Chapter Twenty
With each blank page he scoured, Henry felt the walls of the sheriff's office closing in on him.
There was no indication in any of the taunting pages that Isaac had any further plans, that the man wanted anything more than to make him realise that he missed Regina before it was too late.
Perhaps in a few years, he would be grateful for that, he would be able to recognise that he was given an opportunity that no one else would have gotten.
The conversations he'd had with Regina in the last few days would be something to hold onto, to replace all of the angst induced by what everyone else thought were her last words.
As Emma manhandled Dr Whale through the station and Henry's chest burned with unadulterated anger towards the man, he looked to the woman standing invisibly behind the deputy.
She was staring at him with such concern that made Henry sure that he wasn't ready for her to just be gone.
He may accept that things couldn't remain the way they were now, but maybe there was another option? Isaac had hinted on a number of occasions that was the case.
He claimed that Regina deserved more and he couldn't have just meant capturing her murderers, could he?
Emma didn't give Henry much of a chance to glare at the doctor before she pushed the man forward and Henry glued his eyes back down to the book in the hopes that the woman who raised him wouldn't be able to guess what he was planning to do.
He had done it so many times in the past that there was no way that she wouldn't recognise the signs at this point.
Emma's forward momentum meant that Regina didn't have long to inspect him anyway and the moment that his parents and grandfather were out of sight, he snapped the book shut and grabbed his backpack.
Jefferson was staring at him with mild interest, but Henry had made a point of not looking at him since he had been returned to the holding cell.
As much as he hated Whale for whatever it was that he had planned, nothing would change the fact that he was in the same room as the incarcerated man who had physically carried out the act.
His conversation with Regina meant that he no longer wanted to verbally berate the Mad Hatter (perhaps also for Grace's sake?), but that didn't mean that he had to engage with him.
Jefferson seemed to be of a similar persuasion as he didn't say a word as the sheriff's son stuffed the book away and ran away at full speed.
The last time he had made this journey it had been to get away from his overly caring grandmother, it had been to run from the grief that everyone expected him to feel. It was to get away from the expectation that he should be breaking down at any moment, that he should succumb to the trauma that he had been denying for far too long.
This time around, everything was completely different.
He could put words to everything that he was feeling, he knew exactly why everything hurt so much, he knew exactly what he was lost and, more importantly, what else was about to be gone from his life.
He knew that as soon as they got a blood sample from Dr Whale, there would be no reason to prolong the inevitable.
There was no argument that he could make as to why Regina should spend one more night in their apartment. He couldn't say that he wanted a chance to say goodbye, because what would he call all of their other interactions over the last few days?
He had said more to his mother in that time in that short time than he had since the curse broke and she had been more honest with him than she had since he could remember.
He was pretty sure that he knew Regina Mills better than anyone else in this town, but still, he craved to know even more. Now that he trusted her, he wanted her to show him simple spells that would have blown his mind before the curse. He wanted her to be the one to show him how to care for and ride a horse. He wanted her to be the one who he watched trailers for new Marvel movies with. She had an uncanny ability to remember the small details about the long saga that everyone lacked which just made their debates all the more interesting.
He couldn't ask her to stay for all of that, not in the way that she currently existed. The last thing he wanted was for her to be miserable, but there would be some part of him that was physically incapable of giving up.
It all felt so very wrong.
The former Evil Queen shouldn't have been taken down by Frankenstein and the Mad Hatter, it didn't make a very good story at all.
She shouldn't have spent six months working for her redemption only to have to leave once she discovered that she was loved by two stubborn idiots who waited far too long.
This swirl of thoughts powered him through the run, leaving no room to consider how it was that he could possibly remember the direction that he had to go. He had been so frenzied in his running last time but was able to jump over the root that tripped until he reached the mansion in the woods.
A huge part of him was genuinely shocked that it was actually there.
With Isaac's conspicuous absence since he gave him his mother's therapy notes, Henry was becoming increasingly sure that he was done.
Nothing could stop him from banging through the door into the looming room lined with empty bookshelves.
There was nothing to frantically flick through for answers, so he just stumbled around staring in every direction possible as she shouted, "Isaac! Where are you?! You have to come back before my mom leaves!"
There was no answer other than the deep breathing that echoed around the large room, the emptiness almost mocking him as his gaze clouded with tears.
What was the Author waiting for?!
Before he could stumble into the next room in the hopes of finding the man sitting smugly against a bookshelf, the door behind him creaked and his shoulders slumped.
Isaac wouldn't enter a room in such a mundane fashion, so he wasn't at all surprised when she swivelled around to find yet another floating sweater dropping to the ground.
"I guess I know how you learned that," Henry sighed, pointing to the discarded garment that stopped glowing as the saviour stepped over it.
Regina moved up beside her with her hands clasped in front of her, obviously still pristine despite her trek through the forest while Emma was doing her best to rub the dirt away from her leather jacket with a deep-set frown.
"Henry, I know this is difficult…" Regina started tiredly.
"Can't you just give Isaac a little more time? He's been visiting me for weeks, I'm sure that he will come back…" Henry begged, gesturing around the sparse mansion as if it actually proved anything.
"We don't know anything about this Isaac, Henry. We don't know what he wants nor how long he will take to reappear if he ever will," Regina replied apologetically, "I can no longer be a bystander in either of your lives, I don't want to keep you in the past anymore. You know that this has to be done."
As always, Regina was making excellent points, but it wasn't the answer that he wanted so he stared straight at the saviour.
Emma had yet to disagree with anything that Regina had said since she told him that she could see her, so he didn't have high hopes for his desperate stares, but he didn't see any other option.
For a moment, he was sure that Emma was going to take his side. That she would refuse to cast the spell for Regina but even he had to dismiss this notion in less than a moment.
They couldn't hold his mom hostage.
Feebly, he asked, "But why now?! Why can't we just wait a little…"
"Because we would never do it," Emma replied, surprising Regina who turned to her with her eyebrows raised until her face settled into one of appreciation, "Come on, kid, we have to take you home. David should have the blood sample by now…"
"Please don't make me go home!" Henry pleaded, reluctantly stepping away from the empty, dusty bookshelves, "Can I be there?"
Regina and Emma exchanged a look and the cloud of tears thickened. Every time they did that, he was reminded how close he was to have two parents who could balance each other out.
"Henry, I'm not sure…" Emma said, her tone suggesting that she didn't want him to experience the kind of pain that she had once before.
"Please mom," Henry said, directing all of his attention towards Regina, "Let me say goodbye this time?"
Regina sighed, but inclined her head, "If you're sure that you want to."
"I am sure."
S
Even in their darkest days, Snow White had not pictured such a pointlessly violent end to the Evil Queen.
Sure, she wanted to force her to gaze upon a gorgon's decapitated head, one of her less well-thought-out plans, but overall a part of her had somehow held onto the belief that redemption was possible for everyone.
Saving them from a death curse and helping Henry through fiery nightmares were both steps in the right direction, but how could she be expected to progress without any more chances?
The hypocritical people of Storybrooke trusted her to be mayor, a much more effective one than they currently had, and she had fulfilled the role dutifully.
Henry asked her not to use magic, to give up the literal ability to do anything that she wanted and she did it.
She even sought help from a therapist to keep herself on the right path.
The woman who gleefully gave her the poisoned apple and would go on to crash her wedding with threats of abject destruction would have never done any of that.
She would have found a spell to have Henry believe that he loved her and crushed the heart of anyone who got in her way.
Almost all of her memories of the Evil Queen had been replaced by Regina Mills goading a gunman so that he would aim his weapon at her instead of the person that she loved most in the world.
Of pushing her hands feebly against her chest in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding. Remembering the young woman who did not hesitate to save a stranger from a runaway horse.
How could they have gone from that day to walking solemnly in a sparsely attended procession in a land without magic?
It no longer mattered that they had been cursed for 28 years or that her daughter was the same age as her because it brought them to the point where everything was perfect.
Storybrooke was supposed to be a destruction of their happiness, but her little trip to the Enchanted Forest reminded her that things were not quite so cut and dry.
Why would she choose ogres over a sleepy town in which everyone was learning to be happy?
With the obvious exception of Jefferson and, apparently…Whale?
She should really be grading papers right now, but a text from her husband incited a desire to be at the station. To look into the face of the man whose duty it had been to heal Regina, but had instead ripped an inescapable and unexpected rift in their family.
Under the pretence of bringing the deputy some well-deserved coffee, she entered the station, prepared to narrow her eyes at Whale and Jefferson.
To impart upon them how despicable she found them for so abruptly ending Regina's path to redemption.
What she found wiped any expression from her.
Jefferson lay on the cot, apparently unaffected by his current location while Whale was leaning in the corner, scowling at Prince Charming. No doubt he believed that he had been 'tricked' into a confession which David said took only a few pulls at his ego.
David continued typing despite the ire from his detainee until he noticed his wife approaching with a to-go cup and he smiled for the first time in hours, though he was exceedingly weak.
Whale pushed off the wall in response to Snow White and said, "Finally, someone who will understand!"
David stared at him warningly, but Snow couldn't stop from swivelling around to the disgraced doctor. She shoved the cup roughly to the desk and David had to rush to steady it as she demanded, "Understand what?"
Undeterred, Whale ploughed ahead with his rant, "You should be thanking me for finishing what this idiot started!" Jefferson grunted, but made no other response, "No one else was brave enough to end the Evil Queen! Doing what needed to be done shouldn't be a crime, even in this awful world!"
Snow's fingers curled into fists and she was only vaguely aware of David standing behind her.
"You want me to thank you? For killing my…" Snow trailed off.
What exactly was Regina to her? Did it even have a name at this point?
Her stomach knotted until David mercifully supplied the correct answer to her swirling questions.
"Our grandson's mother," he said.
Whale tilted his head doubtfully and asked, "Wasn't that whole thing dissolved?"
Snow took in a burst of air strong enough to shout loudly, but David circled her upper arm and pulled her towards their daughter's office for some semblance of privacy.
She sagged onto the desk with her husband standing over her as she lamented, "When did everything get so complicated?"
David hummed and ran his thumb over her cheek, "I don't think our lives have ever been particularly easy."
Unable to deny this, Snow asked, "Where's Emma?"
"Henry ran away again, she went to find him," David sighed.
"With another locator spell?" David nodded, "How do you think she learned that?"
David shrugged and fell into the sheriff's chair, giving him an excellent view of the obstinately silent men in the cells.
"I assume she has access to Regina's things," David suggested tiredly.
"Imagine what she could do with access to…Regina."
"Snow…"
"No, David!" Snow exploded with enough force to bring her to her feet, "Our daughter was in love but didn't tell anyone because she was afraid of how we would react!"
David eyed her cautiously before he replied, "Is."
"What?" Snow said, exasperated.
"Emma told me that it's 'is' not 'was', she's still in love with Regina."
The weight of this was enough to pull Snow back to their daughter's desk where she held her face in her hands, barely registering the hand on her knee.
"Do you…" David said, hesitating, "Do you think that we could have accepted it if Emma had told us…before?"
Snow dragged her head up, feeling bad for thinking that she was the only one who was guilty over Emma's late love.
Taking his hand between hers, she said unsurely, "I…hope so…as long as Regina made her happy."
"You think that she could have?"
Snow sighed, nodding despite how wrong this should have felt, "Regina feels with everything she has, she proved that with what she did for Henry. I think we would have been lucky if our daughter was with someone like her."
Against all odds, David nodded in agreement, "But now it's impossible…I really didn't think I could miss Regina this much."
"Trust me, I know what you mean. But she was a completely different person to who we knew in the Enchanted Forest."
David took in a deep breath, "If we're feeling like this, imagine what Emma and Henry are going through."
Rubbing her fingers against her temple, Snow said, "I just wish there was a way to have her back, it would fix everything."
"It would," David admitted as she slumped against him.