STORYBROOKE, MAINE, 2026.
Four years after Emma's death.

Regina's breath is ragged. Her head pounding, her weak knees fail her and she collapses on hard ground, vomiting blood mixed with stomach acid. Her eyes burn with pain and despair, trails of saltwater pouring down her cheeks and mixing with the sick on the ground. Lifting up her head, she screams until she's hoarse, tearing through her vocal chords, and until she no longer has breath.

Because what she has just seen she can't ever forget--the image is seared into her brain like a scorching hot piece of coal. She presses her palms roughly against her eyes, as if the action will erase from her memory what she has just seen.

The mangled body of her wife lay below her, blood staining the pavement and lifeless eyes staring up at her. Regina presses her hands farther into her burning eyes--though they protest and sting and show her fireworks and sparks behind her eyelids--letting out one more strangled scream although her throat is bleeding and only a series of squeaks exit her mouth.

Emma is dead.

Regina wakes with a yell, springing upwards in bed. Sweat pours down her back and chest, and she gasps for air, remembering her dream. She screams, then again, then again, the despaired yelling quickly morphing into hiccuping sobs.

Instinctively, she gropes the bed next to her in the dark, before her disoriented mind remembers Emma isn't there. Her hand closes on empty bedsheets, and her heart drops down to her feet. The bed is suddenly grotesquely large, a grand canyon between her and Emma. The sheets feel as though they're strangling her, and she panickedly flails her legs and arms to free herself from its chains on her sticky body. She leans over into Emma's side of the bed, reaching for her pillow that has not once left Regina's bed. Desperately, she presses her nose into the pillow, searching for Emma's scent. She recoils, horrified when she realizes how terrifyingly faded it is. Again, she brings the pillow to her nose, pressing her nostrils into the old pillowcase, searching for the smell.

And it's there, but barely; which is what scares her. It used to fill every inch of her side of the bed, the closet, the kitchen, the seat she normally sat on the couch downstairs--and now she's struggling to find it where she used to lay her golden head each night. She sniffs again, focusing on what's left. She smells trees and outside air--Emma was outside more often than not, running, working, hiking, saving stupid cats from trees--the floral, fruity kiss of her favorite perfume, and the faintest woodsy musk of the cologne she sometimes wore on special occasions that made Regina's heart beat wildly and her knees go weak. But above all, she smells Emma, the irresistible, unique, special scent that followed her everywhere and stuck on all of her clothes and her bare clean skin. The smell alone causes an almost unbearable siege of memories to wash over her, and she closes her eyes, allowing them to crash into her one by one.

It's truly amazing, isn't it, how a single sense of the body can trigger an unforeseeable rush of memories and emotions? How a single whiff of foreign air can take one back to a childhood classroom, a lover, a deep memory long since past? Regina lays there for longer than she knows, not knowing whether or not she's in a dream, reliving a lifetime of memories with Emma. So real are they that she feels completely lost in them; recalling a picnic at the park from seven years ago leaves Regina feeling the grass on her feet and the fresh air in her nose, the wind picking up her dark strands and moving them around her face. And then there's Emma, who is so wondrously, breathtakingly, refreshingly, concretely alive in Regina's memory; Emma, who throws her head back when she laughs, green eyes sparkling and blonde locks tumbling across her shoulders and back. Emma, who snorts when she laughs too hard and makes inappropriate comments and lays her sweet head on Regina's shoulder and reaches up to bite the brunette's ear when she shouldn't.

So real are her memories, that when she shakes herself of her trance, when she opens her eyes and blinks them over and over again to reaccoustum her pupils to the blackness, Regina feels an crushing sense of absolute loss all over again, that it's truly too much to bear. Because when she comes back to her own reality, the other half of the bed is overwhelmingly empty and the room is far too quiet, silenced from Emma's quiet little snores, and the pillow in her hands is cold and unused, and she feels a strangled cry rise up within her, so deep inside, that even she is surprised and horrified by the noise she hears exit her own throat. She covers her mouth, rakes her other hand through her messy hair, and sobs.

Before she can even register what she's doing, she's reaching blindly for her phone on her bedside table. Without her telling them to, her fingers type in the passcode and dial Henry's number. It isn't until she presses the phone against her wet cheek and hears the solemn dial tone that she glances beside her at her alarm clock and notices it's past 3 A.M. Ashamed, she moves to hang up, but before she can, Henry takes the call.

It's quiet at first, but Regina hears shifting and throat clearing before a long breath, and a, "Mom?" His voice is even rougher and deeper than normal from his sleep, and Regina can imagine him scrubbing a hand over his tired face.

"Henry, I'm sorry," she says, but is shocked and more than a little embarrassed at how watery and tearful and small her voice comes out.

Henry sits up straighter. "Mom? Mom, what's wrong?"

He sounds far more awake now, and the note of panic in his voice doesn't escape his mother. Ashamed, she clears her throat and tries to push back the tears in her eyes, but she only succeeds in producing fresh ones. "Nothing, Honey. I'm sorry I called at this hour." She doesn't even sound believable to her own ears.

She hears her adult son sigh deeply, and the bed squeak as he carefully shifts off of it to the floor, and pads away from his sleeping wife. "Mom, stop. That doesn't work on me." His voice is low and quiet, and with a jolt Regina remembers his sleeping baby is likely a few doors down. Again, his rough, reverberating tone startles her, and she wonders when--or if--she'll ever get used to her Henry being a proper adult with a wife and child and degree and career.

"I--" she begins, almost ready to push him away again, when she stops. Defeating her inner pride, she drops her shoulders and speaks quietly and pitifully into the phone. "I just had a nightmare about your mom, and I woke up, and she wasn't there, and I wanted to smell her pillow and I realized her scent is already almost gone and I just--" she breaks off into another strangled sob, and she realizes, now that the words are out, just how foolish she sounds. As if her son doesn't likely have nightmares every day, but he never calls her crying. Of course after several years, Emma's belongings will have faded. It's natural. It's normal. It's common sense...and yet it's so damned heartbreaking that Regina can feel herself spiraling down once more. If not for the sound of her son breathing on the other line, she knows she would start screaming again in her empty mansion.

When Henry speaks again, it's a little louder and nowhere near as composed as before. "Oh Mom," he sighs, and Regina hears an undeniable twinge of pity in his tone; but also a note of sadness unrelated to her. "Hang tight, okay? I'm on my way over."

Regina starts in bed. "Henry, no! I'm sorry--you don't have to leave--" her futile protests die down when she hears him scuffle around, the sound of his phone being tossed on the bed and the muffled, muted sounds of him waking his wife and filling her in. There's a kiss, and then the phone is being picked up.

"I'll be there in a few hours, Mom. Try to sleep. Hang on for me, okay? I'm coming. I love you."

Before she can even reply, he's hung up, and Regina's left with a disturbing mixture of happiness and overwhelming love for her son, and the same terrible sadness that has scathed her all night long. She curls into a pitiful ball, tangled in her sheets, and lets the tears fall before sleep covers her like a blanket and numbs her mind.

---

Henry tears down the highway, the street lights giving sporadic flashes of light to the interior of his vehicle. Every so often, he checks between his mirrors, but very few idiots are out and driving at this hour. He glances down at his speedometer, exhaling sharply when he sees how fast he's going. He eases of the accelerator, bringing his 95 down to an 89, and flexes his fingers on the wheel, trying to ease the tension in his joints. To his right, the digital clock on his dashboard blinks 4:41 A.M. Sighing, he changes lanes just to keep himself awake, but that may not be necessary. His mind is racing, thinking of his mother, miserable at home, and the back of his mind pokes and prods him every few minutes with guilt.

You shouldn't have left her. You know you're all she has left. You haven't seen her in months. You're not the only one who's hurting.

The last thought brings an unrelated twinge of shame, and he pulls his face into an unplanned grimace. Because yes, he's hurting, of course he is--but lately...lately, he's noticed himself feeling happy. Lately, he'll go to sleep without thinking about his past and sometimes he even experiences dreamless sleeps. Now, he thinks about his new family--his wife, now his infant daughter--and sometimes, sometimes...Emma slips his mind. And he doesn't know how to feel about that. He would never tell a single soul. Of course, he thinks of her--more often than not, surely--but it no longer consumes him and plagues him each night. He's no longer using the bad shit.

So maybe, he reasons with himself, his speed climbing again, maybe it's a good thing. Healthy, even. Maybe this is what getting better means. Maybe it's getting better at forgetting, finding better coping mechanisms, and moving on with a life without someone. And it feels so damned shameful.

But now, now he's speeding down a highway in the damnedest hours of the night, responding to a panicked, impulsive call from his other mother, and everything that she is and said brought back all the memories Henry so desperately pushed away and worked so hard with several therapists to place on the backburner, if nothing else. He's not angry with her--no, never--he's almost happy. Happy that he's been pulled out of his little daydream of an almost happy life, brought back to Emma.

"Sorry, Ma," he whispers into the dark, his voice breaking just a little. He reaches into the cupholder beside him and takes a long swig of the nearly-empty can of beer. He knows it's time to visit her grave again. He won't forget her. He won't.

Still, as he slows his car and guides it carefully around the curves along the woods he knows so well; the road that leads to the magically cloaked Storybrooke, he knows that he needs to remain the strong one for his mother. Her rock. As he's always been. And if he straightens his shoulders and gives her one to cry on, he knows she'll cling to him and let him find her and bring her out of her dark, raging sea of misery. And that's all he wants, needs to do, and it's enough.

If he can put one smile on that tired, sad, worn, but beautiful face, he'll consider his job well done.

It's still pitch black outside as Henry approaches the line of the town. He throws the car in park and grunts as he reaches across the passenger seat into the glove compartment and produces a crumpled sheet of notebook paper. Six years ago, his mother had given him this paper--he'd been told to guard it as carefully as possible, to do whatever it takes to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands--and he's unfolding it now. Written in her unmistakable, effortless cursive in faded pen is an incantation that momentarily lifts the cloaking spell hiding the town, just long enough for his car to cross over into it, before the veil closes again. Almost from memory, he mutters the words in the foreign language, and a beat passes before a slight, almost unnoticeable shimmer disrupts the stretching road in front of him, and a moment later, a familiar sign to his left reads, "Welcome to Storybrooke."

With a brief sigh of relief, he stashes the piece of paper and eases his car into drive, his foot still resting light on the gas pedal, careful not to wake any residents as he makes his way into town. A lump forms in his throat as he looks at all the buildings that have absolutely never changed, the mailboxes, the very pavement. He grew up here. He spent almost his entire life here until he moved away to college and everything changed when...

He blinks hard and fast, refusing to dwell on it. If he does, he knows from experience that he'll spiral out of control, and that's the last version of himself he wants to show to his mother. God knows she's seen far too much of that side of him already.

Without making the conscious decisions, his hands guide him to the mansion on 108 Mifflin Street, the walls of his childhood home looming up at him. The sight brings a strange mixture of warmth and panic to his chest, his mind not sure which memory on which to fixate. Ignoring as much as he can, he parks carefully in the driveway and pulls the keys out of the ignition. He steps out, noticing for the first time the icy wind and light layer of frost on the ground that bites through his thin tee-shirt and swirls around the bare skin of his ankles below his sweatpants. Grimacing against the cold, he grabs his overnight bag from the backseat and locks his vehicle so that it chirps at him, although there's no need to take such precautions in this neighborhood. New York habits die hard, though, so he pulls half-heartedly at the driver's door handle to check his work. It doesn't open, so Henry swings his bag around his shoulder and makes his way up the walk to the front door. He produces his thick ring of keys and slowly unlocks the deadbolt, trying to keep his sounds to a minimum. He's sure his mom likely fell right back asleep after their call, but he still wanted to come. It's been too long, and his mom had sounded really lost.

Lost. Defeated. Pitiful. It's not right. And yet...that's what they've become.

All of the sudden, Henry desperately needs a cigarette--it's been almost two days since he's last smoked--but he forcefully shoves the want away. That's not important right now, he thinks, even as his hand grazes over his pockets to see if he has his pack on him. He doesn't.

Breathing a sigh of relief--or desperation, he's really not sure--he mounts the stairs, dodging the creaking ones expertly with years of practice of sneaking out. Then he's reached Regina's room.

The room almost completely dark save for the sliver of moonlight illuminating the bed. Her back is to him, and she looks quite still. For a moment, Henry's not sure whether he should step into the room and run the risk of disturbing her, but then her form shifts uncomfortably in the sheets, and his hesitation is over. He promised her he'd come, and now he's here.

Gradually, he makes his way inside, and Regina's shoulders tense at the noise. She turns in bed to see him, and begins to sit up.

Henry shushes her, palms up. "Mom, it's just me. Lay back down. It's okay." His voice comes out rougher than he expected, and he clears his throat a few times. She's always more relaxed when she thinks of him as her little boy. If he can just take her mind off of the present for a few minutes...

Regina falls back on her elbows. "Henry," she whispers, even though there's no one they need fear of waking. "You came," she makes out, and Henry doesn't miss the hitch in her voice.

"Of course I did," he tells her softly, stepping out of his shoes, and hiking up his sweatpants slightly before cautiously dipping some of his weight onto the queen-sized mattress. "I promised that I would. I'm only sorry that I couldn't come sooner."

Regina shakes her head, a small enchanted smile on her lips. "Henry..." she turns fully towards him, not seeming to notice or mind that he's creeping into Emma's side of the bed. She reaches a hand out and touches his hair.

Henry loses his cautiousness and lays down completely, on his side facing her. "I'm sorry that I'm not here all the time. And I hope you know that I'm always here for you, even if that means driving down the interstate at four in the morning."

She shakes her head a little, moving her hand down slightly to stroke his unshaven cheek. "What did I do to deserve all this?"

Henry chuckles, leaning into her touch. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe adopting me, feeding me, putting a roof over my head for twenty-odd years..."

Regina laughs lightly, and Henry feels his heart jump then slow. It's working.

"I think all that earns you at least one impromptu trip to your house in the middle of the night, don't you?"

Regina lets a smirk crawl onto her lips and she rolls her eyes affectionately. "Maybe so."

They chuckle comfortably together for a moment, foreheads and noses brushing against each other's. Henry finds that he too, is finding comfort here. It's been too long. Then she stills next to him, breathing irregular and he can feel her spiraling downwards again.

Brows furrowed, he draws back, placing a steady hand on her shoulder. "Mom, what can I do? Please, what can I do to make it better?" She looks up at him through wet eyelashes with sad, piercing whiskey eyes, and Henry suddenly feels ten years old again, unsure of what to do, sensing his mom's hurt yet not fully understanding the depth of it all, wanting desperately to help her but unable to.

He gazes down at her with soft, searching green eyes, uncharacteristically showing every emotion within him on the planes of his face.

"Oh, my little prince, you have no idea. By just being here, just existing, you're helping me more than you know." Her voice is small and the pain is evident still in her face, but there's an overwhelming sincerity there too, and Henry can feel himself relax just the slightest bit.

Pushing back the tears threatening to spill, he exhales slowly and wraps a long leg and strong arm around her small body, doing his best to shelter her from the darkness of the room and to prevent further damage to her. He feels her curl into his warm chest, and he finally lets himself shed a few silent tears.

He waits until her breathing evens and her shuddering sighs stop, and then, only then, does he allow himself shut his tired eyes.

---

Regina awakes the next morning to the sunlight seeping through her closed cloth curtains. She stretches her legs first, eyes still closed, blissfully unaware of her surroundings. Her mind is blank, heart is steady, and for a moment she forgets everything. She opens her eyes, casts a gaze towards the nightstand next to her. 11:04. Brow furrowed, she lifts herself to her elbows, wondering how on earth she allowed herself to sleep so obscenely late on a work day. Slowly, bit by bit, the previous night comes back to her, and her heart stirs again. Emma. Screaming. Tears. Henry. Henry? She starts again, sitting up further in bed and panning her gaze around the entire master bedroom. She's alone.

She collapses again against the pillows, looking towards Emma's side of the bed, how for the first time in four years, the sheets are rumpled and the pillow has been scrunched, folded, prodded, lived in. She feels tears pricking her eyes again, and she closes them. If she tries hard, concentrates just enough, she can hear the shower running, and she can pretend, pretend, that Emma's in there--that soon enough she'll emerge, wet hair and all, to place a kiss on Regina's waiting lips and tease her for staying in bed so long. And for a moment, a beautiful, heart-wrenching moment, Regina almost believes herself.

But...Henry. Surely he's long gone by now; she supposes he stayed with her just until she fell asleep then escaped, making the long trip home to his wife and daughter. Not for the first time, shame covers her for calling him in the first place, that he had to drive all the way out to meet her, that her hulking, fully-grown, adult son had to leave his established home and cuddle her to sleep--

Bitter tears hang from her eyelashes, cursing her emotions and her inability to stay calm and reasonable for one moment and to just stop grieving--

Then a sound interrupts her downward spiral. Soft clattering continues downstairs, and Regina slowly rises from the pillows. Curiosity peaked, she leaves the bed unmade, pulls on a robe and shuffles downstairs. The noises grow louder and the house glows brighter, and she squints for a moment before her pupils become adjusted. And there he is--there's Henry, her gorgeous, remarkable boy, flipping a pancake in rumpled sleepwear but freshly showered. She pulls out a chair from the island, almost numb, and sits, looking at the small spread around her. Henry--he--

Henry brings the pan over, the batter sizzling, and presses a long, gentle kiss to the top of her head. "Good morning, Mom," he greets her, scraping the fresh pancake onto the plate in front of her.

"Henry--"

He laughs then, turning off the stove and placing the dirty pan and spatula in the dish side of the sink. "Yes, I am capable of making breakfast for my mother on a Thursday morning. Yes, I will clean the entire mess up, and I won't have you even thinking about helping me. No, it's not a big deal that you're missing a few hours of work today. In fact, I'm about to persuade you to take the entire day off. Hell, make it a four-day weekend. You're the literal boss. Go ape-shit."

Regina's stunned into silence for only a few moments before she loosens her shoulders and allows herself to laugh. "You are something else," she tells him, stretching her arm out so he'll come closer and she can attempt to tame his hair. "You get that from your mother, you know." As she says the last part, her movements become gentle and her voice softens further.

He smiles softly down at her, brushing a knuckle down her soft, bare cheek. "I know." he tells her, and the air quiets.

Regina closes her eyes for a moment, running her fingers through his hair, savouring the moment and drinking in the silence that honors Emma. Finally, Henry draws away from her, removing the dish cloth from his shoulder, and grabs the coffee pot. He opens a cabinet for the mugs, and freezes when he finds plates instead.

Regina swallows and points to her left even though he's not looking at her. "The mugs are--uh--on the left now," she tells him, and her voice isn't nearly as strong as she'd planned.

She doesn't miss the way his back goes rigid; the way his shoulders rise and his head lowers, if only slightly. Slowly, he opens the correct cabinet and pours coffee all the way to the top. He clears his throat several times before he turns to face her, taking a long sip of the black liquid. "Well--um. I guess that's something I would know--if, uhm. If I visited enough." He grits out, guilt thick in his tone, and he doesn't meet her eyes.

For the second time that short day, Regina's eyes burn. "It's okay, Darling," she tells him, piercing the pancake on her plate with her fork. "It's okay."

Henry takes a rigid breath, placing his mug on the counter beside him before fetching another mug and preparing a coffee for Regina just the way she likes it. As a sort of peace, mending gesture, he extends the cup towards her. "You still take it like this, right?" He asks her, and the wideness of his eyes, the smallness of his voice, breaks her heart all over again.

She takes a long sip, and gives him a smile. "Yes, Sweetheart. It's perfect."

He breathes a long sigh that turns into a sort of a cough, and his hand unconsciously slips into his sweatshirt pocket and grasps the rectangle inside. "Thank god," he says, somewhat sarcastically, taking another steadying breath, and reaches for his coffee again. "I just mean--everything is so fucking different now, and I just want like, two things to stay the same--you know--" he guzzles his coffee again. It takes him a few moments to realize what he's said, and he places his mug down. "Oh--mom, I'm sorry."

Regina shakes her head, swallowing hard. "It's okay. You're an adult, Henry."

Henry shakes his head, walking towards her again. "You keep saying that, Mom, but it's not. You deserve better. I'll be better. I promise," he vows, walking behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders. Instinctively, she leans back into the solid body behind her.

"Henry, you're doing your best, and it's more than enough. You're caring, sweet--" she sighs, and she feels his arms move from her shoulders and instead hug her from behind. "Thank you for staying with me," she says, and she feels him take a shuddering breath.

"Of course, Mamá."

"I'm proud of you, you know? Much more than you know." He places his chin on her head, and she feels him gulp. "Go and eat now, Sweetheart."

He lets go slowly, and presses another kiss to her hair. He sits opposite her at the island, and his eyes are red, but he masks it well. They exchange shy smiles, and she takes her first bite. Apple and spice floods her tongue, and she chews slowly, savoring the experience.

He leans forward on his elbows, mug clasped between his large hands. "So? What's the verdict?"

Regina swallows and sets her fork down. "Henry, this is incredible! When on earth did you learn to cook like this?" She takes another bite. "Is this my old recipe?"

Henry's ear tips tinge pink, and he looks down. "My wife had some pretty specific pregnancy cravings," he chuckles, "Kinda had to learn."

Regina smiles. "And the recipe?"

Henry's eyes meet hers, and for a moment, he looks eight years old again. "Remember when you made me pancakes every Saturday before swim practice when I was eight? The exact recipe."

Regina swallows hard. Those days, nearly two decades ago, are still as fresh in her mind as if they were last week. "Of course I remember," she whispers.

"I loved them," he tells her, voice breaking on the last syllable. "Those days I didn't thank you nearly enough." His hand stretches across the island top to hold hers. "Thank you, Mom."

Regina squeezes his hand. Now, almost twenty years later, here they are again, in the same kitchen, with the same pancakes, and it's just the two of them once more. If she ignores the fact that his hand now dwarfs her own, and if she ignores the coolness of his wedding ring against her skin, and the weight of her own on her finger, and if she doesn't look across the counter to her twenty-six-year-old son, a father, instead of an eight-year-old ready for swim practice--if she can ignore all of that--it almost feels like not a single thing has changed.

Except Henry was right. Absolutely everything has changed.

But as he squeezes back, and she looks across and sees the undying love in his eyes that mirror her own, she realizes that some change is good. And maybe they're both healing in the only way they know how--with apple pancakes and hugs and each other.

So she brings their intertwined hands to her lips and kisses his knuckles. And thanks him, too, and it's for everything, but most of all, for saving her life for the thousandth time.

---

AN: I can't decide if this chapter is more angsty or fluffy. Either way, it was so much fun to write this. I hope you enjoyed!

Also: I'm starting to plan out a new fic, so get ready! It'll be season seven based. I'm so excited. (Don't worry, still swanqueen:)).

Don't forget to leave a vote and/or comment if you enjoyed :)