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."

Still he sobbed, limp as his mother removed his shirt and applied more Vicks to his back. "Emma!"

"Henry," Regina flustered, pressing her forehead to his in a quiet desperation. "Baby, Emma isn't here. You have to wake up."

That only made him cry more, his wailing echoing the otherwise empty house. No matter what she did, Regina couldn't get him to wake as he sobbed.

"Henry," she pleaded, getting up quickly to retrieve a fresh shirt. "Henry, that's enough."

She sat back down, but Henry was still sitting up in his bed, more awake now than he had been minutes ago.

"Moo-oommy!" He begged, coughing and choking on his own hoarse cry.

She shrugged his shirt over his head and pressed his head to her chest. "I know, sweetheart. You'll feel better when you rest."

The beginning bars of their favourite Spanish lullaby were barely out of her mouth before Henry pushed away from her fiercely. "No!I want Emma!" He repeated, louder this time as he sobbed Emma's name over and and over and over again.

Regina shook her head frustrated, tears prickling at her eyes as she spoke in a low warn. "She's not here, Henry. That's enough."

"Emmaaaa!" Henry wailed so loud Regina choked.

"She's not here, Henry! She's dead!" Regina's eyes widened in horror and she pressed her hands to her mouth, shooting up off the bed trying to get away from herself.

Henry silenced, his heavy breathing and hiccuping the only sound in the room. He stared at his mother like she was a monster, and Regina wanted nothing more than to bury herself in a dark hole and never come out. His lip trembled. Her eyes watered. He clutched his blanket to his chest, and just before the sob rang out again, Regina dropped to him, clutching him tightly, and this time he didn't push away.

"I'm sorry," she whispered into his hair, rubbing his back and clutching his head to her, keeping him as close as she possibly could. "I'mso sorry, Henry. I'm sorry."

That had been her catalyst, the straw that broke the camel's back that led her to the therapist's office on a Thursday afternoon when Henry had been well enough to return to school, and Regina just couldn't take it anymore.

"Regina," Archie smiled when he opened the door. He didn't wait to usher her inside, Pongo getting up from his bed in the corner to greet her happily. "What brings you by?" He closed the door and settled into his chair, watching as Regina kept her attention on Pongo, petting his head and scratching behind his ears, before shifting uncomfortably around the room.

She surveyed the books on his shelf, noting impressively that though she doubt they were ever used for more than decoration, the shelves were impeccably dust-free. Pongo barked, and Regina looked to see that he was sitting on the couch and huffed for her to do the same. Following the orders of a canine, Regina sat, her hand already atop his head as he nestled it in her lap.

Archie continued to wait patiently, and Regina nearly envied the trait. Her thumb nail had suffered greatly as her own patience thinned, specifically waiting for letters from a certain blonde. She sighed and glanced shyly up at the doctor. "I yelled at Henry two days ago."

"What about?" He asked calmly.

She played with the circle necklace, pressing it to her lips as she fixated on the carpet of his office. "I told him Emma was dead."

If Archie was surprised, he didn't show it. He simply leaned forward in his seat and set aside his notepad. "Is she?"

Regina shut her eyes, pressing her forehead onto her fingers as her arm was propped on top of the rest. "A year ago I found out she was missing. What do you think, Doctor?"

"I think you would have been notified if her body bad turned up, alive or not."

"Maybe there is none," she said morbidly, finally meeting Archie's eyes.

"I won't promise you she's alive, Regina. What I can do is help you get through it."

"How?" Regina scoffed with a wave of her hand, her voice thick with strained emotion. "With your books and the five steps of mourning? It's been a year, Dr. Hopper. A year. It hasn't gotten any easier. I keep waiting for the day where I wake up and don't care anymore, but I can't. Everything reminds me of her. I see a yellow car on the street, and I wish it was hers. I drive by Mr. French's shop, and I remember how she went through so much trouble just to send me a rose. I pass by my guest room, and she's in there doing squats. I can't get her out of my head no matter how hard I try, no matter how hard I push it out." She didn't realize tears were tracking her cheeks until she sniffled, pressing the back of her hand to the tip of her nose. "Henry was sick and he wanted her, and all I could remember was when he wasn't even two yet and sick and I wrote to Emma telling her about it and she calmed me down and talked me through it. She's always supposed to answer my letters, no matter how late she replies, she always got back to them. She promised me she would be safe and now—"

Regina choked back a sob and took the proffered Kleenex from Archie's outstretched hand, wiping at her eyes effectively rubbing off her mascara and eyeliner.