It's been six hours now, and it's half-past four in the morning, and there's a crumpled bag of Granny's takeout sitting on the floor in the waiting room. Regina stares at her Caesar salad in a black plastic bowl on her lap, disposable fork stabbed through a couple of romaine lettuce leaves. The salad is drowning in dressing, and she'd gagged through her first forkful. Chewed-up but not yet swallowed lettuce sits on her tongue and she puts the fork down, moving the salad bowl from her lap to the empty seat beside her.

A few chairs down, Regina sees Emma putting down a grilled cheese sandwich with a single bite taken out of the middle of one of the triangular-shaped slices. Regina's head cocks to the side and her blood stills slightly. She can't remember the last time Emma had said no to a perfect grilled cheese. The thought shines another bright light on the horrible situation they're in, and Regina bolts from her seat to the trash can near a water fountain. She spits out the soggy lettuce leaves in a truly undignified fashion, gagging against the bite of salad she'd forced down a few minutes before. She drags a rough napkin across her lips and leans over the water fountain, lapping against the water flow almost desperately to wash the taste out of her mouth and cool her tongue.

Regina returns to the quiet, still cluster of chairs, smoothing down her hair with her restless hands. An hour or so ago, Neal had left to smoke and hadn't returned; Snow has been snoring for a good twenty minutes, reclining along a few chairs with the armrests up, David's jacket now draped across her torso.

Regina wishes she could sleep. She can't recall the last time she'd had a decent sleep--not since the last time she and Emma had spent the night....and then mind cuts off before she can finish her thought and her eyes are trailing over the blonde at the mere memory. She snaps her eyes back down into her lap, cursing her mind.

Snow lets out a particularly loud snore and David raises his head with a start from where he'd been resting his forehead against his hand. He and Regina lock eyes and she gives him what she hopes somewhat resembles a close-lipped smile.

"Thanks for...dinner." She frowns, correcting: "...breakfast?"

David laughs then, and god, the sound of something carefree and human is so, so good to hear. "Yeah, I don't know what this is. Nobody had the stomach for it though." He comments, casting his eyes over the multiple take-out containers filled with unfinished food. "Still, it was nice to get out of this dismal hospital for a half hour. You might want to, too you know? Fresh air? Ever heard of it?" David's jesting with her, and it's something so easy and normal feeling that she finds herself cracking a small smile.

"Very funny. And I told you, I'm not leaving. We could be getting news that Henry's out of surgery any minute now."

David holds up his hands, shrugging. "I'm just saying, don't run yourself straight into the ground. Might not be a terrible idea to get some sleep, either." He moves his gaze towards his daughter, giving her a gentle pat on the back. "That goes for you too, miss."

Emma raises her head from her knees and she gives David a Look. "Not sure that's possible, Dad." She looks over at Regina, sees dark circles underneath her eyes rimmed with black smudges, hallowed-out and pale cheeks, and sad, sad eyes. Then acknowledging: "For either of us."

Regina's back out of her chair in a moment, pacing around the room for what feels like the millionth time. And, judging by how long she's been here, positively wired on stale, horrible coffee and nerves, it may as well be something close to that number. She's just about dying from the anticipation; but she'd almost rather wait forever, while there's still a flicker of hope; a possibility that he'll make it out alive. She doesn't know what she'll do if he..... doesn't.

She thinks briefly of dark, burning alcohol and tears that never cease.

She thinks of sealing the door to her mansion shut tight, of closing the curtains. She thinks of something far too close to sleeping curses.

She thinks of Emma.

Her back is to him when she first hears him clear his throat. Then she's spinning on her heel, turning to face him, a wild, desperate sheen to her eyes. Whale.

She's the first one to reach him across the room; Emma's hot on her heels, and she thinks she hears David hurriedly waking Snow. She couldn't care less.

Henry.

Oh, god, please, Henry. Please----

Then she can't think a moment longer and she says the first thing that's on her mind, carelessly allowing it to fall from her lips. "Is he alive?"  It's a hoarse whisper, throat gone completely dry despite the fact she'd had more than several cups of water not twenty minutes before.

It's the last question in the world she wants answered. God, if he says no, she thinks she'll collapse right then. She'd so much rather cease to exist then live in a horrible world without Henry. Back in the Enchanted Forest, at least she'd known he was safe, cared for. Oh, it was terrible, forced to live a life without him, but at least she'd known he existed.

But this?

It's unbearable.

She watches Dr. Whale open his mouth to answer, and the world seems to be moving in slow motion. All she can hear is a deafening pulsing in her ears, the sound of her accelerated heartbeat, quickening further by the moment. Her eyes glaze over once more, and the man in front of her, though not two feet away, becomes completely unfocused.

"Please," She whispers it out loud this time, and Emma beside her brushes her fingers against her own. Her body shivers from the contact, but she doesn't pull away.

Dr. Whale puts his head down, hands on his hips. "Yes. Against all odds, he pulled through."

Regina feels her knees buckle, and then David's behind her in a moment, grabbing her around her middle and helping her into a chair. Her head is buzzing, her tongue sandpaper dry, the adrenaline from the entire night catching up with her. Tears fall from her eyes, and she feels a smile push aside her pale cheeks. "Thank god---thank---" she whispers, and Emma's beside her, shoulders racking with relieved sobs.

Whale lets them have a few good moments, before settling into the chair he had before the surgery facing them all once more with a straight face, deep bags sitting below his eyes. "I wish I could tell you everything is going to be perfectly fine from here on out. Truth is, he's holding on right now, but he's extremely weak. He's going to have a long, hard recovery if he even makes it through another day." It's blunt, it's horrible, but it's the honest truth, and Regina almost welcomes it. 

It's Emma first. She lifts her head up, staring straight at him. "What can we do?"

"Well, for the first couple of weeks, he'll need to stay here, closely monitored, with only occasional visiting hours. After that though, if he's improved significantly and after some physical therapy, he should be able to be taken home. He'll have to be on bed rest until he fully recovers, because the surgery was rough and if he so much as tears at the incision.." he cuts off, looking at the worried faces in front of them, a few looking as though they could be sick in a second. He chooses not to finish that sentence. "....anyway, as I said, bedrest."

"Can I see him?" Regina pleads after a few long moments of silence, eyes full of emotion, imploring him.

"Regina--" Emma starts, no doubt to remind her that Henry still doesn't remember her. She ignores her, waiting for Whale's response.

"He's....unconscious. It could be days before he wakes up," he tells her, watching all the muscles in her face tense further. He doesn't say that there's a chance he might not wake up at all.

They'll cross that bridge when--if--they come to it.

Regina hasn't said a word, still staring at him, and he sighs. "You...may."

As soon as she's granted permission, she's up and out of her seat, moving across the shiny floor faster than he would have thought possible in such high heels. He stands, following behind her, then places a steady hand on her shoulder to stop her. She wheels around, chest heaving, eyes challenging.

He doesn't back down though, just holds her gaze with something almost like pity. Then, "Regina." It's maybe the first time he'd referred to her as something other than the almost mocking Madam Mayor, and it halts her for a moment, at least. "You won't like what you see in there." He shakes his head, hand sliding off her shoulder. "That sort of image--you can't unsee that. He's not stable, he's not---"

Regina cuts him off, turning to face him completely, eyes narrowing further. "I saw my son at the accident scene, head smashed against the windshield, his body contorted in a way it should never be able to, and saw the blood, and the--so much blood--" she cuts off, eyes softening, head shaking ever so slightly. "That's an image you can't forget. But right now? Right now, my son is alive, and alone in that room, and I'll be damned if I let him go through this by himself for one second longer." Then she's spinning on her heel, and stalking away.

---

She enters the small, dark, private hospital room, closing the door behind her as quietly as she had opened it. It's her subconscious, telling herself to be quiet so as to not wake or disturb her son, but, god, it's awful, and he's lying there alone on the bed, and he might never wake up.

She can barely bring herself to look at the hospital bed, but it's largest thing in the room, and her son needs her. She closes her eyes, counts to four, swallows thickly, and pulls a stray chair right up next to the bed. She sits down, trembling, and scoots the chair as close as her knees poking the mattress will let her.

She first just looks at him, at his face and shallow breathing. His head is propped up by several pillows, eyes closed above thin, hallow, pale cheeks and straight, paler lips. His face is a mess of cuts from the glass shards of the windshield, and there's a thick bandage over one side of his strong jaw. Despite all of this, he's so, so handsome, and for the first time since she'd found him again after six years, she's able to really look at him, studying all the planes of his face and each new fine line settled thinly into his still-young skin.

She gently sweeps a lock of dark brown hair away from his forehead and hovers her hand above his face. She closes her eyes, mumbling quiet, sweet incantations under her breath, then moves her hand away, watching several of the lighter cuts fade away into nothingness. It's not much, the barest minimum in the grand scheme of his injuries, but it's something, and it helps. It's comforting to know she still has some control--that she could do something, however small, to physically help him.

Fighting back tears, because she doesn't want the wetness to obscure her vision of him for one moment, she leans over and presses a soft, lingering, kiss to the middle of his forehead.

She waits.

And waits.

And finally lets the tears fall, because it was her last hope. True love's kiss to heal him was a long shot, longer than most, but she had still hoped. (She nearly wants to smile wryly for a second, because she sounds so much like one of them--one of the heroes, but the smile never comes because she thinks bitterly that there's not a single reason to.)

But he's still laying there, not moving a muscle besides the shallow up-and-down movements of his chest. His eyes remain tightly closed, long eyelashes brushing the skin beneath his eyes.

Alive, but....lifeless.

She shakes her head desperately, tucks her uncharacteristically messy hair behind her ears, swallows past what feels like a hundred obstructions in her throat. She moves her shaking hands to the top of the bed, moving towards his hand closest to her, hanging limply at his side. She grasps his hand in both of hers, squeezing it and rubbing it with her clammy palms. She'd almost expected his hand to be cold like death, as lifeless as the rest of him appears to be, but she's immensely comforted by its warmth. It grounds her, keeps her head where reality is. She never wants to let go.

In the months she's known her older son, she'd barely been able to touch him, except in passing; so she revels in the way she can now. She studies even his hand; each knuckle and raised prominent vein, and feels a stabbing pain as she takes in the way the size of his hand dwarfs her own. She runs her thumb over his calloused palm, then raises his hand to her lips where she presses a kiss onto a few of his knuckles. Then, manually weaving their fingers together, she holds their hands close to her heart.

"Henry," she begins in a whispered, breaking tone, then halts, momentarily stunned by how loud the sound of her voice is. It's the only thing that breaks the unnerving silence in the room, besides the metronomic beeping of the monitor next to his bed.

She swallows two more times, clutches his hand tighter, and continues. "I....I don't know if you can hear me but..." she's trailing off once more, the pressure and tingling in her nose becoming so intense it almost hurts. She blinks the wetness in her eyes away, and focuses on his face. "But, my Little Prince, if you can, you need to hold on, okay? Just---just, hold on," she pleads, and then there's a loud, startling sob racking her body. "I know you don't...remember me, exactly, or who I really am, but, Baby, you're my son and I'm going to fix this," she vows, making promises she doesn't know how to keep and finally telling the boy what she's wanted to for so many months, but it falls on unhearing ears.

"I'm so sorry," she whispers, and then what's been eating her is finally slipping out. "I know that I can't change fate, but I can't help but wonder, if I had just gotten that potion to you sooner, would you have tried to leave town and would this have happened? I tried--god, Baby, I tried so hard to get it to work but--" her chin wobbles and she moves their hands to rest on her forehead, her head bent down. "I wasn't strong enough, I didn't do it in time. I failed. I just hope that you can forgive me." Then the back of her free hand is trailing down his cheek, and she tries not to feel the scratchiness on his jaw that tells he needs to shave.

"But you were always so strong," she tells him, trying so hard to remind him somehow of a different life. "The Truest Believer, always seeing the best in everybody. You believed in me, god, even when I didn't deserve it, and now it's my turn to believe for both of us." She runs her thumb across his knuckles and leans over to kiss his forehead again.

She's interrupted from her one-sided conversation when the door suddenly unlatches, and she nearly jumps out of her skin. She snaps her head around to see Emma standing in the doorway, looking lost and almost sick.

"I'm...sorry," Emma says, and it wasn't meant to be a whisper, but her voice is so dry and hoarse that it's not much more than that. "I just---I needed to see---"

Regina shakes her head, gently unclasping her and Henry's hands, then carefully places his arm back onto the mattress. She gives Henry one last loving glance, trails her fingers over his hair, then crosses the short distance to the doorway. "No, I get it. I do. I'm sorry, I was...insensitive, obviously you'd want to spend time with--" she breaks off, casting a look towards the bed that looks inexplicably smaller even a few feet away.

Emma's red-rimmed eyes cast down to the floor, and there's a small curl on the edge of her lips that barely push her cheeks apart. "Thanks." She mumbles, then moves across the room to sit in the chair Regina had dragged up to the bed.

Regina steps closer to the door, fingers grazing the cool metal of the door handle. Then,

"Wait."

Regina pauses, drops her hand to her side, turns around to look at Emma. The blonde is holding Henry's same hand in both of her own, and her eyes are wide and pleading and almost terrified.

"Can you...could you...stay?" Emma whispers, and it barely reaches across the small room and it's almost drowned out by the sound of the monitor, but Regina hears it. Even if she hadn't, she understands. Wordlessly, she drags a second chair over to the opposite side of the bed, and sits.

It's quiet, almost deafeningly so, but it's a strange sense of calm, with the three of them arranged neatly in a semicircle.

The family they should be.

AN: hey, sorry for the slightly longer wait than usual, but it's a bit of a longer chapter so hopefully it makes up for that a little.

On that note, I was wondering: would you all rather I keep uploading short chapters with short waits in-between, or that I start writing longer ones with longer waits? Let me know.

Hope you enjoyed!