October 25, 1929

Regina stands at the top of the stairs, the knot in her stomach tightening and her fingers trembling as she holds onto the bannister, listening as Mal and George Midas speak in low voices. From where she stands she can see newspapers strewn across the coffee table and floor, and she can hear Mal pacing, her heels clicking across the hardwood floor as she mutters colorful expletives whenever there's a lull in the conversation.

It occurs to her that rather than standing there dumbly eavesdropping she should either join them or return to her room; yet she finds herself unable to move, rooted in place as an eerie feeling overtakes her.

Everything is about to change.

"So, even the accounts in Switzerland?" she hears Mal asks—and though she doesn't hear George's reply, Regina pictures him shaking his head as Mal sighs loudly muttering fuck me before returning to pacing. "So, it's everywhere?"

"Everywhere—or it will be soon. The signs are there, even if they're not yet in free fall. Time is on no one's side."

"That can't be. I just…" Her voice trails off. "Even the French market?"

Regina listens as George makes an unpleasantly guttural noise as if they've already been through this umpteen times. "It's true that the French are not seeing it as badly as the rest of Europe—certainly not as bad as it's been here in London this fall and most certainly not as bad as the Americans are now feeling it, but they will… eventually. They're banking on reparations payments, and…" George stops and clears his throats. "And Germany can't—they won't—maintain them. The… the writing's on the wall, Mallory."

Regina's eyes press closed.

That summer as the British and American economies stalled, Mal moved a bunch of money around. For years her family had accounts in Switzerland—always a safe haven for wealth—and she'd invested heavily into the French market. Only a couple of weeks later, the London stock exchange bottomed out. Everyone called it the canary in the coal mine.

"Mallory, this is… a global recession," George says. "If we can still call it a recession with the whole of the British Empire and America rushing toward the bottom of the proverbial well."

"There has to be somewhere." There's a loud pause and Regina pictures the two staring the other down—and she imagines Mal looming over George, making him look and feel small. "Over the summer we talked about investing in the Russian markets," she says, her voice pointed.

"Not seriously."

"You might not have been serious. I was."

"Mallory, your father—"

"This isn't my father's decision," Mal interjects, her voice rising. "And let's not pretend he was some sort of saint. No one acquires the kind of wealth my family has by being altruistic."

"But Russia is—"

"Not crashing."

Regina can hear George hesitating. "Things are… different there, Mallory. You don't want to get caught up in it, you don't… want to make deals with those sorts of people because if things go bottom up there as they're doing everywhere else, well… I…"

"But right now, things are stable."

Again, George hesitates. "For now. Yes, the Russian markets are stable."

"Let's try it."

"Mallory—"

"Look, it's my money to lose, right? I'm not going to invest all of it, George. Just some of it, and we'll see how things go. If things go poorly, then… well, I'm no worse off than—"

"I don't think you understand how it works over there. The Soviets aren't like the old guard and they don't look kindly on foreigners."

"Money has a way of changing things," Mal retorts. "As it stands, I'm bleeding out. I need to stop it somehow or at the very least try to stop it."

"But—"

"It's my decision, George," Mal interjects, her voice a terrifying mix of calm and forceful. "Over the summer, you thought I should ride all of this out. You saw no reason to pull out of the British markets, much less the American market, and look where that would've gotten me." Regina winces as Mal's voice continues to rise as she brandishes one of the newspapers, crunching the paper in her fist. "So, I'm not asking you, George, I'm telling you—move the money."

George clears his throat, clearly taken aback. "H-how much?"

"Anything in the Swiss accounts." Mal pauses for a moment. "Leave the French investments where they are."

George says something Regina can't quite make out, and a moment later, she sees him scurrying through the door, looking pale and clammy. Regina waits until the door closes before descending the stairs, cautiously peeking into the living room where Mal sits, her legs crossed and her jaw tight as she stares down at one of the newspapers.

"This is… a shit show," Mal says as Regina sinks down into the arm chair across from her. "It's an absolute shit show."

Regina nods. "I… heard some of that, and um… it seems like that's a fitting description."

"I figured you were listening." Mal's eyes press closed, and Regina watches as she sucks in a breath, slowly releasing it. "Fuck. I need a drink."

Regina scrambles up. "I got it." Her hands are still trembling as she reaches for a glass, filling it with gin. "I hate money," she says, not really knowing what else to say. "But, of course, that's because I've always been surrounded by it."

Mal nods. "I don't hate it. I just hate that men control it." Regina crosses the room, handing her the glass and watching as she downs it, drinking it like it's water. "I'm just lucky I have George and not a husband. At least George is afraid of me."

At that, Regina scoffs, then hesitates—she and Mal have never talked candidly about Mal's wealth. Regina just knew it was there and that when she inherited it, it was equal to her brothers. She also got the impression that Mal was better at multiplying it than Arthur was, but that was only an assumption. "I… don't want to pry, but…"

Mal looks to her, her blue eyes wide as a smirk pulls onto her lips. "Are you wondering how much I've lost?"

Regina nods and bites down on her lip. Even as close as they are, this feels intrusive. "I know it's not any of my—"

"It's not much," she admits. "And I haven't lost as much as others. I didn't lose anything in the London crash—I was out well before it happened—and I got out of the American market before things could get really painful."

"Oh—well, that's good luck."

"Even with what I lost, I… think I'll recoup, if I'm smart about it." Mal tries to take another sip of the gin, but finds her glass empty and frowns. "I think it's also important for me to remember that I could lose more than half of it, and nothing about my lifestyle would change."

Regina's brow arches and she nods, sighing. That seemed true enough, even for her.

She vividly remembers a summer when she was about ten years old where her mother preemptively fired half of the staff in preparation for big losses in the market. Her riding lessons were cancelled and she wasn't allowed any new dresses—but other than her mother's panicked tailspin, she doesn't remember much changing. And her father had never been bothered by any of it—though, in retrospect, a tornado could have passed through their house and her father wouldn't so much as look up from the midday paper or put down his pipe. Then, almost magically, around Christmastime—when the market picked back up again—all their supposed money woes seemed to be forgotten.

Similarly, just after the war, Leopold had been particularly perplexed about their accounts, obsessively moving money around—and all the while, still throwing the lavish parties he was known for.

So, Mal was right—they weren't likely to be affected.

People like them never truly were.

But that wasn't a comforting thought nor was she convinced that she was still considered "people like them."

October 30, 1929

Regina's chest tightens as she plucks Robin's latest letter from a stack.

The world had changed between him writing it three weeks before and it's arrival today, alongside newspapers that screamed in big, bold block lettering Wall Street Panics as Stocks Crash, Billions Lost as Stocks Crash, and the simpler yet equally ominous Black Tuesday on Wall Street.

Since the London markets crashed in September, things had gotten progressively worse for people like Robin—people who didn't have a relatively large nest egg to fall back on, people who worked for a living, people who had families to raise. In just over a month, optimism faded. The papers transitioned from calling it a recession and called it a depression which made it feel all the more dire, reminding everyone that this wasn't the usual ebb and flow of the economy. Slowly but surely, she noticed breadlines popping up in front of churches, Help Wanted signs that were ubiquitous in storefronts quietly came down, and the seamstress she worked for began letting girls go—she voluntarily was the first to go.

And she knew it was worse in the mining communities in the north.

Still, she didn't personally feel it—and for all her worrying, neither did Mal. Quietly, they were grateful. But more than gratitude she was worried—constantly worried. She kept waiting for the bottom to be pulled out from under them. And she worried about Robin and Roland. Robin's entire livelihood was based on an illegal market—a market funded by wealthy clients who had little concept of their spending. Throughout the summer, on a few occasions, he mentioned fewer and smaller orders, but he never dwelled on that. Like everyone, he just assumed things would turn around; after all, it wasn't the first time business slowed.

Once or twice, he'd mused that perhaps it was time to find a job that was less nefarious, but she wasn't sure how serious that was, or at this point, how realistic it was. And again, it was never a thought he dwelled on, just something mentioned in passing before he moved onto another subject.

But those musings stayed with her—there were reasons that Robin did what he did. She remembered the quiet way he'd explained his experiences in jobs after the war—how being confined made him claustrophobic, how loud noises made his heart race, how one minute he could be on an assembly line and the next he was back in a trench in France, how his anxiety and embarrassment crippled him.

She wasn't sure what else he could do or the effect doing something else would have on him and Roland—and that uncertainty broke her heart and was confounded by the fact that there was nothing she could do to help.

Opening the letter, she skims it—lots of details about the house he and John were building, a few stories about Roland and his newfound obsession with the neighbor's cat, and a joke about said neighbor constantly hitting on him. Normally, the latter would have bothered her and caused her jealousy to needle at her, but today, that's not the effect it has. In fact, those details have no effect at all.

Regina skims the better again. There's no mention of slowing business. No mention of struggling. No mention of worrying about what was to come. And while she'd love to believe he and Roland were unfazed by the world crumbling all around them, she finds that hard to believe.

She reminds herself that the letter was written three weeks prior, and in the last year, their letters weren't all-encompassing. Often their letters were sent every couple of days and while that made them shorter and a bit more mundane, it made their communication feel more real, like they were actually a part of the others daily lives. So, as she folds up the letter and tucks it back into its envelope, she reminds herself that perhaps the subject simply didn't come up in this letter, that it wasn't on his mind when he wrote it, that he was trying to keep things light.

And she reminds herself that it would be entirely like him to be stoic and chivalrous, to not want to pass along his own burden. But as she sits down at the desk in Mal's living room and gets out an ink pen and stationary, she can't shake the nagging feeling that he's holding something back, that there was something he wasn't telling her.

Swallowing, she shakes the pen and tests the ink, blotting it on a sheet of scrap paper until it comes out smoothly.

Dear Robin, she begins as she always does.

How are you? Truly, how are you holding up?

Biting down on her lip, she stares at her words written in her neat, loopy handwriting. Her question seemed like a pleasantry, the sort of thing you ask rhetorically. Not sincere in the way she intends it.

There are a thousand things she wants to say or ask, but all of the sudden, none come to mind. And everything she thinks to write sounds so trite, especially coming from her, in the position she was in, so she stops and puts down the pen.

She isn't sure what triggers the memory, but suddenly she thinks of an afternoon Robin came to the house to get an order. Robin always entered through the kitchen where the butler or the housekeeper waited, Leopold's order and half the payment in-hand. When she saw him pull up, she'd slip outside and wait, pretending to be on a walk or getting ready to go somewhere. They'd talk. She asked him why he and John didn't expand their business outside of Storybrooke and he told her the competition would, quite literally, kill him. At first she thought he was joking, but he went on to explain the only reason he and John could do what they did is because Storybrooke was in the middle of nowhere, hard to access, and relatively isolated. In the bigger cities, bootlegging was controlled by men he didn't want to get involved with, who'd feel threatened and lash out if they felt their territory was being encroached upon. What he and John did was dangerous, branching out would be deadly. It'd been a somber moment, so he'd lightened it—leaning against his truck and grinning at her, his dimples sinking into his cheeks and his blue eyes sparkled as he whispered prohibition couldn't last forever, and when it was over, he'd be onto bigger and better things. She'd asked if that uncertainty in the future made him nervous, and he didn't actually respond. He'd only said that he was like a cat, and always landed on his feet. She'd just smiled and nodded, and wished that he'd lean in and kiss her—but of course, he didn't.

As jaded as he was, he still saw the world through rose-colored glasses and created opportunities where there were none. Bootlegging was never his plan, but it worked for a moment when he needed it, it was something he'd had in his back pocket. Robin was resourceful, and though she couldn't imagine how he could opportunize a moment like this one, if anyone could do it, he could.

Regina feels the knot in her stomach loosen as she reaches once more for Robin's letter, opening it up and giving it a proper read, not trying to read between the lines and not wondering why something isn't there.

Finally, when she's done, she sets the letter aside and picks up her pen again.

I think Roland needs a cat of his own, she says, pivoting in a new direction. When I was a little girl I had one named Lucifer. He was all blank and had yellow eyes, and liked to bathe himself on my mother's pillow. Unlike his namesake, he was the sweetest little guy, but a terrible mouser…

She grins as she reads her words—if anything, hoping they'll be a distraction against the chaos going on all around them.

November 3, 1929

Regina's silky blue robe billows behind her as hurries down the stairs, her heart racing as the telephone at the bottom of the stairs rings impatiently—piercing and rattling as it beckons for her. Blindly, her fingers search for the light switch, flicking it on and illuminating the hall. It's only then that she realizes how late—or perhaps early—it is, and it makes her stomach sink.

Henry is her first thought.

Her hand shakes as she lifts the receiver, fully expecting the operate to inform her in that monotone voice that all operators have that she'd be connect the line to Henry's school—but instead, the operator informs her that her caller is from Storybrooke, and momentarily, she breathes just a little easier.

"I'm sorry it's late—"

Regina's brow furrows at the sound of Robin's voice, her hand pressing to her chest and a small smile edging over her lips. "It is late," she tells him. "But a relief."

"Oh?"

"I assumed the only phone call I'd receive at nearly half-past two in the morning would be from Henry's school. I thought he was sick or hurt or—"

"Regina," he cuts in, his voice heavy and impatient. "I don't know how to tell you this."

Her breath catches in her chest, aching as her stomach churns. Roland, she thinks. Oh god, something's happened to Roland. She'd been so concerned about Henry, she hadn't thought of anyone else.

"Robin, I'm—"

"Regina, it's… it's Leo."

Her shoulders square and she stands up a little straighter. "Oh." Once more, a wave of relief washes over her. "So, Roland's alright, then?"

There's a pause.

"Yes," Robin says, his voice faint. "Roland's fine."

"Good. That's… that's good." She draws in a breath, trying to focus. "So, what's Leo done now? He doesn't suspect that you—"

"He's dead, Regina. Leo is dead."

Suddenly, she feels numb and her lungs deflate. "What?"

"This evening, um… I was driving by and the police were there—"

"Police," she whispers. "Why would… why would the police be there?"

Again, there's a pause and then a flicker of a memory—the weekend before the headmaster of Henry's school pulled her aside to let her know Henry's tuition payment had not arrived. He assured her it had to be a mistake, certain that the payment would soon arrive—yet, at the same time, he felt it was curious. Payments had never come late for Henry Blanchard and now two had been missed.

She'd offer a tight smile and a nod, telling him the payment would arrive shortly.

Anger bubbles up inside of her. She assumed it was some sort of game that Leo was playing—after all, this is what she'd expected all along. Mal, too, agreed that it was likely some sort of power play and haughtily reminded her that she, too, could play that game. By the end of the afternoon, Henry's tuition was paid and up-to-date. Leopold Blanchard be damned.

"Regina…"

Her eyes press closed as his voice trails off. "What happened?"

"He shot himself."

She releases a shaky breath as her chest constricts. "Oh…"

"I don't have any other details," he admits, his voice sounding sheepish. "I only got what I could from the kitchen maid. She likes me, but… obviously, she was distraught."

"Of course…"

"But I wanted you to know. I… I didn't want you to read about it in the paper, or… worse… for Henry to." Regina swallows and once more, her eyes pressed closed. "I don't know if either you or Henry are in touch with Mary Margaret, but she was there, Regina. She was there when it happened."

Grappling, she finds the chair beside the little table where the phone is kept, and she sinks down into it, her knees suddenly weak. "I'm not, but I think I can be."

Robin clears his throat. "I'm sorry, Regina. I… I can't imagine…"

"I don't know how I'm going to tell Henry," she murmurs. "I… I mean, they're not close. They never were, but…"

Regina's voice trails off, her eyes pressing closed as she thinks of Roland. She wonders if he's ever asked about Marian and she can't imagine how painful those conversations would be.

"Thank you for calling… for thinking of me and Henry…"

"Let me know if there's anything I can do. I know I'm far, but…"

At that, she smiles. He's such a good and kind-hearted man, and for that, she's lucky. "There is something you can do."

"Anything."

"Check in on Mary Margaret. Give her my number. I don't know if she'd want to hear from me, but she's got to be devastated. She adores…" Her breath catches and then there's a long pause. "For all his faults, she adored him."

"I will," he assures her. "I'll go tonight."

"Thank you."

"And if you need anything, I know it'll be difficult, but… reach out, if you can. Either here at the post office or to Arthur."

"Thank you," she says again. "I think I'm alright though. Or I will be."

"Of course," he replies gently. "But if something changes, the offer stands."

They end the call, exchanging a few sweet, but heavy sentiments, and by the time she's hanging the receiver back onto its cradle, her thoughts have already shifted to her son as she wonders how he'll take this news.

Mal standing at the top of the stairs startles her, and she lets out a little yelp.

"What's happened? Is Henry okay?"

Regina swallows, her heart pounding in her chest. "Henry's fine. That call wasn't about Henry."

Relief washes over Mal's face. "Then—"

"Leopold's dead. He shot himself."

For a moment, Mal just stands there, her eyes wide and her mouth agape—and then a little laugh bubbles out of her.

"Mal—"

"Oh, come on, Regina," Mal says as she comes down the stairs. "It's not like there's any love lost between the two of you."

Regina swallows. That's not untrue. "I didn't want him dead."

"Well, how else would you ever be free of him?" Again, a laugh bubbles out of Mal. "Regina. If he's dead, you are free. Do you realize that?"

Regina blinks. "I… hadn't thought of it."

"And assuming he didn't blow it all, so is your money."

"Considering what happened and when it happened, I feel like it's safe to assume the money's gone."

"Assumptions get you nowhere," Mal says, walking past her and flipping on the light in the living room. "But regardless of the money situation, this is a call for a celebration."

"Mal. Someone's dead."

Aloofly, she shrugs and grabs a bottle of champagne from a rack. "It's not chilled, but—"

"Mal—"

"What? Would you prefer wine? I've actually got an open bottle of red chilling in—"

"I don't want a celebratory drink! My husband just—"

"Your husband was an abusive asshole, not just to you, but to your kid. His only possibly redeeming quality is how much he loved his daughter, and I have some serious doubts about why he loved her."

Regina can't find her words in time to reply—her head is spinning.

"Leopold Blanchard viewed that girl as an ornament—a pretty little thing he could trot out at parties—and that's exactly how he treated you, at first. The difference is you didn't comply. Had Mary Margaret ever once stepped out of rhythm with his desires for her, she'd have been locked in a cage, just as quickly as you were."

Regina stares at her. Mal isn't wrong—and she'd never quite thought about Leopold's relationship with Mary Margaret that way. She'd always been too busy trying to protect herself and Henry, but now that Mal's voiced it, she struggles to see it any other way.

A sly little grin tugs up at the corner of Mal's mouth. "So, grab a glass, Regina. We need to toast your newfound freedom."

November 4, 1929

The previous day went by in a whirlwind, blurring into the next.

In mere hours, nearly everything was arranged—the only tasks left for that day were collecting Henry from school and picking up the tickets for a ship they'd be boarding that afternoon. Mal tasked herself with the latter.

The whole way up to Henry's school, Regina rehearsed variations of what to say to him. She weighted details and tone and imagined various ways Henry might react—but she could never settle on anything, never knew what to say or how it would be received. So, when she stood before him in the headmaster's office, she simply told him and waited for a reaction. She watched as Henry's eyes shifted away from her eyes, focusing on the floor as his brow creased slightly.

Several minutes passed before Henry looked up at her, and offered a sad little smile and said, "I'm very sorry to hear that." Then, he came toward her and patted her arm. The loss wasn't personal to him, she realized, and he was trying to comfort her. She'd given him a hug and held him tight against her chest, kissing the top of his head, her stomach churning with guilt.

Silently, they got into Mal's car and the driver slowly pulled away, and Regina watched as Henry looked back at the school—and it was impossible not to note there was more emotion in his eyes then than when she told him that Leopold was dead.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Of course," Regina says, smiling gently as she looks over at Henry. "Anything."

She watched as Henry mulls his thoughts, chewing at his lip.

"Why did you come alone?"

"Well, Mal needed—"

"No," Henry interrupts. "Not today. I mean, when you moved here, why was it just you who came?" Regina's breath catches in her throat as Henry looks over at her, his hazel eyes wide. "Is it the same reason I was never allowed to come home?"

Regina sucks in a breath, slowly exhaling it as she remembers the fights she and Leopold used to have about Henry's holiday breaks from school. "Not exactly," she murmurs. "Maine is a long ways away, and—"

Her voice halts as Henry looks down at his lap. The last time Henry came home for the summer holiday, Leopold had been on a hunting trip. Henry had stayed a month, Leopold returned the day after he left. While he was home, Henry asked only once about Leopold and Regina had simply said he was on a trip. She hadn't given it much thought and Henry hadn't seemed bothered. They spent a week in Newport with the Pendragons, they attended a local fair, and had a picnic on the Fourth of July. She'd even taken him fishing. There were trips to the library and museums, she took him to the opera and to the cinema. At the time, she'd been glad that Leopold wasn't there to ruin it with his sulking and blustering, but now she wonders if his absence had done that anyway.

"There's a boy who is a couple of years younger than me," Henry begins, looking a bit sheepishly. "His name's Roger and, um… his father has a house up in Edinburgh."

"Oh…" Regina murmurs, not sure of the turn the conversation has taken. "Is Roger a friend of yours?"

"Not really. He's nice, but I don't have any classes with him and his room is on the other side of the dormitory."

"Ah. I see."

"Roger never goes up to Edinburgh to visit his father and his two brothers are quite a bit older and they go to another school. He's never met them." Henry pauses as though waiting for her to connect the dots, but she doesn't and he sighs. "His mother, um… she's an opera singer and she lives in Austria."

Regina blinks, her eyes narrowing as she starts to understand—and guilt prickles up the back of her neck.

"His mother takes him for the summer and sends him little packages throughout the year, kind of like how you used to." Henry pauses momentarily to draw in a short breath, releasing it in a quick puff. "His father visits every now and then when he's in London on business. I heard him once, when he was leaving. He thanked the headmaster for being discreet."

"That could mean a lot of things."

Henry looks skeptical. "His father's hiding him there. It's pretty obvious."

Henry's eyes stay locked with her and her stomach churns as his eyes brim with tears. Suddenly, she feels flushed. "Henry, is… is that how you feel? Like I'm hiding you away in London?"

"Not quite," Henry interjects. "I just… I wonder if…" Henry's voice trails off and he looks away from her. "I just wonder if there's a reason he never wanted to see me." Henry looks back. "I wrote to him a couple of times. He never responded."

"I didn't know that."

Henry nods and shrugs. "I didn't expect him to, but…"

Again, Henry's voice trails off and he stares out the window.

"Leopold Blanchard was a difficult man."

Henry nods, still focusing on the scenery outside of his window. "Can I ask you something else?"

"Sure."

"Is he my father?"

Regina's heart begins to race, pounding so loudly she's convinced Henry can hear it. But he doesn't look away from the window. Her mouth is dry as she contemplates how to answer. "Yes," she chokes out. "Leopold always wanted a son, but I think…" Her eyes press closed as she remembers Henry's babyhood. Initially, Leopold put in some effort with Henry here and there and though it was mostly for show, Leopold withdrew from Henry long before he suspected he had reason to doubt his paternity. "He and I had a difficult marriage," she admits. "He adored his first wife and I was more of an investment than a bride, and I think his feelings for me were pushed off onto you. It's unfair, but—"

"That makes sense," Henry murmurs. "Hey—look!"

Regina feels a bit disoriented as she realizes they're no longer driving through the countryside, but driving through the heart of London.

"There's Mal!"

"Oh, yeah," Regina murmurs. "She went to buy our tickets back to the states."

"She's coming with us?"

Regina nods. "Not permanently. She wants to see her brother and nieces."

"Should we pick her up?"

Regina laughs a little. "That seems like the polite thing to do. This is her car, after all."

Henry giggles as Regina asks the driver to pull to the curb, and as soon as he does, Henry yells for Mal who feigns bewilderment.

"I was just going to grab a quick lunch at the Criterion, you know, one last hurrah."

"I love the Criterion," Henry says, looking from Mal to Regina as Regina gets out of the car. "Mom, can we—"

"Of course you can," Mal cuts in. "You'll stop me from eating an entire slide of cheesecake all by myself."

Regina's eyes roll, but she sighs. "I suppose I could eat a piece of cheesecake."

"And gulp down one last legal cocktail." Regina's eyes roll again, as Mal reaches for her hand, giving it a little squeeze as she winks. "And I can tell you all about the ship we'll be traveling on."

"Will I have my own room?" Henry asks as they make their way toward the hotel.

"No," Mal says flatly. "But I will."

Regina laughs and her stomach flutters—she's glad for this distraction.

The doorman directs them to the restaurant and a concierge motions them inside, but just as he does, a little rack of postcards at the front desk catches Regina's eye.

"I'll be there in just a minute," she says, taking a step back.

She watches as the concierge leads Mal and Henry to their table before walking toward the front desk. She chooses one that bears a reproduction of a watercolor of the Thames. She plucks an ink pen from her purse, quickly addressing the card to Robin.

I'm coming home! I'm sailing on the Britannic and am set to arrive in Portland on the 25th. Long after the funeral, I'm sure, and just days before Thanksgiving. What timing. Something tells me Henry is going to have a difficult time adjusting, and as hard as it is for me to ask this, please don't come meet us at the dock. He knows that we're friends, but nothing more. I'll send you a note when we're settled. It might take a couple of days. I'm not sure what to expect. Regardless of everything, I can't wait to see you again.

-All my love,

Regina

Blowing on the back of the postcard, she looks back toward the restaurant where Henry is buttering a roll and Mal is already halfway done with her cocktail, hating herself for dodging Henry's questions and praying that the ghosts of the past don't haunt them once they return to Storybrooke.