Thank you SO much for the wonderful response after the last chapter! All the follows and favorites have really put a smile on my face, and the reviews have made my entire week! Thank you so much! Thanks to the amazing reviews I've received, I decided to sit down and finish the chapter immediately for you! Motivation really strikes when you get good response, haha! (And its almost half past two at night here, and I have school at eight tomorrow, so...)
I've planned on updating once a week, on fridays or saturdays depending on what my schedule looks like, but with this amount of respons, maybe I'll update more regularly!
Anyway, thank you sooo much for the reviews, I really appreciate them! And for sneak peeks before the "big updates" and other things, check out my tumblr; sweetwonderlnad
Really hope you enjoy this chapter! xx
She'd checked on the girls at least seven times in the last halfhour, and her phone at least a hundred. Every time left her with a bigger knot in her stomach when her screen was just as empty as the last time she checked. Henry hadn't texted.
She'd said to herself that she couldn't panic until 11 o'clock. However, time was closing in and she was preparing to leave. She had figured out the code to her parents' safe lock ages ago, and she knew her mom hid a couple extra guns there. Just in case.
So with a gun and her phone before her, an app monitoring and keeping her updated on her sleeping nieces upstairs and sound on high alert in case a text came in, she counted down the minutes until eleven. Then she would go out there.
10.59. She had never wanted a text more in her life, not even during that time she obsessed over Philip and had her heart set on him being her true love. (Obviously that was no more than teenage hormones on highwire: something she learned the hard way.)
11.00. The adrenaline made her almost skittish, but she took action the second it became full hour. She peeked in the girls' room once more, smiling softly at Ruthie's open mouth and loud breath, and Julia's arm protectively around her little sister's waist.
Certain they were settled, she put the gun in her waistband and stepped out of the door.
"So, Hope, huh?" Emma's voice was the first to sound after many awkward minutes. Seven couple of eyes stared her down, and all Hope could feel was amusement. This whole thing was so like them. Crisis meetings or whatever, whenever something happened, everyone gathering together.
"Yep, you always say that's what you needed most at the time, so when I was born that was it. Hope I was."
Emma was still in shock, hadn't said many words since her revelation by the pond. Just a couple 'okay, kid. I think we need the whole crew for this' , 'You sure the coffee didn't burn you?' , 'Just called Killian… your dad… whatever, he's on his way with the others, anyway' , and a few 'oh my god' and 'Is this really my life?'
While her mother seemed to find it hard to take in the idea of a future daughter, her father looked like he'd never received better news. When he entered the sheriff's station he'd taken one look at Emma to make sure she was okay, before his eyes fell on Hope and a huge sheepish smile had spread on his lips. A smile that he hadn't dropped, and didn't look like he would any time soon.
The contrast between her parents was really amusing. Something she had to bite her lip hard not to laugh hard at, and scare her mother even further.
"So you are mine?" Killian's question was really unnecessary, they all knew she was. She gave him her best smile.
"Yep" Her smile grew brighter as her father's (impossibly but very clearly) also did.
"Mine and Emma's?"
"Yep"
"I have a daughter! Swan, we'll have a daughter!" The warmth in her chest grew. She always knew she was wanted. Her father always told her how she and Liam and the rest of their family was more than he ever could have dreamt about during his darker years. But this, seeing this; she'd never known just how wanted she was before.
Her dad always said he had a hard time saying no to them, always wanting to see them at their happiest, and just that instinct is what Hope blames when she opens her mouth next.
"Actually, you also have a son. Except for Henry of course!" At this revelation, Hope is almost worried about her father when an almost unhuman noise breaks from his lips in joy. But it's her mother that speaks next.
"You have another brother, as well?" Her voice was high-pitched and Hope knew her mother well, the look in her eye told her she tried desperately to make sense of everything in her head.
A snort from somewhere in the room makes Hope's attention turn and focus on Regina instead.
"You really didn't think you and Guyliner here would reproduce, Swan? I bet there's not just one more of them."
Hope took a few seconds to take in the woman. Regina was her aunt at home, they were all very close, and she couldn't ever imagine not having Regina and Robin and their family in her life, but she could clearly see a lot of change had to happen before that dynamic could be possible. Instead of looking at Hope with the pride and admiration of an aunt, Regina almost looked at her as a threat. She had of course heard the tales of everyone in her family, and knew Regina wasn't always… well… good. She was clearly not evil here either, but still had a long way to go to become the loving woman Hope knew so well. Hope couldn't help but get a little bit proud, though, for what her aunt got through. Regina's sassiness was ever present here as in Hope's time, and she couldn't help but to give her some leverage.
"Well, I do usually say I have six siblings." A smirk replaced her amused smile when everybody in the room froze and stared wide gazed at her. David even muttered a low 'seriously?' whilst Emma arose from her seat and strode across the room before looking intently at her.
"Six? Really, six more?" She asked, and Hope almost felt bad now; the sound of her voice telling her, her mother was on the verge of freaking out completely.
"Well, not biological of course. And you aren't the parent's of everyone." Everyone seemed to release a breath and she gave a chuckle.
"I count both my uncle and my cousins as my siblings so, theres why we're so many, me being the youngest of us all. I just share you as parents with two brothers, Liam and Henry, even though Henry is kind of shared. But you could figure that out."
"Liam? Your older brother's name is Liam?" Killian stared at her with an even more apprehensive look now, and Hope melted a little inside. She knew how much her father's brother meant to him, and how much it meant to him that his sons name honored his brother. He had told them more times than she could count, of how brave of an uncle they had somewhere up in the stars. Of how convinced her father was that his big brother looked down on them. Even though she knew a memory potion would make them all forget this and go back to making the future happen, she was glad she could tell her father all this and see all the emotions toward his future family herself.
"Yes, and he is a big brother who is extremely upset with his little sister right now."
The familiar new voice from behind Hope made everyone in the room freeze anew.
Oh Crap
The streets were quiet. Shivers ran down her spine, and she knew it wasn't from the cold.
If everything was alright, why was it quiet? Maybe everything was over, and everyone was on their way home. But why hadn't Henry texted, then? No, something was definitely wrong.
She walked until she didn't know how long she'd walked for, or where she even were anymore; letting her gut lead her. Was Storybrook even this big?
Smoke in the distance caught her attention and she let it lead her the last way.
She was met by utter chaos when the source of the smoke came into view. She couldn't even tell which side was where, people everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Clearly nothing was settled yet.
Before she knew any else she was in the middle of the chaos and harshly thrown into the reality of the situation. And suddenly she realized what her parents had been talking about; she wasn't ready for this. She had nothing here to do.
But, being as it was, she tried to make herself useful. She searched the crowd for anyone. Any family. But everything was strangely blurry, and her adrenaline made her dizzy.
She spotted Henry by the edge of the 'battlefield', unmoving with Liam hovering over him. A scream left her lips and she run, tears threatening to spill over.
'Not Henry. Please, not Henry. Ruthie and Julia needed their father. He was the one to break the pattern, he couldn't leave his kids! He couldn't leave them, her!'
Her sprint was halted by arms wrapping around her, and suddenly everything seemed to halt to a stop around her. She realized she wasn't in safe arms first when her mother and father's fearful screams reached her.
"Hope!"
"NO!"
Her father ran towards her. But her mother was closer.
Oh, how she wish she wasn't.
How she wish she'd never left the house.
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