consensual parent/child nicest. Don't like it, don't read it.

September 21 dawned clear and sunny, which Henry thought was fitting. He and Regina had managed to convince Granny to close the diner for the morning to host a private party, and when they got there, everyone else had arrived: Granny and Ruby, Dr. Whale, Emma, and Snow and David with Neal. All the people considered to be close friends and family.

Regina was second guessing telling everyone. She wanted to stay in their blissful bubble of happiness and love, cozying up in the nest at home and talking about their baby together, not with all of the people whose opinions could break her spirit.

"Aunty Regina!" Neal squealed when they walked in, running up to his favorite aunt, whom he hadn't seen much of in the past few months. "Pick me up!"

Henry scooped up the little boy instead, groaning dramatically. "Sheesh, squirt, you're getting heavy!"

Neal pouted and whined, "I want Aunty Regina to hold me!"

"Nope," Henry said easily. "You're too heavy. Aunty Regina is a delicate flower." He grinned at her and winked.

Narrowing her eyes, Regina reached her hands out just to spite Henry and pulled Neal from his arms, letting the boy rest on her hip. And after two minutes of holding him and tickling him, she refused to tell Henry that Neal's weight was, in fact, too much to be comfortable holding.

Henry stared at Regina with an unimpressed expression that grew concerned as he noticed the subtle signs of strain in her expression.

Ruby came to the rescue, calling out, "Breakfast!" and motioning to the tables pushed together in the middle of the diner, plates put out and platters of food on the counter.

"Yay!" Neal shouted, and wiggled out of Regina's grasp to run for the counter and attempt to take the entire platter of bacon.

Soothing him with a kiss to his cheek, Regina wandered through the diner toward David and Snow. "Thanks for coming," she said easily, relaxing at David's side and watching Neal.

Snow smiled a little, still a bit uneasy seeing David and Regina together, but the month and a half since David had told her about the kiss had helped considerably. "Thanks for inviting us… Why are we here, anyway? It's not a holiday, or anyone's birthday." She tilted her head inquisitively, a smile at the corners of her lips. "Are you finally making an announcement about those rings that appeared last month?"

"No. They're just rings, just… symbols," Regina answered softly, looking at David. "I'm assuming you told her our secret?" Pressing one hand to her stomach out of instinct, she tilted her head questioningly.

David nodded and said, "I did."

She nodded. "Most people here know anyway. I just… I couldn't imagine telling Emma one on one. And… it's important to Henry to show everyone that no matter what they're thinking, this is ours, we're pleased about it and they need to deal with that."

Snow smiled softly and reached out to put her hand on Regina's arm. "I'm happy for you, Regina. You deserve this. Love, happiness. I'm glad you finally found it."

"Me too," she answered, gazing at Henry. "And such a strange place it came from."

Tilting her head, Snow gave her that smiling look that she got when she found everything to be right in the world. "I think… I think there was a reason you never killed me back in our land. I think you weren't meant to. Because if you had, you wouldn't have found Henry. You wouldn't have found your True Love."

"I never actually wanted to kill you anyway, dear," Regina mused.

"There were a few times you could've fooled me," Snow chuckled. "But we're here now, so… it doesn't matter." She gave Regina a quick hug. "Now we have breakfast to eat!"

"Indeed we do," Regina agreed, making her way back to Henry and leaning against him while she waited for everyone else to fill their plates.

Once everyone was seated at the tables and eating, Henry squeezed Regina's thigh beneath the table, looking at her with raised, hopeful eyebrows.

"Right now?" she asked, almost in a hiss.

"Yeah!" Henry whispered back enthusiastically.

Hearing the exchange from the other side of the table, Ruby loudly asked, "Something you guys want to share?" and smirked.

Narrowing her eyes at Ruby, Regina sighed and cleared her throat. "It appears now is the best time to tell everyone why we're here," she said in a strong voice, demanding the attention of the people around them.

Henry could barely sit still and his cheeks already ached from grinning as he watched Regina with excited, adoring eyes.

"Henry and I are," she started, pausing with worry as she brought a hand to the tiny bump on her stomach. "We're expecting a baby."

Ruby jumped up with a happy squeal and ran behind the counter, immediately returning with a pastel-wrapped gift, shoving it into Regina's hands and giving her an excited hug, followed by one for Henry. "Oh my god, I've been waiting for this for months!"

Emma's mouth hung open. She knew they had been trying, but didn't actually think it would happen. How old was Regina, anyway? Wouldn't three decades of stalled time mess up the system? Then again, Neal was proof that it didn't.

Munching on a pancake with strawberries, Neal looked up at his aunt. "Where you gettin' a baby from, Aunty Regina?"

Gasping at the innocent question, Regina hesitated a moment, looking to Henry for assistance.

Henry almost laughed at the baffled expression on Regina's face, and he turned to Neal. "The baby's gonna grow in Aunty Regina's tummy," he told the boy. "C'mere."

Neal obediently clamored down off his chair, and onto Henry's lap, looking up at him curiously.

Taking the little boy's hand, Henry reached out and pressed it against Regina's stomach, nudging her own hand out of the way. "Feel that little bump?" he asked. "That's the baby. It's really tiny right now, like a plum. But it's gonna grow, and Aunty Regina's tummy is gonna get bigger, until the baby is ready to come out."

Neal's eyes were wide as he felt the bump and listened to Henry's explanation. "Is it gonna come out Aunty's bellybutton?" he asked, patting Regina's stomach.

"Sure," Henry snickered. "That works."

"Coooool." Neal was in awe as he continued to gently pet the tiny baby bump.

Relaxing a little, Regina pulled Neal into her own lap. She looked at Emma, wanting to hear something, anything from her.

"Uh… so that was… quick," Emma choked out.

"When you know what you want… amirite?" Ruby said, nudging Henry and winking at him.

Regina rolled her eyes playfully and smiled self consciously. No, no one was being rude, basically everyone had already known anyway, but she still felt uncomfortable.

Noticing her discomfort, David grinned. "I think it's great," he threw out. "When is a baby ever not an amazing gift? Especially when it's desired?"

Snow nodded and gave Regina a supportive smile. "I agree."

"Open the gift," Ruby urged with a grin and a mischievous twinkle in her eye. She glanced at Snow, asking, "Neal can't read yet, right?"

Snow's eyebrows rose. "No… not really, why?"

"Just making sure it's safe for them to open the gift with him sitting there," Ruby replied innocently.

Opening the wrapping paper on the front of the gift, Regina smiled nervously and tried to hide it from view of others.

Henry leaned over, reading the title of the book and smirking. "Sweet. Ruby, your standing as my favorite person after Regina remains solid."

"Oh gods," Snow sighed in a long-suffering, but amused tone. "I don't even want to know."

Ruby just grinned proudly.

Shaking her head softly, she mouthed a subtle thank you to the waitress and slipped the book into her purse. Then, bouncing Neal on her knees she looked at Snow, saying, "No, you don't."

Henry was already thinking of the possibilities contained within the book, a modified Kama Sutra, specifically for couples who were expecting. He decided to flip through it at the earliest possible moment.

David kept his head turned away from the happy couple. Curiosity had been his downfall in the past; he wasn't going to go down that road again. Instead, he trained his eye on his daughter, who looked miserable and uncomfortable. He noticed that mostly everyone was finishing eating and nudged her foot under the table. "Why don't you talk to her?" he asked.

"I don't know. I don't want to," Emma answered, shifting and looking to at Regina and Henry with an annoyed expression.

Henry noticed the look when he turned to asked David something, but he forgot his question upon seeing the look on Emma's face and frowned. On impulse, he asked, "Hey, Ma, wanna go for a walk?"

Taken off guard, Emma just nodded dumbly. "Sure," she answered with a shrug.

Henry squeezed Regina's shoulder as he stood, and headed outside with Emma. Once in the sunshine, he squinted and shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. "So… what's up?"

"I don't know, kid. I'm… I'm happy for you, I guess. It's weird, you know," she answered, slightly uncomfortable talking to her kid about this.

"I know," Henry replied, nodding. "It's still a little weird for us sometimes, too. But it's more than that. I mean… we've never really talked about it, you and I. I kind of left that to Regina, after we were outed."

"Yeah. I… I care about her still and that's uncomfortable. And you want this baby with her and you're the age I was when I gave you up. It's… it makes me wonder if I just wasn't willing to try hard enough," Emma admitted, looking away from him.

Henry frowned. "It's partly because of the memories, too, isn't it?" he asked. He'd wondered, too, once he'd remembered, if it really would've been like that if Emma had raised him. He'd come to the conclusion that it wouldn't have. Teenage single mothers don't have the flexibility that teenagers without babies have, the flexibility that allowed Emma, in her real life, to get a grip on her life and get on her feet.

She nodded. "And… Regina is the one with the real memories of raising you. And now she gets to do it all over again and I'm… just… by myself again. Still."

Impulsively, Henry wrapped his arms around Emma, hugging her. "You're still my ma," he said into her hair. "You always will be." He paused, glancing over her shoulder and adding, "And Ruby was checking out your ass."

"You're crazy, kid," Emma protested. "She's my best friend."

Pulling out of the hug, Henry shrugged. "She's also a hot bisexual, and objectively speaking, you're pretty good-looking, yourself."

"Of course I am," she joked, coming out of her mood. "How the hell do you think you got to be such a good looking young man?"

Henry nodded in agreement. "Fair enough. No offense to Dad and all, but it definitely didn't come from his side of the family."

"His father was Rumplestiltskin. Of course it didn't come from his side," she teased. "Your charm though, definitely part him and part Regina."

"Not my charming grandfather?" Henry joked, grinning.

"Between you and me, mom mistakes his dorkiness for charm," Emma laughed. This felt nice, like things used to feel.

Laughing, Henry nodded. "Yeah, he's pretty dorky. But Prince Charming sounds better. Prince Dorky sounds like dwarf royalty."

Laughing harder at that, Emma grinned. "Yeah, he could be Prince Dorky, leader of the dwarves."

"I think it has a nice ring to it," Henry agreed, grinning back. "Dorky, Grumpy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Dopey, etc. Fits right in. Although he's a little tall. Might bang his head on the top of the mineshafts."

Shaking her head, Emma pushed against him with her shoulder. "I've missed you, kid. I… am really sorry I was so hard on you about all this."

"Missed you, too, Ma." Henry smiled. "And… it's okay. It's a lot to take in. Just… be happy for me?" he requested.

"Ehh… I don't know if I can go that far," she teased. "You're making me a grandma at 36."

"You made Grandma a grandma at 27," Henry shot back, nudging her playfully.

"That was your baby mama's fault," Emma shot back. "Or… uh…" Pausing, she pointedly looked at his ring. "Your fiancée? Wife? Something else you haven't told me about?"

"Nope," Henry shook his head. "We're not married. We might never be, I don't know. Her marriage to Grandma's dad was so bad… I don't want to ask her for something she can't give. But I got the rings because even if we're not married — and to be honest, I don't even care about the paperwork — I still wanted something to show that we're together, y'know?"

"Like a collar?" Emma asked, surprised at Henry's seeming branding of Regina. Thinking of how it sounded as she said it, she shook her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that kid. It just surprises me that she was fine with that."

"Why?" Henry asked curiously. "We're no more tied together than we were before, we just now have a visual representation. She's mine, and I'm hers. That's all. It's mutual."

"As long as you're respecting her."

Henry smiled. "Like she'd let me get away with it if I didn't. Last time I snarked her — and meant it, anyway — she left the dinner table and it took me half an hour to find her."

"Good. I guess it's probably good she's been dealing with the attitude, that she ingrained in you, for years," she answered. "I really am happy for you, kid."

"Thanks, Ma." As they moved back toward the diner, Henry added, "I was serious about Ruby checking you out, by the way." He opened the door before Emma could reply and stepped inside.

Shaking her head as she entered, Emma looked over at Ruby and wondered if what could be had been in front of her all along. She certainly hadn't been looking anywhere except at Regina.

After getting off work and having a shower, Henry flopped onto the bed in nothing but a pair of boxers, too tired and sore to bother putting on real clothes for the two or three hours before bed. Not that he couldn't just fall asleep now. Two of the vet assistants were down with the flu, which meant many hours of overtime for Henry. Great for his paycheck (not that it mattered) but hell on his system. And sex life.

After Regina climbed into bed next to Henry, she slid next to him, kissing him softly and sweetly, trying to deepen the kiss.

Henry groaned against Regina's lips, not in arousal, but in regret. "I'm really tired," he told her regretfully. "I'm sorry, beautiful."

Sliding her panties off, anyway, Regina climbed onto him, straddling his thigh. "Baby, I need you," she whimpered, and his bare thigh made her need him even more. She began rocking softly. "Can't you feel how much I need you?"

"You're soaked," Henry observed, feeling her immediately slick against his leg. Despite how tired he was, his cock gave a little twitch of interest.

Bending over as she rolled her hips, grinding her wet pussy against his muscular thigh, she kissed his bare chest. Snaking her tongue out, Regina licked his skin, following closely with a nip. "Baby, that feels so good. Can I keep going?" she asked, double-checking that he was fine with her on him.

Henry nodded, even as he shifted her back. "Lemme take these off," he said, pushing the waistband of his boxers down. His cock was still mostly soft, but was slowly filling with blood as she moved against him.

Moving off him, Regina placed a wet lick along his cock, and then she straddled his hips, letting her wet pussy settle on his cock. Moaning, she began moving slowly on him, his growing hardness pressing against the entirety of her slit.

"Oh wow," Henry murmured, hardening more quickly as she slid over him in a wet glide.

Regina hummed, continuing to move on him. The way her clit was brushing against him at this angle was incredible and though part of her wanted to sit up and push his cock into her, the other part ignored that desire, due to the fact that how she was moving against him was effective enough.

Henry reached out, squeezing her hips encouragingly. "That feels so good…"

She nodded in agreement, soft noises of pleasure escaping her lips. Regina gripped the sheets next to Henry's waist, using them to anchor her as she began to grind faster on him. She wanted him, badly, and she needed the orgasm she knew would come.

"Your pussy feels so good against my cock," Henry said, his voice low as he enjoyed the sensations of her moving over him.

"Gods yes it does," she whimpered as she pick up her pace. His hard cock felt incredible and she couldn't believe she'd gone months without fucking him.

"Are you gonna come all over my cock?"

"Yes baby," Regina answered, moving faster. She breathed heavily from exertion, but she couldn't slow down, she was moving closer to the edge as she moved on him. "Baby, oh Henry. I'm so close already."

"That's it," Henry encouraged. His own pleasure was more of a diffused flush through his system, and he was pretty sure he wouldn't come from this, but he definitely wanted to experience Regina doing so. "Come for me, beautiful. Come over my cock."

Nodding, she complied. As her hips moved faster and her hands dug harder into the sheets, she whimpered as her body moved closer. Finally, her body tensed and her motions became more erratic as she came, her wetness covering his hard cock as she tried to ride out the aftershocks against him.

The feeling of her pulsing and spasming against the sensitive underside of his cock made pleasure rush through him in surprise, and Henry let out a groan as his release painted his stomach.

The sight had her grinning widely at him. "Bet you're even more tired now than you already were," she teased. Regina then bent down slowly, placing a lingering kiss on his mouth.

Henry groaned again against her mouth, his body limp as he sluggishly kissed her back. "You're amazing, I love you, and I'm gonna sleep now," he murmured.

"Good boy," she answered, grabbing tissues from her nightstand and wiping his stomach off. Kissing him again, she curled up against him. "Love you baby, sleep well."

Mumbling something unintelligible, Henry was already asleep.

Regina let herself drift off next to him. She'd definitely missed him.

The next morning, Regina woke up incredibly in need of Henry again. Rolling over, she nudged him slightly, not getting a response. "Baby… I need you," she whispered softly against him.

Henry grumbled into his pillow and rolled over onto his back, one arm splaying out as he sniffed and scratched his stomach in his sleep.

Grinning to herself at his new position, she moved down to crouch between his legs. She blew on his cock. Regina knew he was really exhausted; usually he'd at least have a morning erection by now. Leaning down, she licked his penis, frowning when she didn't get an immediate response. She tried again, taking him into her mouth, his lack of hardness allowing her to take him all in and sucking hard.

Moaning quietly, Henry shifted, one hand moving next to his hip and twitching slightly.

Sucking harder, Regina smiled around his growing erection, looking up to his face often to see if he was awake yet. He wasn't when she checked again, but he was at full hardness and she swirled her tongue around the head of his cock, moaning at how wet she was and ready she was to ride him. "Baby," she whispered again, trying to see if he'd wake up.

Henry mumbled something that sounded a little like Regina's name, and sighed, his hips shifting.

She couldn't wait anymore for him to get up, so she straddled his hips, stroking his cock in her hand and pressing the tip to her opening. Checking his face once more, Regina lowered herself onto him, letting herself shift down onto him so he was bottoming her out and creating a delicious pressure inside her. She pressed her palms to his chest as she began rolling her hips down on him.

"Mmmm…" Henry's hands twitched again, brushing against Regina's knees as the stimulation dragged him closer to consciousness.

Grinning to herself, Regina knew he would wake up soon, so she bent down and bit his jaw. She trailed a line of kisses as far down his chest as she could, while still moving on his cock. When she brought herself back up, she checked his face again.

Henry groaned again as his eyes slowly opened, his hips automatically rocking into Regina's thrusts before he was even fully aware of what was going on.

"Finally," Regina breathed. Looking into his tired green eyes, she smiled seductively. "Baby, you feel so good."

"So good," Henry echoed in a mumble, blinking up at her. He pulled in a deep breath through his nose, blinking rapidly a few times, then looking around the room, then down between them. "Oh."

"Oh?" Smirking, she rolled down onto him again.

"Ohhhh," he sighed, stroking his hands lightly over her thighs.

"Yes baby, I need you to touch me more," Regina whimpered. "Please?"

Henry trailed his hands upward, over her hips, her waist, palming the solid bump of her stomach, and up to cup her breasts.

"Yes," she hissed, lifting herself slightly to drop hard down onto him again.

"So sexy… How are you so sexy?" Henry wondered, rubbing his thumbs gently over her nipples.

She smirked and leaned down to whisper into his ear, "You know what helps it?"

"What?"

Nipping his ear, she spoke again softly. "The fact that now that I'm starting to show, everyone knows I'm yours." When she finished speaking, she pulled away so she could look at his reaction.

Henry groaned loudly and his hips jerked reflexively at the words. One hand left her breast to splay possessively over her stomach.

"All yours, baby," she moaned, rolling quick and hard against him, her hips jerking as she moved one hand over his on her stomach and found her clit.

"Fuck, Regina." Henry wrapped his arms around her and rolled them, staying close to her body as he pushed into her with slow, powerful thrusts. One hand moved back to her stomach, rubbing and massaging the taut skin.

"Yes baby," she breathed, moving her hand back to her clit and rubbing.

"Gonna come for me?" Henry asked, lack of sex over the past few months combined with the sleepiness still gripping his brain making it difficult to hold back. "I want you to come on my cock… Gonna come inside you, fill you up, okay?"

"Yes Henry, harder please," she asked, jerking her hips against him and flicking her fingers faster over her clit.

Groaning, Henry held himself up on his elbows, moving his hips harder and faster until he was pounding into her, his head dropped forward, panting breaths blowing across her breasts.

"Fuck baby," Regina cried out as the roughness he was giving her pushed her over the incredibly sensitive edge she now lived with. Whimpering and rocking her hips as she tightened around him, she whispered for him to come for her.

Henry let out an almost pained cry as he shuddered against her, hips slowing. Once they'd both come down, he rested against her for a moment before pulling away and rolling back onto his stomach, blinking slowly twice before sleep pulled him under again.

Chuckling at his exhaustion, Regina pushed herself up from the bed and readied herself for work. She left a note in the counter for him to meet her for lunch if he was awake, and if not, she'd see him when she got out of work.