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Birthdays had never been Regina’s thing. She could think of no period of her life during which celebrating the moment of her birth had been a priority in anyone’s mind, least of all her own. She took note of the day, of course, the memory a relic of her childhood that she clung to with secret desperation, but the closest she’d gotten to a present in years was a quiet glass of wine and a slice of apple pie.
Now even that was taken from her. Now that Storybrooke was in sync with the rest of Maine, her tree moved in and out of season just like a normal tree would. Though the flowers bloomed prettily in the summer heat, no fruit would grow for at least another two months. She looked out the window blankly, seeing but not seeing the rich foliage of her well-kept back yard. If nothing else, the recent need to actually maintain her lawn had kept her busy in the wake of Charming’s mayoral takeover. Despite his lack of managerial experience and his clear incompetence at the job, he had insisted on keeping the role of mayor “in the family.” Her lip curled in disgust at the thought.
She couldn’t even really mourn the lack of a celebration with Henry. Though his birthdays were lavish events involving cake and presents and all of his favorite junk foods, upon reflection she doubted whether he even knew when her birthday was. So when the knock on her door came she jumped so violently that her wine spilled out of the glass and onto her hand.
She quickly cleaned up and set the glass on the counter before heading out into the hall. When she opened the door it was to find Emma Swan standing awkwardly on her porch.
“Miss Swan? What exactly do you think you’re doing at my home?” Emma shifted uncomfortably, looking at Regina and then away several times before clearing her throat and speaking.
“I, uh, I heard it was your birthday,” she said gruffly, and Regina was glad Emma looked away as she said it because for a fraction of a second all of her emotions were displayed on her face. Shock, confusion, even hope. Hope that this might be the first positive interaction she’d had with anyone in weeks.
“Yes. It is.” Her response came out more sharply than she’d intended, and she saw Emma wince briefly. But then her face settled into a look of solid determination and she plowed ahead.
“Well, I was wondering if you wanted to go to dinner at Granny’s with me. And Henry. Me and Henry.” The look of mild panic on her face was amusing enough to make Regina almost smile, and it put her in a momentary good mood that prompted what she immediately recognized as a severe lapse in judgment.
“I suppose. What time?” It was certainly too late to take it back now.
“Uh, seven. Yeah, around seven would be good, I guess.” Emma looked surprised but not at all disappointed, a fact which puzzled Regina greatly. “We’ll see you there, then.”
She nodded and shut the door, already regretting her decision. This would end terribly, she knew. There was no way it could go otherwise. But she’d already agreed to go, and she’d have the chance to see and spend time with Henry. That was what mattered.
The time until seven o clock passed strangely, some minutes rushing by and others crawling. At six thirty she left the house, got halfway to the front gate, and turned around again. She waited in the front room for another fifteen minutes just to be sure she wouldn’t arrive too early.
When she got to Granny’s Emma and Henry were thankfully already there, and Henry waved her over to their table with a wide grin. She hadn’t seen him so genuinely happy to see her since he was probably six or seven, and she felt as if she might burst with joy. Emma was seated across from him, and as Regina approached she nodded almost imperceptibly at the seat next to Henry. She couldn’t fathom why Emma Swan of all people was being so good to her, but for the moment she was too happy to even care.
“Alright, there is something I didn’t tell you this afternoon. You’re here on one very important condition. Henry, would you like to tell her?” Emma looked very serious, and Regina’s stomach lurched. Here was where everything would go downhill.
“You have to order a burger!” Henry said with entirely too much glee. Regina’s mood flipped once again, leaving her relieved but still shaking slightly from the moment of fear. Emma must have seen something of it in her eyes because she reached out and touched Regina’s elbow briefly. Why that touch was comforting to her was a question she had no intention of pursuing at the moment.
“You can still get wine or whatever, you don’t have to drink soda or anything,” Emma added quickly. “I think they’ve actually got a pretty good selection here.” Regina nodded and smiled – it felt odd to smile so sincerely at this woman – and turned her attention to Henry, who had begun to talk animatedly about the video game she’d gotten him earlier in the year. Apparently, in the absence of some sort of family vacation to fairytale land, he’d become very attached to it. Granny arrived in the middle of a demonstration of the different swordfighting techniques he’d learned from it to find both Emma and Regina utterly captivated by him. She let it go on for a minute before clearing her throat loudly.
“What can I get you folks?” she asked, her mouth drawn into a thin line as she glanced at Regina.
“Three burgers,” Emma said, “and a big plate of fries to share.” She glanced at Henry and then Regina for confirmation and received an enthusiastic nod from the former and a wry smile and a shrug from the latter. Granny took down the dinner order and their drink orders as well and then left with the menus in hand. Henry did not resume his previous topic but instead met Emma’s eye for a moment before turning to Regina.
“So, Mom, what have you been up to?” The question was rather awkwardly asked, but when she turned to look at him she thought she saw genuine interest in his eyes.
“Well, I – I thought it best that I stay at home as much as possible. Most of the townspeople – well, they’re not very pleased with me these days. To be honest I doubt I’d be safe out in public.” Henry looked genuinely scared for her at her words, and she quickly amended her statement. “Oh, I’m sure no one would harm me. I just – I’m sure I’d be fine, Henry, don’t worry about me.” She smiled and cupped his cheek in her hand. “You have much more important things to worry about, like riding lessons.”
“Oh, you rode horses too, right?” His face lit up. “Gramma told me you were good at it!”
The mention of Snow White made her feel suddenly sick, and she fought very hard not to snap at her son. He was not the guilty party and he did not deserve her rage or even her irritation. She took several deep breaths before stretching a smile across her face again.
“Yes, I did. Riding was one of my favorite things to do as a young girl.” Never mind that it was spoiled now, forever tainted by the memory of her meeting with Snow White and the heartbreak of Daniel’s passing. Though she had thought many times about visiting Storybrooke’s stables, she’d never been able to do it - except when she had been forced to watch Daniel die a second time. Another bullet point on the list of reasons why she would most likely never return to horses.
“Do you think you could come teach me sometime? Grandpa is fun and he teaches me cool stuff like galloping and fighting, but I want to do the jumping things like they did on the horse shows you used to watch.”
Though she couldn’t have wished for anything better than her son saying such a thing to her, she couldn’t feel anything but the pain of having to think of a way to let him down gently. As desperately as she wanted to, she doubted she could stand to be in that place again. Thankfully, Emma cut in.
“I’m sure your mom would love to teach you, kid, but I think your grandpa might be a little hurt if you don’t let him teach you jousting first.” Henry looked pleased with this answer and Regina let out a little sigh of relief. Emma put a gentle finger on her knee under the table, a signal that she knew at least some of what Regina was thinking and intended to save her each time she faltered. “Besides, she’ll probably be pretty busy again soon.”
“She will?” Henry asked, cocking his head.
“I will?” Regina echoed, and she felt herself lean her head exactly as Henry had just done. Emma’s quickly suppressed smile was an obvious sign that she had seen the family resemblance, and Regina blushed just a bit as Emma caught her eye.
“Yeah, hopefully she’ll be mayor again soon. Charming – Dad – whatever – he’s not doing so well at the running a town thing. Turns out your mom’s pretty much the only one around here actually qualified to do it.”
“I’ve been saying that since they kicked me out of office,” Regina muttered, glaring at the napkin holder.
“Yeah, well, you’re not exactly the most trusted of sources right now,” Emma said, giving Regina a warning look. “But if Dad’s the one to reappoint you, the rest of the town will follow along. He said he wanted to keep it in the family anyway, so I don’t really see who else we’d go to. Mom and Rumple are probably even less qualified candidates than Dad is.”
Regina thanked Granny silently for choosing that moment to arrive with their food. The word “family” was stuck in her head, bouncing around and wrecking all of the walls she’d spent so long building. Family. Emma thought of her as family. Even the Charmings, as much as she hated them, were better than no one. And best of all, this meant that Henry thought she was family again too.
She started as she realized Emma and Henry were both looking at her expectantly. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Ruby and Granny leaning against the bar and glancing sidelong at her as well. It took her a moment to piece together what was expected of her.
“Oh. Yes. The burger.” She looked down at her plate apprehensively. She’d never deigned to eat one of these before, so she really had no expectation of what she was in for. To be honest it was rather intimidating. After a moment’s hesitation she picked it up and raised it to her mouth to take a small bite. She chewed thoughtfully and then spoke. “This is… actually quite good.”
It was as if the entire atmosphere of the diner changed. Conversations she did not realize had stopped resumed. Leroy, who was sitting at the bar with a glass of whiskey, slapped down several bills that Ruby quickly picked up and tucked into her bra, and Granny marched back to the kitchen with a satisfied look on her face. Emma and Henry both beamed at her and she couldn’t help but smile back.
The meal was eventful in a variety of small, normal ways. Regina ate so many french fries she thought she might be sick – they were surprisingly good – and Emma laughed as she nearly dropped ketchup in her lap multiple times. Henry placed the lettuce and tomato from his burger quietly on her plate, just as he had done with the salad and steamed vegetables she’d tried to feed him when he was a child. She found herself laughing – really laughing – out of simple happiness.
When Granny cleared away their plates Regina assumed the meal was over, but Henry and Emma seemed to have different plans. Emma leaned halfway out of the booth to peer into the kitchen of the diner and then sat up quickly and nodded at Henry.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you!” they sang, horribly off-key and in shaky unison, and Regina dropped her face into her hands in embarrassment. When she peeked out between her fingers Ruby was standing by the table holding an entire apple pie with a single candle stuck in the middle of it, which she slid onto the table with a smirk on her face.
“No, no, stop, both of you stop,” she groaned, and Emma and Henry immediately ceased singing, looking worried. After a moment in which she deliberately let them stew, she said into her hands, “Henry, you clearly got your singing voice from your mother.”
They cheered and pushed the pie toward her, and she leaned forward and blew out the candle reluctantly.
“Did you make a wish, mom?” Henry asked excitedly. She smiled, a real, true smile that made her cheeks hurt it was so wide.
“I didn’t need to.”
The pie was good (“Not as good as mine,” she said to Granny with an almost friendly smirk, and Granny retaliated with, “Well then I guess you’ll have to come into our kitchen sometime and show us amateurs how it’s done.”) but the company was better. Henry’s energy was spent, and after wolfing down a piece of pie and a generous scoop of ice cream he leaned over to lay his head in her lap and promptly fell asleep. Though their usual common ground had removed himself from the conversation, Regina found that conversing with Emma was surprisingly easy.
After exhausting the topic of updates on Henry’s life – Emma seemed just as willing to go on about every detail of Henry's last few weeks as Regina was to listen to them – their conversation turned to fairytale land. To Regina’s surprise, Emma did not share the Charmings’ idealistic views of the place, and seemed more comfortable discussing the issues of politics and law that she’d seen played out during her time there. Having such a practical discussion with someone on a subject about which most people tended to wax poetic was refreshing, and Regina found herself hoping that they would have many more such conversations.
It was nearly eleven by the time they wrapped up their debate about whether the consequences incurred by dark and light magic ought to be the same – Emma, while not idealistic, had a moral compass that insisted that there were objectively “good” deeds that should be rewarded and “evil” deeds that should be punished – and woke Henry to leave. He held both their hands as they left, stumbling a bit on the sidewalk and yawning widely. Emma tucked him into the backseat of the Bug and then turned to Regina, who was standing under a streetlight with her hands in her jacket pockets.
“I had fun,” Emma said eventually, and Regina nodded her agreement. “Maybe we could… do this again?” She was hesitant, but her face brightened when Regina smiled and nodded again.
“I’d love to, yes.”
“Good, cool. Cool.” They stared at each other for a minute. “Oh, uh, do you need a ride?” Emma said suddenly. “We can drop you off, it’s really no problem.”
“No, I think I prefer to walk. But thank you.” She couldn’t stop smiling, had barely been able to stop all evening, and it struck her suddenly that all of this happiness had come about because of this woman. She felt as though all the words she wanted to say, all the thanks she wanted to give, were pressing against her throat and making it impossible to speak. But Emma nodded, understanding without needing to hear it.
“Well, I guess we’ll see you again soon, then.” Emma rocked on the balls of her feet, not moving towards her car, and then without warning she stepped forward and kissed Regina on the cheek. “Happy birthday, Regina,” she said, and then practically ran to the driver’s seat and jumped in the car. As Regina’s shocked expression smoothed into a smile she couldn’t hide, Emma leaned across the passenger seat to peer at her and then smile back in relief. The Bug clattered away and Regina began her walk home, the chill night air no match for the warmth of her skin.