Part Two
"Every coin has two sides, Regina my dear. It is true of all of us. The question, my love, is who do we want to be."
- Virginia Culver
Emma
"What do you fucking mean she moved out? I don't fucking understand. She can't just move out!" Henry kicked his box spring again, his irate face red and splotchy. "Why didn't you tell us?" His voice cracked into a higher pitch and for once, he didn't seem to care.
It had taken her four full days to tell her boys about Regina's departure. Of course, they had noticed her absence, but much to Emma's relief and deep depression, it had taken them longer than it should have. Business trips were not uncommon for Regina so she had hoped they simply assumed she had left while they were asleep or - something. She didn't know. But they hadn't asked.
"Where is she?" He demanded with a stomp of his foot.
"Henry."
"Where is she? With Mal? At the office? Where is she staying? She has to be staying somewhere!"
"I think she's at Granny's, kid... or... I don't know." She sighed in defeat.
"You think? You don't know? How can you not know?"
"No, Henry, I don't know. I wasn't here when she packed her bag so I didn't ask."
The idea of Regina packing a bag seemed to startle Ollie. His eyes grew wide and confused as he looked toward his ranting brother for further explanation.
"Mom left us!" He bit at his younger brother. "She walked out like Walter's dad!"
"What? Nooo!" Oliver wailed at the same time that Emma chided her eldest son for his brash words.
This is why it had taken her so long to tell them. Or at least that was what she wanted to tell herself. She had wanted to spare them this pain. She hadn't been sure that she wanted Regina gone, not for a little while anyway.
Though a large part of her wondered if maybe she had just been a coward and too afraid to tell her children that their other mother had absolutely disappeared.
Yet again her mind growled at her. Shouldn't Regina be the one doing this fucking shit? Where was she? Clearly she hadn't been able to pull herself away from Mal's magic pussy long enough to show up here and talk to her kids. Then again, she hadn't been able to get Regina to do a lot of things lately, especially when it came to the kids.
Her lovely wife, ladies and gentlemen. Let's give her a round of applause!
Emma had always known how to pick them, hadn't she? It was clear to her, if to no one else that she had made the right choice in kicking Regina out. Yes, her stomach was a bubbling, churning mess of acidic knots and she was going to report her as a missing person soon, but she wasn't surprised that Regina had dropped off the face of the earth.
"Don't you even fucking care?" Henry bellowed.
"Hey!" Emma snapped a lot louder than she had meant to, making Ollie jump. "Curb the language. You're pushing it. One more time and you're grounded."
"I'm sixteen." He scowled as though that was far too lofty of an age to be something as juvenile as a grounded.
"Exactly." Emma scoffed. "You're sixteen, not twenty-five. I understand you're pissed but knock it off."
"What, you can say pissed but I can't say fuck?"
Emma glared her worst mom glare and Henry shrank a bit.
"I don't get it." Ollie finally said, looking between his mother and his brother. "What do you mean like Walter's dad? Is Mommy in Vegas living with a hooker now?"
Emma made a mental note to ask Walter's mother to watch what she was saying in front of her son.
"No stupid, they're getting a divorce."
Ollie's eyes popped wide in alarm. Every kind these days knew that word.
"Henry, don't call your brother stupid and we don't know if we are getting a divorce yet, guys. I know that sucks but this kind of choice takes time. She and I need to talk and see. I'm sure she will be back soon and we can all talk then."
"So where is she then? If you need to talk, then why aren't you talking? If you need to talk, then she should be here!"
She decided that maybe it was best if they end the conversation here before the only response she could give her furious son was 'I don't know'. She thought that might drive him insane and, frankly, she wouldn't blame him.
She softly cupped Oliver's cheek, trying to sooth his quivering lip. "Look guys, whatever happens it will be alright. We will always be a family whether Mom and I are together or not."
Oliver tried to smile but his confusion was too thick.
Henry just kicked his bed again but this time with a little less force. "Bullshit."
"All right kid, one week. School and home. That's it."
"Wha-"
"I warned you!"
"That's crap!"
She stared at him for a long while, surprised when he just glared back at her.
He was upset. Maybe it wasn't fair to punish him right now, but - ugh, she didn't know.
There had been a time that she had indeed signed up to be a single parent, but she had never signed up to be a single parent of three. How was she going to do this?
For the hundredth time, she felt an overpowering wish that none of this had happened, that she could go back in time and make this right.
She didn't let Henry see this insecurity though, even though it was taking all the strength she could muster. She just stared right back, immovable.
Henry's eyes began to shift nervously under her stare, but the boy refused to back down on this subject.
He had pretty much only known life with Regina, she understood that. They had met when he was six years old. Regina has always been his mother. As a matter of fact, the two had always shared a special bond because of it, close in a way that was only for them. She wondered how much of his hurt was about the fact that Regina hadn't told him any of this herself.
"Why, Mom? Tell me why. Tell me what could have happened that would mean she has to lose her entire family? How is that ever fair?"
She felt a brush of mild surprise. Hadn't he been the one suspicious of Regina and Maleficent first? Hadn't he tried to hint that perhaps Regina was doing something she shouldn't? Then again, at sixteen she supposed it wasn't surprising that he had forgotten that. He had probably worried about it but never actually believed it could be true. He was in many ways still a young boy after all and he loved his mother. "Henry, she's not losing her family."
"Did you kick her out? Huh? Did you kick her out or did she leave?"
Emma bit back the anger and the pain. She knew he was a teenager so she couldn't ask him to remember that she had just lost her wife – her partner of ten years - no matter who had made the call. She was in...well…there was so much pain.
Because, after all, Regina wasn't losing her family. She really wasn't. She had thrown her family out for a few cheap orgasms. She wanted to scream at Henry that this wasn't her fault, it was Regina's. Instead she said, "I told you, we will always be a family. I wish I could tell you more, but I can't right now, Henry."
His face turned purple with unshed tears. "I want to see her."
"Henr-"
"No! You can't keep me from her! She's my mom! You can't!"
Emma was developing a very unpleasant pain in her stomach. She pushed her fingers against it, hard, trying to knead out the stabbing ache. "Henry, I don't know where she is. Even if I did, I think we need to give her some space for a while." There was no way she would let Henry walk in on the bondage - thing - she had seen a few days before.
"UGH, GET OUT!" His voice cracked as he screamed, rushing at her. This time the crack in his voice wasn't funny at all. "GET OUT! LEAVE ME ALONE!"
He didn't touch her, but his intense hatred stung Emma, burning her like a hand clasped to her throat. She rushed out of the room, pulling Ollie with her.
She turned, trying to find something to say and the door slammed in her face, a breath from her nose. Without her permission a hiccupping sob popped from her lips.
She closed her eyes, fighting back the bile that had lived in her throat for days now and tried to calm herself.
Normally this was when Regina would swoop in, the other half of the parenting team, and she would make it better. She had always been so good at that in the past.
She hated how much she missed her, had missed her for weeks... maybe even months or years.
She had spent every night crying since Regina had so willingly gone. It was part of her new routine.
Every night she tucked the kids in with a smile and a kiss, trying to pretend that things were normal when they just weren't.
She went through the house to be sure everything was in order and ready for the following day, as usual.
She readied herself for bed, just like she always had.
But then she would break routine. She spent a while staring at the place where she and Regina had slept for years. She would look at the sheets they had chosen together, at the pillows where each of their heads had gone, at the space between them where their sick or afraid kids had slept.
She would make up her mind that no, she absolutely wouldn't. She would grab her pillow, only to realize every night that it smelled too much of Regina to use having spent its entire life right beside her.
Then she would walk into the first guest bedroom and promptly remember that was where Mal had stayed.
She would then walk to the second guest bedroom and sink into the bed where, alone and under the covers she would sob until her face, her head, and her heart hurt so much that her choices were to break apart or surrender to sleep.
She swallowed back another sob now, her face a breath from Henry's door.
She couldn't blame him. Her heart had been broken too.
She took a calming breath and then another, the air shaky in her lungs. When she was in control, for the most part, she turned and dropped down to one knee. She had kept back her tears, but Ollie hadn't and after that, she wasn't surprised.
"Hey, sweetie," she cooed and pulled Oliver into a hug. She could feel his little body shaking in her arms and it only made her sore heart hurt worse. "This is not like Walter's daddy, okay? I know you don't necessarily understand right now but that's okay. All right? Don't worry about that. We'll keep talking about it, okay?"
He nodded and rubbed his snotty nose on her shirt. It almost made her laugh.
"Oooh, thank you for that, sweet pea." He just blinked his overly large eyes up at her, unaware. "All right. Do you want to watch some cartoons? Yeah? Come on. Let's watch something."
She led her small son downstairs and bundled him into the corner of the couch under all the blankets she could find. Then she clicked on the TV and sat beside him, watching the bright colors move and counting down the minutes until that night when she would be alone again and she could let the stranglehold of tears go.
