STORYBROOKE, MAINE, 2022.
Five days before Emma's death.

Regina slowly comes to, blinking, breathing deeply, and stretching her legs. She rolls over in bed, facing the sleeping blonde tucked in beside her. She smiles fondly and rakes her nails gently over Emma's scalp, brushing blonde strands away from her face. The sensation wakes her, glazed eyes flickering open, looking Regina over, puzzled, for a moment, then gives her a sleepy smile.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Regina greets her, only half-kidding, because her wife, even seconds after she's woken in the morning, looks breathtaking beside her. And not for the first time, she marvels that she's truly hers.

Emma frowns, still blinking. "You'd think that for us, fairytale-character nicknames would be kinda off-limits." Her voice is raspy with sleep, lips turning to a lazy half-smirk.

"Hm. You're beautiful, though."

Emma makes a face, swipes a hand over her chin. "Ew. I have drool all over me, stop lying."

Regina laughs, kicks her legs out from under the silky sheets, cold toes finding slippers directly underneath the bed.

Emma, fully awake now, props herself on her elbows, pouting. "Hey, where're you going, Babe?"

The brunette fixes the twisted spaghetti strap of her nightdress on her shoulder before taking a few slow, deliberate steps towards the bathroom with a small smile on her face. "Shower," she says, airily.

Emma flops back down, hair spilling into her mouth and across her face. "Aw. Bed's cold without you."

"Well, I really didn't think you needed an invitation," Regina mentions, slipping her gown off directly in Emma's view and moving into the bathroom.

"Oh! Hell, I really don't," Emma grins, springing out of bed and running across the room towards her wife.

The next thing heard is a shriek, a laugh, running water, and then--

Well.

---

Regina's kitchen has always sounded like music to Emma. A symphony, really.

There's the crack of an eggshell against the side of the counter, the sizzle as the yolk hits the hot, buttered pan, the sound of running water from the sink, the hum of the coffee maker, and the sigh she makes when Emma leans over and presses warm kisses down the side of her neck. There's the usual chastise of the stove is on, Emma, but the words leave Regina's throat huskily, and she's leaning heavily into the blonde's touch.

The coffee machine makes a particularly loud gurgle before a split-second of silence, then there's a long-suffering moan from it, and Emma can barely stifle her giggle. "Coffee's ready."

Regina, however, knows her far too well, and swats her pale arms when they release from Regina's waist. "For the last time, Emma, all coffee makers sound like that."

Emma snorts as she pours a generous cup for her wife. "This coffee maker sounds like it's having some seriously messed-up sex. I'm telling you, it's not normal." She roots around in the fridge and produces Italian Sweet Cream Coffee-Mate creamer, the only creamer that Regina will buy. She hovers the spout over the rim of the mug, pours, counts two long seconds, then stops. She reaches for the sugar, shakes the spoon until it's exactly half-full, then dumps it in the cup as well. She stirs vigorously, sucks the spoon, then holds it out to Regina.

Regina glares at the inappropriate comment, but her face instantly softens when she sees Emma's smile with her coffee. She sets the spatula aside and collects the mug from her, which says "woRLd's BesT mOmmY" in the shaky, unsure scrawl of a toddler, written in extremely faded green paint. The mug had been a Mother's Day present from Henry when he was five, and Regina cherishes it above some of her most valuable possessions. She still drinks from it almost every day, carefully handwashing it after each use. It never goes in the dishwasher.

She takes a long sip, closes her eyes, lets the flavor and sensation float over her tongue for several seconds before swallowing. It's sweet, but not sickeningly so, and there's not a single grain of sugar undissolved. She raises it to her lips again before carefully places the mug on the counter. "It's perfect."

It's simple praise; hardly anything, really, but Emma's cheeks flush with a sort of pride. It had taken a long time--years of their marriage, really--but Emma had finally learned exactly what makes Regina's perfect cup of coffee. And it's embarrassing, actually, how happy that fact makes her, but she thinks that maybe she'll never get over the fact that she's married to the goddess in front of her. The one whose face is still scrubbed clean of any makeup; short, thick, wavy dark hair freshly washed, but still uncombed; and wearing nothing but a casual, fluffy robe. She still looks as perfect to Emma as she had on their wedding day.

Emma absently glances at the digital clock above the stove, and promptly curses. "I'm late for work," she admits to Regina, who looked over curiously from the eggs. She gently shoves Regina over with her hip, and begins hastily shoveling over half of the scrambled eggs in the pan onto a paper plate.

She turns and Regina places a travel mug of heavily sugared coffee--no creamer--into her hand. The warmth of the thermos against the skin of her palm is comforting, grounding. Regina leans in, presses a soft, lingering kiss on her lips. "Have a good day at work, my love."

And Emma leaves her home with a fresh blush on her cheeks, and a blossoming warmth in her chest reminds her of how happy she is. She can't think of a single thing that could take this away from her.

---

The playground is busier than it typically is; they're having a significantly warmer day than what's expected of Maine in January, and several families have come out with their children to enjoy the sunshine. The older kids are in school, but the ones who are not quite old enough--or might have been pulled out of kindergarten by their clingy parents--are near their mothers on the park equipment, bundled up despite the extra warmth.

Regina's alone on a park bench, cup of hot tea in one hand and an empty salad bowl beside her, taking a lunch break away from her office. She watches the children frolic on the swings, monkey bars, and slides, and allows her heart to clench for one moment, to think of Henry.

He's four and he'd dragged her here despite the bite in the air of a nippy October afternoon. Well, rather, he'd begged and pleaded to please, let's go to the park, Mommy, and she'd given in far too quickly because his eyes had been big and sparkling and round, his cheeks spread in a small smile, and she'd picked him up and smothered him in kisses. All right, my little prince. If that's what you wish.

Now, he's a few feet above her, sitting on the edge of a slide. It's small to her, but impossibly big and exciting to him, and he's telling her, though needlessly, to watch.

"Look, Mommy! I'm, I'm boutta go down the big slide--an' all by myself!" He squeals, eyes bright and shining with excitement, hair turned a warm, golden honey color from the slowly setting sun. She notices the blonde streaks in his dark hair that were previously invisible, and sees a thousand shades of green in his big eyes. And her heart pounds, because, yes, this is the first time she's allowing him to go down a slide by himself--where she's not tucked in behind him, arms secured his round tummy, holding him close and shielding him from harm.

"Yes, Baby," she says, voice on the edge of breaking, hands raw from the wind twisting together in front of her. "Be careful, mi hijo."

He looks down at her, smiles like he can't figure out why she's nervous. "Yes, Mama." Then he lets go of the sides of the slide and screams with pleasure as he plummets down. He reaches the foot of the slide and his little body summersaults onto the wood chips.

"HENRY!" Regina yells out before she runs over in her stilettos, blood rushing in her ears and tears filling her eyes. Oh, god, please, please, please--

He rolls over, sits up, giggles with bubbles on his lips. "Momma, that was fun!"  He stretches up his short arms encased in a puffy red coat and pulls his hands in a grabby motion.

She walks towards him, so full of relief she could laugh or cry, and picks him up. "There you go! Look what a great, big boy you are."

Henry babbles happily in her arms, smiling up at her, showcasing his white baby teeth and long, long eyelashes. "I love you, Mommy."

Regina blinks past the wetness in her eyes, kisses his knuckles with her red lips. "Oh, my little prince, I love you more than anything in all the realms."

A low chuckle beside her startles her out of the happy memory. "Kids, huh?"

She looks up to her left, and her heart soars when she knows who she sees. "Henry?" She asks, standing up quickly and burrowing herself into his chest. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I had a long weekend so I decided to skip out a day early and just come down and see you guys. Ma said I'd find you here," he explains, looking out onto the playground once so very familiar to him.

Regina studies his face, sees the nostalgia there, and feels something clench in her gut. It's surreal almost--being ripped away from such an extremely vivid memory and then brought back to reality with whiplash, staring up at her grown son. The days where she'd used to ride down slides with him are long, long gone, and the back of her eyes prick for a moment before she gets ahold of herself.

This park they're looking at is different than the one Henry had braved his first slide, however. That one, rusted with age, had been taken down years ago. This park is the one she'd had built not long after Emma had come to town, after she'd torn down his old castle as well, because of her fear of him getting injured--and of something far more selfish as well. Guilt pounds through her veins whenever she thinks of it.

Together, they walk up to the wood chips and Henry runs a large hand over a piece of the equipment. "Aw, look at this old hunk of metal. Still looks as good as the day you built it for me," He jests, sliding a thumb down a section of rust.

Regina looks up at him, surprised. She thinks she'll never get used to Henry now being able to joke about the things that used to tear their relationship apart years ago. Once again, she marvels at how far they've come. She smiles, though her heart is heavy thinking about who she used to be. "Henry...I told you I'm sorry, right?"

He frowns deeply, glances down, studying her face with kind, kind eyes that have only become more vivid in color over the years. "For what?"

"For....ripping up your old castle. That was so, so wrong of me, I--" She grits out, eyes squeezing shut. Then she feels a rough palm on the side of her face, and she opens them.

"Mom--that's all in the past. Really. I forgave you at least a decade ago, plus--" he tacks on, smirking a little, "I'm pretty sure you've apologized for that like, five times."

She chuckles, shakes her head, watching his beautiful smile form. Oh, my little prince, I love you more than anything in all the realms.

There's a high-pitched scream behind them, the sound of a body hitting the wood chips with force, then a loud wail. Henry's eyes widen, and he spins around to take in the sight of the little girl crumpled beneath the monkey bars.

He kneels down, looking over the girl in two black pigtails in legitimate concern. "Oh, no, are you okay?" He implores with a furrowed brow, but smiles warmly when her big brown eyes sheen with tears slowly meet his.

"I fell, an'--an' it hurts," she explains in broken fragments, lip trembling. Her right arm has a short scrape down the side of it from the wood chips, where tiny bubbles of blood are forming above deep brown skin.

"Aw, let me see." He coaxes the girl, collecting her arm gently in his hands and studies the scrape seriously. She's still sniffling, but the tears have stopped; and she seems far more interested in the strange man who has decided to help her. And, she thinks, she likes him, too. Her mom is standing behind where he kneels, twisting her hands anxiously, but the little girl focuses on him.

"Oh--!" He exclaims suddenly, as if he had just gotten the idea. "I have just the thing for you." Carefully, without breaking eye contact with her, he shrugs his backpack off and removes his water bottle from the side pocket. He unscrews the cap and pours a small amount of water over the little wound. She flinches at first, but her breathing becomes more regulated once she feels the relief. He takes out a small box of bandaids and presses one over her scrape. She runs a finger over the bandage, smiling.

"What'd ya think of my handiwork? Not exactly the work of a surgeon, but maybe it'll do 'till you get home." He jokes, grinning back at her, and she glances up shyly.

"Feels better," she reports, then looks up at her mother who is prompting her. She colors slightly. "An' thank you, Mister."

He's still kneeling on the wood chips and smiling softly for several long seconds after the little girl and her mother had left the park. Regina swallows past the thousands of obstructions in her throat and approached him. "Wow, Henry," she finally manages, looking over her grown son in awe, who still looks absolutely taken with the child. "You--you handled that perfectly."

He glances up at her from his crouched position, shy, shy eyes shining. "How precious was she?" He marvels, standing to his full height and scratching behind his ear, still looking towards the park's exit where she had left.

Regina swallows again, then again. She tries not to think about the way he has stooped low to interact with her with the gentlest of tones, tries not to think about how he had performed the acts with something like a fatherly instinct. Tries not to think about the way she had thanked him, completely starstruck, how she'd called him 'mister'.

"Henry," she begins, her heart thumping in her ears as she collects one of his hands in her own. Her voice breaks harshly, the syllables almost washing out.

With a furrowed brow, he turns to face her, placing his other palm over the top of her hand. "Mom?" He prompts, clearly concerned.

She does her best to give him a reassuring smile. "Are you--are you thinking of having a child of your own someday?" As hard as she tries, the words don't come out as strong as she'd wanted. Someday, she'd said. Someday. Not now. She wants to buy time, time where he's still her little boy, time where he hasn't grown up. It's all gone too fast, too fast--

For once, he doesn't seem notice her inward turmoil. Instead, a smile spreads across his features like the sun rising above the line of the ocean, illuminating the water's surface into millions of shining, blinding, rippling sparkles. "Of course." He tells her, and the words don't feel rushed. They don't feel like he's just come up with his answer now; no, it sounds like he's thought about it for a long, long time. The words are soft, true, caring, as though he's placing them before her as a gift. "Of course I want to be a father."

Father. The words hurt, but it's bittersweet. Of course, of course she wants that for him--but. It's too soon, too soon. "Of course you do," she says instead, clearing her throat and blinking rapidly.

"But--" He begins, and Regina snaps her eyes upwards again. "But, not yet."

Her shoulders relax, though only slightly--not nearly enough for him to see. "Oh?" She asks, waiting for him to elaborate.

"No. First," he begins, a grin that looks so strongly of passion covering his face. "First, Mom, I'm traveling the world. I'm seeing it all," He tells her, releasing his hands from hers to spread his arms out, beginning to talk animatedly. "I'm going to Europe first. I'm gonna finish saving up money, pack up, and then I'm going, and I'm gonna blow all the money I earned on booze and cruise ships and museum tickets and sightseeing with a pretty girl on my arm. I'm going to England, and I'm going to France, and I'm going to Italy, and Greece. I'm seeing it all."

She takes an unconscious step back, head spinning from his words. They'd caught her off-guard, slipping their way into their mind and swirling around, the worst words sticking the best. I'm packing up, and I'm going. I'm leaving. I'm leaving. I'm going. I'm going to Europe. I'm going the whole way across the world. I'm leaving you. I'm growing up without you. I've already grown up.

But, of course, she'd known all along. She'd known not long after she'd brought him home as a baby to Storybrooke. He'd been six, taking out the atlas and spinning the model globe, reading hundreds of thousands of words he didn't understand. He'd been nine, reading encyclopedias of different, foreign cultures halfway across the wold, eyes shining with interest.

But when magic had arrived, he was distracted. The atlas had been put away, collecting dust, and instead his storybook of fairytales was always under his arm. But then, the final battle had been won, everything had calmed down, and then everything in the small town of Storybrooke had become almost ordinary again. And then, he'd been sixteen, attaching a large, flat map onto his wall, sticking red pins into all of the places he wanted to visit. Every time she walked into his room, there was ten more pins, then twenty. She's known. Always. She's always known that Storybrooke was far too small for him.

Still, it's too soon, and she's blinking fast again. "You're leaving," she states, and it's all she can manage.

Finally, he clears the clouds away from his head, and he sees the glaze in his mother's eyes, and he's shaking his head. "Not yet, Mom. And not forever, I promise. Someday, though, I'm going to go, but then I'm coming back. I'm coming back to you and Ma, and then you won't be able to get rid of me."

And then Regina finally feels a weight lift off of her and she smiles up at him, jesting. "I wouldn't get rid of you for anything in all the realms."

Then he's laughing, slinging an arm around her shoulders, and they're walking back home. "I know. I'm counting on it."

---

Regina raises her head from the pot of noodles in front of her when she hears the front door swing open. She smiles absently, knowing it's Emma, and glances over at Henry, who's shredding lettuce for the salad. "Stir the noodles for me, Dear?" She asks him, squeezing his shoulder, and he smiles at her before crossing the distance and dipping the wooden spoon into the boiling water.

Regina wipes her hands on the front of her apron and meets Emma in the foyer. She's stomping dirt from her boots onto Regina's clean flooring, but Regina can't find it in her to care. Emma leans back, pops her back twice, and winces.

Regina's eyes widen at her expression and she moves across the floor to place her fingers on Emma's cheek. "What's wrong, mi amor?"

Emma closes her eyes and plants a long kiss on Regina's lips. "Agh--just work was a pain in the ass today. I swear, I'm getting too old for this crap." She sighs, laughs when Regina swats her.

"Oh, be quiet, you. You're younger than me, and don't let Henry hear you say that. You'll be the butt of his bad jokes for weeks." She warns, then cuts off Emma's guffaw with another hungry kiss.

Emma growls playfully, pulling back and squeezing Regina beneath the small of her back. "Okay! Someone's in the mood today."

"Ugh! God, I can hear you two. There goes my appetite." Henry yells from the kitchen, and Emma rolls her eyes.

"You'd think as a twenty-two year old, he would--"

"Before you finish that sentence," Henry cuts her off, walking out of the kitchen to meet them, "it's okay for everyone else, just not my moms. I'd really rather not have that image. Thank you."

Emma scoffs and plants a sloppy wet kiss on Regina's cheek for just for show, then whispers "pussy," in Regina's ear, who laughs despite herself.

"I heard that!"

---

Regina closes the front door after seeing her son out, minutes after dinner ended. She locks the door, breathing in the scent of Henry's cologne that lingers for a few seconds in his wake.

"Well, there goes our son to party the night away with his friends," Regina announces to Emma, who's lounging in the study with a fresh bottle of scotch waiting to be split between them. "Really. I'd rather he didn't tell me exactly what he plans to do. The image of Henry going down to the Rabbit Hole is really--" she shakes her head vigorously. "I don't want to see that."

"Suit yourself," comes Emma's voice, light and airy from the next room. "I'm glad he has a social life. Only nerds stay home on a long weekend with their moms, who, by the way, are trying to get it on."

Regina rolls her eyes though she's quietly laughing at the blonde's antics, then frowns when something catches her eye. She stoops down to the floor and picks up a pinch of something resembling black soot between her fingers. "Emma," she calls, voice halfway distracted with the substance under her manicured nails. "Where did you go for work today?"

"The dwarf mines, actually. Had to sort out a stupid brawl, again. They drive me insane. And my boots are always full of the mine crap afterwards."

Regina's shoulders relax at the logical explanation, though she's not sure why they were tense to begin with. "Oh. Alright." She says, letting out a breath of air.

"Now, get in here, woman! I might have finished the scotch already, and you wouldn't even know!" Emma calls laughing from the study, and Regina wipes the soot off of her fingers before moving quickly into the study to meet her wife, grinning.

The two women sit in front of the fire, toasting to any and everything they can think of, drowning each other in kisses. They're happy, almost impossibly so, and they've gotten absolutely everything they could hope for. Happy.

In the foyer, there's a thin coat of black dust covering the tiles, uncared for. Forgotten. But in the darkness, only slightly illuminated from the dim light of the fire coming from within the study, the black dust gleams and shimmers, and there's pulsing energy around it.

AN: Sorry for the bit of the delay! I was taking a sort of Christmas break over the holidays, since I was spending a lot of time with my family. I hope you enjoyed this chapter, however!

Also, just a head's up--I'm going on a vacation this week, and I might not get the chance to write a ton while I'm gone. I'll do as much writing as I can on the plane and at nights, but I can't promise a regular update in a week's time.

I'd love to hear what you think of this chapter! I stayed up til three to write the last 2000 words, so hopefully it's halfway coherent.