So Does This Make Us Both The Other Woman?

8. The Status Quo (Four People In Her Arms)

It's Henry's birthday today, the first she's shared with him in two years, and she's feeling inexplicably emotional about it. She remembers the two before that, even, the sullen little boy who'd wanted anyone but her with him, and when she wakes up in the morning she calls Emma and fumbles over what she wants.

Emma understands before she does and takes over the planning and now Regina's walking with Robin and Roland to Granny's, the pressure of the birthday fading, and she turns to smile down at Roland just as she spots Emma and Henry sitting opposite Hook at one of the tables and smirking at something he'd said.

Three grins widen when they catch sight of each other and Henry hops out of his booth and makes a beeline for her. "Mom!" he says, beaming, and she's unmade and rebuilt anew with his arms wrapped around her. "You came!"

"Of course I did." She senses Emma's eyes on her from across the room, warm and attentive, and she feels a corresponding warmth in her chest as Robin moves away to give her and Henry some space.

She remembers Henry's second-to-last birthday, at the height of the tension post-Cora between the Charmings and her. She'd sat inside and fumed and wept and watched as around midday, a familiar yellow car had rounded her street, paused, and then driven on. I didn't know how to deal with you, Emma had said in Neverland, in a frank moment they'd managed one night while their companions had slept around them. Sometimes I felt like the villain. Sometimes I felt like you'd brought this all on yourself. And I couldn't risk Henry.

She'd scoffed then and she still scoffs at the thought of it now, because she'd have never harmed Henry and it still burns that Emma could have believed otherwise for so much of that first-year post-curse.

But really, what else could she have done?

She bites back recriminations that have no place at Henry's party and makes her way to the counter where Robin is passing her cake to Granny and talking to Tink. Leo is in Granny's arms and he's briskly handed into hers as Granny takes the cake away.

"Hello, Emma Junior," she coos, rocking him. Anything's better than calling him by his actual name. "Have you been keeping Snow up all night?" Henry gives her a look followed by a well-learned Emma Swan eye roll and she hums, "Destroying her happiness if it's the last thing I do," as Leo snuffles approvingly.

There are more adolescents than adults at this party, which makes it the most successful birthday party that Henry's had since preschool, and Regina leans against the counter while everyone eats, rocking Leo in her arms and watching Henry interact with his friends. She does her best not to look at Emma and Hook, still together even after that night.

She's...disappointed. She'd thought that Emma had been ready to get rid of the pirate for good, to put herself first and finally give up on letting others' expectations define her. But now Emma's sitting with him and laughing as though that night had never happened, as though she isn't worth so much more, and-

"You're brooding." Emma snatches Leo from her arms and passes him back to Granny, bumping her shoulder against Regina's as she joins her at the counter.

"I am not."

Emma raises her eyebrows. "You've been glaring straight ahead for the past five minutes. Nick Zimmer has been too terrified to eat." The boy is directly in her path, head ducked down and cheeks very pale.

She forces a smile and turns away from him. "I was...thinking."

"About Henry." It's not a question, and Regina doesn't correct Emma. "You know, I used to light a candle on a cupcake for him every year, back before Storybrooke." Emma shakes her head. "I didn't let myself think about him the rest of the time, but on the day he was born..." A sad smile graces her face, and Regina reaches out to squeeze her hand before she remembers herself. Her hand hovers awkwardly, inches from Emma's. "I'd light the candle, and then I'd blow it out and throw out the damn muffin. And then I'd go out and get so wasted that I wouldn't be able to think about him again."