Chapter 7: Family First

Mary Margaret waited patiently for another phone call. She had been waiting 28 years after all. A few more days waiting for her husband to turn up wouldn't be so terrible.

She knew she couldn't go to Storybrooke. Regina would recognize her, and then she'd know who Emma was. And that was far too large of a risk. She would not put her daughter at risk.

But at the same time her husband was somewhere in that town. She dreamed that night about driving into town, what in her dream she imagined Storybrooke would look like, and seeing him there.

She couldn't go though. Maybe after the curse was broken. When there would be no additional threat to Emma anyway.

[X]

Things started to get hard for Mary Margaret around the time Emma turned twelve. Mary Margaret figured that she had already been through one child's puberty, how difficult could another's be?

Very difficult, as it so happened. Very, very difficult.

Emma's Middle School years had started with her being the most popular girl in school, and her grades being mediocre to bad. Both of these things had the same source. Emma was the Savior, and she knew this. Everyone else was desperately trying to get good grades because they knew, if just a little, that their futures might hang on it. They were wrong of course, but at eleven, everything seems so important.

But Emma knew what she would be when she grew up. And she didn't need a college degree for it. Not even a GED.

The way Emma carried herself made her easily very popular. She was so confident, so sure of herself because, again, she was going to be the Savior. That confidence made the other girls idolize her, aided by the fact that she was the only person in class who wasn't pretending not to care about her grades.

Mary wasn't entirely pleased that her daughter was so uncaring about school, but she did like the confidence. She just wished that Emma realized that smarts would come in handy when she was the Savior. But of course, all Emma would say was, "how is algebra going to help me defeat the Evil Queen?"

And really, what are you supposed to say to that? It certainly isn't in any parenting book.

But all of that was nothing compared to how much things changed in seventh grade.

[X]

Emma woke up first on their third day in town. She went out for a quick job before settling in for breakfast, where, already her brother was munching on some pancakes.

"Hey August," she said sitting down.

"Hey brat," he said. The nickname had stuck from childhood, though mean affectionately now.

"Well if you're going to be that way," said Emma, and feigned walking out the door, before sitting down in the booth opposite him.

"Have a good run?"

"I think this town is slowly melting my brain. I grew up in Philadelphia. I spent the last five years in New Orleans. And now here I am in goddamn Storybrooke, Maine."

"Hey," said August, "remember we're supposed to be sticking around because we like it here."

Granny took Emma's order. Waffles, and a cinnamon tea.

"You, mom and cinnamon," said August, "true love at last."

Emma rolled her eyes.

"So let's talk about the kid," said Emma.

"The mayor's kid?"

"What do we tell him?" said Emma.

"The kid's what? Ten? Nine? Not much older than when we told you. Maybe he'll believe us."

"If you'd told me when I was ten that my mom was," Emma's voice got lower here, "Snow White, I would not have believed you. Remember what I was like at 12? That didn't just come out of nowhere."

[X]

Most kids start slacking off quite a bit in seventh grade. Mary was rather pleased when her daughter did just the opposite. Emma seemed to hunker down in seventh grade.

Of course this instantly made her less popular. Emma's sudden obsession with Chemistry wasn't exactly the "in" thing. But this was a good thing. It meant she wasn't over-concerned with being popular. Her grades shot up.

Then Mary realized something. Emma hadn't looked in the chest with all the stuff that had to do with the Enchanted Forest in a long time.

Mary asked Emma about it, and Emma just sort of brushed it off.

So Mary decided to put it out of her mind.

Until one day Mary realized something: her daughter had stopped believing.

[X]

The waffles were good. Granny had a knack, apparently, for making breakfast foods utterly delicious.

"It's kind of surprising," said August, "I only met her once, before I mean, and she ended up threatening to shoot me with a crossbow."

"What did you say to her?" asked Emma laughing.

"Nothing," said August. "She claimed I looked at her funny."

At this point Regina Mills, mayor of Storybrooke walked through the door.

"Look out," said Emma, "it's the Evil Mayor." She was half-joking, but then she noticed her brother's face. He was scared of Regina. Deathly scared.

The mayor walked right over to them and joined them.

"Madame Mayor," said Emma, in a tone that she hoped conveyed confusion.

"You know," said the mayor, "I'm not sure I caught your name."

"Emma Smith," said Emma, "this is my brother, August."

"Really? Because I had the sheriff's office check into you," said Regina.

"Isn't that what you'd call wasting police time?" snipped Emma, "But I do know why you're here now. No, our last name isn't really 'Smith' – at least not legally. Our last name is Margaret. My brother doesn't much care for the name, for obvious reasons. And to be honest neither do I much. So we usually go by Smith while we're traveling. If you check you'll find that the hotel room was signed under my real name."

They had used the name "Smith" because they knew that Regina would remember their mother, and maybe know that "Mary Margaret" had been a name she had used in the Enchanted Forest. But they also figured that Regina might check in on them, so they agreed not to try to keep up the pretense if Regina should start asking questions.

"Ah," said Regina, all sweetness suddenly, "Well you must forgive me, but I'm very protective of my town."

"I can see that," Emma said into her tea.

"Enjoy your breakfast." And with that Regina left.

August breathed out.

"Living in the modern world has softened her a bit," he said, "I remember when conversations with the Evil Queen were famed for ending with somebody ending up with their heart torn out."

[X]

When she realized what was going on, Mary asked to talk with August alone. Emma was out at the time so the conversation was conducted in Emma and August's room.

Since hitting his teenage years, August had taken to shutting himself up in their room with whatever novel he was working on. At sixteen his work was imaginative, creative, and very poorly written. He knew how to tell stories, not how to write them.

At least that's what August told Mary. He never let her see anything he wrote.

"We have a problem," she said to him.

"What have I done now?" he asked.

"Nothing to do with you. Well at least, not your fault. I don't think Emma believes anymore."

"Believes in what?"

"Home."

In the family the word "home" had become code for the Enchanted Forest. It was where the three of them were from, though Emma was actually not born there.

"It is pretty insane," pointed out August, "Sometimes I think it was just a dream. Being Pinocchio. Not for very long of course. I imagine dad's face and it sort of feels real again to me."

"And Emma doesn't have that," sighed Mary, "None of it. No memories to remember. No memory of her father. Just the two of us and this world.

"What makes you think she doesn't believe anymore?"

Mary explained about the chest.

August nodded.

"That does make sense."

"Maybe it's okay," said Mary.

August nearly hit the roof.

"What!?"

"I mean, her not believing. Maybe she shouldn't be the Savior."

"I repeat myself: what?" said August.

"Do you remember the first few months of this world?"

"I remember you working double shifts at every job I could imagine to support us," said August.

"After that. When I finally got the job at the Laundromat."

"Stability at last," snarked August. It wasn't fair, but it was true. She'd only held the job for a year, and they'd barely survived on that salary.

"I bought that parenting book," said Mary, "remember?"

"I guess."

"In fact I bought three of them but I didn't tell you because I knew you'd start worrying about money. You know what they said? Each one of them. You put your kid first. Always."

"I don't get it."

"What does Emma need? Really? Does she need to be the Savior?"

"You're putting Emma's needs above everyone from an entire realm?" asked August, incredulous.

"I'm considering it. Maybe I need to be a mother first. Maybe it's best if we just let Emma be an ordinary girl."

[X]

"I have an idea," August told Emma, "about your father."

"Go ahead."

"It's not a very pleasant idea," said August.

"Just get on with it," said Emma through a piece of waffle.

"I was reading through the book about what happened the night of the curse. Your father and Mom ran as quickly as they could, with Mom practically about to give birth, so slowly. By the time they got there, there were soldiers waiting for them."

"Yeah," said Emma, "Mom told us this bit. Dad fights off the soldiers while Mom gets in the wardrobe."

"That's not all that happened. According to the book, once your dad got Mom into the wardrobe he got hurt by one of the guards. Bad."

August pulled out his phone and pulled up a photo then passed the phone to Emma.

It was one of the illustrations from the book. Emma recognized the style. It showed her father – the man she had been told was her father – getting stabbed through the stomach by one of the guards.

"I didn't want to bring the book down," said August, "in case the Mayor happened to see it."

Emma nodded, stunned for a second.

"28 years, this town has been stuck without time moving forward right? So if he was hurt before the curse, he can't have gotten better. Maybe you should be checking the hospital."

[X]

"I can't believe this," said August, incensed, "You want to give up our people. My father. Emma's father, your husband. You want to give them up because Emma might have it easier that way?"

"I'm just considering doing what's best for my daughter."

"You always do this!" said August, "You do everything for her! You let her get away with stuff all the time!" He inhaled slowly, "Emma needs to be the Savior. Or you'll never see your husband again."

Mary turned on her teenage son.

"I could be with my husband right now," she said to him, "I could be with Charming, and we could be raising Emma together now. But you had to come through that wardrobe. You took him away from me. So don't you dare talk to me about seeing him again."

And with that Mary walked out of August's room slamming the door.

[X]

August walked over to Marco's shop again, only to discover that he was out. He didn't know what he was expecting to find there.

"You come by here quite a bit," said a voice. It was Rumpelstilstkin again. Mr. Gold in this world.

"I'm sorry," said August, "I don't think we've met." Did Mr. Gold remember the Enchanted Forest?

"I'm sorry," said Mr. Gold, "I'm Mr. Gold. I'm the local pawnbroker. I spoke with your sister a bit yesterday. She bought a rather nice watch from me, and gave me an assumed name." It would make sense if he remembered the Enchanted Forest. He built the curse, supposedly.

"How did you –" asked August.

"The mayor has her sources, and I have mine," grinned Gold back at him, "Now why do you spend so much time at this shop?"

August thought about how to answer this question.

"My father was a bit of a handyman," he said. Then again, maybe Gold didn't remember the Enchanted Forest. He certainly didn't look like someone who was a aware of a 28-year-old curse.

"I see," grinned Gold, "That's not the whole story of course, but you can keep your secrets. But if those secrets cause you any trouble with the mayor's office, I'd be glad to lend a hand. You might find that our interests line up better than you might think."

And with that Mr. Gold walked off, leaving August utterly perplexed.

[X]

It was 2:00 before Emma finally got the courage to visit the hospital. She used the cover of looking for some work, and offering herself up as a volunteer. She couldn't get work at the reception desk – no vacancies, like everywhere else in the town, but they apparently had room for a volunteer. She was to start right away. Emma helped out a fair amount for the next two hours, mostly by changing bed sheets and at one point by talking to an elderly man who, according to Dr. Whale, "needs far more attention than anyone can possibly give him." He then went off to give some "attention" to a pretty young thing in a sling.

At 4:00, she managed to find some time to take a look around the hospital. She checked a few beds haphazardly until finally, almost by accident she stumbled across him.

She looked at her mother's drawing of her father. It looked almost exactly like the man in the bed. He had the scar on his right eyebrow, where mom had brained him with a rock. And he was a coma patient.

[X]

Mary sat down on her bed. They lived in a small two-bedroom apartment, and luckily for August and Mary, Emma was out with friends during the big fight, because otherwise she might have noticed August and Emma yelling at each other in her room.

What a horrible, horrible thing for her to say to August. She had long ago accepted that she would have to treat August as her own. But she knew would never say something like that to Emma. It was so very wrong of her. So wrong, and so unfair to him.

She walked back over to the kids' room and knocked on the door.

No response.

What the hell, she thought, it's not as if I can ruin this anymore than I already have.

She opened the door. August had gotten out a suitcase that she had bought for him when they went on a camping trip and was throwing his clothes into it.

"August?" she said, "I'm so sorry. What I said was…it was completely uncalled for."

August continued packing.

"August, please don't go."

August looked up at her. Mary became self-conscious. She had already finished crying on her bed, and it was clear that she had been. Mary wiped away some moisture from her cheek.

"You know," said August, "I always thought that you treated Emma special because she was The Savior. I thought that if she wasn't The Savior, you would have treated us the same. But now I know better. You didn't treat her special because she was The Savior. You treated her special because she was your daughter, and I'm not your son."

Mary thought about this. He probably wasn't wrong.

"No," she said, "that's not true. I didn't give birth to you, yes. I barely knew you until you were four and we arrived in this place. But I have spent the past 12 years getting to know you and you are a wonderful, smart, funny, creative young man. August, you are my son, and if I haven't treated you like it that's on me. But you are still my son. So all I want from you is a second chance, okay?"

August stopped packing.

[X]

Mary's phone went off. It was Emma. Third day her kids had been in that town. What had happened?

"Hey mom," said Emma.

"Emma? What's going on?" Mary tried to contain the panic in her voice. It didn't work.

"I've got good news and bad news."

"Give me that bad news then," said Mary.

"The bad news doesn't really make sense without knowing the good news."

"All right, give me the good news."

"I found dad." Mary couldn't believe it. Finally. She had waited so long for this. She was finally going to get to see –

"What's the bad news?" she said, before she could let that train of thought go any further.

"He's in a coma," said Emma slowly, "Now mom, don't worry, we're already working on it. I talked to the doctors and they said they don't know if he'll come out of it, but we think that when the Curse breaks, he might come out of it."

Mary sat down.

"Thanks for telling me," she said.

"Of course," said Emma.

Mary hung up.

She wasn't supposed to go to Storybrooke. That was the rule. Regina would recognize her.

Mary walked out to her car, put the key in the ignition and started the drive to Maine. Her husband needed her.