Guys. Any explanations of the afterlife included within are DUMBED DOWN SO AS TO FIT INTO A SEMI-PARAGRAPH. I promise if you want to talk religion, I can send you 40,000 words on the construction of a greater reward for a mortal journey, but like… this was not the vehicle for deep musings on the fate of the soul?
I'm totally lying, I can't send you 40k words like THAT but if you gave me a little while I could throw maybe 5k together?
When Sandra at the front desk calls the next time, Regina is handing in her latest notes for the next council meeting and talking her way out of the now-routine lunch invitation from Kathryn. "It's probably not a good idea," she says, the same line as every previous week, and Kathryn gives her the same sad smile.
"We'll never know if we don't try, will we?" she tries, and it almost hurts, how earnestly Kathryn is seeking to forgive her.
"Kathryn," Regina sighs just as her phone begins to buzz. She manages to look at the screen of her phone before Kathryn can add another plea, and frowns deeply, swipes to answer. "Regina Mills," she says clearly, and holds her breath.
"Ms. Mills, this is Sandra from Storybrooke Secondary School. The principal is requesting that either you or the Sheriff come in for an immediate disciplinary meeting."
"Is my son all right?" she demands, getting to her feet, and Kathryn rises with her, face showing the alarm Regina feels pulsing in her fingertips. "Is Henry all right?"
Sandra huffs. "Ms. Mills, the Sheriff made clear that I was to inform you of any requests from the administration, but she said nothing about informing you of the physical state of her son."
"Our son," Regina spits, and has to fight to keep her anger down below her lungs. "Is he hurt?"
"Good day, Ms. Mills."
She stares at the phone for a moment before looking up at Kathryn, holding both of their coats over one arm and car keys in the other hand. "I'll give you a ride," she says quietly. "Why don't you call Emma?"
Emma says she'll meet them at the school and pulls up with lights going, parks in the fire zone again but completely crooked. She leaves the lights flashing and manages to give Kathryn a smile before breaking every rule they've ever had and pulling Regina into a hug right away. "Bruised, that's all they said, okay? Bruised. Conscious and bruised."
She pushes at Emma's shoulders, takes two steps back and pulls all her wild pieces back in to herself. "Thank you for the ride, Kathryn," she murmurs, and turns towards the row of doors leading into the building.
"If you need anything else," Kathryn starts, and Regina can't help but turn, can't help but meet clear and compassionate eyes, "I'm here."
She has to turn away, forces Emma to say thank you on her behalf—and that's too much, because who is Emma to say anything for her—because Henry is bruised, Henry is bruised, and whose fault is that?
They pause outside the main office; Emma's fingertips graze her elbow but don't linger. "Jesus," Emma whispers. "Is that the kid?"
Henry sits with an icepack covering half of his face, slumped in the same chair as the last time, but across the office is a behemoth of a boy in a lacrosse sweatshirt with a swelling, purpling eye and a dark stain under his nose. Lacrosse boy is at least twice Henry's size, probably older by at least three years, golden-haired and golden-skinned except for the clear strike marks on his face and neck. Regina doesn't need to look closely to know they are just the size and shape of Henry's palm-heels.
"He's enormous," Regina whispers back, and the backs of their hands touch just long enough.
Henry chooses that moment to look up, and when the half of his mouth visible around the white plastic quirks just slightly, Regina has half a mind to beat him herself.
"In my defense—I never told him to pick fights with baby grizzly bears and you know that," Emma whispers, "so don't you even start with the 'your son' shit."
"Sheriff?" The door to the office swings open and the Abominable Sandra gestures towards Snow's office. "She's waiting for you."
Just like last time, they pause in front of Henry, and he avoids Regina's eyes like he's ten and keeping secrets again. "Hi," he mumbles.
Regina reaches out and lifts the ice pack from his face, bites her tongue to hold in the gasp. Emma doesn't, and their fingers probe the mottled flesh on his cheekbone and jaw in tandem. Henry hisses but doesn't pull away, and after a moment Emma leans over him and kisses his hair, holds him against her.
Behind them, there is a slight commotion, and Regina looks over her shoulder to see a equally stocky man and woman fussing over the Lacrosse Giant and shooting dark glares in their direction. Emma clears her throat and gives Regina an unmistakable look, opens the door to Snow's office and waits for Regina to lay a hand on the back of Henry's neck and guide him into the office, away from the anger and judgment. For one brief, bright moment, Emma lays her hand on top of Regina's, fingers lacing together to shepherd their boy into a chair, and then the door closes behind them.
The drive to the house is silent; Emma hasn't said a word since they left the school. Snow mandated a month of ISS and anger management. A month means that Henry will need to go to summer school to make up the missed classes. A month means thirty days in which he'll come home tense and exhausted and he'll sleep fitfully and wake up stressed out and defensive.
Regina wants to just close her eyes and go to sleep and wake up—some other time. Some other place. Where Henry is safe and universally loved and won't ever need to know how to strike at the soft parts of the face and body.
Emma parks the cruiser and comes inside with them. Confused, Henry hovers in the foyer, tries to figure out if he's supposed to stay or go, but when Emma heads straight into the study, Regina nods for him to go. "Go put the ice pack in the freezer, first, then go wash up, all right?"
He nods, starts towards the kitchen, then turns around and wraps his arms around her waist, hugs her hard. "I'm sorry, Mom. I didn't—I never meant to disappoint you guys."
Everything hurts. "Oh, sweetheart," she sighs, and kisses his hair. "No, I know. It's a difficult situation, and you're doing the best you can. We all are." She wants to say you didn't, you didn't, but the truth is that he has—just not in any way she knows how to explain.
When he is upstairs and she can hear the bath running, she follows Emma's path into the study, closes the door softly. "Is it too early for a drink?" Emma asks. Her voice is raspy, rough; she's sitting hunched over with her back to the door, using her hair like a curtain.
"Depends on what you plan on drinking," Regina says quietly, and comes around the couch, sits on the coffee table facing Emma. She wants to put out a hand, lift Emma's chin, but—not yet. Not yet.
"Well, I dunno. What's the appropriate drink for 'Congratulations, you dumb fuck, your son's a carbon copy of you'?"
If this is self-pity—there's no room for that, and Regina's hands grip the edge of the table tightly to rein in the flash of irritation. "Is he?" is all she says.
Emma barks out a laugh, and lifts her head, and the look on her face—Regina deflates. This isn't self-pity. This isn't self-pity at all. "Teach him to defend himself, and he goes and picksa fight with the biggest fucking kid in the school? Yeah, Regina, that's classic Emma Swan right there."
For a moment, she's without words. "I thought it was more patented Mills," she finally says, and tries to smile. "After all, he won."
Emma's conflicted expression breaks, just for a moment, into a smile, and that's the trick; the snapping tension between them dissolves. "C'mere?" Emma asks, and Regina lets herself be pulled into Emma's lap, hums quietly when she feels Emma exhale into the curve of her neck. "Thank you for… handling everything. I should have been more… I dunno, present? But I just… I should've been there for him. So thank you."
She sighs, lifts her palm to Emma's cheek briefly. "He said he's sorry for disappointing us."
"Fuck."
It's the most appropriate reaction to the idea. "I don't know what we're supposed to do now."
"We can still do your way." At Regina's questioning sound, Emma tilts her head back, tries to smile. "Manipulation and blackmail."
"Of children?"
"Of their parents," Emma corrects, but even as she says it, she seems to realize how many obstacles stand in the way of that plan. They don't know who all the kids are, and now that Henry's gone on the offensive they're at a disadvantage, and getting enough material on so many people will take time that he doesn't have.
"Your way was always the only way," Regina murmurs, and kisses the very corner of Emma's mouth. "Maybe—maybe it will work out. He was smart about this, at least."
"How do you figure?"
"He went for the largest target, brought him down in front of all the other kids." Before she gets the next sentence out, she's realizing what other questions they have to find the answers to. "He… made himself the alpha?" she questions softly, and meets Emma's slowly-understanding gaze. "Has he been talking to Ruby?"
Emma furrows her brow to think. "Maybe? They chat when we're at the diner. But I don't think—nah, Ruby wouldn't give him advice like that without talking to us about it."
That's true, or true enough; Regina lets her weight sag against Emma's upper body, forces them to rest against the back of the couch. "Maybe he figured it out on his own, then."
"Hell of a thing to just figure out."
"He's a hell of a boy." They're silent, because Henry is and has always been extraordinary in so many ways, but not this way, never this way. "What happens next?" Regina asks softly, winds one of Emma's curls around her finger. From the way Emma's body tenses up underneath her, Regina knows that anything is her answer, so she doesn't push, just rests her forehead against Emma's and breathes in, and in, and in.
When Henry knocks on her bedroom door, Regina doesn't set aside her novel but does watch him approach the bed over the top of her glasses. "Hi," he says, still holding ice to the bruising on his jaw.
"Hi, sweetheart." She smiles at him, cocks her head. "Still icing it?"
"Ten more minutes, Ma said."
"Come sit with me," she urges, pats the left side of the bed. He used to insist on sleeping on her left, back when she was capable of taking away the bad dreams, so her dominant hand would always be free to protect him.
He's always thought about things like that, she realizes. How to be safe, how to be strong.
Henry clambers over her legs, just like he used to when he was five, and sprawls out on the empty side of the bed, then rolls onto his right side to face her, keeps the ice pack sitting on his cheek. "Did you take the ibuprofen yet?" He opens his hand to show her the three candy-coated tablets, and she has to laugh. "Oh, so you really just came in here because you're too lazy to go downstairs and get your own water?"
He makes a face, points to his jaw. "I'm hurt, Mom. Who knows if I can manage the stairs by myself."
She finally sets the novel down, leans over to kiss his temple. Everything is horrible but at least there is this: affection, freely given, willingly received. "Because you needed so much help when dinner was ready."
"I had help," he counters. "The gods of pork had my back."
She laughs again, combs her fingers through his hair. "I'm glad you weren't more seriously hurt," she whispers, and sees Henry's torso curl in defensively. "Fighting Teddy was a very foolish thing to do."
He says nothing, but his fingers press into the side of her knee, solid pressure to remind her that he's here.
"Come on, sit up to take the medicine." She takes the sleeve of his t-shirt between thumb and forefinger, tugs three times, then reaches over to her nightstand to pass him the glass of water sitting there while he sits up. He takes a sip of water, holds it in his mouth and tilts his head back, pops the pills in, then takes two more sips before finally swallowing. Regina takes the glass back, takes two sips herself and sets it aside.
She half-expects Henry to leave now that he's gotten what he came for, but is pleased when he leans into her side and closes his eyes. "Tired?" she asks, and he nods against her shoulder, eyes still closed.
"What happens when people die?"
Regina freezes, feels something like panic banging against her ribs. "What do you mean?"
"Like… when they die, what happens to their soul?" He doesn't look up, but his grip on her hand is tight, tight, tight. "Is there a heaven and a hell? And what decides where you go? And how—is it like going to the Enchanted Forest, or—or Neverland, where you need a portal, or is it like the Netherworld where you just go, and—what happens when you die, Mom?"
She holds him close against her body and says the only thing she can. "I don't know, baby." After a moment, she keeps going, tries to give him something. "Some people, back in the Enchanted Forest, they believed that there was a heaven, and a hell, and that good people went to heaven and bad people went to hell. But they didn't really know what to do with people who were in-betweens. There wasn't really any room for in-betweens, right?"
He nods, squeezes her hand tighter.
"And some other people, they believed that your energy was… reallocated, let's say. That your spirit fused with some slowly-growing thing, came back into being."
"Like reincarnation?"
"Like reincarnation."
"And it happened to everyone? Regardless if they were good or bad?"
"To everyone," Regina affirms. "But if you'd done more things to benefit the world than harm it, you… upgraded, let's call it. So maybe if you'd been born a peasant, you'd come back as a prince. And if you'd been born a prince, you could come back as… an eagle. Or a swan."
She knows he smiles at that, can feel how his breathing shifts. "What if… what if something happened to you, and you weren't in control of your body anymore, and your body did bad things?"
It hurts so much, so much, but she tamps down on the sobs caught in her throat and sighs against the crown of his head. "If there is a heaven and a hell, Henry, there is no doubt in my mind that every one of the Lost Boys went to heaven as the people they were before Neverland. And if there's reincarnation, then half of them are princes and the other half are learning to fly."
He says nothing, but lets her hold him quietly until he falls asleep.