Hello there readers! I just had this idea floating in my head for a while now, and I finally got the time to write it!
This is post episode 3x11. I don't own the characters of Once Upon A Time. If I did, Emma would remember everything.
Please read and review! It means so much to me! Lots of love! xx
To be honest, nothing ever really exciting happened to Emma. When she thinks back on her life, all she sees are blurry memories. All one long line of pictures and feelings meshing together, giving Emma the feeling that everything was just the color beige. Henry was a streak of yellow in her life, but all the other events collided in pale colors.
Emma wanted a splash of color to happen to her. Something exciting like a bright orange, a dash of lime green, or a blue the color of the sky on a cloudless day.
If someone asked Emma to describe her life, she would tell them about her son and her work. Not many things in her world couldn't be described.
There was a ring on the coffee table where she set a hot chocolate down once without a coaster. There was Henry's room, which was littered with papers covered in drawings and writing. There was her red leather jacket that she loved to wear on cold days. There was the swan pendent necklace, hidden under her socks in a drawer. There was the cupboard where she kept a small bottle of cinnamon for special days.
And then there was the shoe lace around her wrist, that she found herself fingering when she was lost in thought. When she tried to think of where she got it, her memory fuzzed over. There was the faint feeling of pain and loss attached to it. The same feeling that she got when she pulled out the baby blanket embroidered with her name.
"Mom? What are you doing?" a voice says, pulling Emma out of her thoughts. She looks up to see Henry staring at her with wide eyes.
"Yeah? Sorry kid, I was thinking," she says, standing up from her position on the couch.
"You looked very in thought," he says, his eyes moving down to her hands, seeing her fingers on the lace.
"Yeah I just..." she trails off, trying to think of how to explain her thoughts.
"Yeah, okay, Mom. I was just wondering if you'd look at something?" he says, rummaging in the bag that was slung over his shoulder.
"Sure kid, what is it?" she asks, moving close to him. After a few seconds of papers rustling, he pulls out a sketch book. He flips a few pages in, smiling as he goes. Finally getting to the page he wants, he gives her a triumphant grin and shows her the page.
"Does this look familiar?" he asks, watching her reaction carefully. Emma reaches forward and takes the book from his hands. She stares down at the drawing, her eyes widening at the detail. It showed what looked like the inside of a ship. A desk in the corner of the room, and a bookshelf filling up the opposite wall. The point of view seemed to be from a bed in one of the corners in the room. As Emma's eyes traced each detail, something nagged at the back of her brain.
"You drew this?" she whispers, her fingers trailing along the lines of the books.
"Yeah. I keep having the strangest dreams about this room, and I felt like I needed to get it out," Henry says, his voice small. Emma looks up and gives him a smile. Her eyes find their way back to the drawing, and something catches her attention.
"Is this a...pirate?" she asks, drinking in the sketchy detail of a form leaning over the desk. A dark coat wrapped around him, shrouding him in mystery.
"Uhm...sure I guess. I didn't think of that," Henry says, moving his head close and looking over his drawing again.
"Hook..." Emma whispers, her eyes stuck to the pirate's shadowed face.
"What was that?" Henry asks, looking at Emma with confusion.
"I'm not sure," Emma replies, her voice faint. There was something pulling at her, a never ending feeling like she was forgetting something.
"Do you want to get some pizza tonight?" she says, suddenly shutting the sketch book.
"Mmm yeah we should go to that place on the corner. They make the best thin crust," Henry says dreamily, already salivating over the thought of pizza.
"Alright, let me just get my coat," Emma says with a laugh. She puts the sketch book on the table, giving it one last glance before turning to her room.
She walks into the bedroom and grabs at her coat hanging on the closet door. She lets out a curse when she sees the forgotten coffee stain on the sleeve. Humming in frustration, she opens the closet and trails her hand along the fabric of her shirts.
"Coat...coat...coat..." she mumbles, shoving aside articles of clothing as she searches. Finally finding what she wants, she pulls on the sleeve to get it off the hanger. The coat falls down into her hands, tugging something out from the recesses of the closet. Emma reaches down and pulls at the object, bringing it into her sights.
"What the..." she trails off as she pulls the fabric free. A silky black scarf lay in her hands, her fingers tingling where the softness met her skin. Emma stares down at it, and the feeling of forgetfulness grows to an unbearable level. There was something about this scarf that seemed familiar.
"Hey Henry? Can you come in here for a second?" she calls, her eyes still glued to the fabric in her hands.
"What is it?" he asks when he walks into the room. Emma holds up the scarf for him to see and raises an eyebrow.
"Do you recognize this?" she asks, watching his face as he looks at it. For a few seconds he gets a far away look in his eyes, then he shakes his head.
"Never seen it," he responds, shrugging his shoulders. "Am I supposed to know what it is?"
"I don't think so...it just seems so familiar...like I've forgotten something," she trails off.
"Mom are you okay? You seem a bit off today," Henry says, giving her a concerned glance. Emma shakes her head, as if she could shake a memory loose and discover why this scarf felt so important.
"I'm...fine..." she mumbles, finally looking up at her son. He raises an eyebrow at her, and she's struck by the fact that he looks so much like Neal when he does that. "I'm fine," she repeats, "Let's go get that pizza."
"I'll be in the living room when you're ready," he says, as if he knew that she'd be staring at that scarf for a few more minutes. He gives her a small grin and walks out of the room. Emma smiles a little and shakes her head. He could read her so easily sometimes.
"You're something of an open book."
A voice sounds in her room, startling Emma into standing up and looking around. No one was there, and she heard Henry shuffling around in the living room so it couldn't have been him. Again her eyes are drawn back to the scarf in her clenched fingers.
"Why are you so familiar? Why do I feel like I should know where you're from?" she mumbles to herself, her fingers following invisible patterns along the fabric as she thought. No matter how hard she tried, the memories wouldn't come.
Emma lets out a frustrated sigh, and moves to put the scarf back into the closet. When she let go of the fabric, fear gripped her. It felt wrong to leave it there and not have it with her. With a confused shake of her head, Emma grabs up the scarf again.
She turns to the mirror in her room and shrugs her coat on. With a second of hesitation, she drapes the scarf around her neck. A feeling of warmth and safety envelopes her. Emma gives a little start at the feeling. She hadn't ever felt this safe and loved many times in her life.
She smiles at her reflection and adjusts the scarf tighter. A faint smell of the ocean drifts up to her nose. Her eyebrows draw together, and she lifts the scarf up to her face. It decidedly smelled of the ocean and faintly of spices. Strange, she hadn't been to the ocean recently. With a small feeling of confusion, she left the room.
"Alright kid, let's get going," she says, ruffling Henry's hair as he moves past her to the door.
"Ah, but you don't want to abandon him the way you were abandoned."
Emma pauses as the voice echoes in the apartment again. Brushing it off as her imagination, she follows Henry out the door. She locks it behind her, and shoves away all her feelings about the scarf. Her son wanted to go get pizza with her, and she was determined to stop thinking about things she couldn't even remember why they felt so important.