She could back out now, Regina thought. She didn't have to tell him now. He was happy now. But he loved Emma just as much as she did. Does. Resting her forehead against his with a heavy sigh, Regina shut her eyes and let out a breathy shudder. "Sweetie," she began quietly. "Emma, Emma—she didn't bring Rex."
"How'd he get home?"
She pulled her head back just a little and couldn't help but dart her eyes to the hidden bag in her closet. If she just locked that bag away, then everything would go back to how it was before. When she used to dread the wait between every letter, now she desperately craved it.
She'd never have that again.
Choking sharply, her eyes watered again and Regina struggled to compose herself. "Sweetheart," she began again, timid and frail and not like anything she'd ever shown in front of Henry before. "Baby, Emma isn't coming back."
"Why?" He whined, his lip quivering and his eyes wide and glassy. "Doesn't she love us?"
"Of course, she does," Regina reassured quickly, wiping under his eyes at the moisture that leaked there. She shook her head softly, her hands tightening around him instinctively as her own tear escaped for the second time that day. "Because Emma—she's. . ." Captured, left for dead, worse.
It took her a half a minute to find a suitable response for the four-year old. "She's lost."
"Lost?" He repeated.
She nodded. "She doesn't know where home is."
"She can drive," Henry supplied.
Regina smiled softly and kissed his forehead. "It's not that simple, dear. She, she forgot where we live."
Henry scrunched up his face. Clearly living in Storybrooke where every street led back to Main which ultimately got to some familiar face who obviously knew who he was was a foreign concept. The only instance he had of being lost was that time when he wandered off into the forest when he was two, though Regina wasn't even sure if he truly remembered it. Then suddenly he sat up from her lap, a bony knee digging into her thigh before he ran out of her room, leaving his mother and the dinosaur family stranded on the bed.
Regina's confusion matched her son's. Quite frankly, she was expecting tears and tantrums. It was the norm whenever the soldier had to leave them, and now, the confusion dominated her heartache as she followed her son's rummaging and found him in his room, dumping his pencil case full of crayons and markers and pencil crayons onto the floor and flopping onto his belly where construction paper sheets lay.
"Henry?" She wondered, stepping into the room. "What are you doing?"
"Drawing," he answered obviously, marking a green construction paper with a big red 'X'. On a beige paper, he drew a stick figure with yellow hair, two green dots for eyes, and a wide toothy smile. Dash lines starting from the figure were drawn in curves and loops, jumping over the gap between the two pages, before ending at the 'X'.
Regina kneeled beside him on the carpet by the foot of his bed, her hair falling over a shoulder as she bent over his work. "What are you drawing?"
A big white lopsided square with a triangle on top was placed next the 'X' before two more figures were added. A woman with short brown hair and red lips and a little boy with shaggy brown hair, and—was that a rat's tail?
"A map!" He held up the two pages excitedly before putting them back down to continue his drawings. Soon trees were forming in the background, along with roads, and cars.
Regina was too baffled as she watched his map come to life. "For what, dear?"
"So Emma can come home." His childish shrug filled with blessed naivety tugged at Regina's chest. He pointed at the some of the landmarks on the page, starting closest by Emma. "She has to go over the bridge, and across the river, and inside the cave, and then she can find our house."
Regina had loved the fact that Dora the Explorer was able to teach her son the basic Spanish she had learned as a child, but never before had she praised the little girl and her talking monkey until now.
A genuine smile, one that reached her eyes for the first time all month, spread across her face as Henry continued to colour in his drawings. It was so simple to him. His logic made so much sense, and Regina couldn't fault him for that. Quite honestly, his simple solution gave her something to hold on to, reminded her that wherever Emma is, she's alive. She just knew it. She knew by tomorrow, she'd be wallowing again, but for now, her son had given her hope. So Regina crawled to her forearms and picked up a pencil crayon, nudging Henry's head with her own as he smiled up at her. "What else can we add?"
Chapter 21
Chapter Notes
Disclaimer in Chapter One.
AN: Fair warning that roughly the next three or four chapters will be solely about life in Storybrooke. That being said, it doesn't mean the story is over yet. Also, there will be considerable time jumps throughout the next few chapters, so I hope it isn't too jarring.
The rumour mill was in a frenzy the day Regina returned to work. It had been the first week of February, and the Mayor sauntered into Town Hall with her heeled boots and her briefcase and took to the job as if her month-long absence was scheduled vacation time and she was returning from Cuba. Neither her secretary nor the council had the courage to question her disappearance, only mustering enough will to ask how she had been doing hoping to receive some first-hand information. Nothing more than a curt "fine, dear" or a "Well, and yourself?" was spared since Regina never gave them much fodder.
Within days, the untouched piles of manila folders, the backlogged files, and the meetings which kept getting pushed back were cleared up with the Mayor back behind her desk. Mayor Regina Mills was back and a force to be reckoned with. Whatever happened to her clearly put her working motor into gear, and the sight of an extremely and already overbearing politician was more than a little terrifying.
But that was the topic of conversation in and around town. What had happened? Where did she go? What stick was up her ass again?
She just had a stay-cation, the citizens guessed. Staving off the preemptive nervous breakdown many politicians and persons in the spotlight usually suffered with a little (or a lot, according to Councilman James) time off. But then Sidney let it slip that he had been ordered to withdraw her name from the pen-pal program immediately, and gossip was guzzled faster than it could be produced.
Emma was coming back for good, some hopeful residents proclaimed, Mary Margaret being at the forefront of that campaign. "She's coming to live in Storybrooke with Regina and Henry. How romantic," the schoolteacher imagined with a sigh.
"Are you kidding?" Leroy had gruffed. "Have you seen the Mayor lately? No. She's been cooped up in that house, and you know what that means?" Leroy made a sick creaking sound and sliced his thumb across his neck. "Sister ain't coming back."
"Leroy!" Mary Margaret admonished.
"Guys, that's enough." Ruby glared at the gossiping pair as she wiped down the counter.
Mary Margaret blushed and bowed her head, but Leroy scoffed and leaned forward on his forearm. "Do you know something?"
"I know as much as you do." Ruby crossed her arms over her chest. "And even if I did, it's none of your business."
Leroy grouched away with his hash brown and coffee in hand while Mary Margaret steered the topic away. It was hard for Ruby to lend an ear when her own speculations were running rampant in her mind. The waitress had a generally good instinct — she had been one of the first people to spot Henry when he hid in the forest — and it gnawed at her to think that Regina had gone from warm friend to cold Mayor overnight because of another loss in her life. Though Ruby was closer in age to Emma, living in Storybrooke all her life left her privy to details regarding the Mills woman, and it was no secret that the kind, bubbly head cheerleader of Storybrooke High did a complete one-eighty when her parents died.