A/N: Sorry for the wait! I was working on a Halloween fic for these two as well as taking part in Inktober, before spending the BEST week with my best mate doing all the spooky things, getting inked, and eating too much, and I haven't really had any spare time until this week! I also struggled a little with this one as I really want to get back some of the dark/ smuttier tone this story was built on so that this fic doesn't become something else to what was promised entirely, but I've sort of written myself into a corner with all of these conversations held in quick chapter succession to drive the plot. I know what this leads into is still technically just another conversation, but at least it's likely to be a fun one?! I will get these two back together for some alone time as soon as I can, I promise.

"Go wash your hands and get yourself a drink, dear."

Regina advises as Henry pads into the kitchen. She notes that he appears rather relieved to find her alone and offers him a weary smile as she plates up dinner.

"Did you get your homework done?"

"Is that really what you want to talk about, mom?"

He replies cheekily, and she thins her lips as she grates parmesan onto her pasta.

"We can talk about whatever you want to talk about."

She responds in a clipped tone, handing him the cheese before sighing heavily and opening up.

"Honestly, sweetheart, you can ask whatever you want, just know I'm no surer what to say than you are."

"That's not usually the case."

Henry muses, and the brunette surmises that he means it nicely as he smiles at her. Cocking her head to the side, she counters pensively

"No? I don't know, dear. You're rarely lacking in opinions, nor the confidence to voice them... I should know that better than most!"

"Sorry..."

He winces guiltily, and Regina swallows as she suffers the internal need to bite back, to accuse, to console, before merely shrugging her shoulders and accepting his apology as she has done so many times before.

"You weren't wrong. Not about The Curse. Not about a lot of things."

"Not about you liking Emma."

He replies silkily, and she shakes her head as she concedes

"Not about that, either... I'm sorry about this morning, even so."

"I should have knocked."

"You should have, but we should also perhaps have held off on, um, sleepovers until we'd talked to you about things."

"It's not like it was the first time."

Henry reasons, blushing slightly as he shovels spaghetti into his mouth, and Regina frowns as she enquires stiffly

"What do you mean?"

Must we really bring up the whole Graham incident again!?

"You had a sleepover the other night when I was at grandma and grandpa's."

He points out, using his fingers to add air quotes to the word 'sleepover' before hastily lowering his hands when his mother shoots daggers at him.

"Is that so?"

She asks primly, and he nods, refusing to back down.

"David said both of you had food poisoning and that's why neither of you came to pick me up, but I knew that wasn't true. I knew you were up to something. I never stay the night at Snow and David's unless they ask me to babysit or arrange something with you..."

"Hmm, that's hardly incriminating."

"The look on your face is, though."

Henry advises, fully aware that there had been a time when he never would have dreamed of talking to the brunette as he does now, but their relationship has evolved in all the right ways since the breaking of The Curse, and he enjoys the way she chokes on her water in response to his accusation, before backing down as the complete insanity of the situation once more threatens to overwhelm him.

"...I went over to Miss Swan's house to check she was alright after she seemed out of sorts, yes, and that's all I'm prepared to say about that, dear."

"Good, that's all I'm prepared to hear about it!"

Henry laughs awkwardly, but when he's offered a stoically nonplussed expression in response to his mirth, his giggling becomes a little more genuine. Pulling himself together, he offers his mother a helpless hitch of his shoulders; watching as she contemplates her pasta while waiting patiently for whatever it is she means to say. Finally, she looks back up at him and asks delicately

"Mild trauma incurred by what happened this morning aside, I hope you aren't too upset?... Emma expressed some concern on that front, but I tentatively assured her that you might well find yourself relieved that your parents are happy?... And at the same time, no less!"

"I'm not upset, I'm glad. Glad and grossed out."

Henry grins, and Regina nods, accepting his teenaged disgust with her own small smirk as she teases

"So, are you going to keep chaperoning our time together, or do we have your blessing?"

"Hey, you do the same thing to me and Violet."

"Not as much as I used to."

"No, I know... I'm glad you and mom like each other, even if it is totally weird. It's just kind of crazy and new at the moment. Good new."

"Good new."

Regina agrees, finally feeling as though she can actually enjoy her food.

"Oh god, it's you again."

Emma answers her phone, and Regina sighs audibly on the other end of the line.

"I did tell you I would call."

"I know, I was just teasing... Although, honestly, it feels kind of weird after the last few days."

"Me calling you?"

"Teasing you."

"It's nothing new."

"Mm, some of the ways I've chosen to do so lately are fairly new, but I meant more it's a bit of a departure from death threats and dungeon sex."

"... The two don't have to be mutually exclusive, and I take it you're home and not at your parents' still?"

"What, and that Mary Margaret isn't sat here with me listening in?"

"I thought David was the one you were worried about giving a heart attack?"

"Stroke. But yes, I'm home, I can be as vulgar as I like."

"Promises, promises."

"You hate it when I make crass comments."

"Sometimes. Sometimes you're just plain crude and I fail to see why I should humour you... Other times, laughing at your flippant little comments can sting a little. At least, it used to. Of course, as I told you, I never dared do any soul-searching as to why that might be."

"It's okay, I did once or twice."

"Oh? You said you never let your imagination run wild?"

"And I was telling the truth - mostly - but there was very little imagination required when you'd warn me straight out that you fantasised about punishing me."

"Please. I never used the term 'fantasised', dear."

"I think you'll find you did."

"Really?"

"Mmhm, I remember pretty well..."

Emma laughs huskily, taking a seat on the sofa in front of the empty hearth.

"Yes, well, it's not my fault you were so hopelessly enamoured, Saviour."

"I'm really starting to regret telling you that."

"I'm still a little shocked that you did! Deliciously so."

"Yeah, well..."

The blonde grumbles, supposing she's handed the Queen a significant advantage in their long-standing game of nipping at each other's throats.

"And in front of Henry, too."

Regina drives in the knife with her smirk evident in her tone.

"I was trying to do some damage control! I just didn't want it to come across as though this all came out of the blue, and while Henry's far from slow on the uptake, he's still a kid, and it's not as though Storybrooke offers sex-ed classes or any real opportunity to discuss orientation and stuff like that. He likes Hook, and I just didn't want him to get the wrong idea that we're, I don't know, experimenting and having a shared midlife crisis or something. I just wanted to make it known that it's not as though either of us suddenly woke up and decided 'hey, boobs are kind of neat', as surprising as that was for each of us to learn about the other."

"Mm... I suppose proclaiming your obsession with me was a better option than relaying your little fairground dalliance on that front, true."

"I said I thought you were hot, Regina, I never said I was obsessed."

Emma hisses, and the brunette raises a brow as she detects a genuine note of annoyance in the younger woman's tone.

"Actually, you said you had a crush."

She counters, keeping her voice light in a bid to keep the peace.

"I know, and I haven't stopped cringing about it since!... I've been accused of being 'obsessed' with you for quite some time now. It's just not a term I'm too fond of."

The Sheriff explains stiffly, and when Regina offers her an apology, she pays for her sour reaction in kind with the muttered admission that there might be some truth to the notion in spite of her displeasure.

"Yes, well, likewise, dear. After all, thinking up new ways to rile you up has been one of my fabourite hobbies for several years now... Both in spite and in jest."

"Mm."

"You love it."

"I so should have gone with the fairground story."

"Shush... And didn't you say you had three such stories?"

"I don't know, did I?"

"Oh, yes, Miss Swan. I, too, retain the important facts imparted when we bicker."

"Yeah? Is that what we're calling enchanted ropes and nonconsensual drugging now?"

"So, tell me about the other two times consensually..."

"No."

The blonde replies simply, and she laughs quietly as she can practically hear the Mayor's frown in her voice when she next speaks.

"Oh... You know I was only teasing. I-"

"-I know, but come on, play fair, Your Majesty. You think I don't have a hell of a lot of questions for you on that front given how this all panned out?!"

"Mm. Do you?"

Regina baits, and she nips the tip of her tongue when the blonde answers affirmatively, before swiftly changing the subject.

"Did you speak to your parents about our plan to finish things off with Hyde tomorrow?"

"I-... Regina... Come on. Why-"

"-Why what?"

"..."

"What's wrong, dear?"

"Nothing... Yes. I spoke to them about it. They're on board."

"Good... Then how about a bedtime story?"