iii. enervation
Emma clicks on the most recent email, a favor from an old contact, and frowns at the results. H.O. Incorporated. They're the name on the lease of Walsh's furniture shop in New York. And there's no sign of them online, nothing but vague and vaguer lists of subsidiaries and a stark, graphic-free website.
"Nothing?" Mary Margaret rubs her eyes from her spot on the couch. She's been drifting in and out as Emma does her work, her head sinking lower and lower with every submission to sleep. Emma remembers being pregnant with Henry and equally exhausted, curled up on a thin bunk that was the best they had to offer her in a minimum security facility in Phoenix.
She swallows emotions she isn't ready for and says instead, "Nothing. What I don't get is how Zelena managed to afford a lease on the Upper West Side without any funds from this world. What did she do, sell her Munchkins?"
Mary Margaret shrugs. "Regina managed some magical gymnastics here with nonexistent money, too. The whole town. That giant house." She bites her lip. "It must seem more like a curse itself now. So big and empty."
"I guess." Emma does her best to not think about Regina, all alone again. It blurs her vision and leaves her shaky on things she can't afford to second-guess, plans that are about her and Henry and can't be about Regina because Regina makes everything too complicated. "Since when are you so worried about Regina, anyway?"
"Emma." There are times when she does feel like a child around Mary Margaret- a phenomenon not limited to their post-curse lives- and the other woman is smiling at her like she knows something Emma doesn't. Emma bristles and then forces herself to relax. "I thought you two were getting along."
"We are." She thinks more about Regina's lips now than she does…pretty much anything, actually, but that's more than Snow White ever needs to know. And it's not like that's relevant to anything. Ugh. "I didn't know you two were so close now."
"It's…complicated. It's always complicated with Regina," Mary Margaret says, and Emma bobs her head in fervent agreement. "But she's been trying for so long. She saved us from Pan's curse, she saved the day when we were in Neverland, she was willing to die to save us all from the trigger…she's changed."
Something hot and slick slides down her throat, burning up her abdomen. "Maybe you can start calling her the savior. Give me a break." She laughs and Mary Margaret's brow furrows.
"Emma, you're the one we need most of all. You're–"
"I'm the one who keeps Regina alive long enough to save everyone," she cuts in, grinning so hard her cheeks hurt. "We've got a good thing going here." Truthfully, it's a relief to hear Regina's accomplishments spelled out like that, to dismiss herself as the secondary hero of the story to Regina's antihero. She keeps their powerhouse with under control and makes sure no one kills her- or she doesn't kill anyone- and now that Regina's milder, at peace with Mary Margaret and the town, she isn't needed here.
Daughter. Savior. There are no titles that can't be ascribed to someone new now. None but Mother, for as long as Henry doesn't remember how easily she can be replaced there once more.
Mary Margaret's forehead is still wrinkled and she's watching Emma with suddenly penetrating eyes that have Emma slouching back down to stare at her laptop again. "Emma, are you–"
The door opens, cutting off Mary Margaret before she can ask another question Emma can't answer, and Emma looks up with relief. "Henry!"
"Hey, Mom. Whatcha looking up?" He plops down next to her to squint at her screen and she shuts the search page immediately.
"Nothing to worry about. Just this case." She slides her arm around his shoulder, and he feels real and tangible and still hers. "Mary Margaret made cookies."
He's up an instant later, pulling away from her to run to the kitchen area. "Awesome."
She shuts her laptop, stretching as she stands. "Thanks for taking him out, Killian."
Hook is still lurking by the door, as he does, glancing back at her every few moments. Her skin prickles with discomfort as she approaches him. "Any problems?"
He shakes his head. "We stayed within crowded areas, as you instructed. No sign of Zelena or your former fiance." His eyes glimmer with something between mockery and hurt as though he has right to either of those things, and she looks away and wraps her arms around herself. "Here." When she turns back, he's holding out her phone. "I called Regina every twenty minutes to check in. Also as instructed." He's definitely rolling his eyes now, no amusement in them. "I missed one call and she arrived on the street one minute later to berate me."
She's amused. A little sorry she'd missed it. "Sounds like Regina."
"Swan." He leans forward. She doesn't back up, doesn't ever back up when it comes to Hook and his advances. They had been flattering at first, maybe even fun, and then he'd decided that he was in love with her and now she doesn't know what she's supposed to do about it. And he makes it so difficult to ignore. "Why am I taking your son out for pizza when there's a Wicked Witch on the loose?"
She manages to avoid anyway. "I can't send him to Regina every day or he'll get suspicious. And she's one of the only people in this town who still bothers to do her job."
"You could send him out with one of the dwarves. We make a good team, Emma." He looks so earnest she wants to run out of the room and never come back. "And you were only…here all day. Working on your…" He waves his hand vaguely at her laptop. "We have a Witch to hunt down. It's time we did what we do best."
"I'm following a paper trail. That's what I do best," she says irritably. He stares blankly at her and she sighs. "Never mind. Listen, I have to go find the Merry Men tonight and ask them to keep an eye on Zelena's house." Because now the Merry Men exist too and are lurking in the woods of Storybrooke. Jesus, how had this become her life? "You met them during that debacle at the hospital, right? You can come along if you want."
He brightens almost immediately, lips curling into a smirk. "If you wanted to take a stroll in the moonlight with me, love, you only had to ask."
She purses her lips and calls, "Henry!" He looks up, mouth full of cookies. "I'm going to run out for a bit with Killian. You do dinner with Mary Margaret, okay?"
She expects him to shrug and agree, to bury himself in the video game he'd left on the counter earlier, but instead he frowns and says, "You're going out now?"
She smiles, apologetic. "It's just a quick thing. Some people who might be able to help us."
"I've barely seen you all day." He's never been clingy, exactly, but they'd been like best friends for as long as she can remember (even if so much of it is a lie that trails behind her now every day, a dream that could have been reality and now it all seems so possible, twelve years too late) and she can see the uncertainty on his face now at the thought of being foisted on someone else again.
She feels burdened, suddenly, claustrophobic at a dozen needs from a dozen different people all at once, and she only offers him a quick "Be back soon," before she hurries out of the apartment, skipping stairs in her haste to run from the room.
Hook trails behind her, another tether she doesn't dare break free of, and she feels stifled even in the cool night air. "You all right, Swan?"
"I'm fine." She isn't fine. She can feel the now-familiar thrumming of magic under her skin, setting her even further on edge than she'd been before. It usually only emerges when she's actively trying to do magic, but since she'd found out that Henry is one of Zelena's targets, it's felt closer and closer to the surface each time she's stressed and frustrated and thinking of him.
Sometimes she wonders how her mother had survived this long with a younger Regina who hadn't had her magic under control.
"Let's just get out of here. You know where the Merry Men are camping?"
Hook leads the way and she follows, silent and practically exuding standoffishness that he ignores. "Henry's a good lad. He understands that your work needs to come first now."
She glares at his back. "Really? Because, you know, it never did before. I had solid priorities and I never had to worry about him being caught in the crossfire."
"You're protecting more than just the boy now. You have this whole town depending on you." Hook walks on, confident in her ability to put Storybrooke first. Just like everyone else in this damn town. "Someday he'll get his memories back and understand that."
She feels the flash of fear at that like a physical thing and when she glances down, her hands are glowing blue-white in response, the magic rising and falling threateningly against the tips of her fingers. "You have more family now, more responsibilities," Hook continues, and the magic is screaming like static in her ears, threatening to let go, and she can't hear anything else he says.
It'd be so easy to let it lance out and hit a tree just past Hook, to stun him into silence and end this conversation right now. No harm done, no consequence beyond what might amount to a lecture from a pirate who's done far worse than that.
No. She shakes her head at her own brashness. Impulse control, a voice in her head that sounds enough like Regina to make her squirm reminds her. She thinks about the last time she'd exploded, Regina against a wall impossibly tamed and pleading, and she wants to vomit.
The magic fades with her nausea and Hook says suddenly, "We're here."
"Thank god." She darts forward, taking in the camp of little cabins- curse-created, because she's never seen them before- and a little boy standing at the edge of the camp with a man, both of them skipping stones across the lake under the toll bridge. "I'm looking for Robin Hood."
"Ah, then you've found him." The man straightens and turns to her. "What can I do for you?"
"You've heard about the Wicked Witch?"
"Certainly. I searched her house just last week."
Huh. "Find anything?"
"Not as such, no."
He looks contemplative, a little perplexed, and Emma rubs the bridge of her nose and says, "Would you mind keeping some of your people out there as often as possible? Don't go inside, just…stake out the place and see if anything out of the ordinary happens."
"Not at all." He smiles genially and she manages a smile and a brief thanks back before she turns away, ready to return to Henry again, and he calls behind her, "The queen. Regina."
She turns back, wary at once. "What about her?"
"She is working with you, yes?" He still looks as though he's confused by something and she doesn't know why she's suddenly on guard and annoyed by him, but somehow she is. "We met at the witch's house when I was there and she was…odd."
Regina hadn't mentioned any other visitors, and Emma grits her teeth, irritated with her own displeasure at that information. Clearly it hadn't been important, just like this man who's now smiling bemusedly as though he's found Regina worthy of intrigue, as though Regina would ever work with some stranger of her own volition. Regina doesn't pick up strange men to be her allies, and there's a building headache in just contemplating it.
Her magic surges and she sees it sparking, emerging again from a totally inane conversation that doesn't matter, and she stares at it in horror. She feels off-balance, out of control, and Hook is saying her name and Robin Hood is speaking again and she doesn't dare focus on them, doesn't think about the proprietary emotions that are singing through her in a crashing crescendo, and everything is so loud.
She spins around and runs from the forest, runs until she's short of breath and her magic is trailing lines of blue that sizzle with energy behind her and she's still running when she passes her old apartment- in no state to see Henry, not now, not like this with a thousand voices still in her head- and before she knows it, she's standing in front of 108 Mifflin Street with her fist against the door and the magic faded again.
Regina opens the door, eyes narrowed with concern. "Is Henry all right?"
"He's fine. I just…" She flushes, not entirely sure why she's there at all. "I just needed the quiet." She slumps on Regina's doorstep and there's no tether there, no demands beyond nagging guilt that isn't coming from Regina's eyes. There's no need to bemore, no more people depending on her with expectations she struggles and fails to fulfill, and Regina steps aside silently and lets her come in.
The house is as silent as Mary Margaret had worried, an odd stillness there that lends to an eerie aura around the place. It had never felt quite this abandoned back when Henry had lived here, even when he hadn't been home, and it hadn't even felt this empty days ago when she'd been learning magic from Regina.
And Regina- at home, in the silence, with no one but her thoughts to keep her company- Regina is so alone. Emma remembers alone in the memories that remain as her false ones fade, remembers sitting in an empty apartment with a birthday cupcake and exhaustion at her past and future. She hadn't wanted to be alone, and she hadn't been since that night. "I'm sorry," she says, looking around. "You're…you're all alone here."
"Yes, well." Regina clears her throat, turning her head to look at the foyer table so Emma can't see her face. "That didn't bother you when you took my son away from me the first time on trumped-up charges."
She hears the the first time and winces. "Yeah, but you had your homicidal mom to keep you company then." It's light and playful and Regina just gives her a look in response, but old shame returns as quickly as it had first come back when Archie had been standing behind the door of her apartment, alive and well. She reddens again. "Maybe you should…Mary Margaret's been moping about you being on your own. You should come over more."
"You mean once you've taken Henry to New York again." Regina's voice is still cordial, but there's a dangerous edge to it. "There was a time when I would have spent every wish in the universe to be alone rather than living with Snow White."
Emma fidgets on her feet, her boots curling in and out on the spotless floor under them.
Regina sighs. "But I suppose someone should keep an eye on her. She is Henry's grandmother, after all, and she needs someone to make sure she doesn't invite Cruella De Vil in to be her baby's nanny."
"Cute." Emma relaxes, making her way to the couch in the living room. "At least this baby will have someone to look after them. Even if Pongo might have to make a run for it."
"Self-pity doesn't suit you, Emma." But Regina is sitting down opposite her, legs tucked under her on the couch and feet bare. She's wearing dark yoga pants and a satin pajama shirt, more casual than Emma's ever seen her, face scrubbed clean of makeup and a book open on the couch beside her. Emma can't look away.
"How did you get your magic under control?" she asks, and it's partly out of curiosity, partly an excuse to keep staring. Regina without her makeup and clothing is a vulnerable Regina, without the armor that wards off the world. She can imagine this Regina being a mom, curled up beside Henry on the couch doing homework and reading him fairytales.
Or. Not fairytales.
"When I started out?" Regina hums in thoughtful recollection. "I wasn't learning because I was angry. I was angry, but I was helpless more than that, and magic was a way for me to find strength in my powerlessness." She leans back, and there's something about these clothes that seem to relax her, open her up more than ever before. Emma is mesmerized. "I wasn't very good at it at first because of that. Then Rumple found ways to motivate me, to make me angry and hurt and empty but for that, and I gained power after I already had control." She quirks an eyebrow. "I may have been evil, but I didn't make mistakes with my magic."
"And you're saying that I'm too angry." She isn't angry. She's…frustrated, confused, coping with more stressors than she ever has before. This town is the last place she wants to be right now and she feels both burdened and selfish and that makes her angry, angry with herself and Zelena and this situation, over and over again.
"I think now is the optimal time for your magic to come forth because you are angry. But it's a double-edged sword." Regina is silent again, smoothing down wrinkles in her shirt. "And it's dangerous because you're acting out of vengeance and resentment."
She jerks, defensive. "You're one to talk."
"Do you really want to be like me?" Regina says blandly, and Emma falls silent, catches Regina's gaze and sees self-loathing and longing and pain swimming in fathomless depths of dark gold. "That's what I thought."
"Regina…" she starts, and has no idea how she's going to finish the sentence. Because there's so much history, years of baggage and darkness and more between them than this moment. And all she wants to do in this moment is pretend none of it exists, to watch soft lips curve into a smile and to hide away in the safety of a world where that's all this is. To grant Regina reassurance she has no business granting and Regina has no business receiving, all for the smile on her face.
She stands up instead, sharp and abrupt and mildly horrified at her own desires, and Regina follows her to her feet. "Emma?"
"I should go," she says, and her whole body buzzes with magic that feels like fury and regret and cowardice, and then she's running from thoughts of Regina for the second time that night, her skin electrified with blue fire with every step she takes.
iv. vibration
Henry misses school. Which is a feat in itself, since Mom has had to yank him out of bed by the ankles four times out of five most weeks, and even that's when he's good at it and has friends who aren't total jerks this year. But then you spend five days a week with assorted strangers of varying levels of dullness while your mom hunts down some shadowy criminal cabal and you start to miss the monotony of math class.
It's not that he isn't used to Mom being out all day and distracted all night, but it's never gone on this often and it's never felt more like he's an afterthought, handed off to Mom's friends as often as possible as she grows more and more irritable. Twelve years of happy memories are suddenly straining at the seams, and no one will tell himanything.
Today they're at the mayor's house, at least, which is the only place in this town where he doesn't feel so easily forgotten. Mom's there with him more often than not and they've been doing dinner together most nights, lately, the three of them almost like a…
He shakes his head and forces that thought out of his mind. If Mom ever figures that one out, she'd go running from this town, too, and they'd probably wind up halfway across the country this time. Mayor Mills doesn't deserve that.
Mayor Mills smiles at him with shadows in her eyes but there's never the sensation with her that he's a burden or a necessity Mom comes with. This is a town that talks and talks and talks- every moment, every small-town story theirs to give away freely- but Mayor Mills listens to him and encourages him to tell her everything while offering little in return. She does the same for Mom, and Henry watches as the lines that have appeared on Mom's face since they got here fade, moment by moment, with every evening they spend with the mayor.
It's reassuring and it's frustrating at the same time, because she's the only one to give him that now but at the same time, he's very aware that he knows almost nothing about her. And Henry thrives off listening, piecing together puzzles that make no sense to understand the stories people aren't telling him. Mayor Mills is a mystery who watches him with soft eyes and tackles the vocabulary list Jesse had emailed him yesterday and doesn't think twice about spending her afternoons with a twelve-year-old boy she's only just met.
He likes Killian and Ruby is really pretty and cool, but there's something about Mayor Mills that makes him feel like he can tell her anything. About Walsh, about his mom, even about the dad he'd never met.
"I didn't know him well," she says apologetically when he's in the kitchen, cutting up oranges for a fruit salad she's preparing. Mom is banging around upstairs, searching for some book that she'd asked Mayor Mills about. She hadn't named it, but apparently "the book" had been enough for the mayor. There's a particularly loud bump from somewhere above them and they both wince. "I was rather occupied when he came to town. I lost my mother shortly after."
"I'm sorry," he says, and her eyes turn shiny and startled at the same time, as though no one's ever told her that before. "Was she very sick?"
The mayor laughs, just a short breath that comes out faster than the others. "Not in the usual ways. It was a shock to everyone, I think."
And because Henry listens, hears new cadences in the way she says that, he feels sick with a dread he can't name. "My mom says that this is the kind of sleepy town where serial killers hide out." It's why he's been assigned to babysitters here when he'd never had them at home, why Mom looks at him with relief every time he's returned to her. He'd thought it was a crock until she'd told him about his dad.
He suddenly remembers that he's talking to the mayor of said town, and he stumbles over an apology. "I mean– it's a nice town! Peaceful. Serial killers like nice towns. You'd never suspect they lived in them."
But the mayor is laughing, eyes sparkling with new amusement and a hint of the same concern that Mom shares. "I'll take it as a compliment, Henry. Either way, it's a good idea not to run around along here right now. We still don't know much about the person who killed your father." She's silent, brooding for a moment, and when she speaks next it's almost reluctantly. "For all his history with your mother, I think he genuinely did care about you once he knew you were out there."
"He didn't even know me." Mom gets emotional when he says that, stares at him with wet eyes that aren't like her at all, and he squirms and isn't quite sure why he's supposed to suddenly agree that the guy who abandoned his mom in prison is a hero now.
"He wanted to." Mayor Mills dices apples with expertise and tosses them into the bowl. "That much I knew about him." She cuts off a wedge of apple and bites into it. "I don't see much use in rewriting the stories of the dead to suit us, but I do know that your father was running from someone very dark for a long time, and I…" She swallows. "I understand that desire, at least."
"Oh." He tries to think about it, imagine having to run his whole life and leave behind people he cares about, and it feels like another story he hasn't been given. He drops the oranges into the bowl and watches her mix the fruit, gathering it up and dropping it until it's all evenly distributed. "Do you think it was okay that he ran all the time?"
"No." She smiles at him, gaze warm with a hint of challenging stubbornness lurking at the edges. "I don't run."
"Is that a dig at me?" Mom appears in the doorway of the kitchen, suspicious eyes on both of them. "I don't like it when you two team up on me."
"Shouldn't make it so easy, Miss Swan," Mayor Mills drawls out, crossing the room to pass the bowl into her arms. They bump against each other and Mom nearly jumps out of her skin. "Any sign of that book?"
"Nope." Mom is still a bit flushed. So lame. "It'll turn up when it wants to be found, I guess." She glances at Henry for a moment and he raises his eyebrows in response, vaguely irritated at more secrets. "Dinnertime?"
They set the table together while the mayor finishes up in the kitchen, and soon they're all seated in the dining room, talking about some disaster he'd missed today while he'd been at the diner with Ruby and her granny. "David thought it was some kind of…uh, bear, and he started firing tranq darts into the bush and then next thing we knew, Dr. Whale was passed out in the middle of the woods." Mom shakes her head. "Apparently he goes out there to experiment on…something about monkeys. I don't know. Why did you make this guy town doctor?"
Mayor Mills rolls her eyes. "I had no say in the matter. Nor do I have any recollection of appointing David Nolan as sheriff, for that matter. I would take a replacement in an instant." She purses her lips and Mom licks hers. "Not that our last sheriff was much of an improvement."
"Hey, I've heard great things about your last sheriff!" Mom protests, and she's smirking like she knows exactly how the mayor's going to respond. "She definitely saved your ass a couple of times."
Mayor Mills scowls. "You're new here. You must have missed the time she broke into my office to search for evidence against me. Or the time she tried to arrest me for a murder I didn't commit." Henry's eyebrows shoot up. Maybe he has underestimated Storybrooke, quiet little town where nothing happens.
"Sounds like she kept you on your toes. Like a good sheriff." Mom is teasing, eyes bright like they always are around Mayor Mills. She's alert when she's with her, watching her for reactions with a kind of solicitous complacency, and Henry doesn't remember seeing Mom like this before. Even with Walsh, she'd always been guarded, laughing and happy but never quite so aware of everything he'd done. It's how he'd imagine Mom around a mark. Except different. Mom doesn't flirt with her marks.
He shakes his head, pulling his phone out of his pocket as it vibrates and glancing down at the message as Mom says, "I'm sure she had good reasons. But she might've been a bit of an idiot some of the time."
He looks up to see Mayor Mills's eyes shining at Mom like they'd been at him earlier, and she has to make a visible effort to tear them away. "Henry," she says suddenly. "Have you gotten any new schoolwork recently?"
The mayor asks about his homework more than Mom does. "Uh, just a creative writing assignment. But it's free writing, so I can do whatever I want."
"Anything in mind?"
He shrugs. He's thought about writing about his dad, about trying to imagine why he'd leave Mom behind. He's thought about writing about this town and secrets and what might be hidden under the surface- dozens of Stepford robots who look like Mary Margaret, maybe, or alien visitors who pretend to look human. "I haven't picked yet."
"His last piece was amazing," Mom puts in, and he flushes. "He rewrote some of his favorite movies from the perspective of the villain, really explored their motivations and everything."
Mayor Mills blinks. "Really. Was this a…recent assignment?"
"Couple of months ago." He shrugs, adding modestly, "My teacher thought it was my best essay yet but I thought I could have done more."
"Oh." The mayor twists her fork in her food, eyes still on Henry. "I'd think you'd be more interested in the heroes."
He scoffs. "Most of them are really cool and powerful, but they're not interesting. I know why they do what they do."
"I was never much for heroes," Mom murmurs, and her face is doing something weird, like she's caught between regret and pride and she can't stop watching Mayor Mills. "Spending your life as the designated outcast with no secret destiny does that to you. I guess I gave that to Henry."
And Mayor Mills's eyes are almost tender, almost sorrowful, and there's so much in them that Henry doesn't know what he's looking at anymore except it's…more, somehow. It's not like Mary Margaret and David or Killian (who he's pretty sure has a thing for his mom) and their obvious affection, it's not even like Walsh and his easy grin around Mom. And he suddenly wonders about the big, empty house, about the mayor who has so many dishes and chairs and no visitors for dinner but two New Yorkers who've just barely come to town.
He wonders if they're the mayor's lifeline because she looks at them both like they're all she has, and he doesn't know what's going to happen after they go. He doesn't know what's going to happen to Mom when they go, because now she's red and she's caught Mayor Mills's gaze and they're both just staring, soft-eyed and tentative, and Henry scrunches up his nose because gross, he doesn't need to see his mom like this.
He presses his fingers against the phone in his pocket again and says, "It's not like I think that Lex Luthor is doing the right thing, but it's fun to try to understand why he chose to do what he did."
Mayor Mills tears her eyes away from Mom to smile at him with that same tenderness. "Maybe the Wicked Witch of the West just misses her sister."
"Exactly! Dorothy killed her and took her shoes. We're just supposed to root for Dorothy to beat her, too, but as bad as she was, there must have been a reason for it." He'd gone to see Wicked on Broadway with Mom last year and he thinks that might've been what had triggered this whole fascination with the villains' stories. The mayor is leaning forward, eyes intent on him like what he says is important, and he feels a happy flush spread through him.
"Not all the villains attack their stepdaughters because they're prettier than them," Mom says, smug as she twists her spaghetti around her fork, and Mayor Mills throws her an exasperated look and returns to Henry.
"But how do you know that she isn't just an evil person who's done some justifiable things?"
He shrugs, thoughtful. "I guess you take her out of that place where everyone's calling her wicked and see what she does next." Elphaba had just wanted to get away in the end, hadn't she? "Not all heroes are good and villains are bad. It's just the name we give them."
Mayor Mills sits back, satisfied, and Mom rolls her eyes and says, "Some are, though. Peter Pan might be the bad guy, but that doesn't mean that–"
"What? Peter Pan is the bad guy?" He's seen every version and he thinks he'd distinctly remember that plot twist. "Come on, Mom."
Mom actually looks offended. "Well, maybe he is! Maybe he's a child snatcher who drags people off to his forest prison."
Mayor Mills is laughing silently, eyes shining like Mom's distress is the most adorable thing she's ever seen. (Ew, ew, ew. Not that he's that bothered by it. But ew.) "And maybe Captain Hook isn't a lecherous failure of a villain, but the odds are low."
He laughs despite himself at the look on Mom's face, like she's halfway to arguing just for the sake of arguing. It isn't often lately that she looks anything more than exhausted, and he's glad to see her so animated, even when it's just stubbornness around the mayor. "We'll have to see next time we're in Neverland," Mom retorts.
"We're never going back to Neverland," Mayor Mills says darkly, and Henry squints at both of them, unsure if this is some strange adult inside joke he doesn't understand. Mom is nodding and both women turn to stare at him at the same time, eyes somber and determined.
He waves his fingers in their path. "Uh, guys?"
Mom recovers first, rolling her eyes with a nervous snicker. "You know, I really don't get your sense of humor, Regina." Mayor Mills is still gazing at Henry, and Mom nudges her. "Regina?"
She twitches and forces a plastic smile. "Yes, of course. It's clear that Henry gets his intelligence from the other side of the family." Mom makes a face but her lips are curling into a tiny grin of her own, and she leans back against her chair, comfortable under Mayor Mills's assault.
Adults. Man, he misses hanging out with kids his age.
But this isn't totally terrible, even if they have him rolling his eyes more often than not. He wonders for a moment if Mom is putting down roots here like they never have before, making friends and getting cozy with the mayor of the town. She talks about going back and he's still doing his schoolwork obediently, but he wonders how quickly she'd change her mind once their potential serial killer is arrested and gone from this place.
He brings it up when they're already driving down the street back to the inn. "I bet you'd be a better sheriff than David," he says, and Mom jerks against the brake so the car stops short.
"What?"
"If we stayed here. Mayor Mills said that she wanted a replacement. And you'd be good at it."
Mom's brow furrows. "You hate it here."
"Well, it isn't as exciting as any of the cities we've lived in, but it's okay." He shrugs. "I miss my friends, but it's not like this would be the first time we moved somewhere new and I had to start over. And you have…" He doesn't know how to say it without being blunt, so he plunges forward and does it anyway. "You have friends here, Mom. The closest thing you've ever had to a good friend is Walsh, and he proposed and you ran here. I don't want you to be alone."
"Oh, Henry." Her eyes are getting watery and he bites his lip. "I'm never going to be alone when I have you. You're all I want. Not this town, not the friends I've made here,you. And I'll be happier when we're home again and we can go back to our lives, no more distractions or reminders of–" She breaks off, then slams on the brakes again, so suddenly that he bounces forward against his seatbelt.
"Mom!" He unbuckles just as she does, squinting out the windshield at the shadowy figure who's standing out in the center of the road.
"Henry." Mom's tone is terse, and Henry looks harder, sees a green brooch sparkling, under the figure's neck, in the streetlights. "Get down, in front of the seat. Don't get out of the car. Don't look up."
"But I–"
"Henry!" Her voice brooks no argument and he can see the fear flashing over her face, enough that he nods hard and drops to the bottom of the seat. The car door slams and he can hear voices outside, another woman with an accented voice taunting his mother.
He slides around to the back of the Bug so he can crouch behind the seat properly and ease the door open, taking in the scene in front of him. Mom is standing opposite the woman, gun out as she speaks with low warning, and the woman is laughing in response. A hand stretches out to point to the car and Mom fires her weapon, once then again in quick succession, and there's a green cloud of smoke that appears from nowhere to swallow the bullets.
It's impossible, and he gapes out at them, his head spinning as he struggles to make sense of it. The other woman must have had some kind of gas weapon- that brooch, maybe?- or he'd missed something vital. Either way, Mom is looking worried and frustrated and he needs to help, to save her from this woman before she runs out of bullets.
He finds the compartment where Mom hides her backup weapon under the backseat and fishes it out, holding it shakily in his hands, and kicks open the door all the way. "Really, did you think I was just going to lurk about and wait until you'd found me?" the woman is sneering. "You're as stupid as your mother."
He flinches for a moment before he realizes that she's still talking to Mom. Mom, who doesn't have a mother, who never did. What is going on here?
"Stay the fuck away from my family," Mom says through gritted teeth, and now Henry blinks at her, at the weird blue-white glow that seems to surround her gun. It's a trick of the light. It has to be. The alternative is too fantastic and suddenly he isn't sure if he's dreaming, if this is all a delusion and he's passed out in the front seat of the Bug on the way home.
"And yet you seem determined to spend so much time with mine," the woman drawls.
"What the hell are you talking about? What family?" Mom's distracted and the woman's hands are filling up with green energy, crackling and dangerous and impossible like she's some kind of Sith Lord, and Henry lifts the gun as quietly as he can, holds it steady like he's seen in the movies, and fires.
Click. It's unloaded, and he's an idiot. Both women spin around, the stranger's lips widening into a smile. "Ah, Henry, isn't it? How nice of you to join us." She raises glowing hands–
And Mom's gun fires again, this time a wild crackling white-blue fire of her own surrounding the bullet and it blows through the green cloud the other woman puts up and hits nothing on the other side. The woman is…gone, like she'd never been there before, and Mom looks scary in that moment- Emperor Palpatine scary, her face lighting up and going dark and her eyes glowing blue, too. She looks furious and dangerous and she waves her hands in front of her, shouting out a curse into the dark, and it's almost inhuman, not the mom who plays video games with him on the couch and still tries to kiss him goodnight if he doesn't run. It can't be Mom. None of this feels real.
He remembers a moment right before they'd left for Storybrooke, Mom turned from the counter- Can I ask you something? Do you believe in magic?- and he'd laughed then. He isn't laughing now, he's taking careful, stumbling steps away from his mom, and then she turns and sees him and the blue fades from her eyes.
"Henry. Oh, god, Henry." She runs to him, falls to her knees in front of him as she seizes his hands. "What did you see?" He shakes his head, and everything hurts, nothing makes sense and he can't have seen any of this. Mom's hands are clutching his too hard. "No, you can't know about this. About any of this. We're going to go home and we'll be happy, okay? We don't need this life. I can't let you…" She looks more terrified than she had when she'd seen the woman, and he feels a chill pass through his body, settling in the pit of his stomach as his head feels like it's on fire.
He staggers back for the car door and Mom calls, "Henry? Henry, what are you doing–" and it all starts feeling fuzzy and he barely sees her as she slides in beside him, pressing a hand to his forehead. And––
––and––
He says, "I bet you'd be a better sheriff than David," but he doesn't know why he was thinking about that at all. Or why they're stopped in the street on the way back to the inn. Had Mom parked the car in the middle of the road?
Mom stares at him. "What?"
He shrugs it off. The idea feels out-of-place now, like he'd never wanted to bring it up in the first place. "I don't know. What were we talking about? I think I zoned out there for a minute or two."
Mom looks confused. And then realization seems to dawn in her eyes and she lets out a long breath like unexpected relief. "Uh…I don't know. I guess I did too." She musses his hair and moves the car back into drive. "Long night."
"Yeah." He sneaks another glance at Mom. She's staring straight ahead, but her lips are pressed together like the shamed look she gets when she comes home later than she'd promised and her hands are trembling against the steering wheel.
Something is wrong, something's been wrong here for a long time, and he's determined to figure out what it is that has his mother so tense all the time. And he doesn't think she needs any more pressure. He thinks about her eyes and how light they get around Mayor Mills, and he's sure of it.
He finally fishes out his phone and types a quick response to his last message. Thanks for the offer, but I think we're okay up here. I'll let you know if Mom seems like she might need you. He sends it to Walsh and clicks off the phone, frowning as his foot hits something small and hard on the floor in front of him.