Summary: Emma wakes up after her car crash in the Pilot, only to find that nobody remembers that they are storybook characters. David is back in a coma. Mary Margaret does not know Emma is her daughter. Could this new reality truly be Storybrooke? Or has Emma been thrust in the middle of yet anothercurse?
A/N: I was prompted to write this story by my mom, who, upon seeing Emma's crash in the Pilot, muttered the life-shattering phrase, "What if it's all just a dream?" She was referring to all of the magic that occurs and the idea that everyone is a character from a fantasy tale.
God, I sure hope not. But this fanfiction is about what would happen if my mom were… gasp… actually right. Whoa.
Anyway, enjoy! :D Leave me a comment telling me what you think!
Note: Only events up to the Season 4 finale have occurred. None of Season 5 will be incorporated into this fic. Also, this story is not beta-d.
Awooooooooooo!
The smooth, rich sound of a wolf howling broke through the dense barrier surrounding Emma. She fluttered her eyes but did not open them.
A shooting pain suddenly blossomed in Emma's forehead, and she winced and pressed her face further into the object her head rested on. Emma didn't know why, but burrowing further into things had always brought her comfort in the past. With each shallow breath she took, another hammer slammed her skull. Emma gritted her teeth against the pain and shut her eyes as tightly as she could. She drew in more rapid, deep breaths, even though all this succeeded in doing was intensifying the knife Emma felt was digging into her brain. The pain was so awful that it sucked the energy from every corner of Emma's body. She couldn't stand up. She couldn't cry for help. All she could do was stay absolutely still and suffer in silence.
Slowly, sounds began to find their way into Emma's mind and slip through the crevasses of her overwhelming pain. They presented themselves to Emma so that she could gain an understanding, no matter how vague, of her surroundings.
The muted sound of rain on the roof and a light clacking sound filled Emma's ears from the outside and, even though they were hardly loud, she felt the urge to throw her hands over her ears. The agony pulsing in her forehead was already too much to handle without having to process sounds as well.
Nonetheless, the realization painstakingly crept in that Emma was in her own bug, and she had crashed it yet again. She felt slightly guilty that she had put her poor yellow baby through so much over the past few years.
What truly worried Emma, though, was the fact that she had no recollection of crashing this time. The last thing she really remembered was thrusting the dagger into the Darkness, and feeling the soul-crushing pain that far beat out what she was experiencing now, as the Darkness ate away at the goodness inside of her.
After several minutes that felt to Emma like hours, she was able to salvage enough of her strength to pry open her eyes. Sluggishly, she lifted one eyelid to the world, and the other reluctantly followed suit. Between her eyelashes, everything was a blur of black and green. Emma tried squinting to merge some shapes together into a cohesive, comprehendible picture, but her exhaustion took over and forced her eyelids all the way shut again.
The pain in her head worsening, Emma tried opening her eyes once more. She knew this crash was probably serious and that she needed medical attention, pronto. The pain smashing into her skull made that fact crystal clear to her. But what do you do when the only body parts you can move, move on their own anyway?
Some shapes eventually came together, and Emma could make out the floor of her car. She noticed Henry's leather-bound storybook lying there, opened to a random page. She saw on the page the elaborately detailed drawing of a blond man – her father – with a red stain blossoming on his white shirt. He cradled a baby wrapped in a white, woven blanket with the name Emma embroidered on it, and she thought back to how skeptical she'd been when Henry had told her Snow White and Prince Charming were her parents. Henry really, truly had possessed convincing evidence to back up his story, but Emma had been having none of it. She felt bad for making him think he was crazy simply because she couldn't accept the fact that her world was not the center of everything. How awful would it have been for her to believe in Henry's theory? At least she'd have parents she knew wouldn't leave her, then.
Emma flapped her right hand around randomly until she felt it hit something hard. She fumbled for the seatbelt release button and pressed it, head still resting uncomfortably against the steering wheel. There was one tiny step accomplished, which at this point felt monumental to Emma.
Emma moved her hand to her pocket and pulled out her phone. She lifted the device high enough so that she could see the screen without having to move her face. Her arm shook with the small effort. Emma had decided she would call Mary Margaret, and Mary Margaret could send over an ambulance. But when she scrolled through her contacts, well, that was weird…
None of the numbers of Storybrooke residents were in her phone.
Emma frowned, or so she thought, but she couldn't feel anything besides the pain that originated in her temple and ricocheted off into every other corner of her mind. It was kind of like how some people cut a vegetable in half before smashing it into a million tiny little chunks. Her brain was that vegetable.
Now Emma had another decision to make. Should she call 9-1-1, or should she try and haul her broken body over to the hospital herself? What had she even hit?
Emma, with great effort, turned her head and caught a glimpse of the broken Storybrooke sign. She couldn't resist rolling her eyes. Of course. Savior or not, the town still hadn't totally forgiven her for wrecking the sign the first time. "It's good news for our tourist business," Graham had said, referring to her decision to stay. "It's bad for the local signage."
So it was fairly unsurprising that it had been the sign Emma had hit.
Emma lifted her other hand, barely able to force her fingers into forming the claw-like shape necessary for opening the door. She dragged herself out of her seat and into the grass, used the broken sign to pull herself into a standing position, and staggered on down the road. She fell every few steps, but she was making slow and sure progress, which was reassuring. Having to focus on her steps also drew her attention away from the excruciating pain pounding at her skull, if only slightly.
Emma shivered unconsciously in the rain. The downpour was drenching her even through her jacket and chilling her to the bone, but she hardly even noticed she was cold as she was paying so much attention to the arduous task of placing one foot in front of the other.
After a long, difficult walk, Emma finally collapsed in front of the Storybrooke hospital and allowed the doctors and nurses to lift her onto a gurney and wheel her into the dry safety of the hospital.