Regina was torn, should she help this poor young woman and her child, or should she keep herself and her town safe from the monster who put his hands on his wife.
One look at Emma's nervous face and Henry's sad eyes made her decision for her.
This woman needed to be kept safe, who knows what she had already been through, and what else might happen if Regina didn't help her.
"You're more than welcome in Storybrooke, Ms Swan, you and your little boy can stay as long as you'd like. I'm not sure what your travel budget might be, but I could recommend some charming little guesthouses." Regina said kindly and Emma gulped and nodded quickly.
"Henry, come over here please" she called, and Henry put down the action figure he had been playing with and ran over to her.
"Mama, who's this?" he asked earnestly, indicating Regina who smiled kindly
"Henry, this is Regina. She's the mayor of this town and she's going to help us find somewhere to live and get you into a good school." Emma explained, as she tried to run her fingers through her son's fluffy curls
"But Mama, I don't want to go to school! If I go to school, then you'll be all by yourself during the day and I don't want you to get lonely" Henry exclaimed, and Emma hurriedly shushed him and helped him pull his coat on.
"No, you're going to school, and you'll end up much cleverer than I am. I'll get a job for while you're at school, so I won't be lonely, and you don't have to worry about me. Okay sweetheart?" Emma smiled and Henry grinned back.
Emma went up to the counter to pay for their food, leaving Henry with Regina for a few minutes.
"Gina, do you have a husband?" Henry asked
"No, Henry. I don't have a husband; I live by myself in a big white house" Regina replied
"In a big white house? Are you president of this town?" Henry looked surprised
"No, I'm the mayor. Its sort of like President but I only look after this town, not the whole country." Regina smiled, laughing kindly at him.
"I didn't know you could get lady mayors. Our mayor back home was a man, but I never got to see him. He lived a long way from our house" Henry said, his eyes flickering to his mother's back at the counter.
"Henry, why did you leave Florida?" Regina asked, trying to gauge what she should and shouldn't say around the boy
"Well, mama said she wanted to go on a road trip but not with my daddy. Daddy had to stay at home with his friends and watch the football. So, I said I would go with mama instead. I like it here though, its much nicer than anywhere else we stopped"
So, Henry didn't know why they were running. That was useful information. Regina showed him a game on her cell phone and Henry quickly surpassed her high score, which made Regina smile wider, but also irked her slightly, that a six year old had figured out the mathematics behind this game before she had. Henry was such a clever little boy, and Regina could help but feel slightly jealous of Emma for that.
"Gina? Can I ask you something?" Henry interrupted her thoughts
"of course,"
"Do you have any kids?"
That question slammed into Regina like a wall of bricks. She hadn't been blessed with any children, even during her tumultuous marriage to Leopold, the man she grew to despise, in fact, she was sure that the man had deliberately damaged her internally so she could never bear any children. It was just as well though. Leopold would've been a horrific father to her children. He loved his own daughter but hated his second wife.
Regina blinked away the tears in her eyes and answered the boy:
"No Henry, no kids"
"that's too bad. You'd make a great mommy. Almost as good as my mama" Henry smiled
"Thank you, Henry. That means a lot. Maybe I'll have a child one day" Regina smiled sadly
The truth being, of course, that Regina desperately wanted a child; a tiny little person who would love her unconditionally and would never hurt her. She knew that she couldn't get pregnant, God knows she had tried, and was currently on the waiting list for a baby to adopt but hadn't been matched yet. The last child had been a little girl whose mother had changed her mind at the last second. That heartbreak had been too much, but Regina craved a child. She was a mother without a baby.
"I wish you had one now, then I might already have a friend here" Henry observed, his green eyes sparkling
"I'm sure you'll make plenty of friends soon Henry, the children here are all lovely" Regina promised.
Emma came back to the table, her face flushed, and her own green eyes looked happier than before.
"Henry, great news! Granny, the owner of this diner, has offered me a job waitressing. I need to come in tomorrow while you're at school for some training, but I have a job!" Emma said excitedly and Henry gave his mother a huge hug.
"Well done Emma. I'm sure you'll settle in quickly. Would you like me to take you to the school and register Henry there?" Regina offered and Emma accepted, picking up her rucksack of belongings.
"Thanks Regina, I hope you get a kid soon. Maybe mama and you can share me" Henry laughed and both women smiled shyly at each other and looked away.
….
That evening, as Regina sat in her spotless sitting room, debating about having a glass of cider or a large wine, she found that all she could think about was Emma and Henry. She had helped them check into a room at Granny's; the smallest one possible, due to Emma not having as much money as Regina had hoped she did. But although the room was clean and pretty, it wasn't… it wasn't home.
Though it had to be better than her last home, Regina reasoned, not even daring to imagine the last place that Emma and her beautiful son had been forced to live.
The reality was that the house in Florida had been a little better than a squat. The floorboards were broken and splintered, the staircase was a death trap waiting to happen, the kitchen was crawling with cockroaches and spiders, the bathroom had mould covering the bathtub and shower stall… the place wasn't even fit for crackheads to wreck, but Neal insisted that they stay there. He had promised Emma that he would get the place straightened out before the baby came, before Henry turned one, before he turned five, so Emma could have her few friends over before Neal had isolated her from them… the house had slowly slid into rack and ruin. But the rent was cheap, the bills were cheaper and the house stood isolated and hidden from view. Just the way that Neal liked it.
Hidden. Isolated. Cheap.
Regina stood up. She couldn't just leave Emma and Henry at Granny's hotel, nice as it was, it wasn't where she felt comfortable leaving them. She was also frightened that if this crazy ex-husband tracked Emma and Henry to Storybrooke, the hotel would be one of the first places he would look for them.
Her house, on the other hand, wasn't high on anyone's hitlist.
Climbing into her sleek black Mercedes, Regina drove the short journey to Granny's and asked for Emma's room number, on the pretence that Emma had invited her and the number had slipped her mind.
Granny gave her the number quickly and Regina thanked her coolly.
As she clacked up the three flights of stairs in her killer heels, Regina rehearsed what she was going to say but no matter what she came up with, it was hopeless.
She stopped outside room 28. Now or never.
She barely had to knock before the door was flung open and Emma faced her, the look of alarm on her face quickly softening to relief.
"Regina, Hi, is everything okay?" Emma asked, and Henry upon hearing her name, tore himself away from his video game.
"Regina! I missed you!"
"Hello Emma, Henry. I missed you too. In fact, I'd like to offer you a slightly different arrangement. While this room here is lovely, I'd actually appreciate some company at my house. If you'd be so kind, of course" Regina said quickly, feeling her heart jump into her throat
"Please Mama, can we go and live with Regina? She'd be our roommate, like Joey and Chandler in Friends!" Henry begged and Regina smiled at him.
"As long as Regina is sure that we won't disturb her." Emma looked dumbfounded by the gesture of kindness.
"I'm sure. The only thing I ask is that you pick up after yourselves. I hope that sounds like a fairly easy rule to live by" Regina joked drily and both Emma and Henry nodded vigorously.
"Thank you, Regina. You have no idea how much I appreciate this. I sometimes feel a bit lonely after Henry goes to sleep. I'd love some adult company." Emma smiled.
"Henry, why don't you go and pack up all your things, I'd like to speak to your mother for a moment" Regina asked and Henry bounced off and obediently began packing up his clothes and toys.
Outside, Emma and Regina began to talk in hushed voices
"Regina, why are you doing this? I don't understand… I mean, you barely know us!" Emma said
"I can recognise a woman in need. I also recognise a woman who has been beaten to a pulp by her husband and who, despite running away from him to save her child, if he found her, I strongly believe she would go back to him. I'm not trying to discredit you in any way, Ms Swan, but I know you still love him, don't you" Regina asked bluntly.
"Yes" Emma whispered, her face blushing scarlet with the shame of her own admission.
"And that is why I'm doing this. I'm offering my home as a place of safety because if by some miracle, he does manage to track you both here, he's more likely to come to the hotel than a private home." Regina clarified.
"That makes sense. I… I don't have a lot of money to pay for half the rent or anything, but I'm happy to help out if I can" Emma stammered, her face still beet red.
"No rent required. I own my own home, and I'm electing to share it with you two. No questions, no tenancy agreements, no leases. If it makes you feel better, you can do some light housework or cooking. As for Henry, all he has to do is keep his bedroom clean and pick up after himself. Nothing too harsh. Is that agreeable for you, Ms Swan?" Regina asked, with one eyebrow slightly raised.
"Absolutely. Thank you, Regina. You've been so kind to us. I'll never be able to repay you for this" Emma smiled, holding out he hand for Regina to shake.
Regina eyed the outstretched hand and shook her head, instead pulling the blonde haired woman into a tight hug.
"Thank you, Ms Swan. You're making me happier than I've felt in a long, long time." Regina whispered into Emma's curly blonde hair.
And with that, the duo packed up their few belongings into the trash bags they'd hastily packed the night they fled, though it made Regina wince that their entire worldly possessions could fit into six trash bags, and she made a mental note to look out some storage boxes or suitcases for them once they were ready to move on.
Regina packed their things and Henry into her car, with Emma following behind in her yellow bug. The drive was uneventful, just Regina and Henry chatting about everything and nothing, and Emma struggling not to marvel at the sheer size of Regina's home when she parked outside it.
"You never said you lived in a castle Regina!" Henry exclaimed
"It's not a castle sweetheart, just a perfectly ordinary house, I'm sure yours was like this" Regina smiled, noting that the term of endearment had slipped out naturally but Emma didn't seem to mind.
"NO! our old house was nothing like this. It was awful!" Henry said dramatically and Emma shushed him.
"Take your shoes off when you go inside Henry, saves Regina's floor from getting dirty." Emma reminded him and Henry nodded.
The evening after Emma and Henry stopped gawping at Regina's house went quickly. Henry ate some mac and cheese for dinner and settled in the largest spare bedroom. Within five minutes, his soft snores and heavy breathing allowed his mother to slip out of his room.
Padding down the stairs in her grubby ankle socks, Emma made a mental note to go shopping the second her wages came in… Henry's nightclothes were almost getting tight on him already, and she was in dire need of some new underwear and her tanks and sweaters were all a bit too grubby.
"Ms Swan. Emma, would you like a glass of the best apple cider you have ever tasted?" Regina asked, approaching the staircase with two glasses.
"You got anything stronger?" Emma half joked but nodded
"Go and make yourself comfortable, I'll pour you a glass" Regina smiled, retreating into her private study.
Emma watched the older brunette walk away from her and her green eyes roamed over the other woman's body.
"Emma Swan… what the fuck have you done now?" she thought to herself.