Chapter Thirty-Eight

Somehow, even in the foggy midst of her nightmare, Emma knew that she was tired of walking into that same, silvery-lit room.

The air was colder than normal. She felt herself swallowing as she took a step forwards, her eyes automatically seeking out the cell in the far corner of the unfurnished room. There was that shape; that hunched over figure. Even though she asked them not to, she felt her feet starting to take her towards it.

Her skin was prickling with the cold, and when the barred door slammed shut behind her she could suddenly see her breath clouding in front of her. She spun on the spot, reaching out for those bars so that she could frantically shake them, as she always did. But the metal was frosty and it bit at her skin, making her gasp sharply and take a harried step backwards. She collided with the warm clamminess of Moe's body and, before she knew it, she was screaming.

And all at once, everything was different: she wasn't scrabbling for the bars or quietly begging him to stop. She wasn't crying. The air around her was cold and when she felt Moe's hands on her neck her body turned somehow colder – she spun on the spot and felt her fist collide with the side of his face, and for a moment the room was still. Then the sound of gunshot rang, and pain exploded through the whole of her body. She crumbled to the ground and howled as he came down on top of her.

As his fists pummelled into her body, bruising and denting and breaking it, Emma's head rolled to one side on the frosty ground so that she could see the door. Thrashing underneath Moe's hideous weight, she looked across the room and waited for the figure to arrive. She waited for Regina to walk in.

The doorway remained empty and the air kept turning colder. She felt Moe's hands hitting her, over and over, as a throbbing pain screamed through her every muscle. Cold hands landed on her frozen throat and suddenly all of Emma's air was gone. Through hazy eyes, she looked back towards the door and groaned – there was still no one there. She realised that her air had been gone for a while.

Emma's heart still skipped a beat every time there was a knock at the door. That afternoon, when the faint tapping sound rattled through the apartment, she visibly jumped in her seat. Her eyes skittered across the room to where Mary Margaret was making a cup of tea by the stove, and she waited for the sound of rushing blood in her ears to subside. When had her mouth gone so dry?

After a moment Mary Margaret looked around at her. 'Are you going to get that?'

She watched Emma creakily standing up as if her body had aged twenty years over the course of her latest restless night. The smile that she forced made her skin look grey.

She padded over to the door and held her breath. Two voices inside her head were battling it out as to who could shout the loudest:

Please be Regina.

...Please don't be Regina.

She pulled the door open and peered out into the hallway. Her eyes dropped half a metre, and she found herself meeting the worried eyes of her son.

'Oh,' she said, allowing the door to fall further open. 'Hey, kid. What are you doing here?'

'I wanted to see you,' Henry replied, bouncing on the balls of his feet. 'Can I come in?'

'Sure,' Emma said, taking a step back to make room for him to pass by her. He inched forwards and then, after a moment's pause, suddenly threw himself at her stomach. She jumped with surprise, feeling the startlingly strong grip of his arms around her waist and the warmth of his face pressed against her chest. She squeezed him back, sniffling slightly, and then stopped – he smelt like Regina. She'd never noticed before.

Eventually he let go of her and walked fully into the room, waving at Mary Margaret as she smiled fondly over at the pair of them.

'Hi, Miss Blanchard,' he said.

'Hi Henry,' she said, stirring her tea. 'No plans with Regina today?'

'She has to work all weekend,' he said, not looking round at Emma. 'So I thought I'd spend some time with Emma instead.'

Emma winced as Mary Margaret turned her sentimental grin over towards her. 'That's really nice of you. It's great to see you around here again.'

The pleasantries were starting to make Emma's stomach hurt. She placed a hand on her son's back and leaned down to meet his ear.

'Upstairs,' she said, nudging him towards the staircase. 'I'll be there in a sec.'

She watched him as he scurried off towards her bedroom, his shoes slipping about on his feet. The door upstairs slammed shut, and for a moment there was silence. And then:

'How long has it been since you last saw him, exactly?'

Emma groaned inwardly.

'Mary Margaret. Please.'

'He's subdued at school, Emma,' her roommate continued, stirring her tea even though it was clearly as well mixed as a cup of sugarless hot water could get. 'You know that he misses you. Are you avoiding him?'

'What?' Emma snapped. 'He's my son. He's a kid. Why would I be avoiding him?'

She watched Mary Margaret's hazel eyes narrowing. 'I don't know. Why don't you tell me?'

Without bothering to respond, Emma huffed and immediately began to walk towards the stairs. 'I'll be in my room if you need me.'

Her roommate didn't reply, and for a moment Emma let herself believe that she had actually managed to temporarily escape that conversation. But then, halfway up the stairs, that same small voice called after her.

'I don't know what Regina's done this time,' she said quietly, watching as Emma stopped in her tracks. 'But please don't punish him for it.'

Emma's shoulders slumped and her hand gripped harder onto the metal hand rail. She stayed completely still.

Then Mary Margaret caught the curt nod of acceptance from beneath her roommate's blonde curls. She watched as she padded up the rest of the stairs and disappeared into her bedroom, clicking the door shut behind her.

Emma took a moment to stare at the flaking wooden frame before her, grazing her nails over the bumps and the knots in the wood. The smell of Regina still hung about that room no matter how many windows she opened in the middle of February in a desperate attempt to try and force it out.

Eventually she turned around and found her son flopped across her bed, leaning back on his hands and watching her with a confusing mixture of interest and sadness.

She blinked. '…what?'

He jumped at once.

'Nothing,' he shrugged, trying to look casual even though he still hadn't taken his eyes off of her. 'I just... wanted to see you.'

Emma raised one eyebrow, taking a cautious step towards him.

'And that's all,' she said flatly, meeting his gaze as steadily as she could. 'Nothing else?'

He faltered. She watched with a sinking stomach as his eyes dimmed.

'Emma…'

'Henry, don't start,' she sighed, closing the gap between them and forcing herself to join him on the bed. She matched his position, leaning back on her unsteady arms. She looked down at their fidgeting feet and realised that he had kicked off his shoes – their socks almost matched. Bright red, with grey stripes.

She swallowed before she could continue, '…I'm fine. Really.'

He immediately narrowed his eyes at her. 'I haven't seen you in weeks.'

'I've been… busy.'

'And you're not talking to my mom anymore.'

'No. Like I said, I've been—'

'And you look tired again,' he continued, edging closer to her and noticing all too easily when she flinched. 'And so does she. She stays up all night. She works all the time and suddenly I can't have dessert anymore and she's always checking her cell phone even though no one ever, ever calls her anymore.'

Something cold settled in the pit of Emma's stomach. The thought of Regina desperately checking her messages - waiting for those three dots that would tell her that somebody was actually writing to her, and finding absolutely nothing - was pathetic. It for some reason made her eyes sting.

She swallowed. 'Henry, we… We had a little fight. It happens. It's no big deal.'

Her son's eyes were all of a sudden the exact shade of distrustful molten brown as Regina's, and she felt herself wincing for an entirely different reason.

'What?' she snapped, trying to sound offended rather than cornered. 'We had an argument. That's all. It doesn't matter.'

'Emma…'

'And I'm sorry that she's making your life miserable because of it, but honestly it's got nothing to—'

'Emma, I know!' Henry suddenly snapped, the words crashing from his mouth like a wave. Emma recoiled, tasting them as if they were made of the same salty air. They made her throat hurt.

'You… you know what?' she asked cautiously.

Henry rolled his eyes and groaned at her complete ineptitude. 'I know, Emma. I know about you and Mom. I know what happened.'

Emma sighed, trying to reach out to pat his arm. 'Henry, I seriously doubt that—'

'I know that you love one another,' he interrupted, watching with some satisfaction as Emma's already grey face turned sickly and pale. 'I know that she told you about the Evil Queen, and I know that you're mad at her for it. Your heart is broken. I get that. But I also know that hers is too and I don't understand why you both can't just talk about it.'

His mother's mouth flapped open with surprise and then closed again. He watched her through narrowed eyes, taking in her flustered expression and the way that her arm was still outstretched; her hand all of a sudden not brave enough to try and touch him. She choked for a moment. And then she muttered, '…she told you?'

Henry groaned. 'I've known for ages, Emma. You really weren't that good at hiding it.'

With her mouth still flapping open, Emma blinked around her at the closed bedroom door. 'But… Mary Margaret…'

'She's distracted,' her son shrugged, letting his legs dangle freely beneath him. 'She's busy trying to hide her own love life; she doesn't have much time to think about yours.'

'Thanks,' Emma said dryly.

'You know what I mean.'

'Yeah,' Emma said, taking a breath. 'But, kid… I'm not sure that you do. Your mom… what she might have told you… I'm not so sure that you actually understand what—'

'Emma, stop it!' Henry snapped, throwing his hands in the air. 'Will you stop thinking of me as this dumb little kid who doesn't know anything? She told me! She told me everything and I know what she did and I know she was bad and I get it, okay? I get it.'

'And you're okay with it?!' Emma spat in return, eyeing him with some suspicion. Magic was a thing now, apparently – and she had suddenly realised that actually, how in the hell was she supposed to know if it was him who was saying that?

But the way that he scrunched up his nose before he responded was so entirely Henry that the thought slipped away from her almost immediately.

'Sort of,' he said, shrugging. 'I mean, I think so.'

Emma swallowed. It was agonising – he was so young. He was so hopeful and, quite inexplicably, he still believed in Regina more strongly than ever. She didn't want to be the one to tell him that that was the wrong thing to do. Maybe it wasn't. But…

'You do realise, Henry, that she killed people?' she asked flatly. She waited for her son to jump, or to flinch – she really, truly hoped that he would. But instead he just scowled at her, his eyebrows knitting together in a way that so reminded her of herself.

'Emma,' he said slowly, like he was the one who was talking to a child. 'Come on. You know that's not the problem.'

'How can you say that?' she demanded. 'She murdered—'

'It was a different world, Emma!' Henry interrupted, shaking his head. 'It was a different time! They all had swords and arrows and magic and they killed each other to stop themselves from getting killed. You've seen my book – Prince Charming killed people. Snow White did too. They all did it to save themselves and I don't understand what makes you think that what my mom did wasn't the same thing?'

Emma fell silent once more, her mouth suddenly ashen.

Henry watched her sadly: she looked so similar to when she'd arrived in Storybrooke. She looked closed off, and she looked alone.

'She was scared, Emma,' Henry said quietly, reaching out to tentatively touch her knee. 'She was always scared. And you know better than anyone what she does when that happens.'

'I do?' Emma asked weakly.

Henry nodded. 'She fights back. For her it was always kill or be killed, and she was always too scared to be the one who lost.'

'Okay,' Emma said flatly, crossing her legs. Her foot was nervously bouncing of its own accord but she forced herself to ignore it. 'Fine. Say that's true. Say what she did in that place is forgivable – what about here?'

Henry faltered. 'What?'

'What about Graham, Henry?' she asked, her voice expressionless. 'Is that the same? Or should I just forget about that?'

And at last, Henry looked unsure. His young face twitched with hesitation.

'I…' he said, scrunching up his nose. 'I'm not happy about that either, Emma. And for the record, neither is she. But… it was a mistake. She knows that. She regrets it. She felt trapped and she felt like she was losing control and… without magic, all she had was that, I guess. She panicked and that was the only way she could think of to get everything back again.'

When Emma didn't respond right away, he sighed and continued.

'She's got more to lose here,' he said quietly. 'She has me, and she has… she has you. She has her curse. That's why she did it – she wasn't protecting herself for once. I think she was protecting everything else.'

'Are you trying to tell me that she had some kind of relapse?' Emma asked. Henry frowned.

'…I don't know what that is.'

Emma opened her mouth, and then shook her head. 'It doesn't matter. Don't worry.'

Silence fell between the pair of them and for a moment Emma just watched her son: he was sat so close to her, with his feet dangling several inches off of the floor and his hands clasped tightly between his knees. He had her scrunched forehead and he had her painful stubbornness, but everything else about him was so resolutely Regina that it made her chest ache just to look at him.

'Henry,' she sucked in a breath, shaking her head. 'It's not that I don't miss her…'

Henry nodded. 'Yeah. I know that.'

Emma blinked. 'You do?'

'I can tell,' Henry said. 'You look… sad. So does she. All the time. And she was never sad when she was still with you.'

Wetting her lips, Emma quietly asked, 'And… are you sad?'

'Does it matter?'

'Of course it matters,' Emma bristled. 'You're our son. The only reason that we didn't tell you about any of this was because we didn't want it to upset you when it went wrong.'

Henry considered this for a moment. 'You thought that it was going to go wrong?'

He watched as Emma smiled wretchedly. 'Henry. Look at the pair of us. Of course it was going to.'

He grinned back for a moment, enjoying the way that her eyes brightened slightly when he did so. 'But… it didn't go wrong, really. Did it? Not because either of you messed up. It went wrong because Mom messed up a really long time ago, and she told you about it. You loved her since then anyway – you can still love her again.'

Emma sucked in a breath through her teeth. 'Henry…'

'I know,' he said quickly. 'You don't want to. But you probably still will – you probably still do.'

He took her silence as confirmation of this fact. He threw her another lopsided smile, and then suddenly he was on his feet.

Emma blinked up at him. 'Where…?'

'I should go before Mom gets home,' he said, toeing his shoes back on without adjusting the laces. He paused for a second, taking in Emma's confused frown, before he tumbled forwards and threw his arms haphazardly around her neck. '…it was really good seeing you again, Emma.'

Emma swallowed, placing her hands gently on his back. '…you too, Henry.'

Pulling away from her, Henry smiled and turned towards the bedroom door. Just as he had opened it, he heard his mother calling him back again.

'Hey, kid?'

He turned back to look at her. She was perched on the very edge of the bed, her fists bundled between her bouncing knees. He caught the flash of teeth fiercely biting down into her lip.

'Yeah?'

There was a pause, and then Emma quietly asked, '…are you sure you're okay with it?'

Henry frowned. 'What? I already told you. She's sorry. And she's still my mom and—'

'No, no,' Emma interrupted, her voice soft. She shook her head sadly. 'Not that. The… the other thing.'

She watched as the cloud lifted from her son's face.

'Oh,' he said, a smiling breaking on his lips. 'You and Mom…?'

Emma nodded sharply, not trusting herself with words.

Henry took a small step back into the room, nudging the door shut again behind him so that Mary Margaret couldn't hear them from downstairs.

'I want you to be together,' he said simply. Emma winced, although she couldn't quite explain why.

'…you do?'

'I do,' he said firmly, nodding. 'Just… try and make each other happy, okay? I know you're both hurt now, and that's okay. But you were so happy before, and everything was better. Just… don't be with her if you're always going to be angry with her. I don't want to see her hurt like this again.'

Emma blinked. 'But I'm not—'

'I'm not blaming you,' Henry said softly. 'This isn't your fault - I guess it is hers. But it doesn't mean that she deserves to be sad forever because of it. She should be happy – and if you don't think that she can ever be happy with you again… then don't let her try.'

The words crashed into Emma's temples with the force of a sledgehammer and she found that she was blinking back stars when she asked, 'How did you get so smart?'

Her eyes were filled with tears, but she could still see that wickedly familiar grin from somewhere behind them.

'I read a lot,' he said, turning to the door. 'If you want to borrow my book, all you have to do is ask.'

A/N: All I can do is profusely apologise for how long it took me to get this chapter written. Anyone who follows me on tumblr will know what my excuses are... but still, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry! I'm hoping to have all of my shit back together again soon...!

As always, and more than ever: thanks for sticking with me, thanks for being patient, and thanks for the overwhelming support (both for my writing and just for my life in general) :) You guys really are the very best little buggers there ever were! Lots of love xxx