A/N: Okay so no flashbacks this chapter cause I forgot and I'm running low on ideas today. But to make up for it there is some Swan Queen moments, some Outlaw Queen moments, and lots of Regal Believer. Hope you enjoy this chapter.
Emma jumped out of bed the second she heard screaming coming from Henry's room. She immediately raced towards his room thinking that someone had broken in. When she arrived in his room she found he was alone, drenched in sweat, and thrashing around the bed. She raced over to him and tried to shake him in an effort to wake him up. She ended up making it worse, and causing Henry to tremble more.
She decided to try shaking him again but gentler this time. Still she got the same results. She turned on the lights to see him better, only to find several tear streaks coming down his face.
In desperation she tried shaking him once more, but this time the second her fingers made contact with his skin he let out a frantic scream.
"Please! Please don't hurt her!" Henry yelled at the crowd as he raced to stand in front of his tied up mother. They had all gathered to watch the Evil Queen finally die. Not a soul cared about her, they all wanted her dead. All except Henry of course.
"Henry please get away from her! You know who she is, who she will always be. She'll hurt you!" Emma yelled out. Henry knew he had once said the same thing, that he fully believed it. In fact, there was still a part of him that believed it, but he knew killing her wasn't the answer.
"No. She might hurt anyone else but I know she wouldn't hurt me. Yes she's the Evil Queen but she doesn't deserve this!" Henry yelled out but it felt like no one heard his pleas. He had spent so long trying to convince everyone that she truly was the Evil Queen, but now that everyone agreed, he wasn't sure he wanted them to.
"Tie the boy up too!" One man shouted as others followed in agreement. They started to crowd around him and trap him so he couldn't escape. He looked to Emma for help but the only thing she did was mouth the words 'I'm sorry'.
"No!" Another shout rang out, but this time it came from the Evil Queen herself. She felt desperate and helpless. She didn't care what they did to her so long as they didn't touch Henry. She tried to escape the ropes and chains so she could protect him but she couldn't break free.
"Relax, we'll let him go after you're dead." The man sneered as he grabbed Henry and began tying him up. Henry tried struggling against the man but he wasn't strong enough.
"Please don't hurt her, she's my-"Despite what has happened he still couldn't bring himself to admit it. He looked over to Regina and saw an unreadable expression painting her face.
He felt as if he were in a haze as they held a knife to his mother's throat. "Please don't! Please! This isn't the answer!" He shouted aimlessly at the crowd with tears pooling in his eyes. He watched as his mother dropped to the ground, no longer there to protect him, no longer there to fix everything.
Henry felt the hot tears running down his face. He couldn't hear anything around him. "She's my mother." He said to no one in particular. He felt the sobs take over as they untied him. He tried desperately to run to his mother's side but someone was pulling him away. As he was being dragged away he could see the tears on his mother's face.
"I'll just call Regina, she'll know what to do." She told herself as she frantically looked for her phone.
She finally found her phone on the nightstand beside her bed. She was about to call Regina, but it appeared Regina had already tried calling her 15 times within the past twenty minutes. She scrolled through her contacts but before she could find Regina's number, she got an incoming call from the former mayor.
"Hello?" Emma said as she answered the phone.
"Is Henry okay? The strange feeling is back." Regina immediately asked, sounding stressed as she did so.
Emma was a tiny bit jealous of Regina. Emma could tell Henry was distressed because she heard him screaming in the room next to hers, not because she got a strange feeling miles away. "I'm not sure." Emma hesitantly replied as she walked back into Henry's room.
"What do you mean you're not sure?" Regina said in a frustrated tone. She had been worried sick for the past hour.
"Well, he's having some sort of nightmare. He shaking, sweaty, and every time I touch him he jumps away or screams." Emma told her, a little afraid of what her reaction would be to hearing that she had made their son scream. After a moment of silence Emma checked her phone to find that Regina had hung up. Emma looked at her phone in confusion, she thought Regina would do anything for Henry.
Within seconds a cloud of purple smoke appeared in Henry's bedroom. Regina hadn't even bothered to acknowledge Emma's presence in the room as she looked at Henry. She took a step towards him then immediately stopped. She look at directly at Emma with desperation in her eyes. For a moment it took Emma off guard.
"May I…" Regina hesitantly asked, not able to ask if she could help Henry without her voice breaking.
It took Emma a moment to let it settle in that Regina was asking permission to go near her own son. She hadn't thought when Henry moved in with her that it would affect Regina like this. Emma gave a slight nod of her head in approval. She sadly smiled at the once fiery mayor. She didn't resemble that mayor at all right down, when Emma looked at Regina, the only thing she saw a mother who was lost without her child.
Regina immediately raced forward after getting Emma's permission to do so. She took one hand and placed it on Henry's forehead. He jumped back for a split second before leaning into her touch. Regina looked just as shocked as Emma was. Emma carefully watched as Regina's expression changed from one of shock to one of worry. She looked back at Henry to find that he was thrashing again.
Regina put her arms around him and placed her head on top of his. "Henry, it's okay. You're safe now. Everything's going to be fine." She whispered to him, it always worked when he was little. Upon hearing her words he stopped moving around so much. "I won't let anything hurt you, Henry." Henry began slowly waking up as he whimpered in fear. "Shhh, I once promised I would protect you and I intend to keep that promise." She told him as she held back tears of her own. "My little prince." She whispered as she closed her eyes. Henry woke up gasping for air and immediately jumped out of Regina's arms. He looked fearfully around the room. Regina stood up off the bed in case she was the cause of his fear, her heart breaking at the thought of Henry being afraid of her.
As soon as Henry laid eyes on Regina he jumped into her arms, holding on to her dear life. Regina was completely frozen with shocked this time, before he was asleep and didn't entirely know it was her, but now he was awake and knew exactly who she was.
"Henry, you know I'm not Emma right?" Regina asked him, a little afraid that once he knew this he would run into Emma's arms, leaving Regina behind. Emma looked sadly at Regina for a moment.
Did she really not think her own son wouldn't willingly give her a hug?
"I know." Henry replied, causing Regina to smile brighter than Emma had ever seen. Emma had a new understanding of Regina, she now knew why Regina didn't want her going anywhere near Henry when she first arrived in town. Regina didn't want Emma to take away her son, and whether Emma meant to or not, that's exactly what happened.
Regina wrapped her arms tightly around Henry as the shock wore off. She never wanted this moment to end. "Darling, do you want to talk about your dream?" She asked him gently, not wanting to do anything to push him away.
Henry got his tears under control before replying. "You were tied up, and-" Henry wiped away the tears. "and they were trying to kill you and I told them not to but they tied me up too." Regina unknowingly make a fist with her hands out of anger.
It's just a dream. She reminded herself.
Henry started sobbing and Regina assumed that it was because they had tied him up. "Then they killed you and they wouldn't let me say goodbye." He finished while sobbing louder as Regina pulled him closer.
"I won't let anyone hurt you Henry." She told him in her most determined voice.
"It's not me I'm worried about, what if someone hurts you?" Henry asked as he snuggled closer.
Regina felt relief flood through her when she realized her son still cared about her, a little bit at least. She let the tears of happiness run down her face as she comforted her son.
No.
Regina let the loneliness consume her yet again. She couldn't let herself be tricked.
He's just scared and confused. He doesn't understand what he feels about me and so this is his way of working through it. She told herself, this time letting new tears cover her face.
"I'm fine darling, you don't need to worry about me." Regina said in her usual emotionless tone. She wanted to tell him how much it meant to her that he still cared, but she couldn't let herself get hurt.
After Henry had fallen asleep, Regina joined Emma in the living room. Emma had left after Henry calmed down to give them some privacy.
"Am I a bad mother?" Emma asked Regina while staring at the ground.
"What?" Regina asked, clearly confused as to why Emma thought this when it was her that Henry wanted to be with.
"I couldn't even figure out what to do when he had a nightmare and you walked in and fixed everything. The second he woke up, it was you he wanted." Emma told her, thinking it was a compliment.
"Relax, this is just temporary. He was scared and wanted something or someone familiar. He will wake up tomorrow morning and everything will go back to the way it was. He will realize it was never really me he wanted, that he had actually wanted you." Regina said as she held back the tears. She actually believed what she had said. She couldn't bear to face Henry's rejection and this was her way of protecting herself.
"Oh, Regina. That's not was I meant I-" She stopped herself from continuing when Regina disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke.
Regina laid in bed and sobbed until she couldn't tell the difference between her sobs and the silence. She let the pain surround her as she closed herself off to the possibility of happiness.
Why do I do this to myself? Why can't I let myself be happy?
She let another sob take control of her as she thought that if she was right, Henry wouldn't want anything to do with her once he woke up.
Just then she heard a knock coming from the front door. She quickly used magic to clear away her tears and get dressed into something more regal than silk pajamas. She couldn't let anyone see her like this.
She swung the door open expecting to find Emma but instead found a stranger on her front porch.
"Excuse me, do I know you?" Regina used all her sadness to make the coldest voice she possibly could at that moment.
"No, but I know you. I'm a friend of Emma's, I watched the videos of you and Henry with her. My name is Robin Locksley." He told her, unfazed by her tough exterior.
"Why are you here? And why exactly did Emma think it was okay to share my history with a complete stranger?" Regina harshly said, this time with her mask and walls fully up. This man had already seen too far behind her walls, and she wasn't going to let him see anymore of her vulnerability.
"Emma wanted someone else to be there to help her decide if it would be safe to let Henry see you. I'm here because Emma was telling me about earlier tonight and I thought you might want someone to talk to." Robin told her with a smile she found herself secretly admiring.
"So Emma sent you." Regina scoffed, she wasn't a child that needed looking after.
"Not at all. In all honesty I begged her to give me your address. She doesn't know I'm here right now, I promised her I wouldn't bother you tonight." Robin told her as he stepped inside the house.
"I don't remember inviting you inside." Regina said as she gave him a cold stare.
"And I don't remember you greeting me politely, so I assumed courteous rules didn't apply to you." Robin told her with a smirk.
"I thought you told Miss Swan you weren't going to bother me tonight." Regina said as she rolled her eyes at his last remark.
"I'm not bothering you, I'm annoying you. There's a difference." Robin said, earning him a hidden smirk from Regina.
"So you're just here to annoy me then?" Regina sassily asked him while rolling her eyes again.
"No, I'm here to see if you want to talk about what happened with your prince." Robin said, causing Regina to give him a confused look before realizing he had seen the videos.
"No I would not like to talk about my- Henry with a complete stranger." Regina told him with a little anger in her voice.
"Why do you do that? He is still your son, Regina." Robin asked her.
"Really? Because it certainly doesn't feel like it." Regina said, this time with fire as she looked straight into his ice blue eyes. Robin could so clearly see the broken woman behind the mask in that moment.
"I know it's hard. If my son didn't want to see me I would be lost. But Regina I saw how he looked at you in those videos. He does love you." Robin told her with an intense look in his eyes.
"Yes, exactly. Looked, as in past tense. Now he doesn't want anything to do with me." Regina told him, her voice breaking as she did so.
"Regina-" He was cut off by Regina.
"Please leave." She told him, staring into his eyes, begging him to understand.
After a moment of hesitance he responded. "Okay. I'll respect your boundaries, but I'll be back." He told her as he headed for the door.
Regina let tears fall faster down her face as the front door shut.
A/N: Please tell me what you think! I love hearing all your reviews they are what make me write some days. So I have decided for now I'm going to do a mix of Outlaw Queen and Swan Queen and see which one feels right with the story. Hope you liked this chapter!