Disclaimer:I do not own the characters,storybrooke,or abc. Nada. I am not making any money out of this,or plan to,k?

A/N:I dreamt that these two had hooked up. Then I scolded myself for having the mind I do,and then I saw, that I wasn't the only one. They have an awfully interesting dynamic.

This is basically another take on the season one finale. That said:It's not in here, because the pacing is very different, but I really liked the storage room scene.

I hope you'll enjoy this little tale.

The bed was full of tubes.

Plastic tubes everywhere.

There was a bigger tube that snuck out from underneath Henry's bedsheets like a snake, connecting his urethra with a plastic bag that collected the urine.

Because only conscious boys could pee for themselves.

Another one descended from the air, an iv drip that fed his body fluids.

Because boys that aren't awake can't drink.

They would only choke.

The liquid that one pours into their mouths would flow into their trachea, causing pneumonia.

As a baby, that doesn't happen, because babies have some sort of reflex, that allows them to drink, even when half asleep.

Emma hadn't had him for that long, but she knew that much.

In a weird way, memory flung her former cell mate's random baby facts back at her.

Pregnant and incarcerated at 18, the older woman had quickly taken her under her motherly wing, full of good advice and intentions.

And now, her words came back to Emma.

At the most inopportune moment ever.

Bits and pieces,advice and tales, like a ball of old string, thrown at her over the course of time, catching her in the stomach in the here and now.

There was another tube, one that carried air into his nose, because he was, thank God,still able to breathe, although, obviously, not quite that sufficiently.

Of course,there were, also in plastic encasing, the cables.

Pulse and ECG and oxygen measures,

Data that crawled over a monitor by the boy's head.

Lines and numbers that vaguely suggested that he was,still, alive.

But it was his chest, more than anything,that told of this fact.

It moved the blanket feebly covering it up and down ever so slightly, and Emma exhaled with each breath he released.

Henry was so pale, so very pale, and she missed him, missed the sunshine in his eyes and the light of his smile.

She missed the way he grinned, and talked and whispered and hopped by her side.

She missed his voice and his little, clam hand in hers.

Her son's.

At the thought, her eyes unglued themselves from the assuring steady rise and fall of the crisp white hospital blanket and froze themselves onto the person sitting across from where she was,still, standing.

There was the mayor, sitting, bent over, her eyes fixed Henry's white face.

She did not look up, and Emma Swan noticed the boy's tiny left hand disappear in a pair of finely manicured clasped hands above it.

Regina did not move, she did not twitch,even though, she surely could feel the shift of the blonde's attention.

All of her attention was concentrated solely on the boy's shut eyelids as though

she might miss a flinch,a sign, if she looked away but only for a moment.

"That apple was meant for you."

Her voice was dark and rough with grief and worry and yet she managed to spit the sentence as though it were an accusation, as though it was Emma's fault, that she had poisoned the pie.

And she did,actually, feel guilty.

Emma Swan wished for nothing more, than that she would have been the on to have eaten that apple turn over, that it would be her,lying in that bed, held captive by tubes.

Instead of..her son.

Another voice from a more recent past stole itself through her mind

"I changed his diapers.."

The sentence reverberated through her head.

It seemed as if from another lifetime.

For a wild moment,glancing at the yellowing bag by the bed, she wondered how the mayor had taught her son how to pee.

Their son.

He was her son,too.

Their son's life was on the line.

Literally.

"What was the poison?" she needed to know.

They needed to make leeway in this, they needed to get an antidote.

They needed, above else,to save Henry.

Preferably right now.

She could not bear the thought, the mere idea of loosing him.

What would a world without his smile be like?

How could there still be a world without his magic little presence in it?

The woman in front of her did not move from her impossible position, but she swallowed hard.

Tears suddenly filled the dark eyes, that Emma could have sworn were incapable of crying.

" There is no antidote" she paused, swallowing again, speaking was obviously an effort for her,and when the queen continued, it was in a whisper.

"He is just a child.."

There are things such as reflexes, and there are impulsive people, who never really learn control of theirs.

Emma Swan's reflexes were of the good kind, she had learned to appreciate them over the years, but when she suddenly found herself on the other side of the bed, cradling the head of the woman who had,very recently,too, tried to kill her, against her chest, she seriously doubted them.

Their son.

She sighed, as the first sob tore through Regina's body.

She bent, and held the crying mayor tighter to her, as she began to shake violently.

Ok, so maybe she hadn't always been the warmest of mothers, but it had always been clear to Emma, that even if her way of showing it was a little on the possessive side, Regina had truly cared for Henry.

She ran a hand through the dark hair in an effort to calm her.

Emma's eyes rested on Henry's face.

She wondered about the birthdays that she had missed, the first steps, the first teeth, the first essay, he wrote, the first time he had had cocoa, all the little firsts, and she sincerely hoped that what she had experienced with him,weren't the lasts.

Tears sprung to her own eyes.

The last cocoa, that would have been yesterday at Granny's.

She inhaled sharply at the onsurge of pain.

It was blinding and all consuming and its intensity and power surprised her.

She had had heartache before, and not too little of it..but this felt,as though someone was literally ripping her heart out.

Flesh of my flesh.

Emma heard someone howl in the distance, and she suddenly felt a steel hand at the back of her neck, a hand that slid up and buried itself in her hair.

That,with surprising strength,pulled her head against a warm and stately neck.

She felt dismembered, disjointed, as though Henry had been the glue to her, and now she was

falling apart,into a million little puzzle pieces, that she hadn't known she was, before she met him.

She felt her legs give out.

There was another hand,now, that found its way around her waist,that belonged to an arm, that pulled her in, that held her close, while grief,the unexpected wave of desperation and pain, swept over her and undid her wholly.

.without,Henry.

...

Suddenly she realized, that it had been her,who had been howling, and that she was here, and Henry was in that bed, and that hope was not yet lost,mustn't be and...

As the waves ebbed, she tried to calm her breathing.

Breathe in, and breathe out.

Easy..easy..

Of course, what else would she be breathing in and out,but the smell of apples?

It was the mayor's characteristic smell, and yet, Henry's,too.

At least it was familiar.

She had worn her clothes for a little while, after all.

Emma Swan unglued herself from the the other woman's neck, only to discover,that she was half kneeling by the chair.

Regina still held her, and tried to check her face through her own tear stained eyes.

"Are you alright?" the queen's voice was still only a whisper, but Emma found, that she couldn't speak yet, at all.

She got up haphazardly steadying herself on the back of the mayor's chair, and wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.

The other woman fished a knitted handkerchief out of her purse with which she dabbed at her own brown eyes.

Doctor Wells chose that moment to enter the room.

He had both mothers' undivided attention immediately.

"The reason for Henry's unconsciousness is not entirely clear.." he began.

Te sheriff interrupted him brusquely.

"I told you, that he ate those apple turnovers and.."

"Miss Swan,there is no sign of an intoxication,the symptoms are entirely different, I know you might think, that because of the coincidence in time and place.."

"How is he?" This time, it was Regina's voice who cut him off.

She sounded small and frightened, almost pleading.

Surprised, the doctor immediately dropped his earlier subject matter.

"He is..stable. His vital signs are perfect, he is simply..unconscious, and I cannot tell you, for the life of me why..we ran an MRI on his brain, did an EEG to detect brain activity that would suggest a prolonged epileptic seizure, we ran his blood for substances.." he glared at Emma... "but we've come up empty so far..the reason.."

Regina shook her head, "But doctor,he is fine?Merely..asleep?Stable?"

The physician shook his head, "Yes,yes it would seem that way, but the reason..".

"Alright."

With one swift move, the mayor stood up.

Tall and straight as ever.

She matter of factly grabbed Emma's hand, "Miss Swan, we need to talk. Now." and dragged a very befuddled sheriff out of the room with her.

They stood in front of the elevator, holding hands, much to the amazement of the people emerging from it.

Regina pulled a still dumbfounded Emma Swan out of the hospital and down the sidewalk with her.

After they had walked a few hundred yards,the sheriff had sorted her thoughts enough to form her question.

"What was in that pie?"

"The apple it was made from provides the eater with dreams full of regret. Dreams one never wakes up from."

Emma turned to her, aghast.

"No telling what it might do to a child, or what kind of magic it holds in this world. Magic here..is unpredictable."

The sheriff swallowed hard.

"How can you be so calm about this?Henry is caught in a neverending nightmare.." she felt her own hand grow cold against the mayor's palm.

"The EEG would have shown stressful dreams, " she gave the blonde a tight smile.

"And,besides, children do not yet know the meaning of regret."

They rounded a streetcorner, the light of the lamp flickered as they passed.

"It seems, that the apple has retained its basic property of making people sleep in this world, with the more garish side effects being useless on a child, " the queen sighed,her relief obvious now, she continued more quietly "I was afraid he might have overdosed, or been vitally endangered."

Emma was furious.

She spun the mayor around to a standstill.

"You call this ok?Him being asleep forever is ok for you?"

Regina pressed the hand she still held in hers.

"Of course it's not ok. But it gives us time. The time we need to find a solution."

She meant to continue on their path and pulled at Emma's hand to get her to come along, but the sheriff remained stock still.

This argument wasn't over yet.

"We?"she held up their joined hands.

"You're the savior." Regina tightened the hold she had on the raised hand.

"So,yes, "we"."