Not coping
A guest asked for a oneshot of Emma finding out that Henry has been seeing Archie secretly. He didn't tell anyone because he knew they'd blame themselves.
I couldn't believe the kid hadn't told me. I thought he was coping really well with everything that was going on. I thought that between Regina and I we were managing to shield him from the worst of it. I guess I was wrong. I only found out because I wanted to reschedule my own session with Archie. I would have knocked, but it was past his business hours. That's when I found Henry having a session. Archie was doing them after hours for him as a favour. Only then when he had no other option did Henry open up about not coping with everything that was going on. Nobody knew, apparently. He hadn't told anybody because he all knew we'd blame ourselves. He was adamant that there was nobody to blame, that this was just a hazard of being part of this family. He said he was fine and after speaking to Archie was feeling much better…but I didn't believe him. How could I have not known he was struggling? What kind of mother was I? How could I be so stupid? Of course he wasn't coping! His mother had been split in two. His grandparents were cursed again. I had gone missing for a while. It was hard enough for me to deal with as an adult, let alone for him as a teenager. I should have dealt with this long before Henry felt like he had no other option but to see a therapist. I was past being able to use the "new to this" excuse. I'd been active in Henry's life for a good couple of years now. I should have seen the signs that he was struggling, but like a naïve idiot I'd put it down to being a typical teenager, when my son was anything but a typical teenager. Henry might be saying that nobody was to blame for how he was feeling, but I would never feel like that was true. I was to blame.
