It's an odd thing, this late winter. Bitter and frigid, and with none of the coziness that comes with the end of fall. The sun still rides high in the sky, tries to fight its way through thick clouds from the early hours of the morning until easily eight each night. It's disorienting, leaving her office after a full day's work, and finding the sky still light, the streetlights still dark, despite the thick frosting of snow on the ground. Most nights, she stays until the sky finally darkens, simply because she can, because she is now beholden to no one and nothing - except Henry.

And tonight, it is Henry's night with her. He lives with her, still, his other mother, and while she'd never admit it, the truth is Regina prefers it that way. For now. She'd promised him, that first night after Marian's return, when he'd followed her home to ensure she was alright (her sweet, perfect, loving boy, with his big heart that holds so much love for her, though many days she cannot imagine why), and she'd asked him to go, to keep away from her, to give space to the rage she could not quell - she'd promised him then that she would not seek vengeance against his mother. Or Roland's. She'd promised him she'd harm no one, not even herself, that she would sit and stew in her impotent rage, because he had refused to leave her side until she had assured him that losing Roland's father would not send her into a tailspin of violence and revenge.

But she feels volatile, untethered, and it's better that he's not around for the nights she shatters every breakable thing in the kitchen, or stands in the back yard and immolates every tree except the honeycrisp, then rights everything she's destroyed just to burn off the rest of her seething magic.

It's better that he lives with Ms. Swan and her pirate, that he not bear witness to his mother's bouts of fury or the hours she spends weeping into her pillow at night, the days she does nothing but wander the halls of her mansion, numb and spent and hollow. Henry need not bear witness to her day-to-day, but they have a standing Friday night date. She makes him dinner, and he tells her about school (they're running it right through summer, because sometimes the temperatures drop into the single digits, the snow so thick you can't see your hand in front of your face, and any parent knows that weeks of cooped up children is a curse worse than any Regina could conjure), and how he babysits the young Prince Neal, and the goings-on of the other denizens of Storybrooke, save two of them. (Roland has taken a liking to him, she knows that, and he mentions the boy occasionally, carefully, but he never, ever mentions Roland's father, or his mother, or truth be told, even Emma Swan unless she is absolutely necessary. And Regina is grateful for it.)

Those nights are a balm to her, soothing the tempest she carries inside, and so she has left work early, while the sun is still up, and she has made lasagna again, because he has asked for it (he always does), and she has let him trounce her soundly in Mario Kart while it bakes, because she loves the way he laughs triumphantly every time he surpasses her (and because she is absolutely horrible at it, couldn't beat him if she tried), and now here they sit. At her dining table (too large for two, but who else would fill it?), and he is telling her about school and about how half his class it out sick with the flu that has been going around, and she frowns and reaches for his brow, even though he is in high spirits, with healthy pink cheeks, and an appetite that will leave her lasagna dish empty even if she doesn't send leftovers home with him (her baby is a teenager, my God, when did that happen?).

Henry shakes his head, and lifts his hand to nudge hers away, "I'm fine, mom," he assures, laughing at her, and she smiles, really smiles and shrugs her shoulders at him.

"Pardon me for worrying," she teases, and it's a moment that is light and easy, and then she adds, "I cannot tell you how many parents have called requesting the town cancel school altogether until the flu works its way through. Is there really an entire kindergarten class that's out at once?"

He nods with a mouthful of lasagna, slowly, not meeting her gaze. And then he swallows, finally, and says, "Roland's class. Fourteen kids were out this week, only Melody Tucker is still in school - and that's because she already had it."

"Roland's out?" Regina asks, trying to sound concerned but not overly so, but there's something in the way he's carrying himself all of a sudden, a hesitance, he knows something, and it sets her on edge.

He's nodding again, and then he tells her, "It's pretty bad." His gaze flicks to her, then back to his plate, and he takes a deep breath and says, "Robin got it first, and then Marian and Roland. Robin got better, but Marian's turned into pneumonia, and mom - Emma," he corrects, "said they tried to treat her at the hospital, but she's allergic to the antibiotics, and had a really bad reaction, and they're pretty sure she won't make it." He's rushing now, tumbling through words she figures he's been itching to tell her for days, and Regina feels like there's a lead weight settling in her belly. Marian is dying - something that in those first, dark days she had dreamed of, fantasized about and hated herself for it, and now that it is here, she discovers that she finds no joy in the thought that Robin could lose his wife all over again. She thinks of Daniel, in the stables, of having him again and losing him so quickly, and the utter, gut-ripping pain of having to watch as something so precious to her dissolved before her eyes, lost to her again and this time with no hope of return.

There's a knot in her throat, thick and painful, and she swallows hard and blinks rapidly, and asks, "And Roland?"

Her voice shakes, but this is Henry and so she ignores it. She needs no pretenses of strength in front of her son.

"He's there too," Henry admits, with a pained look, and Regina feels something twist hard in her chest. "I guess they ran some kind of test to see if he's allergic to the medicine too, and he is, but he's really sick, like Marian, so they're keeping him there trying to, I don't know, keep him from..." He trails off, and shrugs, and picks at his food with his fork, and Regina has completely lost her appetite.

"Dying," she finishes, and Henry shakes his head.

"No." His frown deepens. "Maybe. I don't know. Emma said Robin says they admitted Roland right away to try to keep him from getting even worse, like Marian. She was really sick by the time they brought her in, I guess. But I can tell when she talks about it that it's really bad, and she just doesn't want to tell me." He reaches for his water, and looks her in the eye. "Should I have told you this before? I didn't think you wanted to hear anything about him, so-"

Regina cut him off, shakes her head, raises a hand in dismissal, "No, no, sweetheart, it's... fine. It's fine that you didn't. I didn't want to hear anything about him. I just..." She takes in a slow breath, lets it out, and finishes, "Poor Robin..."

Henry nods, sadly, and this time, when he leaves her house at the end of the night she does not feel soothed, she does not feel better. She thinks of Robin, alone with Marian and Roland, surrounded by illness and desperation, and the heavy weight of impending grief and she wants to scream, and set fire to the trees, and break every fragile thing.

Instead, she dresses for the cold.