Title: Sometimes to Stay Alive
Summery: AU. And then a second later she was next to him, an infinity band ring hanging around her neck from a piece of worn twine. "I know you don't know me, but I need you to trust me. Be ready to run."
Pairings: Henry/Grace and Captain Swan as the main focus. Also some Snowing and Outlaw Queen.
Rating: T. Only a little more violence than goes on in a normal episode. No more sexual content than goes on in a normal episode.
Warnings: Backstory to this fic includes minor character death, though I won't show anything too explicit.
Reviews: Much appreciated, particularly constructive criticism. Flames will go straight to Regina to deal with.
Timeline Note: Takes place a year after the finale to season 3a, when Henry and Emma are living in New York with false memories and Storybrooke has been cursed back to the Enchanted Forrest.
Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time or any characters that you recognize. I'm just playing in their sandbox.
Henry Alexander Swan loved books. He had always loved books and probably would always love books. Fantasies, action-adventures, historical Fictions, biographies; he read them all.
His Mom, back when he'd been tiny, had read to him every single night from books she'd borrowed from the library, the babysitter, and her coworkers. His Mom had never been a lover of books- she said she'd always been too realistic to get drawn into a story, and had gotten so far behind in school when she'd been little that she carried a vehement dislike of English classes and reading to this day along with anything academic. But she'd promised herself that Henry would be different, so she'd read to him and messaged him and played the foreign language CDs and the Mozart and whatever else she thought "good parents" did. She'd read the parenting books and made her own baby food when she could and tried to be perfect. Despite her best efforts, Henry's German was atrocious, he knew barely enough sign language to say a few choice words he certainly didn't learn as a baby, and Henry had remained a stubborn little potty trainer until the very end. But he had gained a fond appreciation for books, and to this day sometimes his Mom still read to him in the living room, carefully turning the pages and stroking his hair after a long day of work.
Henry even had his favorite bookstore: a small Mom and Pop place he was to spend the afternoon in while his Mom was working. It was small and a little dusty, but cozy, and the books were cheap. The place managed enough business from curious tourists praying for a place to sit and loyal customers who favored the place to keep its' doors open, and Henry knew every nook and cranny of the place.
But since he knew every nook and cranny of the place, he knew the regulars, too. This girl wasn't one of them. And she wasn't quite a tourist, either. Having grown up here, he could pick those out on sight.
Her nonchalant glances were too practiced, too casual to be real. She carefully flipped through books, but her eyes scanned quickly- she wasn't actually reading anything, just seeming to. But more than anything else, he noticed how his skin seemed to warm from the inside and tingle around her. It wasn't unpleasant exactly, but she sparked some sort of recognition from him, some kind of familiarity.
He'd never seen her before in his life. He was very sure of that.
Henry turned his eyes back to the book in his hand, continuing to observe her out of the corner of his eye. She wore large black glasses on a small and fairly flat nose, her eyes a light brown beneath them. Her dirty blonde hair was in a braid down her back. Her chin was soft. And those eyes, when she didn't think he'd notice, kept flicking up to look at him.
Was she a threat? Was she trying to hurt him? Maybe. No. Logic told him that anyone could be a threat, even a kid who looked relatively middle class and his age. Anyone would steal or hurt if they were desperate enough, and most of the time you couldn't tell that by just looking. But his gut told another story. Friend and ally came to mind, and another feeling a warmth and fierce protectiveness that he couldn't quite identify. But as his mother always said, "Trust your gut; don't ignore your head." So he reminded himself that he was in New York. And despite the fact that she was clearly very pretty, that look meant she was hiding something.
Another thing he liked about this shop- he could see three easy exit routes from here, and two more that were slightly more difficult to get to, but still doable.
Lord, he was paranoid. This was probably nothing...
But he found he was right a moment later. She suddenly put the book away, her eyes searching every corner of the room.
And then a second later she was next to him, an infinity band ring hanging around her neck from a piece of worn twine. She picked up a book and started scanning again. "Don't look at me." She said quietly, her face changing very little. "Don't make any indication you even notice me." She paused, her face contorting for less than an instant in- emotional pain, maybe? He couldn't tell- he wasn't his mom and it was gone too fast. "I know you don't know me, but I need you to trust me."
He paused. "Who are you?" He hissed, not sure of what else to say.
There was that flinch again, and this time he was sure of what it meant. "A friend. An old one you don't remember." Her speech patterns were weird. American, east coast even (not New York, but that isn't all that unusual), but tinged with just the slightest bit of something he didn't quite recognize, but felt as though he should. It was a proper tone of speaking, a very slight difference. "It doesn't matter. You're in a lot of danger right now, Henry."
His blood ran cold, his hair stood on end, and he ran through the exit locations in his head again. "How do you..."
"I told you, I'm a friend." She would snap, he thought, if she wasn't so careful about being heard. She kept looking around, flicking up her eyes. He felt a wave of something tinged with a feeling he could only describe as sunlight run through him, and he nearly jumped. The hell?
She sighed. "I know it's hard, but I would never hurt you. I'm trying to save you, actually."
He started to respond before two burly guys, dressed in black clothes, entered the shop. He felt it more than actually noticed their physical presence, really: the whole room seemed to resonate with feelings of dark and evil and not safe. She stiffened beside him, and though the thought was crazy, he knew she felt it too.
Slowly, deliberately, she placed the hardcover book back on the shelf. "Be ready to run." She moved, walking away from him and towards the danger.
He thwarted some odd and senseless instinct to run to her side, to keep her away from those men that were bad news. His feet still shuffled toward toward her a little. It was something unconscious he couldn't control.
She bumped into the man on the right, the biggest one with a wrinkled nose and black sunglasses. "Oh, sorry about that." She said. Her voice was higher than the one she'd just used. She was playing a little dumb, he realized. And she was affecting New York speech pattern. Pretty well, too. "Didn't see you there."
The man looked at her, clearly meant to be a quick glare. But then he stopped, growled and grabbed her arm. "Traitor! Filth! Where is the boy?"
His stomach dropped, and he moves toward her again. He knew some self defense he could maybe use if he tried. But then a feral grin grew on her lips, and Henry paused. "Oh, I was so hoping you would do that." She said, going back to her own slightly strange speech. And the strangest thing began to happen.
The skin under the man's hand began to glow.
He yelped, letting go of her arm and shaking his hand to his own detriment. She immediately aimed a well placed kick into his temple. He fell down. The other one, shorter but with the same style of dress, ran over to fight her. She let a pulse of light come out of her hand, knocking the "new books" cart to the ground along with the two hundred pound assailant.
The one she had kicked got up again, which really shouldn't have be possible, and his eyes began to turn from blue to black (Wait, what?). She punched him in the face.
She turned to Henry. Her eyes were wide and her pupils dilated with adrenaline. "Go! I'm right behind you!"
And then she started to glow, illuminating the air around her and making her painful to look at and, well, he didn't need to told twice.
He took off sprinting, dropping his book on the floor (with the chaos, he hoped the owners would forgive him) and focusing on nothing but getting the hell out. A brilliant flash of light erupted behind him. Henry staggered, coughing, as the warm sunlight in his chest intensified and burned. And then she caught his hand on the way out the door and pulled him behind her at a break neck speed. About ten blocks later, they were still running, weaving through the crowd, and the blonde kept looking behind her with teeth pressed so firmly into her lower lip that he could almost see the imprint. Two blocks later, she pulled him into an ally, where she held him to the wall and put a hand over his mouth. Minutes passed. Henry had almost decided to get out of her hold when the guys who had walked into the bookstore ran past, their thick legs trunking on the pavement. It took a minute after they passed before the girl relaxed marginally and let go of him.
Henry doubled over, gasping for breath. To her own credit, she didn't, but she did lean against a wall and breathe a sign of relief. "Thank Eelia." She murmured. "They have stronger magical senses than I do; I didn't think that would work."
He didn't even touch the magic part of that statement. Because that wasn't supposed to be possible, but after what he had seen today...oh he could not deal with this right now, too little air. "And what..." gasp. "were you going to do..." gasp. "if that..." gasp. "hadn't worked?" Big gasp. Once he got out of this mess, Henry was going to start running. Or take up kickboxing. Or whatever the hell one did when one realized one was out of shape.
She shrugged. "Pray. Hope. And probably release a magical burst strong enough to blow up the sidewalk and knock me unconscious for hours if not days. Which wouldn't help you much. So let's be thankful these are the stupidest goblins I've ever met. They might be dumber than a stump, but they are strong."
"Goblins?" Nope. Nope. Henry was just having a psychotic break. Because everyone knew goblins don't exist outside of fairytales. This was real life. Goblins did not exist in New York City.
Except she nodded, walked over and pulled him up from his doubled over position. She put her hands on his shoulders. "Yes. Goblins. It's ok. I know it's a lot. Just try to keep up and postpone the freak out until you're really out of danger. Because you're not yet." She grabbed his hand again, and then takes off her glasses and flung them into the ally. Fake, he realized. "Where do you live?"
He blinked. "Do you think I'm crazy enough to tell you my address?"
She glared at him. "Not the time, Henry!" She tapped his chest with her pointer finger- right over his heart, a movement that caused waves of that sunshine feeling to flow through him again. What. The. Hell. "Listen. To. Your magic. Your gut. Your instincts. Whatever the hell you call it on Earth, I don't actually care. Don't they say to trust me? Don't they say I'm..." she trailed off, her voice thick.
He was silent for several seconds. Because she was right, he did trust her, in some deep part of him he almost didn't want to admit existed, because it sounded insane. He didn't really know what to think about that. "Two blocks from here, in the Ramos building."
She sighed. "Ok. We walk normally. We blend in until we get there. We do not run unless we get chased. Got it?"
He did, so he nodded.
She smiled sadly, then squeezed his hand. "It's Grace, by the way."
"What?"
She cased the street quickly. Henry wondered who taught her how to do it- how to make sure her eyes scrutinized so much detail in so little time, how to spot danger. "I knew your name, but you didn't know mine. That's kind of unfair. It's Grace. I go by Paige too, but that's just on my identification." She nodded toward the street. "Ready?"
He was.
They walked into the street without a backwards glance. He lead her onward, and they didn't talk the entire way to the small apartment he calls home.