A/N: Just a heads up for those who are sad about last chapter… This was planned all along for the sake of the plot, but I intend to turn this around and make it happier soon. Thank you for your constant support – that's the reason why I write as fast as I can. I apologize for grammar mistakes – English is not my first language, so, it happens.

This one goes to my Muse as usual. She is not reading this, but I miss her.

Enjoy, kids!

Chapter fifteen

Regina was still absorbing everything that had happened.

It felt like the ground cracked open beneath her feet. It felt like she should have seen it coming. Whenever something majorly happy happened, something twice as dreadful came next. Everything in her life had followed this pattern; why was she deluded thinking happiness came her way without taking something in return?

Her mother was yelling at Dr. Whale when she arrived at the hospital. They had called in the middle of the night. In a state of little consciousness, Regina added a coat to Henry's pajamas and carried him to the car, where he put on his shoes with his eyes still closed.

She grabbed her purse and ran to the vehicle, driving as fast as she could, noticing she was on her pajamas as well only when they arrived at the hospital.

Her mother was so busy being a bitch with Whale that she didn't even scold Regina for the outfits. Her father had had a cardiac arrest. They couldn't bring him back.

Regina exchanged looks with her mother, and then she quietly asked a nurse to watch her sleeping son for a moment. Cora moved towards her, but Regina gave her back to her, finding solace inside a cubicle in the lady's bathroom.

She sat on the lid of a toilet and hugged her knees. It was the only way to grieve in peace without her mother ordering that she swallowed the tears. It was the only way to get privacy before the nosy media arrived, led by Sidney Glass and his stupid camera.

Regina sobbed convulsively, her face buried in her arms. Her father had been the only person who understood her, who treated her well, who made her feel safe. He had been her friend, her solid ground and her guardian angel while she still had to live under the same roof as Cora.

And she couldn't believe he was gone.

She cried in pain, and when it became hard to breathe, the cabin's door burst open and Emma Swan was there to catch her.

She again.

Regina wished that she could crawl and sneak underneath Emma's clothes, and that Emma could walk and breathe and live for both of them. She grabbed her shirt, and took in her scent – cigarettes and mint – and she thanked her in silence for not changing at all.

Regina buried her face in the crook of Emma's neck, still grabbing the front of her shirt with all her might, creasing the fabric with her fingers. The moment she registered Emma's arms around her, the crack on the ground was fixed and she was no longer falling.

After minutes, or hours maybe, Regina opened her eyes and noticed she was sitting on the floor with Emma, their backs against the cold wall as Emma held her in silence.

When she noticed Regina was back from whatever that was, she straightened up a bit to look at her.

"Hey," she whispered.

"You came," Regina muttered.

"I'm sorry I didn't make it sooner-"

"You're here now," the brunette interrupted her, resting her head on her shoulder.

"Can I get you a coffee? A comb?"

Regina chuckled in spite of everything.

"You're the most annoying shoulder I have ever cried on."

"Yeah," Emma smirked and pointed her pajamas. "FYI, I liked it better when you slept naked."

"Oh, shut up-"

"We should dress you properly or pull a stunt in the corridors so that I can sneak you out with Henry through the back door. The press is already here."

"I don't want to get out of here," Regina sighed. "And I don't want you to leave."

Emma nodded. "I'll ask MM to take Henry home with her, if that's okay. He's not really awake, it will be just fine. She'll be back with clothes for you."

"So you'll stay?"

"I'll stay."

Regina sighed. "Okay."

Emma left for about ten minutes, and when she returned, she was holding two Styrofoam cups of coffee. "Here-"

Regina accepted it, and the first sip felt like heaven to her impending sinusitis; the warmth on her face helped a great deal with the throbbing pain. When Emma reached out and held her hand, she merely accepted the gesture in silence. The gentle touch and the sense of her warm skin was pretty much everything Regina needed right now.

It was the only way she could be sure she was still alive and functioning, even with a shattered heart.

"Did you bring a rubber bouncing ball with you?" Regina suddenly asked.

Emma chuckled. "We can make one."

"Do you carry rubber bands in your pockets? How old are you?"

"No?" the blonde scoffed. "But I can go to the front desk and pick a handful."

"That's okay."

They went silent again. Emma considered a cigarette, but then decided against it. She remembered how suffocating death felt, and she didn't want Regina feeling like that.

"How did you do it?" Regina asked quietly. "When… When your mom-?"

"Oh, I don't know… I just wanted to disappear and… I don't know. It sucked."

Regina accepted that answer and didn't bring it up again. Emma adjusted herself against the wall one more time and produced a crumpled clipping from the newspaper and a pencil.

"I've been doing it, practicing vocabulary," Emma shrugged, offering the crosswords to Regina. "I was counting on this to beat you when you came back. I wanted to fight with fancy words to impress you."

"How sweet of you," Regina smiled, feeling hot tears burning her eyes and blurring the puzzle on her lap.

"Sorry," Emma whispered, bringing her closer and kissing her temple. "I'll shut up about that."

"No, we… we'll have to talk about it someday. Just not…"

"Not now. I know. That was insensitive."

"You're more sensitive than you think."

"No, I'm not!" Emma shook her head.

"Yes, you are."

"Could you not spread that out? I like my reputation."

"Your secret is safe with me," Regina sniffled, adjusting against Emma's body. She started to solve the words and went silent again.

There was a soft knock on the door and then Mary Margaret came in. She was holding a stuffed handbag and a box of donuts.

"Hi," she whispered, looking around the not so clean bathroom floor, debating with herself if she should sit down or not. She sighed and decided in favor of it after placing the food on the sink. "I had no idea what you'd like to wear, so I grabbed a few options-"

"Thank you," Regina smiled at her, standing up to go change. She took the handbag and headed to the privacy of the cubicles.

"A word outside, please?" Mary Margaret mouthed, gesticulating frantically towards the door.

Emma nodded and turned to the only cabin that was locked. "I'm stepping out for more coffee, okay? I'll be back in a minute."

"Okay," said Regina's muffled voice.

As they walked towards the coffee machine, Mary looked like she was about to combust.

"Okay fine, you're gonna pop a vein in your head and it won't be good," Emma muttered. "What?"

Mary grinned. "She kept your jacket."

"What?"

"The jacket! The one you told me that you gave her when you took her home after prom! That denim jacket you loved-"

"I know which one," Emma interrupted her. "But it was probably just sitting there in her old bedroom since that night-"

"It was popping out of one of her bags," Mary shook her head with a huge smile. "She brought that bag from New York."

Emma tried to keep a straight face as she absorbed the information.

"Is Henry okay?" she asked instead, pouring coffee into her cup.

Mary sighed. She hadn't expected that Emma would want to talk about it, anyway.

"David's watching him. He's sleeping like a rock."

"Good. After he wakes up I'll go get him. He'll probably want to-"

"Yeah."

"Thank you for taking him home."

Mary frowned slightly at Emma's thoughtfulness, but didn't comment about it. "No problem, sweetie. So, I'll take off, make some breakfast for him…"

"Sure," Emma nodded, heading to the bathroom as she waved at her friend. When she re-entered it, Regina was in front of the mirror, struggling with the zipper of a really sober dress.

"Could you-?" she used her thumb to indicate the back of the dress.

"I shouldn't," Emma said with a tentative smile as she approached the brunette. Her fingers trembled slightly when she felt the warm skin on the back of Regina's neck. She was pretty sure Regina had shuddered under her touch, but hell, that was so not the time to discuss skin reaction.

"Thanks," Regina smiled, putting on a pair of black shoes. She used her hands to comb her hair and turned to Emma.

The blonde reached out for the handbag. "I was joking, you know. About the comb. Your hair's fine," she said quietly.

Regina smiled sadly at her, and suddenly the light air dissipated. The brunette opened her mouth to speak, but Cora Mills burst in, and she frowned when she saw Emma.

"What are you doing here?"

"Mother, don't!"

"Leave it alone," Emma muttered, placing one gentle hand on her waist as she walked out. "Call if you need me."

"Shouldn't you be at work? Sheriff?" Cora asked disdainfully.

"I decided to take a day off so I can graffiti some walls or deflower innocent young women, Mrs. Mills," Emma said halfway through the door. "Sorry for your loss, by the way-"

"What a petulant little-"

"You deserved that," Regina spat, leaving the bathroom with a strut that emanated superiority.

When Cora stepped the corridor, a large group of people was surrounding the brunette, asking questions. The lack of sensitivity was abysmal, but they were the Mills, and they had to show strength even in moments of fragility.

Emma watched Regina being dragged by the small crowd of vultures and the dragon of her mother. She sighed and left the building, heading to the Station.

XXX

On general, the town was in a sad mood, gathering in small groups to talk about the tragic death of Henry Mills. It was from those informal conversations that gossip about Regina taking over as Mayor erupted, and for that reason Emma didn't even get to see her after she left work.

David arrived at the Station for the night shift and told her that the brunette had been escorted out of the hospital and headed to Town Hall. Emma tried stubbornly and fruitlessly to get to her, but Cora Mills had hired six large men to guard the front of the building, and the only way she could beat them was to run over them with her car.

She didn't stand a chance to be with Regina if she was sent to prison, so she headed back to MM and David's.

Henry was eating spaghetti in front of the TV when Emma arrived.

"Hey, kid," she slumped down next to him. "How you doing? Thanks," she said to Mary when a plate of food was placed on her lap as well.

"I'm worried about my mom," he poked a meatball with his fork and bit it. "She mus' be u'set."

"Um, she…" she looked at MM and then back at him. "She's taking care of your grandpa's stuff, you know. He wanted her to do it instead of the Ev-"

"Emma-"

"Of your grandmother," Emma said after clearing her throat. "Your mother is probably gonna be busy for a few days, so-"

"I'll stay with you?"

Emma didn't need the little nudge Mary Margaret gave her. She smiled, cleaning a sauce smudge from his cheek, and nodded. "Yeah, kid. Looks like it's gonna be you and me for a bit."

"You can't forget to drive me to school-"

"I won't forget to do that-"

"And you can't forget to tell me to wash my hands before meals-"

"Why should I remind you about this if you know that already?"

"That's what mothers do-"

"I'm not-" here Emma shut up before she could finish and be an asshole again. "I'm not gonna be your substitute mom forever, so you're allowed to skip a few rules with me, kid."

Henry's sauce-smudged lips cracked open into a huge smile. "My mom is going to be so mad at you…"

"You can stay here tonight," Mary told Emma as she did the dishes and the blonde put them back on the cabinets. "Or as long as you want, you know. To adjust."

"How hard can it be to take care of a ten year old?" Emma chuckled, drying a glass with a piece of cloth. "He doesn't need me to go to the bathroom, he will definitively complain when he's hungry… What else?"

"You can't feed him with pizza every day, you know. He'll need food. Actual food-"

"Don't be a party pooper," Emma ruffled her short black hair. "I can cook, despite what you think. Thanks for dinner."

"Yeah, sure," Mary grinned, watching them taking their coats from the hanger behind the door and leaving.

XXX

"Can we pick another movie?"

"I have a TV."

"Do you have candy bars and soda?"

Emma was about to retort, when she remembered about the contents inside her fridge.

"Fine. We can make a stop at the supermarket, then," she said with a sigh.

"What about the movie?"

"I need to return the other one, or they'll block my account."

"Let's go to my grandmother's house and get it."

"How many stops are we making before I can go home and take a shower, kid?"

"As many as it takes, adult."

Emma chuckled. What a fucking carbon copy of Regina Mills…

They stopped at 108 on Mifflin Street to get the video. After that, they went to the supermarket, where Henry did most of the food selection, and then they went to the video store to return Jurassic Park and get another movie.

"I wanna watch this," Henry smacked a video case on Emma's hand.

She flipped it and read the tittle. Cujo.

"No," she smacked it back into his hand.

"Yes!"

"You're ten!"

"You're thirty!" he raised his eyebrows. "Tell the woman it's for you!"

"I'm not lying to her because you want to watch a movie that is not suitable for your age!"

"You're just afraid of my mom-"

"I'm not afraid of your mom-"

"Then why can't we watch this?"

"Why can't you pick another one?"

"Fine," he grunted. "This."

He pointed at Nightmare on Elm Street.

Emma rolled her eyes. "No. You wait in the car, I'll pick the movie."

"But-"

"I'm gonna call your mom-"

He rolled his eyes and got out, stomping hard all the way towards the car so that she could hear it from inside the store. Emma waltzed towards the kid's session and took the first movie she saw.

"Your son's cute," the woman at the counter said.

"He's not…" Emma made a pause and considered it. "He's a handful."

She was really old, and Emma was sure she just pretended to read the clients' names on the monitor. Everyone in Storybrooke knew her, either from What Happened in '83 or because she was the Sheriff, and everyone knew she didn't have a kid.

"They all are," she put the movie on a plastic bag and passed it over to Emma. "This one's due to Thursday."

"Thanks."

Emma shook her head and left. When she sat behind the steering wheel, Henry quickly reached out for the bag and he scoffed when he read the title. "You're kidding, right?"

"Why?"

"The Lion King? I'm not five!"

"We can watch it twice, if that's the problem-"

"That's not funny!"

"Math isn't funny-"

Then it happened. Henry did that eye roll thing, and twitched his mouth disapprovingly, staring out of the window.

"Just like Regina," she muttered to herself.

He remained silent.

"C'mon, you're gonna ignore me forever? What about movie night?"

He let out a deep breath and shrugged.

"Tell you what," Emma said, watching the road and stealing glances at him. "We'll watch this one today. If you hate it, you pick the next."

Henry turned to her, slightly interested. "Fine. But I want to know that long story you didn't want to tell the other day."

Emma parked in front of her house and looked carefully at him. "That's not out for discussion."

Henry looked out of the window and recognized the house from the picture, even in the dark. He sighed and helped Emma get the paper bags from the car and carry them inside.

"Cool," he said, looking around as he placed the groceries on the table.

"It was my mom's."

"What happened to her?"

"She died."

"I'm sorry."

"It's okay. She was sick, so… She's not suffering anymore."

"Do you miss her?"

"Every day," Emma muttered, putting the soda cans inside the fridge. "So, bathroom's over there-"

Henry nodded, dropping his small bag on a chair and following the direction she had pointed. Emma searched for clean towels and discovered she had none.

"Fuck," she grunted, walking back and forth as though this would solve the problem.

"Emma?" Henry called.

Fuck. "Yeah?"

"I left my towel inside the bag-"

A ten year old boy who brought his own towel. Definitively Regina Mills' son…

She took it for him and started to sort out the food for movie night. It was the first time she was going to watch a rented movie in that living room with someone that wasn't Ingrid.

When they were both clean and ready, she found out her VCR wasn't working anymore.

"It was a lousy choice anyway," Henry shrugged. "Simba's dad dies."

"Why didn't you say so?" Emma asked with a frown, feeling guilty. "I'm so sorry…"

"It's okay. So… Wanna play some board game?"

"Okay."

She stood up and dig for games inside her clustered closet and found a few, which she brought back to the living room.

"Naval Battle or Clue?"

"Both."

They played for hours, and Emma was bitterly ready to admit she had been outsmarted by a ten year boy who was looking very smug and not sleepy at all.

Emma rested her back on the couch and sipped her beer.

"Cujo was the first movie I watched with your mom," she said quietly, avoiding his eyes. "It was our inside joke, you know… We became friends because of an angry dog," she chuckled, lost in thought. "We were fighting in the middle of the street after school. She was so mad at me… She tried to punch me in class because I teased her, and then we ended up in detention… Anyway… I was wrong, you know? I teased your mom all her life, since we were kids… She just had enough that day. I tried to be nice after detention, and that just pissed her more… Then a dog escaped from a house and… That's why she has a scar above her lip. The dog got me too, see…" she pulled the sleeve of her shirt to show the dandelion tattoo on her wrist. "I did it to cover the scar. I just wanted to forget."

When she looked to her side, Henry was sleeping next to her on the couch. Emma sighed. She placed her beer on the coffee table and took him in her arms. She hesitated for a minute, and then she entered her old bedroom.

She placed him gently over the bed, and then she turned on the fish tank light and the air pump. It soothed her when she was young, so she figured it could do the same for him.

When she was at the door, he slowly sat up.

"Emma?"

"Yeah?"

"You're still in love with my mom, right?"

"What?" she sputtered.

"I need help," he said shrugging. "My mom's not happy, and I think we could change that."

"I'm not-"

"Don't lie. I see the way you look at her. And I watched the prom video back at grandpa's house. I never saw my mom smiling like that."

"She wasn't happier, kid. She was just younger."

"I saw you kissing her yesterday."

"Oh."

"She looked happy like in the video, Emma."

"Kid, I-"

"You did it once," he said. "Just… do it again."

Emma rolled her eyes. She was becoming a softie for that boy.

"I'll need help."

"Awesome!"

"Alright, alright. Now go to sleep."

Henry smiled at her. "Good night, Emma."

She smiled back. "Night, kid."