Dreaming Out Loud

Broken Promise

Chapter 44: Broken Promise

Later that evening, after they enjoyed dinner together at Granny's, the newly joined and reunited Charming family made their way to the Sheriff's station with a takeout bag.

"Henry..." Regina called, as she rushed to the bars and looked upon him with a teary gaze.

"We brought you dinner and dessert," he said, as he handed her the bag through the bars.

"Thank you," she said, as she sat down, while Henry pulled up a chair outside her cell.

"You won't even let me come out to eat with him?" Regina snapped, as she glared at Emma and her parents.

"It's up the kid," the blonde replied. The boy looked at her and cocked his head to the side slightly. Regina took a sharp breath at that, as she noticed Snow gazing at her with a very similar expression and the same head tilt. She wondered how she hadn't seen the resemblance before and Persephone's words seared in her mind. She hated the comparison though. Henry and Snow being so alike wasn't something she liked to entertain...at all. But they were. In many ways, Snow was still that little girl she had rescued so long ago and that she had loved. Then that love had died for a very long time...until Henry came along and she started to learn to love again. But it hadn't been enough to allow her to give up her revenge and even now, she wasn't sure she could let it go.

"You won't hurt them?" Henry asked her with scrutiny and that was heartbreaking. She swallowed thickly. Even if she tried to use her magic, she knew Persephone would quash any attempt. But at this point, even trying to hurt his biological family would mean losing Henry forever.

"I won't," she replied.

"You promise?" he asked again, still scared, not for himself, but for them.

"I promise," she replied and she was determined to keep it. Henry looked up at Emma and the Sheriff unlocked the cell, allowing Regina out and to sit with Henry on the nearby couch. They allowed them some time together, as Emma turned to her parents.

"You okay, Princess?" David asked. She smiled for their benefit and nodded, though they could see through it all. Emma was angry, not at them, but at the situation. But she was trying, for Henry's sake. Perhaps if she hadn't been raised by her parents in the dreamscape, she'd be a lot less angry at Regina. It was not lost on Snow and David that her anger could have easily been at them if she hadn't known them and all the reasons why everything had happened as it did. But Emma's perspective was still very much from that of a daughter that had been forcibly kept away from her parents, because of one woman's anger at her mother. Perhaps if her perspective had been from an orphan, she'd be much more sympathetic to Regina, but she couldn't be. Emma may have been twenty-eight, but she very much needed her parents and all they had been cheated out of was still fresh wounds. Especially when it came to Henry. Not for the first time, Emma realized more than ever that she would have never given him up if she had her parents there. Even if she had still messed up as badly as she did and had him in prison, she knew they would have been there for her. She knew they would have taken Henry for her until she had been released and she was struggling deeply with these emotions. She wasn't unaware that she wasn't the most emotionally mature person in the world or that she didn't have serious trust issues. She wanted to trust Regina for Henry's sake and knew her mother still held onto her hope that the woman she once knew was still inside her. Her father supported her mother, but she knew he always had a hand on his sword in ready for the very real and possible betrayal that could happen. Regina had a very long way to go before Emma could trust her. They would try for Henry. But she hoped that he didn't end up getting his heart broken if Regina proved unable to walk the long, jagged path to redemption. Her inner thoughts were interrupted by Regina's slightly raised voice.