The Way

Chapter Nineteen

Henry Mills sat on the end of his bed the following morning, absently bouncing a miniature basketball off the wall in front of him and repeating. His mind was awash with different emotions and had been since discovering he had magic. Once or twice he had even tried to summon it again, but thus far he'd had no luck. It was frustrating, to say the least, as he couldn't even distract himself from thoughts of what he'd done with the very magic he'd used to do it. Shouting in anger, he launched the ball a bit too hard against the wall and it promptly bounced into the nearby lamp.

In an instant his door had flown open and both of his mothers stood in his room, Regina fussing and Emma taking note of the lamp. Henry stood at the foot of his bed while Regina brushed imaginary dirt from his shoulders. He watched as his birthmother picked up the lamp, put the shade back on and then turned to him.

"You okay in here kid?" she asked, and Henry gave a stiff nod. Regina's hands fell off his shoulders and she moved to stand beside Emma, her arms crossed over her chest while Emma's hands found home in the back pockets of her faded blue jeans. He sighed and sat back down.

"Henry..." Regina's voice, much lower and decidedly more...mom-esque...than Emma's, pervaded the room next. "You can talk to us, you know. We're your mothers."

Henry rolled his eyes dramatically.

"Yes, I know," he answered with another sigh, and this time he let a smile slip onto his features. "It's just...why can't I make my magic come back?"

Regina, now offering a sad smile of her own, took up residence beside him at the end of the bed while Emma hovered a few feet away, attentive but not comfortable enough yet to join them.

"Honey..." the dark haired woman began, rubbing her adoptive son's shoulders, "Most of the time, magic doesn't even begin to reveal itself in a person until they are much older...16 or 17, usually. You're only 11, dear. You really can't expect it to just come when it's called—not at this point."

Here, Emma stepped in.

"Look at me, Henry," she said with that lopsided grin the boy knew all too well, "I only recently found out that I have magic...I'm 29 and even I can't control it yet!"

"Then why did it show itself when we were all in the vault?" he asked, seeming confused. He felt Regina squeeze his shoulder affectionately.

"There's no way to really know for sure, Henry, but my best guess is that it had to do with a heightened state of emotion, and possibly the fact that it wasn't the only magic in the vicinity. In rare cases, the presence of one type of magic—dark magic, like Cora's—can draw light magic into the forefront."

"So why wouldn't it have drawn Emma's light magic out?"

At last, Emma moved to sit on the opposite side of him, her hand mirroring Regina's on his other shoulder.

"I was all sorts of messed up kid," he heard her say as he looked at her. "But I can say that I could feel it trying. But I stopped it, because I knew I wasn't ready to take on Cora alone. Without my heart...my magic wasn't going to be strong enough. I'm not sure how I knew that, but I did."

"It's something you pick up on as your system becomes more accustomed to magic," Regina replied, more to Emma than to their son. "If you'd have tried to use magic on her before I got there, Emma...in all likelihood you would have died trying."

A stiff silence fell over the room, Henry feeling quite awkward about it, and so he sought to break it.

"I'm glad you saved her Mom," he issued, leaning into his adoptive mother's side and hugging her. He felt her lean her cheek against the top of his head and felt them lift in a smile he could't see. "You saved all of us. And even though you promised you wouldn't use magic...I forgive you."