Chapter 7: Twenty Eight years too Late

Emma held her son tight in her arms, thinking that less than an hour ago he had been lying still, dead on a stark white bed, never to wrap her in his air knocking hugs again. She closed her eyes breathing in the sweet smell of his hair. It was remarkable how calm he made her feel, like Henry knew how to connect to a part of her that had laid dormant in her heart for over twenty years. Emma cursed herself for taking so damn long to let him in. She'd known, from the first time she had talked with him in the front seat of her rattling bug as she drove him up the highway back to Storybrooke, that this kid was special. That when she told her social worker that no, she did not want to see her son again- she could not be tempted to ever want to disrupt the perfect life she had envisioned for him- that the tiny, brown eyed boy had never actually left her heart. Emma vowed that from now on, Henry would know everything, she would keep no secrets from him. As her heartbeat slowed to something resembling normal, Emma decided she would either start now, or it would never happen.

"I'm scared," she whispered into his hair. She froze, waiting for his answer. She hated to think that his reaction would determine her, but she couldn't help it. If he pushed her away, if he didn't accept her confession...

But Henry immediately put her at ease. "It's okay," he said. Emma let out her held breath. I knew I loved this kid.

Henry pulled away from her and took her still shaking hand in his tiny one. Emma couldn't help but smile. What a sight, her ten year old son, who'd already stared death in the face, taking care of her. She held his hand tightly, feeling the warmth flowing up her arm. So this is what unconditional love feels like. She was sure she must have felt it with her first family, all those years ago, but they had returned her so in reality Emma could not truly remember a time when she felt loved. How had she ever considered leaving him?

As they started around the corner again, Emma looked up and caught sight of the group that had sent her reeling in the first place. She slowed, but determining that she could do it, Henry pulled her along. Her heart did not start thumping, it started shuttering, literally flopping around in her chest like a dying fish. Emma tried to take steady breaths, but each one made her more light-headed than the last. Halfway down the street the group turned.

She saw Granny, looking like her old, experienced self. Ruby, standing taller and straighter, her chin up and a tiny smile on her lips. Emma picked Leroy out of he group of short men and found him to be one of the most different. Seeing a smile on his face, a genuine smile, was almost unnerving. But she mainly saw them.

Not a smile in sight, Emma saw Mary Margaret and David standing side by side, staring at her. Emma didn't know what she felt. These two people weren't her parents. They were her best friend, her only friend, and the pathetic asshole who broke her best friend's heart.

Henry gave her hand a gentle squeeze, pulling her even closer. Emma felt her bones start quivering. She couldn't do it. She had spent twenty eight years looking for her parents, pouring through files, moving to different cities almost every year, just knowing that one day she would find them. And curse their asses out.

When Emma thought of all her pain, all her loneliness, all the time she spent- wasted- lost and afraid, all she came away with was anger. It was a different anger than she'd had fighting Regina. That had been fury, revenge, a type of vengeance that had exploded out of her. This anger- this was so much worse. This type hurt her physically, a hot simmering boiling her stomach into nothing. She clenched her teeth.

They were within inches of each other, Emma with her head trained down to her feet. The tension was thick, she could feel it, like the pressure of the cloud that had enveloped the town.

"Henry!" Mary Margaret whimpered. She pulled Henry into her own arms, making his hand slip out of Emma's.

Just like that, the connection was severed, the only strength Emma had sapping out of her, draining her fast. She felt lightheaded. Emma closed her eyes, pretending Henry's hand was still cupped in her own and attempted to block out the sounds of the world.

She felt two hands reach up and and touch her cheeks, like the nun had done back in the hospital. But this touch was oh, so familiar. Light, gentle, and sweet- all things that screamed Mary Margaret. Emma almost lost it right there. Mary Margaret was exactly who she needed. She needed her best friend to hold her and whisper that everything would be alright, even if she didn't know it for sure. She wanted to go home, curl up on the couch and wait as Mary Margaret brought her a cup of coffee, or even better hot chocolate. She needed the one person in the world who didn't expect anything from her, didn't judge her, and was always just a block's walk away. She needed Mary Margaret.

Emma slowly opened her eyes, bringing her head up, hopeful that that was exactly who she would see. But when she looked into the green eyes of her roommate, deep passed the layer of tears and uncertainty, she did not see Mary Margaret. She saw a woman with fire and passion, the very things Mary Margaret lacked; the very traits that had endeared Emma to Mary Margaret, because they were exact opposites. Even worse, she saw a woman with a smile on her face, tears on her cheeks, and a mother's deep love in her eyes.

Emma felt sick. She needed her roommate, not a mother. She didn't want a mother. Her mother had abandoned her. So she hadn't been left on the side of the road; she had been abandoned in a much worse way. Her mother had stuck her in a wardrobe with a seven years old boy and set the literal weight of a doomed world on a wet newborn. And she had the audacity to look at Emma like she loved her, like Emma was the greatest thing in the world. She doesn't love me, she loves what I can do!

Emma hated this woman. She was the reason Emma's life had turned out so miserably. She was the reason Emma had to suffer. And then she had tricked Emma. This woman had made Emma feel safe in the presence of someone who she'd thought was the only good person in the world. Someone she had confided in, and one of the first people she had opened her heart to. Life had just started resembling a normalcy that Emma had envied from her old classmates, and then this woman swooped in and robbed her of the greatest person Emma had ever met.

"No," said Emma pulling herself out of the woman's hands.

"Emma," Mary Margaret breathed, her face falling.

The simmering heat, burned even stronger. She saw David placing a hand on Mary Margaret's back and taking a step towards her. Emma shook her head; if she didn't leave, if she had to see them for one more second she would explode, and it would be worse than last night.

Mary Margaret was crying now, "Emma, please…"

"Don't," Emma snapped. Snatching her hand out like a hostile snake, she grabbed Henry's arm and dragged him along behind her.

"Emma, wait," he said, but she couldn't hear him. She had tunnel vision and all she could see was the road ahead of her, the road away from the place she called home.

"Emma!," screamed Mary Margaret's voice behind her. But Emma marched forward, gripping Henry's hand even tighter.

The world was ablaze in a dazzling red light. It was all Emma could see. She tried to breathe, but the air was as solid as wood. Why did this hurt so much? Emma had been betrayed by every person she had ever encountered. Having a knife driven into her back was a normal sensation. She had met people that had stabbed the knife right into her heart, people that twisted the knife in her spine and left her momentarily paralyzed, and even a few who had chosen to stick their sharp instruments in her brain leaving her numb and useless. And no one had driven the stake further than her parents, back in the time when she could not even remember a thing about them. Theirs had caused a permanent damage, an emotional scarring so deep Emma would never truly get over it. But she had hoped in her naivety that meeting them and speaking with them could start a healing process.

But no, all hope she ever had was gone now, disappearing with the last traces of Mary Margaret. No one could be trusted. How had she been stupid enough to let herself get hurt again, how had she been foolish enough to let someone in so deep into the soft recesses of her heart- a territory so padlocked no one had even heard whispers of it since her first family. She couldn't trust Henry's father- the bastard - who had left her alone and naked in a world that wanted nothing to do with her. She couldn't trust Graham, who had gotten through so forcibly that he had died in her arms. And she damn sure could never again even look at Mary Margaret, who had become the cruelest of all of them, picking the lock on her guarded heart, opened the floodgates, and then disappeared leaving behind a shell of herself that forced Emma to reconsider the horrible lie her entire life had been. No one ever again could be trusted.

No one except Henry, but now he was safely inside her tiny chamber and she would never let him out. In his soft, tiny hands he held the feebly pulsing remnants of her ability to love; he was her ability to love, and if anything at all every happened to him, Emma would die inside, her blood becoming an inky black while she fell forever. She clamped her hand even tighter around his, her fingers like the coils of a boa constrictor refusing to let go.

Emma did not know where she was going or even what she was thinking, each angry thought pushing the previous one away before she got a firm grasp on it. It was way passed noon now and Emma was blissfully unaware of the trees that surrounded them. She pressed forward, her drive telling her that she could never stop. She needed to get her son and herself away. She needed to protect them both. She should have left Storybrooke weeks ago, when the impulse had first struck. After Henry had grabbed the wheel, she should have yanked it back and pressed her foot even harder into the accelerator.

Everything was her fault.

She stopped, only when she felt a sharp yank in her shoulder. Henry had halted, every muscle in his body sagging, even his ears like a sad puppy's. He squinted at her through drowning brown eyes.

"Emma, I'm tired," he cried.

It took the tears running down his red cheeks to snap her back into her body. She dropped down and pulled Henry into a full hug. His body was heavy.

"Oh, Henry, I'm so sorry," she whispered into his ears. She had been so engrossed in her own fears and loathing she had forgotten that her son had died. She had only had him for a couple of hours and already she was the worst mother in the universe.

Emma pulled back and brought Henry's exhausted face into her hands. She wiped the moisture away.

"We'll find somewhere to sleep. I promise."

"I don't want to walk anymore. I want to go to your apartment," he whined.

Emma pinched her lips together. Looking away from him she realized that she had dragged them into the woods. They hadn't gone very far, but the sun was fully above them meaning they had walked for hours. She recognized a patch of trees and knew that the small apartment was the closest place. Emma glanced back. Henry wasn't just tired, he was terrified, and Emma was the reason. She owed it to him.

She nodded and then stood, bringing him up in her arms.

"You don't have to carry me," he said though he wrapped his long legs around her waist.

Emma squeezed her arms, drawing him closer. "Yes, I do, kid."

Henry got heavier with every step, but Emma refused to lower him to the ground. When they made it into town, Emma took the back roads, one side of her flanked by brick buildings and cars lined on the road and the other, by the tall green trees of the forest. She carried him, finally to Mary Margaret's familiar street and into the tiny building. Even on the stairs, she held him in her arms, bounding up each one like a fire fighter.

She reached the dark green apartment door and found it unlocked. For a fleeting moment she thought they were there waiting for her, pacing like over bearing parents. But they weren't. The door must have been open from the moment Emma barged in and nabbed Mary Margaret speeding her down to the hospital. That seemed forever ago.

Emma climbed the metal staircase and finally gently, deposited Henry on her bed. She pulled the book bag off of his back, depositing it on the hardwood floor and peeled his sneakers off. As Emma stood, hoping to close the blinds and block out the son, Henry reached out and grasped her hand.

"I'm sorry," was all he said, but Emma understood it all. I'm sorry this is so hard for you. I'm sorry you have all these responsibilities. I'm sorry for eating the turnover and scaring you. But mostly she understood: I love you.

Emma shook her head and sank back onto the bed. "Forgive me," she whispered, pressing her head to his. She closed her eyes. Forgive me for dragging you across town. Forgive me for scaring you. Forgive me for not being brave enough. Forgive me for not saving you sooner. Forgive me for not believing in you and not being the mother I should be. But mostly she wanted to say: I love you, too.