A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting folks—I was away from my hard-drive longer than expected. Without further ado, here is some Evil Charming and mother-son bonding to celebrate the imminent apocalypse.

xxxxx

"Regina?" David called from behind the couch.

"Yes?" she pulled her attention from the stack of maps she was attempting to organize in some sensible manner. She could never decide whether to alphabetize them by realm and then sort by time period or vice versa.

"This looks like one of those things you told me not to touch without talking to you."

"Ah," she came around to inspect the object. "Oh yes. Quite right. Wouldn't want Henry to arrive to find I've accidentally transformed you into a toad." She pulled gloves onto her hand and picked up the bright green gem.

"That's a real story?" David asked. "I always thought the 'I'll turn you into a toad' threat was just to scare children into doing their chores." As he spoke, his head moved closer to the sparkling jewel. It fascinated him.

"Nuh, uh," Regina chided, pushing him away with a hand on his chest. "That's how it works. It entrances people."

"Uh huh," David replied absently, still focused on the jewel.

"David!" she snapped at him, trying to break the enchantment's thrall. Maybe she should use magic to bind him while she put the jewel away. Surely Henry would understand . . . .

But, before Regina could finish the thought, David had pushed past her arm and grabbed the gem, immediately transforming into a toad and dropping to the floor.

"Damn it, David!" Regina said, instantly feeling absurd for scolding a toad. "Don't go anywhere," she instructed as she once again picked up the green jewel, this time promptly locking it a chest with several of her other dangerous magical items.

When she turned around, David the toad was nowhere to be found. "You have got to be kidding me," she muttered to herself.

Just as she bent to look under the couch, she heard a knock at the door.

"Of course," she said, frustrated. "When else would Henry show up?"

She walked to the door, opened it, waved to Ruby on the sidewalk and pulled Henry inside, shutting the door again in a matter of a couple seconds.

"Mom!" Henry exclaimed. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry, Henry," Regina said genuinely. "But we have a bit of a predicament right now, and I didn't want the door to be open any longer than necessary."

It was at this point that Henry noticed the mess that his mother and David hadn't finished cleaning up. "Cool!" he said as he started to the nearest odd-shaped statue.

"No," Regina instructed forcefully, as she held him in place.

"Henry," she bent down to meet his eye level. "Please listen to me. You know how I've been helping David try to get Snow and Emma back?"

"Yeah," he said. "Only I wasn't really sure you were actually going to help." Hurt flashed across her face, and he felt badly. His mother was the Evil Queen, but he didn't want to hurt her feelings. Especially if she was doing the right thing. "But it looks like you meant it. You really are trying to get them back," he said in wonderment.

"Yes, yes I am," she confirmed. "But, Henry, I need you to pay attention. Several items in this room are really, really dangerous." At his look of excitement rather than fear, she iterated, "Nasty, dangerous Henry. Not motorcycle-cool dangerous. So—Do. Not. Touch. Anything. Not without asking me first. Understand?"

At his nod, she straightened her posture. "Okay, good. Now—this is awkward—I need your help finding David."

"Huh?" Henry asked.

"He grabbed something he shouldn't have and now he's a toad, and I don't know where he is," Regina explained absently as she began searching the room.

Henry was completely confused. He had just begun to believe that his mom was helping, but now it turns out that she turned David into a toad!

"You used magic!" he accused.

"No, actually, I didn't," she responded, crawling behind the couch. Didn't toads like dark places? She should have learned more about them. Oh well, too late now. "He touched a magical object that I told him not to touch and got himself transformed into an amphibian. I tried to stop him—I probably should have used magic to stop him—but I didn't want to disappoint you."

Henry was considering her statement, but, before he could organize his thoughts, he heard his mother's voice again.

"Oh!" she exclaimed. "I found him!" Toad David was hiding out underneath the coffee table.

"May I catch him?" Henry's concern over his mother's potential magic use evaporated in place of a ten-year old boy's enthusiasm for a toad.

Regina couldn't help but smile at her son's excitement. "Sure," she said. "But, be careful. You need to grasp him firmly but gently. You don't want to squish him." She had a sudden sick feeling at how eerily similar her instructions were to the ones Rumpelstiltskin had given her when teaching her to take a heart.

She shook the feeling off. She was not turning Henry into a monster. Toads, not hearts, were the order of the day.

Henry's face was screwed up in concentration as he reached for Toad David. The Prince's instincts to avoid capture were sharp, however—even as a toad—and he hopped away with surprising speed.

Regina let out a cross between a groan of frustration and a laugh at the absurdity of the situation as she and Henry began to chase Toad David around the stacks of books and into the kitchen.

"Henry!" Regina called. "Go around the other way. We need to corner him."

Henry nodded and followed his mother's instructions. Within a minute, they had David cornered between the wall and the cabinets.

Henry reached out to capture Toad David but then hesitated. "You can do it, Mom. I don't want to hurt him."

Regina eyed her son skeptically. "You're not grossed out by a toad, are you?" she teased him lightly.

"Of course not!" Henry protested. "It's like I said, I just don't want to hurt him."

Regina hummed skeptically. "You won't hurt him. Just pick him up like we talked about—firmly and gently." At Henry's continued hesitance, she continued, "You don't want David thinking you were grossed out by him, do you?"

She smiled as she saw Henry's face take on a determined expression. Resolved, he stretched out his hand and picked up Toad David.

"I did it!" he exclaimed, proudly showing his mom how he held David without squishing him.

"Great job, Henry!" she beamed at him.

Henry's eyebrows furrowed as he asked, "Now what? How do we change him back?"

"You have to kiss him, of course," Regina said.

At her son's flabbergasted expression, she couldn't help laughing.

He scowled, "You're making fun of me."

Regina smiled. "Maybe a little," she confessed. "But I'm still telling the truth. You know how these things work. A kiss breaks a curse," she said lightly. "That's not true all the time, of course, but it actually is in this case." She wiped at her eyes. She didn't even know that she could still laugh that hard, but spending time with Henry was causing joy to bubble up within her.

"But Snow isn't here," Henry said worriedly. "So we can't break this curse."

"We don't need Snow," Regina said.

"But she's his true love. And we need true love's kiss . . . " Henry trailed off, confused.

"I said a kiss. Not true love's kiss. This particular enchantment is broken when the transformed person receives a kiss from a royal. So we can change him back."

"Oh," Henry said. "Good."

"Go ahead then," Regina told her son.

"What?" Henry asked. "Me? But you said the kiss had to come from a royal. Shouldn't you do it? You're the Ev—I mean, you're a queen. Your kiss should work."

"You're right. It should. But you are the grandson of King James and Queen Snow, which should make you a prince, despite the fact that you've never been to the Enchanted Forest," Regina explained. "And, I'm curious as to whether this enchantment will recognize your lineage."

Regina loved experimenting with magic—it was one of her hobbies that she missed most from her old life—and she didn't want to let this opportunity pass. She continued, "I'm still trying to learn as much as I can about magic in this land so I can help you and David get Snow and Emma back." She hated saying their names, but was rewarded with a smile from Henry.

She continued. "This seems like a good opportunity for a little magic experiment. That is, unless you're scared to kiss a toad," she teased. "Because, if you're scared, I can do it."

Not to be outdone by a girl—especially a girl that was his mother—Henry took a deep breath, gathered his courage, and kissed the toad.

Suddenly, David was standing in front of them and Henry's hand was filled with nothing but air.

"Well done, Henry!" Regina clapped her hands in approval, smiling widely. "You kissed a toad and turned him into a handsome prince!"

David, a bit off balance from his speedy transformation, recovered quickly and smiled. "Way to go, Henry!" he said, giving him a high five.

"Thanks!" Henry said proudly. Then he realized that he had just kissed a toad. Disgusting! "I have to go wash my mouth!" He declared as he bolted for the bathroom.

"So you were aware of everything?" Regina asked David, curious to learn more about the effects of the spell and surprised that he knew Henry was the one who kissed him.

"Yes," David said. "But I couldn't control my decisions in the same way, which is why I hopped away from you, even though I knew you were trying to help. My toad instincts overrode my brain and started hopping." He chuckled.

"You just wanted to make us run around foolishly," Regina teased.

"You caught me," David replied with a twinkle in his eye.

"And maybe next time you'll listen to me when I tell you not to touch something," she scolded him with an answering glint in her eye.

Abruptly, he stepped into Regina's personal space, his body mere millimeters from hers. His lips hovered above hers briefly before turning to whisper in her ear, "And maybe next time you'll take the opportunity to kiss me."

Regina was stunned. She and David had developed a teasing rapport since agreeing to work together, but their teasing could hardly have been considered flirting and was certainly never this overt. Flirting. Is that what she thought he was doing?

Oh my god, he IS flirting with me. Is he flirting with me? He's so close. I could lean slightly forward and we'd be touching, or kissing, or both. Just a slight movement is all it would take . . . Have I lost my mind? Regina snapped out of her reverie. This is insane. This is Prince Charming, champion of all that is good and noble. Husband of Snow White. Unless he's merely indulging his hero complex, he couldn't have any interest in someone as damaged and dark as her. But the way he was looking at her . . . no, it couldn't be. It's just some kind of stress response. Some kind of Toad Transformation Stress Response. Like Post-Toad Stress Disorder or something.

David could not believe the words that left his mouth. Oh my goodness, I'm flirting with her. Am I flirting with her? I've lost my mind. She's so close . . . it would be the work of a second, and she would be in my arms ,and I could hold her close and kiss her and touch her and . . . he had. He had lost him mind.

This was The Evil Queen he was lusting after. The woman who had hunted him and his family for years.

Only . . . she didn't really seem like The Evil Queen anymore.

The way she tried to prevent him from transforming into a toad—he could still feel the memory of her hand on his chest—and the way she made sure he was safely changed back; the way she had ripped apart her entire home looking for a way to bring back two people that she didn't miss. She had shown him that she is much more than an arch-villain. He wasn't sure how it had happened, but he no longer saw the Evil Queen.

He saw Regina.

And he wanted to see more of her.

What was wrong with him?

xxxxx

A/N: Hopefully that made y'all feel a bit better in regards to Henry and Regina, and hopefully the Evil Charming worked all right (it is AU, after all!). Reviews are always appreciated.