Chapter Summary: In this chapter, Henry has a confession to make that he is certain that his mothers won't like, but what is he supposed to do? Their bickering is driving him crazy!

Inspired by Swan Queen Week, August 2016, Day 1 - Confessions.

Chapter 1: The Confession

"Moms. We need to have a talk."

The temperature in Regina's living room had reached a boiling point and Henry was fed up with his mothers' behavior. It was beyond ridiculous now how Emma and Regina were verbally sparring on a daily basis with each other when they held a united front against all else. The whole of Storybrooke bore witness to the amazing feats they achieved together and they could be an amazing team but their arguments recently had become legendary as well. A few days ago, Emma had burst into Granny's with a chip on her shoulder, barking at Regina. Regina had retaliated by dressing Emma down in front of everyone in the restaurant. When the decibel in the dining area reached high-pitched levels, both women had lashed out by blasting what looked like fireballs – blasts not meant to kill, but shove - at one another that had luckily collided and dissipated between them.

When word had gotten back to Henry about the altercation, he had been mad, embarrassed and he voiced his displeasure at them, stalking off to stay with his Grandparents for the weekend. The odd thing was that while this resembled a lot of the old tension between his two moms the time of the first dark curse, there was something a little different about them this time; like they were on a plain of emotional existence new to everyone, and Henry felt he needed to get a handle on it before it spiraled out of control. He tried patience and approached them carefully now, having heard their incessant arguing in Regina's living room from his bedroom upstairs. He desperately wanted to fix things and hoped what he was about to announce would work.

At his soft words, the red seething anger apparent in their eyes cooled and even though Emma and Regina still remained in their battle stances, they sensed the graveness of Henry's tone, and their bad moods were temporarily broken. The perturbed look on his face forced their rigid postures to relax as they both acknowledged simultaneously that there was something urgent concerning Henry.

"What is it, kid?" Emma removed the shaky palms from her hips. Arguing with Regina always shot a bolt of electricity through her. No one upset her quite like Regina Mills did. Her body was brimming with anger but, strangely, excitement too. She never understood why though. What was it about Regina that unhinged her self-possessed mood?

"What's bothering you, Henry?" Regina immediately calmed herself for her son or rather attempted to hide the unruly whirl of emotions Emma Swan always threw her in. She casually slipped her hands into her blazer pockets and did her best to call forth her level-headedness. She dared not peer at Emma again for fear that she would have a physical response to seeing the wild combative look in those searing green eyes. The blonde had always worn irritation and exasperation well and Regina took satisfaction in knowing that she could prod that raw and angry reaction out of her. That was when Emma Swan was the most passionate Regina had ever seen her.

"You two are bothering me!"

His outburst was unexpected and both women recoiled while their son's disapproval was the puff of breath that extinguished the hot lit match roaring out of control that was their normal heated engagements as of late. The two women glanced contritely at each other. Though they may not always see eye to eye on smaller issues, putting Henry first was something they had learned to do well together. Co-parenting bonded them closer together than curses or monsters ever could. Team Moms kicked in and the moment transformed into one of cohesion. A show of solidarity.

"Okay. Let's sit."

Regina invited them to take a seat on the couches and flinched when Emma dropped down next to her, causing the cushions to dip and propel Regina against her with their sides bumping against one another.

Quickly, hoping no one caught her pink tinged cheeks at the closeness, Emma scooted further away putting distance between them. If Regina was suspicious to the effect she had on Emma, she said nothing. Henry plopped down on the opposite couch observing their every action with pursed lips and thoughtful eyes.

"Okay." Emma leaned forward on both knees and supportively gazed upon the fruit of her loins with his tousled mop of brown hair and accusatory expression. A stab of pride distracted her momentarily at how much he had grown. She was glad to have been given the chance to reconnect with him since giving him up for adoption long ago and watching him grow up. In a lot of ways what she and Henry had been through, being able to spend as much time as they had, was thanks to the befuddling dark haired enigma sitting beside her. Drat, Emma! Think of something else besides her, goddamit! "Talk."

After a deep breath he launched into his elucidation of the problem. "Ever since you," he worded slowly pointing at Emma first, "…broke up with Hook and he left, you and Mom seem to have lost the… I don't know… camaraderie that you had before. It's almost like we're back to how you guys were during the first curse. Only, you're not trying to hurt each other or take me away from one another. Just… I'm not even sure what you're doing."

"Whoa, whoa. I never tried to take you away from anyone during that time." Emma held her palms up in clarification. Displeasingly vexed and suddenly spurred, Regina turned her head glowering at the woman.

"Don't you think that's kind of a moot point right now?" Her brown eyes flashed, the ends of her dark hair coiled and flared much like the indignation hardening her posture, and Regina's vehement reaction made Emma wearily sigh. Here we go again. And mentally preparing herself for another argument, Emma ignored the tantalizing flutter low in her belly at the prospect of locking horns with Regina again. The push and pull, the ebb and flow, of their contact was so stimulating.

"Regina, I'm simply stating that I never tried to steal him from you. That was all in your head!"

An obstinate up-tilt of a chin and an icy glare shot directly at the blonde. "For the record, I was protecting my family!"

Emma stared at her for what seemed like a minute, snorted derisively and casually spat back defiantly, "Whatever you need to tell yourself, babe."

Regina's mouth opened and closed as if fighting for words, a rare moment where her cunning mind and sharp-biting wit failed her. Not a lot could catch Regina Mills off guard but the woman who was smirking at her now incensed her to the very core. And while the incendiary remark nestled somewhere in her middle, not exactly in a bad way, the only words that came to mind now were a haughty, "I am not your babe." The audacity of the woman to call her babe!

Emma wondered what had come over her to use the term. This was certainly a first but after the favorably enraged reaction she got, she was tempted to use it again and filed it away for another time. She plowed on, happy to goad Regina into another argument.

"That's for damn sure. I don't date controlling women who think they're superior to everyone else."

Emma's eyes snaked to Henry curiously, determined to silence him before he might say anything. She had never told anyone in Storybrooke that she had dated women before. The only one she suspected who knew the truth was her son, for the year they spent together without their memories in New York, he must have picked up on her interest in women. Even with Regina's memory spell which made her forget Storybrooke and everyone in it, it couldn't make her forget her love for women. She had remembered the strong attraction she felt for the same sex and had even acted on it while away, engaging in a few make-out sessions with women here and there, never in front of Henry but she couldn't be certain that he hadn't caught her looking more than once. She never went home with any of them, though. Something had always held her back from becoming sexually involved with anyone, even Walsh, or as she thought of him now, Evil Monkey Boy. She had come close on several occasions, but never ultimately shared a bed with anyone. It never felt right to. As if on cue, her gaze wandered to Regina and the stab of unsettling discomfort forced her to avert her eyes again.

"Oh, but idiot, rum-soaked pirates are a thing for you." Emma scoffed loudly at Regina's remark. She wished Regina would forget about Killian. They were done. The magnitude of that mistake resonated deeply, making her regret so much. Thinking back now, it was a horrendously embarrassing aberration that inevitably pushed her to wish things had just been different. But they weren't. And there was no use in dwelling on it. Oh well. We learn from our mistakes, right?

"Why are you such a…" Emma was going to say bitch but something inside didn't let her continue. If truth be told, the word didn't seem right, knowing now what she did about Regina and what had created the Evil Queen to begin with. Regina may be many things, may even want people to think she was a bitch, and Emma had certainly felt that way earlier on in their relationship, but Henry's other mother was the way she was because of all the fucked up things that happened to her.

"A what?"

Emma shook her head at the demand and Regina straightened in her seat, mistaking Emma's action for throwing in the towel out of pity, which only outraged her more.

"A bitch, Miss Swan? Is that the word you were going to say?"

Finishing each other's sentences and thoughts was a reoccurring thing. Emma was bemused at how natural it was for Regina to do so. How in the hell did Regina do it this time? It's not like bitch was a regular term in their conversations to one another, and out of all the words in the English language, Regina pulls that one out correctly? Again Emma felt like Regina was intuitively tapping into her head and that constantly unnerved her; how attuned they were to one another.

Instead of mentioning that, she went for the next best thing Regina said that bothered her. "Don't Miss Swan me…"

"Because we've been through too much together, right?"

Emma grunted in fascinated exasperation. This was a reminder to a night Emma would just rather forget. To a time when her heart and soul had been plunged into darkness and she had stood on Regina's porch saying those exact words to Regina before she was emotionally beaten with the fear that her then recent actions might have costed her the most important people in her life.

Their stare-down was intense and the emotions between them were strong and barely controllable. Neither would acknowledge it, but there was a confounded wonder, a strangely persistent attraction, that existed between them, playing on the outskirts of their consciousness. They knew it was there but never let themselves ponder it for all the other emotions that usually tumbled in with it. It was safer to keep the attraction there, just on the edges and not to fully focus on it. After all, what would happen if they did focus on it? Each woman had, at least, wondered and fear restricted them from answering.

A drawn out, tired sigh was heard and they found a distressed Henry, elbows propped on knees, face in hands and wearily peeping at them through the opening of his fingers.

Thick with shame, they shifted uncomfortably and offered solemn apologies.

"I have a confession to make and you probably won't like it. And I'll probably be grounded until I'm thirty, but I'm willing to take that risk."

Heavy apprehension seeped into their dispositions and their foreheads furrowed. After all, a statement like that didn't sound promising.

"I've booked a trip for us. It's a short family camping trip. In California."

A look of astonished horror marred both women's expressions.

"Camping?" asked Regina, her complexion paling.

"California?" Emma's narrowed eyes blinked uncertainly.

"Yes. Ma…" Henry glanced at Emma. "You've been to California before. I know you have."

"Well, yeah. In my bail bondsperson days…"

"And Mom," Henry asserted, cutting Emma off mid-sentence and pointing to a flabbergasted Regina, "You're from The Enchanted Forest! That place is like one huge camp ground!"

"Might I remind you that I grew up in a mansion and then lived in a castle with a nice comfortable bed? I'm not fond of sleeping on the ground! I'm not the roasting-marshmallows type."

Emma snorted, "Truer words were never spoken."

"Do you want to start up again, Miss I-could-sleep-anywhere-comfortably-and-probably-have?"

The double meaning of that dig was apparent to everyone, including Henry now that he was much older, and he just rolled his eyes at them, shaking his head in his hands again.

Emma felt her temper blaze, and it was noticeable by the menacing squint of her eye but miraculously she stamped it down and smirked slowly at Regina. Time to shake the rattlesnake basket. "Are you jealous, Regina?"

The implication that Regina was jealous of where Emma might have previously slept and with whom was as big as life and Emma enjoyed every reaction to pass over her face. From the wide stupefied eyes to the dropped jaw, which then flexed wordlessly. One point to Emma Swan for stumping Regina Mills. She wanted to rejoice and do a little dance, but she sat there grinning a deeply satisfied grin and staring into Regina's face whose mood was darkening in rage or some other mysterious emotion.

Henry sat across the coffee table from them, pale and motionless. Only his eyes darted back and forth between his parents. He knew what a dicey moment this had become and his heart beat in double time at the impending fireworks that could go off. They wouldn't launch fireballs at each other in front of him, would they?

Meanwhile, with her face reddening deeply, Regina dragged air through her flared nostrils and uttered, "You wish." And left for the kitchen. She could not sit next to Emma any longer and was thankful that her feet marched her out of the room rather quickly.

Silence seemed the real victor as it fell across the room.

Finally, Henry spoke up condemningly with a pointed look at his blonde mother. "Ma!"

Emma had the decency to at least diminish her shit-eating grin and look sorry for her son's sake.

"Yeah, yeah. I know! But that woman just gets under my skin."

Henry rose from the couch with regal composure, something he must have picked up from Regina, and he grunted in reproach. This was not going to happen again. He did not want to go back to those days when he was always in the middle, being pulled one way or another.

When they were dating other people, his moms got along well. Now, that they were single, they were happier in every aspect of their lives except for when it came to each other. Henry had his own suspicions about that. Puberty seemed to have brought some clarity along with it. He had a slightly better understanding of sexual tension now than he did when he was eleven. This thing between his moms needed to be handled delicately, and before he could broach the issue of their possible feelings for one another, he needed to ease all this arguing between them and get them in a better place.

He looked down at Emma, who returned a look of sincere penitence his way. He couldn't help jumping the gun a little in his own plans and just said to her, "I think you're both under each other's skins and ,maybe you need to ask yourselves why that is." He started his exit but turned around with extended hands at her as if she were a St Bernard dog. "Stay here."

He went in search of Regina, leaving a rather shocked Emma sitting on the couch with thoughts she would rather not bring to light.

Tumultuous banging from the kitchen lured Henry in that direction and upon swinging the door open, he found Regina slamming one cupboard and then the other. She withdraw the canister of ground coffee and slammed it on the counter top. She went to a few other cupboards, their doors protesting loudly with her force, and walked to the coffee maker with an empty filter in hand.

"Mom, what are you doing?"

If it were Emma asking she would have had a scathingly sarcastic retort ready. "Making coffee. What does it look like I'm doing?"

Her son raised an eyebrow at her, so much like Emma, but yet so much like herself too. How was that possible?

"Well, it sort of sounds like you're beating up the kitchen. Can you please come back to the living room?"

"No." Regina added water to the coffee maker's back compartment.

"Why?"

"Because I hate her." She pushed the button hard in anger and the machine began to make steamy gurgling sounds. As soon as the words were out, Regina wished she could pull them back because they were untrue. Dammit!

"You don't hate her."

Regina's face fell and she sighed, visibly tired. "No. I don't hate her."

"You haven't hated her for a long time. If ever. Admit it." The staunchness with which he spoke, the absolute conviction abruptly caught her attention. She was aggravated by Henry's insinuation that she felt more for Emma than she was letting on.

"Just what are you suggesting, young man?"

Henry immediately back-peddled. Whoa, too much too soon. This mom needed more caution than the other one.

"I just meant that you guys have become such good friends, you know?"

Regina leaned against the countertop and surveyed her teenager. She knew him well enough to know when he had things unsaid hiding in that head of his. However when it came to the subject of her and Emma, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear. Where they were concerned, things were better left undiscussed. They'd survived up until this point. They were Henry's parents. They no longer wanted to kill each other and there was the occasional heart to heart when it mattered. Things were fine, though apparently not to Henry, who wanted to take them into the wilds of California to settle their recent bickering.

Honestly, she wasn't sure why they had started arguing so. She just knew that fighting with Emma Swan made her feel alive. She enjoyed their back and forth. She always had.

"Can we please go back into the other room and talk about this like adults, mom?" At the twitch of her lips and the humor in her eyes at the reference of him as an adult, Henry bristled. Okay, so he wasn't an adult yet, but he'd even shoot for them discussing the issue like teenagers! His moms were acting like children. He didn't say that, though he wanted to.

"Fine. I'll be right out with refreshments. I baked some raspberry white chocolate cookies last night." So what if they were Emma's favorite. That did not mean Regina conceded to anything. "I'll bring them out too."

"Good and I'll tell you all about the trip and how much fun we'll have together. You won't be sleeping on the ground. There'll be a cabin and everything."

A weekend stuck in close quarters with Emma Swan, sleeping so near to her and spending every minute of every hour together for a few days.

"Great," she quipped sarcastically and awkwardly straightened things laying on the counter in short movements, "Can't wait."