July 19th was when it happened, four days after Regina's 25th birthday. Another life changing phone call.

"Mayor Mills."

"You need to come home!" It was Mary Margaret, her voice unusually high pitched. It put Regina on alert.

"I'm off the clock in twenty minutes, dear."

"No, you need to come home now!"

"What is it? Is something wrong with Henry?"

"Just come. Please." The line went dead.

That certainly did a number on her nerves. She swallowed hard as she rose from the desk. She'd never forgive herself from choosing this day to leave him at home if something had happened. Never.

Being twenty-one weeks pregnant slowed her down, but adrenaline works wonders in the right situation. She could've won a medal with the record time she got from the office to her car. It took all her concentration to not break every driving law in existence. Mary never called her at work. Ever. In fact, she never had need to call her at all. And Regina certainly never heard her sound quite like that before.

She was greeted with an inconsolable Mary Margaret when she opened the door. What the hell? "Mary! You have to tell me what's wrong."

The barely strung together syllables she got in response added up to one word: kitchen.

Quite puzzled as to what everything could mean, Regina headed to the kitchen, not knowing what else the girl would mean by saying the word.

Oh.

That would explain it. Her fiancé lay on the floor, and didn't appear to be breathing. It was an awkward maneuver, but Regina managed to kneel beside him. She felt his neck for a pulse and didn't find one.

She bit her lip. Warmth was already fading, but she grabbed the phone once she was back on her feet anyway. The man was a father. Not just to Mary, but to her child. She had an image to uphold as mayor, anyway.

"Send an ambulance to my residence immediately. My, uh, fiancé is unconscious and not breathing." Click.

She shook her head at him as she waited for the ambulance to arrive. Where did he get off on ruining so many lives? First her own, now his daughter was a wreck, and if he died her child would be fatherless. Fucking perfect. Leave her alone with three kids to raise, and that's assuming she wasn't carrying multiples. "You bastard. Bet you're just loving this, aren't you?"

Regina wasn't sure how much later, though it couldn't have been long, when medical personnel seemed to flood her kitchen. She stepped back on instinct, staying out of the way but within earshot. Of course, she wasn't quite as apt with medical jargon as she was with legal jargon. Though she got the gist. It didn't look good.

She was almost on auto-pilot as she followed when they carried him out to the gurney. Then one moment she blinked and she was riding along, with Mary holding her hand in a crushing grip. She couldn't quite recall getting there. She was shutting down, becoming numb. He may end up being the second person in her life she found dead.

Time was meaningless. Life felt like a dream, shuffling scenery from one place to the next because Regina didn't remember getting out of the ambulance either. Nor did she remember the walk to the waiting room. She could no longer even hear Mary's wails, though by the racking of her body she knew they were present.

There was simply nothing. She felt detached. Present but unseeing, as images gradually blurred together, unhearing.

Only when a bright light was shone at her did she feel grounded once more.

"There you are, Mayor Mills. Almost went catatonic on us."

Regina blinked a couple times, seeing white each time her eyes shut. "Did, um…" She was still slightly disoriented.

"Is Dad going to be okay?" squeaked Mary. It sounded like she only asked because she was supposed to, because it was routine, not because she didn't know. The way her voice cracked on okay spoke volumes as to what she thought the answer would be.

"There hasn't been a response yet, but we've still got four minutes. Anything could happen."

Despite knowing those four minutes wouldn't do anything, no matter what the man had said, they were the longest of Regina's life.

As soon as she was pulled to the side, she knew. It could only be bad if they didn't want Mary to hear them say it.

"We did what we could, but I'm sorry…we couldn't manage to resuscitate him. It's possible he was dead before we even arrived."

Regina nodded hollowly. Of course they'd leave it to her to shatter the girl's world. Damn them, they were trained to handle informing families of losses. It wasn't her damn job. She pulled on her mayoral mask as she turned, but she hadn't needed to say a word. As soon as Mary saw her, she knew. She was a teenager, and she knew the difference between Regina's normal face and her mask. And there could only be one reason for pulling the mask on at that moment.

Mary's head bowed in acceptance, and only then did Regina realize something was missing. Someone.

Regina took her seat once more. "Mary, sweetheart, where's Henry?" She leaned forward, trying to find the girl's eyes.

"Don't worry, Mayor Mills."

Regina knew that voice. She looked up to see the neonatal specialist who used to belong to Tallahassee, Henry in her arms.

"I took him off Mary when you got here," she explained. "You seemed out of it."

Regina nodded, accepting Henry back into her own arms.

"I'm sorry, Regina. I know –"

"No, no. I don't want pity." She dropped a kiss to the top of Henry's head. "I've got enough to deal with now without it."

"Regina?" It was a different voice, decidedly younger. Mary's. "You're not…You're not going to kick me out, are you? Now that he's gone."

Damn. The girl didn't have anywhere else to stay, and she was only fifteen. "Why would I do that?"

"I've never really felt that you like me."

Jesus Christ that girl had a talent for drumming up guilt. The girl wasn't wrong. But it had always been a matter of proxy. She was Leopold's daughter and she didn't like him, so she didn't like her. It wasn't her necessarily.

"I have no problem with you." And that was as honest as she could get. She got to her feet. "Now let's get out of here and go home."