AN: Alas, I am not a doctor and my knowledge of hospitals and surgery does not exceed that of which Grey's Anatomy has taught me. I apologize in advance for any logical medical issues, as I'm mostly BS-ing all the technicalities. Try not to let my lack of knowledge brother you, and know that I tried my best.

As soon as Snow and David burst through the large, glassy double doors of the hospital, Emma's up and out of her seat and crossing the waiting room.

"Mom." That's the only word that falls from her mouth, and then she's wrapping her arms around her young, petite mother, and finally allowing her tenseness to partially slip away. She feels as though she could cry, but damn it, she's done far too much of that in the past half hour, and her eyes are exhausted by now. Right now, she just allows herself to feel comfort, no matter how small the dosage is.

Regina looks on at the interaction unfolding in front of her, feeling a heavy emptiness in her chest.

And thinks that without Henry, she's so entirely alone.

Just thinking of her son's name returns the wetness from behind her eyelids, and she too rises from her uncomfortable chair and prowls the waiting room like a caged tiger. The atmosphere is heavy with the overpowering scent of overly sterile tools, hand sanitizer, paperwork, and latex gloves. It's much too cold in the waiting room, and goosebumps erupt over her skin under thin layers of clothing.

She jumps when she feels the warm weight of a jacket being placed over her shoulders. She looks up to her left to see David standing beside her, placing his large, brown leather jacket over her small frame with those kind, kind eyes and something like a wistful hint of a smile.

She wants to demand how such an expression could dare to cast itself over his face in this situation, but she finds she can't, and that it places a comforting weight over her heart that is somehow still beating, alive in her chest. So, she smiles, very slightly, but a smile all the same, and thanks him in a whisper. And then his strong arms are around her and she buries her face in his chest and lets herself go nearly limp in his embrace. She didn't think she had any strength to cry left in her, but before a minute is up, she's racking David's strong figure with large sobs.

"Regina, he'll be okay, you know that don't you? He's the Truest Believer, remember?" He lifts her head with a finger or two under her chin to meet their eyes.

Regina shakes her head.  "It's been so long since he was the Truest Believer," she whispers, and the title feels foreign on her tongue after so long. Her brow furrows further and she frowns deeply as she searches David's clear blue eyes with large, deep brown irises of her own. "I don't even know him anymore."

Admitting it out loud is like a kick to the stomach, and she thinks she could have collapsed from sheer emotion and exhaustion right then, had Dr. Whale not chosen to make an appearance at that moment.

And then there he is, all coiffed hair and a crisp white lab coat with a ballpoint pen clipped to the side of its pocket. The entire small group of people stumble towards him, surrounding him in a semicircle, all talking at once. Regina briefly notices Neal among them, and wonders when he'd arrived.

His arm is around Emma, his rough hand rubbing up and down against Emma's bicep, and Regina tries to ignore the red hot flash of heat that bursts up from deep within her that feels far too much like jealousy.

She tells herself it's solely nerves on Henry's behalf.

Then, Whale is speaking, silencing them instantly, all training large, pleading eyes upon him. "Perhaps you all should sit down."

Regina's muscles feel as though they've been doused with ice cold water, and she stumbles to a nearby chair, easing herself down by gripping the armrest. She thinks about the lasagna she'd eaten for dinner earlier, and feels the rest of it rise in her throat that she hadn't vomited back at the accident scene.

Whale waits until they're all seated before he stands in front of them, nervous hand absently twitching over his pager. "The crash Henry experienced was....severe." He prefaces, and Emma's halfway out of her seat, ready to demand for Whale to tell them something they don't already know, but then Snow is whispering comforting nothings into her ear and easing her back into her chair.

He waits until they're quiet once more, before continuing. "His injuries are--quite extensive--though, it's nothing I believe I can't handle. Mind you, I once raised my brother from the dead," he quips, hands outstretched, and it's somewhere between attempting to lighten the heavy air and assure the family of his abilities, but all he's met with is stony exteriors and narrowed eyes. He lowers his palms and clears his throat. "I detect heavy internal bleeding as well as a few broken bones. I would like to operate on him as soon as possible."

He stops for a moment, met with expectant, hopeful faces, and prepares to crush their expressions with his next piece of information. "However--before I allow orthopedics to operate on his broken bones, I would first like to address the internal bleeding issue. But....I should warn you that the damage there is extensive and there is...a steep chance that he will not survive the surgery. That being said, I believe it is his best chance."

Regina rises from her seat first, finding her scratchy voice. "He won't survive your surgery?! Then what the hell are we doing here? I'm transferring him elsewhere where he can the absolute best treatment possible." She stares down Dr. Frankenstein, lip curling. "As Henry's legal guardian and mother---"

"Allow me to stop you right there, Madame Mayor," the doctor begins, thick tension entering his tone, keeping the woman's gaze with whom he has a less than pleasant past with. "But Henry doesn't have time to be transferred to the most plush, luxury hospital you can dream up. He wouldn't make it through twenty minutes in a bumpy ambulance with less-than satisfactory, limited care."

Snow lets out a strangled cry at that.

"Secondly, the boy is nearly nineteen years of age. Legally, he is an adult and you no longer have say to overwrite courses of medical treatment."

Regina stands for another few seconds, mouth opening and closing, before sitting and putting her face in her hands.

"What are the odds?" It's Emma this time, and her voice is much stronger than she looks, legs up on the seat in front of her, almost as if she's curling herself to be as small as possible.

Whale hesitates for a little too long, then swallows and looks straight into Emma's green irises. "There is a twenty percent chance of survival."

The silence rings after that, and it's almost deafening, and Regina lets out a quiet sob. She absently feels someone rubbing comfortingly at her shoulder. It's David.

After about a minute, Whale sighs and picks up a chair, turning it to face the small group in front of him. He sits on the edge of the chair, hands folding together and sighing again. "Look. I get it, okay? It's scary. Hell, its terrifying, and you don't want me to do it. But every minute I spend here with you, the farther he slips away. Without this surgery, he will die. Even with the surgery, he may still die, but he also might live." He searches their faces, sees them listening. He continues. "I will do my best work on the boy. I think that I can save him." And he sounds confident, so much so he surprises himself, but the inside of his chest is beating rapidly as he thinks about slim, slim chances and messy x-rays and so much blood.

Then, the whole dysfunctional family looks into each other's eyes and nods, even though it looks like their hearts could break. Then, Emma and Regina look at him with wet cheeks and there's a raspy, simultaneous duo of voices saying, "Do it."

---

And then, it's overwhelming, unbearable silences and styrofoam cups and stale, weak coffee that leaves harsh, bitter aftertastes. And it's disgusting--godawful--but Regina's on her fourth cup of the night and welcomes the gritty, bitter burn it leaves with a scar on her tongue.

It's been two hours now, and no news.

If Regina paces any more, she's going to wear holes in the carpeting in the waiting room, and her feet are starting to really sting from her heeled boots. She decides to leave the group altogether, and make camp by the coffee machine on the far side of the room. She can't handle people right now; can't handle hearing snippets of urgent whispered conversations between Snow and David, or seeing more of Emma's blonde curls pool over her knees as she rests her forehead against her legs. She especially can't handle seeing Neal trying to comfort her, then periodically giving up and attempting to lighten the air with unneeded comments.

She's leaning her warm forehead against the cool metal of the machine, stirring in two more packets of sugar than she originally would, but dammit, she deserves it tonight, when dragged booted footsteps and heavy sighs catch her attention. She turns to see who has joined her, then quickly looks down again, disappearing behind her styrofoam cup and scalding her tongue in her haste.

"I can see why you stole away," It's Emma, and she's making such Emma comments while stirring in coffee creamer, and it's almost endearing, and god, she misses her. "Those three were driving me insane."

Regina glances at Emma's coffee, watching the liquid quickly change from dark to light, light brown, and opens her mouth, ready to ask dryly whether Emma wants coffee with her creamer, but the words die out before she has a chance. She closes her mouth, thinks about the terrible, terrible reason why they're here. "He shouldn't be in there." It's finally out; the words that had been eating her alive since they'd given Dr. Whale their approval on the operation.

Emma's quiet for a long time after that. She throws away her coffee stirrer and takes three long sips of her heavily creamed coffee. She blinks several times, swallows again, and finally faces Regina. Then, "We're giving him--" she begins, then breaks off, a wistful, almost-smile creeping onto her lips that doesn't begin to reach her sad, sad eyes. "It's his best chance."

The words sweep over Regina and she closes her eyes, thinking back to a time so long ago when Emma had used those words to explain why she'd given up Henry. Regina knows Emma realizes this, and that she'd chosen her words carefully. Regina opens her eyes and stares right into Emma's for a moment, and they have a shared, silent understanding. Their fight is still fresh in both of their minds--feelings of confusion and betrayal and lord knows what else--but both of them simultaneously choose to put it on my back burner, if only for tonight. Neither has the strength or the fight for yelling tonight; and Henry demands all their attention. He deserves it, dammit.

And, Regina knows. She knows it's his best chance, knows that without it he'd surely be lost to them already. But the odds, the numbers, the technicalities are haunting her, present in the forefront of her mind with her eyes open and far louder with them shut. She can't escape it. She opens her mouth, then closes it again. Then, finally, as her eyes begin to moisten, "There's an eighty-percent chance that he'll--" she breaks off when her voice gives out on her, and she swallows hard and painfully a few times while shaking her head vigorously. "--that he won't---"

"And there's a twenty-percent chance that he will survive, Regina," Emma finishes, and her green eyes are so, so wide, and he face is so truthful and almost hopeful, and then she's reaching across the distance between them to touch Regina's hand. She stops a few inches away before she makes the contact, however, and then she can't and she's dropping her hand back to her side. Regina watches her make her decisions, watches her pale, dainty hand come so close to grazing her skin, then falling away. Her eyes trail up from her hand back to Emma's face, studying the rosiness of her cheeks, thinking about Emma's words.

"Yes, there's a chance that he won't, but there's also a chance that he will, too," Emma's continuing now, and she's moved a few steps towards her, closing the distance as she says desperate words teetering on the edge of something hopeful. "You have to think about the flip side of the equation." It's then that her wide eyes begin to squint as a small smirk plays on the edge of her thin pink lips. "Hell, you know, if Henry was here, he'd be telling us to all believe, you know? Believe that whoever's in there will make it, because why wouldn't they? It's their job, what they have to do. He wouldn't see a reason not to hope. God, we could really use that around here." She sweeps a glance around a nearly-vacant waiting room filled only with them and her parents and Neal, all positively dismal.

"But he's not here," Regina whispers, and Emma's turning back to face her now. Regina finds that somehow, she doesn't care that Emma sees the tears falling from her eyes without her even needing to blink. "He's not here, and he's in there, and he's not even the boy I--we remember."

This time, Emma only hesitates a moment before placing her own shaking, warm hand on top of Regina's olive-toned one gripping the edge of the counter. "He's still Henry, Regina. He's still in there. I promise. He's your son, too," she soothes, and Regina looks up, almost stunned by her kind, kind words.

"I---" she begins, ready to fight her again, but finds that she can't. She uses her free hand to wipe at her eyes, hardly caring as she realizes she's only smearing mascara smudges around. She stops talking, and then they're standing there, touching, for a long moment. Regina finds comfort there. Then, "What do we do?"

Emma scoffs slightly, a very Emma-like shrug following with a half-hearted smirk. "We wait."

And so Regina does.

And finds that it's a little easier with someone by her side, someone hoping and praying and wishing just as much as she is. And yes, it's messy, and they have so much to talk about and work through, and hell, this could be the last time they share a calm, still moment. But it's easier.

But it's not easy enough, and Regina can't stop herself from wondering.

Wondering, what do you do when the Truest Believer is the one who needs all the belief?

AN: wow, I'm surprised that I'm so on track right now with updating! Originally, this chapter was supposed to be longer, but I decided to let it end here just so I can get something up to you guys. I really hope to continue periodic updating most weeks.

I look forward to your comments!