Henry was bursting with excitement to show Emma the change that had overcome his brunette mother. Upon waking up this morning, he had rushed down to the cellar to see Regina. He had realized, sadly, that greeting his mother in the morning was something he had stopped doing quite a while ago and he vowed that when she was unfrozen, and he would ensure that she get unfrozen somehow, he would be sure greet her every morning for the rest of his life.
He was surprised to see that the light was on in the cellar. He was pretty sure Emma had turned it off when they left the room the night before. For a brief second, he was happy his mom was frozen because if she knew they had left the light on all night, she'd've been pissed about the waste of electricity. That thought was quickly followed by regret. He'd have taken a pissed off Regina and an hour long lecture over a frozen Regina any day.
Henry had skidded to a stop in front of the clear, freezer door. He was panting because the sprint from his room to the cellar had left him a little breathless. He made a mental note to ask Emma if he could accompany her on her jogs. Then he looked up at Regina's face, and at first he did not register the change.
"Hey, mom," he started. Then he noticed. "Mom?"
He cocked his head to the side. She had definitely changed. She was no longer in the protective stance she had been in and instead of her face taking on the look of a scary mama bear, it had taken on a look Henry hadn't seen on his mom's face in what felt like lifetimes. She looked happy, and that confused him. Because if she had changed, somehow, but she was still definitely frozen, why would she look this happy?
If Regina had been flesh and blood at that moment, and instead of a human-sized icicle, Henry would have deemed her expression as pretty gross. Because not only did she look happy, but upon closer inspection Henry determined that she also looked sappy, like she was in love or something. And while he wished nothing more for both his mothers, but especially Regina, than for them to be happy and in love, he was a teenage boy and he most definitely didn't want to think about his mothers being in such a state, except for in vague, abstract terms.
Even when Regina had been merrily going around with Robin Hood and she looked like she was 'head over heels' in love, whatever that meant, she'd never looked quite like this.
And that is when Henry remembered scraps of conversations he'd overhead Emma and Tink exchange the night before. Emma had gotten Robin Hood to kiss his mom the previous day, in an attempt to wake her up from her frozen sleep. It hadn't appeared to have worked when they were all in the cellar the other night, but he surmised that maybe it just took some time to take effect.
He looked closely at Regina's expression once more before running out of the cellar, being sure to turn off the light despite his excitement, and going to get Tinkerbell to show her what had happened and to discuss all of the possible reasons. Thoughts of Emma being Regina's True Love had been completely forgotten.
But as he was ambling down the steps once again, eager to show his mom Regina's changed expression, theorizing out loud that Robin Hood's kiss must have worked, he remembered. Emma had reminded him, in fact, because the mention of Robin had certainly made his blonde mother tense. And the mere thought that he entertained the idea of the thief as suitable for Regina's True Love seemed to really...well, Henry didn't quite know what to categorize the expression Emma's face had taken when she realized he meant Robin was his mom's True Love, but whatever it was, it was not a happy expression.
Realizing that Emma's feelings for his mom seemed to be closer to the surface than either he or Tinkerbell originally assumed, he made to take the fairy aside to speak with her. He hurriedly ushered Emma to the freezer where Regina was being kept and he was pleased to see that she was completely occupied with this puzzle as he had been. That meant he had some time. Walking with Tink out of earshot, he wasted no time in getting straight to his point.
"I don't know what happened to make mom look like that," he said, "but clearly Emma doesn't want it to have been Robin. Do you think his kiss could've worked yesterday and been really delayed but that Emma could still be mom's True Love?"
Tink was thankful the boy had finally paused in all his rushing around to think critically about the situation. From the moment he had rushed into the guest room, spouting off something about Regina until right now, she had been puzzling over that exact question. Unfortunately, she had come to no conclusions.
"I don't know," she answered. "Perhaps Robin's kiss did work, but not fully, which is why she's still frozen."
Henry nodded his understanding. "So Emma could still be mom's True Love."
Tink's heart was warmed by the beaming smile on Henry's face at the thought of his two moms being destined to be together, but she was a cautious woman, after having her wings taken away and decades in Neverland, so she regrettably had to dampen the boy's mood.
"The only thing that puzzles me," she began, "is that if Robin isn't her True Love and Emma is, why your mom looks like that."
Henry hadn't considered this yet. His mom was super happy right now, yes. Robin's kiss might have been the cause for the change, yes. But those two things seemed to be separate. The idea of Robin making his mom that happy didn't quite sit well with Henry.
He shook his head. "She didn't look that happy when she was with him before." And that seemed to satisfy him. Regina was happy for some other reason, a reason that had nothing to do with the thief in tights. "Even if his kiss is why she was able to change, he's not the reason she looks so happy. He can't be."
The boy seemed so sure that Tink didn't feel like arguing. Not that she'd get a chance to, since Emma had finished gawking at Regina and was now approaching them.
"What are you guys talking about?" Emma asked, suspicion lacing her tone.
Henry beamed up at his blonde mother and answered, "Mom." which seemed to satisfy her for the time being. Tink noted that Henry had technically told the truth. And she also noticed that Emma's expression looked almost as happy as Henry's at the mention of the brunette. She guessed that Henry believing Robin had caused the shift in Regina's expression was the only reason Emma wasn't as happy as her son.
What neither Tink nor Henry knew, of course, was that Emma knew exactly why Regina had changed. And she was happy to see evidence, aside from her very vivid dream from the night before, that her kiss had worked on Regina. The only problem was that she didn't know how she was going to figure out how to unfreeze Regina completely, if her kiss hadn't worked the way it was supposed to.