Sorry I'm so late! My whole household has been ill and writing time has been sparse. I'll try to get to comments once it hurts a little less to look at the screen, lol.

Warning this chapter for police corruption and brutality. (not enough that I would normally warn for violence, tbh, but this week is one when it might be an especially sensitive topic so here you go~)

xxi. obfuscation

"So do we get paid for this, or do you expect us to do free labor for the sheriff's department?" one of the boys asks, leaning forward challengingly.

Regina purses her lips. "You work as Emma's deputies or you get turned into a monkey. Is that understood?" She gets a grumble in response and Regina sets a warning hand on his shoulder. He recoils, looking frightened. "Is that understood, Nickels?" she repeats, voice dangerous, and Emma glances over at her, taken aback by the expression on her face.

"Yes, ma'am. Mayor Mills, Ma'am." Nickels manages an unsteady dip like a bow and then backs up behind one of the others.

"Regina." Emma grasps her arm and Regina looks uneasy at the contact, magic thrumming under it like agitated energy. She releases it at once, jamming it upward awkwardly to massage the bridge of her nose instead.

She'd driven back to Regina's mansion last night, still tense and dissatisfied and frustrated at another failed evening, and she'd thought…that maybe this could be like all the other times. That maybe they could fold into bed together and pretend that none of what they'd done before had mattered. She'd forced away resentment born from irrational betrayal and made her way up the stairs to Regina's room.

It had been locked.

She'd touched the doorknob, felt it cool under her fingers, had waited for a moment and shoved her fingers at the door like maybe it'd been an accidental knock. Nothing.

She'd taken the guest room and steamed over it until devastation had set in, the dawning suspicion that she'd lost Regina. That somehow, tonight had been the last straw- and then she's remembering horror on Regina's face, tension about Zelena and Spencer and we'll look out for each other and she'd slumped against her bed, uncomfortable guilt settling in.

She'd written a texted apology and then deleted it, written a texted accusation and then deleted that, had reached out with her magic toward the wall that separated their rooms and found nothing there but a glancing barrier that had her head pounding in agony when she'd touched it.

Regina had been done with her at last, it had seemed, and she'd nearly gotten up and driven out to the town line just over that. Only thoughts of Henry protesting, Henry's disappointment, the frightening awareness that Henry wouldn't come had kept her rooted in place, furious and terrified and miserable and second-guessing all the decisions that had made sense before the sun had started to rise.

But then morning had come and Regina had been distant but cordial, cooking them both a fruity oatmeal and speaking nothing of last night. She flinches when Emma touches her and is guarded in her responses but she's there and she isn't hostile and Emma had been so relieved she hadn't even questioned it when Regina had arrived at lunch with a crowd of miscreants.

But now Regina is tense again, eyes wary as she follows Emma back into the sheriff's office. "I…uh…" Emma nearly lurches forward to touch her arm again before she remembers Regina's last reaction to it. Her skin burns like it's been too long and it's parched with lack of Regina. Last night, buried within her, seems like forever ago now. When had she become this person who needs so deeply? (Since Regina had kissed her forehead and she'd found her place in her touch, and decades of longing had finally begun to come together.) "You know I work best alone."

Regina smiles at her with amusement behind her eyes and Emma knows this smile, recognizes it from another day and something…different. She shoves aside the thought and focuses on the here and now and what this new challenge Regina is sending her way is. "I think- after last night," she says delicately, and Emma burns with uncertain humiliation. In the light of day, ignoring Ashley to spend hours stalking a suspicious monkey on a fruitless search seems…unwise, at best. And with Regina suddenly so distant, it's been a grievous error.

"You don't need to get caught up in the troubles of the villagers when Zelena is on the loose. Who knows what she's planning?" Regina's eyes gleam brighter and Emma breathes, relief suffusing her at once.

"You're…helping me. Because of last night," she says, disbelieving.

"Have you ever spent ten minutes walking with that little brat hanging onto you?" Regina shakes her head. "And the baby was annoying, too. I could have been trying to kill Zelena with you."

"Now you want to kill Zelena? I thought you were getting fuzzy sister feelings last night." It's too good to be true, too easy, Regina finally on the same wavelength as she is and not a single resentment from their tiff in the car.

She lurches forward on a whim and lays her palm against Regina's shoulder. It burns at her touch and she retracts it. "Fuzzy sister feelings?" Regina repeats as though she can't quite believe it. For the first time since they'd slipped away into her office, she doesn't look quite so amused but taken aback. "I…Of course I want to kill her. It was a late evening."

"Okay. Great. And these…people out there?"

"Here to help," Regina says smoothly, sliding right back to plastic smile and a safe distance from her. "Let them do their jobs and you do yours. I'm trying to be supportive."

Supportive means vanishing on her halfway through dinner- which is surprisingly bland for a Regina dish, and Henry makes faces at it when Regina's in the kitchen- and not returning until morning, and Emma shakes her head at her own hope that they might be a team again and launches another hunt for Zelena. Time will mend whatever this is between them. Regina has still sent her help, even if it isn't something she'll involve herself in.

And her new deputies are eager to patrol, quick to report to her, and Regina-recommended, so that's something, right?

On the second night out alone, she gets the call from the twins she'd assigned to the center of town. "We just spotted Zelena entering the library tower," Am and Si announce in unison. "With a man with a bow."

"A man with a bow," Emma repeats, validation burning through her. Of course. "Robin Hood?"

"Don't know, don't care," the twins sing out. "We found fish."

"Good fish," one of them informs her.

"None of that generic canned garbage," the other agrees.

In the background, she hears the door blow open and Granny's voice. "What the hell is going on in here?"

There's yowling and raucous laughter and then a crossbow bolt firing and Emma cuts the line, thoughts returning to Zelena. Whatever the twins are doing, it isn't her concern anymore.

When she finds Zelena- and Robin Hood, she's known all along- this'll all be over.

But she finds neither in the clock tower. Instead there's a man she vaguely recognizes- Keith something. He'd tried to file a report against Gold last year, at the height of the Greg and Tamara situation, and she'd taken his paperwork and then thought of Neal and shoved it into a drawer- tied up against the rail with his bow hanging from his neck as he shouts vile curses at the top of his lungs. "Witch! You get back here, witch!"

He rounds on her as she climbs up the staircase and his eyes light up. "Sheriff Swan! I've been–"

Her magic incinerates the rope, leaving red streaks across Keith's wrists, and she drags him across the room to shove him into the wall. "Where is she?"

"I don't know! She told me she had information for me and dragged me here and then vanished!" He balks against her hand and she tightens her grip, adding magic. "I swear, I've never even seen her before. I'm not like–" He stops.

"Like?"

He remains silent, looking frightened.

Her voice goes low and dangerous and she can feel irritation mingling with rage and that's never a good sign for anyone involved. She presses forward, watching as his eyes dilate with fear and a neediness that seems very nearly like desire. "You know," she says, slipping into bail bondsperson mode in a moment, sensual and threatening with a captive audience. (She thinks she'd unconsciously borrowed quite a bit from Regina-as-Mayor-Mills during the year she hadn't remembered, and the thrill of power that emerges from it makes her heart pound faster with eagerness.) "I have magic, too. Same as Gold." Her hand lights up, blue-black cobalt in the dimness of the clock tower. "I could tear out your tongue in an instant if I had to."

Keith's eyes bug out and she notices suddenly that her magic is constricting around his throat, choking him until there's a dark line of skin visible under the glow of the magic. She tightens it, feeling a rush of adrenaline at his terror. "Tell me."

He struggles, pushes against her until she shoves him back, and sags. "Barker," he chokes out. "From the Rabbit Hole. Saw him drinking with the witch earlier tonight."

She shoves him one more time for good measure and whirls around, stalking down the stairs back to her Bug. She glances into the window of Granny's as she drives past and sees the silhouettes in the window of Am and Si circling Granny, who's tied to a chair and waving a spatula at them, and texts Shenzi at the station to warn her to get them under control.

Not her problem. Regina is right- Zelena is her only priority. She can't get caught up in minute struggles when Granny is breaking curfew, anyway, and she can still cut this problem down at its core because of her new deputies.

David expresses some concern when she returns the next evening to patrol and he's heading back home. "There have been some complaints about…them," he says, wrinkling his nose at Flo and Jet. They tweak tasers threateningly at him and Emma gives them a warning look. "Some concerns that Regina-appointed cronies might not have the town's best interests in mind."

"Me-appointed," she corrects tiredly. "Regina has just been helping me out." Regina is barely a presence in the house anymore, uninterested in her and only Henry has been getting any attention, but there's less conflict, too. There's less debate about what Emma's doing and fewer of Regina's disappointed this isn't you faces that make her stomach drop and her heart hurt. And it feels wrong to be without Regina so often but it's easier than being around her when they're both so diametrically opposed. So she soldiers on, takes the polite smiles when they're all together and the enthusiastic nods when Emma talks about her work, and she doesn't question whatever's happening between them.

Another problem to be cut down at its core when she defeats Zelena. "I thought you guys were okay with each other now. We've done family dinners and everything and there haven't been any complaints."

"I know that." David presses his lips together. "It's just…Storybrooke is getting nervous about some of her decisions. And I'm their king."

"You're a king," Shenzi says from the desk, lip curling. "Doesn't mean you're any more high and mighty than the rest of them. At least Regina doesn't prance around the town like she popped out of a coma and decided she owned it."

David looks flummoxed at the hostility. Shenzi returns to filing her nails. They're jagged, pointed like claws at the tips, and she snickers to herself as David tries again, "Emma, I just hope you'll reconsider some of the staffing changes."

She shakes her head. "No time, David. Sorry. I've got a new lead on Zelena."

She's out the door before he is, ducking into her patrol car to ride down to the Rabbit Hole.

She doesn't pause anymore, doesn't hesitate, and every day she gets a little bit closer to Zelena because of it. They're fighting on Zelena's turf now and she'd been fool enough to believe otherwise for so long; but now that she knows it, her objective is clear and she doesn't waver.

The Rabbit Hole is as full as always, an hour after curfew. "Really?"

Belligerent stares. She closes her eyes and focuses, pulling frustrated anger out from deep within her and directing it at the floor, imagining it shaking around her until it does, until there are people running and tables sliding and a few groans and pained cries as the bar empties. The lights flicker and go out just as her eyes shoot open and she yanks hard on Barker's arm as he scurries past her. "You! You stay."

His eyes glitter and she doesn't remember who he's supposed to be until he purrs, "Don't you have a little boy, Sheriff?"

She chokes back nausea and magic springs easily to her hands, blasting him back against a wall as she reaches into his chest and her fingers clamp around nothingness. He laughs like a snarl. "Looking for my heart? I got rid of that long ago."

"Unfortunately for you and me, you've still got your face." She punches him hard, harder even than she'd struck Spencer, and then again as he grunts in agony. "Tell me what Zelena told you."

He smiles around his rapidly growing nose. "Go fuck yourself."

There's a sudden shock of energy and Emma blinks in the dark and sees Flo dancing forward with his taser, jamming it into Barker's side until he's twitching and Flo is laughing, Jet on the other side of her with his own taser. "We've got this, boss," Jet reassures her, and she doesn't hesitate again. She doesn't care what happens to him.

"Find out what he knows about Zelena," she orders them, and turns on her heel and charges out of the room, in no mood to watch Barker twitch and shake.

Right on cue, she gets a call from Shenzi. "Zelena out in the woods," she announces without preamble. "Jack and Nickels stumbled right into her. She's heading for the farmhouse."

Emma drives.

Sometimes now it feels as though there's white noise running through her brain, slowing her thoughts and drowning them out before they can reach actualization, and she isn't nearly as angry anymore as much as…cut off. She hasn't felt connected to anyone since she'd last held onto Regina on the night that her mother had had a baby and she goes through the motions, focuses only on Zelena and whatever it takes to destroy her, and after that she can rest again. After that she's going to be the person she was before, the one whom Henry loved and whom Regina might've loved and who had parents who'd cared about her even if she had never been their priority. After Zelena, she's going to be fine.

And fuck it all, she's thinking again.

She grits her teeth and parks her car down the road from Zelena's house and sees the flicker of her green brooch in the doorway. Heart pounding, she fumbles for her gun and races for the house. Zelena watches.

"Hello, Emma Swan," she says, sneering down at her. "What brings you to my lovely home this evening? Are you looking to beat another man to death?"

Emma doesn't answer, just holds out her hands and lets the magic spring forth, feeding rage and fear and weeks of nothing but vengeance on her mind. Humiliation. Impotence. She'd faced off against Cora and Pan and thought only of what she'd been capable of, not all the things she isn't. She's only ever felt weak before when up against Regina, and that had been…different.

She hates feeling weak.

Her magic slams into Zelena and the witch laughs gleefully as translucent green magic spreads like a sheet around her, trembling as though nothing more has hit it but a light wind. "Silly, silly little pet. Nothing can stop me…except light magic." She twirls in place, unharmed as Emma struggles to control her power, to force enough of it into Zelena's shields to break through. "And you don't seem to have that in abundance anymore, do you?" Zelena asks, smug before her.

Emma's hands shake and the white noise gets louder, louder in her mind until she can't hear anything but roaring static and she needs Regina and Henry. Regina and Henry make everything quiet. And instead she's here and she's found her objective and nothing is working, not the magic that's supposed to have solved everything, and she doesn't care about light or dark or whatever bullshit it is that this fairytale world is peddling. That shouldn't matter.

She's trying to stop the bad guy. Doesn't that mean anything? Has her own magic decided she's unworthy as well?

She fires her gun and charges forward while Zelena slows the bullet and dodges it, and her hands tear toward Zelena but catch only puffs of green smoke and she falls forward, landing on the doorstep and breathing hard as her magic makes blue shockwaves around her like a second earthquake.

And her magic is dark and her head is aching and she finally thinks about Spencer on the floor inside and Barker today and Walsh before them and she vomits the water from her empty stomach all over Zelena's welcome mat and staggers home, forgetting her car and choking on the clear night air.

Regina opens the door for her before she manages to unlatch it and she's never wanted more to hold her, to be held and reassured and to find quiet again. Instead she gets critical eyes running over her, impersonal and carefully unreadable, and she says, "I'm going to head upstairs for a shower."

Regina turns back toward the study and Emma's hands crave for her, for Regina who cares and craves her in the same way (everywhere, she'd said, as though she couldn't believe how deep her want for Emma had gone, and Emma couldn't believe it either), Regina who anchors her.

You were right. I don't know who I am anymore, she thinks once she's in the shower and there's water sliding down her face and her shoulders and her arms and some of it tastes like salt. She curls her fingers around one wrist and lets magic seep out of her palms, falling around her like raindrops until it's gathering in puddles on the floor around her. And it feels like power sometimes, light and easy and simple, but tonight it's heavy like another burden.

There's so much magic within her and she suddenly wants it gone, wants to feel clean and empty again like she'd felt in New York, free of magic and fairytales and shadows she can't fight. She fires magic from her hands at the ceiling, at the walls, at the shower doors until they crack under the pressure and there's blue rain pouring down around her, droplets that streak blue across her skin like azure blood.

She hears nothing but the pounding of water and her head hurting more and more as magic water turns to magic and vanishes down the drain, and she still doesn't feel empty of it. She still doesn't feel clean, and she grabs a loofah and scrapes against her skin until it's red and blotchy and raw. Magic washes over her sides and arms and stomach and heals the skin as quickly as it had opened and she wants to slam her hands against the shower walls and rail at the unfairness of it, that magic won't even let her hurt without interfering.

This magic was supposed to be a gift. It was supposed to make her strong and supposed to save everyone- she's the savior, she saves them all- but instead she's too weak to defeat Zelena, too weak to be what her parents want her to be, too weak even to keep Henry and Regina anymore. It's too much magic, more than anyone should have, and she's been shuddering under its burden since the moment she'd tried to embrace it.

It's magic that's at fault for how dissociated she is now, for who she's becoming and what makes her weak. This magic is her curse, and she's bathing within it- literally, now- bogged down by too much power that should never have been hers.

She lets it fall, fall, fall, down to the floor like acid water pattering against her water-slicked skin.

xxii. dubitation

Henry had thought that school would be the daunting part of his week, back when Mom and Ma had agreed that Zelena wasn't after him anymore and it'd be safe for him to start here. But Adi had been in his class and everyone else- after firing questions at him about New York and the outside world until they'd run out of steam- had accepted his presence as though he'd always been there. Which he guesses he was, even if he can't remember it.

Then there had been the baby and the night he'd slept in the hospital, and it isn't school that leaves him unsettled at all anymore. It's sitting at the dining room table with Mom and Ma and watching how…different they are now.

Something has changed, and he doesn't like it.

"How was your day today, Henry?" Mom asks, passing him the spaghetti. She'd burnt it and tried to disguise that fact with too much olive oil and parmesan cheese, and he nibbles at it for a moment, the lesser of two evils. Looking up means watching cool eyes- inquisitive around him, but still cool when there had been a time when he'd been able to look up at Mom and see love shining from her like sunbeams in winter- and pretending that none of this is affecting him.

"It was good," he says, twirling his spaghetti in a circle and peeking over to Ma. Ma is watching Mom blankly, lost in another world, and when he tries to catch her eyes they slide over his face instead and return back to Mom. "There was a pop quiz in math today and I didn't suck at it."

No chastisement for that, no further questions, nothing but another polite smile. "That's nice."

He wonders if, if he'd slam his fists down on the table now and demand explanations, he'd startle them both enough into telling him what had gone wrong. Why this week has been so tense and unhappy for everyone in their home. Why Ma is sleeping in the guest room and Mom doesn't even hug him anymore.

It's been precious little time that he's known Mom and yet already the things that aren't anymore hurt as though solid ground had been pulled out from under him. The way she'd smile at him like he'd been her world and the way that she'd been so interested in everything he'd been excited about and even the way she'd touch him, tentative fingers against his palm as though she couldn't believe that he's really here.

She'd been Mom, suddenly and incontrovertibly, and he'd been grappling with her past but now he can't seem to remember why he'd cared. He knows who she was, but all that seems to pale in comparison with who she's become.

Not a villain. His mom.

But just as rapidly as he's found her, she's lost again, and Ma now with her. Ma is a ghost these days, in and out of the house with little more than a hurried goodbye when she goes, and Henry knows that she's hunting Zelena but it can't be this bad, can it? They'd almost been a family and now they're just strangers sitting around at the dinner table, lost in their own worlds.

As if on cue, Ma straightens. "I'd better head out now. It's just about eight, and–"

There's a knock at the door.

"I'll get it," Henry says hastily, fleeing the table. Mom and Ma's eyes follow him, and when he turns back they're both watching him from the doorway, Mom with brow faintly furrowed and Ma with a pained look on her face.

It's Mary Margaret, baby in her arms, and her face lights up when she sees him. "Henry! How's school going?"

Everything about her is familiar when his mothers are alien, and he finally remembers how to grin. "It's pretty cool. I like it here. Lots of homework, but it's no biggie."

"That's good to hear." She beams at him. "We're naming the baby this Saturday in a ceremony at Granny's, so make sure you get a head start on your work." She pats his shoulder and it's different than Mom's uncertain touch and Ma's casual clap, but it's nice anyway. He's been trying to be mad at Mary Margaret on Ma's behalf but she's the only who's acting like there isn't some secret chip on her shoulder, and he folds easily.

Except then her face is clearing up, frown lines are settling onto her skin like she can't hide them anymore, and she steps ahead of him into the dining room. "Emma? Regina? Could I speak to you two privately?"

He hangs back and wanders into the living room, picks up a comic book casually and waits until they've all filed into the study before he sinks down to the floor beside the open door and listens.

"David says that he's been passing you the recent complaints, right?" Mary Margaret is asking.

"Uh. Yeah. I guess. I've skimmed them," Ma says unconvincingly.

"Good." Mary Margaret sounds uneasy. "So you know why there have been some calls for…a change in leadership."

"A change in leadership." Mom's voice gets low and dangerous, like a growl. "On whose jurisdiction?"

"Well, mine, I guess." Henry peeks into the room and sees Mary Margaret wringing her hands nervously as she sits back on the study couch, baby cradled in one arm. "I wouldn't have taken it seriously if it hadn't been some of our people who are supporting it. Even Archie has come to me to talk about it. And maybe it's time to consider…a break?" Her eyes flicker to Mom, expectant, and she looks bewildered when Mom just stares.

Ma speaks, shaking her head. "I can't believe you're still pushing this. Storybrooke is just looking to blame someone. Regina has done nothing wrong." She takes a step closer to Mom, protective, and Mom steps back gracefully.

"She hasn't," Mary Margaret agrees, somber, and they both shift to blink at her. She rubs her eyes, apologetic and exasperated. "Emma, those complaints haven't been about Regina. They've been about you."

Ma freezes. Mom cocks her head interestedly. "What are they saying that she's done?"

"I don't know. There were a whole bunch of…" Mary Margaret rubs her eyes again. "People are saying that you nearly demolished the Rabbit Hole? There have been three separate charges of police brutality directed toward you alone, and a dozen at your deputies from the past few days alone. Storybrooke is very concerned." Her voice lowers. "Emma, did you really blow up Archie's car? Did you know about Granny breaking her hip chasing two of your deputies? None of this makes sense."

Ma avoids the second half of the question altogether. "Zelena was in Archie's car. I was trying to stop her with my magic. Things got out of hand."

"Zelena made you do it," Mary Margaret seizes the thread and Ma looks relieved. "Zelena's been maneuvering you into these positions. I know how manipulative she can be." She clutches the baby tighter and Henry's eyes flicker over to Mom, who's watching her with amused disdain. It isn't the first time he's seen her look like that around Mary Margaret, but it's unsettling now, not tinged with the affection he's accustomed to.

"That's right," Mom says, folding her arms in front of her. "This is Zelena causing unrest, not Emma. And I won't allow anyone to unseat her." Ma blinks up at her like she's her savior and Henry feels sick about it for reasons he doesn't know how to express. Because

"Of…of course not." Mary Margaret is frowning now, left off-kilter by Mom's sudden aggressiveness. "I didn't come here to actually do that. I just wanted to warn you about it."

"Good. You can leave now. Take your son home. Try to disappoint him a bit less than you have your other child." Mom smiles tightly and Mary Margaret and Ma both gasp out "Regina!" as she steps between them.

Mary Margaret looks taken aback. "Regina, I thought you'd want to know this after…" Mom purses her lips, no recognition in her eyes. "Of course I wouldn't try to take Emma's job from her! I was worried–"

Ma is silent again, thumbs hooked into her jeans and head dipped down so all Henry can see is blonde hair and trails of blue magic burning eight tiny holes into the front of her pants. "You should get home," she says. "It's nearly curfew."

Mary Margaret looks befuddled at the whole turn of events and it takes her another moment before she backs off, hands up. "I'll see you tomorrow at the naming?" she says, and she doesn't wait for an answer before she's vanishing from the room and the house, not noticing Henry on the floor in her haste to leave.

He peers back in and sees Ma looking up at Mom, fire back in her eyes for one moment, and then she's darting forward and wrapping her arms around her and Mom lets out a muffled "mmph!" of protest but grudgingly puts her hands on Ma's back. "Thanks," Ma murmurs.

There's a sudden flicker, an instant where Mom is weird and distorted and Henry gapes and sees only a flash of green light before Mom pulls away swiftly and nothing has changed but her smile, even more strained than before. "We can't have you losing your lead on Zelena, can we?" she says.

Ma straightens, and it's the first time in days that she's seemed like Ma, engaged and fierce and dangerous instead of tired and defeated. "Tonight," she says like a promise.

"I don't doubt it." And Henry squints at Mom's face as she says the words, the twitch of her lips and the cadence of her voice. He swallows hard when her eyes light onto him and scurries off.

They clean up dinner in silence, Mom scrubbing at the pot she'd burnt and Henry loading the dishes onto the drying rack and trying not to flinch when their hands bump into each other. "Is everything all right?" Mom asks him after he nearly cracks a dish dodging her elbow.

"It's fine." He rubs his towel against a bowl. "I'm…uh…I'm just worried about Ma, I guess. Because of Zelena and all."

"Yes, Zelena." Mom heaves a sigh. "I'm sure Emma will do just fine against her. If she even finds her tonight." Her eyes flicker to him. "You've adjusted well to having two mothers, haven't you?"

He chews on his lip, heart racing, and he doesn't know Mom's agenda right now but he says anyway, "I guess so. I think I missed you even when you weren't here." He can feel that hole burning within him again now, the lack of it- whatever it is-stronger than ever.

"I did love you very much?" It emerges a question instead of a reassurance and Mom doesn't notice, her eyes fixed on him with that curiosity again.

"Yeah. You were…before you loved me, you were the Evil Queen. And then you changed. For me. For our family." He emphasizes the word and he doesn't know if he's getting through to her but Mom's eyes get kind of glassy and she scrubs harder at the pot. "Family is really important to you."

"Your mother is out trying to kill my sister."

"Your sister tried to kill her son," he counters, and they're staring at each other, on edge and scanning the other's eyes for the suspicions they won't admit to. "Family is really important to Ma, too."

"Hm. Perhaps," Mom allows, studying his face. He keeps it innocent, blank and bland until she says, "You should get a head start on your schoolwork, shouldn't you?"

"Yep. Homework." He bobs his head and climbs up the stairs, then ducks into Mom's room instead of his own to climb out onto the porch and slide down to the ground, landing hard in a crouch on the grassy yard and jogging off toward a familiar route.

The others are all milling around near the park, ducked under the jungle gym and buried within the trees, keeping a watchful eye out for stray flying monkeys. Not that there have been very many at all for the past few days. Some of the older boys have been sitting on roofs and monitoring the skies- The sheriff is wrong, there's nothing to be afraid of- and today they've finally all agreed that it's safe enough to venture out again.

"Careful," Adi whispers from somewhere just above him. "Your mother is out patrolling right down by the water." He points in its direction and then presses a finger to his lips.

"If she finds out we're breaking curfew, we're toast. I heard she locked up Ashley Boyd and put her kid in the hospital," one of the girls says.

"I heard that she beat up Granny. And Ruby had to turn into the wolf to save her!" another says, dangling her legs down under a branch.

"Guys, shut up." Ava scowls at them. "She's Henry's mom. And none of that is true, anyway. My dad says that Ashley got turned into a monkey."

"Everyone's turning into monkeys," Nick says darkly, glancing up through the holes in the jungle gym to the night sky. "Last year was even worse."

"Yeah, so?" Ava stands up, and Henry sees the takeout bags beside her. "We get turned into monkeys, at least we have fun doing it. No more being locked up in our houses." There's a murmur of assent and the rest of the kids drop from the trees to join her, pulling out burgers and fries and sodas from the bags.

That's all this is- tiny rebellion from kids who remember freedom, remember being afraid of Zelena for so long that they're impatient and ready to thumb their noses at her instead. And Henry feels the glow of belonging somewhere, at least, when Ma is busy all the time and Mom…

He isn't quite sure what Mom is right now, or how he can rescue her, or if she even wants to be rescued. "Hey, guys. What's it like when someone has your heart?"

Adi swallows a mouthful. "I don't know. I think you can't love right. Or you have to do whatever people tell you to. Pan took your heart, but you were just…dead then, mostly."

"Helpful."

"You think the queen took someone's heart?" Nick looks suddenly terrified, and Henry feels a wave of irritation on his mother's behalf.

"No. Of course she didn't take anyone's–" His mouth snaps closed. "Hear that?" There are murmurs through the trees, the sounds of movements and low laughter. "Someone's here."

He's already creeping down the path when Ava catches up to him. "Careful," she hisses. "If it's Emma…"

"It's not Ma." He sees the flash of a green gem reflected off the moonlight, shining through the trees, and then a low accented voice. "Look."

"That's–"

"Yeah." There's a shimmer of smoke and the person who might've been Zelena vanishes, leaving behind two older teens who Henry recognizes at once. "Flotsam and Jetsam. Ma's deputies." Working with Zelena. It's not exactly a surprise, not when he's heard about some of the stuff they've done, but he thinks about Mary Margaret talking about a change in leadership and Ma's head bowed in front of her mother and he feels as sick as he had when Mom and Ma had hugged earlier.

"Not just them." Ava shakes her head, eyes widening as she points. "Archie."

"Archie?" Even Archie has come to me to talk about it. But Archie isn't involved in some nefarious scheme. He's bound and gagged, half conscious as Flo drags him along and Jet tazes him every time he struggles. "We have to help him."

"Don't be an idiot, we're out after curfew! You think those two are going to cut us any slack if they're working with Zelena?" Ava smacks him upside the head. It stings like she knows what she's doing. "We shouldn't even be following them."

They do anyway, deep into the woods until the road is a tiny ribbon to their right and the town line is just up ahead. And Henry suddenly knows exactly what's about to happen, had heard about it from David that night in the hospital, and he's charging forward while Ava hangs onto him, hand on his mouth while he struggles. "Stop it! It isn't worth it! It isn't–"

Flo pushes Archie over the line and a monkey shrieks just above them and Henry runs and runs and runs, hanging onto Ava's hand as she matches his pace, back to the playground and back through the woods and down a street until he crashes straight into Ma's arms.

"Henry!" She pushes him away an instant later, hands tight on his shoulders until they're pinching painfully. "What are you doing out here? Why are you–" Her eyes flicker to Ava. "Are you on a date?" She drops her hands, taking a step back. "You broke curfew and you're…you're dating?" She looks like she doesn't know which she's supposed to be more outraged about.

She glowers at Ava. Ava glowers right back. "Her. Of course her. You're a mini Regina and she's…" She shakes her head. "What is going on here?"

"It isn't a date," Henry says, and his face is not flushed over the idea of it. Just from the run in the cold.

He's relieved to see a matching tinge on Ava's face, but she says stubbornly, "Yes, it is. That's all we were doing."

But when it comes down to it, he trusts Ma. Maybe not to tell him the truth. Maybe not to give him the whole story. But he knows that she despises injustice just as much as he does and he knows that she's the one who can save everyone, and he says, "We were following Flo and Jet into the woods. They had Dr. Hopper with them and they dragged him over the town line." He leaves out Zelena speaking to them, suddenly unsure if he'd seen that at all.

Ma twitches with surprise and then takes a deep breath. "Why were you near the woods to follow them?" she demands

That's what she's harping on? "They turned him into a monkey, Ma!"

He thinks again of Mary Margaret barging in to tell them about Archie's concerns. "I think they did it because…" He stumbles over the words and looks down. "I think that's how they're stopping people who complain."

When he glances back up at Ma, his heart sinks as she shakes her head at him. "Oh, Henry, no. They're not…They may not be the best deputies I've ever had, but you must have misunderstood."

"Misunderstood them dragging him over the town line? They're working for Zelena!" he says, and Ma goes shifty-eyed like she doesn't know how to respond to that. "Ma!"

"Regina picked them for me. Regina. It's okay." Ma smiles at him, dressed up like the confident sheriff but eyes like that time he'd found her baby blanket and she'd whispered stories to him about a thousand times she hadn't belonged. And he knows, he's been aching with the same lack of belonging for so long that this town- that Mom- has become everything to him, and it hurts every day that it all feels wrong.

But Ma doesn't want to know that it's wrong when she finally has something to hold onto. Ma isn't going to believe him. "Don't you think Mom's been…strange lately?" he ventures anyway. Ava looks at him with compassion. "Different?"

Denial writes passages across Ma's face, justification and fear and… Oh. He sees what he'd known had always been there, clearer than ever before. Love. So much love that it's agony and Ma shakes her head and Henry sees it so sharply because he knows it too. Because life without Mom isn't really life at all. Because Mom loves and they love and what are they without love? What had they been without her?

Henry doesn't know how not to search for that answer. Ma lives in fear of discovering it again. "No," she says, voice firm and hands stiff and long at her sides. "No, I don't think that."

Henry nods. Ma herds Ava and him into her car, voice low and angry as she starts on them again for being outside at all, and Henry stares out the window as his mind works furiously.

He's on his own. Ma is in love, and he's on his own.