Reset

“It’s indefensible,” Regina deadpanned, “I’m dreading when she moves onto solids..”

“Ew,” Emma scrunched her nose up, “oh, I think Mary Margaret is trying to set me up.”

“Set you up?” Regina looked confused.

“Play matchmaker,” Emma clarified, “no idea with who but she kept going on about it being nice to have someone to support you, come home to someone blah blah blah.”

“Oh dear,” Regina laughed, “do you have any idea who she’s seeking to match you with?”

“No, she was smooth,” Emma laughed, “she’s selling the idea of a relationship first and then she’ll move on to the big reveal.”

“Your mother isn’t great at subtlety,” Regina shook her head.

“No,” Emma agreed, “she’s terrible.. oh, she offered to take Grace one night if you like? I said she was teething and having trouble sleeping and she said she’d love to help out. I didn’t say anything, I didn’t know what you’d think about it so.. the offer is there if you want.”

Regina considered it, “I have been wondering how to punish Snow for decades, maybe a teething baby who has recently started eating solid food would be an answer..”

Emma laughed, “anything to distract her from setting me up!”

Chapter 59

That evening Henry and Emma had done all they could to help Regina out including feeding and bathing Grace, cooking dinner and even doing some laundry. Regina had complained the whole time that she wasn’t an invalid but both of them insisted that they wanted to help out and let her rest. The truth was that she did feel tired, the stress and worry of the last few days as well as the, seemingly, endless sleepless nights with Grace teething was beginning to wear her down. She had managed to get some sleep while Emma took to Grace and Henry out for the afternoon but she was still exhausted and her shoulders were tight from the tension.

Emma had insisted on putting Grace to bed that night and Regina sat in the living room watching television with Henry while she was gone. Every few moments Regina would tip her head slowly to the left followed a few moments later by the same movement to the right and then later she would circle her head one hundred and eighty degrees.

“Are you okay, Mom?” Henry asked.

“Yes, dear,” she told him with a forced smile.

“It’s your shoulders again isn’t it?” he asked knowingly.

“It’s fine, just a little tight, it will work itself out,” Regina told him but as the words were coming out of her mouth he stood up and walked around the sofa until he was stood behind her.

“Sit back,” he instructed her and she shuffled back in the seat so her back was closer to him. Regina had perfect posture but she also had terrible habits of working too late and hunching over her desk for many hours a day. Tense shoulders were something that Henry knew all too well and had often massaged his mother’s shoulders while he was growing up.

Regina recalled the first time he had told her he wanted to help and she had jokingly suggested that he could try to massage her shoulders, small hands attempted to soothe her muscle knots but instead he simple ended up hitting the tension in her muscles. Even that had helped and Henry had been so pleased that he had been able to do something for her, the woman who did literally everything for him.

As time went on Henry would notice when she had trouble with her shoulders and would offer to help and eventually had become quite adept at massaging her shoulders and working out the muscle knots and the tension.

Henry put his hands on her shoulders and started to squeeze the tight muscles while looking over her head at the television, “do you think any of the Marvel superheroes are real?”

Regina smiled, “I don’t know, I’ve never come across them but that certainly doesn’t guarantee anything.”

“Because there are fairy tales and they are around because people have crossed over to the other worlds and written about them, right?” Henry continued.

“Yes,” Regina agrees, “but fairy tales go back hundreds of years, comic book heroes go back less than one hundred years.”

“But it’s possible,” Henry pushed, “there could be a world where there’s Ironman and Captain America and the Hulk..”

“Possibly, but not in any form you would recognise, the stories are very much about this world’s culture and locations,” Regina pointed out.

“True,” Henry said, “could you magic me into being Ironman?”

Regina laughed out loud at that, “no,” she lied, “that’s a bit beyond even my powers.”

Emma walked into the room, “what’s beyond your powers?”

Regina had her eyes closed and was enjoying the feeling of blood finally being able to rush around her shoulders and neck, “turning Henry into Ironman,” she muttered as Henry dealt with a particularly troublesome knot.