A/N: Thanks again for all the follows and favorites. And a big thank you to everyone who reviewed; I appreciate the feedback! I know that this chapter is short and has a cliffhanger. I apologize on both accounts, and I will try my best to update again soon!


It had taken Emma two hours to fall asleep that night, but she had eventually drifted off leaving Regina to stare at the ceiling. She had watched the paint swirls above her until she was sure the blonde was sleeping deeply and movement wouldn't wake her.

Regina grabs her robe and resigns herself to another sleepless night. On her way downstairs she opens Henry's door to check on the sleeping boy and finds her son very much awake.

"Mom!" Henry says, surprised to see his door open in the middle of the night.

"Henry. I didn't mean to startle you. What are you doing up?" He shrugs.

"Can I join you?" Regina asks. Henry's light is on, and his bed is covered in comic books and a container of oreo cookies. He's not planning on going to sleep anytime soon.

"Sure," Henry says. Regina sits down next to her son, as he clears the bed so that she has room to stretch her legs. He looks at her guiltily as he moves the cookies to his bedside table. "Sorry," he whispers. Regina just smiles – she's too grateful to have her son back to begrudge him anything. But that freaks Henry out because it feels like his mom has been walking on eggshells with him since he moved back in with her. "You can yell at me," he tells her, because cookies in bed should at least earn him a stern scolding. "I'm not supposed to eat in bed or eat cookies in the middle of the night."

"That's ok," Regina tells him, because right now, cookie consumption seems so insignificant. She smiles to herself as she thinks about Emma stuffing her face with oreos before dinner last night. "I suppose the cookies are a habit you picked up from Emma. We can just blame her."

"You never yell at me anymore."

Regina would laugh at the complaint, except that Henry seems genuinely upset about this. "I realized that I was too strict with you. You're a good kid, Henry. A young man now, I suppose. And you don't need me yelling at you to do the right thing."

"Oh. Ok." That sounds good, but still Henry isn't sure that's the whole reason for the change in his mom's behavior.

"What's wrong?" Regina asks, because clearly this is about more than her lack of discipline recently.

"I just want you to be my mom, ok? You can yell at me or ground me if I sneak out or lie to you. I just want things to go back to how they've always been."

"I thought you wanted things to change," Regina says a little confused. He had asked her to change, and he'd been right. She'd held on too tightly, tried to keep him from running from her.

"I thought so too, but I was wrong." Henry looks at Regina who waits patiently for him to keep talking. She has changed, he realizes. She's changed for the better because he asked her to, because she loves him so much, because she can't live without him. He feels so guilty it makes his chest feel tight and his eyes burn. And then a sob breaks free, and Regina immediately puts a comforting hand on his arm, which really only makes him feel more guilty.

"I told you that you weren't my real mom," Henry says with another sob. "I love Emma, but you're my mom. I didn't mean it when I told you I didn't want to see you again. I want you to be my mom."

"Oh Henry, come here." Regina pulls Henry against her, cradling him. "I am always going to be your mom. There is nothing you could say to me to change that." She understands this now, maybe for the first time. Because she really had thought that she could loose Henry. But she understands now that she can't stop being a mother, can't stop being his mother. Henry can run away, can tell her he hates her, can stop calling her mom, can grow up. Nothing will change the fact that Henry is her son.

"I've loved you since the moment you were placed in my arms. I love you more than anything in the whole world Henry."

"I love you too," Henry says, hugging her tighter. Regina smiles and presses a kiss to her son's hair. He pulls out of the hug and looks at his mom. There are tears on his cheeks, and Regina wipes them off with her thumbs like she had when he was a toddler having a temper tantrum. "I guess I thought that because you were the Evil Queen or because you didn't give birth to me or something that it meant you didn't love me."

And suddenly this conversation feels familiar to Regina. She had bought every book she could find about parenting and adoption. But in the last eleven years she's certainly learned that there are things you can't learn from a book and things you can't prepare for.

Regina tries to think of what to say to allay his fears, but then Henry pipes up again. "I guess that was stupid of me, huh?"

Regina lets out a relieved chuckle, because he's smiling at her. And she thinks that it's ok if he's had fears in the past, because it's normal and to be expected, and now he can tell her about them. Now he can joke with her. After so long without being able to laugh with her son, she is incredibly thankful.

"Nothing that you feel is stupid," she assures him, because she is pretty sure a few of those books and Archie mentioned something about validating kids' feelings. "But you were wrong Henry. Loving you and being your mom has nothing to do with whether you grew inside me. And it has nothing to do with who I was before you came into my life. Because from the moment I held you, I was your mom, and I promise you sweetheart, that is all that matters."

Henry's heart swells, because it feels good to be so loved. He wants to make sure that his mom knows that he loves her too. "It doesn't matter to me either, you know? That you didn't give birth to me." Henry sees his mom's eyes flood with tears; she looks so moved. He realizes that she really didn't know. He's glad he told her.

"I need to apologize to you," Regina says. "I know that Emma and I fought over you a lot, and that was wrong of us. We both love you, and I mean this Henry – we're both going to be your mothers for the rest of your life. You don't need to worry about us being jealous of each other, ok? That's over, and it never should have happened. We're the adults, and we acted like children."

"That's ok," Henry tells her. He's pretty sure he'll keep making mistakes even when he's a grown up. "I forgive you."

"Thank you." They both settle against the headboard of the bed. Things are going to be ok. "Can I have a cookie?" Regina asks, because after a day like today her personal rules about junk food can be broken a little.

"Sure!" Henry says excitedly reaching for the cookies and placing the container on the bed between himself and his mom.

Regina grabs for an oreo, and Henry decides that gives him a free pass to have another one himself. "Mmm," Regina says biting into the cookie, "these really are delicious."

Henry laughs. "You're getting crumbs on my bed," he tells her sarcastically.

"I suppose that's just the price you'll have to pay for bringing cookies up to your room," Regina tells him with a grin, brushing the crumbs onto the floor and making a mental note to vacuum tomorrow.

Regina decides that maybe she should push her luck a little with the heart to heart. "Now tell me something. How do you really feel about Emma moving in with us?"

"It's awesome. I love Emma, and I want you both to be happy. I mean it's kind of weird that you guys fell in love. But it's also kind of perfect, you know?"

"I do." Regina thinks that Henry summed her relationship with Emma up pretty accurately: it's completely strange and improbable, but also unexpectedly perfect.

"Everything is going to be ok, Henry," Regina says, reaching for another cookie. "I know there's a lot going on now, especially with Cora being here. But I promise that Emma and I will keep you safe, and everything will be alright."

"I know," Henry says confidently. "Good always defeats evil."

Regina smiles; she's thrilled to hear her son consider her to be on the side of good.


Regina is drifting in and out of sleep with Henry resting against her chest when she hears a scream. She bolts up and runs to her bedroom to find Emma sitting up and covered in sweat.

Regina sits down next to her lover, rubbing a comforting hand on her arm. "It's ok. It was just a dream."

"No. It wasn't. It wasn't a dream. Regina!" Emma is terrified and frantic.

"It was," the brunette reassures. "Look around. You're safe. You're in our bedroom. There's no one here but us." Emma shakes her head frantically, and Regina keeps rubbing the blonde's arm gently. "It's ok. Just a dream."

"No. She took it. I don't know how."

"Who?"

"Your mother. She took my heart."

A flash of fear crosses Regina's face, but then she reminds herself of the protection spells she'd placed around the house. "She can't come in here, remember. And she can't take your heart."

"She took it in my dream," Emma says. "But I think it was real." It sounds crazy, Emma knows, but still she can't shake the feeling that it wasn't just a dream. "Can you…check?"

"Emma."

"Please. I'd feel better if you checked."

"Are you sure? I don't want to hurt you." Regina says nervously.

"You won't," Emma tells the former queen with complete certainty.

Regina presses her hand to Emma's breast, and the blonde feels only a slight pressure followed by an overwhelming sensation of warmth and love as Regina's hand disappears into her chest. For a moment she can think of nothing but that feeling of love. But then Emma watches Regina's eyes become wide and filled with horror. And Emma knows: there's nothing there.