I'm so sorry for the delay! My middle name is 'Procrastinate' after all. Chapters will be coming sooner after this one.

Enjoy!


Emma peeled off her impossibly tight and stained red dress, hating the clammy feeling the wine and water had created against her skin and tossed it into the hamper at the bottom of her bed. Finding the old faithful pair of skinny jeans she had abandoned half on her night-stand and half on the floor before her 'date', she shimmied herself into the even tighter denim and tugged a white tank-top over her head. She threw on a grey henley over the top, swung her red leather jacket over her shoulders and yanked her worker boots onto her feet before trudging out of her bedroom and back into the living area of her apartment.

Jamie and Henry had moved from the breakfast bar to one of the apartment's white couches, where they were sat side by side, skimming through the big leather book that Henry seemed to like to keep close to his being at all times. For a moment, where she remained hidden from view in the corner of the kitchenette, she watched them interact and whisper between one another as they flicked through the pages of fairy tales. Jamie would point at an illustration and Henry would divulge in information that anyone could have sworn was top secret.

A ghost of a smile graced Emma's lips at their natural connection. It was a sight she had thought up in her wildest dreams as she imagined how her boys would undoubtedly team up against her to get their own ways; how they would always have a best friend in the other; how no matter what, nothing or no one would ever come between them. Those dreams always ended in floods of tears. They always made her stomach knot and ache in worry that her first born had been thrown around in the system, or worse, ended up on the street, just like she had in both cases. She had no idea where he was going when he left her private hospital room in the medical facilities of the Arizona prison, and she still had no idea what his life had been like. For all she knew, he could have had the worst upbringing imaginable, even under his expensive clothes and perfected manners there could have been a horror story that she never would have wanted for either of her sons. But there was still a glistening light in his eyes that argued otherwise.

Emma shook her head and forced the guilty stream of worry that niggled away at the back of her mind further into her sub-conscience. She had no intention of worrying about her other son. He wasn't her son to worry about, anyway.

She clapped her hands together once to bring the boys (and herself) out of their own little worlds.

"Okay, let's go," She finally said, stepping out of the corner and pulling out a few bottles of water from the refrigerator and several packs of chips for the journey. She knew it wouldn't be enough for their seven hour round trip, especially since she knew how Jamie's appetite only seemed to be growing with the older he got. She glanced at the boys momentarily, wondering if Henry was just as bad as her and his twin brother when it came to their insatiable appetites.

'He's not yours to worry about,' Emma internally reminded herself for the umpteenth time as she watched Henry stuff the big book into his backpack and Jamie as he skid across the apartment in his socks to find himself a fresh set of clothes for the journey. She busied herself by stacking Jamie's dishes in the dishwasher while she waited and tried her damned hardest not to cross the apartment and hold her first born tightly in her arms; not to smell the top of his head like she found herself doing on a regular basis to Jamie. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, the blonde single-mother knew that if she even looked at the ten year old long enough, she would never want to let him go.

And then where would she be?

Prison. Again.

And this time, she would be without both of her boys and a restraining order to boot.

"Hey, ma? Ma!" Emma blinked for a second and shook her head, to see Jamie standing in front of her dressed in his favourite pair of jeans and a winter coat that still looked too big for him. He tried, and failed, to snap his fingers in front of her face. "Ma, you've been staring like that for ages."

She smiled guiltily. "Sorry, kiddo." Emma tugged on the front of Jamie's coat and readjusted the way it sat on his shoulders before she tilted his chin up with her index finger. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

Jamie nodded and followed his mother into the apartment's only bathroom. It was already cramped with only one person in it, but with the two of them and Jamie's oversized Parker, it felt impossibly small. He pulled his arms up into his jacket, allowing the sleeves to swallow his limbs whole. The cuffs swung at his sides as he chewed his bottom lip and passed his weight between both feet.

"Am I in trouble for letting Henry in?" He asked when the door clicked shut.

"Absolutely not." Emma smiled down at her son and held his cheeks between the palms of her hands. "I'm sorry I never told you about him... I never thought I would have to tell you; I never thought we would ever see your brother again and seeing him - seeing the both of you together - it spooked me more than I thought it ever would."

"Why did you think we would never see him again?" Innocently, Jamie tilted his head to the side in question and watched patiently as his mother leaned against the glass shower screen.

She sighed. "Because Henry went with his mom, and you stayed with me."

Jamie nodded and patiently watched her every move. She knew he was already psychoanalysing her and no doubt attempting to plan something she really didn't want anything to do with. He was good at that - planning things to create a solution that no one else could figure out. Jamie was an intelligent boy, but more often than not, it scared Emma senseless that he was already so much like her. Well, aside from his behaviour, anyway. Unbelievably, Emma Swan had produced the most well behaved child anyone could ask for. Sure, he was mischievous in all the worst possible ways (like any child his age), but he always knew when to stop and think about someone else.

Even from his silent and watchful gaze, Emma knew how he wanted to know more about how he and his estranged twin came to be, but there was something else beneath it all that had Emma feeling nervous.

"Are you mad at me?" She finally asked.

Jaime frowned and looked at his floppy sleeves, then at his mother. "Why would I be mad at you?"

"Because I didn't tell you about your bother? Or because I only kept one of you?" She shrugged and kicked her worker boots against the tile flooring. "I don't know, kid. There's probably loads of reasons why you should be upset with me."

"I'm not mad or upset." He told her honestly and wrapped his arms around her waist. His little head pressed into her abdomen as he held her tightly. His voice was muffled against her body when he spoke again. "But maybe you could tell me everything one day? You never talk about my dad, and now Henry's here... I just wanna know."

Emma paused for a moment and looked down at the kid holding her. She smiled and ran her fingers through his dark hair. He was far too mature for his age, and apparently knew how to get everything he wanted from her with nothing more than a hug and a look. "How about we get cocoa at Joe's tomorrow after we've taken Henry home to his mom and I'll tell you all about it?"

Jamie seemed to think about it for a moment as he looked up at his blonde mother. He chewed on his bottom lip in contemplation. "Are you sure we can't stay in Storybrooke with Henry for a few days? Shouldn't he know about all this stuff too?"

"He's technically not my kid, Jai. If the cops knew he was wandering around my apartment after he's been AWOL all day, they would instantly know I was his birth mother after seeing you and accuse me for trying to kidnap him." She smoothed Jamie's bangs across his forehead and used the palm of her hand to cup his chubby cheek. "If that happened, I'd lose you. I'd lose both of you and I would never be able to live with myself if that happened."

From the heavy look of sorrow on his mother's face he knew she was right. There was no way she would ever do anything that could put either of them in danger of losing each other. He could even remember their time in Tallahassee, when he was no older than four, and the social workers tried taking him from her because she technically didn't have a 'real' job, nor did they have a home to call their own. They were bouncing between hotel rooms, motel rooms, and even the backseat of her car. It was no place for a toddler to be raised, but even now Jamie knew his mother had no choice. She did what was best for them, and in the long run, it worked.

But this time, there was something niggling in the back of Jamie's mind that maybe, just maybe, leaving Henry in Storybrooke alone wasn't what was best for any of them.

"What about Ohana?" He asked.

"What about it?"

"Ohana means family-"

"And family means nobody gets left behind, or forgotten." Emma finished for him, reciting the Disney movie they had watched hundreds of times together. It had quickly become one of Emma's all-time favourite Disney movies – the others were all a little too… unrelatable. "I know, kid. I just don't think Ohana would stand in court, do you?"

Jamie grinned and finally let go of the vice-like grip he had around his mom's waist. "It might."

Before she could provide her son with a counterargument about how quoting Disney movies in court would never return her rights to Henry, the boy in question bellowed through the door.

"Have you guys got any juice?" There was a pause as Emma looked at Jamie with a raised eyebrow. He grinned at her. "Never mind, found some!"

*#*#*#*

The drive from Boston to Storybrooke was tedious to say the very least. At least, it was for Emma, anyway. Henry and Jamie would more than likely have argued otherwise since they spent the entire trip whispering and giggling between each other as they continued to flick through Henry's book of fairytales. It wasn't until they crossed the Maine state line that Emma finally spoke up.

"So, what's with the book?" She asked, glancing up at the ten-year-olds in the backseat from her rear-view mirror.

"It's not just a book," Henry started. He looked at Jamie, who nodded at him with an encouraging smile. It was a menacing look and Emma didn't like it in the slightest. "I don't think you're ready yet, but Jamie does."

The blonde scoffed. "Ready for some fairytales?"

Henry slammed the book shut and practically glared at Jamie. "They're not just fairytales. They're real."

The pressed 'hm' that came from her lips was enough for Henry to raise an eyebrow at Jamie in saying 'I told you so'. She shot Jamie a concerned look, but his head had dropped back into the book when Henry opened it.

After a few minutes with nothing but the vintage yellow Volkswagen rattling in their ears, Henry finally spoke up again.

"Every story in this book is real. All the characters are real people and they all live in Storybrooke." He flicked through a few of the pages and pointed at an illustration for Jamie to create a visual of what Henry was explaining for the second time. "The Evil Queen cast a curse and sent everyone here to destroy their happy endings."

Emma raised an eyebrow as she glanced up at the boys through the mirror again. "Convenient. I'll play." She smirked to herself, thanking her lucky stars that the only fairytales Jamie believed in were the Harry Potter books. And even then, she hated how he constantly checked through every piece of their mail to see if his Hogwarts acceptance letter had arrived. "So, Storybrooke, which sounds an awful lot like 'storybook', is a town filled with fairytale characters?"

"I told you she'd get it," Jamie whispered from the back seat, naive enough to believe his mother couldn't hear him over the rumbling engine of her car.

Henry ignored Jamie as his voice fell into a pleading sound. "They don't know who they are. The curse made them forget everything about themselves, but when the curse is broken by the Saviour, they'll wake up and remember who they are again!"

"Hm, that sounds a little far fetched to me,"

"It's not. It's real," Henry insisted and Emma had to force herself not to roll her eyes at him. "My mom is the Evil Queen and she doesn't think I know, but I do. I know all about her story and how evil she really is."

Emma tutted under her breath and risked a glance at Jamie, who was still completely enthralled by the book. His eyes widened as he turned the pages, reading through the tales of true love and wicked step-mothers. He was always a sucker for a good story, but the classic fairytales that everyone knew weren't every his type of go-to bed time story.

For the rest of the journey, Emma found herself trying to hum along to the random radio stations that she flicked through in an attempt to defer her mind away from whatever mischief was happening in the backseat of her Bug. But every time one of the twins laughed or whispered loud enough for her to hear, hey green eyes would wander up to the rear-view mirror to see her sons with their heads pressed together over the book. The sight made her stomach knot and her heart ache every time she laid her eyes on them, knowing that she would never truly be able to forgive herself for giving Henry up and never mentioning him to Jamie once in his ten years.

Everything they did seemed to spark up her own little pity-party in the driver's seat as she wondered how different all of their lives could have turned out had she made even the slightest change in her decision. Would she ever have been so successful in her field had she kept both of the twins? Would she have ever gone into bounty-hunting had she left prison alone? Would she have even ended up back in prison at some point? They were all questions she knew would never be answered in a million years, but her exhausted mind taunted her with a few twisted, and even a few desirable scenarios revolving around how her life could have turned out.

Each time she thought she had shaken off one thought, another came barrelling through and occasionally took her breath from her lungs. It was disorientating and by the time her little yellow Bug rolled over the Storybrooke town line, a wave of relief engulfed her and swallowed her whole.

It took a few impatient attempts, but when Emma finally got Henry's address out of him, she sped through the deserted streets of Storybrooke until she found Mifflin street. The only house on the street with all the lights on just so happened to be the biggest house on the street. Emma gulped in trepidation.

"Is this your house, kid?" She asked over her shoulder.

Henry nodded. "It's the mayor's house. But yeah, I live there."

"You're the mayor's kid?!"

"Yeah, she's been the mayor as long as anyone can remember," Henry defiantly folded his arms across his chest when Emma pulled the car into park along the kerb side. "Please don't make me go in there! She's evil and she doesn't love me."

"I'm sure she does love you, kid. If she didn't the lights would be out, your mom would be asleep and the sheriff's cruiser wouldn't be parked outside." Emma bit back as she opened the driver's side door. She couldn't be having this argument with a kid that never belonged to her. She wasn't even sure if her name was on his birth certificate, never mind on any other legal document that said he had anything to do with her. She had her kid and she was already doing the best she could for him. There was nothing she could do to help out the kid that shared the womb with her son.

Emma pulled her seat forward for the boys to clamber out after their little indiscreet whisper to each other behind their cupped hands. She tried to ignore it. She tried to pretend that she hadn't seen it, but their giggles and nods of excitement were difficult not to ignore. Especially when her stomach knotted, her heart skipped and her eyes clouded with tears. Biting back her emotions and attempting to school her features in every way she knew possible, Emma clapped her hand down onto Jamie's shoulder and lead him to follow Henry, who reluctantly strolled up the garden path.

It took a lot for Emma not to match Jamie's gasp when the house came into full view. It was huge, elegant, and everything she ever dreamed of having for her and Jamie. The house looked like something straight out of Good House Keeping magazine, and Emma hadn't even stepped into the place before feeling out of place. This was exactly what she wanted for her sons when she wanted them to have their best chances in life; not the backseat of her bug, or the occasional motel in the middle of nowhere, or even a tiny apartment in a Boston tower block.

"Are you sure I have to go back in there?" He asked over his shoulder with the same pleading look that Jamie used on her far too often than she ever should have allowed.

Before Emma could reply, however, the huge white front door bearing the golden numbers of '108' flew open to reveal a panic stricken woman wearing a figure hugging grey dress. From that moment on, Emma could have sworn that time stood still. Every second that passed felt like nothing as she drank up the incredible vision in front of her. She mentally mapped out every part of the woman who had come running out of the house and engulfing Henry into her arms like he had been gone for far longer than twelve-hours, from the faint scar over her top lip to the ring that hung from her necklace, even to the expensive and expertly selected pair of court heels that helped the woman live up to her mayoral status.

Emma didn't even see the man that followed the mayor out of her home until the woman began talking to her son.

"Henry," She breathed into his hair as she held him close to her chest. He resisted, but she still kept a hold of the side of his arms as she leaned down time his height to check him over. "Are you okay? Where have you been? What happened?"

"I found my real mom!" Henry snarled at her as he turned out of his mother's grasp to grip onto Jamie's wrist. He tugged him away from their birth mother and dragged him towards the house - not after calling over his shoulder. "I found my twin brother too!"

The mayor straightened slightly from her slouch where she had been speaking to her son and looked up at the orientated blonde staring back at her with as much confusion in her green eyes as the Mayor knew she had in her own.

"You're- you're Henry's birth mother?" She finally asked with as much emotion in her voice as what flowed through her veins.

"Hi," Emma replied almost instantly, internally chastising herself for being such a fool to be so incapable of saying anything more. She smiled though, and held the mayor's heavy gaze, still unable to tear her eyes away from the sight before her.

The tall, dark haired Sheriff behind the Mayor cleared his throat, reminding the two complete strangers who couldn't seem to stop staring at one another that he was still there and very much confused about the situation he found himself in.

"Madam Mayor?" He asked in a tentative voice through his thick British accent.

"That will be all, thank you, Sheriff," The Mayor said dismissively without looking away from the woman standing on her garden path with her hands dug deep in her skin-tight denim jeans. She swallowed thickly as she tried to regain any sort of control over the situation and painfully smiled at the woman before her. "How would you like a glass of the best apple cider you ever tasted?"

With an awkward grin of her own, Emma nodded. "Got anything stronger?"

*#*#*#*

"Woah, this place is huge!" Jamie exclaimed as he stumbled into the mansion behind Henry. The other boy had his hand wrapped tightly around Jamie's wrist, pulling him through the foyer of the home and up the elegant winding staircase. "You actually live here?!"

"Yes, now come on before they see us!" Henry hissed, still tugging on Jamie's wrist as they crossed the hall. He pushed Jamie into the first bedroom on the left and slammed the door shut behind them. "This is my room. Well, your room until we decide if it's time to change back."

Jamie nodded and wandered further into the room, taking in every sight before him. The royal blue walls with matching curtains and bedspread were the first things to catch his eye. It was a basic necessity that Jamie, nor his mom, ever had. They never stayed anywhere long enough to make themselves at home. Everything was white in their apartment in Boston because, as Emma had told him when he all but demanded they buy blue pillow cases one morning, it was easier for them to keep and reuse when they needed to move again. It never really made much sense to him until he walked into Henry's room to see how homey it was. They could never make any one or two bedroom apartments feel this cozy.

His eyes wandered over to the solar system mobile that hung from the corner of Henry's room. It didn't hang above his bed like normal mobiles. Instead it hung just off the window and caught every glimmer of light in the darkening night, reflecting it across the room. It was mesmerising as it twirled without prompting.

"Tell me again what we're doing," Jamie's eyes still scanned and trawled through the endless toys, books, comics and games that cluttered the room.

"You're gonna change into my clothes, and I'm going to change into your clothes for when Emma says we're leaving." Jamie nodded. "Then you're going to stay here with my mom, and I'm going to go with your mom and convince her to stay in town for the weekend. That way, we can still see each other and Emma can see that my mom really is evil!"

The boy who had been wearing his pyjamas only a few hours before stopped for a moment to look himself up and down in the floor length mirror that stood just outside of Henry's closet. In comparison to the expensive looking clothes Henry was wearing, Jamie knew that his life was nowhere near as lavish as his twin brother's. Sure, his mother gave him everything she could afford (and damn did she go all out whenever she could), but he never had nearly half as much as Henry had. For him, this wasn't really much of a choice. If he could take the opportunity to live the life of a rich kid, even for a weekend, there would be no force strong enough to make him say no. Not even the prospect of living with the Evil Queen could deter him.

"Okay, let's do this,"

*#*#*#*

Emma followed the Mayor in through the front door and up the small flight of stairs into the mansion's foyer. As difficult as it was, she restrained herself from making ridiculous comments about the sheer size of the house for just a woman and her son. The foyer itself was bigger than the apartment Emma and Jamie shared in Boston alone. She bit her tongue and lingered in the doorway of the dining room as the Mayor excused herself to retrieve some glasses from the kitchen. When she returned, Emma stuck her hands into the back pockets of her jeans and swayed between the balls of her feet to her heels.

"How did he find me?"

"No idea," The Mayor started with an elegant shrug as she dropped several ice cubes into each of the tumbler glasses cradled expertly in the palm of her hand. "When I adopted him, he was only three weeks old. Records were sealed, I was told the birth mother didn't want any contact."

"You were told right,"

"And the other..." Taking a brief pause, the Mayor poured generous servings of her homemade apple cider from the decanter into the tumblers and handed one over to Emma. "Is he really Henry's twin?"

Emma simply nodded and accepted the drink. She caught the other woman's questioning gaze, blatantly ignoring at tugging feeling in the pit of her stomach, and the flicker of emotion that swam deeply through chocolate eyes. The sight itself made Emma gulp.

"And the father?"

"There was one."

"Do I need to be worried about him?" The Mayor worried her bottom lip briefly, as she tried to hide it behind her glass.

"Nope. Doesn't even know about either of them."

"Do I need to be worried about you, Miss Swan?"

Emma's eyes widened slightly. This was exactly what she had worried about. She wasn't a home wrecker, nor was she someone who ignored the rules of the law. At least, she wasn't any more. She shook her head, meaning every word that came from her mouth. "Absolutely not,"

The Mayor nodded lightly and tilted her head towards a room in the opposite corned of the foyer. She glided past Emma, from where the blonde stood leaning against the doorframe like she was holding up the entire wall with her back.

Like the foyer and the dining room, Emma could see that the small library-like room was just as lavish as the rest of the house. The expensive mahogany fireplace and bookcases that lined the walls screamed wealth. It also gave Emma even more of an inclination as to the woman's sense of style - expensive and just as elegant as she expressed herself. Emma was more than impressed.

This was exactly the life she wanted for her boys to have in their upbringing, not the type of shady foster homes that would use them for food stamps. She wanted her twins to have a life where they would never have to worry whether or not they would be fed that night. She wanted them to have the upbringing she was so unfortunate not to ever even have a glimpse of. And in some sheer stroke of luck, that was exactly what Henry had.

She ignored the guilt that bubbled in the bottom of her stomach at the thought of what Jamie could have had, had she given him up too. They both could have had this. They could have had everything their little minds could ever want, and Emma, being Emma, was selfish the moment she laid eyes on Jamie and decided that he would be hers and no one else's for the rest of their lives.

As Emma took a seat in one of the two facing love seats at the centre of the room, divided by a mahogany coffee table that matched the bookcases and fireplace, the brunette Mayor wandered towards the fireplace and readjusted the mantle clock that had somehow become slightly askew. Emma, however, couldn't draw her eyes away from the bowl of red apples in the middle of the coffee table. 'So that was why Henry thought she was the Evil Queen. The apples thing.' She thought to herself with a snicker.

"I'm sorry he dragged you out of your lives. I really don't know what's gotten into him."

"Kid's having a rough time. Happens." It did happen, and Emma knew all too much about situations like that. She nodded and watched as the Mayor left her stance at the fireplace to take her own seat in the opposite love seat.

"You have to understand," She began, placing her glass onto the table to free up her hands enough to flick away any invisible lint or dust that might have collected on her lap at some point. "Ever since I became mayor, balancing things has been tricky. You have a job, I assume?"

Emma almost winced at the words. Raising a growing ten-year-old boy wasn't cheap, and apparently the Mayor knew that all too well. Of course Emma had a job. She took a deep breath, forcing down the desire to roll her eyes and nodded again. "Uh, I keep busy. Yeah."

"Then you don't have to imagine how trying it is to be a working single mom. With Henry I push forward. Am I strict? I suppose. But I do it for his own good. I want Henry to excel in life." Mayor Mills paused for a moment and tilted her head with a sad smile, almost as if she were trying to justify her actions towards her son. It didn't take a genius to see that the woman in front of the bounty hunter was hurt. "I don't think that makes me evil, do you?"

There it was. Back to the 'evil' thing again. Emma had heard the word so much over the last couple of hours, she was beginning to question the actual existence of the word. It was starting to sound like a foreign word in her ears and it only made her squint. It wasn't every day that the word was thrown around when describing someone. It certainly wasn't a word Emma would have used to describe the beautiful, yet seemingly insecure woman before her.

"I'm sure he's just saying that because of the fairytale thing." She offered, trying to break the tension enough to get at least a smile from the woman in front of her. When nothing came, she took a heavy swig of her drink.

"What fairytale thing?"

"Oh, you know, Henry's book." Emma tried again. Nothing. "How he thinks everyone in this town is a cartoon character from it."

The Mayor creased her eyebrow as she surveyed the blonde stranger. Her chocolatey eyes continued to swim with confusion, relief, devastation, and maybe a little bit of something else that Emma couldn't quite put her finger on. "I'm sorry, I really have no idea what you're talking about."

"You know what, it's none of my business. He's your kid - I have mine. And we really should be heading back."

The second Emma put the glass to her lips again, the Mayor stood up with a square, politician-style nod. She brushed the front of her skirt down with the side of her hand as Emma threw back the last dregs of her cider, not wanting to comment on how good the damn drink was and how much she wanted more before she left.

"Of course."

Emma followed Mayor Mills out of the small library room closely on her heels. Her hands were tightly stuffed in the back pockets of her skinny jeans once again, feeling too anxious in the presence of the sophisticated mayor to do anything else with them. They were back in the foyer once again when the Mayor called up to the second floor.

"Henry, -" She paused briefly in silent question to the blonde who was swaying at her side.

"James. Jamie."

The Mayor smiled tightly before calling up the stairs again. "Henry. James. Could you come down, please?"

The two women didn't have to wait long when they heard the sound of something drop onto the ground on the second floor. They glanced a knowing look between them, each woman knowing how their sons had a knack for causing mischief.

"I never got your name," Emma pointed out to break the silence between them as they heard Henry and Jamie shuffling around upstairs. She could have said anything, Hell, she could have just stood there in silence and waited for Jamie to come downstairs without making any type of conversation with a woman she knew she would probably never see again in her life. Yet there was something about the brunette that called to her. There was something that made Emma want to know her, and Emma was completely oblivious to the reason why.

The Mayor paused before offering out her hand to shake. Emma took it with a smile as she said: "Mayor Regina Mills."

*#*#*#*

"So, how do I look?" Jamie asked as he pulled the sweater down at the hem. He felt uncomfortable. Awkward and uncomfortable, but his reflection in the mirror was startlingly different to the way he felt. He looked smart. He looked like someone else entirely. He looked like Henry.

"You look like me! How do I look?"

Jamie laughed and high-fived the other boy. "Just like me."

The two boys eyed each other over, checking that every last detail about them matched who they were supposed to be. Henry even drew on a little freckle beneath his left eye with a marker pen to match Jamie's. Jamie had tried to cover his with some of the make-up Henry had stolen from his mother's bathroom, but the black dot was far too dark for it to be covered with a little foundation. It would just be for the weekend, he justified to himself, hoping that Henry's mom wouldn't notice the little blemish on his face. But even he knew that he Mayor discovering his blemish would be the least of his problems.

"Henry. James. Could you come down please?" Both boys heard the Mayor's voice travel up to the second floor.

At that moment, Jamie's stomach flipped. Not that he would ever admit it, but for the first time in his life he was truly terrified. What if his Ma took Henry home to Boston and completely forgot to come back for him? What if the Mayor really was the Evil Queen and Jamie was stuck with her forever? What if their plan completely failed and backfired on all of them? Jamie swallowed the lump in his throat, hoping it would do something to dampen the fear that rose in his belly. It did little but remind him of the things he would be getting out of the situation, like a brother and a mansion to call home for the next couple of days.

He rubbed his hands against the legs of Henry's jeans and stared at the other boy.

"You think they'll believe this?" He asked.

"They have to." Henry reluctantly handed Henry his book of fairytales as zipped up the oversized Parker that Jamie had arrived in. "Don't forget - she has to believe you've lived here your entire life."

"And you have to make Ma stay here for the weekend." Jamie paused for Henry to nod slightly before spinning on his heel and walking straight out of the room. Leading his way through someone else's home was disorientating enough, but leading his way through someone else's home while pretending to be someone else was just down right confusing.

The two boys took to the staircase together, both seeing their mothers waiting for them at the bottom. Jamie watched his feet as they took each step instead of looking at his birth mother and the woman he was supposed to be calling 'mom' for the next few days. Unlike Henry, he would probably be the one on the receiving end of a few disapproving words when Henry and his Ma walked out through the door. He never did take well to being chastised by his own mother, never mind someone else's mother.

When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Henry stood beside Emma, who quickly wrapped her arm around his shoulders and pulled him close to her, while Jamie cringed and nervously stepped beside the Mayor, who rested a gentle hand on his shoulder, surprisingly enough, relaxing him at first contact.

"Thank you for bringing my son home to me, Miss Swan," Regina said in her most powerful mayoral tone as she gave Jamie's shoulder a squeeze. He looked up at his birth mother and blushed under her gaze.

Emma nodded. "Of course."

*#*#*#*

After the briefest round of goodbyes, Emma bit her tongue and turned her back on the son she had never been able to call her own. Tears were already welling up in the corner of her eyes, but when Jamie took her hand in his own as they walked down the path, she cleared her throat and mentally rebuilt every wall she had ever hid behind. She still had her son. She had no right to Henry, and yet she still felt like she was leaving her family behind.

At the end of the Mayor's garden path, Emma refused to look back at the house. She was terrified that one glance at the house and seeing her son looking back at her with his wide eyes, begging her to take him with them, that she would sprint back up the path and take him under her wing back to Boston. She had seen the fear in Regina's eyes when she spotted him walking towards her when they arrived - there was no way she could ever willingly cause that much fear and heartbreak in someone else for her own selfish want. She couldn't do that to Regina - not the woman who looked longingly at Henry, in the same way Emma did. She would never be able to inflict that much pain in the eyes of a woman that made Emma's heart miss a beat. She internally scolded herself for having such thoughts as she opened the front gate of her other son's mother's home.

With a heavy sigh, she opened the passenger side door to her car and ushered Jamie inside before shutting the door behind him.

It wasn't until she took her own seat behind the wheel did she risk a glance back up at the house. The porch was empty and the light had already gone out.

"Hey mom- I mean, Ma," Henry tried as he buckled himself into the seat, trying to act as natural as possible.

Emma hummed and blinked out of her endless stream of thoughts. "Yeah, kid?"

"Do you think we could stay in Storybrooke tonight? Henry told me that there was a B&B somewhere on Main Street that we could stay at..."

"Did he now? And did he also suggest that we buy a house here too?" She raised an eyebrow at her son, completely oblivious to which son it actually was sitting shot-gun with her.

"It wouldn't be a bad thing if he did, right?"

"We're not staying in Storybrooke, Jai."

Henry pouted a little. He had already seen Jamie do the same thing he had done on countless occasions with his mom, and with Emma, it seemed to work every time. "Please? Just for the weekend?"

Emma had already set the car in drive when Jamie's bottom lip stuck out even further. She hated how good he was at persuading her to do anything he wanted from her. And this time, like any other, his pout and puppy dog smile made her cave almost immediately. It didn't help the fact that her mind hadn't left Henry and Regina. Well, seeing Henry and Jamie together again, but her mind still wandered to seeing Regina again. She tutted at herself and gave the lamest excuse she could think of.

"We haven't got anything packed. We're not staying."

"Ma, you know that's a lie. We've always got clothes in the trunk," Henry tried again, remembering that Jamie told him about how Emma was obsessed with ensuring they were prepared for anything, including the single most last minute move possible. The Bug was always already half packed. "Please. It's your birthday."

The blonde rolled her eyes and pressed her foot on the accelerator, pulling away from the curb.

"So where did Henry say this B&B was?"