Chapter Forty-Two

He didn't notice that someone was watching him as he left the school building. A hundred other children were jostling around him, battling their way to the buses in a race to get home, and yet a pair of eyes was fixed intensely on him and him alone. But he didn't feel their heat: he was full of too much fire already.

A young boy knocked into his shoulder with the edge of his backpack, jolting him to one side. As he continued to charge past the boy turned back, calling over his shoulder, 'Sorry Henry!' Henry raised one hand, then let it drop back down into a clenched fist by his side. He kept walking. His head was hurting in the very base of his skull.

The eyes that were watching him narrowed when they saw how he was frowning. He didn't look up, even when other children shouted goodbye to him.

There was a moment of agony. And then, '…hey, kid.'

Henry visibly jumped, looking up at last and then wildly around him until he found the source of the voice. He didn't know whether he was supposed to smile or not when he saw her. Emma was leaning uncomfortably against a nearby wall as hundreds of children blazed past her, her red coat standing out even amongst a sea of pinks and blues and greens.

There was a pause before he walked over to her, being careful not to run. Her skin still looked slightly grey.

He reached her side and waited for a moment, considering the circles beneath her bright eyes and the nervous probing of her front teeth against her bottom lip. Then suddenly his arms were thrown outwards, he was pushing aside those last few inches, and he was squeezing her so tightly around her waist that she suddenly wasn't so sure that her broken ribs had healed after all.

'Emma,' he said quietly, burying his face into her stomach. She just smiled, wrapping her arms around him just as fiercely and holding him back.

When he eventually pulled away from her, he squinted up at her to see her face more clearly in the hazy grey afternoon. She was smiling, but, as ever, it only seemed to make her look sadder. Older.

He squeezed her tightly once more before he fully let go.

Forcing her lips to remain turned upwards, she lowered herself down into an unsteady crouch before her son. He watched her unblinkingly with unfathomable amounts of relief in his narrow eyes. When she saw it, it made smiling slightly easier.

'Henry,' she said slowly, tilting her head to one side so she could consider him more closely. 'I'm… really sorry.'

Henry frowned. 'For what?'

Rolling her teary eyes to the grey sky, she sighed. 'You know what. For… taking it so badly.'

'Well,' Henry shrugged, his enormous backpack rattling on his shoulders. 'I'd probably be more surprised if you'd taken it really well.'

Emma's laugh was watery and tear-soaked. 'Right. True. But even so, kid, I… I shouldn't have pushed you out because of it. You didn't deserve that. And I'm really sorry. I'm sorry I haven't been there.'

Henry just looked at her for a moment. Her face was twitching with the desperate urge to not let her tears roll down her cheeks. She was still smiling, but it was strained. He couldn't remember the last time he'd seen her smiling genuinely, and fully, and effortlessly.

'Did it really freak you out?' he asked quietly. Emma swallowed.

'Yeah,' she said. 'It did.'

'Are you still freaked out?'

It took her a moment to answer. '…kind of. I think so.'

'You think so?'

Emma sighed, pushing herself back up to full height. 'I don't know, kid. It's… complicated.'

'Try me,' Henry said. Emma raised an eyebrow.

'Yeah, that's not happening.'

'Why not?'

'Because I don't want to discuss the ins and outs of just how much I hate your mother with you. You're eleven years old.'

'So?' Henry asked, looking peeved. 'From the way that you two have been acting recently, I think I'm still smarter than both of you put together.'

There was a pause before a loud, crashing laughter erupted from Emma's mouth. She placed her hands on her hips and looked up to the clouds, shaking her head.

'You are so Regina's son.'

'Funny,' Henry said, grinning. 'She always says that I'm yours.'

For a moment they stood looking at one another, smiles pressed contentedly on their faces. And then Emma reached out, hooked an arm around her son's shoulders, and pulled him against her.

'Come on, kid,' she said, still shaking her head. 'I'm walking you home.'

She didn't need to look down to see his blinding smile.

As the school buses started leaking away from the sidewalk, Emma led Henry across the road and began to take him down Main Street. They walked silently for the first few minutes, Emma laughing to herself as she watched Henry's small frame bouncing up and down out of the corner of her eye. He kept glancing up at her, like he was checking that she was still there, and every time that she grinned back at him he seemed to grow taller.

But, inevitably, his carefree smile eventually turned into a curious one. He turned back to look at her with raised eyebrows.

'So,' he said, trying to sound casual. 'When we get home are you going to come inside?'

Emma looked dully back at him. 'You couldn't go five minutes, could you?'

'Because if you do,' Henry continued like she hadn't said a word, 'my mom will probably be there. She's trying to not work late so often anymore. She said she feels like she never gets to spend time with me.'

'Then I'd hate to interrupt the family bonding,' Emma said dryly. Henry just looked at her.

'Emma,' he said quietly. 'She'd want to see you.'

'I'm sure she would,' she said. 'But did it ever occur to you that maybe I don't really want to see her?'

'Why wouldn't you?' Henry asked, outraged. 'You love her. You're in love with her. Aren't you?'

She felt her mouth go dry. 'I… I'm not…'

'So why wouldn't you want to see her?'

His voice was firm, and far too strong. Emma wetted her lips, shrugging.

'I'm not ready to forgive her, Henry.'

'So don't,' Henry said simply. 'I don't think she'd even want that. She'd know that you're lying.'

'Then what…?'

'She's lonely, Emma!' Henry said, exasperated. 'You both are. How many times do you need to hear it? She misses you and she's not the same now that you're not around anymore. The other day… she came home from work and, I don't know… she almost looked happy again. She wouldn't tell me anything but I know that she spoke to you. She did, didn't she?'

Emma's mind automatically flashed back to the feeling of Regina's forehead pressed against her own. She was crouched before her in front of her own couch, her eyes dark and desperate, her face sad and yet somehow still hopeful.

She shrugged. 'I might have run into her.'

Henry rolled his eyes. 'If accidently running into her is all it takes to make her smile like that again, then maybe you should think about becoming an Avon lady.'

'Did you just sass me?'

'All I'm saying,' Henry continued, yet again ignoring her, 'Is that maybe you need to stop being such a baby and just try to give her a second chance.'

'How am I being a baby?' Emma huffed, stopping in her tracks. Henry looked innocently up at her as she folded her arms across her chest.

'You're trying to punish her,' he said flatly, crossing his arms in return. 'You know that she misses you, and yet you also know that letting her keep missing you is the worst punishment you can give her. So you carry on doing it.'

Emma blinked, startled. She shook her head. 'That… kind of makes me sound more like a psychopath, kid.'

'Well. Use whichever word you prefer,' Henry shrugged. He was almost smiling. 'I just know that I'm the one who has to live with her, and I know that your punishment is working way better than you realise.'

Opening and closing her mouth in a vain attempt to regain control on the situation, Emma looked down at her rapidly growing son and groaned. After a few moments of having nothing to say in response, she lowered herself back down onto one knee and tilted her head at him.

'I'm not trying to punish her, Henry.'

'Yeah, because you're—'

'No,' she interrupted quietly. 'Shh. Listen to me. Look – I'm really mad. Really, really, super mad. We all know it and I'm not bothering to hide it from anyone, including you. But I've been staying away from her because I wanted to be mad by myself. I didn't want her to be there for that. Do you know why?'

Henry shook his head.

'Because, as much as I hate her and kind of want to strangle her – I do still love her. More than I could have ever imagined. And when I see her, and when I talk to her, then I just remember how mad I am at her all over again and I don't want to do that, kid. I don't want to hit her or shout at her or hurt her anymore. And I definitely don't want to… well. To do anything else.'

Henry squinted, confused. Emma quickly continued talking so that he wouldn't ask any questions that would lead to him realising in any way that, to Emma at least, opening up to Regina like she had done three days earlier was somehow so very much worse than simply yelling at her was.

'I want things to go back to the way they were,' she said quietly. 'I do. But… they can't. They'll never be the same as that, Henry.'

There was a pause. Henry looked worriedly up at her through hair that really needed a cut, and Emma felt a pang deep in her chest when she realised just how foreign it was for her to have ever noticed that.

Eventually she sighed, reaching out to take his hand.

'But different isn't necessarily worse,' she said, forcing a smile. 'And that's why I'm still here.'

It took half a second for Henry to process this. When he did, his face broke out into a toothy smile. 'You mean you're not leaving?'

'I really think I would have already gone by now if I was planning to,' Emma said, laughing. She rose back to her feet and together they started to walk the rest of the way down Main Street.

'And… and you're trying?' Henry asked carefully, peering up at her as they walked. 'You're trying to forgive her?'

It hurt, but Emma managed to smile. 'Yeah, kid. I think I am.'

As they continued walking Emma realised that she could see Henry grinning to himself. His face was almost split by it, and it wasn't the same grin that he'd given her seconds earlier – it was an old, familiar smile. A scheming one. One that he really needed to work harder to hide.

'What?' she asked as they turned the corner onto Mifflin Street. He jumped, looking up at her. She had raised both of her eyebrows in expectation, even though she knew what he answer was going to be.

'Nothing,' he said, ironing his face back to normal.

'Right,' she said, nudging him with her hip. 'Try that again, Dr Evil. What are you smirking at?'

He rolled his eyes at her, his grin immediately cracking back through the surface. When he didn't reply Emma hooked her arm around his shoulders once more and pinned him in a headlock against her hip, both of them giggling out loud. Eventually he conceded, pushing her away.

'Okay, okay!' he laughed, shaking his head. 'I was just thinking about August.'

Emma frowned. 'August?'

'Yeah,' he said. 'And about Operation Lobster.'

There was a loaded pause.

'...what the hell is Operation Lobster?'

'It's top secret,' Henry said dismissively. 'It's between me and August. Anyway – I'd been thinking that Operation Lobster had failed. It's been looking pretty hopeless for a while. But now… I'm not so sure. There might be some hope left.'

'You are pretty big on hope,' Emma said. But she was still curious. 'Seriously, what is it? I'm a member of Operation Cobra; surely I can be trusted with this?'

Her son narrowed his eyes at her. 'I'm not so sure.'

'Try me.'

'Emma—'

'Henry,' Emma backfired. She pouted down at him, sticking out her chewed bottom lip as far as it would go. 'Please?'

Henry considered her for a moment before he rolled his eyes, trying yet again to ignore just how dark the circles under her eyes were.

'It was what August and I called it,' he muttered, looking down at the sidewalk, 'when we were trying to keep you and Regina together.'

Emma blinked, not quite sure that she had heard him right.

'When what?'

Sighing, Henry continued, 'Ages ago, right after Mr French attacked you, we were trying to make you and my mom friends. She was… she felt really bad about what had happened and she was trying to make things better, but it was more than that – even then, both of us could tell that she cared about you, and that she was the only person who seemed to make you feel any better anymore. And we were both a bit sad that we couldn't seem to help you, but we decided that if you wanted her around then we should at least make sure that it happened.'

'Henry…' Emma stammered. 'I never didn't want you—'

'But it was kinda selfish,' Henry talked over the top of her, still refusing to look up. 'Because then August told me that the curse was real, and we both wanted it broken. And since it didn't look like you were going to break it any time soon… we thought that maybe we should try and weaken it instead.'

Emma understood in an instant. She sighed, and slowly said, 'You thought that if Regina started to be friends with the Saviour, then that might break the curse on its own?'

Henry shrugged. 'It was dumb. But yeah, that was the idea.'

They were still walking and Regina's house was already in sight down the far end of the street, but Emma still found herself asking, 'So then what happened?'

'You fell in love,' Henry said simply. 'And things changed.'

'How?'

'Because if the curse did break – yeah, okay, everyone would have their memories back and that would be good. But you and my mom would have broken hearts because of it. And neither August or I wanted that to happen. So we decided that, if the curse still needed breaking and you still needed to be the one to do it… then the very least that we could do would be to try and make it hurt less. To try and keep you together once everything started to go wrong.'

Emma nodded. She felt strangely hollow. 'But I'll bet that you didn't expect things to go this wrong so soon.'

'No,' Henry agreed. 'We didn't even have a plan of action before my mom told you the truth. To be honest with you, Emma, I was giving up on it all. None of my operations seem to go that well for anyone.'

'Hey,' Emma said, suddenly reaching out to take his arm. He stopped walking, turning back to sullenly look up at her. 'That's not true. Henry... god. You are such a sneaky little shit. And I really wish that you and August would stop talking about me behind my back because, I've got to tell you, that's getting really old. But you still cared about me. About both of us. You gave a damn and you tried to help us both and you even had the respect to do it from a distance when I was being a terrible, closeted, useless excuse for a mother, and I can't tell you how much I appreciate that.

'But… look, kid. I don't think you can fix this. Any of this. Whatever happened between me and your mom is exactly that; between us, and you can't expect yourself to be able to change things overnight, magically or… otherwise.'

Henry forced a smile.

'I know,' he sighed. 'I do. Really. I just felt guilty, I guess.'

'Why?'

'Because maybe if August and I hadn't tried so hard to get you to be friends, none of this would have happened.'

Emma offered him a watery smile. 'You think that I wish that none of this had happened?'

'Well,' Henry laughed. 'Maybe not none of it. And I guess in some ways it's better that everything happened this way.'

'Like what?' Emma asked. Regina's house was drawing ever closer and she could feel her stomach beginning to clench.

'Like you finding out about the curse,' Henry said. 'August and I were convinced that True Love's Kiss was going to break it – and that would have been a pretty crappy way for you to find out about it.'

'Hey, kid! Language,' Emma said, cuffing him around the ear. And then suddenly what Henry had just said actually hit her, straight in between her lungs. She paused.

'Hang on,' she said slowly, stopping walking yet again. 'True Love's Kiss?'

'Yeah,' Henry said, turning back to look at her when he realised that she was no longer by his side. 'We thought that you and my mom might… you know. Your kiss might break her curse. It made so much sense.'

Emma pondered this for a few moments, chewing the words over in her mind. 'It… does make sense.'

…so why hadn't it happened?

She scolded herself for the thought as soon as it slipped from her brain. Get yourself together, Swan. You can't have it both ways. But she still couldn't help herself. Something acidic was burning up inside her stomach and it felt oddly like… disappointment.

She shook her head to herself before she looked back up again. Henry was waiting expectantly at the gate that led up to his house, his hand resting on the wrought iron frame.

'Emma?' he asked, looking worriedly back at her. 'Are you… are you going to come inside?'

Emma looked past him at the sprawling white house that was peering round from behind the neatly trimmed hedges. Her stomach was hurting now. It was almost like Regina herself was watching her.

But Regina was inside, probably in the kitchen, cooking an overcomplicated meal in order to try and prove to her son, and to herself, that she was, after everything, still worthy of being his mother. Emma shuddered when she realised just how well she knew her, even without trying to.

Henry was still watching her, waiting for an answer. And so Emma shrugged like she wasn't bothered either way, straightened her jacket around her, and followed him up the pathway with acid bubbling in her stomach.