Author's comments:
Happy Thursday everyone,
Today's flight takes some turns to only skim Angstville and has a little bit of MM giving Regina a hard time. Also, dancing. According to my outline, we're two chapters from the end after this chapter. Though I am VERY tempted to do an epilogue. As always, everyone, thanks for all the feedback and support.
BTW, a quick thank you to DeedNay for inspiring Dabpa.
This is your captain speaking.
pFire274 - I have been called evil and have been called a bitch but both? I consider that high praise! I do a lot of brainstorming on my own and with the wife during the outlining process. More often than not, I am looking to write what "feels right" for the characters.
MuffinRamsey - Still angst but a very different kind of angst. The Nolan-Mills family have all grown a lot.
CrystalEarth - Glad you liked it ;)
Chapter 35 - The one with dancing
They were in the living room. By design, and Regina had absolutely planned seating arrangements for this, Emma pulled up a chair, Regina sat on the couch and Henry leaned back in the armchair. Regina wanted him to perceive them all as equals, so she didn't let Emma sit next to her. Regina insisted on including Emma in her conversation with Henry, which was kind of intimidating, but also kind of nice.
Emma sat on the edge of her seat, literally, ready to jump up in case Regina needed her to do anything — get a fire extinguisher, practice a karate chop on an intruder, administer CPR — whatever.
Regina gave Henry her notebook and explained the bullet points on it; the whole time the kid's eyes grew wider and wider. Emma got it, her reaction had been pretty similar. Henry listened till his hands were clenched around the arm rests and the toes of his sneakers were pressed hard into the floor. Finally he exploded, "but all of this changes everything."
Regina didn't look surprised by the outburst. "You're right. For a long time, we've had a quiet, predictable life. Everything was certain and safe. This is what it means to fight. Most of the things in our lives become a big question mark."
His face bunched unhappily, making him look a little prunish. "But if you do all this, doesn't it mean that your mother wins?"
"I'm doing it for you, and for Emma. And me." Regina listing herself last pricked Emma, but at least she was actually including herself now. "Our family."
"But you're going to hire a private investigator to see if I have any relatives. That means they could come and take me."
Regina closed her eyes a long moment and swallowed, composing herself. Right now, she wasn't Regina the mayor or the ex-hot shot CEO. She was just Regina, fragile and open to her son. Emma wanted to put her arms around both of them. "Or it could just mean you have access to a part of yourself you didn't before. If it looks like things are going another way, then, I have other thoughts. Nuclear options." She shook her head, as if that wasn't a path she wanted to travel during this discussion. "I'm doing it so that my mother can't threaten us with it. And because, on further reflection, it's...it's the right thing to do, Henry. It terrifies me, you must know that."
Her honesty softened Henry. He moved to sit next to her. In starting to be a man, Henry was learning to put others above himself. He had a big heart, but now, even with the possibility of a door opening that could change his entire life, he focused on soothing his mom.
Emma loved him. Them. Henry nodded toward the spot on his mom's other side of, trying to get Emma's attention. She hid a smirk and moved as directed. Henry had his own seating plan.
"We know it's scary," Emma said. Regina had told her it was important that she was a part of the conversation instead of fading into the background. This was to be a "family" meeting, after all. "That's why your mom and I have been talking about it as a family decision. All three of us have to be 100% on board, or we shouldn't do it."
Henry's mouth thinned in something close to a smile but not quite. Emma thought it was mostly because she invoked the words "all three of them".
Trying to sort through it all, he turned back to his mom. "You wanted to run because you knew how hard all of this would be?"
"Yes. And because…" Regina smoothed his hair back from his face. "Why haven't you made a video since Peter Pan came along?"
He flinched back, defensive. "I didn't want to."
Regina kept her words soft. "But why, you used to love your videos so much?"
This time he thought about it before answering. "Maybe, I'm afraid it will happen again."
"But logically, you know it probably won't. You know better how to protect yourself now. And Emma's here, and you know how good she is with computers." Henry didn't answer right away. Regina let him off the hook. "My point is that fear isn't logical. But that doesn't mean it's not valid."
"Like, my big thing was being afraid of sticking around, because I thought people would always toss me to the curb," Emma said. "Even though I know you and your mom aren't like that."
Their "living together trial period" was due to end in a week or so, but neither Regina or Emma had mentioned it. Emma found that if she thought about living with Regina forever, her stomach still twisted and her anxiety rose. If she just took it day by day, it felt like the best kind of normal. She wasn't about to bring up the topic of leaving.
"So to you, your mother is like Peter Pan to me," Henry said slowly, thinking about it as he said it. "And like commitment is to Emma."
Regina cupped his chin. "I think that's true."
He chewed on his lower lip, eyes downcast. "Maybe I'm also embarrassed. About the pictures and the videos. That he was able to trick me so he could take them." He lifted his head again, taking in their reaction to his words. They offered him patience and let him keep sorting through things. "Could — could your mom use what happened with Peter Pan against us, too?"
Emma reached around Regina to lay a hand on Henry's back. She didn't know what Regina would say, it hadn't come up in their hour-long preparation for talking with him, but it was a pretty intense question.
"I don't think so, sweetheart, but...I'm not entirely sure."
He didn't react to that with terror. Instead his face tensed, as if he was wearing a backpack that someone had shoved a hundred-pound weight into and he was determined to carry.
"Which is why," Regina said, quiet but insistent. "As Emma said, we really need you to be sure you agree with all of this."
"But the other option is running?"
Regina nodded. "In this situation, I think so, yes."
"And Emma would come, too?"
Emma and Regina had already discussed this, and Regina had even given her homework researching entrance requirements for other countries. "It would be a little more complicated for me, kid, but...yeah. One way or another, we'd all go."
"The last thing on the list doesn't really have to do with your mom."
"No," Regina agreed, "but it's something I think I need to do."
"But I don't have to come?"
"No, Henry, of course not."
"What you're doing, your plan, is like if I had published the pictures of myself before Peter Pan could." He glanced to Emma to gauge if that sounded right to her. It was close enough. He turned back to his mother. "The pictures would be out there, so he wouldn't be able to use them against me but...it would be really hard." He sat back, almost reclining, staring into space. "That's pretty brave, isn't it?"
Clouds lifted from Regina's face, relieved that he understood. Of all the things Regina feared, losing Henry's love and respect was a living wound that could consume her if it came true. Emma knew she couldn't convince Regina that any anger or resentment Henry ever felt would, in the end, be drowned by the ocean of the connection between them. She was sure of it though.
Emma knocked his shoulder to get his attention. "Fear makes you give stuff up, right? But it keeps you in the same place. Fighting makes you do stuff and you could lose things, too, but if you fight there's also a chance for more."
"Like us being a family?"
The open, easy way he said it poured into Emma furiously, warm and healing. She couldn't talk for a moment. Regina took her hand and answered for her, "Exactly like that."
"I think you have a good plan, mom."
She froze, her voice small as as she asked, "You do?"
His smile grew in stages, but by the end, the entirety of his faith and love for her shone on his face. "Yep."
"Put 'em in," Emma told them, extending her hand out.
Henry quickly caught on and placed his hand over Emma's, but then he had to explain to his mother. "It's a 'go team' thing, mom. Put your hand in." Regina slowly did, giving Emma a fond, "you're ridiculous" headshake.
Henry stretched up to kiss the top of his mother's head. Emma laughed and did the same thing, then tackle-hugged both of them onto the couch with her. Henry protested, mostly to save his teenage pride, but gave them both a quick squeeze before disentangling himself and scrambling free.
When Regina excused herself to her office to finalize some of the details of her plan, Henry stopped Emma. "If I tell you an idea I have, does it mean I have to do it?"
"Nope, you can treat me like a recycle bin that you can empty when you want." They both paused a moment then frowned. "Yeah, forget I said it that way." She nudged him. "You want to talk a walk?"
David did the same thing with her, she realized. For as long as she'd known him, he would invite her to take a walk if he sensed she needed to talk. He wouldn't push. He'd offer her an ear if she wanted it and the steady grace of his presence. Maybe she learned from them, David and Mary Margaret, a little something about being a parent. Maybe she could offer some of that to Henry.
She loved that idea and let it fly inside her for the rest of the day.
That night, after she told Regina where she was headed, she dropped by her parents' house. When David opened the door, it felt like kismet. She asked him to go for a walk. She was pretty sure it was the first time she'd ever asked him, instead of the other way around.
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When Emma got home, the kitchen light was still on. Regina had taken out the contents of several cabinets and begun wiping them down.
Emma had seen her do this a few times. It was not a good sign. At least this time she was sure about the cause. "You okay?"
Regina nodded, but didn't face her. "Just trying to keep occupied."
Emma nodded. "Well..." She pulled her iPhone from her pocket and scrolled through her music. Regina's brow furrowed, and she turned towards her when a love ballad began to play. "Let me help."
Emma went to the center of the room, bowed, and extended her hand to Regina.
"Emma, I should finish this, and then review —"
"Everything you have been thinking about and doing is huge. This, getting you to take a minute just for you? Is just as important." She proffered her hand again. "C'mere."
Regina went to her, stepping close and resting against her.
"You know," Emma said, arms wrapping around her. "I have a theory about slow dancing."
"Do you?"
"Yeah, my theory is it's really just an excuse to hug someone for a while and not feel awkward." They swayed ever so slightly, but at this moment, Regina had to admit that Emma might have a point.
Regina turned her head so her cheek lay over Emma's heart. "Emma? What if, even with all of this — all my planning — she beats me? What if I never win? What if I can't do this, and I'm just fooling myself. I hear her in here." She touched her brow. "She's so loud. She always tells me I'm not good enough. She told me once that I was lacking a certain something, that she knew I could feel it and she felt it, too. And it meant I would have to work that much harder for everything."
Emma cursed under her breath, trying to figure out how to battle the voices in Regina's head. She pulled her closer. "Fuck your mother. Seriously. And fuck anyone who doesn't see how amazing you are. I'll tell you what, every time you hear one of those voices in your head, you just picture me punching it out, okay?" It made Regina laugh. Emma's heart lightened, glad that maybe she'd found the right things to say. "Or come find me and I'll kiss you. Like...as a counterargument."
"Kiss me now?"
Her voice was a plea, full of vulnerability. Emma's mouth on hers made a gentle, thorough argument.
Regina's arms curled around Emma's neck as she "listened."
"I'm terrified." She sighed into Emma's neck as she drew back.
Emma felt Regina tremble and cling to her. "I'm here, baby. You're not alone, okay?" It didn't solve everything, Emma knew that, but she thought maybe it was what Regina needed to hear.
They kept dancing.
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Regina supposed that her insistence on double-checking the room a half hour before the meeting was partly responsible for the tutorial Mary Margaret gave them. David, Mary Margaret, and Emma were gathered with her in the meeting room in Town Hall. She was going to address the town council and Belle. They were there to provide moral support. She usually wouldn't have accepted their offer, but this was far from the normal day.
"So here's the new plan that we all need to agree to should unexpected things arise." Mary Margaret said and wrote five letters, D, A, B, P, A, on the whiteboard. "We should not panic and make decisions when we are panicking. Instead, we should Dabpa. Discuss. Assess. Brainstorm. Plan. Act." She pointed to each letter as she spoke the associated word.
"We also," David added and looked at her meaningfully, then he drew a big circle, wrote the word "crime" inside it, and slanted a line through it. "Should not consider committing a crime because we don't know what else to do."
Mary Margaret gave her husband the side-eye. "No, that should only be a last resort."
David huffed at her. "Should we just start saving up for your bail now?"
"Anyway," Mary Margaret said with a bright smile. "Dabpa. This is what we should all agree to in the future because if not, Mary Margaret —" she drew a stick figure with x's for eyes, "— will be like this."
Emma shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "Do we actually have to use the word 'dabpa.'"
"Hey, it took me quite a bit of time to come up with that." Unseen by her, David mouthed "two hours" to Regina and Emma. "I wanted something that would be easy to remember."
"Thank you, Mary Margaret," Regina said dryly. "I appreciate your subtle lecturing of my life choices."
Mary Margaret did not look cowed. "You are so very welcome."
With a smirk at her, Regina moved to the front and erased the board before the others arrived. She regretted the loss of distraction the moment she did it.
Regina rubbed her hands together, trying to relieve the clammy feeling there. She made sure each seat had the right number of handouts. The list of bullet points wasn't in any particular order. Each item pained her, and it had taken all of her strength just to be brave enough to list them.
Every part of the path forward had brambles and thorns. All of it was uphill. Demons would stalk her as she went. They would claw at her and do all they could to get her to go back. She could swear sweat gathered on her brow and back, but when she touched there, she found nothing.
Belle, Archie, Kathryn and Sidney ambled into the room, all smiles and warm greetings. Surprised to see the Nolans and Emma, but happy. Their good-natured banter existed as a polar opposite to what Regina was about to tell them.
"Please sit," Regina said, and Archie's brow furrowed at her seriousness, catching a hint something might be amiss. Belle, of course, already knew, and she controlled her expression, giving nothing away.
Kathryn was the first to look down at the top printout in front of her. "Regina," she said, alarmed. "This is a resignation letter?"
All eyes in the room jumped to her. David, Emma, Mary Margaret and Belle offering encouragement, the others confused and concerned.
Regina had rehearsed what she would say, how she would begin. Her stomach clenched and her throat tightened, an act of rebellion against what she was about to do. "I need to tell you some things about me. They may be things you already know. I have had the feeling that some of you allowed me my privacy, and for that I am grateful. However, it's no longer a luxury I can afford, and I want you to hear this from me."
She took her chair at the head of the table, not at all feeling like the mayor and decision-maker. Instead, she became the young woman facing her mother, trying to make a case for the charity she wanted to head, sure things wouldn't go her way.
She had been taught no one could be trusted. Not even family. Yet she had Emma and Henry and the Nolans. They were teaching her to hope. Now, though, she wouldn't blame the council for turning their backs on her. She loved this town and the people here. She could only pray that if they turned on her, Henry wouldn't be caught in the cross fire.
She was asking too much of them, she thought as she spoke. As she laid out her own past and what the risks were in the present.
When she finished, Sidney, Kathryn, and Archie asked for some time to speak privately. It seemed to confirm her doubts. She crossed her arms over her chest and stood outside waiting. Emma took her hand, and the Nolans stood shoulder to shoulder with them.
After twenty minutes the council called her back in; Regina was sure that this was the moment they would emotionally execute her. She straightened her back and tried to hold her head up.
"Regina," Archie said. "If you need some time to deal with this, well, family issue, we think we could work out a leave of absence." He gave a small, kind smile. "Most of us knew a lot of what you told us. Well, not Sidney."
"I don't like the internet. The internet encourages anonymous stupidity," Sidney said haughtily.
Kathryn cut in, "We're not sure your resignation is necessary. Your suggestion to do an interview for the town newspaper, to get ahead of this, is a good idea. We might want to even have a town meeting. If the press show up without our permission, we freeze them out. The best they'll get will be a whole town of people dodging them and saying, 'no comment'."
Regina didn't think they had fully understood. She picked up one of the papers she'd prepared and double-checked her wording. "The town deserves a mayor who is fully present and who doesn't have a past that could cause significant disruptions. For the time being, Belle will serve as the acting mayor. She can help ensure continuity between my administration and the next. In your packet is the proposal for a special election, since we didn't officially have a procedure."
"Why don't we just let Belle serve in that role until the next official election, and then we can vote you back in," Sidney suggested. Archie bobbed his head in agreement.
Regina pinched the bridge of her nose. Their inability to follow her logic made an already agonizing process strangle the strength left in her heart.
"Regina," David said. "Isn't your resignation a way to prevent your mother from turning the town against you? If the town knows everything and they still want you as mayor...that's a valid choice, isn't it?"
"But…"
"Regina," Archie said, a quiet, certain expression on his face. "We don't know this 'Ice Queen' you told us about. It sounds like she was not a pleasant person, but that is not the woman who has been our mayor for the last eight years. You are our mayor." He glanced around at the others to see if any of them would disagree. By their smiles, it didn't seem like they did.
Belle interrupted before Regina could object again, her tone amused. "It's been a process, Regina. When you first got here, you were inaccessible. Even as mayor, it was and is hard to get to know you. Even for me. But lately, it seems like you've been….more approachable. We accepted you before, but we're happy you're letting us get to know you now. You've done all these things to make this community a strong one. Didn't it occur to you that in becoming that, we'd decide to protect our own?"
It hadn't. Regina, skilled at predicting what people would do, hadn't considered the possibility of this reaction.
After the meeting concluded, with plans for another one the next day, she went to her office and quietly closed the door. She rested her head in her hands and let herself cry.
Arms came around her not long after and she knew it was Emma. She pressed her face into Emma's shoulder, teardrops dotting her shirt.
"Will you stay with me while I call my mother?," Regina asked when she quieted.
Emma kissed her. "Anything. Whatever, whenever."
Regina held her eyes a moment, drinking in the offering. "Everything," she countered.
Emma smiled, the kind of smile that was an admission of love even if they hadn't actually said it to one another yet. "That too."
Regina's heart beat so fast as she picked up her phone, that it seemed to leave her chest entirely. She tried to keep her breathing normal, but even over the phone, her mother could be an intimidating presence.
"Mother, I've been thinking more about the interview you suggested. I worry that — I am certain many questions about the charity will come up, and I know the slightest misstep could mean disaster. "
"What can I do to help?" Cora asked.
"Maybe we could meet beforehand and practice or...I don't know." Good, Regina coached herself as she injected frustration into her voice.
"I could do the interview with you. Would that help?"
Regina hadn't been sure how this would play out. It was important for her mother to come to the interview. Her plan had been that, after the practice, Cora would stand on the sidelines to offer her support.
This, though, this was better. At least strategically.
She grabbed Emma's hand and tried to calm the rise of anxiety inside her. "Would that seem strange?"
"A mother supporting her daughter? I think it will create a strong perception about our dedication to one another. Regina? I'm so very glad you're letting me help you with this."
Regina wondered how, after all this time and all she had done, her mother could still make her feel deep pangs of guilt. She tried to ignore it. "Maybe afterward we can discuss when Emma, Henry, you and I can get together?"
"That would be lovely, dear. Thank you, Regina."
"You're welcome, Mother."