Really truly almost done this time! The penultimate chapter! Apologies for the delay in updating, I'm back full time at University on a really intensive course so I haven't had much time for writing.

**SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ** **SQ**

"I'm telling you, kid, she's been acting weird!" said Emma, pacing the length of her office in the Sheriff's station while her son spun in his chair, letting out a sigh as he seemed to be being roped into the same conversation he had had with his other mother only a few days before. Things had been going so well between them for weeks before that. "You don't think she's having second thoughts about being with me, do you?"

"Emma, you're her true love," said Henry, pausing in his spinning to look as his harassed birth mother.

"Doesn't mean I can't annoy her enough for her to want to end it!" She paused suddenly in her pacing. "You don't think she knows, do you? And she doesn't want to do it? She probably thinks I'm being stupid and rushing things." Her pacing resumed.

With another sigh, Henry pushed himself out of the chair, coming to stand in front of his blonde mother. He wrapped his arms around her waist, hugging her tight. She really wasn't good at talking or dealing with the big emotional stuff, but a hug could often make her pause enough to breathe and come back to reality. "She loves you. You know that. Just stop worrying! If everyone just stopped worrying it'd be fine!" He stepped back, waiting until Emma looked down to meet his gaze. "She doesn't know, okay? She thinks you're spending more time with Ruby because she's been teasing you about always being with mom."

"You covered for me?" asked Emma, with a smile.

"Yeah," nodded Henry. "I had to. You've got the ring, but you don't know what you're going to do with it yet, so I had to buy you some time."

"Not true," scoffed Emma. "I know exactly what I want to do with it, I just don't know how!" She ran a frustrated hand through her hair, sinking into the seat opposite her desk.

"Where is the ring anyway?" asked Henry. He still hadn't seen it, and was itching to.

"I left it with Ruby. I didn't want to hide it in the apartment in case Snow found it, and I can't exactly keep it on me. You mom would end up tidying my jacket away and finding it." She let out a long, slow breath, letting her head fall back. Abruptly, her head snapped back up. "That still doesn't explain why your mom has been acting weird with me. If she doesn't know, and things are fine, then what's up with her?"

Henry rolled his eyes. He was starting to think the idea of Emma proposing to his adoptive mother wasn't a good idea if this was the anxiety that came with it. With the exception of the night he had turned up on her doorstep, he had never seen her so stressed.

Regina opened the small padded envelope that had been on the top of her stack of mail that day, pulling out the box within. She had ordered it online a few days earlier, and was the final part of the plan she had been slowly putting together. Opening the box, she smiled at its contents. It was perfect.