October 2011
In his bedroom, Henry sat in front of his open window, his arms crossed on the frame with his chin resting on them. The night sky was a dark blue; a few stars twinkled giving him hope as he watched over the silent town. The clock tower hadn't moved for as long as or ever longer than he had been alive.
Sighing, Henry looked back to the book he had tucked under his pillow. Miss Blanchard had given him the book on fairy tales a week ago and ever since he opened the first page everything had suddenly made sense to him. He read the entire book from cover to cover multiple times and could only come to the one conclusion: everyone in Storybrooke was a character in his fairy tales book.
He knew he had to tell someone about the book and what it meant. The Evil Queen was his mother and he didn't know why she chose him to her son. Scenarios only ending in the worst form of possibilities crossed his mind and he knew he needed someone on his side. Henry knew that his best option was to talk to Ruby, after all she was Little Red Riding Hood and with giving her that knowledge she would be able to be careful of the big bad wolf, who Henry was sure of was his mother.
Wondering if Ruby was still awake, Henry got up and walked out of his bedroom. The light to his mother's room was off but the office light was on and the door was slightly ajar. Tip toeing over to it, he quickly looked inside and could just see his mother behind her desk reading over paperwork.
Walking toward the stairs that led to the living room and kitchen, Henry could barely hear the sounds from the television. Heading to the living room, Henry saw Ruby lying on the couch and smiled. "Hi Ruby," he said not too loudly, hoping that Regina couldn't hear him.
"Hey Henry, why aren't you in bed?" Ruby asked, looking at the time on her phone and realising it was after 10:00 p.m.
"Something is on my mind and I can't have Mum find out at all. Can I talk to you?" he asked, a slightly troubled look on his young features.
"Of course you can," Ruby said, sitting up and patting the spot next to her.
"Can we talk in my bedroom? I need to show it to you," Henry replied, wondering why Ruby was making a weird expression.
"We can but please tell me it's not a living animal of any kind," Ruby responded, curious as to what it was.
"It's not a living thing, not even close," Henry replied, heading up to his bedroom, Ruby following close behind.
Closing his bedroom door behind them, Henry walked over to his bed and pulled out the large book of fairy tales and placed it down on his desk. "I got given this book by Miss Blanchard last week after I couldn't do my family tree homework. I told her I felt like both my birth mother and Mum don't love me. She told me they both love me and handed me this booking and told me that she sees hope in the stories and maybe I will too."
"Are you seeing hope in any of the stories?" Ruby asked, having never seen or heard of the book that was being shown to her.
"I'm seeing more than hope within the pages, I'm seeing who everyone in this town really is," Henry replied, flipping it to a story near the middle of the book.
"Who do you think everyone really is?" Ruby asked, wondering what Henry knew and how he came to know it.
"I think Mum is really the Evil Queen, Miss Blanchard is Snow White, Leroy is Grumpy who is one of the dwarfs, Marco is Geppetto, I think Doctor Hopper is Jiminy Cricket, Granny is Widow Lucas, and you are Little Red Riding Hood. I'm still trying to figure out who everyone else is but I'm positive I'm correct," Henry responded, taking a deep breath in.
Stunned, Ruby looked at Henry and then to the open page he was pointing at. It was the story of Little Red Riding Hood and the picture looked almost exactly like she did when dressed in her clock and Enchanted Forest attire. "She's a very beautiful woman but unfortunately I'm not her," Ruby said, trying to not lead Henry on with any information about her real identity.
"You are Ruby, you just don't remember." Flicking through the book to one of the last stories, Henry showed it to the green eyed woman. "See here, you don't remember who you are because the Evil Queen cast a curse on everyone so you would all forget who you are. You are Little Red Riding Hood, Ruby, and I think the big bad wolf is actually Mum, it all makes sense now," Henry explained, closing the book up.
"That's a very interesting perspective Henry, I would say, wouldn't I know if I was cursed but then I guess I wouldn't. I don't feel cursed," Ruby tried, knowing that Henry wouldn't drop the subject.
"I think you are cursed, your Storybrooke name is Ruby Lucas, while your fairy tale name is probably Red Lucas and Widow Lucas or Granny is your grandmother, it all makes sense," Henry replied, trying to convince Ruby of her true identity.
"That does kind of fit but who would name their poor child Red?" Ruby asked, not letting Henry know just how correct he was.
"That I don't know, it doesn't list your parent's in here." Yawning loudly, Henry tried to stop it so he could continue to tell Ruby about the book.
"I think it's time you went to sleep Mister," Ruby said, changing the topic.
"I'm not tired and I need to tell you more," Henry responded, sitting down on his bed.
"How about you go to bed now and while your mum is at work tomorrow afternoon after you finish school we can go through it all and see what does and doesn't match up?" Ruby suggested, feeling the panic rise inside of her.
"Promise?"
"I promise Henry, get some sleep and we'll talk tomorrow," Ruby said, watching the boy get into bed.
"Goodnight Ruby." Pulling his blankets up to his chin Henry felt really tired.
"Goodnight Henry, sweet dreams," Ruby replied, leaving the room and closing the door firmly behind her.
Pacing back and forth down the hallway as quietly as she could, Ruby had no idea about what she should do. She knew that she had to tell Regina because whoever the author of the book was knew exactly what had happened and made it available for anyone in the town to get a hold of. She was just currently grateful that the book was with them inside of the house.
Making up her mind and heading toward Regina's office, she slipped inside and closed the door quietly behind her. "We have a problem," she said through clenched teeth, leaning against the door.
"Ruby, what's wrong? What problem? Did I do something wrong?" Regina asked, automatically thinking it was her fault.
"Oh God, no, you did nothing wrong," Ruby replied, frowning that Regina straight away blamed herself.
"Come here, Ruby," Regina said, pulling out the footstool for the taller woman to sit on.
Walking over to the desk, Ruby sat on Regina's lap and hugged the shorter woman, placing a kiss on her cheek. "Why did you think you did something wrong?" she asked, wondering why Regina's thoughts went straight to that idea.
"I just thought you were mad because I was still working," Regina replied, holding Ruby to her.
"I'm not mad at all my love, but we do have a major crisis, a red alert, a nine-one-one, a code zero, a whatever you want to call it on our hands," Ruby responded, getting off Regina and sitting on the footstool.
"What is it?" Regina asked, her heart pounding in chest at the urgency in Ruby's voice.
"Okay, Henry asked to speak to me just before I came in here and Regina, he knows, I don't know how but he knows," Ruby quietly replied, taking hold of Regina's hands.
"What does he know?" Regina asked, having no idea what Ruby was going on about.
"He knows about the Enchanted Forest and our real identities. He told me that you were the Evil Queen, I was Little Red Riding Hood and Mary Margaret was Snow White. He also knows the identities of Doctor Hopper, Marco, Granny, and Leroy and he wants to find out the rest, he has this book he got given and it has every story in it from our land," Ruby quickly explained, finally able to take a deep breath in.
Gripping onto the arm rests of her chair as tightly as she could, Regina couldn't move or speak; she felt as if her whole world had just crashed down around her and burnt to the ground. Her eyes were clouded over with tears and she tried her best not to let them fall.
Regina could feel her lungs burning for oxygen. She tried to take a deep breath in but couldn't, she felt a hard lump in her throat, it was restricting, her head was spinning, she was angry and devastated. Feeling strong arms pulling her out of her seat, Regina felt herself being moved into Ruby's lap and held close, she could smell the familiar scent of her partner and she closed her eyes.
She could faintly hear Ruby telling her to calm down and breathe, to take deep breaths but she couldn't. The warmth of Ruby's hand rubbing her back helped a little but she still couldn't do anything.
"Regina, baby, deep slow breaths, I know you can do it, I love you, deep, slow breaths baby," Ruby soothingly said over and over, feeling Regina's tears soaking into her t-shirt.
Finally able to take a deep breath, Regina tried her best to control her breathing and after a few minutes she was able to breathe normally. Her eyes and throat burned and her chest felt heavy. "I'm sorry," Regina said, barely above a whisper, angry at herself because she wasn't able to control her reaction.
"You have nothing to be sorry about my love, how about you talk me through your thought process?" Ruby suggested, hoping that talking would help the shorter woman.
"He knows who I truly am and he thinks I'm filth, I did nothing but kill people and ruin lives, I'm going to lose him and he has every reason to hate me. We can't let him know though, if he goes around telling everyone it'll cause an upheaval and I don't know how the curse will react to it," Regina replied, grabbing a tissue from her desk and blowing her nose.
"Regina, you are not filth and I'm not going to excuse your actions as the Queen but you have spent the last twenty eight years slowly changing, we all have. You are such a wonderful and beautiful woman and have done nothing but care for everyone in this town since the curse happened. You're a great mother and partner and I couldn't see myself without you ever. If you think it is best not to tell Henry I'll go along with it, I would rather not see the town crumble," Ruby responded, running her hands through Regina's dark hair.
"This world does have the fairy tales of all our real selves so if he does tell anyone they would probably think its Henry's imagination running wild," Regina said, feeling guilty that she couldn't tell her son the truth.
"I think that we should sleep on it and after my talk with Henry tomorrow afternoon, we can decide on what to do about it. You've had a big night and I really do think that you need to relax. How about we leave everything alone in this room, head downstairs and watch a couple of episodes of Modern Family," Ruby suggested, letting go of Regina so they could both stand up.
"I like the sound of that," Regina replied, blowing her nose on a handful of tissues.
Heading down to the living room, Regina went into the kitchen and got a glass of water while Ruby set up the DVD player. Settling onto the couch Regina placed her drink on the coffee table and curled up next to Ruby.
Wrapping an arm around Regina, Ruby felt the shorter woman relax into her embrace, placing her head against Ruby's shoulder. Hitting 'play all' on the menu screen Ruby placed a small kiss on Regina's head and settled in to watch their show, hoping that it would help Regina calm down before they turned in for the night.