Author's Note: I originally intended for this chapter to be chapter 6 with chapter 5 being a series of mini-interludes on several of the other characters of Storybrooke, but upon reviewing it, it didn't really fit with the rest of the story and I didn't really like it except for the Ashley and Sean bits. I'm in the process of rewriting that into a one shot Sean-Ashley story and will release it in a few days.
Snow sat in bed holding her daughter while she slept. For the first time in longer than she can remember, she feels no worries about the future. For as long as she can remember when she looked to the future, all she could she was dread. The only time she didn't feel a sense of dread was after Charming rescued her from the queen's curse and before her appearance had ruined what should have been the happiest day of her life.
For the first time in her life, she didn't feel afraid of the queen. She still hated her with a passion and did not know what she was going to do about it. When she was Mary, she had worked toward reconciling Henry and Regina. Now it seemed Henry had reconciled with her at the exact time she would have loved him to tell her he never wanted to see her again. It certainly was the definition of irony.
Emma, her daughter, wanted her to try to get along with the queen. No, that wasn't true. She only wanted them to reach the point where they weren't trying to kill each other. Even then, she had no idea what she was asking of her mother. Emma would never understand what hell the last twenty-eight years were for Snow and everyone in this town, and if she could do one thing, she would make sure Emma never would. Snow and James had sacrificed so much in the hopes Emma could live a happy life.
It broke her heart to learn that Emma had grown up without love, without hope. Snow had decided that from this day forward, she was going to make it her mission in life to ensure Emma never had one more bad moment. She would make up for the twenty-eight years she was absent from Emma's life, bringing her the joy and happiness that should have been present in her life from the start.
She wouldn't worry about the queen anymore. If Regina showed remorse and guilt over what she had done then Snow would just have to tolerate her existence somehow, but if she still proved to be the bitch that went around, destroying everyone's happiness, she will find a way to kill her and end her for good. She will not allow that woman to ruin her family's lives anymore. Although from what she had witnessed earlier in the day, she had no doubt that Regina truly loved her grandson.
Grandson, it was so strange to think of the boy she had been teaching that way. Physically she wasn't that much older than her daughter was. She had lived twenty-eight years in this town since the queen had cast her curse. No, that wasn't right. She had existed in this town for twenty-eight years. Everything here was frozen. Until Henry showed up, nothing ever changed in the town. Everyone just walked around in an endless fog.
Everyone that is, except for Regina and Mr. Gold or rather Rumplestiltskin. The man who always appeared in a person's darkest hour and offered deals for an unspecified price that always ended up being far greater than they could ever have imagined. Few people ever resisted his deals. Until she reached her own darkest hour, she never understood how they could trust the man, but when faced with the fear that the queen would kill her child, she was ashamed to say that she was among them. She went to him even after everything he did and basically begged for his help. He asked such a small price for his services…her daughter's name.
On the night of her death, Snow's mother told her that great trials lay ahead, but that she would overcome them and become a great queen. She also told Snow that her first child would be a girl, but it was imperative that she make everyone, even her future husband, believe it was a boy or great tragedy would befall the baby. She could never reveal the truth about the gender or the prophecy to anyone until someone said with absolute certainty that they knew she was having a girl. After that, she was to tell that person, her husband, and a few of her closest friends, but no one else, or she would put her child in great danger. Then she died.
Snow had heard that great leaders would sometimes give deathbed prophecies, warning of great danger, but never really believed it until that night. When she found out she was pregnant, she was terrified of what the queen would do to her child. James didn't understand the terror she lived with since her mother had forbidden her to speak of the prophecy.
That Rumplestiltskin would be the one to know the truth was shocking. When James asked why Snow had lied to him, she explained her mother's dying prophecy and he instantly comforted her. He told her she did the right thing, one of his ancestors once ignored such a dying prophecy as superstitious nonsense, and it led to their death and the near destruction of James' kingdom.
She was thinking about her reunion with James, when Emma started to thrash around next to her breaking her out of her recollections. She sat frozen for a second, before realizing her daughter was having a nightmare. Snow kissed Emma's forehead and pulled her into her arms.
"Hush, little one," Snow says. "Your mother's here. Nothing can hurt you now."
She felt Emma instantly relax in her arms, and fall back into a natural, relaxed sleep.
For the rest of the night, Snow didn't bother reflecting any further on her past or the future, instead focusing on here and now and the fact that she and her daughter were finally reunited.
In the morning, Emma wakes up feeling more refreshed and happy than she ever has in her life. She wonders why, until the events of the previous day come back to her. Then she looks around, noticing that while she is in Mary's bed, Mary is nowhere around.
She sits back and sighs, feeling instantly depressed.
It was all a dream, Emma thinks sadly. Henry's fairy tales got it so embedded in my head I'm actually having dreams about them.
Her thoughts don't last long when Henry comes rushing in, followed by Mary Margaret. Emma immediately notices that she still has shoulder length hair and is wearing the same dress from yesterday.
It's true, Emma thinks, her happiness instantly returning. I finally have a real mother.
It is then that she notices Snow is carrying a tray.
"What is this?" Emma asks looking at the tray, which Snow filled with pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs, toast, a bagel, juice, and a grapefruit.
"What does it look like?" Snow asks. "I made you breakfast in bed."
Another lump forms in Emma's throat. She isn't used to anyone caring for her. None of the foster parents she ever had really cared about her. Even before Snow had regained her memories, she had probably showed her more acts of kindness than all her foster parents combined.
Noticing her look of shock and awe, Snow puts the tray down in front of her. "You have picked up a very bad habit," she says in a gentle but stern voice. "You have come to expect that acts of love and pampering are something rare and precious, rather than something to be expected. I am going to break you of this habit. It is my mission in life from this day forward to make up for your unhappy childhood and to make sure you never forget that you are loved even for one second."
Emma can only nod.
"Now come on, eat up, we have a busy day ahead of us," Snow says with a smile.
"Yeah, I know," Emma says as she starts eating the big breakfast Snow has brought her. "We have to go visit Regina in the hospital, restore Prince Charming's memory, and figure out how to break the curse on the entire town at once."
"We already have a way to break the curse," Henry says. "All you have to do is take the book, say a person's real name, and command that their memories be restored."
"I'm not one hundred percent certain that will work," Emma says, continuing to eat. "I don't know much about curses, but I seem to recall something about true love being able to break them. So I think that I was able to break the curse on Snow because we already had a bond as mother and daughter."
Henry thinks about this for a few minutes. "That sounds logical," he says.
"And besides I don't think it would be efficient to go around the entire town restoring people's memories one person at a time," Emma adds as she finishes the last of her meal.
"Good point," Henry agrees.
"Well go get dressed and then we'll go and visit the mayor," Emma says. Henry immediately rushes out of the room to get dressed. "Mar...Mom, I have a favor to ask of you."
"Anything you need," Snow says.
"I know you don't trust Regina and you have every reason not to," Emma says, "and while I said that bad people can change, it would be foolish to trust her immediately. I believe she truly loves Henry, but I'm not sure that once she has rested and regained her strength, she isn't going to try to do something horrible again."
"And?" Snow prompts, trying to find out where her daughter is going with this.
"And I need to know if she's truly reformed," Emma says. "I want a chance to question her alone for a little bit without Henry being there."
"So you need me to keep him occupied for a while," Snow says.
"Yes," Emma says. "Tell him I got a call from Sherriff Graham and he needs to go over a few things with him. In the meantime, take him out shopping for a get-well present for Regina."
"Okay," Snow says, then goes to her closet to pick out an outfit. "Are these clothes really mine?"
"Yes," Emma says. "You don't remember buying them?"
"To be honest, no," Snow says. "My life as Snow White, I remember with perfect clarity, but with the exceptions of the time I spent with you and Henry, my time as Mary Margaret is more of a dream-like haze."
"Maybe because your time as Mary Margaret was a dream-like haze," Emma says, as she quickly gets dressed. "You were frozen in time here for twenty-eight years, reliving the same events over and over and before that all your memories of your childhood and early adulthood were just constructed fabrications that never really happened. No wonder your memories as Mary are muted."
"Yes, that may be the case," Snow replies.
"Anyway, I have to get going before Henry finishes getting ready," Emma says.
"Okay," Snow says. "Just be careful."
"I will," Emma says as she heads for the door. "Oh and one more thing, tell Henry not to go around telling everyone I broke the curse on you. For the time being tell him it will be better if you pretend to be Mary Margaret Blanchard."
"I understand," Snow says. "I love you."
Emma gets a lump in her throat once again, and when she is able to speak, she answers Snow's statement with absolute honesty. "I love you too, mom," she says, causing Snow to get teary-eyed as well.
Twenty minutes later, Emma is standing in the waiting area of Storybrooke's main hospital, waiting for Dr. Whale to finish Regina's examination.
"Good morning, Miss Swan," Dr. Whale says and looks around. "Are Henry and Ms. Blanchard with you?"
"I told Mary to take Henry out shopping for a get-well gift for Regina," Emma explains. "I wanted to talk to her in private, first."
"Ah, of course," Dr. Whale says. "You want to see if she's still suffering from the delusion that she's the evil queen from Henry's storybook."
"What?" Dr. Hopper asks as he comes up to them.
"Dr. Hopper," Emma says in surprise. "What are you doing here?"
"I came in to see how Regina is doing," Dr. Hopper answers. "Henry has only been in to see me once since the explosion happened. When I saw him, all he could do was talk about how sorry he was for treating his mom so badly and how she wasn't really evil. I was hoping that something good could come out of this tragedy and he would finally start snapping out of his fairy tale fantasy, but you said that Regina is now suffering from the delusion that she is the evil queen."
"Yes," Dr. Whale says, "and it seems that she now believes Henry is Snow White's grandson and Emma here is her daughter and that Snow White has regained her memories."
"How did she come to believe that?" Dr. Hopper asks, trying to process all of this.
"Well from what I can determine, I think Mary was trying out a wig to see how her hair would look if she let it grow out and Regina saw that when she managed to escape from the hospital to see her son," Dr. Whale answers.
"Why didn't anyone tell me this?" Dr. Hopper asks.
"Sorry," Emma responds. "We've just had a lot of other things on our minds in the last few days."
"Oh, of course," Dr. Hopper says. "I'm so sorry. The sheriff told me that the explosion was no accident. An escaped convict you caught caused it hoping to kill Henry. Of course keeping me informed of things wouldn't be your top priority."
"In any case, aside from the fact that she shares her son's fantasy, she's in good mental condition," Dr. Whale says. "She knows who she is and was able to perfectly recite recent events and the names and jobs of everyone in town. Unfortunately, while she was reciting the names of everyone in town, she also listed who exactly they originally were in the fairy tale world. According to her, I'm the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood."
"I see," Dr. Hopper says.
"In any case, she's ready for visitors," Dr. Whale says. "She's healing remarkably well and should be ready to go home in three days." He pauses for a moment and becomes quiet. "Wait, she doesn't have a home anymore, does she?"
"We'll figure something out," Emma says as she goes to enter the room. She stops as she notices, Dr. Hopper following her. "I'd like to speak to her alone for a few minutes."
"But I'm a trained psychologist," Dr. Hopper says. "I can help you with this."
"I need to speak with her alone," Emma responds. "You can speak with her when I'm done. Please just trust me on this."
"Of course," Dr. Hopper says.
Emma takes a deep breath and enters the room to confront the woman who had raised her son and ruined much of her family's life.