again, had raised a son and defeated a cluster of undefeatable enemies.
Faced with this reality, Robin could do nothing more than press his lips together and head upstairs to his daughter with a fainthearted, "I'll see you soon."
Robin's dejectedness would have to be addressed, and Regina would endeavor to do right by him just as soon as she knew Emma and Henry were safe. Though truly, she needn't have worried so much about them as they were concerned for her. When Regina had to settle for sending a text after neither answered their phone, asking if they were alright, the answer Regina received from Emma was simple. Are you?