The Way

Chapter Eight

Henry padded quietly down the hallway the following morning, a twinge of worry in his gut coming about at the sight of his mother's bedroom door left open. When he noticed that, not only was she missing from the bed but that the bed did not appear to have been used at all, the worry increased. Had she slept at all? Perhaps she had just risen early, and made the bed in the process. After all, Emma had stayed the night. Maybe she actually had been able to get to sleep and in the process managed to get back to her normal schedule at last.

As he rounded the corner at the bottom of the stairs and started to cross the archway into the living room, the young man stopped in his tracks, halted by the sight before him.

His mother lay on the couch, her head resting on a pillow that had been placed against Emma's shoulder. Emma was awake, and when she saw him she offered him a one-shouldered shrug—any movement of her other shoulder was otherwise inhibited by Regina's weight. She lifted a finger to her lips to silence the questions that must have shown in his expression, and the boy only smiled. His smile grew when Emma made a gesture to indicate 'coffee!' and promptly moved into the kitchen to brew some.

The end of his tongue slipped out the corner of his mouth as he concentrated on scooping the coffee grinds into the machine without spilling anything. Regina hated it when he made a mess, and he had a feeling she was going to be grumpy enough upon discovering the manner in which she had fallen asleep. He didn't want to give her any more reasons to lash out. He paced the kitchen for a few minutes, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing. When it did, he carefully filled a mug and made his way back out to the living room, almost wondering if he should tip-toe so as not to wake his sleeping mother. Emma reached for the mug with an exaggerated level of caution, making Henry giggle.

He may have been worried about making a mess of the coffee maker, but Emma was in a far more risky position—she seemed legitimately frightened for her life at the possibility of waking the fallen queen.

Deciding his mother—mothers—were fine to be left alone, Henry disappeared back to the kitchen to grab an apple. He'd known Emma would help his adoptive mother, in one way or another, but he couldn't help his surprise at such an open display of weakness from Regina. For most of his life she had insisted she was infallible, however discreetly, and he had never known her to show any sort of attachment to anyone but him. That was, until Emma Swan arrived, by his own doing.

Emma's presence had threatened his adoptive mother's status in Henry's life, he knew, but he also knew by the manner in which Regina often engaged with Emma that she would neveractually hurt her. Or so he had believed, until the incident with the apple turnover. Even then, Regina could have chosen to kill the woman, but she did not. She chose the lesser of two evils—the curse which stood a chance of being undone.

For a long time, Henry had wished Emma would come to live with him and Regina in the mansion. And, for a long time, he had been certain it would never happen. But he was old enough now to know that, when Regina saved Snow and Emma at the well, the look his mothers had shared was something much deeper than gratitude. There had been relief there, churning behind both pairs of eyes, and he knew Regina had never allowed such emotion to slip through the cracks before that moment. The brunette would operate under the guise that she had saved Emma to save her relationship with Henry, but the boy knew otherwise. While that had been the reason in part, he knew from experience that Regina only ever helped those that were important to her. And, until that day, he'd thought he was the only one she cared for. Apparently he'd thought wrong.

Snatching his backpack and Once Upon A Time from the floor beside the door, Henry set aside his musings. He still had an hour before he needed to be to school. An extra long walk wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, he really didn't want to be in the house when Regina woke up.