He gasped obnoxiously. "Does he have an evil twin with a penchant for taking lovers to his cabin in the woods?"

"Shut up," Ruby scolded playfully. "You're a bigger gossip than I am. You came up with an evil genius plan to get two of the most unlikely people together."

"Or," he drawled with a smug tone in his voice, "maybe I did it to get me into the good graces of a small town diner waitress who became good friends with one of the unlikely people in question."

Ruby chuckled but looked pleased. "You're a poet."

"Novelist," he amended. "How come you're not invited to these coffee dates?"

"Regina has a thing for blondes?" Ruby guessed. "I'm pretty sure she's only nice to me because of you and Emma."

"Nah, you're part of the family."

As if on cue a loud cry sounded in the diner as the door whipped open.

"Hi Auntie Ruby!" Henry had sprinted in, the door banging and the bell ringing in his wake as his mother followed shortly behind him along with Kathryn Nolan.

"What?" Ruby straightened and looked around confused because Henry surely couldn't have been talking to her. August laughing smugly in her ear did nothing to alleviate the confusion.

Henry clambered onto the bar stool, standing up on his knees. "It's my birthday soon."

Ruby ignored his statement with a simple nod of acknowledgement. "Did you just call me auntie?"

"Mommy says you and Un-ca August are boy-friend and girl-friend," he sing-songed and giggled in happy embarrassment.

"Oh yeah?" Ruby glanced up at the Mayor who had approached to stable her son with a hand on his back. She leaned down and whispered conspiratorially to the younger Mills. "Did your Mommy tell you she and Emma are gir-lfriends?"

"And probably sleeping with each other," August added loudly in her ear.

"Who lets you near their kids?" Ruby hastily hissed at him under her breath.

"Henry's moms!" He hissed back.

Henry giggled louder and blushed, hiding half his face in his mother's waist. "They were kissing!" He announced loudly to the diner that the regulars looked up and cocked eyebrows at their usually put-together Mayor whose face was the colour of a cherry tomato.

"Told you," August proclaimed matter-of-fact.

Ruby laughed out loud with August chortling along with her. Even Kathryn had a pleased smirk on her face as she nudged the Mayor. Clearing her throat and subtly putting a hand over Henry's mouth, Regina nodded to the waitress. "That's enough of that. Ms. Lucas, Kathryn and Tina have insisted on some ridiculous female night tomorrow."

"A girls' night, Regina," Kathryn sighed.

Ruby furrowed her brow and handed the cordless phone to Henry, pinching his cheek as she spoke. "Here, buddy, it's Uncle August."

Henry grabbed it eagerly and shrieked into the phone. "It's my birthday soon!"

"So you need a babysitter?" Ruby clarified over Henry's ramble.

"No, I wish for you to suffer with me."

Kathryn stepped in and placed a reassuring palm on Ruby's wrist. "We're having some drinks and watching a movie at Tina's. We're not torturing anyone." Kathryn threw a side glare at the Mayor with the latter statement being directed for her.

"Really?" Ruby smiled at Regina in surprised awe. "You want me to come with?"

"Of course."

"David will be watching Henry," Kathryn explained.

"Who will be watching David?" Regina muttered none too quietly. She caught Ruby's knowing grin and smirked. Maybe Ruby was wrong about the Regina not liking her thing. "So it's settled then? You'll be joining us."

"What should I bring?"


"That's going to kill my grass, isn't it?" August had arrived two days prior claiming his present was gonna knock the socks off of everyone else's, not giving a damn that Regina had fixed him with a curiously amused stare.

Now Regina had wished she had taken him a bit more seriously as she watched with mild horror as a very large and very long balloon house was inflating in her backyard.

"It's Henry's birthday, and you're worried about the grass?" August shook his head.

"How on earth do you come up with the most outrageous presents?"

"What you call outrageous I say amazing, wonderful, the best."

Regina rolled her eyes.

"It goes with the theme of the party," the man argued, leaning heavily on his cane.

Regina surveyed the jumping castle again and frowned. It wasn't so much as a castle as it was an inflatable obstacle course, stretching from one end of her back lawn to the other. Entrance to the course involved a tunnel brave souls scurried through before dropping down into a series of inflatable half poles. Every step would bring a pole swinging to the unsuspecting victim's face, adding in to the fact that numerous children would try to attempt it at once made it all the more of a death trap. Surviving that brought on a rope. An actual rope hanging over an inflatable wall that was meant to be climbed in lieu of steps that sloped down into a grand slide where the children would roll down and out and hurry to do it all over again.

Regina shuddered and turned to question August's sanity once more, but the twinkling in his eye told her it was a lost battle. No doubt he was plotting ways in which he would be able to have a go at it. She expected to find his prosthetic laying forgotten by the entrance of the bounce course while the man timed his speed through the obstacles. What on earth did she get herself into?

"You," she began, struggling to find the proper word to shame him, but then Henry came bounding out of the house, already dressed in his Halloween army costume and gasping in wonder at the present in his backyard.

"Is that mine?!" He was was already racing to it, kicking off his boots to crawl onto the tunnel platform.

Regina shook her head at August who looked much too pleased with himself before calling out to her son. "Uncle August got it for you for the day, sweetie."

Henry hadn't heard a word as the obstacle course bounced under his weight, the poles just after the tunnel swinging back and forth and knocking him down happily.


"Emma would have gotten a load of this," Kathryn commented as she sipped a fruit punch while both women sat by the patio table. Regina had taken a break from mingling with the parents to sit and survey the children on the bounce course, trying to differentiate between happy screams from ones of trouble.

She smirked when her friend mentioned the blonde soldier. "She'd be just as difficult to remove from there as Henry will be."

"How is she?" Kathryn asked.

"Well, I presume. I haven't heard back from her since I last saw her," Regina admitted but reassured nonetheless, "but Henry and I send weekly letters. Even if she can't get to them, I know how much she loves to read them."

"She'll be home soon?"

"We hope so."

Kathryn chuckled knowingly which made Regina avert her gaze from the bounce house to her friend. "What?"

The blonde shrugged. "I remember when we were younger and picturing our lives and our jobs and our weddings."

"Yes," Regina recalled with a wry drawl. "Were you not the one wanting a horse-drawn carriage?"

"It's romantic," Kathryn insisted.

"As romantic as the limo bus you actually rode in?"

"It was practical."

The women laughed, reminiscing of the times of their youth.

"Did you ever think we'd be here?" Kathryn asked. "You dating a soldier and me on the verge of a divorce."

"You're not—" Regina paused when Kathryn threw her a pointed look and conceded. "No, I never once thought we would end up like this. Reality has forced us to grow up since our youth."

"It's brought about some good things, I'd say." Kathryn patted Regina's arm, and it was then the brunette noticed she had subconsciously been playing with her necklace, the one Emma had told her to wear for safekeeping.

"Great things," Regina agreed quietly.


For the next hour, Regina switched between making sure the adults had their refreshments and picks of the appetizer and snack table and watching over the children carefully. The only incident that occurred was when all ten kids tried climbing up the wall rope at once, all crying that it was their turn, but August and Graham had monitored the situation and convinced them to take turns. Apparently being the Mayor had little influence over ten four-year-olds since local law enforcement and a former soldier were the only ones equipped to deal with the little troop.

When Ruby had notified her that their pizza was ready, Regina went about calling the children in with no success. Emma would probably have accomplished it. The soldier would be involved in the thick of their playing, being Corporal to Henry's Commander, and as soon as Regina peaked over the edge of the course to notify them of lunch, Emma would turn it into some secret mission where she had the kids crawl through the pipe maze, helping the smaller ones up the rope wall, and bounce for a few minutes before sneaking away to the mini picnic tables, set up with army table clothes, napkins, and cups, to sit the kids down to actually eat. Kathryn was right. Emma would have loved this.

By some miracle, Regina had managed to wrangle the children off the bounce course due to some persuasion whispered in Henry's ears that a good Commander always made sure his troops were well fed. Leading his friends to the picnic tables, Regina and Ruby served slices of homemade pizza to the little army, and of course, Regina enticed that if they ate all the side veggies on their plate they could bring the cake out sooner. With the plates empty, the parents fed, and the children still wired on the bounce house, the cake, a simple marble cake with white frosting and tiny soldier figures lined around the edges, came out. If it wasn't his birthday, Regina would have been worried that Henry was having far too much sugar, but he turned pleading eyes up to her, begging for it to be present time, and Regina added another thing to her list of things she couldn't say no to.

So Regina sat, snapping pictures of the birthday boy as he tore through gift wrap and discarded tissue paper. A small collection of army tanks and soldiers piled up beside him, along with stuffed animal toys, books, and clothes. By the time he finished ripping through his last present, walkie talkies courtesy of the Nolans, Henry was already standing ready to play with his new toys.

"Dear, what do you say to everybody?" Regina prompted from behind the camera.

"Thank you everybody!" He grinned to the crowd, stuffing his helmet back on his head and holding the walkie talkie package up to Sheriff Graham for him to open with a practised, "pleeaase."

"Hold on." The room turned to see August easing his way through. His cane discarded and a bulky laptop flipped open in his grasp as he shakily stepped over and around the kids gathered there. He sat on the coffee table, wincing more often than he would have liked, and announced, "There's one more."

Regina furrowed her brow and sat with Henry in front of the fireplace, silently telling Graham to wait to open the walkie talkies before August set the laptop in front of them on the coffee table.

"Is this mine?" Henry asked already trying to tap on the keyboard.

"And you say I spoil him," Regina scolded to the man.

August smirked. "No, it's even better than this." He fiddled with the mousepad, and soon a pop-up emerged with a bald eagle set against the backdrop of the American flag. Big bold letters claimed: "You have received a message from a loved one overseas."

Regina looked up shocked to August from the top of Henry's head. "What is this?"

His answer came in the form of him pressing 'Enter' and soon the screen filled with Emma sitting in front of an American flag in what looked to be a tent.

"It's Emma!" Henry clapped.

The video started, and Emma smiled into the camera, brushing off her cap and fiddling with it before looking back at the camera. "Hey! Happy birthday, Henry. I'm sorry I couldn't be there, but I bet your mom made it super awesome. Tell Uncle August not to eat all the cake. He's letting himself go there."

She shared a laugh with the camera man while August shook his head and rolled his eyes at her statement. "I'm fine," he reassured Ruby who sat beside Tina on the couch. The waitress threw him an understanding wink.