Chapter Text
Emma arrived at Granny’s Diner bone tired. An adventure in the past was hardly her idea of fun, especially since she nearly prevented her own birth. She collapsed into a booth and groaned, her bones beginning to protest the movement. Snow spotted Emma and smiled.
“Where have you been,” she asked Emma, not actually the slightest bit concerned. “We’ve been waiting for you so we could announce the the name,”
Emma shrugged and leaned her head back. “Don’t worry about it, Mary Margaret,” she said.
Snow furrowed her brow, but nodded. Her eyes scanned the room, locking eyes with each and every one of her loyal “subjects.” She smiled and raised her sleeping newborn. David stood behind her, looking proud and somewhat exasperated.
“We have decided to name our son ‘Neal,’ after the man who helped save us all,” Snow declared, grinning widely. Something in her eyes sparkled that violently reminded Emma of a handful of her more petty foster parents.
Emma sighed. While Neal had redeemed himself somewhat towards the end of his life, he had still been the one to ruin hers. Before Neal, Emma had had dreams, had a plan to get off the streets and live a nice, normal, stable life. Meeting Neal not only halted all that, it landed Emma in jail.
Emma forced a smile and locked eyes with Regina, and mouthed “Can we go now?”. Regina nodded sympathetically and slipped out, while Emma found Henry and went to say goodbye to Snow and David. David hugged the two of them, warmly, but Snow frowned at Emma.
“You just came, are you sure you want to leave?” Snow asked, staring hard at Emma.
Emma nodded. “I’ve had a long day, it’s better if we go,” she explained tensely, then steered Henry out of the diner to Regina’s car.
Once they were situated and on the road, Henry began asking questions. “Mom,” he began.
Both Emma and Regina turned to him. “What’s up, kiddo?” Emma asked, then quickly smacked Regina’s arm and hissed at her “Look at the road when you’re driving!”
Henry squirmed in his seat and glanced back at the slowly disappearing diner as if he thought someone in there might still be able to hear him. “That was weird, right?” he asked.
Emma snorted. “So I wasn’t the only one who caught that,” she said drily. Regina began to look back, but Emma smacked her arm again. “Keep your eyes on the road! If you don’t trust me to drive this fancy hunk of metal, you should drive it properly,” she exclaimed.
Henry chuckled, but his mood fell as quickly as it rose. “Grandma was being really weird,” he muttered, obviously getting lost in his own world of theories.
Regina nodded. “He’s almost right. Snow has always been something of a gossip, but this is new. She knows how much Neal hurt you, Emma. Why would she name her son after him?” she asked.
Emma shrugged. “I don’t know, hun. Maybe I screwed something up in the past?”
Regina slammed on the brakes. “What do you mean, ‘in the past?’” she hissed, her eyes flashing dangerously.
Emma swallowed thickly. “I went on a little adventure with Hook, back in time. We accidentally stopped my parents from meeting and then had to make them meet anyway so that I wouldn’t disappear Back to the Future style,” she explained quickly, avoiding looking Regina in the eyes.
Regina pinched the bridge of her nose. “You what?” She took a deep breath. “Okay. You know what, we’ll talk about this in the morning.”
“Sure,” Emma said. She rubbed the back of her neck nervously, but settled back into her seat as Regina began to drive again.
Henry began to nod off in the backseat, worn out from the day as well. Regina pulled into her drive and parked easily, They got out of the car, and Emma picked Henry up to carry him to his room. She grunted. “Either I’m getting weaker, or he’s getting heavier,” she quipped.
Regina rolled her eyes. “He’s thirteen, of course he’s getting too heavy to carry,” she said. She and Emma got Henry into his bedroom and dressed him in some pajamas, then went to their own bedroom.
When they were in bed, Regina turned to Emma and frowned. “You were in my dungeons, weren’t you?” It was more of a statement than a question. Emma nodded. Tears filled Regina’s eyes and she looked away.
Emma sat up and pulled Regina closer to her. “Hey, look at me. I’m not going to leave you for who you were. You’ve worked hard to become who you are today, so have I. I would be a total hypocrite to leave you,” she said, and kissed Regina on her temple.
A handful of tears trickled down Regina’s cheeks. Emma wiped them away swiftly and shimmied down in the sheets so that she could properly hold Regina during the night. They fell asleep holding each other, blissfully unaware of what was unfolding in a little flat across Storybrooke.