The Tuesday had started out like every other day. Regina had woken a half hour before her alarm, pushed away her latest dream, and readied herself for the day. Henry was getting harder and harder to wake in the mornings, and Regina hated to admit that he was growing up. She dropped him off at school, drove to work, and at precisely at 3:30 picked up Henry where he sat at his own desk in the corner of her office, where two hours later, they would return home for dinner, playtime, bath and bed. It was all quite routine, and after months of meticulous habit, Regina was ready to call it a night at ten.
But she lay awake, watching the clock tick down until it was half an hour to midnight, and her mind warred with her to move. Don't, it's only going to make it harder to move on. But what was she supposed to do, forget Emma entirely? Not forget, but she needed to get up in the morning, and this will only open up sore wounds. But it's Emma's birthday.
With fifteen minutes before midnight, Regina had enough time to pull herself out of bed and into the kitchen. She didn't bother with the lights. The moon provided enough for her to navigate her way through her kitchen and around her island. In the quiet of the night, she was a shadow to the world, kept hidden from the prying eyes of the town and even to Henry. The clock on the stove told her she had ten minutes left, so she moved quickly, opening the fridge to pull out a cupcake she and Henry had made the day before simply because he asked and set it on the table. Rummaging through her cupboards, she found a single candle, a blue star with a tiny wick at its top. She lit it, and though the candle didn't give off much light, it seemed to brighten the room as Regina imagined the shy smile of the blonde soldier that day she had thrown Emma a surprise birthday party, the firmness of her when Emma had engulfed her in a hug because they hadn't known how to express their feelings yet.
Regina stopped making wishes on stars long before she had reached adolescence. They was useless and pointless. Wishes could never get her to where she was now. They couldn't pay for her college or calm her on the nights when six-week old Henry was colicky. But as she bent over the island, resting her chin on her folded arms and stared at the little blue star candle flickering away in the darkness, she had one wish in her mind that she desperately wanted to come true.
Bring her home.
It was snowing again. For once it actually began snowing by late November and the warning cries that global warming was upon them was silenced if only for the season. Despite the light snow on the ground, Regina had promised Henry that they could toboggan down the small hill by the park, and though Regina kept a careful watch over him as she shivered, sitting on the park bench with a thermos tucked into the crook of her arm and her hands safely encased in muffs, Henry needed little to no supervision as he ran his sled to the top of the hill, sat firmly behind the curve and kicked himself forward, laughing and screaming all the way down.
"Regina." The Mayor looked up to see Archie Hopper, smiling warmly in his tweed jacket with Pongo on his leash. "I haven't seen you in a long time."
"I'm not your patient, Dr. Hopper," Regina replied, returning her attention back to Henry.
Ignoring her blatant dismissal, Archie sat beside her and released Pongo from his chain. The Dalmatian instantly sprinted after Henry who squealed in delight at being toppled over his sled. Regina remembered when Henry was small enough to be convinced that the dog was his own noble steed and frequently tried to saddle him. Now, Henry was bigger than the dog, and though Pongo faithfully stayed still whenever Henry got it in his head that he could still ride him, both boy and canine realized those days were long past.
"How have you been?" Archie asked.
"Fine."
"And Henry?"
"He's perfect."
"He looks happy."
Regina took a moment to answer, lips curling at the corners as Henry wrestled with Pongo in the snow. "Of course he is."
"Are you?" The therapist asked boldly.
Regina scoffed lightly and pursed her lips. "Of course I am."
"I just mean," he began just short of flabbergasted, "I've heard the speculation about Emma."
Regina snapped her head toward him. "I didn't think you would be the one to indulge in small town gossip, Doctor."
"I don't know the details," he quickly reassured. "But I just want you to know that if there's anything you'd like to talk about my door is always open."
Regina stood, withdrawing her hands from her muff and gripping the thermos tightly in her hand. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
With that, she called Henry who looked disappointed with having to cut his playtime short.
With the holidays coming around and Archie's offer still fresh in her mind, the two weeks that passed which led her to the therapist's door on her lunch break had been hell.
Work was a constant stress with the brief power outage that lasted a solid four days. Leroy, in all of his drunken glory, had taken a pick ax to the main power line and shut down the entire town. His arrest didn't help Regina with the loads of incident reports being passed through Town Hall. Though gratefully, the annual Christmas party had been cancelled due to the damages it left in the court room, and that was one stress crossed off the Mayor's list only to be replaced with another.
Henry became ill during the outage, the chilling temperatures making his body vulnerable. He was sniffling and feverish and asleep half the time, and all Regina could do was cuddle with him, giving him antibiotics and rubbing Vapor Rub onto his chest and back to get him to rest.
He cried all the time, and he was restless, and the holidays were coming up, and in the back of her mind, Regina knew what that meant yet refused to acknowledge it. What she ignored manifested in restless nights as cumbersome as her son's, so when Henry's screams woke her that December night and she ran to his room, she wasn't prepared for what he needed to be soothed.
"I want Emma," he cried, still half asleep, sobbing and sweating. His pyjamas were soaked through with sweat, and his eyelids were still closed, but he was yelling out as the monsters in his dreams still had a grip on him.
"Shhh," Regina soothed, sitting him up and wiping his brow with a cold wash cloth. "Wake up, sweetie. It's just a dream."
Still he sobbed, limp as his mother removed his shirt and applied more Vicks to his back. "Emma!"
"Henry," Regina flustered, pressing her forehead to his in a quiet desperation. "Baby, Emma isn't here. You have to wake up."
That only made him cry more, his wailing echoing the otherwise empty house. No matter what she did, Regina couldn't get him to wake as he sobbed.
"Henry," she pleaded, getting up quickly to retrieve a fresh shirt. "Henry, that's enough."
She sat back down, but Henry was still sitting up in his bed, more awake now than he had been minutes ago.
"Moo-oommy!" He begged, coughing and choking on his own hoarse cry.
She shrugged his shirt over his head and pressed his head to her chest. "I know, sweetheart. You'll feel better when you rest."
The beginning bars of their favourite Spanish lullaby were barely out of her mouth before Henry pushed away from her fiercely. "No!I want Emma!" He repeated, louder this time as he sobbed Emma's name over and and over and over again.
Regina shook her head frustrated, tears prickling at her eyes as she spoke in a low warn. "She's not here, Henry. That's enough."
"Emmaaaa!" Henry wailed so loud Regina choked.
"She's not here, Henry! She's dead!" Regina's eyes widened in horror and she pressed her hands to her mouth, shooting up off the bed trying to get away from herself.