A/N: Question for you guys - in future chapters where it's Regina taking the lead and not the Evil Queen, is it preferable to mark these by having them in italics? Or is it obvious/ fine as is? Let me know what you think :) I'm not too sure about this one as I was really enjoying writing the other scenes, but I think this should tie things in a little as it goes along so I hope my concerns are unfounded. Hope you enjoy and please review!

Looking back over her shoulder at the sound of the front door opening, Regina smiles as she pours fresh beans into the coffee machine. It's her second cup this morning, so she holds back a little, knowing that she'll likely have another later at the diner.

"Hi, mom."

Henry greets as he flops onto one of the chairs surrounding the kitchen table.

"Good morning. You're up early."

She raises a brow, leaning against the counter as she regards him amiably. The clock above the door reads a little past eight-thirty, but she's been up for over two hours herself. This is simply a matter of habit these days, as there are no longer any meetings or presentations she needs to get up for and host under her guise as Mayor. Most of what she does nowadays is in close collaboration with the Sheriff- well, one of the Sheriffs, although she refuses to think of the Charmings as proper candidates for the role and rather simply as impossibly nosy parents- and as such, she's rarely called out until noon. Occasionally, she will allow herself a lie in, but most days she gets up along with the sun so that she can get a good head start on her day.

I seem to be alone in this family with that one...

She smirks to herself. She presumes Henry has come over from Emma's, and therefore his early rising does come as a surprise. Ever since he turned about nine, the boy has been an unusually late riser, and entering his teenage years has only encouraged this. When he sleeps over at hers, she will usually wake him up around ten as it frustrates her watching him waste the day away, but she knows that when he stays with Emma, the blonde is unlikely to be up much before he is if she can help it.

"Neal kept crying."

He sighs, and the brunette frowns as she refills her mug before taking a seat opposite him.

"You stayed with Snow and David?"

"Yeah, grandma asked if I could babysit for them last night and I fell asleep."

He shrugs, and Regina smirks before asking silkily

"And Violet? Did she happen to come and help?"

"Yes, she did. And, no, she didn't stay over. David drove her home before her curfew."

He rolls his eyes, and the brunette grins as she sips her coffee.

"Have you guys figured out anything more about the ship?"

Henry asks, getting up and helping himself to some juice. What he's really in the mood for right now is some pop-tarts, but he has yet to win Regina over on that front. He supposes he should have gone over to Emma's seeing as he hasn't had any breakfast, but Regina's is closest, and she'd been more likely to actually be awake to let him in if needed. This is something that is only a problem in the morning, as, while he has keys to each of their houses, both women have a habit of leaving their own in the lock before retiring to bed meaning his set is completely useless when trying to get in. On one occasion, his answer to this had been to attempt to crawl in through Emma's open kitchen window, and it had been quite an eventful morning when she'd come stalking into the room to meet him with her gun held out in front of her. After a few choice words, he'd gone around the house where she'd let him in through the front door, scolding him irritably not to try anything like that again. It had been on the tip of his tongue to suggest that she might not be in a position to question alternative ways of entering a property, but the state of her hair and shorts had suggested he'd roused her from sleep, and he has learned that it's generally best to wait until the blonde has had a cup of coffee before appealing to her sense of humour. Instead, he'd lamented the hypocrisy of the situation to Regina over lunch later that same day, and the brunette had laughed conspiringly in agreement.

"Not that I know of. Granny had a few more people come into the diner yesterday, but I doubt that everyone's been accounted for, and there's still little clue what they're all doing here. Hyde isn't talking on that front, so we're still in the dark. Unless you learned anything new yesterday? Did you go with Emma and Hook to make further introductions?"

"I went to Granny's with Hook before we left to work on the boat. I thought Emma was with you."

"She was supposed to be, but I figured she must have decided to go and help at the diner."

Regina frowns. She'd expected Emma to meet them at the graveyard yesterday, but when she'd failed to show up, it had simply seemed logical that she'd decided to accompany Hook instead. After all, the spell cast over the crypt was to be blood magic as they had discussed the previous evening, so she'd have been of no real help other than offering companionship.

"No, I think Hook was hoping she'd come and join us, but I haven't seen her."

Henry shrugs. He does so in a way that suggests there might be more to it, and the Mayor supposes they both know things are a little tense now and then since they've come home. Other than some concerning signs offered by Hyde when they've visited his cell, there doesn't appear to be any immediate threat to them or the town, and this means that there's been time and space to finally breathe. It means that she's been able to grieve and sort through her various thoughts and emotions, much as the others have been able to do also. When talking to Snow, the schoolteacher had shared her relief and enjoyment of the fact, before swiftly assuring her that she understood it must be hard having more time on her hands to think about Robin. When she'd spoken to Emma though, the blonde had seemed harried and much less thrilled to have time to step back and assess her situation. The situation in question has mainly been the blonde's living situation, and while she has tried to help the younger woman get to the bottom of why she still struggles with the impending changes likely to happen in her life, Emma seems no closer to finding an answer than she is to understanding the Sheriff herself in this instance. Usually, she can read Emma well, and over the last year, the younger woman has come to her for advice with a frequency she imagines both of them find surprising, but when it comes to Hook, there's something that tends to change in the blonde's expression just recently. At first, she'd thought it might be nervousness, but since coming back from New York, she's started to wonder if it might be something else.

She imagines Henry must have picked up on something similar, as while he likes the pirate well enough, he often opts to stay with her if he knows Emma and Hook might end up discussing anything all too deep of an evening.

"That's odd."

She muses lightly, frowning as it does seem a little strange that the blonde hadn't helped out at all yesterday.

"Hook was suggesting how they might make some space for his trunk by moving a few things in the living room."

Henry shrugs, and he doesn't need to elaborate any further than that.

"Ah."

Regina sighs, taking her mug over to the dishwasher.

"Emma suggested maybe he should, uh, go keep busy."

The boy grimaces and his mother nods as she glances thoughtfully out the window to spy a large crow perched in the bare boughs of her apple tree. She supposes it wouldn't be out of character for Emma to have decided to stay in if she were in an unfavourable mood yesterday, but it does seem a little odd that she hadn't even sent her a message to check everything had gone smoothly back in the graveyard.

It's a little odd that she didn't message me at all last night.

Yes, that too. She'd hardly say that they text each other with the eager frequency Henry and Violet seem to favour, but she can generally count on a couple of messages throughout the evening. This is something that has come to occur over time, with a definite increase since Robin's passing; both from Emma, and from Snow. It's one of many things she's discovered that comes with having genuine friends, and she's found herself privately touched. Snow's messages have petered out a little as things have returned to normal, but they had originally been overwhelmingly caring in nature and a kind offer of consolation. Emma's remain much the same as they always have been; short and without any discernible emotion. Sure, she will send an obligatory 'how are you?' before getting to the point if she requires a favour, but mostly she'll just send her odd thoughts and dry humour seemingly as and when it occurs to her.

Rarely anything too giddy as she'll sometimes receive from Zelena, and never finished with a kiss as she generally receives from Snow.

She's reliable, though...

Surprisingly, she is, and this in itself suggests a level of interest and care often absent from the blonde's words, as the whole thing hadn't seemed to come naturally at first. Over time though, their messaging has become second nature, and she walks over to the windowsill where her phone is plugged in to charge.

"I'll give her a call. We were going to head back out to the ship today and cover more ground. I'm still concerned Hyde might have more up his sleeve than we know about. I'll check that this time she's planning on actually showing up."

She informs Henry, her tone coloured with a sense of exasperation that she doesn't really feel.

Another thing that's second nature; talking about Miss Swan with an air of bemusement.

She smirks, tapping in her passcode and checking for any missed calls.

Nothing.

"I'm sure she just forgot or something yesterday."

Henry shrugs, seeming to feel none of the disquiet that is slowly beginning to gnaw at his mother beneath the surface.

"Maybe."

She agrees, pressing speed dial.

"I'm going to go watch TV."

Henry mouths and she nods distractedly as the blonde's phone rings once before going straight to voicemail.

"Emma, it's me. Call me when you get this, I need to know what the plans are for later."

She hangs up and weighs her cell in her palm as her brow furrows pensively. Spying an unread text from yesterday, she opens up her messages where it had gotten lost between several from Zelena, but doesn't recognise the number. Opening it, she can tell who it's from straight away.

Battery low. Using Lily's phone. Will be there. E.

Checking the time the message was sent, she concludes it refers to their rendezvous at the graveyard. Frowning deeper, she puts her cell back on the windowsill and pours herself some water. She considers calling Mary Margaret to ask if she's heard from Emma, but she doesn't want the younger woman to ask her why she's curious. After all, it's hardly as though the blonde has given any reason to come up missing, and she doesn't want to worry her parents by asking questions. She supposes she could call Hook, but from the sounds of things, he won't have seen the Sheriff since she'd asked him to butt out, and it's unlikely that her calling to check in will go down all that well.

Residual damage following the Marion situation...

She's fairly sure this is the case, as Killian has never quite warmed to her since his and Emma's little stint in the book. At first, she'd thought this might be something to do with remembering her as her darker-self- and she can quite understand the revulsion!- but more and more, she's started to think it might have to do with how Emma had reacted to her anger in light of her mistake. It had been a pivotal point in the blonde's relationship with the pirate, and he'd confided an incredibly grand gesture in the selling of his ship to help her, yet the next couple of weeks had been spent not tending to their budding romance, but instead trying to patch things up with a woman who had once sworn to destroy her. Since then, she's noticed that Hook can be a little standoffish towards her, which hadn't bothered her in the slightest until she'd made the rather selfless gesture of accompanying Emma on a trip down to Hell to help save him. She'd say that should warrant some sense of camaraderie.

And then some!

But, while he has expressed his gratitude to her on several occasions, she's fairly sure that he doesn't altogether trust her when it comes to Emma. She has since simply accepted this and moved on.

She refuses- absolutely refuses- to think any deeper about why it might be.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, she pushes herself from the counter and finds Henry in front of the TV in the front room.

"Are you and Violet planning to help at the diner today?"

"Yeah, a little later. Violet said she'd meet me there at ten. Something about beauty sleep."

He grins, pulling a face. Regina smiles back as she grabs her coat from the back of the door, informing him conspiringly

"Well, Emma might beg the same excuse, but she'll just have to make do. I'm going to go see if she has any more information on all of this."

"Good luck."

Henry chuckles, and the Mayor rolls eyes dark with good humour and lets herself out the door.