Work Text:
She'd had him for a year. A curious baby, Henry always enjoyed their walks around town, babbling and waving his hands in the air to everyone the passed. On that day, the anniversary of her adopting him, she took him to the rocky beach more secluded than the main Storybrooke beach proper. The sky had been a heavy grey, like lead in the clouds, but had stayed dry as she sat on the rocks with her baby boy in her lap and opened the picnic she'd prepared.
Halfway through struggling to make sure Henry's lunch ended up in his mouth instead of painted on the rocks around them, she noticed the seagull nibbling at her sandwich. She jerked to send the bird flying away, and Henry's brown eyes went wide at the sound of the wings flapping so nearby.
She'd packed up and left soon after, deciding to just head home instead.
Through some weird need to leave the house every year on that day, Henry and Regina found themselves at the rocky beach every year, without fail. It wasn't so much a conscious decision at first, as it was the only place she could be near the sea (the sound of the waves breaking often lulled Henry to sleep with a smile on his face, so she took him as often as she could) and also be alone to contemplate her life.
When he was four, Henry didn't fall asleep to the sound of the waves anymore, but insisted on feeding the seagulls. He'd taken chunks off his PB&J sandwich and waved it around half-heartedly, as if expecting the birds to simply fly down and eat out of his hands.
Chuckling, she picked up the determined toddler, and held him in her lap. She spread the bread out a little distance from them, remembering the bird who'd stolen her sandwich the first year, and told him to stay as still as possible.
As the first bird swooped down, his little arms encircled her neck in alarm at the proximity. His eyes were wide in a mixture of fear and awe and wonder of the world, as they watched the birds converge on the offered food, in a way that Regina would later learn was a very Emma Swan way of viewing things she was unsure of: with wariness but an open mind and willing to try something new.
They'd stayed seated like that, Henry watching the birds and Regina watching her son watch the birds, until finally with a flap of wings, the last seagull finally took to the skies again, and Henry finally turned to look at her. His toothy grin melted her heart.
"That was cool, Mama!"
She smiled and nuzzled his cheek affectionately, her heart still swelling every time she heard her little Prince call her any variation of "mom". "They're pretty birds, aren't they?"
"Yeah. Can we give them more?"
"No, Henry, that's your lunch!"
He hadn't put up much of a fight, happily munching on his food. But he didn't move from her lap, and his eyes flickered to the sky frequently, tracking the movements of the winged animals up high.
The next year, Regina had made sure to bring bread specially for the birds, in case Henry decided to feed them again.
He had that year, and every year after. They went back every year after that, and as Henry grew up, his fear of the seagulls grew less and less until he didn't need to hold her hand anymore while watching to make sure every last crumb of bread was gobbled up by the birds.
The last year they'd gone to the beach, he'd been ten and had sat far away from her, only giving the seagulls half of the bread, giving the rest instead to the swan that had been swimming by.
Months after, Emma Swan had waltzed into their lives and nothing had ever been the same.