A/N: Oh hey we're back yet again! Thank you so very much for all the comments 3

We are rapidly nearing the finish line here folks! As it looks now, we've got this chapter, the next chapter which is just wildly off track nonsense I still had to get in, and then a proper epilogue.

Thanks everyone and please enjoy!

Chapter 16: Operation (Un)fair

It was early afternoon, just after school, and the diner was calm and quiet. Apart from Granny, there were only a few people present, and four of them sat around the same table.

"Good. We're all here." Henry steepled his fingers and looked at each of the three people sitting around the table with him: Emma, David, and Ruby. "I gathered you all because I have started a new operation and I need you for it to work."

"This feels kind of sneaky, though," Ruby remarked. "Didn't you say you didn't like people hiding things from you?"

"This is different," he insisted emphatically, before leaning forward and lowering his voice to a murmur. "This is about getting Mom and Grandma to stop fighting. It's important, because they need to get their happy endings too."

After his first somewhat wild look of surprise, David did a valiant job keeping up his enthusiasm. "That's going to need a really good plan. They can both be pretty stubborn."

"Of course. My plan is absolutely foolproof, and I've gone through every detail." Henry smirked, looking eerily like Regina for a moment. "And the Storybrooke Town Fair this weekend is where we're going to execute it."

"C'mon, Regina, it's not a big deal," Emma said with a lighthearted shrug. "It's a fun little festival thingy."

"Yeah!" Henry chimed in. "And Granny specifically invited you!"

Regina sighed. "I know, but I'm really behind on the paperwork for some upcoming deadlines at work."

"It's just one day," Emma argued. "And no one will come after you just because you're a little late."

"And it would be really fun to go all three of us, as a family," Henry chirped.

To be honest, as much as she enjoyed spending time with the two of them, some silly town fair just didn't excite her. Lots of rowdy people, general dirt and chaos, and an almost guaranteed lack of good food. Sure, it might be somewhat nice, but it just didn't feel worth the hassle. "Maybe next time. I'm sure Granny will organize something for the winter."

Dismayed, Emma and Henry shared a look, then shrugged. "Alright, Henry," Emma sighed. "Guess we'll be going alone." They turned back towards Regina, both looking horribly miserable.

"Could you at least make some cookies for us to bring?" Henry asked in a feeble voice. "Something so we'll remember you, at the town fair." His voice even cracked at the end.

"No, kid, we can't burden her like that." Emma put a trembling arm around Henry's shoulder, pulling him close. She smiled weakly, her eyes tainted with sorrow. "We'll have to make do without her." She swallowed thickly. "I'm sure we'll manage. Somehow."

Regina stared with rising horror at the depressing scene in front of her. "If you think this will make me–"

Somewhere, a cello started playing a lonely note.

"I'm just worried what Granny will say," Henry pondered dolefully. "She looked forward to this so much. And– and she's all Ruby has left, you know?"

With a shaky breath, Emma pulled him tighter. "It'll be fine, Henry," she croaked. "Ruby will still have us. You and me." She met Regina's gaze again and it was like staring into the abyss itself. "She'll be okay. One day."

Despite being on the receiving end of it, Regina couldn't help but feel a sting of pride at the macabre display unfolding around her. They were using every trick in their combined books and as much as she loathed to admit it, she wasn't entirely unaffected.

"But Ma," Henry asked, his voice trembling more than the cello still wistfully playing in the background, "Granny doesn't have many years left. What if– what if this is the last–" His voice faded away into the gloomy silence.

Emma shook her head, her smile growing even weaker. "Regina, will you... will you at least come to the funeral?" Her voice was barely even a whisper. "I know it's... difficult for you, but it would mean so much for Ruby, and–"

"Fine!" Regina let out a noise of frustration, throwing her hands up in defeat. "Fine, I'll come along to your silly little festival. Just turn off that damned cello!"

In an instant, Emma and Henry lit up.

"Nice going, kid!" Emma exclaimed, enthusiastically laughing and high-fiving Henry. "Told you the cello would do it." Grinning wildly, she held up her phone and tapped the screen, sending Regina a wink as the cello music suddenly stopped.

"Using my home stereo setup against me," Regina muttered, shaking her head. "Diabolical."

"I wrote a script!" Henry said excitedly. "We didn't even get to the merciless passage of time, me growing up cold and disillusioned, Emma becoming increasingly corrupt and ruthless because of your isolation, or Ruby dying from loneliness and alcoholism and no one finding her body for years!"

Regina blinked, then nodded with a bewildered smile. "That's wonderful, sweetie. I'm sorry you didn't have time to show me."

"Maybe I should make a book out of it." Henry furrowed his brows, deep in thought. "Like an dark alternate future version of my storybook. Everyone's evil and having a beard... yeah. I'll get started right now!" He bolted off to his room with newfound excitement.

"I was going to, uh, maybe tone down that last part," Emma said when they were alone. Her smirk grew a little cocky. "But I also figured we wouldn't need that much." She stretched lazily. "Well, I've got to go back to work. See you around." She sauntered away, lightly tracing her fingers up Regina's thigh as she passed and leaving Regina frustrated in more ways than one.

The change in accessories looked to have done wonders for Emma's self confidence, at least. Regina didn't mind that one bit.

It wasn't all that bad, Regina had to admit to herself as the three of them slowly made their way past the various stalls and tents that had been erected for the Storybrooke Town Fair. Maybe the stalls themselves weren't too riveting, but walking around with Emma and Henry was certainly nice. Very homely.

"Look, mom!" Henry had just burst back to them holding a giant helium balloon. "I won it!"

"That's wonderful, dear." She squinted up at the balloon. "Is it a... rabbit?"

Henry looked up. "I thought it was a moose." He nodded with satisfaction. "I like it."

"I like it too," Emma said, giving Henry a fist-bump. "It's very round."

It was, indeed, very round. Maybe it was meant to be some kind of hamster, Regina thought. The wind was beginning to pick up, though, and the balloon wiggled precariously as it strained against the string it was fastened to.

"We should probably find some cover until the wind dies down a bit," Henry suggested. "Come on!"

Although Henry sped away, Emma and Regina didn't feel any particular rush. They strolled after him in comfortable silence, their hands brushing against each other until Emma casually linked their fingers loosely together.

Farther ahead, Henry had found a spot behind a few trees, only a few feet off the main path. "Over here!" Indeed, even as the wind grew stronger around them, Henry's balloon barely moved at all.

Just as Emma and Regina caught up to Henry, Ruby jogged over to them.

"Hey guys!" Her eyes met Regina's, and her grin widened. "So you got her here, huh?" she said, turning to Henry. "Did your plan work? Me dying young and destitute and Granny wasting away in the basement?"

"Yep! We didn't get that far, though."

"Bummer."

"She was in on it too?" Regina protested, but she couldn't really muster any real exasperation.

Before anyone could answer her, even more people arrived in their little corner of stillness. David, looking almost as upbeat as Ruby, was practically dragging Snow along who in turned carried some kind of box with her. A box with a rather indignant sounding bird in it.

"Well, look who we're running into," David grinned. "We were just passing by. Isn't that something."

For once, Snow and Regina shared a look of equal suspicion and bewilderment.

"Henry, I saw some super cool stuff on the other side of the fair!" Ruby gestured vaguely. "Way, way over there. Let's go check it out!"

"Yeah!" Henry began to follow Ruby, then stopped with a thoughtful look up at his balloon. Turning to Regina, he held out the balloon's string. "Can you hold this for me until I get back? I really don't want to lose it in the wind."

It all felt very... on the nose, Regina thought, but she couldn't say no to her son and his gigantic balloon, so she took it, making sure to wrap the string an extra time around her wrist. "Of course. It'll be safe with me."

"You know, we haven't had some proper father daughter bonding for a while," David said to Emma as Ruby and Henry sprinted off. "Why don't we leave our better halves here and take a round in the fair?"

"Sounds like a plan to me." Emma leaned in to place a quick kiss on Regina's cheek and then left with David before anyone could protest.

"Our 'better halves', huh?" Emma remarked as she and David strolled through the fair.

"It's sure to start a conversation, at least."

Emma stayed quiet for a moment before asking, "do you really think she'll come around? I mean sure, I'm pretty sure they'll stay civil, but..." She left it off with a halfhearted shrug. "Snow hasn't exactly been open-minded about any of this."

David winced. "I know. And honestly, I might have gone along with her a bit too much."

"Like that time in the woods?" Emma said with a sidelong glance.

David looked like he had suddenly swallowed an entire lemon. "Definitely that."

"I just want to know what it would take for her to get her head out of her ass," Emma muttered.

"We were there when you two defeated that fairy dust monster, you know."

It took a couple of seconds for the words to sink in. "Wait, you were both there? During the, uh, celebrations?"

"Yeah."

"And she didn't freak out?"

David smiled. "I think she just needs to see Regina as Regina and not as the Evil Queen. She's getting there, slowly."

"Well, it's hard for anyone to look serious with that balloon, so let's hope that'll speed things up at least," Emma said.

There was a long, tense silence between Snow and Regina before anyone spoke.

"It's a nice balloon," Snow noted with a forced smile. "Is it a..." She squinted, tilting her head to the side in thought. "A sheep?"

Regina, feeling increasingly silly holding the enormous balloon, shrugged. "My guess was some kind of rodent."

The bird in Snow's box suddenly let out a squeak and flapped around a little, seemingly to get a better resting position. Unless it had strong opinions on rodents, of course.

"I see you brought a friend."

"Oh, this?" Snow adjusted her grip on the box slightly. Due to the size had to hold it up with both arms wrapped around it. "It's a bird from the shelter David worked at who got hurt during the last storm. She's old and a little eccentric, though." She frowned, shaking her head. "Won't let me put her down. And she doesn't like the wind, for obvious reasons."

Some pieces of the ridiculous puzzle she was a part of began to fall into place. "So we're both stuck here." Regina huffed, torn between annoyance and pride for her son's clear scheming talents. "I should have known they were planning something."

"David was a little too excited about the fair," Snow admitted.

Then her eyes slid up towards the balloon again and Regina couldn't help but feel a little self-conscious.

"What?"

Snow snapped her eyes back down to Regina's. "Nothing." A short, heavy pause. "It's very round."

Rolling her eyes, Regina curbed her urge to smack Snow over the head with said balloon. "I know it's a ridiculous balloon, but I promised Henry I wouldn't lose it, so there's not much I can do about it." She frowned and nodded towards the bird Snow held. "You don't look like the epitome of class either, you know. What even is that, some kind of pint-sized pelican?"

The bird did not seem to appreciate Regina's description of it.

"I'm not sure. She's a rather private individual."

Regina looked at the goofy looking bird with mild disdain, opting to ignore Snow's strange bird-relationships for the time being. She had enough nonsense on her plate as it was.

They both fell silent, watching the people that walked past nearby for a few uncomfortable minutes.

Snow was the first one to break the silence. She cleared her throat, only to elicit some confused squawking from her bird friend. "I think I owe you an apology, Regina." The words were clipped and forced.

Regina turned back towards Snow, her brows rising in surprise. "Really."

"I saw you and Emma, when you defeated that monster, and it made me think. I realized..." She took a deep breath, adjusting the box in her grip again. "I think I've been so focused on the wrong things that I didn't notice what I was doing, what was happening to me. I've been sliding farther and farther into darkness. Maybe it's not what you went through back in the Enchanted Forest, but I think I'm getting closer. Darker. I think I'm already hurting the people around me." Looking up, she continued, "I'm becoming a villain, and–" before abruptly stopping. "Are you laughing?"

To be fair, Regina did listen calmly at first. She tried to keep a straight face, but at that last sentence she just hadn't been able to hold it back, and the ridiculous looking bird did nothing to help.

"I'm not," Regina croaked between bouts of laughter she attempted to play off as coughing. Biting her lips hard enough to almost draw blood, she managed to curb her amusement. Mostly. "It's just, you're not a villain, Snow, and I doubt you'll ever be."

Snow's mouth fell open in surprise before turning up in a soft smile. "Regina..."

"Don't get me wrong; you can still be an absolutely awful person. I'm completely with you on that point." Feeling the albeit rather silly urge to defend the occupational pride of villains in general, she continued, "you would simply be an absolutely terrible villain. No one would take you seriously. That is something you will have to learn to live with, dear."

Reeling from the whiplash of Regina's earlier words, Snow tried to protest, "I've killed people, and I tried to assassinate you at least one time."

"That's very nice." Regina's smile practically dripped with condescension. "But we both know you couldn't do any kind of large scale evil acts without having a nervous breakdown or some sudden moment of self revelation half-way through." She leaned forward. "Like you're having now. I will grant you that what you've been doing to Emma has been pretty horrible, but more in a 'old lady that likes to pop young children's balloons for fun' kind of way–" she wiggled the balloon for emphasis– "rather than the classic 'I will kill everyone you love'. Even pettiness has to have a certain flair."

"I can have flair," Snow argued indignantly.

"Perhaps you should ask your bird friend about that."

The bird stayed conspicuously quiet.

"It's not funny, Em."

"It's pretty funny."

Ruby let out a frustrated noise and turned to the Henry and David for some emotional support. "I'm not even wearing my cloak!"

The others stayed silent. Very silent.

"It was the only thing we had lying around, okay? And Granny said she was in a hurry."

"It's a giant basket, Rubes," Emma said, trying to hold back laughter. "And you're wearing all red even without your cloak. While you're on a quest to bring food to Granny."

"Do you want to carry it?"

Emma, never one to back down from less than well thought out challenges, held out her hands, still grinning. "You'd still look like the Red Riding–"

The rest of her words were replaced by a string of curses which would have made even the most hardened sailor blush, if she'd had any breath left to say it with. That basket was heavy enough that her legs threatened to buckle after only a second or two.

Thankfully, Ruby saved her from a complete collapse at the last moment, taking the basket back with minimal effort and maximal smugness.

"You could have warned me," Emma wheezed. "What even is in that thing? I thought it'd be like bread and cupcakes or something like that."

Ruby snorted. "Carry it to Granny and I'll tell you."

"I'll pass, thanks," Emma grumbled. "Let's just hope everyone's alive where we left them despite that little detour to the diner."

"You okay?" Emma sidled up next to Regina a little while later as the group made their way to a good picnic spot near the water.

Regina looked over to meet Emma's eyes, a smile playing in the corner of her mouth. "Of course. You didn't think your mother would try something, did you?"

Emma snorted. "No." Then she scratched her neck and her eyes slid over to Snow and David, walking ahead of them. "I just, uh... well, you know. We kind of sprung the whole thing onto you. And Snow."

"It was an excellent plan," Regina mused. "Exploiting both of our weaknesses and the available resources to their fullest extent. Very nice."

Emma lit up with a grin. "Yeah? It was mostly Henry, but we all chipped in a little. So we're good?"

Instead of answering, Regina just brushed her shoulder against Emma's and linked their fingers together. Apparently Emma's sappiness was contagious.

They soon found a decent spot near the water, far enough away from most of the commotion to have the place mostly for themselves. Snow and Ruby put down a picnic blanket while Regina and David unloaded the now slightly less filled basket Ruby had brought. Before long, they were all sitting around the basket eating cookies. Despite everything, whatever awkwardness or tension still remained between Regina and Snow was almost entirely drowned out by the everyone's good mood.

That was, of course, until the wind picked up again.

"The balloon!" Henry cried out. He had tied it to a branch he had found along the way and while it had been heavy enough to keep the balloon still before, the wind easily yanked loose both the balloon and the branch with it. Henry scrambled to his feet and set off after it. "I'll get it!"

Unfortunately, it soon became obvious that the wind was strong and his legs weren't quite long enough just yet.

"I'll help him," David, Emma, and Ruby all said in unison, before staring at each other in confusion for a while like some kind of humanitarian Mexican standoff.

Finally, Emma pushed herself to her feet. "The more the merrier, eh? Let's go get that balloon, people."

And then Regina and Snow found themselves left alone together. Again.

"Do you think they did this on purpose too?" Snow said, turning to look behind her at the pandemonium unfolding in the vicinity of the balloon.

Regina watched Emma haphazardly poofing around the area, Ruby skidding out onto the parking lot nearby after missing the balloon's string by mere inches, David trying to intercept it when the wind abruptly turned, and Henry bent over and leaning against a tree, panting heavily.

"Probably not." Regina turned her focus back to Snow with a thoroughly unconvincing smile. "I'm sure they have everything under control. It's just a balloon, after all."

"That's true."

They both ignored the yelp and the loud splash that followed close after.

"So," Regina said. "When are you going to give your little villain speech to Emma?"

Snow stiffened, then shifted uncomfortably. "I haven't really had time to think about it."

"The sooner–"

In the distance, someone yelled. "Ruby!"

"It's okay, I can still– shit– "

Regina cleared her throat and did her best to ignore the commotion. "The sooner you tell her, the sooner we can all be free of this family drama nonsense."

"Maybe we should get Mom–"

"I said I've got this!"

The exclamation was followed by another loud splash.

Snow sighed. "I know. I mean... I've spent the last few weeks trying to figure out a way to fix this – without, ah..."

"Without being wrong about me," Regina filled in.

"I suppose," Snow winced. "This is all pretty new to me." She sighed again. "I'm starting to realize that I haven't been entirely correct about you, but it's hard to shake the feeling."

Regina reached over to give Snow's hand an only somewhat condescending pat. "Although it may feel new to you, I can assure you that being wrong is something you're very used to. I'm sure it'll come back to you any moment now."

"That's–"

A flash of red was all the warning they got before something smashed into the ground only a few feet away.

"Hah!" Ruby exclaimed victoriously, holding the balloon up with her free hand. Her other hand, together with her feet, had made deep indents in the dirt beneath her from her impact. "I got it!"

Emma poofed in a few seconds later, clearly a bit winded. "Damn. You're seriously fine after that?" She squinted up at the sky. "You fell like, I don't know. A lot."

David and Henry came running just as Ruby pushed herself to her feet.

"You almost did the superhero landing!" Henry cried out, grinning madly.

Ruby, however, frowned. "'Almost'? What, because I didn't do the knee thing?"

"It looked really great, though."

"Hey, I teleported a bunch," Emma tried. "And I helped her get some speed."

Henry smiled up at her, the balloon now firmly back in his hand. "That's really nice too."

They all sat down again, looking various amounts of disheveled. Henry and Emma were both a little sweaty and still breathing heavily, while Ruby mostly looked a bit dusty after her landing.

"You're soaked," Snow exclaimed as David sat down next to her. "Why–"

"Emma poofed him in the water," Henry chirped as he gorged on yet another cookie. "And then Ruby threw him again, into the water."

"We tried to get the balloon," David explained with a placating smile. "It was getting a bit higher up than I could reach."

"And then Em kind of shot me into the sky. Saving the day," Ruby grinned. She fist bumped Emma and Henry before rifling through the basket some more.

Somehow, despite all the chaos, a sort of calm coziness settled in their little group as the evening neared and they chatted about whatever light nonsense came up. It was soft and easy and a part of Regina wanted to scoff at the banality of it all, but in the end she couldn't help but enjoy it.

A/N: i love that dumbass balloon so very much