A/N: I've been toying with the idea of how differently OUAT might have happened if Henry and been a twin for such a long time now, and as most of swen does, I imagined how differently the show would have turned out had Adam and Eddy not been afraid to make swan queen happen too. So, here we are now that I have merged those two ideas into one.
This story is going to take us all back to the beginning and I hope you all intend to stick around for the ride.
In loving memory of fellow Oncer, Georgina Callander, who was tragically taken from the world in a vile act of terrorism today.
Chapter One:
Ten year old James Alexander Swan, or Jamie as his mother liked to call him, was standing on tip-toes atop of a very expensive end table when the doorbell rang through the apartment. He wobbled for a second on the piece of oak furniture before regaining his balance to tack the last corner of the banner to the ceiling. Once the push-pin was in place, he jumped down with a hollow thump and raced across the open planned floor to reach the front door. He slid across the laminate wooden flooring in his socks and made quick work of the multiple locks and deadbolts that kept him hidden from the outside world.
"Jump to the first. Stretch to the second. And… pull back the third." He whispered to himself as he followed his usual routine.
As quickly and efficiently as any ten year old could, Jamie pulled open the yellow front door and bellowed: "Happy birthday!" His eyes were clenched shut and his arms were open wide, expecting his mother's strong arms to wrap around his waist and lift him up to her height for an endless stream of kisses that he knew would soon come. When he wasn't instantly tackled into a suffocating hug, the ten year old swallowed thickly in anticipation and cracked his eyelids open slightly. When his eyes fell on the sight in front of him, his brow furrowed.
"Woah…" He whispered as his eyes widened.
The kid standing in the hallway stared blankly at Jamie until his eyes grew comically to match Jamie's astounded stare. The pair stared at each other for what felt like hours, each taking mental notes and images of every detail of the other boy. Jamie noticed their countless similarities and quirks that Jamie thought were exclusively his own; their nervous stances, wild and messy hair that would take far too long to tame, freckled skin, and teeth that were almost too big for their little heads. Had Jamie not been rocking a pair of Ghostbusters pyjamas and bright yellow Adventure Time socks, he would have sworn he was looking in a mirror.
Jamie stumbled back slightly when the boy in the corridor finally composed himself and offered his hand out to shake. "Hi. I'm Henry."
With a timid touch and the briefest shake possible, Jamie smiled awkwardly, still trying to comprehend the sight in front of him. "I'm Jamie."
"Cool." Henry grinned at him as shuffled the heavy looking backpack on his shoulders. He readjusted the straps and loosened the red and black scarf around his neck as he glanced into the apartment over Jamie's shoulder. "Do you know if Emma Swan lives around here?"
"Yeah, she's my mom. But she's out."
"Do you know when she's gonna be back?" Henry tugged on the straps of his backpack again and kicked at the doorframe, looking like he was trying everything not to look at the boy who lived here.
"Around seven-thirty." Jamie hesitated for a moment in the doorway before his charming and chivalrous antics took over. He stepped aside and held the door open. "Wanna come in and wait for her?"
Henry nodded and lugged himself, and his heavy backpack, into the third floor apartment, eager to look around at the set up Jamie and Emma Swan had going. He let out a sigh of relief when he saw the crooked birthday banners and celebration balloons throughout the apartment – at least something from his extensive research on this Emma Swan was correct. Today was her twenty-eighth birthday. Henry was convinced when he stepped on the bus to Boston that he knew everything he needed to know about the woman – what colour hair she had, what colour eyes she had, how old she was, and even how old she was when she gave him up. But the ten-year-old still struggled to piece together the situation before him; another ten-year-old boy that looked exactly like him, a big empty apartment with no art projects or photos hanging on any of the walls, and boxes everywhere. Aside from the birthday decorations, the only thing that could convince anyone that people were actually living in the apartment were the sneakers stacked by the door, an array of comic books scattered on the table and a skateboard propped against the wall.
"So, where is Emma?" Henry wondered aloud as he finally allowed his backpack to drop from his shoulders to his feet with a heavy thud. He had been carrying it for hours. His little arms ached and his back throbbed from the weight of carrying the thing up the three flights of stairs to reach apartment C-28.
"Catching a perp." Jamie said casually as he pulled out a small box from behind one of the couches. It was wrapped scruffily in birthday paper with a huge store bought bow stuck to the top of it. He slid it onto the kitchen's breakfast bar and noticed Henry's confused watch. "She catches bad guys. So she's out for dinner with one before she kicks his butt."
Henry tilted his head. "If she catches the bad guys, why is she at dinner with one?"
"The element of surprise." He recited with a smirk. He had asked the very same question not so long ago, and his mother's response had made him laugh far more than it should have. In Jamie's eyes, his Ma was a superhero. She was Boston's secret superhero, catching the bad guys and saving the damsels in distress all in a day's work. "Are you here to see my Ma about another bad guy that she has to catch?"
"I'm not sure yet." The well-dressed ten-year-old shrugged and pulled open his heavy back pack to take out one of the biggest books Jamie had ever seen. It was made from a deep brown leather, like one of his mother's favourite jackets, and the words embossed in gold on the front read 'Once Upon a Time'. With a heavy slam, Henry dropped the hardback book onto the granite breakfast bar. "Emma is in this book, and we need her help."
Jamie screwed up his face as he looked at the book. His mother might be a superhero in Boston, but there was no way she could be a superhero in a fairy-tale book! Only he was supposed to know that she was a real life superhero. In speculation, Jamie reached out to turn the front cover of the book, only for his hand to be slapped away by Henry with a warning look. Jamie tore his hand away from the other boy and held it to his chest, feigning injury.
"Ow! What was that for?!"
"You have to wait," Henry told him, sounding much older than his years. "Before you look at the book, you have to promise me that you won't tell Emma until the time is right."
Jamie nodded enthusiastically. "I promise."
"Okay. Good. But there's something I have to tell you too."
"What…? Am I in there too?" Jamie narrowed his eyes at Henry, then at the book, trying his damn near hardest not to pull it out of Henry's hands and flick through the pages until he found his mom.
"No. Your mom… Emma," Henry hesitated as he rubbed the back of his neck and blushed. He averted his eyes from Jamie and focused solely on the elegant script stamped on the front of his book. Telling Emma was going to be hard enough, but telling her kid that they might be brothers… well, Henry wasn't sure it was going to be as simple as ripping off a Band-Aid. He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "Your mom… is my mom."
Jamie scoffed and folded his arms across his chest in defiance. "Yeah, right. My mom only ever had one kid, and that's me." He pointed at his chest and glared at the boy across the coffee table. "I'm the only kid she's ever had and the only kid she's ever gonna have. She told me and my mom doesn't lie."
Henry stared at the other boy for a moment in his defiance. Their similarities were too obvious to miss now; Henry pouted his bottom lip when he was annoyed, so did Jamie. Henry pronounced most of his words through his nose, so did Jamie. Henry thought his mother never would have lied to him, so did Jamie.
"How old are you?"
"I'm ten."
"When's your birthday?"
"August 15th, 2001." Jamie shrugged as if he could shrug away the situation. Henry's eyes widened like saucers again. "When's your birthday?"
"August 15th, 2001."
Out of nowhere, Jamie began coughing and spluttering. He whacked his chest as he scurried across the titled floor and away from Henry, his socked feet slipping across the surface in the process. This wasn't happening. This couldn't be happening. He shook his head when his back hit the kitchen refrigerator and his hands splayed out across the glossy door.
"You're lying," Jamie all but whispered.
"I'm not. I promise."
Jamie stared at Henry for a moment before he shook his head again. "So what are you saying? What are we – brothers?"
With a nod, Henry stepped closer to Jamie and smiled. "I think so. I think we're twins."
The boy in his pyjamas shook his head and pushed himself off the fridge, muttering 'impossible' under his breath as he crossed the apartment to the sideboard that his mother had stuffed with most of their belongings when they moved from Chicago. In the few months that they had lived in Boston, nothing in the sideboard had been touched. For some reason, Jamie's mother hated going through the things in there.
He rummaged through one of the drawers, looking for the only bit of proof he had to show the other kid that they definitely weren't brothers. It was impossible and stupid that Henry could even consider the possibility that they were brothers. His Ma told him everything, but she had never told him about a brother! It wasn't something she would ever have kept from him. He found the pale blue photo album he had been searching for at the bottom of the middle drawer and pulled it out to drop it on top of Henry's storybook on the breakfast bar.
"We're not twins." He pointed to the photo album and watched as Henry flipped through the pages and photographs that Emma had put together. "My Ma has only ever had one kid. And that was me."
"Then how does my birth certificate say Emma Swan is my mother and we were born on the same day?" Henry challenged as he watched Jamie flick through the pages a few times until he tossed it over to the other boy.
"Maybe you've got the wrong Emma Swan."
Henry simply shook his head as he studied each photograph, soaking up the beauty of the blonde woman in very few of the images. She was beautiful; her blonde, curly hair was always as wild and messy as his own hair; even her crooked smile and gangly limbs were permanent features that Henry seemed to have the same struggle of growing into. Aside from their brown hair and dark eyes, Henry could see how much he and Jamie resembled the woman. Then, he paused on a double page spread of two photographs of a baby swaddled in a navy blue blanket. One of which, was the very same photograph his adopted mother had framed on the desk at her office at the Town Hall. The other picture, however was one he had never actually seen before, and he definitely didn't have a freckle beneath his left eye like that…
"There you go." He pointed at the two photographs in the album. "Two different babies."
Jamie's thick, belly laugh rang through the apartment. "Those are just two different photos, dummy."
"Yeah, of two different babies." Henry leaned close to the other boy and pointed out the tiny difference in the two photographs. One baby had a freckle below his left eye, and the other one didn't. Jamie had a freckle below his left eye, and Henry didn't. "That one is you. And that one is me. They gave the same photo to my mom when she adopted me."
In utter disbelief, finally seeing the smallest difference in the two images, Jamie pulled back the open photo album and held it to his chest. He had a brother. It wasn't just him. It had never just been him. He always had someone because he was a twin! He quickly slammed the photo album shut and hurried across the apartment to hide it again, just in case his Ma decided to surprise them and walk straight in.
"We're twins…" Jamie muttered aloud, hoping that by saying it would actually make it easier to believe. It didn't, but it made him feel a little better. "So, I've got a twin brother that my mom never told me about?"
Henry nodded and motioned for Jamie to re-join him at the breakfast bar. He brushed off the invisible dust from the leather bound book as Jamie pulled himself up onto the stool to his right. "So, Emma is our mom. But she's someone really special too."
"Well, duh. She's Boston's superhero." Jamie shrugged, not knowing what Henry was actually referring too. Sure, she was technically a superhero in the eyes of her cliental, but for everyone else in the city, she was nothing more than a nuisance. But Jamie didn't need to know that.
"Where I live, she's supposed to be the Saviour. She's supposed to help save everyone." Henry opened the leather bound book where he had bookmarked it for the occasion with an Avengers bookmark. He pointed to the hand-drawn image of a woman with dark black hair, pale white skin and blood red lips. "This is Snow White…"
Emma Swan hated leaving her son home alone while she was on a job. After all, he was only ten years old and living in Boston. Crime rates were high, her reputation was filtering through the city pretty damn fast, and it was just a matter of time before trouble showed up on her doorstep again. But this was just a quick smash-and-grab job, she reminded herself multiple times on the short drive across the city from her apartment. It was incredibly rare that she would even work a Friday night, but there she was, cooped up in her beat-up, little yellow bug, racing towards the restaurant that she had agreed to meet her perp for a fake-date, and on her twenty-eighth birthday, too.
She pulled up to the fancy French restaurant named 'Miller et Laurent' and yanked her ancient car into park against the curb. Like always, she was five minutes late, just so she didn't have to be the one to sit at the table alone like some awkward spinster that hadn't had a date in over three years. She didn't need to leave people guessing whether the former or the latter was true. Only she needed to know that the last person she had dated ran for the hills the moment they spotted the photograph of her and five-year-old Jamie on her cell phone's screen saver.
In her skin-tight red dress and black stilettos, the blonde stepped out of her car and crossed the road with a wide stride, accepting the open door from the grinning doorman. She had met him on few regular occurrences when setting up perps in such a way. She had been one of the lucky ones to actually have approval from the restaurant to work and catch her perps. On countless occasions she had to fit the bill for damages caused, but they would always be gracious enough to cover her from allowing it to hit the local news. They had been courteous enough to constantly welcome her back, and tonight they had reserved her table in a prime spot to not cause too much of a scene. She didn't need that tonight.
The table she had reserved seated a stocky man with the facial structure of a god. His suit was well pressed, even though it was incredibly informal with the top three buttons of his shirt open. From his appearance alone, Emma knew that the man had his hand deep in a very wealthy pocket – ironically enough for him, that pocket was hers.
"Ryan?" Emma asked coyly, quickly falling into the innocent character she relied on to lull her perps into a false sense of security. He grinned at her and quickly stood, holding out his hand to motion for her to take a seat.
"Emma, right?" He remained standing as she took the seat in front of him. As she nodded, she took a quick sip of the water on the table between them, just to wet her thin lips. She knew this was going to be easy from the get-go. From her research, she already knew he was a slime-ball with a reputation to uphold, and just like her, he really wouldn't want this to hit the front page of the Boston Herald tomorrow morning. He smiled at her. "Thank god."
The blonde chuckled. "You looked relieved."
"Well, it is the internet. Pictures can be…"
"Fake. Outdated. Stolen from a Victoria's Secret catalogue…" She suggested with a smile. She was always good at the preamble. She was always successful at lulling her perps into trusting her to actually have a full and relaxed conversation with her. Somehow, she always managed to pull people in and make them interested while on the job, but in her own love life? She was crap at it.
"Exactly." He matched her smiled and shuffled himself into a comfortable position in his chair. "So… um… Tell me something about yourself, Emma."
She ducked her head and tucked a blonde curl behind her ear with a blush, noticing that he seemed to already be hanging onto every word that came out of her mouth. "Oh, well, today's my birthday."
He looked surprised, but the personal information she had handed to him went straight to his ego. "And you're spending it with me! What about your friends?"
"Kind of a loner."
"And you don't like your family?"
"No family to like," She shrugged noncommittally. He didn't need to know about Jamie, but aside from her son, it was technically true. She didn't have any family to like. It was just her and Jamie, and that was just how she liked it.
"Oh, come on. Everyone has family."
"Technically, yeah. But not everyone knows who they are." Her tone was thick. For the type of conversation, her voice shouldn't have enthralled him in the way that it seemed to. She was playing him for every penny he had accepted from her, and Emma Swan was reeling him in. "Ready to run yet?"
"Oh, not a chance. You, Emma, are by far, the sexiest, friendless orphan I have ever met." He winked at her, and Emma could feel his leg reach out to touch her own. A shiver ran up her spine at his forwardness. She hadn't dated a man in a long time, but from what she could remember, they weren't all so forward. Especially not on a first date.
Emma tried to fake a blush as she bit her lip. She smiled and changed the subject, hoping to end it just as fast as it had begun. "Okay. Your turn… No, wait. Let me guess. Um… You are handsome, charming…" She paused for a moment to see him egging her on to continue. She could literally see his ego begin to inflate. It was her perfect opportunity to pounce, and he had opened the door for her to take it. "The kind of guy who – and now, stop me if I get this wrong – embezzled from your employer, got arrested, and skipped town before they were able to throw your ass in jail."
Ryan's jaw dropped and his eyes widened. Boom. "What?"
"And the worst part of all is your wife. Your wife loves you so much that she bailed you out, and how do you repay that loyalty? You're on a date." Emma smirked and shook her head at the sleaze ball. When she heard his wife's side of the story, there was nothing more in her job that she would rather do than catch the asshole for her. He had left his wife heartbroken and alone to raise their three kids.
"Who are you?"
"The chick who put up the rest of the money."
"You're a bail bondsman."
"Bail bondsperson," Emma corrected, tilting her head to the side, just before he hurriedly stood and flipped the table to make a run for it. The glasses of wine and water fell from the table, directly into the blonde's lap, stalling her for just a short moment, before she took off in a sprint like an expert in her six-inch-heels. She ducked passed the doorman and followed her date into oncoming traffic. Cabs, cars, and even a few buses swerved out of their way. Traffic around them came to a halt as Emma glided across the lanes and to the side of his very expensive car.
"You don't have to do this, okay? I've got the money. I can pay you." He said in a fluster as he pulled the door shut between them.
The blonde laughed mockingly as she leaned onto the side of his car. "No, you don't. And if you did, you should give it to your wife to take care of your family."
"The hell do you know about family, huh?"
In nothing more than a fit of aggravation, Emma outstretched her arm and threw his head directly into the steering wheel in front of him, successfully knocking him out cold as his head ricocheted off the rubber. Her evening sure as hell was not supposed to have ended like that. It was all in the result of the very same reason her employer told her not to use personal information in her cover story, she always got far too invested when she divulged in such a way. It was unprofessional and anything but kind to herself. Of course, she had Jamie, but other than him, she had nobody. There was no one she could call at night when things weren't right. She didn't even have anyone who was willing to be her emergency contact that wasn't her boss. Everyone around her, aside from Jamie, was an acquaintance that she had no qualms in not knowing.
With a heavy sigh, Emma pulled out her cell phone and hit the speed dial on her employer, requesting back-up to pick up the pieces for her to actually get home and spend the remaining hours of her birthday with her son. She had done all the dirty work and everything she had agreed to offer a hand in, but now it was time for her to go home. Her feet hurt, her head hurt, and the wet patch of wine and water in her lap was beginning to catch the cold breeze of an October Massachusetts night.
Thirty minutes later, found the blonde trudging up the stairs of her building to her apartment. She was already twenty minutes later than she had promised her son, and she knew he would undoubtedly be waiting for her to knock the door to announce her arrival home. She smiled unconsciously at the thought of her innocent little boy. Like any mother, in her eyes, the boy glowed with utter perfection. There wasn't the slightest flaw in his being that she didn't adore. Even from the very moment he was placed in her reluctant arms, covered in blood and residue, Emma knew she would never be able to let him go.
In her attempt to amuse her son, she rang the doorbell to their apartment and waited for him to unlock the yellow door. Through the walls and the gaps around the door, she heard his little footsteps pound on the floor as he sprinted across the apartment to answer the door. In the background, she heard his little voice hushing and shushing whatever it was that seemed to be making a racket inside the apartment. She paid no attention to it, assuming it was probably one of his imaginary friends that he was supposedly deep in conversation with.
Through the door, Emma heard every whisper as he went through his little routine of jumping up to unlock the top bolt, then the second bolt was low enough for him to reach out to, then the third and final lock on the door was pulled to reveal her not-so-little boy with a beaming grin on his face.
"Happy birthday!" He shouted for the second time that evening. Only this time, the anticipated strong arms of his mother wrapped around him as she pulled his slender frame into a tight embrace. Emma lifted her son off his feet and pressed sloppy kisses over his cheeks as she carried him back into the privacy of their apartment. With her heeled foot, she kicked the door shut behind them.
He nuzzled his head into her neck and allowed his legs to dangle and swing as Emma carried him to the breakfast bar. "Thank you, my little prince."
She sat him on the barstool in their kitchenette and 'wow'ed' in awe of the effort he had made to decorate their home in celebration of her birthday. An uneven, store bought banner hung from the ceiling read 'Happy Birthday, Mom!', while an abundance of birthday balloons was scattered across the floor, and some were even stuck to the walls with tape. This was the first year that Jamie had ever been able to surprise his mother for her birthday. He had also been the first person to ever willingly celebrate her birthday with her. He even insisted that he bought her a Christmas present (with her own money and under her own supervision), which she feigned forgetting about, just to amuse him.
"Were you okay tonight?" She asked him, ruffling his hair and pinching his adorably chubby cheeks as he squirmed with embarrassment.
He nodded. "Yep. I forgot how to work the DVR again though…" He cringed and shrugged away his embarrassment. "Did you catch your bad-guy?"
"Of course! Super Swan doesn't let them get away." She propped her fists against her hips and stood in her superhero pose with a smirk. It always seemed to make Jamie grin with excitement, even though the poor kid didn't actually know the full extent of her job. For him, being a bail bondsperson was a perfect illusion of a real-life superhero.
"Good!" He beamed and high-fived her, before hopping down from the stool and grabbing her hand. "I have a surprise for you."
Jamie dragged his mother away from the kitchenette, completely forgetting about the scruffily wrapped box on the counter and the cupcake with a crooked blue star candle protruding from the top of it. He pulled her into their living area, shuffling through the endless amount of balloons around their ankles, where he abruptly stopped in front of her. Jamie clapped his hands once, and before Emma could even consider preparing herself to react as surprised as possible for him, a second kid jumped out from behind the couch.
"Surprise!" The second kid bellowed as Emma's eyes widened and her grin fell. Her already pale features turned near enough translucent and her jaw fell open at the sight. Her eyes flickered between her son in front of her, and the other boy standing behind one of the couches in utter confusion and a deep, wrenching pain at the ghost of her past.
"I…" She stuttered. Opening her mouth, Emma tried to verbally comprehend what she was seeing before slamming her mouth shut again. Her stomach twisted and churned with anxiety as she slowly stepped backwards and away from the boys. Seeing her son's twin brother jump out to surprise her on her birthday was not something she had expected this year – or any year, in fact. "I… Uh… Give me a minute."
In haste, Emma scurried out of the adjoining living area and kitchenette toward the bathroom, successfully discarding her heeled shoes on the way. She slammed the door shut behind her as she fell against the wood, trying to compose herself as her mind swam frantically at the thought of her sons finally being together again. Ten years they had been apart; James didn't know he was a twin – nor did she give him reason to believe he was – and now her other son just turned up out of the blue. How had he found them? How did he even know about them? Emma's mind swam dizzyingly at the nauseating thought of how her other son had found any of their information. The records had been sealed straight after the twins had been born. There shouldn't have been a single person, aside from the small, prison issued nursing team that had birthed the boys, who knew; not even the adoptive parents were to have known.
With a huff, and the nagging realisation that this wasn't just going to blow over while she paced through the bathroom, the blonde took a deep breath and opened the door again, only to find Jamie standing outside the door with a guilty look plastered over his face.
"Is he really my twin brother, Ma?" He asked with a timid voice.
Emma looked over his shoulder to see the other boy twirling the ends of his expensive scarf around his fingers as he stood between the couches. She nodded and tilted Jamie's chin towards her. "We need to talk, kid."
She wrapped her arm around Jamie's shoulders and walked with him back to the kitchenette, prompting him and the other boy to hoist themselves onto the stools at the breakfast bar. Jamie happily jumped onto his usual seat at the end of the bar, while Emma watched the other boy with observing eyes as he reluctantly pulled himself onto the next seat. Emma had to stop herself from reaching out to the kid and holding him in the same way she held Jamie. He was beautiful; everything about him made Emma's heart skip a beat and her stomach flip. From his little freckles on his cheeks and chicken-pox scar on his chin, he was entirely his own person while being almost identical to Jamie. She had always regret holding onto only one of her boys, and now, as they sat together all grown-up, the blonde felt nauseous.
"What's your name, kid?" She asked the nervous looking ten-year-old when he settled in the seat.
Through his thick and wild bangs, he looked up at her with huge, brown eyes – the very same eyes that Jamie used when he was terrified. He spoke with a whisper. "Henry Daniel Mills."
"And do your parents know you're here?"
"It's just my mom." He spoke a little louder this time and raised his chin when Emma didn't raise her voice at him. She only leaned onto the counter and watched his every move, every facial expression and every thought about saying something more. "But she thought I went to school today."
Emma's eyes widened at the thought of herself at ten years old. She could barely tie her own shoelaces herself at that age, let alone travel across country to find someone she didn't even know existed. Yet, Henry Mills – her son – was sat at her breakfast bar with his twin brother expecting her to do something about their relation. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief and held onto her jaw as she thought of how to deal with the situation. She couldn't keep Henry with her. Without a doubt, there would be a country wide search party for a kid that looked as wealthy as he did within the next twenty-four hours, and if she was found with the kid she had put up for adoption ten years ago, she would lose both of them for good. She shook the idea out of her head and moved her hands to steeple beneath her chin.
"How did you find us, kid?" She asked with a raised eyebrow. His mother definitely shouldn't have known about Emma or her other son, never mind where to find them too.
Behind a playful little grin, Emma could see the boy slowly come out of his shell as he sat up a little in his seat. "Somewhere on the internet. My mom doesn't know I found you either…"
"Kid…" She sighed and looked over at Jamie, who was patiently waiting for an explanation on the matter. She had never expected to ever have the conversation with him. She thought about her first born a lot. She had wondered what he was like; she wondered what his name was, whether he liked video games or books, whether he liked school, whether he had any siblings… She had spent hours, and even days, wondering and imagining who her son had become. As she watched Jamie grow and grow into an intelligent and outdoorsy young man, she couldn't help but think about how different his life would have been if she had kept his twin brother in their lives. She couldn't help but think about how different his life would have been if he had been put up for adoption with his brother. There were too many what-if's and a wonders about the way her and her sons lives would have been had certain things happened differently.
Henry looked down at the expensive looking watch on his little wrist and tapped the glass face. "We should probably get going."
"Going where?" Emma asked with raised eyebrows.
"I need you and Jamie to come home with me." He looked over at his twin brother. They shared a menacing grin that made Emma's stomach flip. They were already so connected in ways she had never even dreamed of witnessing. It was troubling to say the very least.
'God, this is a mess.' She thought to herself, before speaking aloud and scoffing. "Where's home?"
"Storybrooke, Maine."
Emma and Jamie's jaws dropped simultaneously, only Emma's was a confused expression, while Jamie's seemed far more excited.
"Storybrooke? That's so cool! It's like the story-" Henry's hand slapped against Jamie's mouth to stop him from saying any more. Their birth mother did not need to know about the storybook just yet.
"Like what story?" Emma asked, trying to ignore how bizarre her birthday had already been, prior to her son showing up. She didn't need to feel the excitement and adoration she had in the pit of her stomach as she watched her boys interact. It was also the first time she had physically set eyes on Henry. When he was born, she couldn't even bring herself to look up from her pillow, then when the nurses announced that she could hold him while they waited on the other baby to move into position, she couldn't even bring herself to open her eyes. She didn't need to see her first born, and at the time, she hadn't even wanted to see her second child, either.
"I don't think you're ready for that yet." Henry told her as he finally let go of Jamie's mouth. He grinned at his brother and jumped down from the stool. "It's a long drive, you know."
"Woah, kid. I never said I was going to take you back to Maine." Emma muttered in a hurry. "How did you even get here?"
"You've heard of Greyhound, right? I took the last bus between Storybrooke and Augusta for the weekend. Oh, and the ticket for the buses from Boston to Augusta are sold out until next Thursday."
"You really thought all of this through, huh?" Henry nodded and threw his backpack over his shoulders. Emma groaned. "Then let's get you back to Storybrooke."