What if David was awake the whole time of the curse and married to someone else (not s wife Kathryn)? What if Henry was adopted by a different couple but they died? What if David's wife is Henry's adoptive sister and when their parents die, she is given custody of Henry because of their parents' will?

Lexi groaned as she sat up in bed. She didn't have to be a work until late afternoon so why was she up? Oh yeah, she had fight her now son out of bed for school. She walked to Henry's room and looked around when she saw Henry wasn't in his bed. She ran down the stairs and stopped short when she saw Henry at the kitchen table.

"Henry, you're up?"

"Yeah, I need to get a head start on a project for school." He took one last bite of cereal before bounding out the door yelling a 'bye mom' through his half full mouth. Lexi waved at the closed door and sighed with tears in her eyes.

"I love you Henry." Of course she knew there was no school project and she knew where he was really going. She couldn't stop him so she let him go hoping it wouldn't change much. That night Lexi was pushing her food around on her plate while her husband, David Nolan, sat across from her.

"Hey, Lexi, we'll find him. I'm sure he's fine."

"I know where he is or where he was going. I just don't know where he went. He was going to someone not somewhere."

"Well, where was he going?" As she opened her mouth to answer, she heard a car door close and bolted up. She threw open the door and saw Henry walking up the walkway with a blonde woman.

"Henry!" She ran towards him and hugged him. To her relief, he hugged her back. "Thank goodness you're okay. You are okay, right?"

"I'm fine. I found her though. Emma, this is my adoptive mom, Lexi and my adoptive dad, David." He said as David fell to the ground and hugged him tight. "Mom, Dad, this is Emma, my birth mom."

"You're Henry's birth mother?" Lexi asked with tears in her voice.

"Hi." Emma said awkwardly. Lexi sucked in a breath and let it out slowly then smiled.

"Well, thank you so much for bringing him back safely and I'm sorry he disturbed you. Please come in, it's late you can spend the night in our guest room."

"Oh, no, it's fine. I'll be fine." Lexi shook her head.

"I insist. If not for you then let it be our way of repaying you for getting Henry home safe." Henry looked at her.

"Please stay Emma." He grabbed her hand. Emma looked at Henry and his pleading eyes made her heart melt a little. She sighed and closed her eyes.

"I'll make you a deal Henry," she knelt down to his height, "If your promise to never run away from home again, I'll stay the night." Henry quickly nodded and hugged her. Unfamiliar with affection, Emma stiffened before wrapping her arms around her son for the first time ever. "Okay, now I'm sure it's way past your bedtime so go with your parents." Henry nodded and ran into the house. Emma stood up and could feel a burn at the corners of her eyes. She followed Lexi and David into the house.

"Can I get you something to drink?" David asked.

"I'd ask for something strong but with Henry here I doubt you have anything-"

"Of course I have strong drinks. I'm raising a ten year old boy; I need to have some down time." She poured a small amount of scotch into a glass for all three of them. Emma sat down after they did and took a sip. "I can't thank you enough for this Emma."

"I just didn't want him to go back on his own. How did he find me?"

"To be honest, I'm not exactly sure but I will be finding out." Lexi said. David looked at her and rubbed her knee. "When I adopted him he was only three weeks old, the records were sealed, and I was told the birth mother wanted no contact. Is that still the case?"

"I-I… yes that's still the case."

"See, I don't really believe that." Lexi said. "Look, I know this must be weird for you. I mean the child you thought you would never see again comes back into your life unexpected. I know this is highly uncommon but it seems that Henry has taken a liking to you that's not just because you're his birth mother if you wanted to spend time with him, I would have no objections."

"Oh, I just think he's trying to get me to believe in his book."

"Oh yes the book. He's shared his theory with you then. We're just letting this run its course. You see, Henry found out a couple of months ago that he was adopted. We didn't mean to tell him, we were talking and he had this homework assignment to do a family tree and it just slipped. After that, he fell into a depression and thought we didn't love him. That's completely false just by the way, we asked him if he had any questions and when he shrugged we knew something was wrong because he always has some kind of question. So we tried to help him but then he got this book from his teacher and it gave him a sense of hope. We were not going to take that away from him. If he wants to believe that the town is filled with fairytale characters, we'll let him. There's nothing wrong with having an imagination." David filled in.

"Wow, I'm not sure I would have the same opinion." Emma said. "Well, I guess I should get to bed, long day of driving ahead of me."

"Of course, of course." Lexi said standing. "I'll show you to our guest room." Emma and Lexi left the room and David went to check on Henry. He knocked on Henry's door before opening it. Henry was lying in his bed reading his book.

"Hey buddy."

"Hey." David sat down on the bed and looked at Henry.

"You know you really scared us today. Please don't just take off like that. If you had just asked us we would have helped you. Also, who's credit card did you 'secret borrow' to pay for that website?"

"Miss Blanchard."

"Well tomorrow you're going to give it back, apologize, and you're going to pay her back every penny."

"Yes Dad." David moved closer to Henry.

"Henry, you know we love you right?" Henry didn't answer. "Henry, you being adopted has nothing to do with us loving you. When we adopted you were loved you and you're still loved now."

"Even after I ran away and made you guys worry?"

"Even after you ran away and made us worry. Henry, why didn't you feel like you could come to us?"

"I felt like I would be betraying you and Mom. I just really wanted to meet her and she has to break the curse." David nodded not really understanding. "I thought you would be happy to have your daughter back." David snapped his head back over to his son and stuttered.

"W-W-What? My daughter?"

"Emma."

"Henry, Emma can't be more than 28. I'm twenty-nine. When did I have her when I was one?"

"No, time is frozen here. You were twenty-nine when the curse hit, twenty-eight years ago. Emma was born early and you put her in the wardrobe to save her. Look." He opened the book to where Prince Charming was putting a baby named Emma into a tree.

"So, I'm Prince Charming?"

"Yup."

"I guess that makes Lexi Snow White." Henry got a sad look on his face. "No?"

"No, she's not Snow White." David looked at Henry.

"Well, then, there's no way I'm Prince Charming because I love your mother and you. No one else, understand?"

"You think you do because of the curse."

"Henry, whether it's a curse or not I still love you and your mother. How can I make you see that?" Henry just shrugged. "Well, we'll talk about this in the morning. Good night Henry. I do love you."

"Good night, I love you too." The next morning, Henry woke up and looked out his window to the clock. He smiled when he saw it was moving. He silently cheered and went downstairs. He saw Emma sitting with Lexi. He went over and hugged Lexi then hugged Emma. Emma was shocked at the least and awkwardly hugged her long lost son back. Henry ran into the living room to get his backpack ready and Lexi turned to Emma.

"Have you given any thought to what I said last night?"

"See but here's the thing, I don't know if you're kidding or not."

"I'm not. Ask anyone in town, I never say anything I don't mean." Emma nodded and thought for moment before taking a breath.

"If you're serious, I'd like to see him." Emma said. Lexi smiled and called Henry into the room.

"Hey, I have a surprise for you. Emma's going to walk you to school and pick you up. Maybe this can be a regular thing. Maybe she can pick up sometimes and you two can take time to get to know each other." Henry switched his view from his mother to his other mother before back to Lexi.

"Really?"
"Yup, it makes you happy, Emma wants to see you, and I see no problem with it." Henry launched himself into Lexi's arms. She smiled and hugged him back.

"Thank you!"

"No problem Henry. I love you." She said kissing his head.

"I love you too." Henry let go of her and grabbed Emma's hand pulling her towards the door.

"I guess we're going to school." Lexi and Emma laughed as Emma was dragged out the door and David came in shortly after.

"You did a good thing." He told her.

"Yeah, I know. I just know that if I tell him he can't see her then he'll sneak out and see her anyway. Emma's really nice I can't see her trying to completely take him away." David nodded his head in agreement. "Plus they could both use it." David nodded and kissed her. They both headed to work for the first time in a couple months not worrying if Henry was okay because now they knew he was.

So this is the first chapter. I've already written three chapters and working on the fourth. Leave a review to let me know how the story is and so I know people are reading it and I'm just wasting my time. I have a good feeling about this story but then again it's up to you readers. Let me know what you think.