A/N: A little Tumblr prompt (sgtmac7) gone big. This is 99% a Regal Believer piece, but it has some wee Regina/Emma friendship elements and brief allusions to OQ romance. It's canonical, but overall, this piece is about Regina and Henry from the first night he woke her up to the day her little prince finally gets married. Enjoy!

The first time that three-week-old Henry wakes her up in the middle of the night, she has the strange thought that a kitten has somehow made its way into her bedroom. Henry is so young and his lungs are strong, but he's sleepy and not fully committed to this angry fit of his; he knows that he's unhappy about something but still, the sounds he makes are small and caught by his tiny throat and in her state of addled-fogginess, she's confused because how could a cat have made its way all the way up here.

But then Henry realizes that he's wet and hungry and suddenly the noise that jumps from him is something mighty and big and she's both startled and impressed all at once.

Until she realizes and remembers that she's the one who now has to push herself up and out of the bed and take care of Henry's infant needs.

While she has no desire to have anyone touch Henry - her son - but herself, it still takes her a brief moment to realize that there are not dozens of willing and ready servants hovering close around to remove the burden of motherhood from her should she want them to do so.

She doesn't want them to do so, will never want them to do so.

She stands, brushes hair out of her eyes and makes her way to his crib.

"Henry," she rumbles, her throat rough and her voice low. She reaches out for him, steadies his bouncing legs as he sobs out his frustration, and then lifts him into her arms, cradling him close to the warmth of her breast. The parenting books all sternly tell her to do it this way or that way, but she'd found his way almost immediately, and it's holding him as close to her heart - as near to the sign of how much she loves him - that he can be.

She sighs as he calms, as he hiccups and settles against her.

He needs to be changed desperately (she will reluctantly get used to the smell of that over time - a lot of time) and he's clearly quite hungry as well and this is just a peaceful and simple moment before he remembers both of those things, but it's still their moment and in this moment, he's happy.

He's happy and he's gurgling and looking at her like she's everything to him and she'd made him that way and she thinks this must be love.

When she puts him back down to bed - cleaned and fed - she gets silly and young and blows him a kiss goodnight and then laughs at herself.

His first steps are more like a first stumble. He army crawls first and she worries about just how fast he can move when she loses him between the kitchen and the living room and he's somehow learned to navigate through chairs in a way that makes him seem almost tricky. When she finds him beneath her table, he's giggling and then he's pushing himself up like he's decided that this is the moment where's going to walk.

But it doesn't quite work like that and so he takes off crawling again.

A week later, he's up and then he's down.

And then he's up and he's so very mad when he's down again.

He glares at the ground like he's going to punch it and she almost laughs because her father had once told her that she'd been just as angry when her first steps had gone poorly and she'd ended up more down than up.

But he's persistent and stubborn and his spirit is unwavering.

When he's up, he claps his hands.

And falls.

But then he's laughing because for a brief second at least, he'd been more up then down and even back then, Henry Mills had known a win.

He gets insanely sick when he's a little more than two years of age – sick enough where even Whale agrees that she's not over-exaggerating and Henry will need to be hospitalized for a few days so that the doctors can monitor his vitals and fluid levels. Henry's young and miserable, but all he cares about is the fact that his mother is nearby at all times; when she isn't, he starts crying and doesn't stop until Regina shows up once again.

He's in the hospital for six days, and she stays by his bed the entire time, curling up with him several times. She sleeps sparingly, and looks like someone had hit her with a bus when it's all over. When she looks in the mirror, she wonders where the stunning Queen that had once used her beauty as a brutal weapon had disappeared to; now she's tired and there are bruises beneath both eyes that it would take an entire bottle of cover-up to properly conceal. Still, there's something warm deep inside of her.

It has something to do with the little boy she's watching sleep, tucked beneath cartoonish blankets. His hair is messy and over his eyes as always, but his color is good again, and his breathing is right. He's going to be just fine and she thinks that as long as he, she will be as well.

So she leans down and kisses him goodnight, her lips gentle against his smooth cool forehead, and she thinks that maybe for the first time in a week, she can sleep without him – and him without her – on this evening, but then he turns towards her, his eyes still closed, and Regina knows that it'll have to wait until tomorrow for her to let him out of her sight.

When he's three years old, Henry is on her bed while she's showering and he accidentally finds himself watching a Nature Channel program on bears. Afterwards, he has a terrible nightmare about one of them trying to eat him. He has tears in his eyes and he's so afraid for both of them.

"He'll eat you!" he cries out.

She smiles and brushes her nose against his and assures him, "Not your mother." Another nuzzle and then she says, "Nothing can take me down."

"Even bears?"

"Especially bears."

"He was big."

"I'm bigger."

He frowns at her because she's in bed next to him, and there's no shoes (or heels) allowed in bed and so she's not really all that big like this.

But then she's hugging him and promising him again that she'll protect him. She's rocking him in her arms and humming to him in a way that's so soft and she's promising him that she will never let anything hurt him.

Never.

It never occurs to him to think that she won't keep that promise.

At four, he draws her a picture. Or at least it's supposed to be a picture.

It's a giant red scrawl across a white shock of paper and it's nothing.

But it says MOMMA in sprawling backwards letters and when he gives it to her, he gives a big sloppy wet kiss on the right cheek as well.

It's simple and normal and mom and sons do it every day.

It's everything.

She has tears shining in her eyes and he can't begin to understand the many ways she'd tried to please her own mother in this way – he can't begin to grasp the many ways a heart can break over the smallest things.

The picture goes on her desk and it stays there until he's older and embarrassed of the scribbling of a child; then she puts it inside her top drawer and when the days get particularly bad, she sneaks a peak.

He doesn't know and wouldn't understand this anymore than he would understand why her eyes sometimes gloss over when he gives her things.

He doesn't see the ghosts there; don't know of the heartbreak there.

But the picture stays in that top drawer.

Even years later, it's still there.

He rides his bike when he's five years old, and by the time the first lesson is over, she knows that teaching him to drive when he's sixteen will be impossible because she's cautious and he's bold; she's wary and he's exuberant. She sees potential dangers that could flip his bike and he sees ramps that can help him do cool things once he masters his new vehicle.

"Slow," she says as she walks beside him, her hand out to catch him.

"I'm too slow," he grumbles and peddles faster. He's wearing a helmet and pads and he's a small boy so it's all too much but he's safe at least.

"We're not in a hurry," she tells him and doesn't tell him that this is all going too fast for her, anyway. He was just a crying baby in her arms yesterday (she thinks) and now he's telling her that he wants to speed up.

He gives her an odd look because she's just staring at him, but then he's turning back towards the street and his little legs are pumping so hard because all he knows is how to push and try to keep fighting. She thinks he's so much like her at times, but then he's laughing like he hasn't a problem in the world and his heart is free and he's someone else entirely.

But he's her little boy and that's all that matters so when he finally does get some speed going, even though she's in heels, she trots next to him and tries not to think about how absolutely ridiculous she looks doing it.

When he gets to the end of the street, he pumps his hands in celebration and practically leaps into her arms and it's so inconsequential but he's so happy and so proud and though she wants him desperately to slow down and just stay in this moment, she forces herself to celebrate his growing up with him.

At six years old, he falls out of a tree and breaks his right arm.

She'd cursed Snow White to this world, one without love or happiness.

It'd been a revenge worse than death, she'd told herself at the time.

Snow White almost dies that day, anyway.

Because Henry is hurt and broken and so very frightened.

And she can't make the fact that he now knows pain go away.

It's Henry's good arm wrapped around her neck, clutching her close that stops her from looking around for a weapon to use on Mary Margaret as she hovers nearby, anxiously kneading her hands and apologizing for failing to have eyes on the back of her head. It's the way that Henry gently whimpers into her ear and softly asks her to take him home that saves Snow's life that day; she'll never know just how close she'd come.

But the moment of anger is broken and then Regina is holding him in her arms as they lay on her oversized bed, and she's reading to him from a book of children's stories and Henry is smiling through the pain - at her.

It's okay, she tells herself.

He's okay.

They're okay.

At seven, they start to not be okay.

It's little things at first, and she doesn't notice them, doesn't recognize them; she doesn't see the way his eyes narrow when she doesn't answer the questions he asks her about the big bad world around them. It's her fault and years later she'll be able to see it, but her son is intelligent and he's so much like her and that means that he's unwilling to ever be still.

So he asks her why people die and she tells him a pretty story because she's thinking of Daniel and Father, and she honestly doesn't know why.

He asks her why his teacher always looks so sad and she feels a burst of something hot inside of her; she lies to him and misses the way that he looks at her. He's only seven and he couldn't know, couldn't understand.

He asks her why it's just the two of them – Graham doesn't count; he comes and mostly goes and he never stays long enough for it to really matter – and all she can answer is that "it's better this way".

But he knows – even if he doesn't understand yet – that's a lie as well.

At eight, they're not okay.

He's pulling away and she's desperately trying to pull him back in.

He screams "I hate you" at her when she angrily refuses to let him stay over with friends from school that she knows won't age with him, and she ends up over the toilet that night, her body trembling and convulsing and her dry hacking sobs pound against the tiled walls of the bathroom.

He apologizes in the morning and makes her soggy pancakes and coffee that's so badly burnt that it curdles her stomach; she doesn't tell him that she'd forgiven him before the words had been out of his mouth.

She tells him that she's just trying to take care of him and reminds him that it's just the two of them. They're all each other has. She doesn't ask him if that's enough because that's just a bit too much like something her mother would have said, but he somehow knows it's what she needs to hear anyway, and he wraps his arms around her and hugs her so tight.

But she knows - she feels - that he's still slipping away from her.

She just has to find a way to make it stop.

She doesn't make it stop.

In fact, she makes it worse.

God, so much worse.

She sends him to therapy when he's nine - almost ten - and he resents her for it.

But it's what he finds in her closet when he's looking for Christmas presents that changes everything.

They're papers - his adoption papers - and she should have thrown them away, but she hadn't and now he's demanding the truth and she's caught and unprepared.

And then she's the one who is angry.

At him. At herself. At the world for ruining this.

She reaches for him and tells him it doesn't matter, tells him that this woman who had given him up doesn't matter. All that does is them.

But he wants honesty and she can't give him that.

It's too frightening and it opens too many doors.

Doors she can't control.

He slams the door on her that night.

And then there's Emma Swan at her door and "I found my real mom".

There aren't antacids strong enough for this. Not in any world.

Her eyes meet Emma's and she declares war.

She won't lose her son.

He's ten and it's been their ten years and she won't give them up.

She won't lose the only thing that proves that she can be good.

That she can still love.

"I will destroy you if it's the last thing I do," she vows to Emma.

But Emma destroys her first.

It's the best thing that ever happened to she and Henry.

Years later, she'll realize it's what saved them.

She's sitting on a rock in the middle of a hot jungle, and she's pretty sure that she's sweating in places that are improper for a Queen to sweat in.

She knows that she hasn't much time here before someone - most likely Emma since Snow has been giving her space and neither Hook nor David would dare to come over to her in the dark mood that she's in - will decide that she needs to have her spirits lifted; it won't be long before self-declared leader Emma will decide she needs to be reassured.

But she has thoughts and dreams and they're really more of nightmares.

It becomes something like a giant ugly crayon scribble in her head after a moment - red against a white background. It masses together and then there's just chaos and she thinks she might start screaming soon.

Because it's blood and fear and so much desperation that it burns.

She's so terrified that she'll never get to again reassure Henry that she will make him proud if it's the last thing she ever does (and this time she means it)- she's scared out of her mind that she will never be able to be the mother that she'd always promised him – and herself – that she'd be, the one worthy of his arms wrapped around her and his head against her - and she's so worried that he'll never know that he made her worthy.

Or at least close to worthy.

Regina thinks of first steps and broken arms.

She thinks of MOMMA and I HATE YOU.

She thinks of I LOVE YOU.

She takes a breath, wipes the tears that have formed in her eyes roughly away and then stands back up, returning to the camp just as Emma's starting to venture out to try to find out, Snow trailing close behind her.

"Mother-daughter bathroom trip?" she cracks, because she needs and wants her son back dearly, but her arm is still out to these people.

They're her enemies, her reluctant allies.

But they're both looking at her like they can tell she's been crying.

They're soft and understanding and she hates them for it.

For understanding.

So she turns away from them and she sits by herself, her eyes so hard.

All she cares about is Henry.

He's all that matters.

Bringing him back safe and secure, that's all that matters.

She lets Henry leave her.

She casts a curse and breaks her heart and he'll never know.

He'll never know that he colored a blackened heart with streaks of red.

There's a curse she doesn't cast and a sister she doesn't want.

There's a sister who was a daughter and an archer who is a guardian.

She doesn't have any pictures, though, and while magic can do much, it can only create ghostly images but not ink that no longer exists.

She has only memories and they're not enough to keep her from the panic attacks that strike her at two in the morning and leave her gasping.

Her heart locks down and she wants to close everything off to everyone.

But Snow keeps talking about Henry and Emma and Storybrooke and everything that'd been good about the land that had inadvertently given them all a second chance; Snow keeps remembering for all of them.

She hates Snow.

She finds herself forgiving Snow.

She thinks Henry would like that.

He sees her and he doesn't see her and her hearts shatters in half.

He's her son and he's clearly not her son.

Emma is rising and rushing towards her, but she's still looking at Henry and pleading with him to remember his first steps or –

But he does remember.

Only in his mind – in what he remembers – they just weren't with her.

It's hard to let Henry out of her arms after she truly gets him back - after he remembers them - but this is the new Regina and it's the one that understands that holding him like she's chains could never work for them because that's how her mother had held her and she doesn't want Henry to hate her as much he loves her as she does her mother. So she lets him leave with Emma - lets him visit his now deceased father's grave - and when he rushes back to her once more and kisses her cheek, she laughs.

He looks at her curiously, like he doesn't understand.

She says, "I missed you so much, my little prince."

He thinks it's that simple of an answer, but he doesn't know just how much she'd missed when he could love her so easily and so normally.

They'll never be normal, and she understands that when Henry's tells her how proud he is - so proud - of her white magic. He's beaming at her.

At her.

He tells her he always knew she could do it.

He tells her that he always knew who she was.

She doesn't tell him that she's glad someone did.

Her heart shatters and she's starting to realize with more than a little bitterness that that's more normal for her than receiving affection.

Emma apologizes and apologizes, but it's Henry who makes her listen.

Henry who reminds her of whom she's become and what she is.

Heartbroken now, but not alone.

He stays with her the night of Marian's return and then every night after that until he moves back into the house and asks her for math help.

He's better than her now and sometimes he tries to stump her.

He puts a blanket over her one night when she falls asleep in her office.

And pretends he didn't do it - and doesn't know what she's talking about - when she wakes up in the morning and tries to apologize to him for it.

He finally - with not nearly as much effort as it really should have taken - convinces her to have dinner with his "idiot Charming family" and she laughs because he really shouldn't be calling them that and he doesn't even believe that they are that (even though they are), but he's grinning at her and he doesn't know how much she appreciates that he's willing to go a little bit outside of his own kind of normal just to make her smile.

So she has dinner with him and she doesn't stab Emma and she even manages to talk to Snow some and she does like the baby quite a lot.

He's cute.

He reminds her of Henry.

So Regina holds him and rocks him in her arms and against her chest, and she tells him that he's already much smarter than his older sister.

Emma smiles at that and hands her a cup of coffee.

She doesn't throw it back into Emma's face.

That's progress.

Henry wraps his arms around her and puts his head on her shoulder.

She reaches back, runs her fingers through his hair and smiles at him.

"I'm okay," she assures him, her voice low and for just him.

"I know," he says.

He doesn't move away.

Marian passes away three days after Henry's fifteenth birthday (she and Robin have been apart for awhile now, but out of respect and perhaps even fear, Regina has stayed far away); six months later, she ends up in a screaming fight with her son at the foot of their staircase in the mansion and they're both in tears as he's begging her to give herself a chance to be happy and she's angrily almost bitterly reminding him just how poorly that always turns out for her.

"But it doesn't," he insists. "You have family."

"Isn't that enough? You're enough for me."

He shakes his head. "I want you happy, Mom." He steps closer and wraps his arms so tight around her and he does this so much more often these days - he gives her affection like she's Snow White and not the Evil Queen - and he says to her, "Mom, I want you to be happy. Let yourself be."

He means give Robin another chance – believe that it could work out now.

"I'm afraid," she admits and God she shouldn't be saying this to her son.

But she has and he knows and he begs her to have faith and to hope.

He tells her to follow her heart and he really is a Charming.

He's seventeen and as tall as Robin now; he'll end up taller than him.

He's a good older brother to Roland and an excellent nephew to Neal.

He's also managed to get his mothers to a place of actual true friendship.

Something that makes them both laugh rather awkwardly when they think about it because seven years ago, even the thought of this would have made them both sneer, but now they're having a half-business/half-friends lunch in public and everyone in the town has seen it a hundred times and doesn't even notice them anymore.

Henry's rather proud of himself, really.

But he's even more proud (of himself and them) when he hands Regina - he gives it to her first, lets her be the first one to know – the acceptance letter that tells her that her perfect little boy has been accepted to the prestigious Missouri School of Journalism. He's going to write, he says.

He's going to tell all of their stories.

Her story.

He's going to make sure it gets told, as it always should have been.

She pays that no mind, though - doesn't care about her own story - only hears that her little boy has become a man. He's leaving and it's terrifying, but she's so very proud of him, and so she thinks that she can be strong enough for him here when he needs her to be just as he's been strong enough to forgive her. She thinks she can finally let him go.

It's harder when she and Emma leave him at the school.

She's crying and she feels like a pathetic fool and a silly woman.

But then he's hugging them and then he's hugging her, and he's so happy and they're all so happy and she thinks that if she could have had one moment like this with her mother, then it would have been enough.

So she gives it to Henry and she tells him how proud she is of him.

And then she steps away and lets him disappear in the echoing hallways.

He meets a pretty girl named Kristina – another journalism major like himself - in his sophomore year and gets engaged in his junior year.

She allows Snow to give Henry her ring – the magical one that had helped Charming to find her in the world that once was - and Kristina says yes.

Graduation comes before the wedding, that's the agreement.

It gives her just a little bit more time before he's no longer hers at all.

He's so handsome in his graduation gown, so strong and beautiful.

He waves at his family from the stage and he grins and they grin.

He returns to Storybrooke that night with his fiancé - now that was a conversation to have and Regina thinks she still catches the girl giving her odd looks from time to time like she's still trying to work out the fact that her mother-in-law is about to be the most notorious villain of all time (she and Kristina will end up getting along fabulously, but that's for later) - and they have the celebration party to end all celebration parties.

She watches and she dutifully smiles and thinks that time is running out and this is something that she's going to have to learn to deal with.

Because he has a new family and he's moving on and moving forward.

She has more now - Robin and Roland - but he's Henry – her baby - and he will always have a place in her heart that no one else will ever touch.

When he scrapes his knees during a sword fight in the street with his grandfather, she's the one who cleans them up as he hisses and whines.

Time is running out, but it's not out yet.

Time has finally run out.

He's getting married today.

His tux is stunning and he's her grown-up prince with bright green eyes.

Emma sits with her before the wedding and they silently share a bottle of whiskey that she's stolen from the bar - just a few sips for the nerves.

"Hey, Moms," Henry says as he steps in, so tall and so much a man.

"Hey, Kid," Emma nods, not bothering to hide the bottle.

"Can we have a moment?" he asks, and he doesn't have to explain.

Emma nods and hands him the bottle. "Don't bring it out with you."

He laughs and kisses Emma on the cheek to remind her of his love for her and waits for her to leave. Once the door closes behind her, he sits down next to Regina, and then takes a drink and hands the bottle to her.

"I doubt your new wife wants this on your breath," she says softly.

"I'm pretty sure that her own mom is giving her whiskey, too," he replies.

And then Henry puts his arm around her and she puts her head on his shoulder and for a moment it's just the two of them like this.

Just mother and son and it will always be this, she would like to believe.

She needs to believe.

"I got something for you," he says after a few moments.

"Oh?"

"I told you I'd write your story." He reaches into the pocket of his jacket and pulls out a flash drive. "It's taken me since my freshman year."

"What -"

"Look at it when you get home tonight."

She nods her head and clutches her hand around the flash drive.

"You ready for this?" he asks as he starts to rise. "I think it's time."

"Are you? Ready, I mean. Because –"

"I love her," he tells her, his voice quiet and sure, so very confident.

"Okay. Then…then yes." It's a lie, but it's the right lie.

He leans forward and presses his lips to her forehead and she thinks for a moment she feels his tears, but then he's offering her his arm.

She takes it, takes a deep breath and walks out with him.

She doesn't have to give him away, but it kind of feels like she is.

It's red wine and Rocky Road and they don't really mix even a little bit, but Robin is dozing and she can't sleep and the flash drive is in her hand.

She puts it into the slot on the side of her laptop and then with a half exasperated sigh, she clicks on the program which reads CLICK ME FIRST.

She sees Henry, then, in his tux, in front of a camera.

"Hey, Mom," he says. "I know it's typical to give the bride and groom presents, but well this is my wedding gift to you. I started this project four and a half years ago and now it's complete and I hope you like it."

There are two other files on the flash drive - one that says CLICK ME SECOND and a final one that says CLICK ME LAST. Resisting the strong temptation to disobey the given orders just out of spite and instinct, she dutifully opens the second file and which reveals a large document.

It's a book, she realizes after a moment.

No, it's the book.

The storybook that had altered everything.

Only it's been changed.

Her life, her background, it's been written in.

Their story - her and Henry's - has been written in as well. It speaks of Emma and Snow and David and Robin and everyone in-between.

But mostly it speaks of them.

She wipes away tears and with her hands trembling, clicks the last file.

His face returns to her screen and she thinks that he's crying, too.

"I love you, Momma," he says. "I love you so much."

His hand goes to his lips, he kisses it and then tosses it towards her.

She closes her eyes and simply says "I love you, too."

-Fin