Author's Note: First off, let me say that you guys rock. Thank you so much for the lovely feedback you've left for this story. And since like, 95% of that feedback asked me to continue, I'm continuing. Fair warning, though: it's been quite literally years since I've flown by the seat of my pants with a story, so y'all might have to bear with me a little. I've got ideas for two more chapters, but I'll try to keep it going until I run out of ideas or Vertical Horizon lyrics to head the chapters. ;) And as always, feedback would make my little day!
It's hard to see beyond hindsight,
When all regrets fade in from black.
"Did you see the look on her face?" David asked, barely concealing his rage as he stormed down Main Street. "She hated us. It was fleeting, but for a moment or two, she hated us."
"Can you blame her?" Snow replied as she struggled to keep up with her husband's frenzied pace. He'd let out a mildly impatient huff when she'd had to go back for her coat and had barely given her time to shrug it on before taking off down the street. "Think of all she's been through. She spent her whole life believing her parents threw her away only to find out that her parents sent through a magical wardrobe with only a little boy to accompany her. She thought at least one of us had the opportunity to go with her and chose not to."
"We would never have done that, Snow," he insisted.
"I know that, you know that, and I'd like to think that somewhere deep inside her, she knows that, too. But a lifetime of believing you were abandoned and unloved doesn't go away overnight," she gently reminded him.
"Yes, well, if we'd been told the truth, she wouldn't have had to grow up believing she was abandoned and unloved, would she?" he grumbled.
At that point, Snow let the conversation drop. Her husband was far too angry for rational discussion.
Snow was irate, too, of course. She was also confused and hurt. The spark in Emma's eye that David had referenced – the one that made it quite clear Emma had liked that her words had stung – was devastating. The guilt over the fact that she and David had caused their baby that much pain and anger was worse.
But the knowledge that the wardrobe had had enough magic to protect two? That was soul-crushing.
David abruptly stopped walking, and Snow came within a step of crashing right into him. "What is it?" she asked, looking up at him with a perplexed frown. He didn't say a word but after following his gaze, she understood.
Geppetto stood diagonally across the street from them, deep in conversation with Jiminy. Despite her tumbling emotions, Snow allowed a small smile. Not counting her time as Mary Margaret, she'd only known Jiminy as a cricket. It was kind of nice to see him walking around full height.
David clenched his hands into fists and took a step forward. Gasping, Snow grabbed onto his arm and tugged him to a stop. "Calmly, Charming."
He turned to her, his eyebrows raised. "Calmly? You want me to approach this calmly? How are you not livid right now?"
"I am," she told him, and gods knew that was the truth. "I'm furious but ranting and raving will not accomplish a thing. We want answers, not a fight."
Realization lit David' eyes. As the saying went, he would catch more flies with honey. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly in an effort to compose himself. As soon as he squared his shoulders, Snow knew that he'd sufficiently calmed and let his arm go. They crossed the street hand-in-hand and greeted the two men.
At first, the pleasantries were cordial, but when Geppetto and Jiminy spied the serious expressions on Snow's and David' faces, their warm smiles of greeting fell away. When David asked them – calmly, like Snow had said, but in a tone that brooked no dissent – to accompany them to see the Blue Fairy, both looked sucker-punched. Their lie, they knew, had been uncovered, and the fallout was not going to be pretty.
A steady pinging sound slowly drew Emma out of a deep and heavy slumber. With a whimper that bordered on a whine, she opened her eyes and squinted at the clock. The little red numbers told her that it was just before ten. If she wasn't so freaking exhausted, she might have taken the time to wonder what the hell she was doing in bed so early. Instead, she yanked the pillow over her head and willed herself to go back to sleep.
The pinging continued unabated. Every few seconds … plink … plink … plink. It was goddamned obnoxious. The more she tried to pretend the sound didn't exist, the more she focused on it. After a minute or so, it was the only thing she could hear. She pushed the pillow off her face with a grunt, sat up, and threw the comforter off her legs.
To her surprise, she found Henry curled up next to her. What in the …
Then she remembered. They'd collapsed on her bed after their pillow war – Henry had said that calling it a pillow "fight" was too wimpy – out of breath and completely wiped. Before either of them knew it, Henry was fighting to keep his eyes open. Emma didn't have the energy to move him, so she'd just let him conk out and had apparently fallen asleep herself not long after.
Plink … plink. "Oh, for God's sake," she grumbled, climbing off the bed. She followed the sound to her window. Seriously, what the hell?
She opened the window and peeked down to find none other than August Booth standing on the street below, a bunch of small stones cupped in his palm. "Really?" she called down to him as quietly as she could while still being heard. "Throwing pebbles at my window? What are you, a teenager in a movie from the 1950s?"
"If someone hadn't set her cell phone to silent, I wouldn't have had to resort to being a teenager in a movie from the 1950s," came the cheeky reply.
Emma's frown deepened. She'd stopped setting her phone to silent the night she was elected sheriff. "My phone's not on silent."
"Then you must have been dead asleep because I called you three times. Oh, and I've been standing here throwing pebbles at your window for a good fifteen minutes, so there might be a few concerned-citizen messages waiting for you at the station tomorrow."
She rolled her eyes. Wonderful. "What the hell do you want, August?"
"Letting me in would be a start."
Her jaw dropped in indignation. "You wake me up at ten at night after ducking me for days, and you honestly think I'm going to let you in?"
"Well, it would be a little easier and a lot more private than yelling at each other from three stories apart," he returned with a nonchalant shrug. "But I suppose if you want to continue the conversation like this, we can."
Who the hell did he think he was, bringing logic into this? With an exasperated huff, she closed the window. She checked to make sure the conversation hadn't disturbed Henry – it hadn't, and she thought somewhat jealously that the kid could sleep through a circus – and drew the covers around his shoulders.
Emma snatched her phone as she passed the nightstand. She checked the display as she tiptoed down the stairs. Sure enough, there were three missed calls, just as August had said. She double-checked to make sure she hadn't accidentally set the phone to silent mode. Maybe Henry's not the only one who could sleep through a circus, she idly thought as she unlocked the door.
August was already standing in front of it, waiting to be allowed entry to the apartment. "You know," Emma said as she leaned against the doorjamb, "I could have just gone back to bed and left you standing out here."
"Yeah, but you wouldn't do that to me."
She arched an eyebrow. "No one would blame me if I did."
"No, they wouldn't." With his words, the playful air between them turned serious. "You know, I never thanked you properly for saving me."
"You're right," Emma agreed, crossing her arms over her chest. "You didn't."
After the cloud rolled through and her awkward reunion with her parents, Emma had left them watching over Henry at the hospital – "Don't let him out of your sight," she'd instructed, as if they would – while she raced back to the inn to check on August. The curse was broken now, and he'd told her that breaking the curse would save him. Her heart had dropped into her stomach when she found him in the exact same state as she'd left him.
She hadn't had the slightest clue what to do to help him, but luckily Mother Superior had followed her from the hospital. When the woman introduced herself as the Blue Fairy, something in Emma's brain had clicked. If she remembered correctly, the Blue Fairy was the one who'd turned Pinocchio into a real boy in the first place. And if she'd done it before, that meant she could do it again.
At first the Blue Fairy had insisted that nothing could be done, that Pinocchio had known what he'd had to do to remain a real boy and clearly hadn't done so. It took a lot of arguing that a little boy should never have been given that kind of responsibility and even a bit of begging on Emma's part to get her to change her mind. The next thing Emma knew, August – a flesh and blood August – was waking up.
They'd just barely gotten the chance to exchange relieved pleasantries when Emma's phone started ringing. The town was in chaos, no one knew what to do, and they were all calling their sheriff and savior for guidance. Emma had left, apologetically promising to get back in touch with August as soon as she could. He had ignored every single one of her calls and messages in the days since.
"So, you know, thanks," a visibly uncomfortable August said, bringing Emma back to the present. He nervously shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
Emma scoffed. "Yeah, because that's a proper thank you."
"What's your idea of a proper thank you?" he challenged.
She sighed as she stepped away from the door, allowing him into the apartment without actually extending the invitation. As he closed the door behind himself, she sat down at the kitchen table and gave him a look that made it clear she expected him to follow suit. "A proper thank you from you should at least include some kind of an explanation. I know you tried to tell me before and I didn't believe you. But I want you to tell me now, and I have some questions that I need answered."
Snow, David, Geppetto, Jiminy, and the Blue Fairy all settled into a booth at Granny's. It was both a public place and neutral territory, which was beneficial to both sides.
At least, Snow was sure that was how David was looking at this meeting: a war. Snow, on the other hand, didn't think of it as war. She just wanted an explanation. Red had offered beverages on the house – presumably because it looked as if the coming conversation was not going to be pleasant for anyone at the table – and all five of them had gratefully accepted.
"So, this is how this is going to go," David said to the three people on the other side of the booth. "We are not leaving here until someone gives us a reason – a satisfactory reason, mind you – why my daughter was sent through that wardrobe with a little boy instead of one of her parents."
Jiminy, the Blue Fairy, and Geppetto all exchanged a glance in an attempt to figure out which of them should start. Jiminy opened his mouth but Geppetto held up a hand, cutting him off before he could even begin. "No. This was my decision. I should be the one to tell them."
He inhaled deeply and held the breath a moment, then looked both Snow and David in the eye. "When Blue took me to the enchanted tree, she told me that it had enough magic to protect two. As we discussed the curse, it suddenly hit me … what about Pinocchio? After all, he didn't come into our world like you and me. If magic brought him to life, magic could very well take that life away."
"I told him I couldn't be sure what would happen to Pinocchio," the Blue Fairy interjected. "I had no way of knowing what the curse would do. Clearly, it would have taken away their happiness, but what did that mean? Would it simply separate the two of them, or would it strip away the magic that made Pinocchio a real boy?"
"So I bargained for Pinocchio's place in the wardrobe," Geppetto continued, his voice filled with shame. "Blue's original plan was for the two of you to go together. I told her I wouldn't make the wardrobe unless Pinocchio could have one of the spots. I told her to tell you the wardrobe could only protect one."
When Snow felt David tense, she placed a hand on top of her husband's to calm him. She swallowed hard to stop the threatening tears and refused to allow herself to think of the what-ifs. What if she and David had been able to go together? What if Emma had had a parent with her? What if she'd had to parent both Emma and Pinocchio, raise them as siblings?
"When Emma came early," Geppetto said, clearing his throat, "Blue told me that Pinocchio couldn't go, that Emma needed her mother. You have to understand, the only thing getting me through the coming of the curse was knowing that Pinocchio would be safe. To find out at the eleventh hour that he couldn't go? I was desperate and terrified, but not for myself. I was scared for my boy. And I knew what I had to do. I told him that he had to look after Emma in the new land, and he promised me that he would. Then I tucked him into the wardrobe and closed the doors."
By now, Snow's tears were streaming down her cheeks. David gripped her hand and addressed Geppetto through gritted teeth. "He was a little boy! What made you think he would have any idea how to take care of a baby? Both of them grew up without parents because of your decision–"
"Charming, stop," Snow instructed, her first words since ordering a glass of water from Red.
He looked at her with his eyebrows raised in surprise. "Stop? Who was he to decide that our daughter should grow up without her parents?"
"And who are we to decide that our daughter is more important than his son?" she quietly returned.
All of a sudden, David' features softened. He slumped back in the booth, weighed down by comprehension. Geppetto had simply been trying to save his child, the same way he and Snow had been trying to save Emma.
The next time Geppetto spoke, his voice was weary. "I'm sorry we lied–"
"We're all sorry we lied," Jiminy interrupted. A nod from the Blue Fairy indicated her agreement.
"I just … couldn't let anything happen to my boy," Geppetto finished. His shoulders slumped, and he looked and sounded utterly drained.
Neither Snow nor David felt right about assuring him that it was okay, because it wasn't. Nothing about the situation was okay, but it wasn't Geppetto's fault, either. The curse had pushed them all up against a wall and they'd all tried to protect their families in any way they could.
David and Snow exchanged a look that spoke volumes. Less than an hour ago, Emma had forgiven them for making a decision she believed she would have made herself. Emma was the one who'd arguably been affected the most, and she was strong enough to offer forgiveness. How could they not extend Geppetto the same courtesy?
David nodded, and Snow reached across the table to grasp Geppetto's hand. He gave her a relieved and grateful smile in return, but the look in his eyes – a look Snow recognized from the mirror – told her that the hardest absolution for him to find would be from himself.
