Graham was the first to move, wishing Regina a good night and getting out of their hair. Robotically, Regina began cleaning up the living room until she reached for a wine glass still half full and Kathryn grabbed at her hand.

"Regina," Kathryn soothed softly. "You don't have to go through this alone. She's just missing. She could turn up anywhere."

"Please don't do that," Regina begged quietly, her gaze firmly on the glass and her voice thick with emotion. "Don't promise me that she's fine."

"But—"

"It's been three months, Kathryn. Don't you think I know what the odds of her survival are?" Regina straightened up and for a second the progress they had made in the last hour was gone with a simple glare before Regina blinked, pressing her fingertips to her forehead as she shook her head.

"But she's Emma," Tina piped up.

Glassy-eyed, Regina turned her back and walked out of the room. "I'll let you know when we can do this again."


Though none of the women were surprised, they were disappointed when Regina never called them up to organize or partake in another ladies night, though she never denied them when they singularly showed up to her house or office just to check in. If the possibility that all four of them could be in the same room, Regina made some excuse that she had paperwork to sign or Henry had some lessons or other, which was a complete lie since Ruby had an in with the farm hand who ran the riding lessons Henry had been enrolled in previous years, and the little Mills hadn't shown up yet. Regina couldn't do it. Facing all three of them when their faces showed pity. It's not pity, she could already hear Tina say.

Even if it wasn't, every day that went by where Regina habitually checked her mailbox or sat in front of the television absorbing any source of international news and Emma went unheard from made that tiny string of hope that somehow Henry's map could lead her home tear strand by strand.

One month became two. Henry had turned five, and there was no surprise message from Emma or even Uncle August to bring an obnoxious present. True to word, August had sent a postcard hailing all the way from Germany along with a keychain and a promise he'd get Henry something special. The party was smaller than she had ever had for him, five of Henry's closest friends, and though she was at liberty to invite Aunty Kat, Aunty Ruby, and Ms. Bell, Regina managed to keep herself occupied for the entire day to avoid the women's insistent stare.

Then summer was here, and Henry was out of school, and Emma should have been home six months ago, and every time Regina opened her closet door, she would automatically glance down at the bag filled with Emma's things and force her eyes back up to match her blazer with her skirt because if she remembered the way Emma had teased her about being so formal all the time she was going to rip apart her closet.

What broke her heart the most was how innocently optimistic Henry had been. It was late August when Henry had pulled her from the front yard where she was gardening and past the gates.

"It's Emma!" Henry jumped up and down and pointed down the street, and Regina's breath caught in her throat so hard she choked back a gasp as she followed her son's sight line to a retreating figure jogging down the sidewalk.

Pale skin. Yellow hair. White tank top. It couldn't be.

"Emma!" Henry called out, letting go of his mother's hand to sprint after the jogger. "Emma found us!"

"Henry!" Regina raced after him, the spade in her hand dropped at the edge of her gate and her sun hat flying off with her speed.

As she got closer, Regina could see defined arms and a toned build, and her heart leaped in her chest. Whether she was chasing after Henry or running with him was a toss up, but when he caught up with the jogger and she turned around, Regina's steps faltered.

Alice Hatter. Henry's friend's mother, and most definitely not Emma.

Alice tugged earbuds out of her ear, panting lightly as she smiled down at Henry. "Hi, Henry. Paige is at home right now."

The boy looked confusedly up at his friend's mother, his face furrowed in concentration before Regina caught up to him, pressing him against her with her arms around his shoulders.

"Good morning Mayor Mills," Alice said timidly, and after receiving a short nod, continued on with her jog.

The two Mills watched her depart, and Regina cursed herself for letting her hope manifest in a delusion that Emma was simply running around in Storybrooke.

"I thought it was Emma," Henry apologized, eyes cast downwards in shame.

Regina crouched by him and held him around the shoulders.

"My map didn't work." He leaned forward hiding his face in his mother's neck. "But I mailed it and everything!"

Regina shut her eyes, hating that she had picked the sealed envelope with Henry's map from her mailbox because she knew it would just return back to them. It was locked safely away in her office drawer, and she was just superstitious enough to believe that maybe if she had gone through with the mailing then Emma would have actually found her way home by now.

"It's okay, Henry," Regina whispered, kissing the top of his head. "I thought so too."


The seasons changed more quickly than Regina had anticipated. Summer cooled, giving way to Fall. Henry had started senior kindergarten, and he was secretly loving the fact that Regina called him a senior, though when Aunty Ruby tacked on 'citizen' to the word, he frowned and gave her the silent treatment for half a day.

Regina kept herself busy to the point where all she did was work and go home to Henry. She made sure local businesses were up to regulation code, forcing deadlines to be met in only barely reasonable expectations. By October, she was already in full preparation mode for Storybrooke's Thanksgiving Day parade, but it was in October where Regina couldn't hide behind her work or her son to escape the feeling that constantly gnawed away at her in her unconscious thought.

The Tuesday had started out like every other day. Regina had woken a half hour before her alarm, pushed away her latest dream, and readied herself for the day. Henry was getting harder and harder to wake in the mornings, and Regina hated to admit that he was growing up. She dropped him off at school, drove to work, and at precisely at 3:30 picked up Henry where he sat at his own desk in the corner of her office, where two hours later, they would return home for dinner, playtime, bath and bed. It was all quite routine, and after months of meticulous habit, Regina was ready to call it a night at ten.

But she lay awake, watching the clock tick down until it was half an hour to midnight, and her mind warred with her to move. Don't, it's only going to make it harder to move on. But what was she supposed to do, forget Emma entirely? Not forget, but she needed to get up in the morning, and this will only open up sore wounds. But it's Emma's birthday.

With fifteen minutes before midnight, Regina had enough time to pull herself out of bed and into the kitchen. She didn't bother with the lights. The moon provided enough for her to navigate her way through her kitchen and around her island. In the quiet of the night, she was a shadow to the world, kept hidden from the prying eyes of the town and even to Henry. The clock on the stove told her she had ten minutes left, so she moved quickly, opening the fridge to pull out a cupcake she and Henry had made the day before simply because he asked and set it on the table. Rummaging through her cupboards, she found a single candle, a blue star with a tiny wick at its top. She lit it, and though the candle didn't give off much light, it seemed to brighten the room as Regina imagined the shy smile of the blonde soldier that day she had thrown Emma a surprise birthday party, the firmness of her when Emma had engulfed her in a hug because they hadn't known how to express their feelings yet.

Regina stopped making wishes on stars long before she had reached adolescence. They was useless and pointless. Wishes could never get her to where she was now. They couldn't pay for her college or calm her on the nights when six-week old Henry was colicky. But as she bent over the island, resting her chin on her folded arms and stared at the little blue star candle flickering away in the darkness, she had one wish in her mind that she desperately wanted to come true.

Bring her home.


It was snowing again. For once it actually began snowing by late November and the warning cries that global warming was upon them was silenced if only for the season. Despite the light snow on the ground, Regina had promised Henry that they could toboggan down the small hill by the park, and though Regina kept a careful watch over him as she shivered, sitting on the park bench with a thermos tucked into the crook of her arm and her hands safely encased in muffs, Henry needed little to no supervision as he ran his sled to the top of the hill, sat firmly behind the curve and kicked himself forward, laughing and screaming all the way down.

"Regina." The Mayor looked up to see Archie Hopper, smiling warmly in his tweed jacket with Pongo on his leash. "I haven't seen you in a long time."

"I'm not your patient, Dr. Hopper," Regina replied, returning her attention back to Henry.

Ignoring her blatant dismissal, Archie sat beside her and released Pongo from his chain. The Dalmatian instantly sprinted after Henry who squealed in delight at being toppled over his sled. Regina remembered when Henry was small enough to be convinced that the dog was his own noble steed and frequently tried to saddle him. Now, Henry was bigger than the dog, and though Pongo faithfully stayed still whenever Henry got it in his head that he could still ride him, both boy and canine realized those days were long past.

"How have you been?" Archie asked.

"Fine."

"And Henry?"

"He's perfect."

"He looks happy."

Regina took a moment to answer, lips curling at the corners as Henry wrestled with Pongo in the snow. "Of course he is."

"Are you?" The therapist asked boldly.

Regina scoffed lightly and pursed her lips. "Of course I am."

"I just mean," he began just short of flabbergasted, "I've heard the speculation about Emma."

Regina snapped her head toward him. "I didn't think you would be the one to indulge in small town gossip, Doctor."

"I don't know the details," he quickly reassured. "But I just want you to know that if there's anything you'd like to talk about my door is always open."

Regina stood, withdrawing her hands from her muff and gripping the thermos tightly in her hand. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

With that, she called Henry who looked disappointed with having to cut his playtime short.


With the holidays coming around and Archie's offer still fresh in her mind, the two weeks that passed which led her to the therapist's door on her lunch break had been hell.

Work was a constant stress with the brief power outage that lasted a solid four days. Leroy, in all of his drunken glory, had taken a pick ax to the main power line and shut down the entire town. His arrest didn't help Regina with the loads of incident reports being passed through Town Hall. Though gratefully, the annual Christmas party had been cancelled due to the damages it left in the court room, and that was one stress crossed off the Mayor's list only to be replaced with another.

Henry became ill during the outage, the chilling temperatures making his body vulnerable. He was sniffling and feverish and asleep half the time, and all Regina could do was cuddle with him, giving him antibiotics and rubbing Vapor Rub onto his chest and back to get him to rest.

He cried all the time, and he was restless, and the holidays were coming up, and in the back of her mind, Regina knew what that meant yet refused to acknowledge it. What she ignored manifested in restless nights as cumbersome as her son's, so when Henry's screams woke her that December night and she ran to his room, she wasn't prepared for what he needed to be soothed.

"I want Emma," he cried, still half asleep, sobbing and sweating. His pyjamas were soaked through with sweat, and his eyelids were still closed, but he was yelling out as the monsters in his dreams still had a grip on him.

"Shhh," Regina soothed, sitting him up and wiping his brow with a cold wash cloth. "Wake up, sweetie. It's just a dream."