Let's assume Cora's boat moves really slowly so that there's time for Christmas before she gets there, k? :P

Christmas was coming up and Emma Swan had no idea how to feel about that. She'd had Christmasses in foster care, but she'd always felt like she was sitting in on someone else's holiday, like Christmas was for people with families, and she didn't have one. Last year, she'd had Christmas with Mary Margaret, but they hadn't known they were related and Emma hasn't been sure how she felt about last Christmas, either.

Regina had kept Henry carefully and intentionally away from Emma last year and David had still been married and it had just been the two of them. This year was bigger and more important and it needed to be special. She just wasn't sure how to make it special. She was beginning to feel like she might actually be bad at Christmas after a couple of weeks of stressing over it all. She had no idea what she was supposed to be doing to get ready for the holiday and she had no idea how to figure it out without admitting she was clueless about this whole thing.

She knew for sure that she needed to buy presents for Henry and her parents. She was still shocked everytime the phrase "my parents" ran across her mind, like part of her still couldn't believe they were real and she'd found them. She tried to convince herself that it was just confusing having parents who were, in essence, her own age. She wasn't sure that was it. She was sure she had to find some kind of present for them, and she didn't know what that should be.

Eventually, she gave up on wandering around the stores in town without knowing what she was looking for and decided to call it quits for the afternoon, pushing through the door of Granny's to get out of the cold. She almost asked for a beer because Christmas was stressful, but it didn't seem to fit the mood of the place, all decked out in holly and snowflakes and twinkling lights. She ordered a hot chocolate instead, with cinnamon, hoping that a moment's peace would do at least something to fix her jumbled up emotions.

Ruby sat down across the table from her before Emma could take more than two sips of her cocoa, but she didn't mind as much as she could have. As much as she should have, part of her thought. Another weird emotional development. She was starting to feel like she had not only friends here, but roots. It was a strange feeling. Maybe it was why Christmas had her head spinning so badly. This was her first real Christmas and she didn't want to ruin it - and she really didn't want to let on that she didn't know what she was doing. She wasn't sure if she wanted anyone to know what it meant to her or not.

"I'm surprised to see you by yourself," Ruby commented, "Did they finally drive you crazy?"

While it was true that her parents and Henry had been practically glued to her side since the moment she and Snow had come back through the portal, and while it was true that it usually would have bothered her, she'd actually been enjoying the feeling. Names were still hard when she was talking to Mary Margaret/Snow/Mom and David/Charming/Dad, but Henry made everything easier because "Grandma" and "Grandpa" and "Mom" seemed to roll off his tongue like they belonged there.

Emma wasn't sure how to play it all, so she went with her usual air of casual disinterest. "Nah, just Christmas shopping. Can't let 'em see their own presents."

Ruby grinned. "What are you getting them?"

Of course. The downside to having friends and roots and things was that they then wanted to know things about your life and you couldn't quite just brush them off like you did with strangers. "I haven't decided yet," she admitted. The truth was closer to "I have no idea," but Ruby didn't need to know that.

Ruby laughed. "Well, I heard Charming and Snow are getting Henry a horse, so don't put too much pressure on yourself about his present - he might not even notice yours!"

Emma laughed, but it also gave her an idea. "Yeah, but he can hardly ride a horse through town. Maybe I'll get him a bike for Christmas." Technically, Henry probably could ride a horse through town - everyone in Storybrooke had once been in a fairy tale and they probably wouldn't even bat an eye at it now that they remembered their own pasts, but that didn't mean he should. And Emma had enough childhood memories of Christmas to know that she'd have been thrilled to get a bike of her own when she was a kid. Part of her wanted to thank Ruby for giving her the idea, but she didn't want it to seem like she hadn't had any ideas on her own before now, so she kept her mouth shut.

Ruby laughed. "He'll love it! And I bet you can fit that under the tree. The horse will have to stay at the stable." Emma thought about it for a moment. Right now, they were all living at what used to be Mary Margaret's apartment, and she wasn't sure there would be room under the tree in the living room for something as big as a bike - and more importantly, she was sure that there wasn't room to hide one until Christmas. They were so relieved to be together that they hadn't minded the lack of space (at least not much, though there were times she'd definitely been relieved to go to work where there weren't family members under foot all the time) but now it was inconvenient.

"About fitting it," she asked, "Do you think I could hide Henry's bike in the back room here until Christmas Eve? I don't know where else I'd put it."

Ruby grinned broadly. "Of course! It'll be no trouble at all!"

Emma smiled back. "Cool. I'll drop it by as soon as I've picked out the right one."

She got up, trying to convince herself that she wasn't running away in the middle of the conversation before it could turn to what she was getting for her parents and she had to admit she had no idea. She wasn't sure if Ruby knew that or not. She was hoping not as she said her goodbyes and went back outside into the cold. At least now she had some kind of a purpose in being out here.

Finding a bike for Henry went surprisingly quickly, especially because everyone in town adored her son as much as she did and seemed to want to help her pick the perfect present. Not that most of the adults in Storybrooke knew much about bicycles now that they had their real memories back instead of the fake ones they'd been cursed with. But it was nice to have help, more than it wasn't.

Now she just needed help with her parents to show up without her actually asking for it. Last year, Mary Margaret had bought her a coffee mug to keep at the sheriff's station, with a Christmassy specialty coffee to go with it, and Emma had been completely unprepared and had awkwardly bought the other woman dinner and pretended that was her Christmas plan all along. This year, she was going to have to do better.

Or was she? Once she started thinking about it, she realized that part of what was so hard about thinking of Christmas presents for her family was that all they really wanted was to be together. She could try to get her parents a new set of arrows and a new sword, but that seemed too violent for Christmas, and anything else seemed too impractical or too pointless. Why get them candles or sweaters or electronics when they didn't really want or need things at all? Maybe dinner was the answer, after all.

As she wheeled Henry's new bike over to Granny's, avoiding the school entirely just in case Henry was looking out the window, Emma thought the whole thing through, plans forming in her brain with little effort. She'd plan a date night for her parents, a night on the town for just the two of them, without any of the secrecy or shame of their previous dates when he'd still been just David and she'd still been just Mary Margaret and no one had known they were supposed to be in love. It would make up for all the sneaking from when David was married to the wrong girl and divorced at the wrong time and everyone was angry at them. It would be perfect.

As she walked into Granny's, she was happy to see that Ruby was still there. Now that she had a plan, she could admit to needing help. This was going to be much more than a one-woman project if she wanted to organize the whole thing and still keep it a secret. It was also going to be worth it. Maybe she wasn't so bad at this Christmas thing after all.