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Henry Mills knows his Mom and Ma love each other. Like, he’s not an idiot and they kiss a lot when they think he’s not looking and hold hands on family movie night (Mom likes costume dramas but Ma’s more of an action fan, so there’s always fights about what to watch) and Mom calls Ma ‘dear’ all the time, even if she mostly says it sort of patronisingly – like the way she speaks when she talked to his third grade teacher who she thought was an imbecile (Henry learnt that word that night listening to Ma and Mom fight about Mom’s behaviour at parent conferences).
He was named after Mom’s dad, his Abuelo. He died when Henry was three, too young to really remember the kindly old man beyond the scent of cigar smoke and picture books read to him. Henry remembers the night it happened though. He remembers padding into his parents’ bedroom because he heard noises and finding Mom lying in Ma’s arms, sobbing.
“Hey, kid,” Ma had said. Henry remembers going over, hugging his mom as she lay there, shoulders shaking. He’d slept between them that night, trying really hard not to kick or fidget, and in the morning he and Ma had made feel-better pancakes with lots of chocolate chips and almost set fire to the kitchen in the process.
Henry knows Mom and Ma love each other but sometimes they fight like they really dislike each other. “Is it too much to ask that you clean up after yourself?” Mom asks, rinsing plates at the sink and banging them down on the counter. Henry’s surprised she hasn’t broken one.
“God, I hate it when you go and see her,” Ma says, shoving Mom out of the way with her hip and loading the dishwasher. They’d had tacos for dinner and he and Ma had been in the middle of a game of Poker – playing for pennies – when his mom got home. “You’re always in a snit when you get back.” Mom’s been visiting Grandmother. Henry doesn’t like his grandmother much and he feels guilty about it; she’s the only one he has. He doesn’t like how tense and scary she makes Mom and how Ma always acts like a teenager on the rare occasions she sees her.
“Oh, grow up, Swan,” Mom says. She only calls Ma ‘Swan’ when she’s pissed off. It’s a thing from back when they were in high school together and it really annoys Ma.
“You grow up,” Ma mutters and Henry rolls his eyes because, seriously, he’s ten and he knows that’s an immature response.
Mom storms out at that and this time a plate does break. Ma sweeps up the shards, wraps them in newspaper. “Kid, you okay to finish with the dishwasher?”
Henry nods. “Maybe you should leave her alone a bit,” he suggests.
“Nah,” Ma says. “Don’t want to give her time to come up with a solid revenge plan.” She ruffles his hair and leaves.
*
Emma sidles into the study. Regina’s at her desk, scribbling furiously – probably it’s Emma’s budget at the sheriff’s department and she’s about to lose any extra funding and the request for another deputy she put in yesterday. Regina doesn’t look up when she comes in, but her shoulders tense.
“Babe,” Emma says. “Talk.”
“Nothing to talk about,” Regina says.
“You just had a tantrum because I left dishes in the sink,” Emma says. “Talk.”
Regina sighs. “She wants me to run for state senate,” she says.
Emma snort-laughs. Regina glares. “Sorry,” she says. “You’ve barely been mayor here for six months. Do you want–”
“Idiot,” Regina scoffs. “Of course not.”
“Well, good,” Emma says. “I mean, if you wanted to we’d work it out, but I really like the life we’re creating here.”
“So do I,” Regina says and her voice is softer. “Mother’s more ambitious than I am.”
“Pretty sure Cora’s more ambitious than God,” Emma says, rolling her eyes. She sits in the chair in front of Regina’s desk because even in her home office of course Regina’s got it set up like her mayoral chambers. If she slouches and stretches her body, she can reach her foot under the desk and rub her socked foot against Regina’s calf. “What’d you tell her?”
“I said I’d think about it,” she says. “It’s easier. I can email her later.” She’s still got a pen in her hand, eyes on the desk, ostensibly working, but Emma knows she’s just trying to avoid making eye contact.
“Want a drink?” Emma asks.
“I shouldn’t. I’ve got to get through these.”
“No,” Emma says. “Tomorrow.” And she grabs the pile of manila folders, using her superior height to hold them out of reach.
Regina scowls, approaches Emma, stretches to reach the files, and over-balances, toppling onto the carpet. Emma is pulled down with her, landing on top of her and cracking her hip against Regina’s leg. “Christ!” she yells and the folders go everywhere.
“Your grace is what I was most attracted to,” Regina says, eyebrow quirking. A piece of computer paper lands on her hair and she brushes it off impatiently.
“Who fell?” Emma asks. “Oh, that’s right. Madame Mayor.”
Regina hisses at the title, a low, almost purring sound. Emma knows it turns her on a bit and enjoys using it in the most inappropriate of circumstances – at council meetings, in front of Kathryn and Jim, at PTA meetings…
“You want to play that game, Sheriff Swan?” Regina asks, her voice low and dangerous.
“So much,” Emma breathes before she ducks her head, mouths meeting. Emma grabs Regina’s wrists, holding them above Regina’s head with one hand, while the other clumsily unbuttons her shirt. Regina hisses when Emma pops a button off the silk blouse. The hiss turns into a gasp when Emma’s hand snakes under the shirt, cupping a breast, encased in lace, thumb rubbing the taut nipple.
“Still worried about those folders?” Emma asks, planting soft kisses along Regina’s breastbone. In response, Regina, hands still trapped in Emma’s grasp, shifts so that her leg rubs against the apex of Emma’s thigh, tantalisingly close to where Emma so wants to be touched. Emma moans and bites Regina’s lip.
There’s a knock at the study door. “Ah, Mom?” Henry. “I kind of exploded the dishwasher.”
For a moment, the two of them lie in silence, bodies twisted together, before Regina scrambles up, buttoning her shirt and patting Emma on her exposed stomach. She whispers, “to be continued,” and departs, hips swaying, leaving Emma to catch her breath on the floor.
*
“Tell me a story, Mom,” Henry says. It’s Friday night and they’re sitting in the living room together. Mandatory Family Togetherness Time, Ma calls it, and she throws cushions at people (Henry, Mom) when they tell her that’s not a real thing she can schedule. Currently Ma has her head resting on Mom’s lap and Mom’s stroking Ma’s blonde curls, the expression on her face unusually fond.
“A fairy tale?” Mom asks. “Or do you want to read more Harry Potter?”
Henry shakes his head. Mom and Ma have been reading him the Harry Potter series, even though he’s totally capable of reading them himself (and has in fact been skipping ahead). They’re up to book five. Ma’s better at doing Harry and Ron’s voices and, weirdly enough, Professor McGonagall, but Mom excels at Hermione and Snape, who are Henry’s two favourite characters. Last Halloween Henry made them dress up as the trio and Ma looked totally hilarious in her ginger wig. “A true story,” he says. “About how you found out about me.”
“He gets his self-involved nature from you, dear,” Mom says. Ma’s response is to bang her head hard against Mom’s knees, which seems stupid to Henry because Ma winces harder than Mom does and rubs her head sheepishly. “Idiot,” Mom says, but Henry can hear the affection in her voice.
“It was a cold winter’s night,” Mom says, voice rich and low, and Henry cuddles up against her. “I was studying for mid-terms when there was a knock at the door. I opened it to find this pathetic blonde creature on my doorstep, crying.”
“Can we not call me pathetic?” Ma asks.
“Just setting the scene, dear,” Mom says. “Since your mother has ruined the surprise, suffice to say I was shocked to find Emma Swan at the door to my apartment. I hadn’t seen her for nearly three years.”
Henry lets the words flow over him, picturing the rest in his head. He knows this story, has heard it a hundred times. He knows his moms met at high school and split up in their first year at college. He knows his dad’s this guy, Neal, who Mom and Ma went to high school with; Neal lives in, like, Colorado so Henry doesn’t really see him much and it doesn’t bother him much. He likes his family; it’s small and strange but indisputably his.
“Swan, what on earth are you doing here?” Mom exclaims. He imagines the shock on her face, like the time when he came home with a bleeding cut over his left eye last year after falling out of a tree.
Ma gulps, desperately sucking in air. “Can I come in?”
“Well, you’re letting the heat out...”
Inside, they sit at either end of Mom’s couch. “Wine?” Mom asks. When Henry was younger, Mom used to edit this out for cocoa – Henry’s not stupid, he knows adults drink even though he can’t understand why because alcohol is disgusting.
“No, thank you,” Ma says, wiping her eyes on the sleeve of her coat. It’s a weirdly polite conversation for them. Henry always finds it bizarre to hear, even retold.
“Why are you here?” Mom asks. She has a glass of wine in one hand (no more study tonight) and she’s studying her ex-girlfriend, noting the thin cheeks, the dark bruise-like circles under her eyes, her pale complexion.
“I didn’t know who else to go to,” Ma admits. “Mary Margaret’s not coming back from San Francisco for Christmas this year. Ruby’s in Michigan. She’s the one who gave me your address, by the way. I thought ‘Regina’ll know what to do. Regina always knows’.” She unzips her jacket and Mom notices the faint rounded outline of her stomach, incongruous in contrast to her skinny frame.
“You’re pregnant,” Mom says, voice hollow.
“Due at the end of May,” Ma says. “I stuffed up, Regina.” When Ma tells the story, the word isn’t ‘stuffed’ but ‘fucked’.
Mom’s silent for a time, observing Emma, thinking. “What were you thinking, Swan?” she asks eventually, standing up, putting the kettle on to boil in her tiny, hole-in-the-wall of a kitchen. Mom has fond memories of that studio apartment, the first place that was just for her. They lived there for the first year of Henry’s life, though obviously he can’t remember it. He’s seen the photos. He was an angry-looking, red faced baby with a shock of dark, spiky hair, and most of the photos they have are of Ma or Mom holding him. In his favourite, they’ve managed to set up a timer, but not very well, so Mom’s mid-sentence and not looking at the camera and Ma’s arm is blurry. They look really happy though.
“I thought I’d find out just how bisexual I am,” Ma admits. “The answer is not very and never again.”
“Well,” Mom says. The kettle is whistling as it boils and Mom places camomile tea bags into mugs. “It’s far too late for you to trek back to Boston in your condition. Stay here tonight.”
“And that night turned into the next night and the next and then your mother started buying groceries and chipping in for the rent and redecorating,” Mom says. Henry opens his eyes. Mom is smiling, teeth showing, and her eyes are soft. “And eventually I realised that I wanted to see the little bean in your mother’s stomach grow up into a person.”
“She offered to adopt you and give you the life you wouldn’t get with me,” Ma says, rolling her eyes. “We fought about that.”
“And then?” Henry prompts.
“And then your mother went into labour during her last exam,” Mom says. “And I found myself in the hospital staring down at her all red in the face and sweaty and swearing like a sailor and realised I didn’t want to be apart from her ever again either.”
“She also insisted we call you Henry,” Ma says, grimacing. “I wanted to call you River.”
Mom rolls her eyes dramatically. “Over my cold, dead body.”
“I don’t know why you got to name my baby,” Ma complains. “We weren’t even together at the time.” Henry knows. Ma would do anything Mom wanted, just to see her smile.
He grins at his mothers. He’s always liked a good happy ending.
*
Emma’s hair is a matted mess and she looks like she’s run ten marathons back to back when the baby’s placed in her arms. Regina sits in the chair beside her, silent and staring, amazed at the way Emma’s eyes light up at the sight of her child, the soft stroking of her finger on his red cheek.
“Penny for them?” Emma asks, voice soft, as though terrified of disturbing the tiny, snuffling child in her arms.
I want to marry you, Regina thinks. Aloud, she says, “He’s beautiful.”
Emma laughs. “He looks like an angry gnome,” she says. “Don’t you, precious?”
“Still,” Regina says. “Beautiful.”
“Yeah,” Emma says. For a moment, Emma’s eyes leave the baby and lock with Regina’s. Her hazel eyes, eyelids drooping because she’s so tired, shine with emotion. Regina wants to kiss her. They’ve hooked up a few times over the past five months; Emma’s hormones were all out of whack and Regina was trying to help. When you share a bed in a studio apartment with a horny, pregnant woman, there’s only so much you can do to help and sex was always something Regina was good at.
“What’s his name?” Regina asks.
“Too tired to think about it,” Emma says. Regina knows she made a list last month. She found it in a pile of papers and barely restrained herself from crossing all of the names off it because they were all terrible.
“What about Henry?” Regina asks. “After my dad.”
“Why would I name my baby after your dad?” Emma asks.
“Perhaps,” Regina says, hesitant, “he could be our baby.”
“If you’re bringing up the adoption idea again, I will slap you when I have the energy,” Emma says.
“You are so dense,” Regina snaps. “I’m asking you to marry me.” She claps a hand over her mouth. All she was going to suggest is that they give their relationship another try.
Emma’s mouth opens, she stares at Regina and Regina feels bubbles of panic wind their way up from her stomach, constricting her chest and throat. “Come here,” Emma says, patting space on the bed and, heart still tapping out a quick rhythm, Regina complies. Emma holds the baby out to her. “Meet Henry,” she says and, carefully, she places Henry in Regina’s arms.
“Mother’s going to kill me,” she murmurs, staring in wonder down at the baby, holding him so gently because she’s afraid he might break. Their baby. Their Henry.
Emma laughs softly. “Part of the appeal, I’ll admit.”
*
Emma puts Henry to bed and comes downstairs to find Regina, glass of red wine in hand, staring at the fire. “He says he’s going to sleep,” Emma says, “but he barely waited until I was out of the room to pull out his flashlight.”
Regina continues to stare at the dancing flames. “Do you regret moving back here?”
Emma sits back down, putting her feet up on Regina’s lap. “No.” She likes Storybrooke for all its eccentricities. She loves Granny’s Diner and the flower shop and running on the beach and she loves how safe it is. In Boston they lived in an apartment and Henry was escorted everywhere. Here, he can wander off down the road to see Nick or Paige or any of his buddies and Emma knows he’s safe.
“You could be so much more than a small town sheriff,” Regina says, stroking Emma’s legs, encased in tight jeans. “You were on the path to making detective.”
Emma laughs. “I’m not ambitious. You know that.”
“I just – worry.”
Emma recalls the break up. It had been Christmas break during their first year at college. Even the short distance between Harvard and Northeastern was too far. Regina was nervous and snappy and acerbic and Emma responded by pushing her away. “I can’t do this anymore,” Regina had said over the phone when Emma had called to cancel plans for the third time in as many weeks. Emma hadn’t argued. She’d just fallen to pieces instead.
She remembers going to Mary Margaret’s for Christmas that year. The Blanchards had extended her an open invitation and Emma loved the ease and openness of Leo and Eva, loved the sprawling, old wooden villa, loved that there was family everywhere – maiden aunts and cousins and babies and old family friends. Emma bunked with Mary Margaret who had taken one look at her and said, “you split up, didn’t you?”
Emma had cried then, soaking Mary Margaret’s woollen sweater with tears.
“Don’t worry,” Emma says. “I’m happy.”
“Of course. Because it’s that easy,” Regina says, rolling her eyes.
“Hey, have I ever lied to you?” Emma asks. “I am so happy. Look.” She grins manically, jaw hurting with the effort. Regina laughs in spite of herself. “How about we take a holiday next weekend?” Emma suggests. “Drop Henry with Kathryn in Portland and I’ll find us somewhere to stay for a couple of nights online.”
Regina sighs. “You’re not working?”
“Not scheduled,” Emma says. “You, me, a giant bed… You could rouge your knees, roll your stockings down…”
“If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times,” Regina says. “You could not pay me enough money to get me into that costume now, not on your salary.”
“If it helps, I’d be happy to help you out of it again,” Emma says. Fourteen years on and the memory of Regina in a curve-hugging leotard, fishnets and staggeringly high heels, husky voice and sensual expression on her face, is something that has stayed with her.
“No,” Regina says. “Never.” She’s smiling though and Emma reckons that a few glasses of wine and a certain red leather jacket Regina professed to hate Emma might just get what she wants.
*
That first night, Regina insists Emma sleeps in her bed. It’s barely a double but Regina’s hardly going to let a pregnant girl take the couch and, equally, she’s not going to give up the comforts of her own mattress. “Pyjamas,” she says, handing Emma an old running tee-shirt and yoga pants.
Emma smiles tremulously. “I’ll be gone before you wake up,” she says. “Promise.”
Regina tries not to feel like the world is caving in on her. “Of course,” she says smoothly. “But if you want a healthy baby, I suggest you sleep.”
Emma still has no qualms about stripping off in front of other people, pulling off her jeans and swapping them with the yoga pants. Regina catches a glimpse of the long, lean legs before turning away, blushing. “Sorry,” Emma says. “It’s not like you haven’t seen more than this though.”
Regina’s blush intensifies, remembering hurried fumblings in high school dorm rooms, terrified that someone would knock on the door at any point, and the leisurely first time at Regina’s home when her parents were in Europe for a month, taking the time to strip Emma of her clothes, touching every part of her until she keened with need. She grabs her own pyjamas (normally she just sleeps in a tee-shirt, but she’ll need protection against the allure of Emma tonight) and changes in the bathroom, before brushing her teeth, washing her face and taking several deep, soothing breaths. “There’s a new toothbrush on the counter,” she says and Emma closes the bathroom door, the tee-shirt tight over her stomach.
They lie side by side, on their backs, the room pitch black. “Thanks,” Emma murmurs.
“No problem,” Regina says. “We’ll go to family planning next week.” She shudders at how easily the ‘we’ slips out. Soon the only sound is Emma’s breathing and then she’s asleep herself.
When she wakes up at two, she finds herself wrapped around Emma’s body and she realises this is where she wants to be. This is home.