A/N: At this point, if you're actually reading this insanity, you know what you're in for. Also, thank you.
Warnings: Mild language, comic mischief and enough saccharine to make you need a dentist.
As it turns out, Stitch is less like a dog and more like a child, Regina realizes. He's curious and inquisitive, mischievous and excitable and he never stays in the same place for longer than a few seconds. His large eyes track her movements constantly, and even when there's a thick pane of glass separating her from him, the little blue creature is watching her.
"I think you have yourself a friend, Madam Mayor," Emma notes as she flips through the piles of paperwork that are sitting on her desk. Most of it involves the chaos that Stitch's cousins have doled out on the town, and Emma knows that cleaning up process is going to be a pain in the ass, but for now, she stays amused because there's no current danger.
"Just what I need," Regina drawls. "What am I waiting on, Sheriff?" She smiles slightly when she says this because they're well past calling each other by their official titles these days. That they're doing it now is just to annoy each other, but Regina finds a weird need to remind Emma of this.
Which clearly has everything to do with how sick she is, because God.
"Oh, I figured that you would want to start seeing the damage reports from today's excitement," Emma replies as she lifts up the thick folder. "Unless you think that you'll be too busy to worry about official town business."
Regina scoffs, "Unlike you, I am capable of watching a child and working at the same time or do I need to again remind you once again, my dear, that I raised Henry all by myself for the first ten years of his life." She's glaring at Emma when she says this, and her words might have had the hard bite that she'd intended them to have – because that little bitterness is still within her whether she wants it to be or not - if not for the fact that she immediately follows them up with a painful sounding coughing fit that completely doubles her over and makes her want to crawl up in a corner and die.
A coughing fit which Emma watches with a knowing smirk.
"Better?" she asks once Regina has straightened up again.
"I'm fine," Regina snaps, and then she reaches out and grabs the folder from her. "I thank you for…well, I'm sure there's something I thank you for."
Emma laughs. "Who knew that you could be even crankier than usual?"
"You're sending me back to my quite orderly house with a destructive alien that is, at the moment, showing our son – a child that I worked tirelessly to teach good manners to - how to pick his nose with his own tongue. What exactly are you expecting from me? My best smile? Perhaps a banquet?"
"You have a best smile?"
Regina flashes her the wide white-toothed one that usually precedes her trying to rip someone's face off. It's utterly terrifying, Emma has to admit.
The sheriff shrugs her shoulders and shuffles her feet a bit. "Just try to remember, Regina, he's very far from home. Try to be empathetic. You do have that setting in your software somewhere, don't you? Down deep?"
"Very deep," Regina grouses, ignoring the rest of the comment. She knows that Emma is trying to rile her up – it's kind of what they do these days, even more than they once had – but she's far too tired to rise to the bait.
"Try to be patient with him," Emma urges. "He likes you."
"That's wonderful. He's licking his own…well, that's just disgusting."
Emma laughs. "I'll drop by later tonight."
Regina's eyebrow shoots up. "Why?"
"To check in on him."
"Why? Do you not think that I can handle him?" Regina demands, sounding almost insulted. She really doesn't want to take Stitch home because she has a bad feeling about what he could do in her house, but it absolutely galls her to think that the sheriff believes she can't deal with the fuzzball.
Of course she can.
She's the fucking Evil Queen.
She straightens up, tightens her shoulders and looks right at Emma.
And then doubles over into another ferocious coughing fit that just about forces her knees out from under her.
Oh Goddammit.
"I was thinking I'd bring you some soup," Emma suggests, her tone light and easy. "Your throat probably feels like a desert right about now."
"I can make myself soup," Regina grumbles.
"If you say so."
"I do. Now I'm going to go take Stitch and Henry home and you…well, you make sure that my town doesn't end up getting burnt to the ground. You think that you can manage that without my assistance, Sheriff?"
Emma nods her head, and then watches with an overly large smirk as Regina turns and heads back towards the hallway, her heels again tapping out an unsteady but somehow still rhythmic beat.
Some things stay the same no matter how much the world goes weird.
Henry is the one who holds Stitch's furry paw as they walk outside. The little guy is curious, but he is also pretty scared of this world that he doesn't know anything about, and his nervousness is showing.
Thankfully, Henry's presence seems to calm him.
That is until Stitch sees the Benz and then abruptly, he starts hopping up and down, his eyes big and wide and excited. "Stitch drive?" he queries, looking up at Regina with hope. She almost feels bad about declining him.
Almost.
But then she remembers that she'd just gotten the Benz washed and waxed, and the inside of it vacuumed and…well, no one drives it but her. No one. Not even Emma. Well okay, there was that once. No, that doesn't count.
They'd been trying to out-run a dwarf that had accidentally taken a GROW ME big motion, and well...yeah.
"You drive?" she asks, an eyebrow lifted.
He nods his head enthusiastically. "Dune buggy!"
"Dune buggy," she repeats. "Of course." She shakes her head and offers Stitch a sickly sweet smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "But no. This is an actual car, and not a play one. And it's mine. So no, you can't drive it."
Henry snorts in amusement, and then turns his head away.
"Big meanie," Stitch garbles.
"I am not a big meanie," Regina retorts. "I am an adult."
"Adults are big meanies."
"Yes, well, this big meanie is telling you to get in the car before I have you shaved and declawed. You want to guess what you'll look like then?" Regina snaps back. She tries to ignore the chuckling voice (she decides to call it Swan) that's in her head reminding her that she's acting like an immature child right about now because really, she already knows that.
She's choosing to blame her decidedly childish behavior on being sick because there's no way that she'd be letting Stitch -or Emma for that matter - crawl so far under her skin otherwise. Of this, she's quite certain.
"Mom," Henry says with a sigh. "You promised to be nice."
"You promised," Stitch repeats, looking at her like he's so disappointed.
"I promised not to fry you," Regina tells him. "I said nothing about shaving."
"Mom."
"Fine," she repeats, sounding like she's five years old. "I won't shave him."
"I have to get back to school," he tells her, and she just does stop herself from asking "since when"? "I'll be over right after. Try to get along with Stitch and…don't take anymore cold pills; they're making you weird."
"I'm fine," she assures her son. "And…we'll be fine, too."
"Okay. Stitch, can you be good?"
"Stitch be good," he confirms.
"I'll see you in a few hours," Henry says, and then shaking his head, he heads down the street towards his school. Knowing him, though, he's probably headed somewhere else. Like maybe a secret room full of fairytale characters using beat poetry to give voice to their many pathetic woes.
Actually, that visual both amuses and annoys Regina.
She wonders if Leroy is a regular there. Jefferson probably does some weekly number about what a shitty life he has and -
"Stitch drive now?" he suggests then, pulling her from her weird thoughts. She turns and regards him with narrowed eyes.
"No," she says. She pulls open the door to the Benz and reaches behind the seat to where there's a towel. It's usually used to wipe away excess ice and grime from the windows on the coldest of mornings, but for the moment, it's dry and clean enough to serve as something for Stitch to sit on; she's not about to let the furry creature sit on her nice leather seats. She flaps the towel in the air and then lays it down on the passenger side. "Get in."
He gives her a look that seems to suggest that he thinks she's being a jerk.
So she stares right back at him.
Because he's a little alien with too much fur and long floppy ears that he uses for wicked purposes (clearly) and she's the Evil Queen and one is a whole lot more badass than the other one, and she's going to prove it if it's the last thing that she does. Which, yeah, sounds ridiculous to even her.
She's starting to wonder if maybe Henry is right and perhaps she'd taken too many cold pills.
God, she really – really - hates being sick.
"Please," she says after a moment. "Get in the car, Stitch."
"Okay," he agrees, and then jumps up and onto the seat. As she watches, he leans across his body and belts himself in like he's been doing this his entire life. "Stitch good to go."
"Of course you are," she sighs. She walks around to the driver's side, gets in, belts herself up and starts the engine. "All right, Stitch," she says as she pulls the Benz out of park. "There are a few house rules you need to be aware of."
Rule Number One is that there is absolutely positively no running in the house at any time. Also, he has to wipe his certain to be dirty paws on the doormat before he's allowed inside.
Stitch breaks that one three minutes after he's entered the mansion, and Regina spends a half hour on her hands and knees cleaning up muddy paw prints and wondering if there's a way around Henry's no-frying request.
Rule Number Two is no climbing on the walls or the ceiling.
When shards of glass rain down like icicles off a roof on the front room, she thinks that she should have told him no hanging from the chandelier, too.
Rule Number Three is there is to be no arguing with the Queen.
Yes, she actually addresses herself as the Queen because he needs to know his place.
He starts yelling at her when she tells him he's broken rules one and two.
She thinks that there aren't enough drugs in the world for this kind of crazy.
Mary Margaret comes by the mansion about an hour later after the incident with the chandelier with a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream and a Styrofoam carton of presumably (because with Eugenia you can never know what she just reheated) homemade chicken noodle soup from Granny's. "I thought you might like this," she says sweetly, and Regina actually considers dumping the hot broth all over the woman just for being so annoyingly nice all the time, but she stops herself and manages to convince herself that her crankiness is just because Stitch is currently burping out his ABCs.
She says "thank you" instead, and tries to actually sound sincere about it.
But then, of course, her old enemy just won't take the hint and leave before things get inevitably nasty between them. No, she has to ask stupid questions like, "How is everything going here? Are you two getting along?"
"Fabulously," Regina says as she picks up the dustpan and dumps another scoopful of glass into the trashcan. She glances up at the chandelier that probably cost more than Mary Margaret would make in a decade and sighs.
"He is a handful," Mary Margaret says with a knowing nod.
Like she would know.
Regina straightens up and plasters a smile on. "Thank you for the ice cream and the soup. We both appreciate it." She steps towards the front door and pulls it open. "I'm sure that you need to be getting back to…whatever."
Mary Margaret's eyebrow goes up and she stutters out, "Yes, of course."
"Very good. Assuming he hasn't shot himself or done something else equally idiotic to himself, please do give my kindest regards to your moron of a husband. Tell him to stay away from the goats."
And then with that said and a triumphant grin plastered across her face, the Evil Queen shuts the door in Snow White's shocked and red face. And then she winces.
Because she's sure that the infernal woman will go whining to the annoying woman – that one being Emma – and she'll hear it from Emma about how Snow is trying so very hard to be friendly and, well it's just too much.
She pulls open Stitch's ice cream and jams a spoon into it.
"Is good?" Stitch asks as he climbs up on the counter and looks at her. He's sitting with his legs under him now. On her perfectly clean counters. She thinks that she should be having a fit about this, but well…whatever.
"Is…yes, it's good," she says as she puts a bite in her mouth. "Very."
He nods like he understands, and then he reaches for the hot soup and in one gulp, swallows about six mouthfuls of it down "Is good," he confirms.
She just stares at him.
He gives her a toothy grin.
"You are insane," she says.
"But not naughty."
"My chandelier says otherwise."
He shakes his head. "Semi-naughty."
She rolls her eyes. "Did you burn your mouth with that soup?"
He considers her words for a moment, and then nods his head, his ears flopping down over him. "Ow," he says, moaning a little bit just for extra effect. He opens his mouth and points towards his tongue. "Burnt."
"Here," she says, handing him the ice cream. "But only if you use a spoon."
He scowls at her, then looks at the carton in one hand and the spoon in the other. To his credit, he actually makes an effort at trying to eat it properly, but his first three attempts end up with the ice cream back where it started, and with him holding an empty utensil. That seems to trigger something in his weird little alien brain because the next thing Regina knows, Stitch is having a rage fit that involves him throwing everything into his mouth, and she's beginning to wonder if he has a garbage disposal in his belly because there's just no way that he can actually consume everything that he has.
But then he burps and he looks at her with something like pride.
It's almost adorable until she remembers that he just ate one of her spoons.
"Rule Number Nine," she tells him, her eyebrow lifted.
"No more rules," he says, and she's pretty sure he's whining.
"No eating my silverware."
"Too many rules," he protests again.
"Well, if you will behave for more than ten seconds at a time, then you won't have to worry about it," she counters. "Now isn't it time for a nap? Gods know that I could use one right about now."
"Don't want to nap."
"You sound exactly like Henry," she tells him.
His ears perk up at that. "Henry home?"
"Not yet. Soon. Sooner if you go take a nap."
"Don't wanna," he pouts.
"Stitch," she says, placing her hands on her hips. This is vaguely familiar to her in an almost soothing way so she tries not to focus on the fact that this isn't Henry that she's being strict with, but rather a weird family pet.
He tilts his head to the side and looks at for a moment in the strangest way, like she's somehow familiar to him and it upsets him. "Nani," he says.
"I don't understand."
"You're like Nani."
Regina doesn't know who Nani is, but she's clearly someone that Stitch listens to so, "Does Nani tell you to take naps?"
"Me and Lilo," he confirms with a nod.
"Well then, listen to her. To me." She points over to a pillow that she'd placed on the ground. It's big and soft, and she's actually proud of herself for surrendering it because it's also expensive and it matches her décor.
Not that it matters, though, because he gives the pillow on the ground one withering almost disgusted look, and then climbs up on the couch in the Living Room, and then pulls a soft down blanket over his furry body. "No rules against this," he tells her with another one of his big toothy grins.
She opens her mouth to protest and then snaps it shut. "Fine," she grunts.
She turns and walks away, back into her office. She thinks to slam the door shut behind her, but then considers the trouble he could get into if she isn't able to see what he's up to. No, better to leave it open a crack just in case.
She takes two more cold pills - considers for a moment that she's taking perhaps a bit too much - and then downs them with a glass of water, drops herself down on the couch, sighs loudly, and throws her head back.
Sleep hits her like a bus going ninety miles an hour about five minutes later.
The King of Rock and Roll is what wakes her up three hours later.
Regina has gathered herself a rather eclectic collection of music; some of it had come with the curse and the house, and some she had bought off the Internet. She has jazz and opera and classic rock and bubblegum pop.
She has Van Halen, Janis Joplin, Richard Wagner, Lou Reed, Buddy Holly, Norah Jones, Johnny Cash and Pearl Jam.
She has Elvis Presley.
And right now, it's Elvis that is booming through her house.
She rises slowly from the couch, her hand to temple and groans.
It takes her a moment to understand exactly what is happening, and then she starts to hear the words to Hound Dog.
Which means that Stitch is up from his nap, has found her records and is now messing around with a player that can best be described as vintage.
She growls and strides out of her office, meaning to tell the furry little bastard that even if there hadn't been a rule against what he's doing, there is now, and she's making it retroactive which means that he's in big –
She stops cold in the hallway, and if Regina could do a cartoon like jaw flop, she's pretty sure that she would be doing one because Stitch is standing in front of the stairs with her broom in his hands, a dish towel around his neck and what looks like one of her best lace bras – a red one - around his ears.
"What in the hell are you doing?" she hisses out.
He grins at her and then twirls around, his paw out like he's –
"Mom, I think he's asking you to dance," Henry says from the doorway. He's standing there with his backpack slung over his shoulder and his eyes are twinkling like someone has just handed him the greatest present ever.
Perhaps seeing his half-drugged up mother getting asked to dance to Elvis Presley by a furry little space alien from another world is exactly that.
Either way, it's absolutely not happening.
It's not.
"No dancing," she snaps out.
He pouts, and she's pretty sure that Henry does, too.
"Rule Number Ten?" Stitch asks.
"Rule Number Ten," Regina confirms with a nod of her head. "There is absolutely no dancing. And certainly not in my bra."
Which, of course, is when Emma Swan enters the house.
Because she is so much her mother's daughter at the most obnoxious of times and she always seems to appear right when it's the most inconvenient moment of all. Like when Regina is being a stick in the mud for no other reason than because she's already spent the afternoon on her hands and knees scrubbing spots and picking up glass, and all she wants to do is sleep until she doesn't feel like every part of her body is trying to stage a revolution. Like right now.
Because Elvis is now singing Return To Sender and Regina thinks that she really needs to sit down before she passes out because suddenly the room is spinning and she thinks she's spinning and oh, this probably isn't good.
"Mom?" Henry asks. "Mom, are you all right?"
"Uh oh," Emma says as she lunges forward, and they both know she can't possibly get there in time to keep Regina from hitting the ground with a loud painful thud.
As it turns out, Stitch is faster than Emma.
Maybe stronger than her, too.
He catches Regina without a problem and then grins. "Got you."
She groans and looks up at Emma, "I'm going to kill you for this."
"Make threats that you can't and won't deliver on later," Emma teases. "For now, why don't we get you over to a couch and I'll get you some water."
"I got her," Henry says, leaning down to offer his mother an arm.
There's a weird moment then, though, where it looks like Stitch might not be willing to give Regina up. His eyes narrow and his grip tightens, and he's looking at Henry and Emma like they might be some kind of threat.
To Regina.
Emma puts her hand over her mouth and laughs into it.
"It's okay," Henry assures him, shooting Emma a look meant to shush her.
Stitch considers this for a moment and then reluctantly releases his hold on Regina and scampers away, climbing first up the staircase and then onto the wall so that he can carefully watch as Henry leads Regina over to the couch that Stitch had napped on earlier. He hangs upside down to observe it all.
"You definitely have a friend," Emma says, echoing her previous words said at the sheriff's station. She kneels down next to Regina, making solid eye contact with the former queen to confirm she's all right. Once she has, she smiles and lights asks, "By the way, is that one of your bras on his head?"
"Yes, and you were supposed to pretend you didn't notice it. I see your Charming genes cut in once again," Regina replies, her tone low and so very tired as Henry hovers by pretending like he isn't actually listening to them.
Probably because he doesn't want to really think about his mother's bra.
"Sorry," Emma shrugs as she disappears into the kitchen. She reappears a moment later with a glass of water which she hands to Regina. "My mother said she came by earlier with soup. She said you were a bit of an asshole."
Regina perks up at that. "Did she actually call me that? An asshole?"
"Yes. Why?"
"Because I'm trying to imagine that word coming out of Snow White's mouth. Did it sound rude? Rather dirty? Like it belonged in a bedroom?"
"You're higher than a kite, aren't you?" Henry asks, looking disgusted.
"She must be to be discussing my parent's sex life," Emma states and then grins when Henry groans loudly. "Kid, why don't you take Stitch upstairs to see your bedroom. I'm sure he'd love to check out your comic books."
"Yeah," Stitch agrees, and then looks back at Regina. He glances back at Henry, then returns his gaze to Regina, the whole event made all the more comical by the fact that he's still wearing Regina's red bra atop his head.
"Tell him that it's okay to go," Emma whispers to Regina.
"Why?"
"Because for some bizarre reason that none of us can figure out, Regina, Stitch actually likes you and wants to be around you. I don't think he's willing to leave your side unless you tell him that's it's okay to do so."
"I've been looking my whole life for that and I get it in the form of –"
"Be nice," Emma advises.
"If I must. Stitch, go with Henry. And take my bra off. Rule Number 11."
"Ten," he corrects.
"No, not dancing it with it is ten. Not wearing it is eleven."
"Might want to reverse that," Emma suggest good-naturedly.
It gets her what's meant to be an icy glare. "Go on, Stitch," Regina urges.
"Okay." He puts out his paw, and Henry takes it and leads him upstairs.
"So, did you make any progress on his situation?" Regina asks as she sits up. The moment she does, she's wincing as her stomach rolls and every part of tries to convince her that flat on her back is the only way to go right now.
"We made a little. Not as much as I would have liked," Emma admits. Then, frowning, "You really did get hit with something nasty, didn't you?"
"Apparently so," Regina drawls. "And what you just saw never happened."
"Aw. I thought that it was actually kind of –"
"It's not cute."
"It's not cute," Emma agrees with a grin. "Though I would have loved to have seen you dancing with him. Can you imagine the blackmail material?"
"You're awfully cheeky when I'm drugged up, Sheriff."
"I find my amusement where I can, Madam Mayor. As for your question, yes and no. We have all of Stitch's cousins rounded up and housed for the night with people around town so that part is handled. As for Jefferson, well my father is currently over with him trying to talk him into helping us out."
"That's the problem with you ridiculous Charming idiots," Regina says with an annoyed sigh. "Don't talk to the idiot trying to turn back time, threaten him with his kneecaps. Or at least a finger or two. He's partial to them."
"Why don't we save that for Plan B."
Regina snorts. "Knowing you fools, it's Plan Z."
"Well, then we have a lot of plans to go through before we get to the maiming," Emma tells her. "So in the meanwhile, we just stay in control."
"I have a talking dog in my house who likes to wear my bra and dance to Elvis," Regina retorts. "He also ate one of my best spoons. It matched my set."
"I wish I had a tape recorder for how petulant you sound."
"I still have my magic," Regina threatens. "I can still do…things to you."
"I'm aware," Emma says with a bright smile. It's actually quite lovely on her, Regina thinks for a moment before she pushes the thought away. One more thing to blame on the drugs, she tells herself. "But because I'm actually a nice person," Emma continues on, not seeming to notice the odd way Regina is looking at her. "I brought you over more soup and some honey tea."
"Why? What do you want from me?" Regina asks.
Emma laughs. "Nothing more than what you're already doing."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning Stitch could be here for a few more days, and I think he's found some kind of comfort with you so I think it would be in everyone's best interests if he stays here instead of going from house to house. That's all."
"And if I don't want to play mother to a furry little chaos demon?"
"I think you'll break his heart."
"Isn't he some kind of test tube creature?" Regina queries, thinking back to the quick Wikipedia search that she'd done on Stitch when she'd gotten home. "An evil one who was programmed to destroy everything in sight?"
"Well you two have that in common."
"You're not nearly as amusing as you think I am."
Emma laughs. "The problem is, I think I'm far more amusing that you want to admit. I think you're actually kind of entertained by me."
"I'm also entertained by red-assed baboons," Regina replies sweetly.
Emma snorts. "In any case, yes, Stitch is a test tube baby with a penchant for destruction, but he found his better nature through love and family. Maybe that's something else that you two can have in common. Hmm?"
Regina makes a face at that. Which makes Emma grin.
"I brought the movie over for you. You should watch it," Emma suggests as she holds up a DVD case with a picture of Stitch on the cover of it.
"Fine."
"Fine you'll watch the movie or fine you'll keep him for now?
"Fine."
"Okay, fine." Emma stands up. "The soup and the tea are in the kitchen and Henry and Stitch are upstairs. Why don't you just sleep for a while?"
"When I wake up will my chandelier still be in a thousand pieces?"
"Yes," Emma says as she inserts the Lilo and Stitch DVD into the player.
Regina grunts. "Go away, Miss Swan."
"Happy to. You need anything, give me a call."
"Because you'll come running?" Regina asks, eyebrow up.
"Depends on if you're an asshole to me." She laughs, then. "I have to say, you're kind of hilarious sick and drugged, Regina. Almost even fun."
"And you're kind of an idiot. Actually you're that when I'm not sick and drugged up so I guess that some things don't change," she fires back.
Unfortunately for her, the insult just makes Emma chuckle.
Maybe it was the crappy delivery or perhaps it's the fact that Regina is now shivering enough to need to pull the blanket up and over her, but both things really kill the whole badass Evil Queen thing she'd been going for.
In any case, she's so done with this. Her house is a mess, her kid is playing with a creature from an animated movie, and the town's sheriff who just a few months ago was her enemy and is now something other (she refuses to define what that is) than that is now taunting her. It's really annoying.
And she just wants to sleep.
Or curl up on the bathroom floor.
"I'll call later," Emma says gently, and then because she's really the most unbearably kind person ever born, she grabs an extra blanket from the opposite side of the couch and drops it over Regina's shuddering frame.
Regina considers lighting her hair on fire for it.
It would give her a halo effect at least.
But no, because Henry probably wouldn't love a burnt up Emma.
She sighs like someone has just taken away her favorite teddy bear.
Except she'd never had one.
But at least Henry has one.
God, how many pills had she taken?
It's Emma's hand sweeping hair lightly away from her sweaty brow that brings her back to the here and now, and for a moment, they just stare at each other like there's something happening here, but there just can't be.
"Just call me if you need anything," Emma says again, her voice thick with something, and then she steps away and beats a hasty retreat, closing the door quietly behind her.
Refusing to think about what had just occurred – or not occurred depending on her level of stubborn – the former queen decides that she might as well watch this silly movie. For research if nothing else. So with considerable effort, Regina manages to grab at the remote control, and hit PLAY on the DVD player, which starts Lilo and Stitch.
She even manages to pick up the thick file of damage reports with the full intention of at least doing a quick glance over of them. It only takes her ten minutes to realize that unless she wants to arbitrarily deny or approve everyone, this is going to have to wait for a time when her eyes aren't blurring together and when her patience isn't quite as short as it is.
So she returns her attention to the movie.
And really tries to focus.
She falls asleep before the forty-five minute mark.
But not before she sees Stitch playing a record through his mouth.
When she comes to, it's because Henry is shaking her lightly. "Mom?"
She grunts and swats at him, just barely avoiding nailing him in the face.
"Mom," he says again, scowling at her. "Mom, wake up."
She reluctantly forces her bleary eyes open and hopes to hell that she's not drooling all over herself in front of her son. Distantly, she's aware that the television is on, still looping the animated menus for Lilo and Stitch.
"Henry?"
"Yeah, it's me. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"Because it's almost midnight, and you're here instead of in your bed."
She shoots up on the couch and her stomach flips in loud protest, and that's almost it except that Regina has committed mass murder and walked through fields of dead people so she finds a way to stop herself from losing everything that's inside of her in front of her child, and instead just looks at Henry with a vaguely sickly expression and says, "Did you eat?"
"Yeah, we both did."
"We?" she asks weakly.
"He's still here. But don't worry, he's no longer wearing your…stuff."
"Well that's good, at least. Where is he?"
"Brushing his teeth," Henry tells her.
"Really?"
"He insisted. He's got quite the nighttime ritual." He frowns, then, as if remembering. "I think you're going to want a new toothbrush, though."
She groans loudly and wonders if her son will hold her doing a face-plant back onto her pillow against her.
"Come on," Henry says. "I'll help you up to bed."
"I don't –"
"Yes, you do, and I want to."
Her shoulders sag, and for once, she doesn't fight him. Because he's her child, and he wants to take care of her, and well, that means something.
So she lets him do exactly that.
He covers her up in her bed, and kisses her on the forehead.
"Is he still in your room?" she asks.
"Yeah. I think he's going to sleep on the foot of the bed."
"Be careful," she tells him. "We still don't know much about him."
"Don't worry," he says. "Goodnight, mom. I love you."
"Goodnight, Henry," she whispers. "I love you, too."
She hears the door close a moment later, and then she sags backwards against the pillow, thinking about how crazy her day has been, and how the world never seems to slow down long enough for her to breathe.
She thinks about the Enchanted Forest and Neverland and Hawaii.
And just as she's wondering about all of this, she hears the bedroom door open again, and then there's the sound of soft footsteps across the carpet.
"Henry?"
"No," she hears and feels a slight weight on the bed. "Stitch scared."
She turns the light on next to bed and looks down at him, blinking. His ears are down and his eyes are big, and yeah, he looks scared. "Why?" she asks.
"Stitch misses Lilo."
"Of course you do." She reaches out and touches him lightly on the top of the head, even going so far as to scratch him there just a little bit. "Don't worry, we are going to get you home to her. I promise you that."
He nods his head. "Stitch scared," he repeats. "Stay with Regina."
"Oh, I don't know –"
But then he's curling up under her arm, and she's reminded of a happy little hound dog that she'd had when she'd been about five or six years of age.
His name had been Max and he'd been so small and sickly, and one day he'd just disappeared, but until then, he'd spent every moment with her.
Her mother had disapproved, of course, but her father had encouraged it.
Told her that there was no truer bond than that of a person with an animal.
Stitch isn't quite an animal, but he's not exactly a person, either.
"Sleep," Stitch advises, nuzzling into her.
She chuckles low in her throat and agrees, "Sleep."
And then, because Emma seems to be rubbing off on her in all of the best – or worst – of ways, she then grabs the throw blanket that usually sits on the end of the bed and places it over Stitch, smiling as he snuggles down into it.
TBC.