I am so sorry for the very long wait on this update. I've gotten my motivation back (thanks to askandiwilllie) and finally got this update finished. For those of you who also read To Cast a Stone in Water and Fracture, Bend, and Break, I am also working on those updates. Please let me know how you like the chapter :) Happy reading!

As always, parent/child incest warning, don't like it, don't read it.

Henry didn't need time. There'd never been anything he was more certain of in his entire life, and he'd been certain of a great many things. As soon as he read her note, he was out of bed and gathering his clothes to get dressed. Once he finished getting his clothes on, he dumped out his backpack and shoved enough clothes from his dresser into the bag to last the weekend and into Monday. He did nothing else; he didn't have time to waste.

So Henry drove back home, home to Storybrooke, home to Regina. He was careful not to speed much, keeping in mind that being stopped for a traffic violation would take up more time than just forcing himself to go the speed limit the whole way there. When he crossed the townline, Henry felt a rush of relief at being back in the same town as her. He didn't want her to think he was going to take her request seriously, because he wanted her to know with as much certainty as he felt that he was meant to be with her and their child. Little else mattered to him.

As he pulled up past the house to park in the driveway, Henry narrowed his eyes at the sight of Snow's car out front. He put the car in park, leaving his backpack on the floor of the front seat and getting out. Heading down the walk, he greeted Snow as she got out of her car.

"Hey grandma." He gave a small wave. "Do you and mom have lunch plans? I can go see Emma until you're done, if you do."

Snow smiled awkwardly. "Oh, no, I was just coming to check in. I didn't know you were coming back this weekend."

Henry shrugged. "Uh, yeah, I actually just finished up with a bunch of midterm projects, so I thought I'd come home for a weekend away from the stress of college."

"Oh, well maybe you'll consider having dinner with David and me sometime this weekend then? And Emma of course."

"Sure." He nodded. "I'd like that. Maybe tomorrow night?"

Snow nodded. "Of course. Whatever is best for you." She fidgeted, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "So we never got to talk about how you feel about becoming a big brother."

Henry looked toward the house. "I think it's great Mom's pregnant. She always said that when she was younger she wanted a big family. It's good she'll have another baby."

"Do you think the father will be around much?"

"I guess that depends on if she wants him to be." He knew she was fishing, and he wasn't going to play into it today.

"I suppose that's fair." She gave him another awkward smile. "Well, I guess I can let you go. I'm sure you're tired from your drive."

He pointed toward the house. "I thought you were checking on mom."

Snow shook her head, turning her gaze away. "I think I've gotten more than enough answers."

"Right. Uh… hey, just one more thing?" Henry took a step to the side, trying to connect his gaze with hers. "If anyone in this town treats her like crap again, ever, for anything, I'll be gone in a heartbeat. She's the most important person in the world to me. I love you and grandpa, Emma, Neal… but she's the one who knows me best and has always known me best. So before you do whatever you're thinking of doing, please consider how much it'll change everything."

"But Henry—"

He raised his hand to stop her before she could say more, shaking his head. "No. I don't need your explanations here, or whatever it is you want to say. There are no 'buts.' What Regina does with her time and her life isn't anyone's concern."

"Right. Of course." Snow shook her head, turning to head back to her car as Henry made his way up the walk to the front door. Using his key to enter, he called out for Regina as he shut the door behind him. Stopping just inside, he listened, trying to figure out where in the house she was, but he heard only silence. He frowned, heading upstairs. He went down the hall to her bedroom, knocking and pushing open the door.

She was in there, her tiny frame laying on the bed, back facing the door. Henry called her name out softly, walking to the bed and kicking his shoes off. Sitting on the edge, he rubbed her side gently. "Hey, you okay?" He leaned over to look at her, finding her eyes shut and her breathing even, but her body felt warm. Frowning, he nudged her a little more firmly. "Regina, wake up."

She sighed, shifting onto her back and opening her eyes slowly, closing them almost immediately after. "Henry?" she mumbled, bringing her hand up to cover her eyes.

"Yeah, you didn't think I'd actually let you leave without following did you?" He rubbed her cheek. "What's wrong? Do you feel sick?"

"I just get these headaches sometimes. They're pretty bad, but I'll be okay."

"Any other symptoms?" He nudged her. "Move back onto your side, I'll massage your neck and shoulders and see if that helps."

Regina nodded weakly, shifting back onto her left side. "You shouldn't have come. Everyone's suspicious as it is."

"Snow is suspicious, and honestly, I don't care what she thinks. Eventually she'll understand that she can accept it or she's just not going to have a chance to be in our lives. You can tell me to go away, and if you mean it, I will. I will do whatever you ask. But if you're saying it just because you think it's for the best for me, I don't want to hear it. I love you, and there's no one I want besides you. And honestly, if you think that it's for the best for us not to be together, then I'm sad you're hurt that much by us. But I know I belong here. I love you with all of my heart and I don't want a life that doesn't involve being with you and raising our child together."

Henry paused a moment, working his hands gently on the muscles along her spine, massaging slowly to ease her tension. He kissed her shoulder, moving one hand to work the back of her neck. "But I want you to think about nothing else when you consider if you want to do this. Think about us, think about the baby, think about how I make you feel. Don't think about my schooling or my college experience or my age. Or what anyone else will think. Please. That's all I ask."

Regina nodded, turning her head to look at him. "Okay."

"And I'm here for the weekend but I already got roped into dinner with the Charmings for tomorrow night. Otherwise I'll be here the whole rest of the time."

"How'd you manage that?" She smirked, shaking her head and bringing her arm across her body to cover the hand he had on her side.

"Snow was out front when I got here. She knows. I mean, she obviously can't know for sure, but her suspicions aren't going away, and I think she's only growing more confident in them." Turning his hand under hers, Henry closed his fingers over her delicate ones. "That's another reason I want you to really think this through, okay? If you want to save face, if you decide I'm not raising this baby with you, I want you to decide early enough that there'll be time to convince them that we don't exist." The thought made his heart ache, but he would do it for her. "But if you decide that this is what you want, that you're willing to try to be happy with this beautiful little family we unexpectedly started, then maybe it's time we let people know we're not ashamed of it. Because I'm not. I made a move, you were hesitant, but eventually acted on carnal desires, and we discovered we're actually really great together, despite our circumstances. Anyone who truly believes in love knows you can't choose who you fall in love with."

Regina nodded, tears rolling down her cheeks. "Are you sure you won't change your mind?"

"Oh, Regina," he breathed, moving his hand to her cheek and turning her face so she would look at him. "Never. Not if we lived forever. You know me, you know when I'm in, I'm in. There's nowhere in the world that has my heart the way this house, our house, our family, has my heart."

She let out a soft sigh, shifting to sit up, her hand coming up to his cheek and stroking gently over his cheekbone. "You're so good. So kind and loving. I—I don't understand where I went so right with you, but I'm lucky. And I want to be with you. I do. It just scares me because I know your family will not approve."

Pressing his forehead to hers, Henry nodded. "We'll get through that together, okay? You and I will always be a team, and we'll manage. But if it's too stressful right now, if it'll cause more stress and harm you or the baby, we'll wait to tell anyone."

Regina shrugged, looking down at the bed. "I don't know. I'm tired of secrets. But I don't need the whole town after my head right now."

"Then we'll think on it, talk it over, take time to decide together how we should let this play out. You know, if we decide to tell everyone and they give you a hard time, you can always come out and we can live in the apartment for a while, at least until the baby is here and we need a bigger place. Or if they come around."

Regina sighed, looking up to meet his gaze. "You know they won't come around. Even I wonder sometimes what I was thinking agreeing to it in the first place." She frowned at the flicker of sadness in his eyes, hurrying with, "I don't mean that I regret it, please don't think that. But I'm your mother, I shouldn't have… I feel like somehow I've taken advantage of your desire to see me happy. That's who you are, you hate seeing anyone unhappy, and for some reason you especially hate to see me unhappy, and I let you fix that in a way that I shouldn't have, but it was fun, and I let myself set aside that you're my son and then it grew. And now I don't want to be without it, without you, but they won't understand why I agreed in the first place, no matter how lonely I may have been."

Henry took her hands into his, squeezing them affectionately and bringing them to his lips. He peppered kisses along her knuckles, then let go of them to pull her against him. "If they choose not to set aside their judgments and see that I'm a grown man, and you're a grown woman, and we can make whatever decisions we want, then I don't want them in my life. I'm an adult, not a child anymore who needs to be protected. Our child needs to be protected, and stress isn't good for you, and I don't want him or her growing up with people looking at them like they're a mistake or a result of a disgusting affair that shouldn't have happened. I want our child to grow up knowing love, and happiness. If we have to go find that somewhere other than Storybrooke, then so be it. We can do that."

Regina didn't know what to say, didn't know how to tell him that after all this time, she didn't want to leave, she didn't want to disappoint the people that had somehow, after so many things, become her family. She may not always like them, and they still had their differences, (plenty of them, actually) but they were still family. His happiness was what mattered most to her, though, so she nodded against him and pressed her face against his neck, letting tears of stress, pain, and fear fall.

He shushed her gently, kissing her hair and caressing his hands up and down her back. "It'll be okay. Why don't you come stay with me for a week after this weekend. You know, get out of Storybrooke, clear your head. You never take vacations, you deserve it, and we can be in our own private bubble of bliss when I'm not in class. I can take you to all my favorite places to eat, and we can go see movies, or curl up on the couch together. Have dates." He slipped one hand into her hair, caressing the top of her neck. "Sounds pretty great to me."

She sucked in a slow, steadying breath and nodded again, pulling back slowly and looking up at him again. "Yeah, it does sound pretty wonderful."

Henry kissed her forehead, then stood up and unbuckled his belt, undid his pants, pushing them off and climbing back into the bed. Laying down, he tugged gently on her arm. "Come here, let's finish your nap and we'll talk more afterward. Hopefully your head will feel better and we can have a good, quiet dinner."

Regina settled against him, laying half on him and kissing his cheek. "Okay. Thanks, baby."

"Of course. I love you."

"Love you, too." And whether it was from her headache or emotional exhaustion, Regina quickly fell asleep content to have him back home.