WHERE:Vallo City: Mills House WHEN:October 24th, 2021 (Backdated) WHAT:Regina cooks for her kids from the future and Henry avoids all the spoilers. WARNINGS:N/A STATUS:Complete
It may have been over a week since her children from the future had arrived, but Regina still wasn't over how grown everyone was and how much of their lives she didn't know about.
Per Regina being…Regina, she had grilled both of her lovely children for information about the future. They had, of course, not given much up, but she had gathered enough that they were happy together at the very least. As for the situation with Thurvishar, they had both loudly exclaimed spoilers and refused to say much on that. Were they together? Were they still doing this little dance around each other in the future? Regina wasn't sure.
But they did keep referring to him as Mr. Mills and that didn't sound so bad. Even if it was a joke.
It was early that morning, as she got ready for work. Her vacation had ended earlier last week. Though she had won a few big cases with the firm and had earned goodwill with the partners by so publicly putting the Vorerra in their place, she still was a first year associate with them and couldn't just take more time off, even if she did want to spend more time with these fascinating versions of her children.
So she settled for getting up early each day and spoiling everyone with her cooking, taking long lunches, and trying to come home before 6 PM most days. That morning, as she cooked breakfast well before the kids woke up and joined her, she was surprised to find Henry up already. Normally he joined her when she was almost done with the food.
"Morning, sleepyhead. How'd you sleep?" She asked as she looked up from the fishes she was pan frying.
Henry had been up for hours. A new idea had started blooming in his mind and he’d needed to start jotting some of it down, not wanting to let it evaporate into thin air. Too many story ideas were lost that way, so he’d started keeping a pad of paper on his bedside table and then made sure to have his notepad open on his phone so he could mutter enough incoherent words into it to make sense of again later in the morning. It didn’t always work, but he’d saved more ideas that way than before when he’d just tried to remember them earlier.
It was odd being back in his childhood bedroom--or well, teen bedroom--it’d certainly changed from when he was a kid. Especially with all of the reality hopping outside of his own world. There was plenty in Vallo that was the same but enough that had changed over the last decade or so to make walking down the streets almost like a new experience.
“Hey, mom.” They still did this every so often at his own time point, but it was more a monthly event than an every day one considering he lived in his own place now. “I slept fine until I woke up with an idea to start working on.”
He nodded toward the carton of eggs. “Need some help?”
The thought of Henry no longer living with her, of having his own place with his own life, was a little sad to Regina, but she didn’t let it show when he had mentioned it earlier. She still had time to baby him, still had these daily breakfasts for now. And no doubt she was going to have her hands full when Sofia came along.
Nodding in return, she turned back to the food in front of her. “I could always use your help. Poached, okay? I’m making fish cakes with them.” At least she knew this much - Henry knew enough basics that he was never going to starve on his own.
“What was the idea?” She asked, as she worked one cut of fish on the pan and then moved to another. It had been no surprise to learn that he became a writer as he got older.
Henry was a decent cook in the kitchen. He’d learned lots from Regina over the years and then taken some cooking and baking classes on his own once he was off at college. As much as he could live off of cereal, that didn’t mean he actually wanted to do so. At least not most days. Occasionally though, a bowl of Fruity Pebbles was enough to tide him over, especially when he was in the middle of a scene.
“You’ll find out when the book comes out,” Henry told her, not wanting to give too much away. He’d nearly said ‘you’ll find out in x-amount of years’ but caught himself, not quite wanting to give away how far into the future he was. That would only lead to more questions he wasn’t supposed to answer.
“The real question is are you and Thurvishar going to stop tiptoeing around one another now?” Or would that still be happening for another few years.
“That’s just rude,” Regina chided, tired of hearing ‘spoilers!’ as an excuse to not tell her more. She understood it, the kids didn’t want to change anything in case that changed things enough to not ensure Sofia’s birth, but the thought of having a child with Thurvishar? Well, it wasn’t scaring her off.
Still. She wasn’t going to discuss that with her son, no matter how old he was.
Turning away from the stove for a second, she whipped the towel she had on her shoulder at Henry’s back, smacking him gently. “Mind your business, Mr. Spoilers. Unless you want to start answering questions about your own love life.”
“I can’t talk about my love life, those are spoilers,” Henry reminded her, stepping away so she couldn’t get him again with the towel. “But you know, if you do want to stop tiptoeing around one another, younger me would be okay with it, in case that was a thing you were worried about.”
All any version of Henry wanted was for his mom to be happy. Though he knew how uncertain the places they ended up in could be and how terrifying it could be to get involved with anyone who could leave at any second.
“At least tell me you’re happy with whatever you have going on. I don’t need details,” Regina said, leaning over Henry’s shoulder to watch him cook away. There was something to be said for verbal confirmation of her son’s status. He had gone through a lot of tragedy in his young life, but she had hopes that life would stabilize for him enough to lead it with his happiness. Happy endings might have been for other people, but happy lives were something fully within their own control.
She just hoped that this was a lesson she had properly impacted on him, even if she wasn’t fully there herself.
“I’m happy, mom,” he assured her, pausing so he could give her a quick hug. “I love what I’m doing and the people in my life. For all the places we’ve ended up, Vallo is a good one.” With plenty of opportunities to grasp onto if they wanted it. There were no guarantees anywhere--that was something he’d learned young, and while going to different worlds and meeting different people could be hard to handle when they were constantly coming and going. It also meant that he got to have experiences he never would have otherwise. Looking at it that way really helped put things into perspective.
“And we’ve got some fun times ahead of us.” He winked at her, knowing full well that would probably earn him another towel swat.
There would never be a time where Regina would be tired of hugging her son like this. Sure it felt a little different with the age and height differences, but the love was still the same.
But the moment was ruined - not in a bad way - the second he vague mentioned the future again. She slapped his shoulder this time, as she pulled out of the young. "Brat," she muttered, with a fondness that was at odds with the word. "Watch your eggs before you ruin them."
There were other things he should probably let her in on, stuff that might allay some of the fears he knew she had about his own life expectancy, but it was best to let that wait. They’d figure it out together in a couple of decades anyway. And if he recalled this time of his life correctly, were going to be dealing with his magic starting to come to light soon anyway.
No point in adding more to the madness.
So Henry grinned and turned back to the eggs. “Yes, ma’am.”