AN: Because seriously, anyone who is not from Fairytale Land would be beyond baffled by Henry's family situation.
SPOILERS: There are no spoilers for anything further than 2x09, because that's as far as I've seen. I have assumed, however, that the (mere speculation and thus-far unconfirmed) rumour that Neal is Baelfire, Rumplestiltskin's kid, is true (which would make Henry Mr Gold's grandkid). If anything ends up actually matching the show, well that's just a fluke.
Disclaimer: I own Kate May and the pattern that the words are in. That is all.
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Parent-Teacher
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Parent-Teacher interviews.
The bane of every teacher's life.
Oh, they'd try to tell you otherwise, certainly – try to convince you (and themselves) that PT days are the most useful day of the school year, that they're invaluable, that they're constructive.
Yeah, no.
Lies. All of it.
Parent-Teacher interviews are hellish.
You get the tiger-moms that don't think you're doing enough to further their child's development ("Because my baby boy is special – he's so smart, don't you know?") and you get the parents of badly behaved brats who refuse to believe that their child is in the wrong ("No, no, you must be confused – Amy's an absolute angel!") and you get the ones who listen attentively and nod and gasp in all the right places but then do absolutely no follow up and their kid continues to not hand in homework and show up late in the mornings. Of course, there are the occasional few who take the teacher's advice on board and act on it, but those parents are frustratingly few and far between.
And then there's the convoluted home situations to navigate. A teacher must always be aware of their student's home situation.
There are the parents who are separated but want to be at the interviews at the same time (to make sure they don't miss anything) and the parents that are separated but can't be in the same room as each other without going off like a nuclear bomb, and there's the parents that bring partners and the partners that show up in place of parents and all manner of other combinations, all of which must be handled with infinite care.
And then there's Henry.
"So… you'll need three different lots of interviews?" Kate May asks, the frown of confusion as audible in her voice as it is on her face.
"Four," Henry corrects cheerfully, his hands tucked comfortably under his knees as he sits in front of his teacher.
Miss Kate May, being a fairly new addition to Storybrooke (a messy break up with her fiancé had ended with her packing her whole life into a suitcase – a big one, admittedly – and moving to a new town where she knew no one and no one knew her) knows next to nothing about the rather convoluted circumstances that is Henry's home situation, but suddenly she finds herself rather wishing that she'd looked into it.
"Four?" she asks, a little skeptical. Two, fair enough – that's practically common nowadays, sad as that is. Three, unusual but believable. But four? Except that all she's seen of Henry so far shows him to be one of the most honest kids she's ever come across, she'd think he's pulling her leg.
"Yeah," Henry confirms, shifting in his seat and getting comfortable. "See, I need one for my Mom, Regina – she's the Mayor – and I need another one for other Mom, Emma – she's the Sheriff – and I need one for my Dad, Neal – he's pretty new in town; this'll be his first Parent/Teacher ever – and I need one for my Pop, Mr Gold – he only just found out I was his grandkid, so it'll be his first interview too."
Miss May blinks, somewhat astonished.
"You… The Sheriff and the Mayor are both your Moms?" she asks eventually, because… well. She's not quite sure how that works, frankly. She knows that Regina is Henry's mom – she's listed as such on all the school paperwork – but Emma Swan is listed as an emergency contact, not as a second parent. And there's no father listed at all, so she's never even heard of Neal before now. And… "And the man who owns practically the whole town is your Grandfather?"
Wow. The most cheerful kid in the class is also apparently closely related to the most influential people in town, and Kate's somehow managed to not know all of this until just now.
Henry chuckles at her baffled and somewhat surprised expression.
"It's confusing, I know," he says, a hint of apology in his tone. "See, my real Mom – Emma – gave me up for adoption just after I was born, and Regina adopted me. I wanted to know who my real Mom was though, so I went looking for her, and she moved to Storybrooke after I found her. She never said much about my Dad (they didn't part on the best of terms, apparently), but he showed up out of the blue one day – he hadn't even known about me, Emma had never been able to find him to tell him about me – looking for Emma, but once he found out I was his kid he booked a place at Granny's and has been looking for a place to rent since then. Mom still hasn't forgiven him for whatever happened back then though, so they're not exactly talking right now."
Henry pauses long enough to take a breath, then continues on without pause.
"Anyway. It turns out – and this was a surprise to everyone, not just me – that Mr Gold had a kid once but they'd been separated (it's a long and detailed story – I won't go into specifics) when the kid was barely a teenager, and Mr Gold had been looking for him since then but hadn't found him. Anyhow – Neal rocks up to Storybrooke one day looking for Emma, bumps into Mr Gold and recognises him. And the rest is history."
Henry says the last bit proudly – like he's always wanted to say those words but had never had a suitable occasion – but Kate's rather too distracted trying to work through all she's just heard to pay attention to Henry's moment of story-telling pride.
"So..." she says, once she thinks she might have it all worked out. "Your mom, Regina, will need an interview; your Mom, Emma, will need one; and... Your Dad and Pop will need one? So who's the fourth for?"
"Dad and Pop will need separate interviews," Henry corrects. "There were some... issues back then – when they got separated – that haven't been resolved yet, and things are still a little tense between them. It might be a little easier if we just keep everyone separate."
Ok then, Kate thinks to herself. Officially the most pretzeled-up family situation she's ever come across.
"That must be hard, Henry," Miss May says sympathetically. "Having to deal with all that tension."
She hadn't realised the kid's been doing it so tough. No one would guess, looking at him. Henry's the most cheerful kid in her class, and – arguably – the whole school. Most kids dealing with tense family-situations end up angry and lash out at others, but apparently that's not Henry's style.
The kid in question proves her thoughts right when he shrugs easily.
"It's not so bad," he says flippantly. "Mostly everyone just stays out of eachother's way, and anyway, everything's smoothed over a lot recently. Regina and Emma still fight every so often, but it's not half as bad as it used to be. And none of them really wanted Mr Gold getting involved, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He's not so bad, anyway – he can be nice when he wants to be."
"I'm sure," Miss May says with a warm smile, even though she finds the concept of a nice Mr Gold a little hard to believe. She's not been here for long, but she's heard enough tales about Gold that she knows she doesn't want to cross him.
"Right then," she says, looking down at her list of available times. "When do you want these interviews booked for?"
"Oh," Henry says suddenly, remembering something. "And my other Grandparents will be coming with my Mom – with Emma – if that's ok. Mary-Margaret and David Nolan."
Miss May blinks once and then raises her eyebrow sceptically, because pardon?
"...Mary-Margaret and David Nolan are your grandparents," she repeats blandly, her expression saying clearly just how much she thinks of that claim, because there's a limit to how much she'll believe here.
"Yeah," Henry says, a hint of a question in his own voice as he quirks his head, curious at her disbelief.
"The Mary-Margaret – who's one of my colleagues, by the way, and who was your teacher last year – and the David Nolan who couldn't be anything more than three years older than any of your actual parents," Miss May continues, and a light of understanding hits Henry's eyes as he realises what's holding his teacher up on this notion.
"Oh, yeah, that. It's... That one's even more of a long, confusing story than the one where Mr Gold and my Dad were separated, so I won't even try explaining how it all works," Henry says, flapping a hand. "But they are family, and Pop – David – even looked after me for a while when Emma was... away. Before Neal got here. They wanna know how I'm doing in school too, so it's ok that they come, right?"
If Kate notices the hesitation in Henry's voice when he mentions the period of time Emma was "away," she doesn't mention it, nor does she question why it was David that looked after Henry and not Regina. Frankly, she thinks, she's barely keeping up with this whole thing as it is. She'll keep it as simple as possible, thanks, and she'll not ask for more details when she can barely keep up with the ones she's got.
"Yes," she half-sighs. "That's fine if they come too. I'll add them to the slot we give Emma. Now, what times would you like to book?"
Bookings officially opened yesterday, so there are slots that have already been taken and Henry has to make a few compromises, but in the end they get each of his four interview-times settled.
Emma (and Henry's "Grandparents") will go first, at 3.30 pm on the dot, and then an hour later Mr Gold will have his. Regina's will be at 5.30, the earliest she can get away from her office, and Neal's is set for 6 pm. A little close, true, and if the interviews end up being behind schedule the two might cross paths, but Henry assures Miss May that out of everyone Neal and Regina are the least likely to clash. Mostly, Henry says, they just like to pretend the other doesn't exist, so there's not likely to be any problems there.
They run over the times once more and Kate makes sure Henry's got them all correctly written down, and then the boy stands up and slings his bag onto one shoulder, calls back, "Thanks Miss Day," as he walks away, and then disappears out the door.
Kate sinks into her chair, slightly tired out by the whole exchange.
Parent-Teacher interviews. Honestly.
What a nightmare.
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end
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AN: Hope you enjoyed! I'd love it if you left a review.
Love Bundi