He's three years old and he wakes with a cry in the middle of the night. It was a nightmare of some kind--some terror that he does not yet understand--and he only wants one thing in the world. Then he's calling out her name--"MAMA!!"--and then she's there in front of him. She's scooping him into her arms, whispering into his ear, telling him she's right here and that she'll never leave him again, and, my little prince. He breathes in flowery perfume and lays his soft cheek in the dip beneath her shoulder, and his sobs slow down into hiccups, and then nothing at all. She's there. He's safe.

He's six years old now and learning how to ride a bike. He feels the wind in his hair and the bumps of the training wheels behind him on the sidewalk, and he's smiling. He just wants to go faster--faster--and he hears her behind him, running in her heels to keep up. She doesn't tell him to slow down, to stop, like he thinks she will. Instead, she's cheering him on, and there's "I'm so proud of you," and, "There you go, you're getting it now!" The wind blows his brown bangs into his eyes and through the strands he sees a twig on the sidewalk in front of him. He doesn't know if he can clear it, panics, and then he's falling sideways off the training bike and connecting hard with the pavement. He cries, pain sears through him, and then he's picked up tenderly and carried home by her, rocking him back and forth in her arms even though he's becoming almost too heavy for her. She carries him all the way to the mansion, up the porch steps, and then upstairs to the bathroom. She cleans his cuts and gives him his favorite Star Wars band-aids and plenty of kisses. Before he knows it, he's smiling again and he's too young to notice the way light shines out of her face when she knows she's done him right. He just laughs and asks to be picked up again, and that he wants mac and cheese for lunch. That's exactly what he gets.

He's nine years old and they're fighting. He yells at her for the first time in his life, there's "Why didn't you tell me?!" and then an "I hate you!" He's horrified at himself and he hadn't meant a word he said in his anger, but the words are out and hanging thick in the air. He watches her, afraid; waits for her to yell and scream at him, tell him that she hates him back and wishes she hadn't adopted him. Instead, her mouth closes, her eyes fill with tears, and she just looks at him. He flees; spinning around and running up the stairs to his room. His door slams and he jumps onto his bed, covering his face with a pillow. The word adopted rings in his ears. He hates secrets; he doesn't know why he wasn't wanted when he was born, he doesn't understand, but he doesn't hate his mother. He doesn't, and the silence becomes deafening and he feels so, so alone. He stays in his room until he smells lasagna and he meekly climbs back down the stairs, sees her in the kitchen. He tells her, "I'm so sorry," and, "I didn't mean it," and everything inbetween. He cries, she holds him, and they don't speak. Dinner is a sullen affair and all the while adopted rings through his skull.

He's ten years old and he's riding the train by himself and climbing up the stairs of a tall apartment building. He knows he's going to be in trouble, so much of it, but he has to know--just has to--and then he's knocking hard on the door. And then she's there, Emma's there, looking down at him with her blonde curls and tight dress. She's so much different than his mom, and he's scared for one moment before he smiles at her and tells her that he's her son. There's a long car drive, full of fairytales from his book and talk of saviors, but he knows she's not ready yet. Then they're walking back up the stairs to his house, and his ears burn with shame as his mom opens the door and hugs him, hanging on for dear life. And then a twisted sense of purpose surges within him and he's pushing her off of him and saying, "I found my REAL mom!" He doesn't wait to see her reaction, doesn't want to; he just flees to his room, cracks open his storybook and thinks of saviors and evil queens. And right now, it's far too easy to see which is which.

He's twelve years old now and the curse he had believed in so much is broken, and so much has happened in two years it hurts to think about. But right now there's thick green smoke and loud, startling thunderclaps and his mother--his real mother--Regina--is telling everyone that she needs to separate herself from him in order to prevent the curse. All he can hear is blood rushing in his ears and all he can feel is panic pulsing through his veins and quickening his heartbeat. He's struggling to find her eyes with his own, shaking his head slowly, trying to communicate with her, screaming in his mind, no, no. No! Shame covers him like a blanket as he thinks of every time he'd wronged her; every time he'd carelessly slapped a label on her, calling her--god--"evil." She refuses to make eye contact with him, however; actively averting her eyes, looking everywhere but him. Far too observant for someone his age, he knows it's because she knows if the two of them lock eyes, this nightmare will become far too real. The sick churning in his stomach continues as the rest of the adults talk, panickedly trying to work something else out, but not a word slips out of his mouth. He doesn't talk at all until they're all at the town line saying--he can't think the word. Goodbye. Regina looks at him then; really looks at him, and he thinks that he'll melt under her gaze--but he looks back and they share a silent moment before he runs right into her arms. He hugs her tight--so tight he worries he's hurting her, but he can't make himself stop--and he's breathing in her flowery scent, trying oh so hard not to think about how this will be his last time. The last time he breathes her in, the last time he feels her arms around him and the sense of security like her tucking him into bed as a small child. He closes his eyes and tries to enjoy every last moment even with tears leaking out of his eyes. Then he's saying the loaded words and he means them with every inch of his beating heart: "You're not a villain. You're my mom." And then he's climbing into the Bug with Emma and his mind goes blank.

His eyes fly open and he returns to the present with a gasping breath.

He's disoriented, he's terrified, and there's a thousand wires connecting him, stopping his every panicked movement. There's only one word on his mind, he's screaming, "Mom, MOM!" and he has no idea if he's saying the words out loud or not.

Then it all stops and he blinks and he remembers where he is--

--no, god no, not just where he is--he remembers everything. Every single moment of his damned life--his real one, and his crazed eyes move around the room until he finds her.

Finds, "Mom?"

She looks at him then, just looks, and he sees a thick wall of tears glazing her eyes, and then there's three of the tears falling all at once and soaking into the sheets on his bed. Her mouth morphs slowly into a smile, like she can't quite believe what's happening and she doesn't want to get her hopes up quite yet; but then there's a grin breaking out of her skin like a ray of light and it's the first time he's seen a look like that in what feels like a thousand years.

Then, again: "Mom."

She gasps in a shuddering breath, tucking her hair hurriedly behind her ears before moving her hands down, clasping his, and then moving her hand over his face. He leans into the touch, harboring a hazy memory of someone cradling his face, comforting him in his deep, dark, horrible, mind-blanking sleep. He knows without even thinking that it was her--it was all her. It's always been her.

One more time then, "Mama...oh my god, oh my god, Mom. It's you--it's you--"

Then finally, she finds her voice, and she's shaking her head fondly. "Yes, my little prince, it's me, it's--" her voice breaks, and then he feels wetness trailing into his ears and onto both sides of his pillow.

Because it's been so, so many years since he's been called that, since he'd heard the words said by her--only her--and he thinks his heart is either beating too fast for him to feel the pulse or it's not beating at all. Because he's somebody's little prince again and although he's so much bigger than her now, and far too much time has passed--time they will never get back--it's somehow everything he's ever wanted.

My little prince.

And then the emotion is all too much--and he feels himself unwillingly slipping back into darkness, his consciousness falling away from him--but he fights, he fights, because he refuses leave his mother. Not after--not after everything.

He'll be damned.

Damned if he ever leaves her again.

So he pries his eyelids open, gestures and garbles through his imperfect syllables for Regina to use the controls to prop him up in bed. It takes a few tries--and god, he's frustrated, frustrated that the simplest things are so hard now--but she understands and he feels the bed slowly pushing him up. His tongue feels like sandpaper against the roof of his mouth and he desperately wants water--but he's not sure if more than one sip of memory potion is safe to drink. He doesn't voice any of this to his mother though; he doesn't want to burden her in any way, and certainly doesn't want her out of his sight, at least for now.

So he swallows several times, blinks until the room comes back into focus, and turns towards her slowly. She looks him over in obvious concern; and he hates it--hates that he's worrying her and hates that he's in this condition at all--but neither of them address the issue.

Instead, he smiles, and tells her, "I missed you."

It's such a simple statement--not even near enough for their situation--but the words are loaded so heavily that he watches her eyes moisten all over again. His throat closes up and he thinks about the water again.

But then he realizes that it's not enough, so he's trying to explain himself. "I mean, obviously I didn't remember, but in the back of my mind, I swear to you, I knew there was something missing. I--" he tells her, his throat closing up around the words. "I saw you in my dreams, too. Didn't know who you were, but--" he breaks off once more, shaking his head, hair rubbing against the pillow as he looks deep into her eyes that seem to soften further and further as he continues. "But you were always there."

She's smiling then--an honest-to-god grin splitting across her cheeks at the revelation that even as she felt so cut off from her son during those awful, awful years, she was there with him.

Even when fate ripped them apart, they found a way.

And Regina doesn't know if she feels more like crying or laughing with the irony of it all. She does both, and then she's standing from her chair and starting to lean over his bed. She stops.

"Is it alright if I--" she begins, tears dripping and heart racing fast with the words she's about to say. "Can I hug you? I mean, will it hurt--" She's stumbling over her words, and she's thinking back to a time so very long ago that they had hugged each other by the town line, both never wanting to let go, all the freedom in the world in their embrace. Now, he's nearly nineteen and she doesn't know how he feels about the type of affection, and knows even less if he can be hugged in his current state, and all of these thoughts are exactly enough to break her heart.

But then he's cutting her off, shaking his head, a small hint of a smile on the corner of his lips. "Please," he whispers to her, pleading openly with his glassy eyes, and he thinks that if he doesn't feel his mother's arms around him in the next couple of moments he won't know how to cope. "Please, mom," he breaks out again, trying to ignore the slurring of his words, and though his arms feel much too sluggish to reach out to her, he prays that she knows.

And she does know, because she's telling him, "Of course, Henry," and bending over him.

And then her arms are wrapped around his strong frame, gingerly at first around the wires and hospital gown, but with each second her grip grows a little tighter. She feels him shaking under her touch, hears his muffled cries against her shoulder, feels his hands reach up as far as they can, his fingers brushing lightly over her back.

It's nothing like a hug, it's awkward, her back hurts, and she can't get her arms completely around him, but it's perfect.

God, it's perfect, and she's touching him, and he's in her arms again, and she thought she'd have to cease to exist before she experienced this again.

So she closes her eyes, breathes in his scent that has entirely lost its boyishness, replaced with nearly faded cologne and the heavy scent of hospital. But she won't complain, and thinks that maybe she doesn't have a right to ever again--thinks that maybe this is the happiest she's been in so long.

And then the shaking stops, and his fingers slip off her back and his forearms return to the mattress. She takes this as a sign that he no longer wants to be touched, so she slowly backs off of him.

But she sees closed eyelids, his chapped lips parted slightly and each muscle in his face relaxed, breathing regulated.

She shouldn't be surprised or upset by it--knows full well what Whale had told her, that his periods of consciousness will be short and unpredictable for awhile. Still, she finds herself wishing and praying to no particular god so hard for him; thinking that he deserves so much more than to be reduced to this.

Still, she brushes hair away from his forehead before placing her lips against his cheek. "I love you," she whispers, and though she knows there's no way he could have heard it, she swears she sees a hint of a smile twitch the corner of his lips.

---

It's a few minutes short of midnight, and a blood red full moon hangs against a velvet, deep black sky. He's in the driver's seat of the cramped interior of a car, his knees poking the dashboard. He's calm--though everything feels disoriented--and he's not sure why or where he's driving. He happens to glance down towards the flashing lights behind his steering wheel, and curses loudly when he sees his speedometer. He's pushing ninety now, and his speed continues to climb without his bidding. He looks back up, and sees another car in front of him that he hadn't noticed before--one that he seems to be following. The car in front speeds up, and so does he, without pushing the pedal, and the engine revs angrily. He sees himself gaining fast on the car, and, becoming increasingly scared of a collision, he eases off the gas before tapping the brake.

He doesn't slow down.

Panicked, he moves his left foot over the brake as well, stomping on the pedal with both feet with all of his force. Nothing happens, and studies the speedometer, watching it climb past 120. He feels the last of his control over the vehicle disappear completely, his blood turning to ice as the road burns under the car's tires, the slickness of the pavement causing him to swerve.

He looks up again, watches the car in front of him disappear into thin air, instantly replaced with a huge forest of giant, dead trees.

He screams, repeatedly kicking the brake pedal with both feet, cursing, praying for it to work. The rotting trunk of a tree comes closer and closer, his speed only continuing to rise.

He collides. Hard.

The car plows straight into the black trunk, and the seatbelt he had been wearing moments before slices through his neck before disappearing, abandoning him before he sails straight through the windshield. The thick glass shatters, digging gorish, jagged gashes into his face, so deep the dirty shards hit bone. There's blood pouring from every part of his face--his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, wounds--and he sees nothing but dark red, smells nothing but his own blood and rotting flesh and burnt fumes from the car.

Only his feet remain in the mangled vehicle, the rest of him stretched out on his stomach on the burning hood of the car, the flames and smoke licking his bare skin. He hears loud, repeated snapping of rotting wood then, and doesn't have to see to know what's about to happen.

In the split second before the tree falls over him, smashing him against the car and crushing the rest of the life out of his body---

He wakes to the sound of screaming.

It takes several seconds for him to realize it's himself, his throat hoarse and raw, but he forgets how to stop.

He pries his eyes open from sleep, sees nothing but black, and in his muddled state, he can't tell the difference between his dreams and reality.

He continues to shriek, scraping his nails over his eyes, his heart rate pounding out of his chest as his restricted arms disallow him to move from the bed and the sheets that are swallowing him whole.

Then the sound of a door banging open reaches his ears, and the flick of a switch that floods the room with light that momentarily blinds him. Whale's over his bed in a second, gently shaking him, telling him calmly to wake up.

"Come on, Henry. Come on. It was a dream, you can wake up. You're all right." He tells him in his calming, placating voice, forcibly holding Henry's arms down as he fights the wires.

Henry looks up at him with terrified, wet eyes, and his ears are ringing, but the screaming has stopped. He trembles, and he has to swallow several times before he forces out, "My mom--I w'nt my---mom--" he slurs out, pleading with the doctor with his vivid green eyes, imploring him to understand.

The doctor nods sharply, patting him a few times on the shoulder, seeming reluctant to leave him. Finally, after a few times changing his mind, he nods again. "Okay, Henry. You sit tight. I'm going to be right back, okay?"

Henry tries to calm the panic that rises up in him at the prospect of being left alone.

But Whale doesn't leave until Henry finally nods, and then he's out the door.

He finds them in the waiting room, beneath draped blankets stretched across several seats. They're both out cold, both obviously completely exhausted, and he almost feels as though he shouldn't wake them. He thinks of Henry then--thinks of his PTSD and his panic and his pulling at the wires--and it's more than enough for him to bend down, shaking awake both of Henry's mothers.

They come to far faster than they should, both startling awake and sitting bolt upright. When they see who waked them, both of their faces grow white and their eyes widen--as if they're expecting the worst possible news from him.

"Henry?" Regina asks before she says another word; her voice raspy with sleep and her eyebrows knit in worry.

Whale extends a hand in front of him, trying in vain to calm them down. He almost says that their son is doing fine--but the words die out before they cross his chapped lips, because he realizes that he's not so sure if it's the truth. Instead, he sighs, stuffs his twitching hands in his white coat to keep them busy, before saying, "Henry has woken up again due to a--seemingly--very intense nightmare. He's pretty disoriented and distressed, but he's asking for his mother." He watches them soak up the information, glancing quickly toward each other and then away again. "I'm not sure which mother he meant."

They meet each other's eyes again, Emma's green irises intense and Regina's brown ones soft with emotion. Then Regina's opening her mouth to speak, but Emma shakes her head.

"It's okay, Regina; you go to him. Pretty sure he means you," she tells the older woman, watching the hard creases in her face soften slightly. Regina hesitates a moment longer, looking at Emma, telling her thank you wordlessly, but then she's shaking her head and standing up.

She crosses the shiny, waxed floor of the hospital quickly, her foggy, sleepy head pounding and dizzy from moving too fast after just waking. She pushes every thought of herself out of her mind, however; focuses only on her son as she pushes his door and finds him in bed, staring up at the ceiling with wide eyes, shallow movements of his chest showing his breathing.

She approaches the bed slowly, unsure how to make her presence known. She's afraid of startling him, and her mind flickers to a time long ago with her son when comforting him as a child after a nightmare was an easy thing to do--the calming movements and words she said came easily to her then. Now, everything is different.

Still, she sits down shakily on the side of the bed, and his bloodshot eyes dart to her. The glassiness coating his irises increases, and he swallows thickly. "Mom?"

"Yes, my little prince, I'm here." She tells him, rubbing his broad shoulder up and down with as much pressure as she knows he likes. The sensation visibly calms him; his eyelids closing halfway, and his breathing slowing slightly. "I'm here." She repeats, watching him release his muscles in his shoulders slightly with the reassurance.

"I'm terrified," he tells her, and it hits her like a bullet to the chest.

Still, she doesn't show a single sign that it hurts her, and she continues to rub him, her other hand cupping his cheek. When he was a child, he always needed to explain his feelings to her--then, and only then, would he begin to let go of his terrors--and she wonders if it's the same way now. Following her instincts, she doesn't say a word--not just yet--only waits for him to continue.

"I'm terrified of sleeping," he elaborates, and Regina wills her lips to stop trembling. She focuses on his face, watches him screw up his features as he struggles to form his feelings into words. "After I was in that coma--it was so dark and I couldn't remember a single thing--and after I woke up from it, and I couldn't even remember how to speak--" he breaks off, squeezing his eyes shut, shaking his head. "I didn't want to fall asleep again, but I did, and I can barely stay awake, and I keep reliving the crash, over, and over again," Tears leak out of his eyes then, and Regina stops the rubbing to wipe them away, before stroking his cheek and placing a kiss on his forehead.

"Every single time, I'm in that damned car, and the brake doesn't work," he tells her, and it's scratching the mere surface--it's only the beginning of something that skyrockets his anxiety every time his mind wanders over to it--but she's nodding like she knows, and he thinks that she does. "And I smash into the same tree, and--" he stops once more, realizing that he can't begin to describe the terror of what happens next. He can't tell her about the windshield, about the vomit and blood pouring from every opening in his face, can't tell her about being burned alive atop of a car hood, can't tell her about his insides being smashed flat and the life being snuffed out of him by the same damned tree. Just thinking about it causes his heart to accelerate, and the monitor beside him starts to beep faster and faster. "---and I die."

Regina finally speaks then, placing a finger on his lips. "Henry. Henry, it's not real. You're not--dead--you've made it through, and you're here with me," she reminds him, brushing her thumb across the bridge of his nose. "Open your eyes," she whispers.

His eyelids slowly flicker open, long eyelashes heavy and glistening with unshed tears.

"You're here. See?" She takes one of his hands and gently presses it over his chest. His heartbeat pulses under his fingertips, and he feels the comfort of the sensation. "You're alive, and you're with me." She repeats, moving his hand from his chest and pressing it onto hers. His fingers curl into her shirt, pulling at the soft fabric.

"Can you stay with me?" He asks, the depth of his tone contrasting the smallness of the words.

"I'll be here the whole time. You can sleep," she whispers, kissing him on the forehead again, moving to the seat next to his bed. She stretches out her arm, still rubbing his shoulder long after her muscles begin to tire. She doesn't stop until she hears soft snoring and the tenseness in his face relax.

She stays.

AN: I hope you enjoyed this VERY heavily-centered RegalBeliever chapter. It ran a little long, so I'm a day late. Hopefully you all don't mind too much.

Exciting news, though: I'm working on a new SQ fic here on my account! It's been in the works for weeks now, and I've just finished outlining each of the chapters, which means I'm ready to write. I should have the prologue up soon, so watch out for that notification! I hope you are all as excited as I am.

Please make my day by voting and perhaps dropping a comment:)