This is one of those fics that I like the idea of. No plot, no pairings, just some friendly everyday fluff.
A Different Approach
Dr. Archibald Hopper skirted around his office, rearranging the poster board and markers on his table. His heart hopped around in his chest, the way it always did when he started a new approach to therapy. There were so many things that could go wrong—it could take a bad turn, it could be rejected, it could give the wrong message—but he passed a glance at his umbrella and swallowed.
Only one way to find out, wasn't there?
Five thirty. Regina stepped in, all sharp lines and icy smiles, while Henry followed behind her with wary steps.
"Have fun, Henry," she said in that odd, flat way of hers, casting Archie a momentary glare. "I'll come pick you up in an hour."
The second she disappeared out the front door, Henry ran his usual gamut: his shoulder sagged, he relaxed into the big overstuffed chair, and then he whipped his backpack onto his knees and started working his book out of the bag.
"I've got some new information for Operation Cobra," he chirped, so excited that it hurt Archie to interrupt him.
"Actually..." He'd been hoping to back into this, but knowing Henry that was impossible. "There was something else I'd wanted to talk to you about first. Is that okay with you?" Always leave it to the patient's discretion. Trying to force a boy like Henry to do anything would only ever end in disaster. The last time he'd tried that still rang sharp in his memory, and judging by the suspicion in Henry's eyes, the boy felt the same way.
"Sure..." he said quietly. "What is it?"
But by now, Archie had learned. He gave a confident smile—as confident as he could give, anyway. "Identification. How do you think we're going to figure out who's who if we don't have a good criteria to start with?"
Henry's smile lit up the room. "That's perfect!"
"I thought we could write it down. Sort of visualize." Archie indicated the paper, and Henry bounded to the table as only a ten-year-old could.
"All right, so where do we start?" He had already uncapped the blue marker. "I think Mr. Gold—"
"Actually, I thought we should probably start with princes."
Henry's head bobbed up to meet him, his nose wrinkled. "You think Mr. Gold's a prince?"
"No, not at all. But if there's one thing your book has a lot of, it's princes and princesses. That's a good place to start, don't you think?"
"Good thinking." He bent over the page, writing in big sloppy letters across the top.
"So what kind of qualities do you think a prince needs to have? To be a proper prince."
"He's got to be brave," Henry started. "And... humble. The ones who are all full of themselves get turned to stone and stuff. And they've got to be kind to everyone." He wrote down each quality as he came up with it, adding a few at Archie's prompting: honorable, fair, diligent. It wasn't long before the entire poster board was filled, and blue ink smeared across the edge of Henry's hands.
"I think that's about it," he said, satisfied.
"Looks about right." Archie sat down. "But you know, you got me thinking. Snow White and Prince Charming—they're royalty, right?"
"Well, yeah. It's kind of in the name." Henry gave him that sympathetic, humoring smile of a person who knows he's being led. "It's Prince Charming for a reason."
"So if Emma's their daughter, wouldn't that make her a princess?" Archie continued. Judging by the way Henry blinked at that, the thought hadn't occurred to him. "And, since you're her son, wouldn't that make you a prince?"
More blinking, followed by a whispered "whoah". The paradigm, as they say, had shifted.
"And if you think about it," Archie went on, "Regina's a Queen, isn't she? So either way you slice it..."
Henry sat back, stunned at the revelation. "You really think so?" he squeaked.
"I do." Archie flashed a smile. "And I think, if you're going to be a prince, you should be the best one you can be."