David sat patiently in front of his son's highchair and watched as once again the baby let his food dribble out of his mouth and down his chin onto his yellow airplane decorated bib. He held back his sigh, dabbed the baby's chin with a napkin, and spooned up another scoop of baby food out of the jar. He heard movement and shuffling behind him and turned to see a bleary eyed Henry coming into the kitchen.
"Morning, sunshine," he said. "Sleep well?"
Henry mumbled some sort of response before opening the refrigerator door and ducking his head inside. He grabbed the pitcher of orange juice and closed the door.
"Neal is not being a good eater this morning. You wanna give it a try? Maybe I'm just not what he's looking for this morning." David held out the tiny yellow spoon to Henry who sighed and took it.
"You feed him, I'll make breakfast. Deal?" He clapped Henry on the shoulder as he traded places with him and headed into the kitchen. "What sounds good this morning? Eggs? Pancakes?"
Henry shrugged and yawned. "I don't know, whatever." He swirled the spoon around in the jar and presented it to Neal who just grinned at him.
Snow emerged moments later in a robe, also yawning and shuffling. The party had gone quite late and had morphed into an ad hoc engagement party for Emma and Regina. She went to the stove, passing David on the way and giving him a peck on the cheek, and then putting on the kettle.
"Morning, boys. Crazy night huh? I don't think I've ever seen Regina get that tipsy."
David smirked and he started getting things out of the fridge. "Yea, she was definitely having a good time. She even hugged me." He shook his head and grabbed a bowl. "Could you have even imagined this happening? It's…unreal. Regina is going to be our daughter in law." He started cracking the eggs against the bowl and methodically dumping their contents into it.
"I'm glad, this will be the final nail in the coffin. We can bury the past properly." She eyed Henry's feeble attempts at feeding Neal and decided to take over.
"Make me some tea when its ready, ok. I'll get him to eat." She sat down and took the spoon. "Ooooh, looks good. I'll eat it if you won't, Neal." She popped the spoon in her mouth and sucked it clean. Neal's face fell and his brow furrowed.
"What?" she asked him.
He started to fuss and then happily ate the spoonful he was offered, smacking his lips when he did.
"What about you, Henry? I bet you couldn't have imagined when you hunted down Emma and brought her back here that this would happen. Both Moms under one roof, a new sister on the way…"
"Yea, I'm uh, I'm surprised."
Both his grandparents looked at him and he gave a little shrug. "It's fine I guess."
"You know they love you very much. There's just a lot going on right now. And you know Regina wasn't planning to propose last night, she told me it was a spur of the moment decision. We were all taken by surprise, even her."
David laughed and started whisking the eggs.
The rental cabin was off of a well managed road and was surrounded by a soft blanket of snow. Outside the back porch there was a snow covered field and woods in the distance. The air was clear and sharp with the cold. Regina watched as Emma strode out onto the snow covered field, her breath hovering in the air. She turned around as if she was evaluating something and then with a nod flopped down backwards.
"What are you doing?" Regina asked from the porch, her arms folded tight against her heavy black jacket.
"Snow angel. Come on!"
Regina rolled her eyes and followed. "Only because there is no way you are getting back up on your own." She dredged through the snow, following the trail Emma had made.
Emma was happily swinging her limbs through the powder. "Make one next to me. Come on, we're marking our territory."
Regina got down next to her and made a feeble attempt. She was actually too distracted by the sight of the blonde next to her, her red cheeks and dimples, the flecks of snow on her blue knit cap. She reached across the snow to grab her gloved hand and gave it a squeeze.
Emma gave her hand a tug and pulled her into a kiss, her cold nose touching her warmer cheek. Regina rolled over onto her and felt the shock of something very cold being shoved under her jacket collar.
"Swan!" she roared, jumping to her feet, grabbing at the collar of her jacket at the lump of snow that was already slipping to the middle of her back.
Emma laughed so hard tears slipped from the corners of her eyes. She went to stand up and then realized she couldn't. Regina stopped shaking the snow out of her jacket and her nostrils flared, like a predator smelling blood. A toothy grin emerged as she watched Emma flail in the snow and she scooped up a lump of the white stuff from the ground.
"You wouldn't!" Emma exclaimed, holding up a dark gloved hand to ward her off.
"Think again, Princess."
The snowball hit Emma square on the forehead. It was loosely packed so it exploded in a shower of ice and left her sputtering, whipping her head to and fro and yanking her beanie off to shake the ice from it.
"Damn, you have good aim!"
"All that fireball practice." She offered her hand and pulled Emma to her feet.
They went back inside and Emma retrieved something from her bags, something she kept wrapped up in a bag. Regina was curious but didn't pester. She hung up her jacket and coat on the rack. The cabin was not rustic, its interior design was very modern, the back doors were windowed, a dark modern french door design that let them look out onto the snowy field. The kitchen full of blacks and chrome, and a black curved TV was on the wall. The floor plan was an open one so the bed was positioned to allow a person to gaze outside through the glass doors or just as easily at the curved TV on the wall. Despite all of this however there was still a heavy black cast iron round potbellied stove next to the fireplace. Nothing could beat the level of heat it kicked out. Regina had started a fire in it when they first arrived and she opened the latch to see how it was coming along.
Emma took the package to the bed and sat down. "I've been meaning to give this to you for a while. Now that we have this cabin and the time I figured it was the perfect time. I saw you had the books at home and through investigative work I found you had regrettably not had the chance to see it…" She removed the boxes from the bag and Regina walked over to the bed.
"Oh…my…God," she breathed, looking down at the DVD boxes played out before her. She picked one up and held it like it was a priceless object.
"I figured we could have a binge watch this week."
Regina looked up from the Game of Thrones DVD box with tears in her eyes. "Can we watch it now?" she choked out.
"Sure. No rush, we have all week." Regina's hug almost knocked her onto her back.
"Thank you. I'm so…thank you. I love you."
She chuckled and rubbed her back. "I guess you like your gift."
"We'll need snacks."
Gold walked out of the hospital into the bitingly cold night, his breath hanging in the air in heavy clouds. He knew Blue would be waking any moment now and he smiled at the thought as he hobbled away, giving the the hospital one backward glance before heading into the night.
