Again, my many, many thanks to everyone who has read, reviewed, followed, and faved. In this bleak life of mine, you bring happiness, and you guys have no idea how much I appreciate every kind word, every fave, every follow, every read.

Enjoy!

Unbeta-ed, so please ignore the plethora of mistakes. Apologies.


Seven

She sees it the moment everything falls into its rightful places and he makes the connection, sees the puzzle in all its glory—completed and put together.

Somehow, it takes her by surprise.

It has been eleven years, yet he still manages to take her by surprise.

He shouldn't be able to do that, she'd told herself over and over that time had passed and there is nothing there anymore, but that isn't entirely true, no, and now she is hit by the realization that there is something there, there always have been.

She can't tell for sure what prompted her reaction upon seeing him staring at her son, how she had gasped and her eyes widened almost comically. He must know by now. There is no hiding it, and there was never really any chance to from the beginning. And it eats at her, gnaws at her being as she makes her way to the mill, to meet her father and give him a chance to meet his grandson for the very first time.

Beside her, Henry sits quietly, oblivious to everything as he looks out the window and peers through the sceneries. She is nervous, so nervous that she's gripping the steering wheel so hard that her knuckles turn white. When she pulls the car over to a stop in front of her father's office, she's already shaking.

"Mom?" her sweet boy asks, and she can never describe to him how wonderful it is to hear him call her that, as short as it had been since they had found each other. "Are you okay?"

Her lips tighten into a line and she gives him a stiff nod. She schools her face into something akin to being alright, and turns to smile at him. "I'm fine, sweetheart," she lies. She's not alright, not at all, but he doesn't need to know that. "Let's go meet your grandpa, hmm?"

Henry's smile is enough brighten up her spirits and chase away some of her anxiety. He nods eagerly and takes his seatbelt off, throwing the door of her Mercedes open as gently as an excited ten year old can, and shuts it close again. She laughs as she spies him waiting for her to gather the food from the backseat and lock the car, so they can go meet her daddy.

Both Henry's had been excited for this for a while now. It had taken her a few weeks to have Henry settled enough to meet family members. And although Henry Sr. had been more than excited to meet his grandson (the effect if which had been that he has barely talked to his wife out of sheer frustration and anger), he'd waited until the little boy is ready.

And Regina thinks that he is now. Perhaps, even more so. She thinks they would get along well. Actually, she expects they would. Her father has a way with children.

But as far as her expectations are, this isn't quite a part of it—the moment when the two Henrys of her life finally meet, one shy but eager, and the other excited and tearful. She finds herself tearing up at the sight of them, too, feels her heart clench and expand inside of her chest as the two of them bridge what little distance there is between them, and her father crouches to hug the young boy, his very own grandson.

It is such an emotional scene that Regina's heart breaks and mends simultaneously at the sight of it.

"Oh Darling, he's precious," her father whispers on her ear as her son helps prepare their lunch for them on the table.

Regina, choked up with her tears, couldn't do anything but nod her agreement. Yes, her boy is precious.

"Does he know?" her father asks then, and she whips her head around sharply, staring at her father in surprise and in guilt. She shakes her head mutely, she hasn't told him in many words, after all—and her father pats her shoulder sympathetically. "You used to be able to tell him everything, Regina."

That is true, she used to. "Yeah, before all the disaster that had happened between us and their family," she reminds her father gently.

It was all in the past now. What she used to be and what he used to be to her are long gone, replaced by mistakes and the regrets over decisions they hadn't been able to make.

Her father sighs softly. "You'll have to tell him, it's his son too. He has the right to know."

If he doesn't already, is all Regina could think of.

Robin watches them leave the diner, with Regina all but shoving the boy out the door in the gentlest way that is possible. It seems that there isn't much to say about her reaction and how now things seem to come together and fall apart in his mind all at the same time.

It makes him angry.

It's hard not to be angry at the situation.

And at her.

It's hard not to be angry at her from keeping this from him. Though even he would admit to himself that he's not entirely too sure just how true his thoughts are. He wonders if he thinks that way because deep inside, it's what he wants, and he's only angry now because he's not sure if it's the truth. Well, that, and that he knows Regina, knows that this isn't something impulsive and she's a woman of reason-well, perhaps, except when she can't really explain it.

It makes him frustrated.

That boy...really, he could be anyone. He could be just some random child that Regina's decided to share her home to. Or maybe, it isn't even that complicated and he's just a nephew or a relative, though Robin is pretty sure that he's met almost everyone of Regina's family-those that they are close enough to matter, anyway-having dated her for so long, and he knows that none of them had a son when he and Regina had been together.

He reminds himself that it had been such a long time ago anyway, and that so many things can happen in eleven years, and he can't be entirely sure. For all he knows, the boy could be a son of her friend from college that she'd agreed to babysit meanwhile. And that's the thing, he can't be sure.

Because, the thing is, he and Regina did have a boy. They had a son, a boy who would be of the same age had he lived. And this boy that Regina's been spotted around town with-he's very much alive. So, suffice it to say, it frustrated Robin to no end that he can't really make sense of any of this.

He wonders briefly if it's only his desire to see his son with Regina, for him—Henry—to still be alive that has him thinking like this and feeding this delusion, clouding his judgment. He's fully aware of the reality that their son is dead—Regina's told him so—and so whatever theory his whacky brain had concocted is nothing but that—just a whacky theory, an enticing fallacy that will break his heart in two when he comes down from the high and realize that it's really nothing but false hope and delusion. Yet, his stubborn holds on to that hope, lets him live in the fantasy that maybe, just maybe his son is alive.

He knows he shouldn't care—Regina had made clear of what she feels is right (though not of what she wants)—and really it's been eleven years, holding on just hurts more now than moving on and letting go.

But that's just it—he can't fucking move on, can't fucking let go.

He tries to tamp down the frustration, tells himself over and over and over and over that her business isn't his to care about anymore, hasn't been for more than eleven years now, until he almost actually believes in it. Well, at least until he's heard what the boy's name is, and then he can no longer say that this is not really his business anymore.

Because when he's heard that the boy's name is Henry, he feels like it's just too much of a coincidence, and that coincidences like that—they don't grow on trees, waiting for someone to walk across them. And suddenly, his delusion, his whacky theory no longer feels all that whacky.

Regina watches her son as he pores over at almost every picture Mama Odie shows him, giggling at the stories behind them. Henry Sr. himself had told Henry Jr. about the things his mother had gotten up to back in the day earlier when they visited him, but Mama Odie is a gifted story teller, with a very sharp memory, and she remembers some of the memories in a way that Regina or even Henry no longer do—in great detail, and she manages to regale the stories with candor and enthusiasm that has Henry asking for more.

Regina is lucky enough that the photos of her and Henry's father had been tucked away neatly in a box stored at the back of her closet all these years. Though a majority of the stories Mama Odie has told (and the majority of Regina's life, to be honest) includes Robin in a way, Mama Odie has told it in a way that downplays Robin's part in them. It might not be the best and smartest thing they all could do, but there are questions that Regina just isn't willing to deal with at the moment.

And thoughts she's just not willing to entertain right now.

Though, she supposes there isn't really much to worry about. Surely it would be easy to just tell her son who his father is, or tell the father about him—it isn't like Robin has not been frothing at the mouth to meet their son. The only thing that hinders her is the fact that she had told him, quite clearly that their son is supposedly dead. What are the chances that she'd find the said son and suddenly, he's not so dead anymore, and she's even able to bring him home?

She doubts that that would go over well, to be honest.

Not to mention the fact that things will change when both father and son eventually find out that they are father and son and they'd meet…Regina can't say she's prepared for that moment, and isn't totally sure she is ready for the effect of that not only to her emotions and heart, but also her life.

All the times she'd wished and dreamt of that particular moment—of Robin and Henry together—only it had been under different circumstances: like maybe she and Robin had never been forced apart, and that she'd never had to give Henry up unknowingly and made to believe that her son was dead, and maybe Roland would be hers and Robin's, not his and Marian's, and maybe they would be on their way to baby number three-a girl this time. They would probably be living in that house by the forest, and she'd not suffer from the heartbreak of wondering how all that would feel if all of that was her reality and not just something she would imagine and had tucked at the back of her brain, to bring out and look at when she feels particularly masochistic and wants to stare heartbreak in the eyes.

So maybe she'll not have the house, or the baby girl, or Robin and Roland, but she does have Henry and that's good enough. Her son is good enough, and there is no need to wish for so many other things. And when she looks at Henry and he smiles up at her with adoration and wonder, happiness and amazement, she almost believes it.

Robin paces back and forth behind his parked car, right on Mifflin Street, fists clenched, eyes looking up from time to time to glare at the house on the 108th. She is home, and to absolutely no surprise to him either. It's a Saturday, and he's been in the same town as her long enough to know that she rarely ever works on a Saturday. And he's willing to be his house that she's even less inclined to work on the weekends these days considering she now has a young boy following her around00a boy he's almost too sure is the same boy he's been duly informed has been dead since birth.

Which is why he's even here at all (fuming and glaring at her house as if it had personally offended him)—because of the thought that she might have lied to him about their son. She had told him, had said it right in face that Henry—their son—is dead, has been dead before he even drew his first breath, yet here she is, with a boy which looks exactly like him, with the same name their boy had apparently been named. And yes, it might be nothing but a coincidence that all these things add up to produce a completely incorrect and irrelevant answer, but somehow there is a feeling in his gut telling him that when he added up 2 and 2 and ended up with a 4.5, he's not actually that far off the mark.

His anger builds at every thought, and then he suddenly feels like ripping that door open and shaking her, demanding for a reason—a good fucking reason that prompted her to lie to him.

It makes him furious beyond belief, but he tries to remind himself once more that Regina is a woman of reason, of calculation and rational thoughts. She never does things without thinking it over, and almost always over thinking. So whatever this mess up is, whatever the situation might be, she has a reason behind it—it's yet to be determined whether or not he'd like the reason.

He calms himself a little with that thought. He tries to even his breathing, inhaling deeply and exhaling loudly, slowly but surely unclenching his tight fists before he closes his eyes and tells himself that if he lets his anger rule over, neither of them would get anything accomplished and he will only succeed in backing Regina into a corner and raising her shackles up, making her hide behind the shell she uses to keep people out and to keep herself and her emotions locked in. And honestly, he doesn't want that, not now, because the only person who could even answer the questions he has is her.

And so he gives himself a few more minutes before he makes his way up her driveway and onto her porch steps, raising his fist and knocking on her door. It's silent, as it usually is in Storybrooke, and it's late—the sun is just about to set—and Robin's not entirely sure that this is the time for this, but then he asks himself if there really is ever a time for this…is there?

Suddenly, the door opens and a boy comes peeking out, looking up at him with wonder in his eyes. Behind the half closed door, he hears some commotion, and then Regina saying something like, "Let me or Mama Odie…" which tapers right off when she gets to the door and finds him there, staring at Henry (he finds himself doubting less and less that this boy is theirs as he watches the expression on the boy's face which looks entirely like Regina's). Robin could only imagine his expression and it's probably simply odd.

"Robin," she breathes out, as though winded.

He pulls his gaze away from the boy momentarily to shift his eyes on her. She looks like she just saw a ghost, like a deer caught in headlight, and Robin would laugh at her absolutely adorable expression if only they were the same people they were 11 years ago, if only they were not in this situation right now. A sinking feeling dawns on him—he's now sure, cannot possibly be wrong about this now, and he feels anger bubbling inside him again, all his efforts at calming himself down going down the drain, even as he tells himself that he does not want to and should not be showing that to their son.

"Regina," he mutters, a greeting, a warning, at this point it doesn't even really matter anymore. His tone is curt, and he looks at her unblinkingly—anger pure and unbridled in his eyes.

"Mom?" Henry pipes out, alarm coloring his tone, and it's like arrows shooting through Robin's heart as that one word rings out in his ear and does it.

That does it.

"Mom," her son almost squeaks, and Regina can feel the fear coming out of him in waves. Robin is technically still a stranger and his tone isn't doing much to convince their son that he's not a threat. Henry, as young as he is, is a perceptive young boy, and it gets him on alert mode when someone is emitting the same vibe that Robin is now.

Panic.

Panic registers to her, though a tad bit belatedly, and it intensifies when Robin's eyes widen at the simple three letter word uttered by one little boy. He shifts his gaze from her to their son—which she is sure that he's certain without a question is their son—and she opens her mouth to speak, willing herself to find the words to attempt to explain this, but none come out. She opens her mouth again, only to close it three seconds later.

"Mom?" Henry repeats, tugging on her blouse.

She snaps out of it then, and seemingly so does Robin, and she tries to ground herself to the present, turning to her son with a soft, reassuring smile.

"Why don't you go and see if Mama Odie's finished with the brownies," she tells him, trying to get him out of earshot for what was about to come next.

Henry beams and nods, running back inside the house towards the kitchen where Mama Odie is. Regina stares after him, trying to stall some more, just so she could calm her nerves down. She knows Robin would be furious, knows he has the right to be, she's just not sure she's ready to face him just yet…

"Regina," he growls, making her turn and stare at him wide-eyed. His fists are clenched at his sides and his brows are furrowed, his nostrils flaring at every breath.

Regina chews on her bottom lip anxiously for a second, trying to find a way to calm him. It isn't like she's done something terribly wrong…okay, so she might have neglected to tell him that their son might not be dead after all after he'd showed up in her house and claimed that he's hers, but then she still had to verify the fact, and after that, the process had been a little slow on her part. When she had confirmed the veracity of Henry's claims, it had been a good time to tell Robin then, but both her and Henry had been settling and adjusting to their new life together as each other's family…and there had barely been a time to go to Robin and tell him.

Of course, it had nothing to do with her cowardice or downright refusal to face the reality of Robin knowing that their son is alive, too. Of course it has nothing to do with that at all.

Regina feels Robin grip her elbow firmly, not enough to hurt but enough that it has her stopping her thoughts to glance up at him with trepidation. And maybe a tad bit of fear. She isn't entirely sure how to handle a very angry Robin now, or this situation. Had it been years ago, she might have just gotten into her tiptoes and kissed him silly and have his blood roaring in a downward direction.

"Regina," he repeats, voice low and eyes glinting. Holy Mother, he is really mad. She would be scared of him if only she didn't know him as well she does. "We need to—," he begins, but she knows, she already knows.

She cuts him off there. "I know," she says, pulling her arm and grabbing his hand in hers instead. She pulls him to her backyard, away from Henry's little ears and Mama Odie's prying eyes (though Regina is convinced that her beloved Nanny has eyes and ears at the backs of her head).

She leads him to the more secluded part, just away from the driveway but still within the house's view. She lets go of him then in there and turns away as she grapples her brain for some sort of an explanation.

"Why the fuck did you lie to me Regina?" he demands, blowing his tops off, before she can even begin to form a coherent string of thought. She's half scared that he would alert Henry and Mama Odie all the way from the house with the volume of his voice—and she doesn't even want to think about her neighbors who might hear (who are already probably gossiping about the fact that Robin's car is parked outside her house—she fucking hates this town).

She looks up at him, then, feeling slightly offended (or maybe hurt—though she's not willing to admit that to him or to herself because she doesn't want to know what it means). She doesn't remember him ever being angry at her like this for anything—and she's known and loved him for so long. He's never yelled at her, ever, not even that time she had accidentally snapped his bow and broken it—she'd cried then, quaking in fear that he might her, but he'd only consoled her and told her that it didn't matter, it was just a bow, he can get another one, though they both knew what that bow had meant to him, it was his first bow, the bow that had won him many a competition back when they were younger, and she had scrapped and saved her allowance then just so she could get him a new one in time for Christmas.

This outburst is not all that unfounded, in fact he has every right to it, but it is new, and it still stings.

"I—," she tries but her mind goes blank. Sure it's not that difficult to say 'Yes, Henry is your son, I found him, he's not dead after all,' especially now that he seems to be without doubt regarding the matter. But it hardly seems appropriate…he needs some sort of explanation still. And for the life of her, she doesn't really know what to say. In her defense, she hadn't thought it lying back then, it hadn't felt like it—she'd been verifying facts.

"And don't tell me…oh bloody fuck, I don't even know what you think you'd say that could get you the hell out of this," he adds when her silence stretches out for too long. He's angry, so angry—he's going red all over and that vein in his neck (that she'd loved to nibble on and would still love to—though those are not the most appropriate thoughts to have right at that moment) is popping and visible.

"Look, okay," she begins, breathing in. "It's a long story, Robin, and I'm sorry I had not told you right away, but I swear I was going to. I am going to." She is almost pleading as she touches his arm and looks at him. She's grateful when he doesn't attempt to pull away and she squeezes lightly, in a bid to plead for him to understand. "It's just too complicated."

He sighs, anger seemingly being knocked down a few pegs. He looks back at her with a little bit of softness she's used to seeing from him. "I'm all ears now," he tells her and it's stern and books no room for arguments or protests.

She mirrors his sigh and nods. She owes him this, at least. He has to know what really happened, and so she leads him further into her backyard, where there are seats and swing sets, urging him to seat beside her when she plops down with a heavy sigh. He acquiesces with quite obvious reluctance as he breathes in deeply as if preparing himself.

"I don't know where to start," she admits, fiddling with her fingers as she now refuses to look at him. There will be tremendous baring of soul to follow, that she knows, and she's not sure how much of holding herself together she'd manage if she had to look at the same blue eyes she's been in love with her whole life.

She already isn't entirely very anxious to have this conversation to begin with.

"Start from the beginning," Robin almost barks at her, and she can feel the way he's trying to rein in his temper, probably because it's her—and he's never lost his temper with her, about her, sure, but not with her. His patience is very little today, but she can see him making the effort. "You told me our son is dead, but that boy inside your house, he's not dead Regina. He's very fucking much alive." There is silence as Regina tries to control her tears and Robin breathes in and out. "And I'm pretty sure that boy isn't just some random boy who happens to have our son's name and look like us, and you just picked him up from the streets out of pity and had him call you mum!"

He ends his sentence with an eye roll. One that Regina fights the urge to mirror—because, well, of course not. She feels herself tremble instead as she lets out the words for the first time since finding out about Henry:

"No Robin, of course that is not the case," she says in a whisper, adding: "No, Henry is our son."

"Henry is our son," Robin hears Regina say before the blood roars from his ears and his heart starts to pound like crazy.

He is not sure entirely what he feels at the moment—he's happy, of course, he's fucking happy, but there are too many emotions swirling inside him. Somehow, curiosity gets the best of him.

"I thought you said he was dead?" he asks again because this makes very little sense to him. "hy did you lie to me."

Anger actually comes in third place, but right now it's in the forefront. White hot rage curses through him.

"I didn't lie to you," she hurries to explain to him, and he cannot help but be doubtful of that one. "Mother did tell me that Henry was dead! And for eleven years I believed it. I told you what I was told, but apparently you and I have been lied to." She looks like she's on the verge of tears and there is nothing he wants more now than to pull her in his arms and hug her…but he knows he can't. He does realize and understand the gravity of the situation, and now is not the time for selfish urges. "Henry came to me. He knocked on my door and told me I was his mother, that I am his mother. And of course I didn't believe that at first, because I had been told all along that he was dead, that my son is dead, but he produced some proof—some certificate he'd gotten off the internet about his birth indicating clearly who his mother is—which already seems sketchy as it is so I couldn't quite believe it, convinced as I was that our Henry cannot possibly be alive. But it did have me thinking."

She proceeds to tell him about her confrontation with her mother, how Cora had as good as told her that what Henry said was true, but going as far as discrediting the boy and saying that it doesn't matter whether or not their son is alive, Henry had been lying. Only it turned out that he hadn't, and that Regina had a lawyer friend from college who had the proceedings underway, had DNA tests done for mother and son, and had made it possible for Henry to stay with Regina while they waited for the tests to verify what they already know as the truth. Turns out, she had been right—Henry is his and Regina's son and she's adopting him now.

She pauses for a while and silence pregnant with tension settles over them. Robin feels anger run through him for Cora. He's always know that Regina's mother was a manipulative, cold-hearted bitch who pressured her daughter for more even when Regina had been burnt out from giving her all that she's asked. Robin has always hated the way Cora treated Regina and had tried to get along with her for Regina's sake and the sake of their parents' friendship, but he'd long since wanted to give Regina his name if only to take her out of that extremely unhealthy and emotionally crippling house. Robin had often looked up at Henry Sr. for being able to provide Regina with the warmth and affection Cora cannot seemingly bestow her daughter, but often cursed the older man in his head for being unable to protect Regina from Cora's innate nastiness.

Sure, he knows Cora loves her daughters (yes, Zelena included) and wants to give them everything she hadn't had when she had been young, but she does it in a very roundabout way that only manages to hurt her children.

He knows Regina won't have been like her mother…had she had the chance to love Henry from the moment he was born, but Cora took that away from him, and he's so, so, so fucking angry about that. But what good would it do now?

Besides, they finally have Henry back and it would give them both the chance to love Henry the way he's supposed to be loved.

"Mother said she was doing it for my own good, acting on her need to do what's best for me. She'd sent her own grandson to an orphanage because she wanted me to be without baggage," she adds after a while, and it makes Robin's anger go on high level again so soon after he's leveled with himself, and suddenly trashing Cora Mills sounds like such a good fucking idea.

"How did Henry find out?" he asks in wonder, trying to sidetrack himself from wanting to go over the Mills' house to throttle the older Mills woman.

Regina smiled ruefully. "He got into this site that told you who your parents are or your heritage, or something like that," she answers, then chuckles a little, shaking her head. "Funny thing about is it that he's actually stolen the credit card of one of the social workers there and made his way from Boston to here, Storybrooke." She gives him a grin, and Robin cannot help but chuckle, relieving some of the tension and bringing back some levity into the situation.

"What a sneaky little thief," he muses, remembering all the times Regina had called himself that, whenever he would steal sweet apples from her tree or even sweeter kisses from her lips. It seems like it's in the genes, since Roland is proving to be just as sneaky…

"Of course you'd be amused," she mutters, snorting and rolling her eyes. "He's his father's son."

The words are out of her mouth before her brain even registers them, and she could just about smack herself.

What an idiot.

Of course there is nothing wrong with what she'd said, it is the truth after all. But she can't help but wonder if it's the right thing to say at this moment—her heart certainly can't take it.

She looks up at him, the feelings hitting her like a trainwreck. She bites the inside of her cheeks and tries not to let the tears flow at the look in Robin's eyes. He looks like he's just handed her the whole world, as though he is only now realizing that all of this is real—Henry is their son and he's here, alive, and here to stay.

She wants to kiss him, wants to revel in this moment she's dreamt of with his lips pressed against hers, kissing her in the passionate way he has always used to…but that one's a pipe dream.

She's so lost in her daydream that it startles her out of her mind when Robin says: "I want to meet him, Regina. I want to meet our son," with so much conviction that she's not sure if it's made her suddenly alive or dead with dread.


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