The Author

Graduation day

...Four years ago...

Henry dressed in a black graduation gown tossed his graduation cap into the air. It was a sunny day outside the building of town hall where the ceremony was held. All the families met up with the graduates outside and congregated in front of the building. His high school class was small which made for a very short ceremony, which Henry was glad for. As Henry came forward towards his family he waved his diploma with glee.

"It's official! No more school!" he proclaimed jubilantly.

Mary-Margaret, David, Neal, Robin, Roland, Regina, Killian, and Emma moved in closer and gathered around him.

"Henry!" shouted Regina as she shook her head. She waved her hand and in a cloud of magical red smoke she retrieved Henry's graduation cap. "We still have pictures to take!"

She handed the cap back to her son and everyone took their turns congratulating him individually.

"Congrats, Henry!" said David as he patted his shoulder.

"Good form, mate," nodded Killian.

"I may have been your teacher, but I'm still your grandmother and could still teach you a lesson or two," said Mary-Margaret as she hugged him tightly.

"Kudos, kiddo," said Emma, giving her son a hug as well.

"I'm eighteen, Mom. I'm not a kid anymore," corrected Henry towards his mother.

"I know," understood Emma, "but you're still a kid to me."

"Congratulations Henry," said Robin as he shook Henry's hand.

"Thanks Robin," said Henry to Robin as he gave Roland a high-five. "And," he began to say as he faced the rest of his family, "Thank you everybody. Granny's?"

"Nope," insisted Regina shaking her head again. "Pictures first."

They took about a dozen photos in all various family combinations. After about fifteen minutes of gratuitous picture-taking and fake smiling, Henry was relieved when Regina said out-loud, "Alright. Granny's."

"Good!" sighed Henry gladly, "My cheeks were getting tired."

Regina rolled her eyes at her son as he bolted toward her car with Roland. They all met up at Granny's and to Henry's surprise, was greeted with a cake made personally by Granny herself. As she placed the cake on the counter before the family she claimed, "My finest cake yet! I think I outdid myself with this one."

Henry's eyes bulged as he stared at the double-layered cake with creative icing on top saying, 'Congratulations Henry!'.

"Wow Granny! It looks great!" complimented Henry.

Emma saw the cake from the opposite side and chuckled to herself. Seeing Emma's amusement, Regina turned to Emma and asked, "What is it?"

Emma turned the cake around on its axis and Regina saw written in icing on the other side, 'taking applications'.

... ...

Henry took up Granny's offer and started working nights to bring in cash to help pay rent at Emma's apartment. The whole arrangement spurned an argument between Regina and Emma and what they disagreed upon was the idea of paying rent. Regina's argument was that he shouldn't have to, that it would ward him off from coming home. Emma argued that paying rent would teach him financial responsibility for the real world. Regina caved, realizing that they were in fact in that real world and that royal inheritance was a bit antiquated anyways. After talking to her parents about the matter, both David and Mary-Margaret couldn't blame Regina for feeling the way that she did because that was what was customary back in their land. However customary it was, they were no longer back in their land and so Emma won the dispute.