Title: Like My Mirror Years Ago
aka The Prompt That Won't Be Written
Rating: T
Summary: Emma Swan thinks she knows all about her past: her abandonment, her heartbreak. But a knock on her door one night begins to stir memories of something she could never completely forget.
Note: A prompt from a long time ago that was never supposed to make it this far. I have no self-control, but only one chapter per POV will be posted just for appreciation week. Until it is complete, I won't post the rest. Probably.


The match hissed when she struck it, the faint orange glow brightening the blue star before she held it to its wick. She shook the stick and placed it to the side, her sea-colored eyes set on the glowing cupcake. She leaned down and rested her chin on crossed arms, regret tightening in her throat.

"Another banner year," she expelled more mournfully than bitterly. Her chest kept the breath and the wish it held tightly, before she exhaled in a sharp puff. Her lashes fluttered, and she swallowed, before a shaky sigh escaped.

She didn't expect the chime.

The look she gave the cupcake was almost accusatory. She straightened quickly, a frown on her lips as she made her way to the door on bare tip-toes. The lock clicked and she pulled the handle, searching at eye level before her gaze trailed down, finding the twinkling eyes of the young boy.

Something vaguely pulled at her, a tinge of familiarity in his face and expression. Her brow furrowed, confusion winning over the strange feeling. "Uh … can I help you?"

The boy was dressed for the weather, and his coat was tailored. He looked clean and well-nourished, and despite the fact that he was alone, he didn't have the look of a kid that was lost. He didn't fidget, but instead his eyes crinkled as he assessed her. "Are you Emma Swan?"

"Yeah. Who are you?" she asked, even more perplexed.

His expression immediately changed, relief and happiness practically bubbling from him. His lips pressed together, and even though it didn't kill the smile in his eyes there was a nervous energy that emitted. "My name's Henry," he said steadily, then there was a small change in his gaze, the slightest insecurity. "I'm your son."

It didn't click. Her lips parted slightly, breath catching, but it didn't click in her brain. He didn't give her the chance to respond, and instead ducked under her arm and into her house. She shook her head as if to clear it. "Whoa, hey, kid. Kid! Kid!"

He didn't stop, only pushed further inside.

She huffed, and followed him, hands thrown up in exasperation. "I don't have a son! Where are your parents?"

He turned back to look at her, green eyes steady as his hand trailed along the chair at the counter. His head cocked to the side, and his brow arched. "Ten years ago, did you give a baby up for adoption?"

All protests died in her throat, and she looked at him with new eyes. Slowly, she tried to breathe naturally, to not freak out. She looked over his features. No, it couldn't be. It was so long ago. He didn't look like Neal. His face, though … she could see what she saw every day in the mirror in his face.

He gave a partial shrug, suddenly losing a piece of the bravado that had colored his entrance. "That's me," he finished unnecessarily.

A sudden wave of nausea hit her, a panicky feeling climbing up her spine. She looked away, flashes of woods and crinkled eyes and things that didn't make sense, and she quickly looked back to the face of the kid. "Give me a minute," she said firmly, and locked herself away in the bathroom.

Once inside, she began to hyperventilate. She remembered a test in cold fingers, falling asleep counting kicks, a blue blanket and the way her head whiplashed away from the look of it.

She could throw up, she could cry, she could scream. But she didn't do any of it. The baby. The baby.

A clatter sounded, the sound of bottles clanking into each other. "Hey, do you have any juice?"

She pressed her fingertips to the door separating them. Not a baby, she reminded herself, and not hers.

"Never mind, I found some!" he called.

She couldn't ignore him, the kid that barreled into her home. Carefully, she swallowed. This was not her kid. This was someone else's child. Someone who loved this kid, someone who could take care of him. Someone better equipped and better prepared and just plain better than her.

She steeled herself and came out, finding him at the counter and drinking from the bottle. She forced herself not to lower her gaze, to think of how his eagerness reminded her of something. He looked up with a smile as if they were in the middle of a conversation. "You know, we should probably get going."

It was strange, looking into her green eyes made darker by the locks of brown hair. She crossed her arms in front of her, distancing herself. She put on the façade she used for … well, everyone as she addressed him. "Going where?"

"I want you to come home with me," he said with a grin.

"Okay, kid," she said sternly, and focused on getting to the phone. "I'm calling the cops."

"Then I'll tell them you kidnapped me," he said simply.

She clicked off the phone, and glared down at him. "And they'll believe you, because I'm your birth mother," she said. It felt strange, those words in her mouth. She wasn't someone's mother, and yet ….

He looked up with a sheepish smile. "Yep."

She narrowed her eyes, trying to focus on how manipulative he was being as opposed to how much he reminded her of her. Then, there was a rush of relief, and she let a small smile cross her face as she realized: he was like her. "You're not going to do that."

He gave a smug grin, one cheek dimpling. "Try me."

She straightened her shoulders, easily looking down at him as she gained the upper hand. "You're pretty good. But here's the thing: there's not a lot I'm great at in life. I have one skill. Let's call it a superpower. I can tell when anyone is lying. And you, kid? Are." She clicked the buttons on her phone purposefully.

"Wait." She looked up, finding his face crumpling and voice small. All the courage had zapped out of him, vulnerability and desperation now the only things visible. "Please don't call the cops. Please? Come home with me."

She deflated. His eyes were large and dark and she saw someone else in them, just for a moment. Perplexingly, it wasn't her and it wasn't Neal, but it made her heart tug all the same. "Where's home?" she finally acquiesced.

She couldn't believe she was letting this happen.

xxx

Eleven Years Ago

She didn't know what happened.

One moment she was running from the convenience store, her pockets stuffed with food, and straight into traffic. She had found Neal counting his own stash across the street and was heading for him and the bug, and then she remembered seeing the flash of headlights. Then, there were the other lights; the strange white spark that had enveloped her like a cloak.

Did she die?

She forced her eyes open, wide to the sky. It was dim, but clear. Tree branches arched into the cloudless evening.

She began to sit up, then groaned as her head swam. As she collapsed back down, she became aware of the feel of rocks and earth beneath her. The air was cool, but warmer than it had been a moment ago. It no longer felt like the wet, chilled Portland evening.

Her whole body ached, one throb from the crown of her head to the tips of her toes. She decided that she couldn't be dead and still be in this much pain. Did she get hit, then thrown?

She took a breath and closed her eyes. Testingly, she rolled her ankles and wrists. Nothing felt broken. One large rock dug uncomfortably into her spine, and she rolled onto her side to ease the pressure. She was immediately met by the snout of a very large wolf.

Her eyes widened in fear, but the wolf didn't peel back its jowls to threaten her. Instead, it cocked its head to the side, studying her with profound curiosity.

A sharp whistle called its attention up, past her, and she followed the sound.

Someone stood a few paces away. Tall, thin, and covered in dirty furs with a bow slung over his shoulder, he stared at her with a look that mirrored the animal's exactly. She'd never seen someone dressed like that, at least not anywhere but old TV shows and movies.

"Who are you?" the boy asked, his tone rumbling with the growl that hadn't come from the beast. "How did you get here?"

Her eyes widened, and she looked around, finding herself in a thickly wooded area. This looked nothing like Portland. Or, at least, nothing like the side of Portland she had been in before she blacked out.

No one else was in sight, and she could only hear the breathing of the animal and the shift of the guy ahead of her, and for the first time she actually missed the companion she'd had for the past couple days. Now being separated, she could admit that having an older guy around all the time had kept her feeling pretty safe.

Now she was alone, with this guy who was armed and armed strangely. She felt a flash of fear, but she quickly buried it beneath bravado. "I don't have to tell you anything," she cut out. She scrambled to her feet, and the wolf edged a little closer. She stiffened in response.

"Don't look at him, look at me," the boy demanded. Sharply, she did so, narrowing her eyes in defiant challenge. "How did you get past us?"

"What? Where am I?" she replied. His eyes were dark, so she squared her shoulders. "I don't know what you mean."

"No one gets past us unnoticed. Unless you're a magic user," he said lowly, his voice underlying with a dangerous sort of threat. His fingers flicked along his side, across a leather pouch on his belt.

She tried not to think of what might be in there as a sort of panic climbed her. She obviously wasn't dealing with someone in their right mind. "A magic user?"

He looked at her with slitted eyes. "Yeah, a magic user, now are you trying to tell me—" He stopped suddenly, his eyes turned up and away from her. They caught the moonlight in the dusk, murky blue stirring with alarm.

Her brow furrowed. "What—"

"Shh," he commanded, then darted forward to her.

He wrapped his arm around her and pressed against a tree, her back against his chest. She let out a muffled cry as his hand covered her mouth. Despite the fact that she had thought him thin and malnourished before, his grip was strong and she felt the hard cords of his muscles as she fruitlessly gripped his arms to yank him away. She had the realization that she had underestimated him, something she rarely did. Her fear was poignant, and she began to struggle in earnest.

"Quiet," he hissed.

She tried to elbow his side, kick out at his legs, but she couldn't find the leverage with him holding her so tight. Instead, she bit down on his palm as hard as she could. He let out a low grunt of pain, but only pressed it firmer against her mouth.

She felt the metallic taste hit her tongue and a wave of nausea overwhelmed her. Her body went cold and numb, though hot tears rolled down her cheeks. She gasped beneath his hand and he gave her a look of exasperation. "Keep it down," he said firmly.

Suddenly, a branch cracked in the distance and his grip tightened to bruising. All at once, the woods were filled with the clamor of heavy footsteps.

She turned wide eyes to watch his face. He was no longer paying attention to her, though his hold did not ease. His jaw worked up and down, his face stony. She felt a warm body plop next to her and looked down to find the wolf sitting with them, its hair on end.

"He's gotta be here somewhere," a voice slurred out.

She finally felt her body freeze, realizing that she wasn't being attacked by this boy. She was being hid.

The voice soon gave a figure to attach to it, a filthy man stumbling along. She sprung back into fight, trying to get out of his unyielding grip to alert the other of the strange boy holding her against her will.

That was, until a gleaming knife, longer than any she'd ever seen before, became apparent in the hands of the man she'd hoped to be her savior. He swayed drunkenly, the knife cutting through the air. He was joined by another three men with lanterns and more weapons, their faces sickeningly amused as they watched their companion.

"Mutt, where'ya at?" one of them said, and the other laughed.

"Little mongrel, c'mon out. Your share'll be too much for ya, anyhow."

The wolf was rigid, almost as much as the boy was. She could feel the snap of tension in the air, palpable in its heaviness.

"Gotcha!"

She felt her panic reach pinnacle and her body shook. Though the voice was much closer than she would have liked, it was still several trees away. A small rodent thrashed in the man's grasp, and he shoved the struggling thing into a burlap sack. A slam against the tree and the sack didn't move.

Her head collapsed back against the boy's shoulder, feeling both sickened and relieved. She calmed back to the hyperaware state, her gaze flashing over in black and white as her fear couldn't fully extinguish. It was then that she realized the boy was shaking, too.

"Not enough for the quota. We still need to find the kid."

"He'll put up a fight," one of them warned.

The first one, the one most obviously drunk, swiped around with a toothy grin that gleamed yellow and brown. "I'll ask nicely," he insisted, raising the blade in his hand.

Her gaze flashed to the boy's again, and she watched as his eyes closed briefly before opening up to the sky. His breath was coming in short pants, palm sweaty against her skin as the guffaws of the men resounded in the clearing.

He looked down at her as the voices faded further away, the insults becoming more grating as they failed to find him. Her entire body was uncoiling, even with this stranger holding her close. Together, they held eye contact until the forest was quiet once more.

His eyebrows rose with a quick nod, then looked to the left. When his eyes returned to hers, he shook his head. Slowly, she nodded her understanding and he carefully removed his hand from her mouth.

She spat thickly, getting the taste of his blood out of her mouth, and then swiped the sleeve of her jacket against her lips. He held out a flat hand, a reminder to keep quiet, and then yanked them in the other direction. The wolf snapped out at his ankles. He paused, then reassessed their route.

"This way," he said hoarsely. He took her wrist, pulling her along as they rushed through tree cover.

She found that she didn't have it in her to protest. Wherever she was, this boy who wasn't quite right in the head was her safest option.


TBC