Chapter 9

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Mary Margaret cringed as she stood between Emma and Regina. She saw the way that Emma's eyes had lit up at the sight of Regina. It wasn't every day that a mother saw a look of utter love and devotion shine as clear as day in their child's eyes for your arch enemy.

It also wasn't every day that a mother also witnessed heartbreak just as quickly as she'd witnessed joy cross their child's face.

"You remember?" Regina asked, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the way that Emma was looking at her. There was something very different in the way she was staring at her. It was unnerving, like the blonde could see into her very soul.

"I know who you are, yes." Emma nodded once.

"You must be the Savoir." Robin spoke up, causing Emma's attention to finally move away from Regina.

The first thing she noticed was that Robin's hand was resting on Regina's shoulder and Regina was leaning back into the man. Her shock wasn't as strong as Henry's had been because she did have a little warning about Regina's relationship with him. What she didn't recognize was how quickly her anger would settle over her and her personal green eyed monster would make itself known.

Emma's eyes narrowed as she took in the otherwise gentlemanly man, "And you must be the reason Henry ran away." Any semblance of a smile on the man's face disappeared. "Tell me, did you think it would be a good idea to rub your relationship with my son's mother right in his face?"

"Emma!" Snow tried to stop her, but she ignored her.

Emma took a step closer to the couple, her eyes riveted on Robin. "I mean, assuming you were aware of who Henry was, and judging by what I know about Regina, which is a lot, Henry is the first person you'd have learned about. The pictures in her house the first clue that the boy she was talking to was her son."

"Emma that's enough!" Regina gave it a shot too, but Emma just ignored them both, stepping close enough to Robin, that Regina had to physically put herself between them.

"And knowing that you still had the audacity to step up to his mother, touch her, and probably assert yourself as the man in her life before he could even say a proper hello!" Emma almost tried to reach around Regina's body to grab at the man who had the decency to back off several steps as she'd continued her rant.

It wasn't until she felt hands pushing against her shoulders to hold her back that Emma realized Regina was the one touching her. She hated how suddenly her body reacted to memories that weren't real of how often and desperately she could crave Regina's touch.

"What in the world has gotten into you, Ms. Swan? Have you lost your mind?!" Regina felt ire settle in her chest at everything Emma had just insinuated. Though, as she thought harder on it, she realized none of the insults had been directed at her. Just towards Robin's lack of tact in a very delicate situation. A mistake that normally Regina would have been commenting on herself if she weren't so confused as to why Emma felt she had the right to do so for her. "What right do you have to come in here like this and attack him?"

Emma glared at Regina, stepping away from the woman as her heart cringed inside her chest. "None." She admitted, sourly. In this reality she had no right to do what she had just done. "But your boyfriend should know better. The last thing Henry needed today was to see you with your new make-shift family." Was Emma's snappish reply as she backed away from Regina.

"Emma…this isn't the place or the time. And Robin doesn't deserve your hostility." Mary Margaret said from where she stood just off to the side.

"Whatever…"

Mary Margaret sighed, realizing that Henry and Emma were both having a very similar reaction to this situation. The only problem was that Henry's reaction fit his age, Emma's did not.

Though if Mary Margaret were to be honest, if she had walked in on David with another woman hanging over him like Robin had been Regina—in a very un-hanging like way—then she would have resorted to threats and hostility too. It was hard for her to recognize this, because that meant she was recognizing that just twenty four hours ago Emma believed in her hearts of hearts that she was in love with Regina Mills and married to her. Which meant those emotions, that devotion, was as real to Emma as they had been yesterday, whether she had her real memories or not.

Emma forced herself to calm down. She took several deep breaths and turned contritely to Regina. "We need to talk about Henry."

"Agreed." Regina didn't understand anything that was happening. First her son had accused her of having a new family and now so had Emma. She also knew that Emma's memories were back but that there was something wrong with Henry's if both Emma's statements and Mary Margaret's were to be believed. What confused her the most though, was how Emma and Henry remembered her at all.

"You guys can talk in Granny's office." Ruby supplied, hoping that getting them into a private space would help Emma calm down.

"Thanks, Rubes." Emma waved Regina to walk ahead of her and nearly lost the cool she had just achieved when Robin went to walk with them. "No offense, sir, but you aren't invited to join us."

"That isn't a decision you can make." Robin challenged as he looked at Regina.

Emma laughed, but it wasn't a nice laugh. It was the type of laugh someone did before they committed murder. "And you think you have the right to make it?" Emma fired right back. "This isn't about you and Regina. This isn't about you at all. This is about my son and her son. You are not part of this particular equation."

Robin looked distrustfully at Emma, his mouth opening to tell the blonde he'd just met where she could stick her opinions when he felt Regina's hand touch his shoulder. There weren't many people, many women, Robin felt an immediate distaste for, but Emma was proving to be one of the many few. Usually he liked assertive women. Women who stood up for themselves and their belief were his type. Emma, well she was certainly not.

Regina's palm was flat against Robin's shoulder, holding him where he was and making him look at her. He noticed that his eyes weren't the only ones now focusing on the hand. Emma's gaze was staring at their contact critically.

"Robin, although she is being rather hostile and childish, she is right." Regina smiled softly at him, "Have breakfast. I shall find you when everything has been mended here."

Robin sighed, "Very well." He leaned forward and kissed Regina chastely upon the lips. As they pulled apart he noticed how Emma's hands were fisted at her sides and her jaw muscles were flexing.

It would appear that he was not the only one interested in the Queen's heart, and the Savoir was horrible at hiding her jealousy.

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"Henry! Henry, wait!" Henry looked over his shoulder to see his grandfather chasing after him. With a creased frown he turned back forward and took off running faster. The last thing he wanted right now was to be chastised for his actions. He would deal with the consequences later. Right now he needed to be alone.

He slipped in and out of alleyways and soon he was on the side streets by the warehouses, his grandfather's voice a distant echo heading in the wrong direction. With a sigh, Henry slowed his gate. He walked along the piers and stared out at the water. The smell of low tide itched his nose as he looked down at the sand and rocks beneath the dock. He jumped off the dock and hid under it. He watched the water lap at the rocks and sat heavily down on one of the larger boulders under the dock. It was covered in moss and seaweed. Uncaringly he remained on it, one of his palms pressed against his forehead as tears fell from his eyes. His head was killing him.

Everything was wrong. Nothing made sense. He was going crazy. Just like both of his moms. That had to be it. That's why nothing seemed logical and nothing fit together like a puzzle is supposed to. It was like he had pieces of several different puzzles mixed together to make the right image. It was impossible.

A part of him wished that they had never come back to Storybrooke. That they had just left his mom to deal with her issues on her own. Obviously she was happy enough here without him and Emma. And everyone was just letting her move on like their family had never existed. That it was the right thing to do to let Regina just have another family when he and Emma were only a phone call away.

He was angry. Furious. He wanted to hurt someone, maybe even kill them. And in all the years he'd been alive he could never remember being this angry. It was like his heart was just falling into pieces inside his chest and his brain was following, because that headache he had was just getting worse.

"My my what do we have here?"

Henry looked up, almost expecting his grandfather to have found him. But it wasn't Charming that found him. It was his worst nightmare.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Ruby led Regina and Emma into Granny's back office quickly, "Sorry for the clutter." She apologized as she ushered them inside.

"Its fine, Rubes. Thanks." Emma made her way into the room and to the farthest wall quickly. She was having trouble rationalizing what was happening here. She had known from her parents that Regina was involved with a man from the Enchanted Forest. She also knew that they would have been together for almost seven weeks here in Storybrooke. It was over a month, closer to two months. Emma couldn't remember a relationship she'd been in—a real one—that lasted a month since being with Neal. If Regina was still with this man, it was serious, and that was what upset Emma.

She was upset because even while knowing that Regina was not her wife, she could not stop herself from being jealous that Regina had 'moved on' to a new family. It hurt to see how close they were, that he could touch her publically and she wouldn't flinch or accuse him of harassing her. It hurt.

God everything hurt.

Ruby closed the door to the office, her expression sympathetic as she watched Emma pace back and forth like a trapped animal, "I'll be out here if you need me." Ruby met Regina's eyes, hoping she conveyed that her presence was being offered to them both.

Regina was surprised to see that the reassurance was being given to her as well. She knew the werewolf held a grudging respect for her now that she was truly trying to change. It was still strange to know that she had people on her side. People who when treated well would not betray her to further their own causes.

Regina nodded to Ruby, the only offer of thanks she could muster.

Once the door was closed and the two women were left alone, Regina's focus shifted to Emma. The ire she felt towards the blonde for her rude behavior freezing in her veins at the sudden worry that overcame her.

Emma was physically trying to calm herself down. She was shaking out her hands and cracking her neck and rolling her shoulders as she paced quickly back and forth.

Around Emma there were sparks of white magic firing like a fritzing transformer.

Regina recognized the symptoms. When she was under a great deal of emotional stress when she was first learning to use her magic, she had trouble controlling it. But at least in those moments she was aware of her loss of control. It seemed Emma was completely unaware of her magical melt down.

Emma felt her body flush with her anger. Her hands fisted at her sides as she paced. Her face red and brow creased and beginning to develop beads of sweat. Her nostrils flared as she shook away the memories that kept popping into her head. All sound bites of Regina telling her how much she loved her, how she was her only one, that she and Henry were the most important things in her life.

That wasn't true anymore. Emma wasn't even on the scale of things that mattered to Regina.

How could she be when the woman had found someone else—found someone?

Emma knew she was being unfair. Her jealousy and anger were irrationally being directed at Regina and at Robin when neither of them deserved it. She should be happy for Regina. She should be happy that Regina found someone she could be happy with.

But she wasn't.

She was in pain.

She was angry and a part of her recognized that she was also in Savior mode. Not twenty minutes ago she was willing to rush into an unknown situation against someone powerful enough to incapacitate the most powerful witch Emma knew, to protect Regina. To protect her wife—NO! No…Regina was not her wife. She was just Henry's mother. And maybe, if she could get herself to calm down and talk to Regina, she could find out if they were even still friends.

"Emma…" Emma's eyes shot to Regina at the sound of her voice, "You need to calm down." Regina hedged slowly as she approached Emma with great caution.

Emma's eyes flashed a brilliant white light for a moment, before it faded.

"Calm down?" Emma's breath was short as her nails cut into her palms, "How dare you!" Emma's voice rose, "How dare you tell me to calm down after what you did!"

Regina blinked, startled at the accusation. "What is it I've done, Emma?" Regina chose her words carefully as she kept her hands loose, just in case she'd need to deflect Emma's magic if it escaped her, much like Regina's own magic had when she fought against her mother and pushed her into the mirror.

"You did this to me!" Emma nearly sobbed.

Regina frowned, "What did I do?"

Emma glared, noticing how Regina was circling wide around her, keeping distance between them. "I'm…I'm so angry at you."

Regina rolled her eyes, Emma's refusal to answer her question becoming annoying. "How is that any different from before?"

Emma snarled, "It's different because I'm mad at you for something you didn't do. I just think you've done it."

"Emma, please, you need to calm down." Regina insisted again, noticing how the magic was firing more rapidly and growing around the blonde. She pointed at Emma's body, trying to make the blonde see what she was doing.

Emma followed Regina's gesture and stared down at herself. Surprise colored her face as she saw a force field of white electricity formed around her hands and chest. She recalled how the electricity had done something very strange back in Dr. Diggs' office when she'd been attacked. But there wasn't supposed to be magic in this world? How was it that she had used her magic in New York against Dr. Diggs? Thinking about it Emma remembered, vaguely, how there was a power surge when she was giving birth to Henry and how many of the bad foster homes she'd been in had electrical problems. Had that been her?

"See, just close your eyes." Regina instructed as she took a step towards Emma. Emma, surprisingly, closed her eyes immediately. "Loosen your hands. Take several deep breaths. Calm your heartbeat." Regina took a step closer with each instruction, astonished to see Emma following each command without complaint. By the time Regina was at Emma's side the magic had settled but Emma was still tense. Regina reached out slowly to touch Emma's shoulder, but the blonde withdrew from her.

Emma's eyes flashed open and she stared at Regina. The brunette's hand was slowly moving back to her side as she attempted to conceal the pain of Emma's rejection. "Sorry…" Emma offered lamely, "It's just better if you don't touch me. My emotions are out of whack." She laughed humorlessly, tears welling in her eyes. "Everything is just so broken inside me."

Regina's eyes widened, a pang of hurt touching her heart at the sudden defeat upon Emma's face.

Emma's body began to slump into itself.

"Emma, what is going on?" Regina inquired once again, her voice stern. She was not asking to merely have said the question. She required an answer. Now. "Why does Henry know who I am? Why do you know who I am for that matter?"

Emma took a deep breath and barely lifted her eyes to look into Regina's.

"Funny story. That's really not so funny, to be honest." Emma started, feeling uncomfortable in her own skin.

"The point, Ms. Swan. Now."

Emma cringed, "Henry thinks you've left us for Robin and his son because the memories he has thanks to your spell had us together, romantically, as in married for ten years with a life of memories of the both of us raising him." Emma said it all in one breath, racing through it as she realized she'd need to breathe to continue with the story and stop Regina from saying anything.

Though, by the shocked expression on Regina's face and the way she had involuntarily stepped away from her at the notion of them being romantically together and married, she suspected the witch wouldn't know what to say if given the chance.

"When the spell ended and we had to live out an actual year we were in New York. My memories started to come back in nightmares and I couldn't remember specifics about the fake life you'd given us, making me think I was sick. Turns out I might be suffering from PTSD or something. For real, not just some fake excuse by idiot doctors. Anyhow, it wasn't Alzheimer's so I was put in therapy and the therapist I was actually seeing was a flying monkey who tried to kill me." Regina's eyes widened, her mouth opening and closing as she was unable to find what she wanted to say, too busy absorbing what Emma was telling her. "Hook came, brought us here and when I reached the town line your spell got stronger, but so did my old memories and it gave me a wicked head ache that still hasn't gone away because I have two lives. Fifty years of memories and only thirty that are real."

"Henry…" Regina whispered his name, finally understanding why he had been so upset with her. How he could remember her and still look at her with such awful disdain.

Emma sighed, knowing Regina's first concern would be their son, "Henry thinks that you abandoned us, because that's what the fake memories had you do. They had you up and leave us. So, he thinks you left us to start a new family."

"That isn't what I've done! I would never give up on Henry! I've been trying to find a way to leave Storybrooke for the last two months!" Regina insisted, angered at the notion that she would give up on her son and take on another family. As if she could ever replace Henry.

It didn't help that Emma's tone was bitter as she spoke of her relationship with Robin and Roland. It just put Regina into a defensive state.

Emma shook her head, "I tried to explain to him that you didn't mean it. That you were suffering from your own psychological break with reality. Which is why you wouldn't remember the memories he has and why you might recognize him but not the significance of who he was to you. It's a sound plan. Dr. Hopper thinks it'll work until we can find a way to replicate the memory potion I took."

"You spoke with the grasshopper before you spoke to me about this?!" Regina's ire returned full force as she stepped menacingly towards Emma.

Emma wasn't about to stand down. She was done feeling vulnerable and weak. She wasn't that unsure woman she'd been while still in Storybrooke last year. She knew who she was and just how strong she could be. Even now she was still learning just how strong she could be as she faced the woman who held her heart whether she wanted it or not.

"Yeah? Well, I didn't know if you'd done this to me on purpose or not. Your own sick little way to hurt me and make sure Henry remembered you and hated me. Thinking I was the reason you left us. So no, I didn't ask you!" Emma spit out, leaning forward when Regina got into her face, her eyes ablaze and lip lifted in a clear snarl. She didn't believe a word of what she was saying. She had known that Regina couldn't have known. She couldn't possibly have done this to them. Not knowingly at least.

Emma watched as her words sunk in and there, in the recesses of Regina's eyes, flashed the minute bit of hurt.

"I would never do that to Henry."

Right, but you'd do it to me, Emma thought bitterly. "Real, reassuring, Regina." Emma challenged, noticing she had Regina backpedaling.

Regina calmed her anger as best she could. Dealing with Emma was like dealing with a petulant child sometimes. "I was never meant to be part of your memories. Either of your memories. As part of the curse I was supposed to be eradicated from both of your memories. I don't know what could have happened to give you the life that you received. That wasn't what I wanted for either of you."

There was a pleading tone to Regina's voice that had Emma considering that Regina really didn't know how this had all happened. Not that she believed Regina had. She had just used it to make Regina back off and it had worked.

"I'm working around this situation the best I can. It's not going to be easy. Henry thinks that David and Mary Margaret are your parents. When he looks at them, he doesn't actually SEE them."

That intrigued Regina, "How is that possible?"

"I don't know! You're the resident magic expert. I was hoping you'd know." Emma was glad that Regina wasn't focusing on the fact that Mary Margaret and David were her parents in this fake reality Henry had going around in his head.

"We need to talk. About everything. But not here. It's not safe here." Regina was looking around the room as if she knew someone was watching them, or capable of it.

"Ah, speaking of safe. Your house isn't safe either." Emma cringed at the thought of the door that was broken down, leaving it even more unsafe.

Regina's head shot back to Emma, her eyebrow raised, "Oh and how would you know that?"

"Because I was just there and some weirdo with powerful magic threatened me in it and kept everyone outside before disappearing without a trace. If you call green and black smoke without a trace."

Regina's eyes widened, her jaw slackening the slightest bit, "And you're alive…."

"As far as I know." Emma looked down at herself as if to check to see if she'd been injured without knowing it.

Regina narrowed her eyes at Emma and moved closer to the blonde. Emma's eyes widened of their own accord at how close Regina was. The brunette grabbed Emma by the lapels of her jacket and for a moment Emma considered the thought of Regina kissing her. She had memories of this exact scene from her fake life and from fantasies in her real one.

Regina's hands slid slowly up the lengths of her arms and up onto her shoulders. Emma couldn't keep her eyes open, her body's response uncontrollable. She felt Goosebumps spread over her skin and she couldn't help the moan as Regina's fingers brushed over the column of her neck.

There was a deft tug and suddenly the heat of Regina's body was gone. Emma was left swaying a few steps as her eyes fluttered open. Regina was holding what looked like a tracking device in her hand.

Coming out of her haze, Emma reached up to the top of her jacket where Regina had pulled the bug from. She glared at the device as Regina dropped it and raised her foot to stomp on it.

"Wait!" Emma rushed forward and grabbed Regina's hips, a part of her wanted to pull her closer but the rational part of her quickly pushed Regina a step away from her but she'd already destroyed the device.

Regina recognized the scheming smile on Emma's face too late. It was the same look Henry had often when he was concocting up one way or another to make her life more difficult. Of course it was Emma who he'd inherited the look from.

Straightening out her clothes Regina composed herself as she tilted her head to the side, expectantly.

"We could have used that to our advantage." Emma explained exasperated.

The door was thrown open and David stood in the doorway looking harried and out of breath. Both women felt their hearts sink at the sight of him.

"Henry…" They both whispered.

David frowned, "I can't find him." He hated to admit it but he would need their help to find him before night fell. There was a curfew that everyone in Storybrooke was happy to abide by if it kept their families safe. Henry wouldn't' know that and the last thing they needed was for him to find himself in a situation he didn't know how to cope with.

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

Henry stumbled up the sharp incline of the sand dunes. He blinked a few times, confused. The tide had started to come up a little while ago. His hiding place on the boulder under the docks was becoming a little too dangerous. Looking up at the sky he couldn't understand how it was so late already. Hadn't it just been morning? His head wasn't hurting as much as it had been anymore. But he was still a little confused. Had he blacked out?

Emma had been suffering from black outs for a while before she'd gone to the doctors. He knew what they entailed and he couldn't figure out how he'd lost several hours of his day. Had he really been in that deep thought?

He put his hand on his chest, as if feeling something strange within it. With a creased brow he walked back up onto the piers and slowly made his way back towards the center of town. As he reached the factory district of the city he heard people calling his name. Sighing, he realized that he probably had made everyone worry just a little too much.

He'd have to face those consequences he'd been avoiding sooner or later. Stuffing his hands back into his pockets he made his way towards one of the many voices calling his name.

Unseen by anyone else his eyes glowed green for the quickest of seconds and an evil smile spread across his mouth before the look vanished and his eyes returned to their normal color.

Somewhere off in the far distance Zelena cackled with the victory that was upon the horizon.

End Chapter Nine