Emma could tell Henry was impatient to see his mother from the moment she picked him from school. His leg was bouncing up and down for most of the ride to the hospital. Still, when she parked the car she told him to wait before getting out.

"Look, I don't know what is going on with your mom, but I'm not going to stop until I find out. I had nothing to do with her getting attacked despite what she believes so I'm not her favorite person right now obviously," Emma said. "Even so, I'm not giving up. All I want is for her to be ok, but you are probably going to see us kind of like we were before. I don't want you to think that it means I don't care about your mom, because I do, and I hope she feels the same way about me. Until we clear this up though it's not gonna be pretty most likely. So our goal today is just to get her to come home with us."

"You really think she will go with us?"

"I think if she has to choose between staying in the hospital and going home, she will go home. Will my presence give her pause, most definitely, but I think in the end she will still prefer not to be here," Emma said. "Now remember what I said, don't choose sides, don't give her any reason to think you don't love her and support her unconditionally."

"I do love her and support her," Henry said.

"I know you do. She just can't see that right now," Emma said. "If she says anything to you that gives you pause or makes you think she doesn't love you, then you have to ignore it. That's not her. She's hurt right now and our job is to make her feel better in anyway we can, got it?'

"Got it."

"Alright, let's do this," she said, not feeling at all confident in this turning out well.

Emma let Henry go in by himself while she went to speak with Dr. Whale. When he entered the room, Regina was still lying facing away from the door.

"Mom." he said.

She turned and sat up in bed and looked like she wanted to say something but didn't.

"I brought you some clothes from home to change into," he said putting the bag he was carrying on the chair next to her bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Tired." She didn't point out that she had been lying there all day and after being sedated the night before she was plenty rested. That wasn't the kind of tired that now plagued her.

"Maybe you will sleep better at home."

"Where is Miss Swan?"

"Talking to the doctor."

"And I take it that she is my ride home?"

Henry nodded.

"I think I will stay here then."

"Mom."

"What Henry? What do you want me to say? She attacked me. I understand that you don't believe me, but that doesn't mean I have to give myself over willingly to whatever she has planned next for me."

"But I do believe you," Henry said. "I believe you."

"You do?" she asked, the skepticism.

"Yes."

"So, when I say Emma was the one who did this to me, you believe I am telling the truth?"

"I believe you are telling the truth," he said. "But I also believe Emma wouldn't hurt you. It doesn't mean I don't think something bad didn't happen to you because it did and I want to help you get better and help figure out who is behind this. I want things to go back to the way they were where we were all happy."

"I don't know that it is possible."

"Well I'm still going to hope that it is."

A part of her – a small part – wanted to be angry with him for not taking her side. But she couldn't. In a way he was still the young boy who had believed in fairy tales so much that he left to find his birth mother in order to break a curse.

The heart of the truest believer.

"I gather that your other mother is getting this ridiculous hold order she put me on canceled."

"Yes."

She huffed out a bit of air. "Fine, go wait outside while I change clothes."

He exited the room and she got out of bed for only the second time that day. She didn't feel secure on her feet, her head still hurting from whatever had gone wrong with her magic the night before. She probably could have complained to the nurse that she had a headache and gotten something for it, but instead she had ignored every nurse and Dr. Whale when they came into the room.

Grabbing the bag she quickly inspected it and knew immediately Emma had packed it. Not only were the clothes folded completely wrong, but Regina would not have chosen something as casual as a pair of jeans and T shirt to wear.

It was still better than a hospital gown so she went into the bathroom and changed. When she was finished and was putting her shoes while sitting in the chair there was a knock on the door and a moment later Dr. Whale entered along with Emma.

"Good afternoon Regina," he said. "After speaking with Sheriff Swan, we agree that it would be best if you continue your recuperation at home."

She almost rolled her eyes.

"However, I do have some concerns," Dr. Whale said. "Specifically, about whatever that was last night when you collapsed in here. Can you perhaps explain what that was about?"

Regina glanced at Emma and then back to him. "It was nothing."

"It was more than nothing," Dr. Whale said. "You were practically unconscious."

"Yet you sedated me anyway," she shot back.

Emma smiled, appreciating hearing some snark from Regina.

"Be that as it may, it is still cause for concern."

"I will revise my earlier statement, it's nothing for you to be concerned about nor is there anything you can do about it. I just need to rest is all," she said.

"Fine," he said. "Your discharge papers are at the desk out there."

"Thank you," she said, although another less polite thought went through her mind.

Once he left, Emma was still standing there, her hands in her back pockets, shifting her weight from foot to foot. Regina ignored her and put on her other shoe before standing and walking past her to the desk.

Getting the paperwork taken care of gave her a few extra moments to consider what she should do. Should she really let Emma take her home? She couldn't transport, not after last night, but the idea of being in a confined space with Emma was not ideal either.

She felt a cold chill as she turned to see Emma and Henry standing there waiting for her. Both had a similar look of expectation on their face.

The three of them stood there, and neither Emma nor Regina at least seemed to want to be the first to speak. Henry looked from one of his moms to the other.

"Maybe we should go," he said finally.

There was still a slight pause on both women's parts but finally Regina began walking. Emma put a hand on Henry's shoulder as they followed her out.

They got to the parking lot where Emma took the lead but as she reached the patrol car she had brought she noticed Regina had stopped several feet from it.

"Where is your car?" Regina asked.

"You don't really care for the bug so I thought I'd bring this," Emma said. She saw Regina was still reluctant to move toward it and she couldn't figure out why her bringing the patrol car would bother her. She really thought that Regina would prefer it over the bug.

"And where should I be sitting? In the back?"

"No," Emma said, realizing now what the issue was. "I'm not taking you to jail or anything, jesus Regina, I'm taking you home."

Regina seemed skeptical but she did finally go over to the passenger side and get in.

The whole ride to the mansion Regina kept quiet and kept her eyes looking out her window, not acknowledging Emma or Henry. Emma figured the short drive was probably not the best time to start broaching the subject of what the hell was going on. Small steps she kept thinking to herself, small steps.

Once they arrived Emma parked the car and hurried around to the other side to open the door for Regina. It wasn't the first time she had ever done this for Regina but it was the first time she didn't receive a thank you. Instead Regina walked right on by her up to the house.

"Oh, hold on," Emma said, and she rushed up and pulled out her keys and unlocked the door.

This time Regina did speak to her. "Why do you have the key to my house?"

Emma saw that look for fear in Regina's eyes once more and she knew she had to tread carefully. She took the house key off her ring and held it out to Regina. "I just had it because I didn't want to leave the house unlocked while there was no one here. Henry showed me where you kept the spare and that is all this is, your spare key."

Even though she was holding it out, Regina made no move to take it from her. Finally, Emma gripped it in her hand and simply opened the door for Regina to go in. Regina did so but in a way where she sort of slid sideways into it to so she could keep an eye on Emma.

Great, Emma thought, now she doesn't trust me enough to turn her back on me. She had already planned on beating the hell out whoever was doing this to Regina but now she wanted to take it slow so the person got to feel the terror that Regina must have felt.

Now they were standing in the foyer.

"Are you hungry or anything?" Emma asked. "They said you didn't really eat at the hospital."

Regina shook her head no.

Emma resisted sighing. Instead she turned to Henry. "How about it kid, you hungry?"

"Yeah."

"Ok, I'll go to Granny's, pick us some food and be back in a bit," she said, then focusing on Regina again. "I'll bring you back something too just in case you change your mind."

"You're coming back?" Regina asked.

"Yes, I thought maybe I'd stay here for a couple of days and you know make sure you are safe."

Regina took a step back as she considered this new information. Emma couldn't stand the look Regina was giving her which was part incredulous and part fear.

"We can talk more when I get back," Emma said.

Henry closed the door behind her, but when he turned back around to his other mother, she was no longer there. Knowing she couldn't be far he walked into the main room where she was now sitting on the couch looking like she was going to hyperventilate.

"Mom? Mom, are you ok?"

"Why is she staying here? What does she have planned for me?"

Henry came and sat beside her. "She isn't going to do anything to you," he said. "The only thing she has planned it to make sure nothing else happens to you. Just like me. I'm going to keep you safe too. These things keep happening when I'm not here so I'm going to stay here until we are sure no one else is going to hurt you."

Despite telling Emma just yesterday that she would leave the town, she couldn't help but feel a little better having Henry there with her.

"Thank you," she said. "All I need is you, my little prince."

He smiled at her. "It's been a while since you called me that."

"You'll always be my little prince," she said, putting her arm around him and giving him a hug.

"You really should eat something when Emma comes back," Henry said.

"You understand why I don't feel comfortable having her in my home, don't you?"

"Yeah, I get it," he said. "But I think you should talk to her about all of this stuff that's been going on. And if you still want her to leave after that, I will make sure she does. Do you think you can do that?"

She removed her arm from him and gripped her hands in front of her, staring at a point on the floor and no longer at him.

"I'll try."

"Thank you, mom."

When Emma returned, she was unsurprised that Regina had made herself scarce. She put the to go box with Regina's food in the fridge and sat at the table with Henry.

"I asked her to talk to you and she said she would try," Henry said.

"Thanks, but I'd rather she talked to me because she wanted to," Emma said, suddenly not feeling that hungry. "I just wish I could find some way to get through to her."

"You will."

They didn't say much else while eating and afterward Emma went in search of Regina. She needed to find out what was going on and her one clue was the one person who seemed to be afraid of her.

Finding Regina turned out to be harder than she expected. She looked all over the main floor before deciding she must be upstairs and probably in her bedroom. Emma slowed as she walked up the stairs, her mind thinking of showing up here to find Regina hanging. When she had first seen her, she thought the worse – thought Regina was dead. It was unfathomable to her in that moment that she could live in a world where Regina wasn't in it.

As she got up the stairs she headed to the bedroom at the end of the hall but stopped when she saw the guest room door was closed. Normally Regina kept it open "to keep it aired out." It was never closed.

Emma gently knocked on the door but heard nothing. Opening the door, she saw Regina curled up asleep on the bed.

Emma leaned against the door frame a moment. Maybe she wasn't the only one who didn't want to go back into the main bedroom.

Closing the door, she decided it was best to let Regina sleep and hope that when she woke she would be more amenable to being around her.

Regina was startled awake. It took her a moment to remember she had gone to lay on the bed in the guest room. She wasn't sure why she had woken so abruptly, but a continued feeling of dread had followed her from her sleep. Getting out of bed she looked out the window to see that it was dark outside. There was no clock in this room and she had no idea where her cellphone was – in her bedroom still she supposed.

Walking out of the room she glanced at her bedroom door but didn't go toward it, instead going down. All the lights were off she so guessed it must be late.

Deciding she was thirsty, she went straight to the kitchen. Turning on the light above the sink and grabbing a glass from the cupboard she was filling it up when the kitchen door opened. The glass slipped from her hand and she whirled around to find Emma there with a gun pointed at her.

"Jesus," Emma swore, lowering the gun. "I thought someone was in the house."

Regina was frozen in her spot, the water still running from the faucet behind her.

"Regina," Emma said coming forward. She put her gun on the counter and came right up to the other woman, touching her, only for Regina to flinch. "I'm sorry if I scared you. I didn't mean to."

"What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to stay here, make sure you were safe, remember?" Emma said. "That's why I had my gun out. I thought there was an intruder. I thought you were asleep upstairs so when I heard a noise in here."

Regina was shaking being in this close proximity to Emma so she moved quickly to put some distance between them. She saw Emma's shoulder sink a little as she stepped forward and turned off the water.

"I'm sorry," she said again. "I know things are … tense between us right now but you don't have to be afraid of me. I'm not going to hurt you. Please, we're both up now, will you talk to me?"

Even though her heart was beginning to slow down from the fright, Regina still didn't feel calm. She thought about Henry and how she had told him she would try.

She nodded slowly and indicated that they should take seats at the table. She waited for Emma to take a seat and then she cautiously chose the one across from her. She could have sat farther away but she wanted to keep an eye on Emma as well in case she did try something.

A part of her felt bad for even thinking it.

And up until the other night she would never have thought Emma was capable of hurting her.

"I don't want to sound all sheriffy but can you maybe start from the beginning and tell me what happened with that first attack."

"You already know, it was your parents after all."

Emma licked her lips, and tried not to argue with Regina off the bat. "Ok, it was my parents, alright, well let's say I have no idea what my parents did. Can you tell me?"

"What is the point? Are you getting some sort of thrill thinking of me telling you?"

So much for not getting angry, Emma thought. "Could you just tell me?" She said it a little more forcibly this time.

It started out slow and she halted several times in the telling but Regina finally began to tell her what happened from the moment she opened the door and saw Snow and Charming there. At times the descriptions were excruciating for Emma to hear but she forced herself to stay seated, stay calm, even though the anger felt like it would consume her.

When Regina got to the part where it was Emma who had attacked her, Emma couldn't take it anymore. She got up and stood behind the chair, gripping the top of it hard.

It took a long while for the full story to come out and even though it was nearing 4 a.m. Emma wasn't tired. Her emotions were too heightened right now to even think about sleep.

Finally, it was all out there and Emma had never felt the distance between her and Regina more.

She didn't even know what to say.

As silence spread throughout the minutes Regina finally stood up and without another word she left. Emma sat down and buried her head in her hands.