Regina stood at the stove, trying her best to ignore the flood of memories that swarmed her mind, now that she had a minute to herself. Henry was in his bathroom showering and getting ready for the day, but not before he had asked her to make her special Sunday breakfast. He had put on his most adorable puppy face, and batted his eyelashes at her, as an extra means of conviction. Of course he didn't need to do any of that, for at that moment in time, he can ask her for anything, and she won't say no. She missed him too much, and she missed doing everything for him. So for all she cared, he could run up the stairs and leave his shoes behind, and he won't hear a peep out of her.
But the problem was, with Henry in the shower, she finally had a moment to think about the events of the previous night, or more like previous day. And to make matters worse, being in the kitchen was not serving as a distraction, but rather a reminder.
For it was only yesterday when she stood at the same spot, flipping the eggs and preparing the toast for Robin. He had spent the night with her, and God did they make the most of it. She had woken up happy, content, and serene. He had spent the entire morning with her, even as she cooked, he stood behind her, and wrapped his arms around her waist, as he watched her expertly maneuver the many pots and pans on the stove. He feathered kisses into her hair, and onto her neck. He whispered things to her, sweet things, things that she had not heard from a man in a very long time, that she literally forgot how it made her feel.
They sat by the fire, talked, kissed, and shared things about their lives. She had opened up to him, told him things that no one knew about. He had told her that things work out when they are meant to, that it was all about timing. He had told her how he wished he could walk through hell so he can be with Marian again, how he had felt guilty for her death for so long, that it nearly destroyed him. His eyes had saddened, and his strokes through her hair became ones of comfort rather than love, when she professed to him how Daniel was killed, simply because he loved her.
They had talked for hours, about all the painful things they had gone through. They had consoled each other, pointed out the bright sides. They only moved on to happier topics when Little John showed up with Roland. Roland, the kid she had grown to love. For in the weeks she had spent with Robin, she had also spent a lot of time with Roland. She had spent many days chasing him around the woods, playing hide and seek with him, and sometimes just cuddling him, and telling him stories. Not to mention their time back in the Enchanted Forrest, she was surprised by the lack of wariness on the child's part towards her, the lack of fear. For all she saw in his eyes, were curiosity. Curiosity that soon turned to fondness, and before long, love. That unconditional, innocent love that only a child is capable of giving. And one that she had not received from Henry in too long.
"Smells good," Henry exclaimed, as he walked into the kitchen, effectively snapping her out of her own troubled thoughts, and bringing her back to reality, the cruel, harsh reality.
"Well, I do hope that it tastes as good as it smells," she quipped, smiling softly at him, as she eyed him in the clothes that she bought.
"So do I," he teased, grinning widely at her failed attempt at a glare.
"I was worried about the size," she remarked, as she eyed his clothes critically.
"They're perfect," he mumbled, and Regina immediately knew that something was on his mind.
She immediately abandoned whatever it was that she was doing, and walked over to him. He had taken a sudden interest in an invisible line on the floor, and wouldn't look at her. She used her thumb and forefinger to cup his chin, and lifted his head so she can look him in the eye. Her eyes looked into his searchingly, brown meeting green. She saw the love, the remorse, the sympathy, but they were all almost fading in comparison to some other emotion that she could not quite place.
"Sweetheart, what is it?" she asked worriedly, as she crouched down in front of him.
"It's just…." He trailed off, not sure how to finish the sentence without opening any old wounds for his mother. God knows she has enough new ones to deal with.
"You know you can tell me anything," she soothed, as she rested her knees on the hardwood floor, placed a hand on his side, and began rubbing it up and down, in an effort to calm his fidgeting. His hand immediately stopped, and one of his fists found the neckline of her dress, and clenched his fingers around it.
"I….It's….it's just that my birthday was after Grandma killed your mom," he blurted out, and she only nodded at him to continue, "you still remembered it," he finally finished in a small voice, as the tears that he had been keeping down finally glistened his eyes.
She couldn't help the sad smile that graced her lips, as she used her thumb to caress his cheek.
"Oh baby," she breathed sadly, pulling him into her arms.
He gladly welcomed the hug, and buried his face in her neck, as he fisted his fingers around the back of her dress. She rubbed her hands up and down his back, as she murmured kisses into his hair. She kept him in her arms for a few moments, not saying anything, just holding him close.
With a final sigh and a kiss, she pulled back from the hug, slid her hand down to his own, and got to her feet. She guided him to one of the stools around the kitchen island, and took a seat next to him. She bowed her head a little so she can find his eyes, and make sure he looks into hers before she says her next words. She wanted him to see the sincerity, the truth.
"Henry, there are certain things, certain events, certain dates that you do not remember with your brain….they are engraved in your heart. That way, no matter what you have on your mind, your heart will remember," she explained gently, not caring to hide the desperation in her voice, "and there are two dates that I will remember as long as I live," she continued, her eyes begging him to believe her, "your birthday, and the day I brought you home," she finished, her own voice breaking at the end under the weight of the emotions.
He smiled happily at her, but she saw that something was still bothering him, though he did not give her too much time to wonder.
"Even after everything you know now, you still hold that date close to your heart?" he asked hesitantly.
"What I know now?" she repeated, and he nodded.
"Yes, knowing all the things that has happened because of me; Emma, breaking the curse, Pan, all the things I said to you," he listed, his tears now slowly rolling down his cheeks.
She smiled sadly at him, as she recalled a day in the not so distant past, "I knew all along," she said calmly.
"What do you mean?" he asked, his confusion evident by the way his eyebrows furrowed.
Now it was her turn to take interest in an invisible spot on the counter between them, and she withdrew her hands away from his.
"When you drink a forgetting potion, it doesn't erase the thing you want forgotten, it only locks it away somewhere where you can't access it. But when something happens, something that serves as a trigger, the block is lifted, and you remember whatever it was you had locked away," she explained, and waited for him to nod, before she continued, "so when you brought Emma here, something in me stirred, and when I put the pieces together about who she was, I remembered something that I had taken the potion to forget."
"What was it?" he asked.
"When I first adopted you, I doubted my abilities as a mother, and you sensed that, which in turn made you cry like crazy. I thought something might be wrong with you, so I took you to Whale. He said you seem fine, but that it might be something genetic causing all that. The adoption file was sealed, which meant I couldn't get the name of your birth parents. So I asked Sydney to find out, though it proved pointless later. One day, I begged you to give me a chance, and something inside me let go of all the fears, and…..and…and you felt it. You did just that, you gave me a chance. Just then, Sydney faxed me the information I asked for…." She trailed off, swallowing the growing lump in her throat. She still hadn't looked up at him, her hands now fidgeting together.
"You found out that I was Emma's," he finished for her, as he reached for her hands, and held back onto them.
She nodded slowly, the tears now clouding her vision of their intertwined fingers, as her mind conjured up a thousand images of tiny fingers lacing through her larger ones, making her heart ache for simpler times, "Yeah I did, and I realized that one day she will come for you….a…an…and it also made me believe that if I kept you, you will grow up to hate me, that you never calmed down with me because you knew who I was. After all, it was genetic for you to hate me," she choked out, "I thought the best thing I can do for you, was give you up. That I would give you to another family to raise you, that you were better off without me," she confessed tearfully, her breath becoming more and more shallow and rugged by the minute, as she struggled to keep talking through all the floods of emotions that were swarming inside her. She had thought a lot about whether or not she should tell Henry, but when he asked her directly about regretting her decision to keep him, she couldn't lie to him. Not again, not anymore. She would tell him the truth, and hope that he will believe her when she says that she thought she was doing what was best for him, and pray with every fiber of her being, call out to whatever higher power to help her show him the depth of her love, and get him to believe, and moreover, to make sure he doesn't leave her again, for this time she won't be able to handle it.
"But you didn't," he stated curiously.
She finally lifted her head to meet his eyes, and smiled tearfully at him, "I couldn't," she stated through her tears, as the image of the tiny bundle who smiled at her whenever she so much as looked at him flashed before her eyes.
"You couldn't?" he repeated questioningly, and she nodded.
"When the moment came to actually giving you up, I felt like someone was ripping out my heart, and sticking a thousand daggers into it," she almost sobbed, "you were my son. For all intents and purposes, you were mine, and no one, and nothing could ever change that," she vowed.
"But you took the potion to forget?" he wondered, and she averted her gaze once more.
"Yes, I did. I didn't want to sit around waiting for the impending doom, I couldn't raise you with that fear intruding on every single moment we had. I knew that in order for me to be able to give you my full attention, I had to forget about Emma. Not because she was your mother, but because she was the only one capable of breaking the curse," she replied tearfully, "and I wanted to enjoy you without the cloud of impending doom hovering over my head," she finished.
Her eyes were still focused on her thumb as it caressed his knuckles, and she closed them in pain when she saw his hand slip from hers. She was waiting for the angry rant, for all the hateful remarks. All the times he claimed she didn't love him, all the times he claimed that she wasn't his real mother, were playing like a movie.
But none of that came, and her eyes flew open when she felt someone cup her cheek. She stared in shock, anticipation, and desperation alike, into his deep sorrowful eyes, trying her best to decipher the look he was giving her. The tears he shed tugged at her heart, and she wanted nothing more than to wipe them away, but was too afraid to move even one muscle.
He looked deeply into her eyes, before his face broke into a truly happy smile, "I'm glad you never gave me back," he said, and she couldn't help the soft gasp.
He threw his arms around her neck, and she was quick to envelop him in her arms, one hand easily found his brown hair, and got entangled in it, as she buried her nose and mouth into it, her tears dampening his hair.
"I love you so much, Henry," she sobbed.
He tightened his arms around her, "I love you too, Mom. And I am sorry I said that you weren't my real mother, because you are."
Those words knocked the wind out of her, and made her soft whimpers turn into full out sobs. Henry only held her tighter in response, and buried his face deeper into her neck.
I apologize in advance for any mistakes, but it is 2 am here, and I am half asleep already, so I will re-read it all tomorrow and correct any mistakes.
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