For a long moment, nobody said anything. Henry glanced helplessly between his two, clearly intoxicated, mothers. Both with skirts ripped above the knee and drink stains down their tops and what, exactly, were they doing leaning so closely into each other? Henry swallowed loudly and crossed the street to get a better look at them.
"Um, care to explain?" He said, looking to Emma first and then Regina, trying to work out what the hell was going on.
"Henry." Regina repeated again. She opened and closed her mouth a few times, desperately searching her brain for something to say. When she came up blank she looked to Emma for help.
"Henry." Emma said yet again.
"Yes, my name is Henry. We all know that. Now, what the hell have you two been doing? When David said you were having a crisis, I didn't know he meant mid-life crisis."
"Henry Daniel Mills, I am not having a mid-life crisis!" Regina tried to say firmly, but her words were still slurred, defeating her attempt and Henry simply rolled his eyes at her.
"Kid, we were just blowing off some steam. A lot's happened." Emma explained.
"So you got drunk?"
"We did not get drunk." Regina stated but Emma shook her head at her, knowing they had no chance at fooling Henry given the state of the two of them.
"And what exactly has been happening? Because everyone's been incredibly vague about everything. I'm not a kid anymore, I want to help. David didn't even want me to come."
"He was right." Emma said, "You shouldn't be here, Henry. How did you convince him to bring you along?"
Henry shuffled his feet, sheepishly. "I didn't. I just hid in the backseat until we were a few hours into the drive."
Emma slapped a hand to her forehead and groaned. "You're still pulling crap like that?"
"When are you going to start listening and doing as you're told, young man? I remember a time when you respected your elders. What's gotten into you?" Regina nagged him.
"What's gotten into me is frustration! Frustration at never being included in anything. Maybe if people stopped lying to me, I wouldn't need to keep sneaking around."
"Sometimes people have a good reason for lying, kid. Sometimes lies can protect people. You really shouldn't be here. There are things you shouldn't have to deal with." Emma said. "Not at your age."
"And apparently things you think I shouldn't see." Henry said. "What did David come to get? He wouldn't let me go up to the apartment with him because he didn't want me to see it. But I'll find out. So you might as well tell me, already."
Emma sighed. Henry was right. There was no way he would get through a seven hour drive back to Maine with a dead body in the boot of the car and not find out. He would know eventually when they buried her anyway. "Let's not have this conversation in the street" She said as she pressed the buzzer for the apartment.
A moment later, David's voice came from the call box "Emma?"
"It's us, let us up."
David opened the door when they got upstairs and opened his mouth to argue when he saw that they'd brought Henry with them but Emma held up a hand, "He'll find out at some point, might as well be now."
With that issue out of the way, David's eyes rolled over Emma and Regina in disapproval, "Have you two been drinking?"
"Not now, please. Just let us cope in whatever way we want to." Emma grumbled, too exhausted to deal with nagging.
David reached for her and pulled her into a tight hug, "I'm just glad you're okay."
"Yeah, me too." Emma said against his chest. "Come on, kid." She said to Henry when she spotted him staring at the blanket-covered body in the corner of the room. "I'll do some explaining." She led him into Robin's bedroom and shut the door behind her.
"Regina, I heard what happened. You're okay?" David asked, eyeing the bruising that was just about showing above the high-necked top she was wearing.
"Thanks for your concern, but I'm fine." Regina said.
When the chain flushed and Robin came out of the bathroom, Regina looked up nervously, suddenly feeling very embarrassed about the state she was in.
"Regina?" He said as he emerged, face crinkled with concern. "What happened? Did someone hurt you?"
Regina's nervousness dissipated almost immediately and she had to fight back a chuckle, of course Robin would assume that. It would be more believable than the truth, that she'd gone galavanting around town with the daughter of her old mortal enemy on some crazy, wild night out. "No Robin, no one hurt me."
"Well then, what on earth have you been doing?"
"It seems they needed to blow off some steam." David chimed in, an eyebrow raised.
"You did this to yourself? Are you drunk?"
"It would appear that way, wouldn't it?" Regina answered in a drawl.
"And you did that to Marian's clothes? Ripped her skirt in half? Spilt things all over her top?"
"Well, it's not as though she'll be needing them anymore." Regina said before she could stop herself. The moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them and bit down hard on her tongue. "Robin, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-"
"How dare you?" Robin yelled, storming towards her. "I've just found out, for the second time, that my wife is dead and you do this?"
"I-" Regina tried to interrupt, tried to say she regretted it.
"Did it mean anything to you, Regina? Did you feel anything when Zelena told us what she'd done? Or is death so entwined in normality for you that you can't understand my grief?"
"Normality? I'm not the Evil Queen anymore, Robin." Regina snapped back at him, anger rising up within her.
"Maybe not. But you're not acting like the Regina I knew, either." With that, Robin turned to David, "Let's get her in the car."
David, knowing better than to add anything to the argument and eager to remove himself from the tension, followed and helped Robin with the task. Regina said nothing more as she opened the door for them to leave.
"Regina? Are you okay?" Emma said as she returned with a pale-looking Henry.
"No." Regina answered, simply. "I'm an idiot. We've been acting like fools, Emma."
"Can you blame us? Everything that's happened… it's messing with my head!" Emma cried at her. "I feel like I'm going insane."
"It doesn't matter what we feel. We were just running away from our problems. Distracting ourselves while Robin sat here alone, dealing with everything by himself."
"I don't know how else to deal!"
"Well, it's about time you grew up then. You might be used to abandoning the responsibilities of your problems like this, but I'm not. We should have stayed here, talked through things, worked out the right thing to do." Regina rambled.
"Please don't fight." Henry interrupted suddenly, drawing the attention of both of his mothers. "Everyone deals with things differently. You know that, mom." He said to Regina. "You're just flustered because Robin shouted at you."
"I'm flustered because he just found out that his wife is still dead, the wife that I killed the first time, by the way, and we've been acting like teenagers, drinking away our sorrows!" Regina snapped at him before she could stop herself.
"I killed Zelena, Regina. I shot her. I've never killed anybody before, ever. What happened is going to be tormenting me for the rest of my life, regardless of whether it was the right thing to do or not. So sorry if I couldn't face it at first, sorry if I was so desperate to think of anything else that I acted recklessly."
Regina immediately felt guilt wash over her. "Okay. I know, I know." She said, forcing herself to take a few deep breaths to calm down. "Can we just change out of these clothes, please, before Robin comes back so he doesn't have to see what we did to them again?"
"Sure." Emma mumbled and the two of them left Henry standing in the hallway to do just that.
They put the ruined clothes into a plastic bag and left them in the corner before changing into new outfits from Marian's closet. Unfortunately, no other tops had high necks and the bruising on Regina's neck was entirely visible. When they came back, Henry couldn't stifle the gasp that rose through his throat at what he'd missed when he'd first seen her.
"Mom?" He said, softly, taking in the injury. Emma frowned, she had told Henry that Gold had threatened them but hadn't mentioned this. "Gold did that?" Henry whispered.
Regina just nodded at him solemnly. "It's okay, it's nothing that won't heal." She reassured him.
"I'll kill him." Henry stated in a low, dangerous voice.
"Henry-" Emma started. Neither women had seen Henry look so threatening, he had never reminded Emma more of Regina than in that moment.
"No, how could he hurt you like that?"
"He's desperate, Henry. Gold does what he needs to to get what he wants, no matter who he hurts." Emma explained. "But don't worry. We'll beat him."
Henry was shaking with rage, fists clenched.
"Hey, hey," Regina said, soothingly as she put a hand on his shoulder to still him, "good always wins, remember? Gold will get his comeuppance. Just not from you. We'll win together, the right way."