A/N: This is probably hugely obnoxious, but I just wanted to thank all of you for your lovely, lovely responses to the last chapter. Obviously I was a bit pissed / embarrassingly miffed by the few people who were making shitty comments about my writing, but seriously - the amount of kind reviews and PMs and tumblr messages that I got in response sort of actually made it worth it. You're all gems and I fucking love you - thank you so much just for being delightful, gorgeous people :)

...having said that, this still isn't getting any less angsty. But I hope you still like where it goes!

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The excitement in Emma's face when she looked up after hearing the knocking sound against her office door was not lost upon August. Neither was the overwhelming disappointment that followed when she realised that it was him who was stood in the doorway, not Regina.

'Oh,' she said, her shoulders slumping. She tried to force a smile onto her face. 'Hey.'

'Nice to see you too,' August said, limping into the room. He sat ungracefully down in the chair opposite Emma's and threw her a crooked grin. 'Who were you expecting?'

Emma glanced back towards the door before she shrugged. 'No one.'

'Sure,' August said, reaching forwards to pick up a pen from her desk and beginning to twirl it between two fingers. 'No one at all.'

Emma rolled her eyes. 'You know, I was about to say how good it is to see you again. Now I'm not quite so sure about that.'

Barking with laughter, August said, 'Don't give me that. You've missed me.'

'Hardly.'

'You've gone kind of AWOL over the last few weeks, you know – where have you been hiding yourself?'

'Nowhere,' Emma shrugged. 'I've just been busy.'

'You've been spending a lot more time with Henry,' he said.

'Yeah.'

'He's really happy about that, you know.'

'Yeah,' Emma said, smiling. 'I know.'

'And Regina,' August casually added. 'You're still seeing her a lot too?'

Her green eyes immediately flickered with something that he couldn't quite read. 'I guess so.'

He nodded. 'I think that most of the town would probably like to thank you for that, you know.'

Emma frowned. 'What? Why?'

'You hanging out with the mayor,' August said, leaning forwards. 'You've certainly had a calming effect on her.'

Trying not to smile, Emma said, 'Oh really?'

'Without a doubt,' August said, watching the faint blush that was spreading through her cheeks. 'She smiles as she walks around now. And I was talking to Dr Hopper in Granny's the other day – you know that she's actually started tipping him after his sessions with Henry?'

'You don't need to sound so shocked.'

'Emma,' August said dryly, raising his eyebrows. 'Come on: she tried to fire him for refusing to essentially tear up your kid's book in front of him. She tried to run us both out of town just because she decided that she didn't like strangers. And yet now she's suddenly stopping to greet Leroy on the street and asking him whether he's had any success in corrupting that nun of his – try telling me that she hasn't changed recently.'

Emma narrowed her eyes. 'You're lying.'

'I wish I was,' August said coolly. 'But you're going to have to face it – the mayor's gone soft. You've broken her.'

It took every ounce of Emma's self-restraint not to flinch.

'You have no idea,' she muttered. August immediately frowned.

'What's that supposed to mean?'

Emma sighed, leaning back in her chair and letting her head roll back. She didn't answer for a moment, choosing instead to stare miserably up at the slowly revolving ceiling fan.

And then she quietly mumbled, 'Something's wrong.'

'With Regina?' August asked. 'How can you even tell?'

Emma lifted her head and glared at him. 'August.'

'Sorry. I just mean… You're friends, right? So why don't you just ask her what it is?'

'Because she doesn't want to tell me,' Emma muttered, bunching her hands into fists. 'She may be nicer now, but she's still a stubborn asshole. She's pulling away. It's driving me crazy.'

'I didn't realise that you cared that much,' August said quietly. He watched as she jumped, then forced herself to sit upright again.

'She's my friend, August,' she said firmly. 'Of course I care.'

He nodded. 'No, of course. I get that. You just… you look really bummed out, Emma. Nothing ever gets you down this much.'

'Because you know me so well?'

'Because I know you well enough,' he said firmly. 'If Regina's becoming a psycho bitch again then maybe you should just tell her.'

Emma sighed. After a moment she miserably said, 'It's not that simple.'

And of course August knew that it wasn't – but he had no way of telling her that. Not yet.

They sat in silence for a moment, Emma leaning back once more with her gaze on the ceiling fan. August watched as her green eyes followed it round in circles, over and over, her chest slowly rising and falling beneath her thin white shirt. Her jaw was stubbornly clenched into a hard, angry line.

And August suddenly found himself almost wanting to laugh: she was so sure of Regina. She believed in her with everything that she possessed. It was almost funny then just how impossible she still apparently found it to try and believe in anything else that was put right in front of her.

He slowly leaned forwards against his knees. 'Hey, Em?'

'Mm?'

'Do you mind if I try something?'

Emma looked at him suspiciously from beneath her eyelashes. '…what?'

'Just trust me,' he said. 'Please.'

Rolling her eyes, Emma forced herself back into an upright position. She rested her hands on the desk, clenched together into one fist, and raised an eyebrow at him.

'Fine,' she said shortly. 'What?'

He smiled, then suddenly lifted his leg up and dropped it onto her desk with an oddly hollow thud. She jumped, frowning.

'Um,' she spluttered, rolling her chair back. 'August…?'

'Just wait a second,' he said, reaching down and taking hold of the black denim between two fingers. He let himself suck in a breath before he slowly hitched it upwards.

Emma looked down at it for a moment, blinking. Then her face darkened.

'…why the hell are you showing me your leg?'

She watched as his whole body seemed to deflate. 'Is that… What do you see?'

'Your leg, August,' she repeated, her eyebrows knitting together in an expression of absolute incredulity. 'What were you expecting me to see?!'

He glanced down at it; at the way that the dim lights of the sheriff station glinted off of the polished golden wood. He swallowed, then lifted his leg off of the table once more.

'It doesn't matter.'

Emma sighed, watching as he slowly stood up and crossed his arms over his chest.

'What the hell was that about, August?' she asked, shaking her head.

He half-smiled. 'It was… for later.'

'Excuse me?' she said.

'Don't worry,' he said, taking a step towards the door of the office. 'You'll understand at some point.'

Emma rolled her eyes, watching him leave.

'I sort of hope that I never do.'

August heard her, but he kept walking. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket and let himself sigh.

'I sort of hope that you don't either,' he muttered to himself. Then he rounded the corner, disappearing from Emma's sight, and left her alone once more.

Regina had been subdued all week. That evening, however, she was practically grey. Henry watched her as she nudged her dinner around her plate, back and forth, looking down at it like the thought of eating at all made her feel physically sick. He didn't know what to say to her. He hadn't really known what to say to her since he had caught her crying, hating herself, staring at her own reflection like she wanted to claw it straight from the glass. He wasn't sure whether he was capable of saying something that wouldn't somehow make her feel worse anymore.

Regina's chin was resting on her left hand. It was bunched up into a fist; her white knuckles pressing dents into her jaw. Henry watched her without blinking, his eyes on the sad circles beneath her eyes. She looked so much like Emma then: beaten down and broken, just like how she had looked for weeks before Regina had come along and fixed her.

'Mom?' he suddenly heard himself asking, causing both of them to jump.

Regina looked up, her eyebrows pulled together. She slipped the ring that was clenched in the palm of her hand – the faded grey band of hard, twisted metal – back onto her ring finger.

'Yes?'

'Mom,' Henry repeated quietly. 'You're… kind of scaring me.'

Regina just looked at him for a moment, her mouth slightly open. And then she sighed, her body deflating as the air left her lungs.

'Oh, Henry,' she said softly, shaking her head. She plastered on a smile that was so forced it was almost pathetic. 'I'm sorry. I haven't been a very good mother these last few days, have I?'

'No. No, it's not that,' Henry insisted, frowning. 'You're just… you're sad. You're really sad.'

'I'm distracted,' Regina gently corrected. Henry's eyes once again fell upon the slight grey tinge to her face, and he raised an eyebrow.

'Mom,' he said slowly, taking a breath. He placed his fork with such certainty in the middle of his plate that Regina felt her heart stop for a moment. 'Listen. I know… I know I can be mean to you sometimes. And I know that sometimes I say things that hurt your feelings. I don't mean to, but sometimes I do.'

Regina swallowed, clenching her fists below the table until the metal of Daniel's ring started to bite into her finger.

Henry sighed, and then he continued. 'But I still want to know that you're okay. I know that I'll ask, and you'll tell me that you are – even though you're not. I know you're not. And I want you to know that you can tell me what's wrong.'

He just looked at for a moment, his hazel eyes suddenly green. When he spoke again, his voice was low and so utterly sincere that the whole room went still around them.

'I want you to know… you can tell me the truth.'

It was so clear what he was asking. Regina stopped moving entirely, her fists gripped tightly between her knees, as she watched the way that her son was looking at her: he was worried. He was bold. And, as he always was, he was blindly, naively hopeful.

Regina bit down on her bottom lip. She could somehow taste the words that he so wanted to hear resting bitterly on her tongue.

He watched her expectantly, watching the shape that her mouth had formed. He waited for the words to come.

I'm…

His eyebrows twitched nervously upwards for a moment, and suddenly the spell broke: Regina saw him properly once more; her brave, beautiful boy who still didn't know just how terrible she truly was. He didn't deserve to know something like that.

She knew that he knew. But she still wasn't brave enough to be the one to tell him that he was right.

'I'm fine, Henry,' she finally choked out, watching as his face crumbled. 'Really. I'm just tired.'

They cleared the table in silence.

It was just as Regina shut the dishwasher with her hip, her fingers twitching anxiously by her sides, that the doorbell rang. She glanced up at the clock and, upon seeing how late it had gotten, she sighed: she knew, utterly without question, who was waiting for her on the other side of that door.

Straightening her shirt, she turned to her son. He was watching her from the doorway with a disappointed scowl etched across his face.

'Henry,' she said softly, reaching out to run a hand over his hair. 'Do you want to run upstairs?'

He narrowed his eyes at her. 'Why?'

'Because I'm asking you to,' she said simply, her thumb rubbing a circle just behind his ear. 'Please.'

He blinked and, just as the doorbell rang again, he realised. Nodding, he scurried out of the door and thudded his way up the stairs.

Regina knew that he would still be listening even before she heard the exaggerated slam of his bedroom door that was apparently meant to convince her otherwise. Rolling her eyes, she dusted off the front of her pants and made her way to the front door.

She saw the flash of red before she saw anything else.

'Hey,' Emma said, smiling awkwardly. Regina's stomach immediately started flipping. 'Is now… is now a bad time?'

'Now's fine,' Regina said in a voice that was almost a whisper. When Emma frowned, Regina gestured up towards the top of the stairs with one eyebrow raised.

Emma almost laughed. 'Ah.'

'Living room?' Regina asked, taking a step back from the threshold. Emma sidled past her. She was pressing a grocery bag to her chest, holding onto it as tightly as she clutched onto Regina whenever she held her.

Regina shut the door behind them and watched as Emma perched herself nervously on the edge of the couch. Regina sat herself down opposite her, tucking one ankle behind the other.

Emma smiled slightly, her eyelashes fluttering as she glanced down at the bag that was now resting in her lap.

'I'm going to make this quick,' she said quietly. She was struggling to meet Regina's eye. 'I… I know that you're going through some stuff. I get that. You might even be having second thoughts – I don't know.'

Regina opened her mouth to protest, but Emma swiftly cut over the top of her.

'I don't know, because you won't tell me,' she said, shrugging like this didn't bother her. 'And I would have thought that, after everything we've been through, you would know that you could tell me anything – but apparently not. Apparently this is something that you need to work through on your own, and I guess I have to respect that.'

Emma paused, looking back down at the paper bag. She took a breath, her chest heaving with the effort, and slowly released it through slightly crooked teeth.

'But I just came by to give you this,' she said. She slid the bag away from the object that it was holding and was left sitting with her photo album in her lap. Regina frowned, her chest suddenly constricting.

'Emma…'

'I finished it,' Emma interrupted flatly, holding it out. Her arms shook. 'I've had a lot of time this week, and it just sort of… I don't know. It just happened. And now I want you to have it. For now, or for ever; I don't really mind. I just… I know that you wanted it to help me to get through all of my shit. So now I'm hoping that it might also help you through some of yours.'

Regina was looking at the book like it was poisonous and made no move to reach out and take it. After a few moments of waiting, the sight of her wide, uncertain eyes was too much for Emma and she found herself standing up, stepping around the coffee table until she was inches away from Regina's knees.

She pressed the book into her hands, letting the tips of her fingers linger against Regina's for just a moment.

Regina had just about recovered her breath when Emma suddenly bent down, taking her face in her warm hands. She kissed her so gently that it startled her, feeling the pads of her thumbs as they rubbed circles against her jaw.

After a moment Emma sighed, her eyes pressed closed.

'I do love you, Regina Mills,' she said quietly. She opened her eyes to find Regina watching her, the book clasped in her lap and her brown eyes slowly filling with tears.

Emma smiled sadly and rubbed her thumb over Regina's cheek one more time. Then she forced herself to stand upright, picked up the empty paper bag, and walked herself to the front door.

Henry wasn't sure if he had even been to sleep yet when the sound of his mother crying forced him back into consciousness again. The sound of it was louder than it had been the night before.

He glanced at the clock and winced – it was 2a.m., and she obviously thought that he would be sleeping. She obviously thought that she had free reign to pour her heart out into her pillows without anyone else being able to hear it.

His feet were on the soft carpet and he was edging towards his bedroom door before he could let himself change his mind.

His mother's heart-breaking sobs made his whole body ache as he crept down the hallway. They clawed through him like nails down a chalkboard, and suddenly found himself worried: worried that, for the first time in his life, she would watch him walking into her room and she would reject him. Worried that he honestly deserved it.

But he pushed himself onwards anyway, tugging at the bottom of his loose t-shirt. The door to Regina's bedroom was slightly ajar, as it always was, and he nudged it open with a breath held between his lips.

She crept crying like she hadn't heard him come in. But, as the faint light from the hallway leaked across the carpet and onto her bed, Henry saw that she was watching him. Tears were still leaking onto her already-wet pillow as she watched him and waited for what he was going to do.

He padded across the carpet and listened as the sounds of her sniffling grew slightly fainter. When he reached the edge of the bed he took hold of the duvet and eased it back, exposing the vast expanse of white sheet that spread out between him and Regina's solitary corner on the other side of the bed.

Henry clambered up onto the mattress and crawled over towards her. Her eyes watched him all the while, her knuckles still pressed tightly against her lips as she bit back the desperate urge to keep on sobbing.

As soon as he felt the warmth of her arm against his hand he let himself wriggle down between the sheets, pulling the duvet back on top of them both. Turning around so that his back was resting firmly against his mother's stomach, he reached behind him and scrabbled about for her wrists. Once he had found them he wound them around his waist and waited for her to cling on. He wasn't waiting long.

Burying her face in the back of his head, Regina sucked in a rattling breath and let herself breathe in the soft, sleepy smell of him. He held her arms more tightly around his belly, closing his eyes. The sound of her crying was getting gradually softer, turning from a painful moaning sound to a whimpering that sounded infinitely more broken than it did angry.

'Mom,' he says after a few minutes. She shuddered, squeezing him harder, and pressed her forehead against the warmth of his neck. 'Mom. You need to say it.'

He could feel her shaking her head. He squeezed hold of her wrists and pulled.

'Mom,' he said more firmly. 'It's okay. I mean it. It's okay to say it – just, you can't keep doing this. You're hurting yourself and I… I don't want you to anymore. I just want you to admit it. That's all.'

Regina swallowed, her eyes clenched shut. When she spoke her voice sounded like shattered glass. 'I can't, Henry. I'm not doing that to you.'

'You're not doing anything to me,' he whispered, trying to turn around. She held on more tightly, not letting him go. 'You're just doing this to yourself now.'

A silence fell, one that was no longer interspersed with the sounds of his mom's sniffling. She was instead focusing on simply trying to breathe – the mere effort of dragging oxygen into her cold lungs was somehow so exhausting; almost painful. She sighed with the effort and pulled back from her son slightly, pressing her cheek against the clammy pillow.

Henry felt the loss of contact immediately and he took a deep breath.

'I love you, Mom,' he said.

Regina choked.

'I love you too,' she forced out.

'And I will still love you after you say it.'

'Henry…'

'I promise,' he said firmly. 'I promise. You just have to trust me. You have to trust me to be a better person than you think you are.'

There was a pause, and then he slowly added, 'You have to trust Emma to be that person, too.'

She didn't flinch. She just groaned.

'Say it, Mom.'

She swallowed, the taste of metal suddenly filling her mouth. The room was dark and her eyes were squeezed shut and yet someone everything seemed too bright; too intrusive. The walls felt like they were closing in on her and she was already running out of air.

But then Henry was there, as he always was. He gently rubbed his thumbs over her wrists, rolling them in the same tiny circles that had always comforted him when he had felt like he couldn't breathe.

Regina let out a juddering breath and forced herself to open her eyes.

'I'm…'

That was as far as she got before the pain hit her stomach. She shook her head, a sticky tear rolling down onto her pillow.

'I can't.'

'Yes you can,' Henry insisted, pressing his fingers into her skin. 'Don't be scared. You don't have to be scared.'

'Henry…'

'Think of Emma,' he interrupted, his voice firm. 'Think of Emma, and say it.'

She wetted her lips, thinking of the flash of red that she had seen through the windows surrounding the front door that evening and how it had made her stomach hurt in a completely different way. She thought about the way that Emma's eyes somehow seemed greener when she looked at her, about how they crinkled at the corners whenever she let herself really, truly laugh.

A sad smile tugged at the corners of Regina's mouth, and the silence stretched.

Then, slowly, finally, she said it.

'I'm… I'm in love with Emma, Henry.'

When he didn't respond straight away, she swallowed.

'I'm sorry.'

He resisted the urge to turn around and shake her.

'Don't apologise for that,' he said shortly, closing his eyes. 'Never apologise for that.'

'Then why…?'

'That wasn't what I was waiting for you to admit.'

Regina swallowed. She knew that it wasn't, of course. But she was hoping that it would be enough.

'Henry…' she said, her voice so pleading that it pained even her to hear it.

'Think of Emma,' he repeated, not letting go of her wrists for one second. 'And say it.'

The greenness of Emma's eyes was already dulling. The crinkle of her laughter turned sharp.

But the exhaustion that was stabbing through Regina's body somehow overwhelmed her even more than the utter terror of what Emma was going to do when she found out about her, and she sighed. She pressed her face back into the back of Henry's hair and whispered so quietly that she hoped he couldn't hear her.

'I'm the Evil Queen,' she murmured, her voice cracking. Henry didn't flinch, and she finally let herself finish.

'I'm the Evil Queen, and... I'm in love the with Saviour.'