When Emma keeps walking past Henry's room and around the corner, Regina hesitates, the foot of Henry's bed in her line of sight and Emma's boots fading from earshot. It's David who makes the decision for her, wheeling away from Fred and the coffees at the nurses' station and nodding at her. "Go," he says, and his gaze gets heavier. "She needs you. We've got him."
Another second, and she can barely hear Emma's footsteps. David nods again, and for once it takes no effort to trust him, to go after Emma with nothing else in her mind.
When she finds her, pressed into the corner of the stairwell with her fist over her mouth, all she can say is "Emma," in a voice that rises and cracks, and then Emma is in her arms and disintegrating. Regina holds her and holds her close and just murmurs her name like if she says it enough, she'll work magic one last time.
"I just want to hold him," Emma finally gets out through sobs, and Regina clutches her closer still. "Hold him and keep him safe and I never did, Regina, I never even—"
Slowly, slowly, she strokes down the ridge of spine between Emma's shoulder blades, touch firm and rhythmic. "It's okay. It's okay."
"No—"
"It's okay," she says again, stronger and with more conviction, and pulls back just enough to look Emma in the eye, to press their foreheads together just to make her see. "You're here now. You can now. Hold him now. It's okay."
Those sad, sea-storm eyes close on her—can't hold her gaze, can't keep the faith—and she lets Emma retreat, lets her pull back and press back into the corner. There's silence for a while, until she shifts her weight slightly and pulls the hoodie a little closer around her body; the movements catch Emma's attention, and for a full minute, she's subjected to an unreadable gaze as Emma takes in the shoes and the jeans and the hoodie and the undoubtedly tired lines of her face.
And then she speaks, and Regina wants to shove the words back in her mouth. "What if we just go."
Regina freezes. "What."
Emma's voice is hoarse and the words are timid but she's not asking, not really. "Go. Let's just… go. Pack everything up and the second he's healed enough, we go."
Regina doesn't know if she's shaking her head or trembling, and there are so many words crowding to get out and she's terrified to speak because—no.
"Start fresh, Regina. New town, new life. New names, if you wanted. Whatever you want." There's a stillness to Emma, now, a calmness, and when she slips her hands into the hoodie pockets to hold Regina's, she even—oh, she smiles. "Just someplace… someplace where I'm your girl, and you're my lady, and he's our son, and that's all anyone will ever know—"
All the words start at once and Regina chokes, a single unintelligible gasp before she wrenches her hands away. "You want to run."
"It's not—" Emma starts, but it doesn't matter because Regina knows what this is.
"You want to run. Now. You want—"
"With you!" And then Emma is holding her, kissing her sweetly, saying so many things—"With you. With him. Us. It's not running if it's us. It's not, it's—it's being safe, Regina, you and him, being safe. You see that, right? You get it. You know."
She's crying again. Sweet, strong Emma, weeping in her arms and not even realizing it. "We don't run, Emma," she murmurs, and Emma starts to protest, but she touches the tear tracks on one pale cheek and shakes her head. "This is my town. This is Henry's home. It's his park and his school and his diner and his first skinned knee, and the ice cream parlor that knows cookie dough in the cone—"
"And mint chocolate chip on top," Emma finishes, and she's sobbing harder.
"And it's your home, too, isn't it?" she asks softly, and kisses one closed eye, sighs against her brow when she feels Emma's hands tighten on the back of the hoodie. "Everything you ever went looking for."
"Don't need it."
"Still deserve it," she whispers, and when Emma crumples she holds on, and holds strong.
This time, when they walk back into Henry's room, Regina makes no move to adjust their hands or their shoulders or the way Emma leans into her like she's the only important thing. Henry is awake, still, and smiling at something Fred is showing him on his iPad, and no one misses the way his eyes brighten when he sees them holding hands.
"Ma, come look at this," he says, and there's still a thickness to his words, that strange semi-lisp, but—maybe it's slightly less. Maybe she's too hopeful, but maybe it's slightly less.
"If it's that damn fox song," Emma starts, and stays where she is.
Henry laughs—softly, lightly, but it's laughter. Real laughter. "No, I promise. It's this final seven seconds of a game. You gotta see it."
Emma hesitates again, and Regina gently pushes her towards their son, lets go of her hand with an exaggerated "Ugh, football," which fools absolutely no one.
"Here, Ma, you can fit up here with me, we've got a whole queue," Henry says, and pulls some of the monitor leads over his head to leave a clear space on his right.
For a moment, Regina can't believe it—can't trust that their boy could be so intuitive—but then Emma's kicked off her Tims and wedged herself into that tiny open space on the bed, lying on her side and trying to prop herself up on her elbow, and Henry's meeting Regina's eyes with that kind, knowing smile and she believes. She believes, so much.
"Mom? You gonna watch with us?"
With a knowing smirk, Fred gets out of his chair and gestures to the now open space next to the bed. "Come on, you fair-weather fan. Join the fun."
"I am not a fan of anyone. I prefer winning teams," she retorts. There's considerably less dignity in stalking over to a chair in a hodgepodge of her little family's clothes than in her typical business wear, but for the familiar, fondly-aggravated smile on Henry's face, she'll risk indignity.
"Ever heard of 'rooting for the underdog'?" Emma drawls, and she's got an arm around Henry's shoulders, just slightly hugging him.
The automatic speech on the nature of advantage in the NFL fails her. Just completely vanishes off the tip of her tongue, because Henry snorts, and shakes his head—gently, gently. "Winning is a perpetual state of being," he recites, almost like a reflex, and when Emma glares up at her, she smiles.
Kathryn sees him first. Or, rather, Kathryn reacts first, because Regina simply stares blankly at Michael Tillman, hovering in the doorway with a red box in his hands. "Michael, you can't be here," she says—snarls, really, and is there more room for gratitude in Regina's heart? There must be; it rises up as the only feeling she can comprehend while Kathryn tries to corner Michael and back him away from the door.
But Michael's locked in place, looking at Henry with horror. "I didn't know," he whispers, and behind her, Emma hisses. "Oh, God, kiddo, I didn't know—I'm so sorry, Henry. I'm so sorry."
"Michael," Snow says, and takes him by the arm, "come on."
"Let me explain," he starts, but then stops, shakes his head. "I—I just didn't know. I didn't think—Nick, he's not—" and he stops again.
And this time, he looks straight at Regina, and she wishes he wouldn't. Wishes he would just go and take all of this… this thing with him. Wishes he wouldn't look at her like he can see how hard she's trembling. She wishes, oh so fiercely, that she could wrap Henry and Emma up in her arms and take them away, where no one can ever get to any of them ever again.
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty," Michael says, and this time Emma plainly growls, and gets off the bed, and Regina trembles and trembles and trembles. "I'm so, so sorry." He holds out the red box in his hands, and in the full light of the room she can see that it's wrapped in red paper, with a silver bow. "Kiddo, we got this for you a few weeks ago. Me and Ava picked it out. It's just one of those hats, with the animal ears and the flaps, but you said you wanted one so…"
No one moves, and Henry says nothing.
Nodding again, Michael crouches to leave it on the floor. "If you don't—they do clothing donations, here," he says, and with nothing in his hands he looks helpless, and lost.
She wonders if anyone else sees him like that.
"I'm sorry," Michael says again, and lets Snow pull him away.
Behind her, Henry takes a deep breath, and then another, and then calls out in a voice that sounds so much like his ten year old self. "Mr. T!"
She has to hold on to the arms of her chair, because she can hear it in his voice. Her sweet, sweet boy—he can't be real. He can't possibly be real.
"Merry Christmas," Henry says clearly, and strongly. And then, softer, "Tell Ava I said hey."
Across the room, David smiles, just for a second, and Regina stares at the corner of his mouth so that she doesn't look at Michael, so that she doesn't see the way his whole face lights up with the reflection of her baby boy's grace. "Merry Christmas," Michael says, and is gone.
In the end, it's Emma who kicks everyone out, Emma who hits her limit for civility and friendliness. There is a brief moment where Regina thinks that David will yell back, will get in her face and demand to stay because they're family—she can see his lip curling, his shoulders locking—but all he says is, "You sure you won't need backup, baby girl?"
It hits her, later, when they've both kissed Henry good night and of course played along just so he could sleepily murmur good night, John-Boy, why David caved. Why Snow caved, even after Michael showed up. Why they all agreed to wait until eleven or noon to come back. "Did you mean to call him Dad?" she murmurs when they are curled together on the cot, and Emma sighs, keeps running her fingers through Regina's hair.
"No. It just came out." Her breathing hitches again, and Regina slips a hand underneath her shirt, strokes just above her navel and then waits with her palm flat and heavy on Emma's belly. "Fuck. He's gonna think—I'm such an asshole."
She pinches, just slightly, and tilts her face up to lightly, lightly kiss the corner of Emma's mouth. "Not so much."
"Biased." But Emma's hand resumes its steady pace through her hair, oddly synchronized with the beeping monitors. "The hat is cute."
"If you think bear ears on a fourteen year old boy are cute."
"Can it, Regina, you think everything he does is cute. He could wear creepy clown makeup every day and you'd think it was cute."
The only thing she can think to say is that clowns are cute, which is a lie not worth the bickering it would lead to. "Yes, well. Coping strategies for changing diapers. I know my perception is skewed. You're the weirdo who thinks panda hats are normal."
"They're not just normal, Regina. They're awesome."
"Idiot," she murmurs, and kisses Emma's neck.
They're quiet for a while, Emma shifting slightly to set one foot free of the blankets, and eventually she's so still that Regina thinks she's drifted off until she takes a deeper breath. "I didn't get you anything."
Thrown, Regina says nothing, but spreads her hand wide, traces the line of Emma's last rib with her thumb until the oddly glittering reflection of the power indicators reminds her of the decorations. "Emma, linda, don't—"
"I had a whole plan," Emma says in a rush. "Because we were gonna do the day at my parents', right? So—I had a whole plan. When it was all over, I was gonna take you home, open a real expensive bottle of wine that would still taste like rotten grape juice to me, and then just… pamper the shit out of you. Foot rub and bubble bath and massage and candles and oils and the whole deal."
She will not laugh, she will not laugh. "Yeah?" she says, and it's too late; her smile is in her voice.
But Emma just smiles back, hugs her a little closer. "Yeah," she mumbles, and her breath is warm against the shell of Regina's ear. "And then when you were all relaxed and jelly-legged—"
"Jelly-legged?" she interrupts, but Emma just shushes her.
"All relaxed and jelly-legged, I was gonna lay you back—he's knocked out, right? He can't hear me?"
She can't help the giggles that rise up, and when Emma gives a quick but gentle tug to her hair, she full-out laughs, tries to get out a little late but Emma kisses her, kisses her, kisses her. "Lay me back and?" she finally prompts, grazing her mouth over Emma's upper lip.
It's how she feels the bright, smug grin, how she knows to start laughing even before Emma opens her mouth and—softly, softly—drawls out, vaguely melodically, "Pour your sugar on me."
When her giggles have finally subsided—most buried in the crook of Emma's neck, some tucked into her mouth with a flick of a tongue—and the niggling panic that maybe Henry's dosage is too high (because surely even morphine wouldn't let him sleep through two madly giggling mothers?) has abated with the help of his stats flashing onto the screen, she props herself up on her elbow to make sure Emma can see her eyes. "I would have loved that."
"Yeah?" Emma asks, but there's no real uncertainty in her voice.
"Yeah," Regina confirms anyway, and kisses her sweetly. "Raincheck?"
Emma nods, and kisses her back, tugs her closer so she relaxes onto the cot again. "You," she murmurs, and they both smile.
"You," Regina echoes, and closes her eyes.