It all started on a day in the park. The whole family was together, just sitting around and having a picnic. They were just sitting around having lunch on their checkered blanket when Henry said something that got her brain going. "I'm so glad that you're my Mom," he told her, watching as Zelena lectured little Robin on putting grass in her mouth. It hit her then. Was she really his mom?
Well, of course, she had to be! She had been playing the role for the last six years as if she was. But, in this case, time didn't matter. Was she biologically his mother? She tried to shove the thought down and out of her mind, telling herself not to think of such awful ideas, but it just kept gnawing at her, eating her from the inside out, until she couldn't take it anymore.
It was an awful thought, to begin with, and for weeks she had been convincing herself that she was just being paranoid, but it caught up with her in places it shouldn't. Her hands were shaking, she was having problems sleeping, she couldn't focus on her work... she had even burnt pancakes a few days ago... and it wasn't because of Killian this time!
So, she took matters into her own hands. She worked out a plan in her head and did what she could do the easiest without him catching on. She bought him a lollipop. She knew that he had a tendency to leave the sticks lying around, and that was why she chose that instead of a drink or some other kind of food. This one was easier to just swipe up without notice.
For a second, when he got up to get a water, she thought that he took it with him and she lost her chance, and suddenly regretted all the times that she lectured him on picking them up, but looked over and realized that he left it there. She was never more glad that he got his tiny amount of cleaning skills from her, not Neal. Stop it, Emma. He might not even get anything from you, so stop thinking that way.
She walked past the kitchen table as he ran up the staircase to his room, and picked up the little lollipop stick, placing it in a plastic bag. "Henry, I'm going out! Don't get into too much trouble!" she called after him, going to the door after swiping her keys up off the counter. "Oh, and Killian will be home around 5," she called, but once again heard no response. She scribbled down a note, stuck it on the door for Killian, and walking out the door.
She practically ran to her car and jumped into it. She was maybe a little bit too anxious to see what she would find out. She walked through the sliding doors to the hospital, being greeted by many of the little kids that she went to see on the weekends sometimes. "Hey," she whispered, ruffling one of the little boy's hair before rushing over to Whale's office and shutting the door softly behind her. "Emma, what can I do for you," he asked, glancing up from his computer. He finished recording something from his notebook before closing it, providing her with his full attention.
She handed him the bag, and he surveyed it for a moment before he looked back up at her, a very serious look on his face. "Is this, like, a joke or something, Ms. Swan?" he asked, pausing to wait for a response, but she just stammered, closing her eyes lightly and chuckling. "Because I really do not know what I'm to do with this... stick, but I do have other work to finish," he said, glancing up at her from the plastic bag, much like he did with his computer.
She was so anxious in that moment that she didn't even correct him with the mistake he made saying her name but instead stepped forwards. She placed her hand on his desk. It took all of the willpower she had within her not to reach across the desk and rip the bag out of his hands because part of her really didn't wanna know, but the part of her that did gave in.
She basically choked on her words, not wanting them to come out any more than she wanted them to, but she felt like they had to. It would continue to eat at her, and Killian would continue to ask her what was wrong until she ended up back in the hospital anyway. "I- I need you to run a DNA test. That's Henrys," she said, and he nodded once, looking as if he was about ready to protest, but instead stood, opening the door and asking her to follow him down the hallway.
he took her into a large room, filled with many different machines that were flashing and making noises, and asked her to sit down on a stool next to a desk filled with machinery. "Do not touch anything," he warned, looking far more serious than she had seen anyone in quite a long while. She nodded as he went over to a machine, taking the stick out with a gloved hand, and placing it beneath a large lens. He then walked over to Emma, another stick in hand, and asked her to open her mouth.
He took out a bit of spit from the inside of her cheek and placed it under the exact same machine, studying it carefully. Emma sat, her hands folded up nicely in her lap, but trembling furiously. She wanted to just curl up into a little ball and cry instead of needing to sit here and wait for information that would determine the rest of her future. But, coincidentally, that was the only reason why she really did need to stay. Whale sighed, taking the swabs out from under the lens and printed something out, taking it off of the printer sitting on the shelf above them.
He then turned around papers in hand and looked her in the eyes. "So, Emma," he said, handing her the papers. She looks at them over, and over, and over again, but she still cannot for the life of her understand what she is reading. It's like her brain is unwilling to process it. She mumbles a quiet 'no,' that isn't quite loud enough for the doctor to make it out as a word, so he just takes it for a grunt of acknowledgment.
It wasn't like she had never noticed the subtle differences between her and her son or even things that he didn't share with Neal, but she never really could imagine that he wasn't hers. She thought that all children had differences with their parents, whether it be physically or personality-wise. She just assumed that the website had to have been right, or a little boy, with brown hair and brown eyes, just like the father of her child, would have never made it to her doorstep. The doorstep of a woman who had given away a little baby boy ten years prior.
She opened her mouth in shock and tried to hold back the tears building up quickly as she looked up to Victor Whale. That man had delivered some of the worst news she had ever received, and probably ever would. She wanted to curse him and his whole family. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to torture him, or better yet, have Killian do it. But, all she was able to bring herself to do was say, "Thank you," and walk out of the room, trying to make it to her car before the tears really started.
She sat in her car for quite a while, maybe twenty minutes, just sobbing. Every few seconds, she would try to make it stop and just pretend that she was about to go and have dinner with her husband, and the son that she gave birth to, and then go to bed while he was just down the hall. Every time that she did that, though, she would sit and begin to cry harder than before, wishing that all the fantasies in her head were actually true and that she could say that she was actually happy with the result of that stupid test.
There was also the freakin' stellar fact that she actually did give birth to a little boy, that was somewhere out there, either completely miserable, with a different family, or worse. Both. She had failed him, just like her parents failed her, as Gold had failed Neal, as whoever Henry's birth mother was had failed him. Now, she had two jobs to do instead of one. First, she had to tell everybody, and take care of whatever Henry wanted to do next, whether it was to find his birth mother or not. Then, she had to go and find wherever her little boy was, and either let him be with his new family or to give him a home.