I'm on a roll today/tonight! Whoo-hoo-ha, second chapter posted today!
8. Sunday Night Pot Roast
It was a very touching moment for Emma and she felt overwhelmed by it all, just as she knew that she would, with these conflicting feelings for her parents of joy, fear, relief, anger, trepidation, doubt and even…love? Was that possible after all this time? Had she really found her parents in her best friend (as, oddly, Mary-Margaret had become her best friend ever in the few short months that they had gotten to know one another) and her best friend's boyfriend?
The oddest thing that had ever happened to anyone she knew, she thought, unless those fairy-tales in Henry's book were all really true down to the very last detail. She might have to ask some questions about these people's experiences someday. Red or Ruby was a werewolf, August was Pinocchio, Archie used to be a cricket, the nun used to be a fairy…she had to get a grip on this crazy state of affairs. Her parents being Snow White and Prince Charming might be the least crazy of them all, although she couldn't imagine herself as a princess.
Could she actually let them into her life like this? Not just her parents, but this whole town of fairy-tale characters that she felt a strange affinity towards, and a sense of responsibility to as their sheriff? Emma thought that she would have to try and see what happened. It wasn't like she could up and leave them now, not with Henry and her responsibility, and not when she still had to find out what her life might have been like if she had been with her parents this whole time. She wanted to find out more about them, their true selves, not just their Mary-Margaret and David Nolan selves. She had never felt more vulnerable and exposed than she did right now, except for when she had been arrested. (Neal had a lot to answer for that, Emma reflected to herself, but that was ages ago and she usually tried to wipe out or ignore that part of her life when it had been so damaging.)
Snow and James, meanwhile, also felt the same sense of anxiety and doubt that Emma had, not really knowing what their life was going to be like from now on in such a chaotic state of affairs. But their sense of love and compassion really did triumph over those feelings a lot, especially when they were being reunited with their daughter and really getting to know their grandson for the first time. They just hoped that Emma and Henry could be open to this new experience.
Of course Henry had been up for it, as he had been waiting for this day for a long time now, wanting his family, friends, and neighbors to regain their old memories and realize that their lives were so much bigger and greater than their old miserable existences here in Storybrooke, which was really such a petty, little, boring hamstring town. Of all the accursed places that his mother Regina could have brought the fairy-tale inhabitants of the Enchanted Forest…Storybrooke, Maine definitely took the cake.
He wanted them back to their old selves, the legends that they used to be, and whole again, and after all of this time, now that it finally had happened, it felt as good as he imagined that it would be to see them all smiling, happy, and celebrating that the curse was over. They really were great people and deserved so much more than what they had gone through, not just here in Storybrooke, but in the Enchanted Forest as well. And he had done it, he had helped bring about the end of the curse by bringing his mother Emma back here. He felt like he was the one who had totally reshaped their lives and made things better, and that felt good to realize that he had the power to make things change for the better.
The others even acknowledged and thanked Henry for what he had done, the best thing in the world for him up until this point. And he had his family…he looked up and spotted the silhouette of Regina walking down main street, away from them, and he realized with some guilt that his mother Regina wasn't celebrating along with everybody else.
She was the one who had enacted the dark curse in the first place, after all, and she wasn't getting her happy ending back when she never had one in the first place. In spite of all the horrible things that she had done, here and in the Enchanted Forest, she was still his mother, and he knew why she had done everything, because she could never have the love that she wanted. Perhaps, if he helped her, she might realize that evil wasn't all it was cracked up to be.
Henry looked up at Emma and said, "I've got to see her."
Emma realized who he was talking about, along with everyone else, and a hush fell over them. "Are you sure that you want to do this?" She asked.
"You're both my moms and I can't forget about her, not when she needs me and loves me just as much as you do." Henry said, earning a hug from Emma, and then he tried too hard to lighten the mood. "Besides, I'm the only one that's keeping her from going insane and ripping hearts out."
Snow in particular grimaced at this. "Henry, you don't have to do this." James said, bending down to stare at his…grandson, gods, he was never going to get used to this. But there was so much of Emma in the boy's eyes that he could see, so much of all their goodness and heart wrapped up in him, that he couldn't turn away from it. "You don't have to sacrifice yourself just to protect us."
"James…" Snow started to say, hesitant when she wanted to protect Henry as well, and yet she knew how important he was to Regina as well. Could they risk endangering Henry or enraging Regina?
"I'm not." Henry said, shaking his head. "She won't harm me, not like she's harmed all of you. I'm different, I suppose. It's kind of hard to explain, but she is my mom, too."
Emma sighed. "I suppose you are right about that, kid, but just take care of yourself, all right? Promise me that you will get out of there if it gets too dangerous?"
"I will, Mom, I promise." He kissed her. "I have to go. I'll call you later. I love you all." He said, nodding and waving good-bye to everybody before he ran off down the street to catch up with Regina.
The others watched him go, slightly stunned by his bravery and willingness to walk into the lion's den. "That kid really is something else." Emma muttered to herself. "He can just cope with anything that's thrown his way. I don't know where he got it from."
"I know where he got it from." Leroy remarked, glancing back and forth between Snow, James, and Emma.
"He had to learn, I suppose. It couldn't have been easy for him." Snow murmured, glancing at her daughter. "Are you sure that you're okay with all of this?"
"Yeah, uh…Mary-Margaret, Snow, I suppose I'm fine enough, or at least I will be once the shock has worn off." Emma said, chuckling a little bit, not wanting to call her 'mom' just yet. It took Henry awhile to call her 'mom' as well, she realized. "I'll get over it, I guess." She added with a sigh.
Snow White wrapped her arm around her daughter and James squeezed Emma's hand, surprising her for a moment before she relaxed slightly. She just had to get used to this, if only she could relax more and try to enjoy herself. Mom and dad, mother and father, she reminded herself, this was her family now and she had to get used to it.
"Come on, everyone, let's head on over to the diner." Granny said, nodding. "Drinks are on me tonight!" Which brought about a loud whoop from the dwarves in particular as they headed in that direction, with Snow, Emma, and James glancing back towards the direction that Henry took every once in a while.
"I need a good, stiff drink." Emma murmured to herself as Snow and James tried not to take that the wrong way when she was under a lot of stress.
"A little boy like him should not be risking his life like this." Gepetto said, shaking his head.
"Technically, I was younger than Henry when you left me with Emma." August added, and then winced.
"What are…" Snow started to say, but then she stared at Gepetto, August, and Jiminy, all of whom looked slightly guilty. "Pinocchio?" She asked. "You're Pinocchio? But what are…you're all grown up! Human, and not a puppet. And why were you left with my daughter?"
Jiminy, Gepetto, August and then the Blue Fairy tried to explain, leading to a loud, explosive argument between them and Snow and James, with outrage from the dwarves and Red and Granny as they sided with Snow and James in particular. Emma grimaced, feeling slightly left out in the middle of all this, even though the argument was about herself as well, and she realized that she really had gotten herself involved in some big family affair…how was she going to cope with not just parents, but relatives as well? She needed a drink and an antacid at this point.
"Mom! Mom! Wait up!" Regina stopped and stared as Henry ran up towards her.
"Henry, what are you doing here?" Regina asked, shocked to see him. "Shouldn't you be…celebrating with them?" She grimaced.
"I want to be with you, too." He told her. "I want to spend time with you as well as…my other family." He added. "Why can't I have both? Why can't we all get along?"
"We don't really mix well, you know, good and evil. So you're not…scared of me, are you?" She asked, hesitant as she put up a mean face. "After what I did, after you nearly died?"
"Nope. I know that you didn't mean for that to happen to me, but I wish that you didn't try to harm Emma or Mary-Margaret or anyone else like that." He said. "Not everything has to be a battle for dominance or good versus evil. Not everyone is completely good and not everyone is completely evil, even I know that."
"I can't help the way I feel." Regina said, sighing. "I can't help…it sickens me sometimes to think that they have what I could never have."
"Promise me that you'll do better, please?" Henry asked. "I know that it's hard, I know that you're so used to living this way that you can't think about doing anything different, but can't you please try? For my sake, if not for your own?" He asked.
"All right, I will try." Regina sighed again. "Just don't pressurize me too much, all right? I still need time to adjust to all of this, you know. It's not every day that an evil person like me has to lay aside all that they have come to learn and hate and choose a different path, one of…goodness and heart." She grimaced again.
"Hey, if I can learn to adjust to a fairy-tale lifestyle, you can learn how to change, too." He grinned.
"You were born into it and you had a lot of time to adjust, 10 years or so." Regina added, pointing at him. "I'm just getting started."
"You'll do great, Mom, you really will." Henry said. "Hey, Mom, can I ask you something?"
"Of course." She told him.
"Do you have your powers back?" He asked.
She sighed. "Not quite. Apparently it's true love magic that Rumplestiltskin brought here, more like fairy magic than the dark magic I'm used to or even he is used to." She rolled her eyes. "I don't understand why he went to so much trouble. That just makes things so much harder for both me and him when we have to adjust ourselves to the concept of true love and the sacrifice and the power and the…gooey, icky stuff involved there, for lack of a better term." She added. "But even I can get the hang of true love magic, eventually. I just have to feel it."
"Oh. I suppose that makes some sense." Henry said, nodding.
"What do you know about it?" She asked.
Henry hesitated and said, "Um, well, apparently, there's a story about Rumplestiltskin and his son Baelfire…" He told the story about how Rumple lost Bae.
"Son of a bitch." Regina gasped, staring. "So that's why…this whole thing was a set-up to find his son?" She remarked.
"Sort of, kind of." Henry remarked.
Regina chuckled. "Clever trickster." She muttered, shaking her head before she glanced down at Henry. "I haven't lost you yet, have I?"
"No, you haven't, I'll still be around." He told her, clutching her hand. "Not as often as before, but I can be here when you need me to be."
She sighed and bent down to face him. "I don't want to lose you, too, Henry. I'm afraid to let you go, and yet I suppose I must give you your freedom every now and again." She hugged him. "I can't keep you captive forever, not when that will break my heart as much as it would break everyone else's."
"You can let me go, and I will come back." Henry whispered, nodding.
"Sunday night pot roast?" Regina said.
"And Tuesday is spaghetti." Henry said, nodding. "That's just the thing."
"You've got it." She said, nodding. She could feel the magic pouring into her, but she didn't feel the need to wield it yet. "I'll be here whenever you need me."
"I know." He told her.
